-------- NUCLEAR (by country)

-------- australia

Argentine firm signs Australian reactor contracts

AUSTRALIA : July 14, 2000
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7459

CANBERRA - Australia's nuclear agency and Argentine company INVAP yesterday signed the contracts to build a nuclear reactor in Sydney's Lucas Heights suburb, the Australian federal government said yesterday.

INVAP, joined by Australian companies John Holland Construction and Engineering and Evans Deakin Industries Ltd , won the contract to build the controversial reactor facility last month for A$278.5 million in 1999 dollars.

The construction of the research facility in a metropolitan area has been condemned by opposition parties and the environmental group Greenpeace Australia.

The Democrats have called for an independent inquiry into the awarding of the contract, which Senator Natasha Stott Despoja said puts public and environmental safety at risk.

"Officials have had trouble getting to and from the site to sign the contract, clearly showing the problems waste transport or evacuation in the event of a nuclear accident may pose," Stott Despoja said in a statement.

"The government's determination to fast-track the contract approval and announcement process has further increased the urgency for an inquiry."

The Senate will vote on the call for an inquiry on August 14 when parliament resumes.

The reactor, scheduled to be commissioned in 2005, will repace an existing reactor commissioned in 1958.

-------- brazil

Brazil starts up nuclear plant after 17-year delay

Excite News
Updated 1:40 PM ET July 14, 2000
Shasta Darlington
http://news.excite.com/news/r/000714/13/energy-brazil-nuclear2

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil began starting up its second nuclear reactor on a picturesque bay down the coast from Rio de Janeiro Friday, 17 years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.

The Angra 2 station won authorization late Thursday night from the National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN) to partially begin operations despite opposition from environmental groups and some residents concerned about its cost and safety.

"In a matter of days we should begin actually producing energy after we complete a series of tests," said Ronaldo Fabricio, president of Eletronuclear, the nuclear arm of the state-owned Eletrobras utility.

Angra 2 hopes to produce at 30 percent of capacity in the first month. Following tests and further approval, it aims to reach 100 percent in the second month, according to Nuclear Industries of Brazil (INB), another unit of Eletrobras.

The uranium-fueled reactor is located inside Brazil's nuclear complex at Angra dos Reis, an island-dotted bay 80 miles west of Rio, known as the summer playground for the city's rich and famous.

With more than twice the power of Brazil's first nuclear station, Angra 1, the reactor will supply energy for 5 million people. The two plants together will meet 32 percent of Rio state's energy demand.

"This will be very important for Rio which still imports a lot of its energy ... and it will help Brazil as a whole," Fabricio said. Brazil's energy demand is expected to surge 6 percent this year.

But not everyone is cheering.

NO-NUKES ACTIVISTS FAIL

"Brazil stupidly spent billions of dollars to complete a nuclear station that is completely unnecessary to meet its energy demands," said Ruy Goes, coordinator of Greenpeace's anti-nuclear campaign in Brazil.

Angra 1 and 2 combined will only account for 3 percent of Brazil's energy producing capacity. Almost 88 percent of Brazil's electricity comes from hydroelectric dams and another 9 percent from natural gas-fired plants.

"In the rest of the world, nuclear energy is being abandoned because of the high risks and lack of solutions for nuclear waste," Goes added.

The INB said in a statement that at 12 billion reais, or almost $7 billion at the current exchange rate, Angra 2 "was two and a half times above the normal cost of a nuclear station of the same model."

Still, energy from Angra 2 will be 13 percent cheaper than electricity produced at Brazil's biggest hydroelectric dam.

Critics also worry about escape routes and the plant's proximity to Rio, Brazil's second biggest city. Angra 1, which began commercial operations in 1985, has become notorious for its many shutdowns.

Officials counter that the proximity to Rio, as well as the country's No. 1 and No. 4 cities, Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte, give the Angra complex an ideal location.

Construction of Angra 2 began in 1976 but was mired for years in funding delays. With energy demand rising, the government decided to revive the project in 1993. There are also talks of developing a third nuclear station, Angra 3.

-------- business

Lockheed Agreement Tests U.S. Policy British Firm Buying Defense Tech Unit

By Greg Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 14, 2000; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/14/080l-071400-idx.html

Lockheed Martin Corp. agreed yesterday to sell its Aerospace Electronics Systems business to Britain's BAE Systems North America for $1.67 billion, putting a major portion of the nation's most sensitive electronic warfare technology into the hands of a foreign-owned company.

The proposed sale will give Lockheed Martin cash to reduce its $11.7 billion in outstanding debt but will result in a charge of $1 billion, or $2.50 per share, against third-quarter earnings.

The deal also tests the Clinton administration's willingness to allow foreign investment in the U.S. defense industry.

"Up to this point, the discussion of transatlantic defense integration has been mostly theoretical. Now it becomes a real policy matter, and this becomes a key test of the Pentagon's sincerity," said Loren Thompson, a defense expert with the Lexington Institute in Arlington.

The Aerospace Electronics Systems unit, based primarily in New Hampshire, makes aircraft self-protection systems, infrared sensors and surveillance and navigation systems for both aircraft and ships.

The Defense Department will review the transaction "to ensure that U.S. national security interests are properly addressed," spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin said.

She added that while Lockheed Martin is the Pentagon's top supplier, BAE North America also "has many important contracts, some of which involve very sensitive technology."

Those include contracts for aircraft mission planning systems, aircraft ground test equipment and communication and radar countermeasures equipment, Irwin said.

Lockheed Martin's board of directors selected BAE over a competing bid from Northrop Grumman Corp. during a special meeting called yesterday at 3 p.m. at corporate headquarters in Bethesda. Analysts said the BAE offer was higher than expected.

Northrop Grumman, based in Century City, Calif., had offered slightly less money, sources said--between $1.5 billion and $1.6 billion. That offer also carried some of the same antitrust concerns that led the Pentagon to oppose Lockheed Martin's attempt to buy Northrop Grumman in 1998, because Northrop specializes in many of the same areas of electronic warfare as the unit being sold.

The competing bids generated much attention within the industry, and pressure from Wall Street mounted for Lockheed Martin to pick a buyer that could pass regulatory review. Yesterday morning, sources said, Pentagon acquisitions czar Jacques Gansler signaled that he would not oppose a BAE transaction, paving the way for the Lockheed board's vote.

Some observers expect the move to generate concern on Capitol Hill. "There will be some members in this election year that will make some comments," said one industry source who asked not to be identified.

But others said the sale had to be expected after years of rhetoric from the Pentagon encouraging transatlantic cooperation in the defense industry, a push that crested after military operations in Kosovo demonstrated that NATO allies suffer from technology gaps.

Brian Dailey, the head of Lockheed Martin's Washington operations, said he believes there will be support in Congress for the deal.

"Overall, we expect the reaction to be positive," Dailey said. "We have spent a considerable amount of time . . . receiving the reactions of certain key members in the national security area to ensure they are informed about our decision."

He said the fact that BAE is already the Pentagon's sixth-biggest contractor and "has an exemplary record as a protector of United States national security information" will assuage concerns about foreign ownership of key technology.

"We believe the sale supports U.S. Department of Defense objectives and trans-Atlantic cooperation," Lockheed Martin chairman and chief executive Vance D. Coffman said in a news release.

The chief executive of BAE's North American operations, Mark Ronald, said the company is "proud of our security record, which I believe is among the best in the industry. We will work closely with regulatory authorities to successfully complete this transaction in the coming months."

Sources said the Clinton administration began examining the situation three or four weeks ago when it became clear that BAE was a serious contender.

BAE Systems is one of two new Goliaths formed from the consolidation of the European defense industry in the past year. It encompasses the former Marconi Electronic Systems, which British Aerospace bought last year and rolled into the rechristened BAE.

The other European giant is EADS, formed this year from the consolidation of defense companies in Germany, Spain and France.

With global sales of almost $20 billion, BAE employs more than 100,000 people worldwide. Its U.S. component employs 18,000 and expects to log $2.5 billion in sales this year. Just last month, the company paid $510 million for the Lockheed Martin unit that manufactured engine and flight-control systems.

The nucleus of the operation it agreed to buy yesterday is the Sanders electronics business in New Hampshire, with 3,900 employees, but Lockheed Martin Aerospace Electronics Systems also includes Space Electronics & Communications in Manassas (450 employees) and Fairchild Systems in New York (950 employees).

The unit posted revenue of $1.2 billion in 1999. Although military electronics is one of the few growth areas in the defense budget, Lockheed announced last year that it would sell the unit to generate cash. The Sanders business--which Lockheed bought in 1986--was never a natural fit for the company, analysts said.

Lockheed Martin's staple is the big aerospace system--airplanes and rockets--and it was awkward for Sanders to compete with outside companies to put electronics gear on those platforms, analyst Thompson said.

Northrop Grumman was keen to combine Sanders's expertise with its own formidable electronics business, creating a truly fearsome rival to the similar operations of Raytheon Co.

But a source familiar with Lockheed Martin's thinking said Northrop was too risky because so much of its existing business overlapped with Sanders, creating potential regulatory challenges.

"Both bidders had issues with the regulatory authorities, but . . . the BAE ones were far more consistent with what the regulators wanted. The antitrust problems that existed on the Northrop side were more serious--not to say they weren't solvable," the source said.

"We are disappointed to learn of the decision," Northrop spokesman Bob Bishop said. "Sanders would have been a good acquisition for us, and we were poised to successfully manage and grow the business."

Lockheed Martin said it expects the deal with BAE to close by the end of the year. After fees and taxes, it will generate $1.3 billion, most of which Lockheed will apply to debt reduction.

-------- china

Beijing Issues Warning On U.S. Missile System
Shielding Taiwan Could Spark Confrontation

International Herald Tribune
Paris, Friday, July 14, 2000
By John Pomfret Washington Post Service
http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/FRI/IN/china.2.html

BEIJING - China's top arms control negotiator warned Thursday that the whole architecture of China's arms control and nonproliferation agreements with the West risked collapsing if the United States deployed an anti-missile defense system.

Sha Zukang, the director general of the department of arms control and disarmament at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, warned that deployment of the system could spark an expansion of China's nuclear forces and could threaten treaties China has already signed, such as agreements not to proliferate nuclear and chemical weapons and a pact to ban the testing of nuclear devices.

He also stressed, in an interview at the ministry, that sale of missile-defense technology to Taiwan to construct what is known as a theater missile-defense system would ''lead to serious confrontation'' because it would be tantamount to restoring a military alliance between Taipei and Washington.

''This is of supreme national interest,'' Mr. Sha said. ''It will be defended at any cost.''

''I have spent the most valuable and important part of my life - 16 years - on these issues,'' said the veteran diplomat, who led China's team negotiating the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and is known as the most knowledgeable and vocal Chinese official on the issue. ''Now all of these achievements are at risk,'' he said.

While Mr. Sha's comments contained an element of bluster, they are serious because China has been accused of serious proliferation. It is widely believed that China supplied Pakistan with at least the design for a nuclear weapon. Pakistan detonated a nuclear device in 1998. China also has sold Pakistan, Iran and Libya either missiles or missile technology. It also has sold intercontinental ballistic missiles to Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Sha's warning marked an escalation of China's war of words against the plan to protect the United States and its troops abroad from missile attack. It is significant also because, to date, the discussion about missile defense in the United States has generally been limited to the technical difficulties of the system and has skirted the potentially disastrous strategic consequences of the plan.

Mr. Sha made his comments as the U.S. secretary of defense, William Cohen, wrapped up his first trip to China in almost three years. While Mr. Cohen was upbeat about his visit, on the subject of the national missile-defense system, known as NMD, he acknowledged: ''I don't know if our differences on NMD have been narrowed.''

Mr. Sha predicted that the American plan to protect the United States from missile attacks would backfire and create enormous security headaches for Washington.

''Instead of enhancing your security, your security policy will be further compromised,'' he said. ''The United States will play the role of a fire brigade, rushing from one place to another to extinguish fires.''

Mr. Sha rejected U.S. assurances that the plan was not aimed at China but rather at ''states of concern,'' such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq. ''That doesn't matter, the consequences are still terrible for us,'' he said.

When asked whether China would reconsider its commitment to nuclear disarmament and to halting sensitive weapons sales, he said, ''Our enthusiasm and our participation in all of those regimes, particularly in cooperating with the United States, our mood, let me say, would be severely dampened.''

China has already taken practical steps to block U.S.-backed disarmament proposals because of the missile-defense issue. In Geneva, China's delegation to the Conference of Disarmament is holding up talks on a treaty to cut off the production of fissile materiel, said Bates Gill, a specialist on China's security at the Brookings Institution. China wants the conference to focus on a treaty to limit or control space-based weapons systems, a foundation of national missile defense.

When asked if a decision to deploy a national missile-defense system would also affect China's existing arms control treaties, Mr. Sha used a similar formula: ''To say the least, it would seriously dampen our interest,'' he said. ''We have not reached a stage to say we will forget our commitments,'' yet.

He added that China would link its attitude toward nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and modernization of nuclear forces to the success of the national missile-defense program. ''It is too early to say what we will do,'' he said.

The idea behind the missile-defense system is to construct a mechanism to shoot down incoming missiles. The United States is considering deploying the system in two places - one inside the United States and one outside to protect its troops abroad and its allies.

----

China denies missile sales to Pakistan

The Hindu,
July 14, 2000
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/07/14/stories/03140001.htm

BEIJING, JULY 13. China today denied reports about its assistance to Pakistan's nuclear missile programme and dared Washington to impose sanctions on Beijing over the issue ``one time, two times, four times or even ten times.''

``As far as China is concerned, we believe this matter is over,'' the director-general of the Department of Arms Control and Disarmament, Mr. Sha Zukang told presspersons at an informal briefing on China's arms control policies here.

Denying the sale of nuclear-capable M-11 missiles to Pakistan, he said, ``China was party to three solemn occasions, where it undertook not to provide technology to Pakistan and India that would enable the development of missile-carrying nuclear warheads.'' However, he did not comment on his U.S. counterpart, Mr. John Holum's statement last Saturday that ``we made progress, but the issue remains unresolved.''

----

China Criticizes U.S. Role in Halted Arms Sale

Associated Press
Friday, July 14, 2000; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/14/090l-071400-idx.html

BEIJING, July 13-President Jiang Zemin complained to U.S. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen today about Israel's cancellation of a planned military aircraft sale to China.

"It certainly was a concern to China that the sale was canceled," Cohen told reporters after meeting with Jiang. Other U.S. officials said Jiang did not directly accuse the United States of sabotaging the deal.

The United States was concerned that selling China the Phalcon advanced airborne radar system could have affected the military balance between China and Taiwan by giving China an improved capability to coordinate offensive airstrikes.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry criticized the United States for pressuring Israel to drop the deal. "No other country has the right to interfere in bilateral cooperation that China has with other governments," spokesman Zhu Bangzao said.

At a news conference on his second and final day of talks with Chinese officials, Cohen said U.S. opposition to the $250 million sale was not a sign of U.S. efforts to limit China's military.

"It does not signal any attempt to contain China," Cohen said, adding, "I don't believe China can be contained."

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, seeking to boost prospects for Middle East peace, informed President Clinton on Wednesday of his decision to suspend the sale.

----

China's Missile Business

Friday, July 14, 2000; Page A22
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/14/033l-071400-idx.html

INTELLIGENCE reports indicate that China is helping nuclear-armed Pakistan build long-range ballistic missiles. The problem persists after the visit to Beijing last weekend by John D. Holum, the State Department's senior arms control adviser. Though Mr. Holum claimed some progress in the talks, the Chinese took the occasion to deliver yet another lecture about U.S. missile defense development and arms sales to Taiwan--and to link resolution of those complaints to the issue of Beijing's exports of missile technology.

The question, then, is whether U.S. policy needs more teeth. Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) are sponsoring the China Nonproliferation Act, which would require the president to make an annual report on China's distribution of potentially dangerous technology, and to impose sanctions on persons or companies within China that appear responsible, as well as on the Chinese government.

The Clinton administration says this would make an improving situation worse. Dialogue with China has produced results, such as a 1994 Chinese promise to stop selling M-11 missiles to Pakistan and to abide by the "guidelines" of the Missile Technology Control Regime (which China has still not formally joined). Beijing also foreswore "new" nuclear help to Iran. The administration further contends that the bill's sweeping language could mean punishing U.S. businesses that innocently sold "dual use" technology to China that was passed on to Pakistan.

Yet, as Mr. Holum has just experienced, the U.S.-China dialogue on nonproliferation--recently resumed after Beijing suspended it over the accidental bombing of China's Belgrade embassy--remains hostage to Chinese pique over, and designs on, Taiwan. And Beijing clearly interprets its promise to observe the Missile Technology Control Regime as permitting assistance to Pakistan short of actually transferring weapons. This aid may obey the letter of the 1998 public joint pledge by President Clinton and China's President Jiang Zemin not to provide ballistic missiles to any South Asian country--but it's not exactly in keeping with the spirit. Yes, Mr. Clinton already has authority to sanction China under current law. But he has doggedly declined to do so without a "smoking gun" from U.S. intelligence.

No doubt the Republican sponsors of the China Nonproliferation Act are playing election-year politics. And the White House has a point when it asks why the bill addresses only China when other countries, such as Russia and North Korea, engage in similar behavior. Still, China's continuing assistance to Pakistan's weapons program in the face of so many U.S. efforts to talk Beijing out of it shows the limits of a nonconfrontational approach. Clearly, China views certain missile-making projects abroad as vital to its national security strategy--vital enough to trump some other economic and diplomatic interests. By the same token, the United States should make clear that a certain amount of Chinese missile-making is incompatible with business as usual. Sen. Thompson is negotiating with Senate Democrats and the White House to modify the clumsier aspects of his bill, so that it can be brought to a Senate vote without obstructing passage of permanent normal trade relations (which we support). If the bill is appropriately refined and separated from the trading relations legislation, then its passage will send Beijing a useful signal.

----

Beijing hits U.S. for role in killing of Israel deal

July 14, 2000
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-20007140751.htm

BEIJING - Chinese President Jiang Zemin criticized the United States Thursday for its role in pressuring Israel to cancel its sale of airborne warning and control aircraft to China, according to U.S. officials.

"It was certainly a concern to China that the sale was canceled," Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said when asked by a reporter about the canceled sale from Israel of a Phalcon airborne warning and control aircraft.

A U.S. official said later that Mr. Jiang expressed concern that the sale was canceled under pressure from the United States. "They made it clear they were not happy with it," the official said.

The issue was discussed during a 90-minute meeting between Mr. Cohen and Mr. Jiang inside the Communist Party's leadership compound known as Zhongnanhai, once the residence of Mao Tse-tung.

Meanwhile, Israel said Thursday it wanted the United States to compensate it for scrapping the sale of the $250 million radar system to China, and experts warned the cancellation could damage future Israeli arms sales.

A spokeswoman for Israel's defense ministry said Israel and the United States had not yet begun to talk about compensation, but she added: "It is clear that the cancellation of the deal causes Israel grave economic damage."

Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens said that canceling the deal had dealt a "severe blow" to Israel's credibility in the lucrative international arms market.

"The defense industry cannot exist without exporting some goods. This will affect its ability to make this deal and others because it raises questions in the mind of customers that Israel will cancel future deals," he said.

Israel informed the United States on Wednesday that it is calling off the sale of an airborne warning and control plane produced by Israeli Aircraft Industries known as Phalcon. The aircraft is being outfitted on a Russian-made Il-76 and was being worked on in Israel.

The United States opposed the sale because it would significantly increase China's ability to conduct long-range combat operations, against Taiwan or U.S. warships in the Pacific.

Congress had threatened to sharply curtail U.S. aid to Israel over the sale and discussion had been ongoing in Washington between U.S. and Israeli officials over the deal.

The Phalcon sale was to be part of a major push by the People's Liberation Army to develop better command, control and communications for its forces.

An Israeli diplomatic source said last month that the first of several Phalcon aircraft was to be delivered in October of 2001. The Israeli government was weighing carefully the aircraft sale and that the matter had been "under discussion." Israel did not view the sale as a threat to the United States, this source said.

However, U.S. military officials said the Phalcon would give China's military new capabilities to conduct long-range warfare.

The Chinese have been building an aerial-refueling capability and have purchased advanced warplanes from Russia.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said China was upset at both Israel and the United States over the Phalcon decision.

"No other country has the right to interfere in the bilateral cooperation that China has with other countries," Mr. Zhu told reporters, referring to U.S. pressure on Israel to cancel the aircraft deal.

"Any agreement and understanding between states should be honored. This is the basic understanding of state-to-state relations," Mr. Zhu said in a reference to Israel.

After giving a speech to junior military officers at the National Defense University, Mr. Cohen spent Thursday in meetings with several high-ranking Chinese officials, including Central Military Commission Deputy Chairman Gen. Zhang Wannian, who officials said spent most of the meeting urging the defense secretary not to sell advanced arms to Taiwan.

Mr. Cohen also met with Chinese Vice Prime Minister Qian Qichen. Thursday night, he held a dinner in honor of Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian.

During the press conference, Mr. Cohen said his two days of talks were "constructive" and helped to improve communications between the U.S. and Chinese militaries.

Asked if the United States will sell advanced Aegis warships to Taiwan, Mr. Cohen indicated that the weapons sale is still under consideration.

"The needs for Taiwan will be made as we have been doing in the past . . . no decision has been made on the sale of the Aegis system to Taiwan," Mr. Cohen said, noting that he hopes there can "be a reduction in tensions" between China and Taiwan.

Mr. Cohen also said during his meeting with Mr. Jiang that he raised U.S. concerns about the transfer of missile technology to Pakistan and other rogue states. "Chinese officials have indicated that they are complying with their agreements that missiles are not being transferred to Pakistan," Mr. Cohen said.

"The question that has to be resolved, in terms of whether technology itself is being transferred, that's precisely the reason why these discussions have been under way," he said.

Mr. Cohen travels to Shanghai Friday for meetings with Chinese officials and will give a speech at the stock exchange. He then travels to Sydney, Australia, for the weekend.

----

U.S. and Top Chinese Officials Try to Smooth Over Differences

New York Times
July 14, 2000
By ERIK ECKHOLM
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/071400china-pakistan.html

BEIJING, July 13 -- The American defense secretary and Chinese leaders made hopeful pledges of cooperation and friendship today despite evidence of deep rifts over important military policies and Chinese suspicions about American intentions in Asia.

Two days of high-level meetings began and ended with smiles and handshakes, a sign of how strongly both sides want to avoid open, dangerous antagonism.

But officials also struggled with potentially explosive disputes, including American plans for missile defense and continued arms sales to Taiwan, as well as American contentions that China recently helped Pakistan develop ballistic missiles.

Chinese officials endured a new humiliation after Israel said on Wednesday that it was reneging on a $250 million deal, five years in the making, to sell Beijing an advanced airborne radar system. Israel canceled the sale under heavy pressure from the United States, which fears that the system could be used to track fighter planes in a battle over the Taiwan Strait, the most likely scene of direct Chinese-American conflict.

In a 90-minute meeting this afternoon, President Jiang Zemin brought up the canceled sale, Defense Secretary William S.

Cohen said. "It was certainly of concern to China," Mr. Cohen told reporters, but he said the tone of his meetings was generally positive. Mr. Cohen met nearly every top political and military leader and spoke to military officers at the National Defense University.

As he greeted Mr. Cohen today, China's top soldier, Zhang Wannian, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, stressed "how important it is for China and the United States to have a healthy and stable relationship."

Officials from both sides said they were pleased that military visits and talks, suspended after the United States bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade last year, were largely restored.

But Mr. Cohen could offer the Chinese no convincing answers to concerns about proposed missile defenses and arms sales to Taiwan. And it was also clear that China had not effectively countered American contentions that it has aided Pakistan and Iran's missile development, possibly violating pledges.

In a separate news conference, China's chief arms control official, Sha Zukang, said his country had on three occasions, most recently in a joint statement by Presidents Jiang and Clinton in 1998, pledged not to help either India or Pakistan develop missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. He scoffed at reported American intelligence findings that China had provided such technical aid to Pakistan, its strategic ally, in the last 18 months.

This afternoon Mr. Cohen said of the missile questions only that "these issues are still under discussion."

Mr. Sha repeated China's vehement warnings that it saw the proposed American missile defense as negating China's small nuclear forces. China also opposes the American-Japanese program to develop regional missile defenses, which could be used to shield Taiwan. China considers Taiwan part of the nation that has to return eventually, if not by peace then by war.

In a speech to military officers this morning at the National Defense University north of Beijing, Mr. Cohen described the American military presence in Asia as a benign, stabilizing factor rather than, as many Chinese believe, intended to hem in an increasingly confident and powerful China.

Noting the American military's strong presence in South Korea and Japan; its close ties with Australia, Thailand and, increasingly, the Philippines; and its pledge to help Taiwan defend itself, Mr. Cohen said:

"The truth is that this region is safer, more secure, and more stable because of the United States. And that peace and stability has benefited every nation, including China."

"I know there are calls in China for the United States to vacate Asia," Mr. Cohen added, departing from his text. "But I ask you who will fill the vacuum?"

Mr. Cohen complained that the Chinese press often unfairly characterized the United States as out to dominate the world and working against China.

His military audience listened intently and applauded. In a brief relaxed question period, in an apparently unscripted outburst, the wife of a Chinese officer won loud applause when she said that the American press maligned China on human rights and that the United States could promote peace by halting arms sales to Taiwan.

But the generally polite reception belied a growing suspicion about American intentions. The military journals and newspapers that are studied by these officers, the cream of the People's Liberation Army, describe American policy in ever-more sinister terms.

A recent article in The Liberation Army Daily on the proposed missile defense was headlined "$60 Billion to Crush China." The American military is routinely described as encircling China and arming Taiwan to diminish China's power.

The visiting Americans saw an editorial this morning in The China Daily, the official English-language newspaper, titled "U.S. a Threat to World Peace." The editorial, translated from the overseas edition of the People's Daily, said the United States was causing a global arms race by seeking military supremacy and that the American alliance with Japan, the core of American Asia policy, "constitutes a threat to regional stability."

The editorial said that American military spending last year -- $276 billion -- was 2.5 times the total spending of Russia, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and China combined and that the United States was seeking military control of outer space.

The United States, the editorial added, is most responsible for the global spread of missile technologies, because by working with Japan to develop missile defenses it had provoked other countries to seek better missiles of their own.

China does not like to concede its dependence on foreign purchases for advanced weapons, and today, despite anger and dismay over the canceled Israeli sale, the public response was subdued.

At a regular Foreign Ministry news conference, a spokesman, Zhu Bangzao, obliquely criticized the United States for its role, saying, "No country has the right to interfere with the bilateral cooperation between China and other countries."

He also implicitly criticized Israel, saying, "Agreements and understandings reached between states should be observed."

----

China Threatens Arms Control Collapse
Top Negotiator Says Missile Defense Puts Treaties at Risk

By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, July 14, 2000; Page A01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/14/179l-071400-idx.html

BEIJING, July 13---China's top arms control negotiator warned today that U.S. deployment of a national missile defense system would risk collapsing the whole architecture of China's arms control and nonproliferation agreements with the West.

Sha Zukang, director general of the Foreign Ministry's department of arms control and disarmament, also stressed that sale of U.S. technology to Taiwan for a smaller-scope theater missile defense system would "lead to serious confrontation" because it would be tantamount to restoring a military alliance between Taipei and Washington.

"This is of supreme national interest," Sha said in an interview. "It will be defended at any cost."

Sha's warnings marked an escalation of China's war of words against plans to protect U.S. territory and U.S. troops abroad from missile attack. China had previously indicated it might expand its nuclear forces to compensate for the proposed U.S. defense system, but Sha broadened the possible consequences to include a renunciation of previous undertakings barring nuclear or chemical weapons proliferation and nuclear testing.

"I have spent the most valuable and important part of my life, 16 years, on these issues," said Sha, a veteran diplomat who led China's team in negotiations on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty--which the Senate rejected--and is considered the most knowledgeable and vocal Chinese official on this issue. "Now all of these achievements are at risk."

Sha made his comments as Defense Secretary William S. Cohen wrapped up his first trip to China in almost three years. While Cohen was upbeat about his visit, on the subject of the national missile defense system, he acknowledged: "I don't know if our differences . . . have been narrowed."

Sha predicted that if President Clinton or his successor goes ahead with plans to protect the United States from missile attacks, the decision would backfire and create enormous security headaches for the United States.

"Instead of enhancing your security, your security policy will be further compromised," he said. "The United States will play the role of a fire brigade. Rushing from one place to another to extinguish fires."

He rejected U.S. assurances that the plan is not aimed at China but rather at what Washington regards as unpredictable and hostile "states of concern," such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq. "That doesn't matter, the consequences are still terrible for us," he said.

Asked if China would reconsider its commitment to nuclear disarmament and a halt to sensitive weapons sales, he responded: "To say the least, our enthusiasm and our participation in all of those regimes, particularly in cooperating with the United States, our mood, let me say, would be severely dampened."

China has already taken practical steps to block U.S.-backed disarmament proposals because of the missile defense issue. In Geneva, Beijing's delegation to the Conference on Disarmament is holding up talks on a treaty to stop production of fissile material, said Bates Gill, a China security specialist at the Brookings Institution. China wants the conference to focus instead on a treaty to limit or control space-based weapons systems, which could be part of an expanded, multi-tiered missile defense scheme.

When asked if a decision to deploy missile defenses would also affect China's existing arms control treaties, Sha used a similar formulation: "To say the least, it would seriously dampen our interest. . . . We have not reached a stage to say we will forget our commitments . . . yet." But he added that China would link its attitude toward nonproliferation and modernization of its nuclear forces to the success of the national missile defense program.

"It is too early to say what we will do," he said. "All I can say is that China will do everything possible to ensure its security, and the measures it will take will be in proportion to the success" of national missile defense.

While Sha's comments seemed calculated to affect the debate in the United States, they nonetheless could have serious consequences, because the United States already has accused China of extensive proliferation. It is widely believed China supplied Pakistan with at least the design for a nuclear weapon; Pakistan detonated a nuclear device in 1998. China has also sold missiles or missile technology to Pakistan, Iran and Libya, and ballistic missiles to Saudi Arabia.

The idea behind missile defense is to shoot down incoming missiles. The United States is considering beginning construction of a limited national missile shield system within its borders, as well as other, more limited systems outside the United States to protect its troops abroad and its allies. Currently, for instance, the United States and Japan are working together on a theater missile defense program for northeast Asia.

The technology and politics surrounding the systems are equally complex. So far, the United States has conducted three tests of the proposed missile defense interceptors, two of which have failed. In addition, going ahead with a national system would necessitate amending the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union.

That treaty banned construction of missile defense systems and was, Sha said, the "cornerstone" of arms control agreements during the Cold War. Citing the treaty, Russia has strongly opposed national missile defenses, as have several European countries. China has opposed both national and theater missile defense, for different reasons.

China, which first detonated a nuclear device in 1964, has never tried to match U.S. or Russian nuclear arsenals, preferring to keep a small number of strategic weapons for defense. China is believed to possess about 20 rockets that can deliver single warheads, and it is working on a multiple-warhead delivery system.

Any effective national missile defense system, Sha said, would risk negating China's limited arsenal and upending the "strategic stability" that ensures deterrence around the world.

Beijing fears theater missile defense, which would cover a more limited area, because the Chinese army is well-equipped with missiles but weak in almost everything else. Removing China's strategic and conventional missile threat in the Asian theater--particularly as regards Taiwan--would cripple its plans to regain what it feels to be its rightful place in regional security.

Sha said exporting theater missile defense technology specifically to Taiwan would also constitute a belligerent act on the part of the United States and would mark the first step in resumption of a U.S. military alliance with Taipei. That alliance was abrogated in the 1970s as a condition of the historic rapprochement between Washington and Beijing.

"Wear our cap for a moment," he said. "Imagine we are pumping arms to one of your states and supporting their independence. How would America feel about it?"

China regards Taiwan as a renegade province and believes U.S. high-tech weapons exports to the island democracy of 22 million people encourage Taiwan's government to avoid unification with China.

Although most of the Clinton administration's diplomacy on missile defenses thus far has concentrated on mitigating the concerns of Russia and Europe, the Democratic Party defense intelligentsia is almost unanimous in arguing that the impact on relations with China would be the strongest negative fallout on national security.

John Deutch, Harold Brown and William Perry, all former senior U.S. security officials, have argued publicly that China can be expected to increase its arsenal and drop cooperation on arms control and nonproliferation. That, in turn, could spur India, which also detonated a nuclear device in 1998, and then Pakistan, to do the same, they have warned.

Staff writer Roberto Suro in Washington contributed to this report.

-------- europe

Sanctions against Yugoslavia - a continuation of NATO aggression

From: "Nancy A. Hey" cattynancy@hotmail.com
Fri, 14 Jul 2000 10:22:14 EDT
By Karin Wegestal
MP, on behalf of the Swedish Committee for Solidarity with the Yugoslav People

During the last decade, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has received more than 500,000 refugees from Croatia and Bosnia, and another 300,000 internally displaced persons, mainly from the province Kosovo and Metohia. For a country with about ten million inhabitants, such an influx of homeless people is obviously a very heavy burden - even under peaceful conditions. But in addition to that, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has been the subject to sanctions from the western powers for close to ten years and its infrastructure was badly hurt through Nato's intense bombardment during 78 days in 1999. The result of all this is that Yugoslavia, once the most developed industrial country in Eastern Europe, is today the poorest country in Europe. In Serbia excluding Kosovo, with about ten million inhabitants and close to a million refugees and displaced persons, about 30 international aid organisations operate. This should be compared to the Kosovo province, with about one million inhabitants, where no less than 400 aid organisations operate. There, one could talk about overheated aid activity. A delegation from the Swedish Committee in support of the Yugoslav people, the Yugoslavia Committee, visited the country during one week in January, on the invitation of the International Red Cross and Crescent Society. We saw with our own eyes the great relief efforts made for suffering people. We visited refugee camps, soup kitchens and warehouses for humanitarian relief in Uzice, Pozega, Cacak, Novi Sad and other places. We met representatives of the Roma people (gypsies) and saw the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's Minister for refugees, displaced persons and humanitarian aid, Mrs Bratislava Morina.

This visit gave us a strong impression of the very difficult situation of the Yugoslav people, but also of the great efforts done to relieve the situation for the refugees and displaced persons and other people driven into misery, and to repair the damage done by Nato's bombs.

All the refugees and displaced persons must be given lodging, food, clothes, school and if possible also a new job. In the beginning, many families opened up their homes for refugees. Through great personal sacrifice, most could be taken care of in that way. But we also met refugees who have lived for nine years in provisional refugee camps with all their personal possessions squeezed into a few square metres. Many have to suffice with food rations containing only 20 grams of meat a day.

The refugee situation is made worse by the country's stagnating economy. Many companies have been deprived, through the sanctions, of their possibilities to import raw material, to re-invest and to export their products. Therefore they have been forced to stop production or to continue working on a low level. The result is falling salaries and excessive unemployment. 1.2 million people are totally jobless. The figures have increased gradually, but took a great leap through the bombardment in March-May 1999, when many factories were destroyed. Over two million people - one out of five citizens - are under the line of poverty. Except for the refugee problem, there are 300,000 social cases.

Many people who have volunteered to take care of refugees, have themselves become dependent of social assistance. About one million people get assistance through the Red Cross, which has a well functioning organisation with offices in 180 places - a fantastic structure and an impressive work both from the employees and from many unpaid volunteers.

For those people who are lucky enough to have a job, the average salary is about 82 D-marks (equivalent to some 40 British pounds) a month. A well-educated university graduate can have 150-300 D-marks (75-150 GBP), which is regarded as a very good salary. Many young people - the best educated and most productive ones - leave the country to find jobs abroad if given a chance.

The medical situation is all but catastrophic, with acute lack of medicine and spare parts. The insulin was almost used up. At our visit at Bezanijska Kosa Medical Center in Belgrade, we learnt that X-ray equipment stood idle because X-ray tubes are regarded as "strategic spare parts" and therefore cannot be imported - even with hard currency!

We can now see the paradoxical result of the Yugoslav wars during the 90s.

Several ethnically cleaned states and areas have been established and today receive extensive international assistance, while Serbia, the most multinational society with 26 nationalities living peacefully together, are exposed to the punishment of the western world.

The sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia were not imposed by the United Nations but single-handedly by the USA and EU. Officially they are not intended as a punishment against Yugoslavia or its population, but as a pressure to make the government "co-operate with the world society" and "respect human rights for all citizens of the country".

In reality, however, they are a continuation of Nato's war of aggression.

Their intention is to achieve what Nato could not achieve at Rambouillet, i.e. total political, economic and military control of the whole country. It is blatant big power aggression against a sovereign country and gross interference in its internal affairs.

The sanctions hit hard against the people. They are obviously intended as one of several means to force the people to overthrow their government and replace it with an administration which can be manipulated and dominated from abroad. That is a travesty of democracy; in fact its very opposite.

What is now required is common action to force the EU countries to stop its hostilities. The sanctions and interference in Yugoslavia's internal affairs must come to an end and normal inter-state relations be established. Relief assistance must be increased to alleviate the human suffering. International assistance must be given unconditionally to help repair the damages after Nato's bombing.

In Sweden, an appeal against the sanctions was published in connection with the anniversary of the start of Nato's bombing of Yugoslavia. It was signed by representatives of various political parties, former government members, bishops and priests, scholars and writers, athletics, and many other well-known people representing a broad political and social opinion among the Swedish people. The appeal was published in a number of papers, including the dominating dailies Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter, and on international web-pages including www.antiwar.com and www.transnational.org. That appeal shows that there is a broad support in the Swedish society for a normalisation of relations.

It would be very useful if a similar initiative could be carried out in all EU countries, to mobilise broad strata of the people. Such an appeal, of course, must be supplemented with other forms of mobilisation of public opinion and mass actions to increase the pressure on our governments to stop their hostile actions and change their present hostile policy against Yugoslavia.

Karin Wegestal is a Member of the Swedish Parliament for the Social Democratic Party. She is a member of the Defense Committe and of the Swedish Parliamentary Delegation of the OSCE. She is one of two spokespeople of the Committee for solidarity with the Yugoslav people, which started in April 1999, as the Stop the bombings now! Committee.

-------- france

ACDN.FRANCE : Request for a referendum in France about nuclear disarmament

As soon as it was founded in 1996, the french "Citizens' Action in favour of Nuclear Disarmament" (Action des Citoyens pour le Désarmement Nucléaire = ACDN), called to a referendum in favour of nuclear disarmament, which would be both biological and chemical as well as complete, worldwide and controlled. One thousand citizens, famous or not, adopted this request which was addressed May, 02, 2000, that is during the Conference in New York about NPT, to the french President of the Republic and to the Prime Minister.

Now, important personages, like mayors, deputies, and so on support this call.

----

France says no plans to pull out of nuclear power

By Gillian Handyside
July 4 2000
Reuters

PARIS, - The French government said on Wednesday it had no plans to follow Germany and end its reliance on nuclear power.

``Our situation and therefore our energy policy is different,'' junior Industry Minister Christian Pierret told a colloquium in Paris entitled ``The end of nuclear power.''

``France gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, Germany gets 30 percent...France has no oil, very little gas and its coal seams were already running out in the 1950s. Its hydroelectric resources are used to the full and other non-fossil energy sources are in their infancy,'' Pierret said.

He added that France's nuclear industry had given birth to three ``worldclass'' companies -- power generator Electricite de France (EdF), nuclear fuels group Cogema and nuclear engineering company Framatome.

``They export, they create wealth and therefore create jobs,'' he said.

Framatome and Germany's Siemens signed an agreement on Wednesday merging their nuclear activities. Siemens said on Tuesday Germany's decision to phase out nuclear power by around 2030 would not jeopardise the merger.

FRANCE SEES SCANT ALTERNATIVES TO NUCLEAR

Pierret said it would be wrong to ``idealise'' any one source of energy. But he rejected calls for France to switch to greater use of combined-cycle power plants fired by gas, which is expected to be in abundant supply worldwide for up to 50 years.

``A short while ago, experts from around the world were forecasting sustainable low prices for oil and therefore for gas. They have tripled in less than a year,'' he said.

He said France planned to invest more in renewable resources, as an alternative to nuclear power, but said the decree obliging EdF to purchase power from renewable-fired generators of over 12 megawatts had not yet been adopted.

Prime Minister Lionel Jospin said on May 29 the government planned to invest two billion French francs ($291.3 million) a year in developing renewable resources over the next few years.

``Up until 1999 we only had marginal recourse to solar and wind power or geothermal energy,'' Jospin said.

European Union figures show France's use of renewables excluding hydropower to be well below the average in the 15-nation bloc and likely to stay that way for the next decade.

In 1997 renewables contributed 2.2 percent to France's fuel mix, compared to an EU average of 3.2 percent and Austria in the top spot with 10.7 percent.

Forecasts for 2010 show France with 8.9 percent of electricity derived from renewables, compared to the EU average of 12.5 percent and leader Denmark's 29.0 percent.

-------- israel

BACKWARD ARABS NO MATCH FOR ISRAELIS
ISRAELI/US MILITARY CONTROL OF ENTIRE REGION

MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org -
7/14/00:

Washington - While Camp David and the "Peace Process" have the ever-compliant mass media preoccupied with the things the political leaders want in the headlines, the Israelis, with their alliance with the Americans, continue to build-up their military forces and weapons of mass destruction in order to control and dominate the Middle East region... come what may.

Israel's new laser, biological, chemical and nuclear weapons are all still under feverish development and in some cases deployment.

The Arabs remain backward and outclassed in ever measure and at every turn -- despite a population some 20+ times greater than Israel and all the oil wealth that is so terribly squandered by the "royal" families.

And so the Israelis, now about to annex the great majority of settlements across the "Green Line" camouflaged by the "peace process" -- and foisting a unique Middle Eastern apartheid scheme on the Palestinians camouflaged by Arafat's disingenuous "Palestinian State" and huge payments (i.e., bribes) to his corrupt regime -- remain supreme.

It is this overall supremacy of course which explains what is happening at Camp David and why the Arabs are about to be shafted by one more international conference taking place not in their own world but in that of their modern-day conqueror.

--

ISRAEL'S COVERT NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM

By Eric Margolis

LONDON - 2 July: In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at Israel's Dimona reactor center, revealed to the `Sunday Times' of London that Israel had secretly developed 100-200 nuclear warheads, using French and American-supplied technology. Vanunu was lured to Rome in a classic `honey trap' and kidnapped by Israeli agents. He was convicted of treason and has been held in solitary confinement for the past 14 years.

Earlier this month, the `Sunday Times' broke a second major story about Israel's covert nuclear programs. According to leaked information supplied to the `Times,' Israel used a newly acquired Dolphin-class submarine to test a hitherto secret cruise missile designed to carry a nuclear warhead.

The cruise missile is said to have hit a target 900 miles from its launch point off the coast of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean, and may have a maximum range of 1,200 mile. Israel has become increasingly involved in Sri Lanka's civil war, supplying the embattled Colombo government with weapons, munitions, and military advisors to combat Tamil Tigers rebels.

The state-of-the-art, 1750-ton Dolphin diesel subs were supplied to Israel by Germany as near freebie `guilt payments' because Iraq used some German-made components in its military programs during the Gulf War. Revelations that Israel is using the $440 million each subs as nuclear launch platforms has deeply embarrassed Germany's ardently anti-nuclear socialist government.

This also raises the fascinating question of how and where the Dolphins were modified to accept missiles. The cruise missile used by the Israelis is believed too large to be fired from the Dolphin's 21-inch torpedo tubes. The original 1990 design called for lengthening the hull to accommodate a `wet and dry' compartment for frogmen - unusual in an attack sub- and for `extra torpedo storage.' This was clearly the cover for what became a missile compartment of four vertical launch tubes.

If true, this suggests full German collaboration in Israel's covert nuclear program - in spite of Berlin's anguished denials. The United States was originally to have supplied the subs to Israel, but claimed to lack the capability to build modern, conventional powered boats, and bucked the job to German yards, who have a century of experience in building U-boats. A cynic might suspect the US pressured Germany into supplying Israel's latest nuclear weapons platforms to escape an inevitable firestorm of protest by its Arab oil clients.

Israel now has a complete nuclear triad: air-delivered bombs; intermediate-range Jericho missiles; and now the sea-launched cruise missile. This important development means Israel has a counter-force nuclear capability that can ride out any enemy nuclear attack and riposte with a devastating strike from the sea. Israel will reportedly base one Dolphin in the Mediterranean, the second in the Red Sea, and the third in port for maintenance.

The Dolphin `roving launch platforms' also give Israel the ability to strike almost anywhere on the globe, and particularly against Iran and Pakistan, which Israel singles out as `long-range' enemies. Israel's Mossad long claimed Iran would deploy nuclear weapons by 2000. When proven wrong, Mossad now claims the date is 2002. US intelligence estimates Tehran will not even have a prototype weapon before 2010, and no deliverable warhead until 2012-13 - if ever. Iran denies developing nuclear weapons.

Revelations of Israel's new cruise missile have provoked a storm of outrage in the rest of the Mideast at an exceptionally delicate time when regional peace negotiations hang in the balance. One might suspect Israel's missile test may have been leaked to scupper Arab-Israeli peace talks.

Some defense analysts maintain Israel's sea-launched missiles are actually a stabilizing factor that eliminated the threat of a decapitating nuclear attack. Israel's Jericho missile base at Kfar Zachariah near Tel Aviv lacks hardened silos and is thus vulnerable to a surprise nuclear attack. The same applies to airbases where nuclear bombs are stored for Israel's US-supplied F-15E's. Inadequately protected nuclear forces lead to a `use or loose' mentality in time of crisis.

But the latest revelations about Israel's nuclear arsenal - now the world's fourth or fifth most powerful - will likely spur the Arab states and Iran to intensify efforts to acquire a nuclear counter-force, and to develop `poor man's' weapons of mass destruction to match Israel's extensive nuclear, chemical and biological arsenal.

This bombshell also comes as Israel faces growing pressure in the UN over its nuclear weapons. Israel is the only Mideast nation that refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty(NPT). Egypt insists Israel must sign NPT as part of a comprehensive Mideast peace. Cairo is pressing for a Mideast nuclear-free zone and demands Israel allow inspection of its nuclear complex at Dimona. Egypt claims Israel's 40-year old, French-supplied reactor there is unsafe and a hazard - a sort of Mideast Chernobyl.

The United States, in an unusual volte face, is quietly backing Egypt's position. Washington is doubtlessly expressing its growing displeasure with Israel over recent sales of high-tech Israeli arms and technology to China, much of them American origin, and over Israeli espionage against the United States.

The first battery of Israel's `Arrow' anti-missile system just went operational; THEL, a new laser anti-tactical missile system, follows soon. Now, sea-launched cruise missiles. What next? An Israeli landing on Mars?

-------- japan

Heliport issue tears apart close-knit Henoko village

Asahi Evening News
TOSHIO JO
July 14, 2000
http://www.asahi.com/english/asahi/0714/asahi071401.html

NAGO, Okinawa Prefecture-Katsuo Shimabukuro is extremely worried. Debate over a planned heliport as a replacement site for the U.S. Marines' Futenma air station has split the close-knit Henoko district in the city of Nago.

Shimabukuro, a leader of a residents group that backs the relocation plan, is concerned that the rift could scuttle the village's traditional summer event-grand tugs of war.

Practically all the villagers have helped prepare for the ritual, which is held every three years to pray for good harvests in the area. This year, however, things could be different. ``I am wondering if everyone will take part in the preparations this year,'' Shimabukuro said.

He has good reason to worry.

Henoko, a small village of about 1,400 residents, has been divided since an area off the district's coast and within Camp Schwab's boundaries was selected to take over the functions of the Futenma base in Ginowan, central Okinawa. Relocation of the air base's functions was part of the Tokyo-Washington deal to return the Futenma site to Japan.

Shimabukuro's group, called the Henoko Rejuvenation Committee, backs the reclamation of the Henoko coast for the heliport.

And in late December, Nago Mayor Tateo Kishimoto formally expressed his readiness to accept the heliport plan. His official acceptance was followed by the central government's announcement of a 10-year package of economic promotion measures worth 100 billion yen.

Opponents say the heliport will lead to U.S. military problems for the village. Supporters say the area needs the central government's economic measures.

The Henoko district is a typical traditional rural area in Okinawa where all villagers know each other. The community consists of 10 han (units), each with its own representative.

The strain over the heliport issue was apparent on June 18, when the 10 han held their annual sports festival.

``Members of four or five families in our 10th han, which has about 40 families, did not mingle with other families of our group,'' said Fuminori Kinjo, 45, a farmer who also works part time for a Nago company.

Kinjo supports the heliport project, saying that the future economic prosperity of the district should be the overriding priority for residents.

With the Group of Eight summit in Okinawa scheduled for July 21-23, the district appears very calm. But some call it the lull before the storm.

After Kishimoto expressed his backing for the proposed heliport project, the Council to Block the Heliport Construction, a group of about 20 residents, tried to recall the mayor. The council's campaign, however, never got off the ground.

Yuji Kinjo, a leader of the council, admits that they were fighting an uphill battle.

The council is now trying to collect anti-heliport signatures from across the country and submit the petition to U.S. President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori when they gather in Nago for the G-8 summit.

But the signature campaign is apparently not going so well. ``You see, it is not the number of signatures that really counts,'' Kinjo said. ``We just want to submit the signatures to Clinton, who is the leader of a nation that prides itself as the front-runner of the world's democracies.''

The central government has practically ``frozen'' the heliport project for the past few months because of the summit. After the summit, more specifics on the proposed heliport project will be announced. ``This will make our once-peaceful district even more divided,'' Kinjo said.

Muneyoshi Kayo, a leader of a campaign to protect dugongs, said: ``The government's selection of our district as the site of the new heliport is tantamount to declaring a death sentence. If we have to die, we want to die after being given a convincing explanation by the government on why Henoko is selected.''

Kayo said adults have the responsibility to protect the environment for future generations. ``Even if we are poor, we will be happy as long as we are healthy and have a good natural environment,'' he said.

Tsuneo Miyagi, chairman of the Henoko Commerce and Industry Association, has expressed conditional support for the heliport project. The association's position is that the proposed heliport must be built at least 3 kilometers offshore.

``Please don't call those baking the heliport project supporters,'' Miyagi said. ``No one would want bases here. We just have to think about the economic development of our village.''

Soken Kayo, the administrative head of the village who has been caught up in the tug of war between villagers, said: ``I just want to ask the press to leave our village alone for a while. This is such a delicate issue that the villagers are trying not to let it affect their daily lives.''

----

NUCLEAR REACTOR PLAN OK'd

Asahi Shimbun
July 14, 2000
http://www.asahi.com/english/asahi/0714/asahi071402.html

The governor's approval in Hokkaido is the first since the disaster at the uranium processing plant in Tokaimura.

SAPPORO-Plans to build a nuclear reactor in Hokkaido was approved today despite lingering public fears stemming from the criticality disaster last year that killed two workers.

Hokkaido Governor Tatsuya Hori gave the green light to build a new nuclear reactor at Hokkaido Electric Power Co.'s plant near the village of Tomari on the southwest coast of Hokkaido.

In Shimane Prefecture, meanwhile, Governor Nobuyoshi Sumita was to OK a plan in a prefectural assembly session today to build a third reactor at Chugoku Electric Power Co.'s nuclear plant in Kashima.

Hori's approval is the first for a governor since Japan's worst-ever nuclear accident struck JCO Co.'s uranium processing facility in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, in September. The accident, caused by apparent time-saving and illegal uranium processing procedures, killed two workers at the facility and shattered public confidence in the government's nuclear power generation policy.

In a special budget committee in the Hokkaido Assembly early today, Hori acknowledged Hokkaido Electric Power Co.'s forecast that a new power source of 900,000 kilowatts will be needed after 2008.

Hori said he had no choice but to approve the reactor project because there are no plans for an alternative energy source.

Under the power company's plan, the 912,000-kilowatt No. 3 reactor will start operating in December 2008.

Around the nation, however, power demand has not grown as expected amid the still-sluggish economy.

But the two plans in Hokkaido and Shimane have proceeded smoothly because the reactors will be added to existing nuclear facilities, power company officials said.

Observers said it is easier for governors to approve additional reactors because local autonomies housing nuclear power plants receive special central government subsidies for a limited period of time. Many small communities rely on the stable income from the subsidies and endorse new reactors to receive fresh funds.

In stark contrast, plans to build nuclear power plants from scratch have faced strong opposition.

Chubu Electric Power Co. scrapped its plan in February to build a nuclear power plant in Ashihama, Mie Prefecture, in line with the prefectural governor's wishes.

Tohoku Electric Power Co. postponed its original plan for a new nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture until the term of an anti-nuclear mayor ends.

----

World Conference against A and H Bombs will raise anti-nuclear weapon cooperation to a new stage

FIRST TRANSMISSION, FRIDAY, JULY 14, 2000
From: Japan Press Service jpspress@twics.com
JPS 07-058 2000

TOKYO JUL 14 JPS -- Japan Council against A and H Bombs (Japan Gensuikyo) Secretary General Hiroshi Takakusagi in an interview reported by Akahata on July 14 spoke about this year's World Conference against A and H Bombs which begins on August 2 in Hiroshima.

The task is for this year's world conference to give a concrete shape to the world's increasing aspirations for a nuclear-free 21st century.

An important change toward this goal took place at the Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in April-May in New York. Member states rejected the proposal by the U.S. and some other nuclear weapons states for making the elimination of nuclear weapons a task for an indefinite future. This was unexpected for a conference on the NPT, which provides a mechanism that definitely serves the five nuclear weapons states maintaining their nuclear weapons monopoly.

This change has been brought about by the cooperation between the New Agenda Coalition, the Non-Aligned States, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which helped the conference adopt the final document stating an "unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapons states to accomplish the total elimination of nuclear arsenals."

A great advance also took place in the Millennium Forum which started on May 22 at United Nations headquarters. The forum was for drafting a final report on the consensus of the world's NGOs, which is to be submitted to the Millennium Summit at the beginning of the U.N. General Assembly in September.

The agreed document cites the warning of the survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the error of the 20th century must never be repeated in the 21st century. It calls on the U.N. to convoke a special General Assembly session devoted to disarmament. It also calls on member governments to hold by early 2001 an international conference devoted to the elimination of nuclear weapons. It proposes that governments take maritime measures for rejection of the entry of vessels into their ports unless they produce certificates that they have no nuclear weapons aboard.

Such points were generally agreed on in an international conference which was open to various organizations. This development can be taken as a certain progress in the world's public opinion for peace and also as a new condition for increased common action and cooperation.

Against this backdrop, the Japanese government is standing at a crossroads. Its position of eliminating nuclear weapons in an indefinite future, which is a consequence of its subordination to U.S. policy, has become bankrupt internationally. Will it be able to change its position to earnestly addressing the task of nuclear elimination in the U.N. and in other forums?

Another question for the Japanese government is whether it discloses at its own responsibility all secret agreements with the U.S. which allow U.S. nuclear weapons being brought in Japan.

Japan's Three Non-nuclear Principles (not to manufacture, possess, or allow nuclear weapons to be brought in) will be violated as long as these secret agreements on nuclear weapons exist. The voices of an overwhelming majority of the people of the A-bombed Japan calling for a nuclear-free Japan must be allowed to take a lead in the coming world conference.

For this year's world conference we will emphasize cooperation and solidarity. The conference will move out of the boundary of a peace movement. Delegates of national and local governments abroad will be invited. Victims abroad of nuclear tests will be invited to discuss with Japan's hibakusha (A-bomb survivors).

The 2000 World Conference against A and H Bombs will propose tasks for anti-nuclear peace movement in the 21st century and sums up the remaining tasks of the 20th century before the Millennium Summit and the UNGA in the latter half of the year 2000.

--

Okinawa's village mayor must fight against U.S. Forces to protect villagers' life

JPS 07-059

TOKYO JUL 14 JPS -- Tokushin Yamauchi served as the mayor of Yomitan Village in Okinawa from 1974 to 1998. The 24 years of his mayoralty is the history of his struggles against the U.S. Forces to protect Yomitan Village people's lives and to improve their living standards. Recalling what he had done, he said:

When I was elected as village mayor in 1974, I decided to establish public facilities for villagers' benefits on the U.S. base site, which occupied 73% of the village land at the time.

In the early 1980s, a welfare center was constructed. Its major buildings were outside the U.S. base and lavatories and parking lots were inside it. The U.S. Forces didn't allow us to put lighting equipment in the lavatories on the grounds that night lighting could cause jamming in the U.S. Sobe Communication Site located within one mile from the facility.

The U.S. Forces expropriated a large area of the people's land and refused to allow lights on in the lavatories. I couldn't accept such unreasonableness. There were already many outdoor lights to prevent crimes within one mile of the communication site and they didn't cause any jamming. Showing the map of the lights, I urged the U.S. Forces to approve my plan, and they finally gave in.

If a local government head is made fool of by the U.S. Forces, he won't be able to protect his people's lives and living. To both Japan's government and the U.S. Forces, I always said that the villagers have sovereign power in Yomitan Village. U.S. soldiers were all tall and big. But they would surrender to us, if we are firmly determined with reason.

Based on this principle, I called on the U.S. Forces to carry out my plan and realized the construction of the village office, baseball grounds, an athletic field, and a cultural hall on the U.S. base site.

Okinawan people are allowed to have the basic human rights as the Americans are. I want U.S. President Bill Clinton to be aware of this.

--

Schedule for 2000 World Conference against A & H Bombs and its related events

JPS 07-060

TOKYO JUL 14 JPS -- The 2000 World Conference against A and H Bombs will be held from Aug.2 to Aug.9. The schedule for major events is as follows:

World Conference/ International Meeting Hiroshima *August 2 (Wed) Opening plenary at Hiroshima Intl. Conference Hall *Aug 3 (Thu) plenary meeting and group discussions at Hiroshima Kosei Nenkin Kaikan *Aug 4 (Fri) Closing plenary at Hiroshima Kosei Nenkin Kaikan

World Conference Hiroshima *August 4 (Fri) Opening plenary at Hiroshima Prefectural Gym *Aug 5 (Sat) Group discussions / Special programs at various places in the city / "Peace Jam" at Hiroshima Pref. Gym / Women's meeting at Hiroshima Postal Saving Hall, followed by Women's March 2000 *Aug 6 (Sun) 10:30a.m.-1p.m. -- Closing Plenary at Hiroshima Prefectural Gym

World Conference Nagasaki *August 8 (Fri) Special Programs; workshops *Aug 9 (Wed) Plenary at Nagasaki Prefectural Gym

--

Scholars and union oficials call on Hitachi for early settlement of dispute

JPS 07-061

TOKYO JUL 14 JPS -- Calling for the retraction of the dismissal of a Hitachi Ltd. worker, six scholars and union officials along with the fired employee on July 13 visited the electronics giant's head office in Tokyo, calling for an early settlement of the dispute.

They submitted to the company 362 scholars' signatures calling for a compensation and reinstatement of Hideyuki Tanaka, who has been sacked for more than 32 years on the grounds that he once refused overtime work.

Setsu Ito, secretary general of an institute for female workers' problems, said that all researchers are interested in the Hitachi-Tanaka dispute, because a breadwinner's long working hours affect his or her family's well-being.

Michio Goto, a professor at Tsuru University, demanded that the company not intervene in an employee's life after the day's work.

In Hitachi since last March, a labor group of 81 employees and the company management have been negotiating a settlement of disputes on various problems, including wage discrmination based on thought. The group insists that a settlement of Tanaka's case is essential to the settlement of all the other disputs.

The Hitachi-Tanaka dispute caught the attention of government representatives on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in April.

--

USS Essex, world's largest amphibious assault ship, deployed at Sasebo

JPS 07-062

TOKYO JUL 14 JPS -- The world's largest assault ship with the state-of-the art technology of the U.S. Navy arrived at Sasebo in Nagasaki on July 13.

The USS Essex, an amphibious assault ship (40,532 tons) anchored at the U.S. Sasebo Naval Base for a 20-day port call to replace the USS Belleau Wood.

At Maehata pier of the port, peace activists had an emergency rally, chanting "Essex, Go home!"

Prior to the port call, the local shipyard, Sasebo Heavy Industry (SSK) moved a large civil cargo ship to vacate the designated pier at the U.S. Forces request in accordance with the Japan-U.S. Status of the U.S. Forces Agreement.

The evacuation order obliges the shipyard to take a 20-day pause to operation at the pier, which will affect 16,000 jobs during the period.

In the protest rally, a Japanese Communist Party member of the Nagasaki Prefectural Assembly said that Japan, accepting the military build-up which runs counter to the world trend to peace, could be a single nation in the world to host U.S. military bases in the 21st century.

Commenting on the Essex's port call in Sasebo, Akahata argued that the U.S. intends to retain the naval base as its single fixed overseas stronghold of the largest amphibious assault ship and reinforce its functions for operation from the sea towards the 21st century.

The mission of the Essex is to act as a hub of a U.S. Navy strategy, "forward from the sea," and achieve the mission with continuity and agility.

In actual operations from the sea, the Essex will carry Marines equipped with Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC), landing ships, cargo helicopters, vertical landing and takeoff craft MV22 Ospreys and support sortie ashore.

MV22 Ospreys are expected to be deployed on the ship. The U.S. Marines is planning to deploy the newly developed craft in Okinawa for fall in 2005.

Staring with the Belleau Wood, the U.S. Sasebo Naval Base has been strengthened as a home base for amphibious assault ships.

Akahata said the creation of the 31st Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) with special combat ability spurred the deployment of these vessels in the naval base.

With the U.S. Marines in Okinawa, these vessels have repeatedly participated in U.S. actions abroad from the Asia Pacific region to the Middle East and Africa, including Somalia, Indonesian and Iraq. (end item)

----

July 13, 2000

Friends,

At the end of June, I traveled to Okinawa to participate in a remarkable International Forum on People's Security. It brought together Okinawan scholars and activists, and politically engaged scholars and other activists from across Japan, Korea, China, The Phillippines, Indonesia, and.... Below please find the conference's declaration which is being released on the eve of the G-8 summit in Nago, Okinawa - not coincidentally the town where the U.S. plans to build a major new air base. I am currently working on an op ed article which I hope will see the light of day, and which I will post when appropriate. With best wishes, Joseph Gerson

--
Redefining security

The Declaration of Okinawa International Forum on People's Security
Towards People's Security in the Asia Pacific Region
July 2, 2000

Urasoe, Okinawa We, the participants of the Okinawa International Forum on People's Security, are gathered here today with a strong desire to work towards a world where the genuine peace and security of peoples, individuals, communities, and nations, are guaranteed and protected. We are a diverse community, coming from different parts of Asia, the Pacific, and the United States, sharing a common vision and recognizing that our struggles for peace, justice, and equality are bound together and inter-connected, and believing that our real security as people and peoples lies not in the structures of force, military, and economic power which have dominated our everyday lives and societies and exploited and destroyed our natural resources and environment.

State security contradicts people's security. The military doesn't protect people, it destabilizes societies. We work to create people's security clearly differentiated from the security of the state by coming together, building alliances beyond borders of race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, economic and social status, and transforming the structures that perpetuate and sustain injustices and inequalities. People themselves, particularly those socially oppressed and suffering from lack of security, are the main actors in creating people's security so they can live in justice without fear and anxiety. People's security is based on human rights, gender justice, ecological justice, and social solidarity. It calls for demilitarization. Our means to achieve it is non-violent.

Meeting in Okinawa

The South-North Korean summit which took place just two weeks ago marks a historic process -- a continuing process in which a whole people are taking upon themselves the task of finding solutions to one of the most crucial and difficult issues in East Asia, that of peace, reconciliation, and autonomous national reunification of the divided Korean peninsula. This landmark event opens many possibilities and thus encourages us - and yet it further inspires us and strengthens our resolve to continue to work towards the removal of the biggest sources of insecurity of the peoples in this region: the overwhelming, suffocating, and violently dangerous military presence of the United States of America.

Okinawa represents a most appropriate site of our gathering. Okinawa is the site of the single largest concentration of overseas U.S. military bases --- it is also the site of a dynamic popular protest against a foreign military presence which has been enforced and continues to be enforced on the land, resources, lives, and dignity of a struggling people. Okinawa is where the people have experienced and engraved in their historical memory that the military is nothing but a machinery of organized destruction of human lives and communities.

Preposterously, the G-8 summit is going to be held at Nago in Okinawa where a major new US base is being imposed against the will of the people. U.S. President Bill Clinton declared that the G-8 summit in Okinawa shall clearly demonstrate the value of the U.S.-Japan alliance, while the late Prime Minister Obuchi Keizo of Japan announced that the G-8 summit in Okinawa was intended to send the world a "message of peace."

But what kind of "message of peace" does this bring to the people of the world?

Meeting here in Okinawa, whose very land and people, women and young children, bear witness to the continuing legacy of the folly of war and the machinery of war, we are painfully reminded of the tragedy and violence that have marked our collective histories as Asian and Pacific peoples. Meeting here in Okinawa, therefore, offers us a precious opportunity to express our deepest solidarity with the struggle of the Okinawan people, and at the same time challenges us to confront and address the immediate and long-standing critical issues that threaten the security of peoples of Asia and the Pacific.

Pentagon Refocuses on Asia and the Pacific

Despite the disappearance of the Cold War enemy, the Pentagon recently came out with "Joint Vision 2020" which envisages Asia as the prime focus of U.S. military in the coming decades. It represents a re-focusing of U.S. military might on Asia rather than Europe. It affirms tighter military coordination between the U.S. and Japan and covets continued U.S. military presence in the East Asia region beyond eventual reunification of the Korean peninsula.

Okinawa has for many years been the "lynchpin" of the U.S. military strategy in the Asia-Pacific region and its role is being reinforced as the U.S.-Japan military alliance is being redefined and strengthened by the adoption of a joint war plan called the Joint Defense Guidelines. Under the redefined alliance with the U.S., Japan is heading toward a status of war-capable big power. For the U.S., keeping its bases secure in Okinawa is a key to its strategy of continuing its regional and global hegemonic dominance. There is no doubt in our minds that with the pursuit of such strategy, neither the U.S., nor Japan or its other allies are true bearers of peace.

Militarized Security: A Source of Our Insecurity

We have reached the conclusion that :

Firstly, the U.S. military, whose presence in the region continues to be centered on the Japanese and South Korean territories and is supported by the ruling elites in many of our countries, has no intention of protecting the interests of the vast majority of the peoples of Asia and the Pacific. It serves to safeguard the interest of U.S. hegemony as the core of the neo-liberal globalization which has been plundering our natural resources, destroying our environments, and exploiting the vast majority of our peoples, particularly women, children, farmers, workers, migrant workers, tribal communities and indigenous peoples. In other words, it has no other aim but to protect corporate profit and U.S. and allied economic interests. The expansion of U.S. military power in the region, in alliance with Japan, is a form of military globalization, shaping, protecting, and often enforcing political and economic globalization, and serves as threat to, and not as a guarantee of, our security as peoples.

Secondly, our own experiences with the power of the military in our own countries, as it dominates and influences our everyday lives and the histories of our countries, have also taught us that military establishments, be they regional or local, do not protect the people, but only defend and protect themselves. They are the major source of danger to the rights of the people in many countries. Indeed, the institutionalized linkages between the Pentagon and many of our militaries are a source of great insecurity.

Thirdly, we believe that the military structure and ideology is based on, perpetuates, and multiplies male dominance, gender oppression, and exploitation, often of a most brutal and violent nature. They revolve around aggression and war preparedness targeted against enemies --and where there are no real enemies, enemies are created, constructed, or imagined. It carries values of masculinism and masculine power of domination based on physical strength, and notions of superiority of race, economic status, or national and ethnic chauvinism. It has, therefore, often claimed as its victims and targeted as its objects of violence and domination, women, the girl-child, and children. It is not surprising that some of the strongest criticisms of the military, of military bases, and of militarism, come from women and women's movements. The history of women's struggles and peace-building everywhere, especially of solidarity transcending traditional borders and boundaries amidst situations of war, militarisation, and

Our action toward people's security

It is people's security that is subverted and undermined by corporate-led globalization, the acceleration of which is the agenda of the G-8 Summit in Nago. Ultimately, it is this process of destructive globalization that is guarded by the U.S. military presence. And ultimately, the struggle for equality, decent work and standards of living, gender equality, and ecological stability cannot be separated from the dismantling of oppressive military structures.

Acting together, we must:

- Come to terms with our own histories, with the complicity of our societies, and of our own selves, in the toleration or perpetuation of violence or violent structures, relations and values. We must endeavor to raise our mutual trust by being sensitive to the likelihood of this complicity permeating our mutual relationships.

- This is especially urgent in Japan, whose government and people still have to take responsibility for their imperial past including aggression, colonial domination and accompanying atrocities such as military sexual slavery. Furthermore, they must assume responsibility for the impact of current Japanese economic domination and re-emerging militarism. This applies in different ways to the United States.

- Overcome through frank dialogue and interaction the people-to-people conflicts, hatreds, and suspicions of the past that have often been instigated by the war machinery itself and allow the U.S. military to pose as the "preserver of the peace" and prevent us from creating the regional structures to solve our problems among ourselves.

- Address the situation of conflicts in our own societies and work towards the building of mutual trust and respect amongst our communities, nations, and peoples. One community's security should never be another community's insecurity.

- Work towards a peaceful and de-militarized and nuclear-free Asia-Pacific region which promotes alternative ways of people-to-people and state-to-state cooperation and which is based on multilateral systems enhancing people's security.

- Take action so that people's security is pursued and created not only in the military, diplomatic, and political areas but also in the areas of everyday life, such as family, gender relations, social movement, and culture.

Immediate steps toward peace

As immediate steps towards these, we demand:

1) Unconditional retraction of the new U.S. project of constructing new military bases in Okinawa based on the Special Action Committee on Facilities and Areas in Okinawa (SACO) agreement.

2) Immediate closure of U.S. bombing range at Maehyangri in South Korea.

3) Immediate and unconditional termination of all U.S. military presence from Okinawa, Mainland Japan, Korea, and throughout the region.

4) Immediate and unconditional stop to all nuclear testing and dumping and trans-shipment of nuclear and toxic wastes in the Pacific and the immediate clean-up following the withdrawal of military bases and sites.

5) Abandonment of the Theater Missile Defense (TMD) program that only serves to aggravate arms race, further destabilize the regional relationships, and, in the process of implementation would destroy the Pacific islands' environment and violate the sovereignty and dignity of their citizens and communities.

6) Ending and reversing the process of U.S.' "reentry into Southeast Asia," notably the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, through Visiting Forces Agreement and other arrangements; the U.S. military should not resume military cooperation with the Indonesian armed forces

7) Implementation of drastic and significant cuts in military budgets and military spending and re-channeling the resources towards meeting the basic needs of people especially for schools, hospitals, and the delivery of other social services as well as for conflict prevention.

8) Immediate investigation into acts of military repression and violence against civilian population; perpetrators should be punished and victims should be justly compensated. The human rights abuses by the Indonesian armed forces should be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted.

9) Complete cleaning of the vacated base sites by the governments concerned based on thorough investigations into their ecological conditions, participated in by the people's groups concerned.

10) An end to foreign military training and arms export/sales in the region.

11) An end to the neo-liberal globalization exploiting our people and destroying our environments, which is being safeguarded and protected by an expanded and globalized military hegemony.

We call on all peace-loving peoples of the world, and all peoples desirous of building a world where the genuine security of peoples is protected and guaranteed, to join hands with us, to act together with us, for we believe that it is in our creative power and our own people-to-people alliance, crossing borders and boundaries, where lie the beginnings of our people's security.

----

TEPCO says to reopen radiation-hit nuclear plant

07-07-00
Reuters

TOKYO, July 7 (Reuters) - A 1,100-megawatt nuclear reactor in Japan, closed last week after radiation was found in water that had leaked from cracked pipes, will soon be reopened by Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc (TEPCO), the firm said on Friday.

The June 29 closure was the latest incident in a series to raise concern about the trouble-plagued industry in Japan.

TEPCO, the world's largest publicly traded utility, shut the No. 2 Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power plant on the Japan Sea coast after it found a small amount of radiation in a pool of water below a network of pipes linked to a high-pressure turbine.

A crack of about two cm (0.8 inch) was discovered where the pipes had been welded, TEPCO said in a statement.

It added no radiation leaked into the environment from the incident, classified as level zero on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

A TEPCO spokesman said it expected to fix the problem in the next few days and resume operation of the reactor soon after.

Japan's 51 commercial reactors account for roughly a third of the nation's electricity supply and a series of accidents at nuclear facilities, most notably one last September at a uranium processing plant in which two workers died from radiation exposure, has led to mounting public mistrust of the industry.

The government said in March it would review its nuclear policy and is expected to cut its target of building up to 20 more reactors by 2010.

-------- russia

Sea Launch sets sail for equator

By Associated Press
Friday, July 14, 2000
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2000/07/07142000/ap_launch_14777.asp

A Russian-Ukrainian rocket and its floating platform have departed for the equator to prepare for the Sea Launch venture's first liftoff since a $100 million satellite was destroyed.

The massive pad - a converted offshore oil rig - left Thursday and will travel 3,000 miles to a site 1,400 miles south of Hawaii. A Zenit-3SL rocket carrying an 8,000-pound communications satellite is scheduled to blast off July 28.

The international consortium's last launch ended minutes after liftoff March 12 when a second-stage valve failed to close.

Nobody was injured, but the $100 million payload - a satellite for London-based ICO Global Communications - was destroyed. The problem was traced to a software glitch.

"We have eliminated the possibility of this error in the future," said Sea Launch Co. President Will Trafton.

The July 28 launch, which would be the fourth for Sea Launch, will loft PanAmSat's PAS-9 into a transfer orbit about 2,100 miles above the Indian Ocean. It will then move to 22,500 miles from Earth.

The satellite will provide broadcast and general communications services for the Americas, the Caribbean and Western Europe.

Launches at the equator allow a rocket to carry more weight into space than they can from other latitudes. Because the platform is surrounded by the ocean, there is little chance of the rocket's stages falling on populated areas.

The Boeing Co. is the venture's U.S. partner.

-----

Rift Deepens In Leadership Of Russian Armed Forces
Defense Minister Rejects Rival's Plan for Troop Cut

By David Hoffman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, July 14, 2000; Page A16
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/14/103l-071400-idx.html

MOSCOW, July 13-A rift in the Russian military leadership deepened today when Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev publicly rejected a proposal by Gen. Anatoly Kvashnin, chief of the general staff, to slash the country's missile troops and downgrade their status.

Sergeyev told a key Defense Ministry meeting Wednesday that the existing armed forces structure should be preserved, the Interfax news agency reported today. Under that structure, the strategic rocket forces are a separate branch of the military responsible for Russia's land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. Sergeyev is a former head of the rocket forces.

In the same meeting, Kvashnin called for subordinating the missile troops to the army and slashing the number of missile troops seven-fold, Interfax said. Kvashnin, long a champion of conventional forces, said the cuts could be made because Russia's missile arsenal is shrinking.

Kvashnin's proposal would boost the general staff's role in managing Russia's nuclear forces and was seen as part of a power struggle within the military. Last year, Sergeyev proposed a plan that would have reduced the influence of the general staff over nuclear weapons, but it was not implemented.

Sergeyev, who was appointed by former president Boris Yeltsin, is eventually expected to step down and let President Vladimir Putin chose his own defense minister; Kvashnin is thought to want the job.

Gen. Valery Manilov, a deputy chief of the general staff, elaborated on Kvashnin's proposal today. He said the conventional forces were "rapidly deteriorating" because of "extremely limited financing," while "the military threats that should be parried" by these troops have increased. "The scale of these threats has become dangerous to national security," he said.

But Sergeyev, who is Kvashnin's boss, made clear that he was against the plan. According to military sources quoted by Interfax, Sergeyev told the Wednesday meeting that any change in the military structure should be "approached reasonably" and that Kvashnin's proposal was a "remote" idea given the course of arms control talks.

Manilov said that Sergeyev ordered documents on the dispute to be prepared immediately and submitted to the Kremlin Security Council for a decision by Putin before the end of the month.

Meanwhile, both sides acknowledged today that a special commission of military experts expressed alarm over the state of Russia's conventional troops. Kvashnin was quoted by Interfax as saying that a pledge to devote 3.5 percent of Russia's gross domestic product to defense each year has not been implemented, and that an increase is not expected for five to 10 years. Kvashnin proposed that the Russian military be turned into a land-sea-air triad by 2003, which would mean eliminating the rocket forces as a separate branch.

It was also announced that Russia has decided to add 50,000 troops to its southern and southwestern flanks out of concern about instability in central Asia and the northern Caucasus.

----

Russian Defense Minister Openly Criticizes Missile Proposal

New York Times
July 14, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/00/07/14/late/14ap-russia.html

MOSCOW -- Using exceptionally strong language, Russia's usually low-key Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev on Friday criticized a plan to downgrade Russia's nuclear forces, a news report said.

Sergeyev is embroiled in an unusual public battle with Gen. Anatoly Kvashnin, the head of the General Staff. Kvashnin wants to fold the Strategic Rocket Forces, which Sergeyev used to head, into the Air Force. That would lower the rocket forces' status.

Kvashnin's idea is ``criminal stupidity and an attempt to harm the national interests of Russia,'' the Interfax news agency quoted Sergeyev as saying.

The move would ``destroy'' the rocket forces and constitute ``a crime against Russia and simply madness,'' he was quoted as saying.

Russian generals usually settle their differences behind closed doors, and the outburst was a departure from Sergeyev's usually placid public demeanor.

Sergeyev called for public support ``from all who are not indifferent to Russia's fate, to the security of its people and its place in the world,'' Interfax said.

Kvashnin's plan, discussed at a meeting of military officials earlier this week, would overturn Sergeyev's competing idea to put the nuclear capabilities of the Navy and Air Force under an expanded missile force, to be renamed the Strategic Deterrent Force.

At the heart of the dispute are inter-service rivalries as well as differing views of how to guarantee Russia's security, analysts say.

Sergeyev and others think nuclear deterrence is the key to Russia's security as its conventional forces have deteriorated due to economic woes. They have put scarce funds into developing Russia's new Topol-M strategic missile.

Other generals, however, argue that Russia needs to buy conventional equipment to meet threats like the rebellion against Russian rule in Chechnya. Military analysts say Russian soldiers in the region even lack night-vision equipment, essential for fighting guerrillas.

Sergeyev was accompanying President Vladimir Putin at an arms show Friday in the Sverdlovsk region, 900 miles east of Moscow. Putin fired off a 1938-vintage howitzer to open the show.

----

A New Russian Revolution?

By Esther Dyson
Friday, July 14, 2000; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/14/041l-071400-idx.html

"No one will help Russia except ourselves!" So announced a pay-your-taxes poster plastered around Moscow last year. It was just one more invitation to cynicism among my honest friends, since Russian taxes tend not to deliver much in benefits to the deserving poor. In fact, for most of the 11 years I have been visiting Russia, these honest friends have stayed as far away as possible from government and politics; in Russia both are dirty business.

But in the past year or two, these same people have realized that they can't live honestly in a dishonest country. And if they want to change it, it's up to them.

Their challenge now is to change Russia's business culture rather than try to ignore it. There is no guarantee they will succeed, but their new activism and their increasing sophistication (as opposed to cynicism) are good signs. If they can win some popular support, as well as business success, their numbers will grow and their example might foster more honest entrepreneurs.

Last year a number of them--about 30 youngish business owners and managers in areas ranging from high-tech and forest products to executive search--formed a political discussion group called Club 2015. Their tactics are not to buy a couple of politicians, the usual Russian approach, by which you get what you pay for, but something more long-term (hence the name). They want to reshape the Russian political/economic mentality--to change the politicians and their behavior by changing what the voters expect from their politicians.

One step in this movement came recently in Salzburg at the summer meeting of the World Economic Forum, devoted to Central and Eastern Europe--a sort of off-Broadway version of the main gig held each winter in Davos. Over the years, Russia's "oligarchs"--business leaders who seem to have made their fortunes more from access than from effort--have made special use of Davos, both for deals among themselves and for reaching out to the world. It was at Davos that many of the sleaziest, most lucrative deals were cut.

But for last winter's session, the forum's organizers decided to invite a new kind of Russian: honest businessmen, including several members of Club 2015. They showed up in force at Davos in January, somewhat disorganized, and few noticed them--certainly not the oligarchs. But in Salzburg this summer the group decided to seize the opportunity, leverage the forum's clout and promote its own program of reform. Organized as the Russian Task Force, they met, argued and came to a rough consensus.

They are pushing three concrete proposals: adoption of international accounting standards as the Russian standard, free movement of capital and reform of the tariffs/customs system. None of these ideas is terribly new, and all have been rejected many times, often (by former premier Viktor Chernomyrdin, for example) as the self-serving demands of "inostranni [foreigners] charlatani."

The difference now is that Russia's own business community wants them; it wants a world in which honest companies do not compete at a disadvantage. All three proposals would make the economy more transparent, more open and more honest. The reformers' hope is that the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and others will promote them from "above," while the country's honest business people promote them from below.

Who are these people? Most of them would rather be running their businesses than dealing with politicians and reporters. They include Anatoly Karachinsky, head of Russia's largest ($200 million) software company (IBS), who blames Microsoft and others for stealing Russian programmers, and Olga Dergunova, head of Microsoft Russia. They also include Stan Shulman, founder of Syktykvar Forest Enterprise, and Sergei Vorobiev, head of the Russian office of the Ward Howell worldwide recruiting firm. One thing they have in common: All built their businesses independent of government largess.

They are united not by industry or ethnic background but by a common culture of building, rather than trading, businesses. They want the world to recognize the changes within Russia and support them, and they want Russians to understand that satisfying customers is the best way to get rich. They want to create a business culture in which companies like theirs succeed and those that manipulate and speculate are exposed.

They know they have much to learn about how to operate in such an open, competitive environment, and they want to do so. "Don't give us any more fish," Sergei Vorobiev said. "Teach us how to fish."

The writer is an active investor in high-tech startups, including six based in Russia.

----

A conflict on weapons in Russian military

ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 14 2000
http://web.philly.com/content/inquirer/2000/07/14/national/RUSSIA14.htm

MOSCOW - A proposed reform of Russia's nuclear forces has exploded into a major conflict among the military's top brass, causing what the Russian media described yesterday as an unprecedented "coup attempt" against Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev.

A former chief of Russia's Strategic Missile Forces, Sergeyev insists Russia must develop its nuclear weapons to deter potential aggressors at a time when its conventional forces are in disarray. But as Russia's offensive against rebels in Chechnya drags on, commanders of conventional forces are demanding more money for tanks and artillery. Some have suggested that nuclear weapons programs take too much military funding.

The conflict escalated Wednesday, when military leaders discussed how to restructure the armed forces. Sergeyev advocated his longtime plan to beef up the Strategic Missile Forces.

But Anatoly Kvashnin, chief of the military's General Staff, urged significant cuts in the Strategic Missile Forces and called for incorporating them into the Air Force.

"For the first time in the history of the Russian army, the General Staff chief openly went against the defense minister," the daily Kommersant said. "What happened . . . can only be described as a coup attempt . . ."

Leonid Ivashov, a Defense Ministry official, downplayed the conflict, saying: "When a reform of the armed forces is under way, there are always a lot of discussions."

-------- turkey

Reppas: The Greek Government Is Opposed To Nuclear Plant at Akkuyu

Jul 14, 2000:
Macedonian Press Agency
From: "Jim Karygiannis" <krygnsmp@yesic.com>

Greek government spokesman Dimitris Reppas responding to a question by a reporter stated that the Greek government is opposed to the opening of a nuclear plant in Akkuyu, Turkey that will produce electric power.

Mr. Reppas stated that Greece was opposed to the use of atomic energy from the beginning and has appealed to international organizations citing among others the risks behind the opening of such a plant in a region with intense seismic activity.

The government spokesman stated that Greece will continue to make representations and reports both to the countries involved in the construction of the plant and to international organizations.

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

-------- colorado

Nuclear bomb parts as souvenirs
Rocky Flats workers took scrap items, federal report says; all have been returned

By Berny Morson
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer,
July 14, 2000
http://www.insidedenver.com/news/0712flat2.shtml

Nuclear bomb parts ended up as candy dishes, paperweights and curios on the desks of workers at the defunct Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant.

Thirty workers wrongly took the parts, none of which were radioactive, from trash bins, according to a report released last week by the Energy Department's inspector general. All of the parts have been returned.

"Some folks want to have a souvenir or memento of what happened here," said Paul Golan, the Rocky Flats deputy manager.

But the inspector general's report suggests that sloppy inventory controls at the plant in Jefferson County 13 miles northwest of downtown Denver could have allowed classified parts to fall into the wrong hands.

"There can be no assurance" that some radioactive parts weren't shipped to recycling companies along with harmless scrap metal, the report said.

----

Gift ideas for the nuclear family?

July 14, 2000
By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-20007140214.htm

There's nothing like a couple of sentimental old bomb components to brighten up a place.

That was the theory, anyway, among workers at Colorado's now-defunct Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant. They just wanted a little atomic cachet - some nukeknacks, really - to remind them of time spent at a Cold War pulse point.

And the workers got them, right from a scrap bin which contained a mother lode of obsolete or rejected stainless steel tubes, reservoirs and "hemi-shells" - bomb innards.

Nothing was "hot," in the radioactive sense. But they came in shapes ideal for reinvention as ironic candy dishes or paperweights.

"They were proud of the stuff they made," said John Corsi of Kaiser-Hill, the company charged with cleaning up the defunct site, which opened in 1952 and made plutonium bombs for decades.

"But it became a property management issue. Taking those items was inappropriate because they were government property," Mr. Corsi said.

Indeed. The Department of Energy (DOE), which oversees the site, would have none of it. During an inspection, DOE officials saw the purloined parts in a few offices and mentioned it in a recent report for the inspector general that assessed overall inventory control.

Thirty workers filched the shiny pieces around 1995; at least one took a prize home. Was inventory control lax?

"There was no assurance," the report said, that radioactive materials might not end up in trash, or in routine shipments to metal recycling companies. Yet watching over every little piece of equipment was not cost-effective, either.

This is, however, the first time a nuclear bomb plant has been dismantled. There is no real protocol. DOE officials said yesterday that efforts were under way to "develop the mechanism" for one.

All of this hubbub would hardly register on a Geiger counter, compared to the facility's woes of yesteryear.

Rocky Flats - often billed as "infamous" - was on report with various federal agencies for years.

There were fires in 1957 and 1969 which released plutonium into the air; an estimated 5,000 tons of contaminated solvent leaked from the plant in the 1960s. The FBI eventually raided it for "environmental crimes" in 1989 and the facility was closed.

But Rocky Flats was - and remains - an icon of the Cold War era, and not without its pride and patriotism, judging from an official on-line history found at www.rfets.gov.

Sequestered behind miles of barbed wire in the foothills north of Denver and guarded by security teams who could shoot to kill, the site maintained a compartmentalized, but tight-knit existence.

Employees had "Q," or atomic-level clearance, requiring a 15-year background check. They had white radiation safety uniforms, right down to their underwear and boots.

Workers were forbidden to talk about their daily activities; most didn't. They could not refer to such bomb-making staples as plutonium, uranium or americum and used code words instead. In the old days, supervisors would place a black "8-ball" on the desks of those who slipped up.

Only cleanup personnel now staff a $4 billion, six-year reclamation project that will eventually turn the compound into pristine grasslands.

Kaiser-Hill's Mr. Corsi is not unaware of the historic value of it all and has investigated possibilities of starting a community museum on his own time.

He would have a ready audience among those curious or even nostalgic about the Cold War. Already, decommissioned nuclear missile silos have been turned into museums and even private homes; fund raising is under way for a Cold War Museum to be located near Dulles airport.

Rocky Flats is still burdened with age and a dangerous pedigree. A 1999 Newsweek story claimed that 2,400 pounds of plutonium was still unaccounted for; a General Accounting Office report noted that $21 million in equipment was missing.

Anything which is both "missing" and nuclear in nature almost guarantees media coverage which smacks of a Tom Clancy novel -such as the oft-hysterical press garnered by the lost Los Alamos computer disks last month.

In recent years, curious stories have surfaced of radioactive recliner chairs and floor scrubbers, missing courier packages full of radioactive iridium, uranium fragments in old U.S. Archives files, misplaced portable nuclear bombs and U.S. Navy cook pots contaminated by cobalt-60.

In the big picture, the Rocky Flats nuclear curios are a small-scale problem.

"Things get misplaced sometimes," said a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates safety procedures in private industry and medicine.

"The loss of those obsolete parts does not compare to someone walking off with a classified part. And these parts, most importantly, were not radioactive."

-------- new mexico

Study Group meeting

Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 19:14:10 -0600
From: Miranda Haley <mhaley@lasg.org>

The Los Alamos Study Group will hold its next public meeting on Monday, July 17. This meeting will provide basic information about radiation, an overview of the types and quantities of radioactive contaminants at Los Alamos, and an exploration of the risks likely to be involved with various levels of exposure.

This is a discussion oriented forum, so please bring your questions. The meeting will be held in the Community Room at the Santa Fe Public Library from 6:00pm-8:30pm. After July 17, there will be a break in the meeting schedule until September, at which time Study Group public meetings will resume on a regular, probably bi-monthly basis.

We hope to see you on Monday!
Miranda Haley Outreach Coordinator Los Alamos Study Group

-------- us nuc politics

Clinton Is Urged to Defer to Successor on Missile Shield
Top Senate Democrats Cite Recent Test Failure

By Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 14, 2000; Page A18
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/14/178l-071400-idx.html

Leading Senate Democrats yesterday called on President Clinton to let his successor decide whether to build a national missile defense system, while Republicans rejected a proposal to require more extensive tests before deploying the missile shield.

Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.), flanked by ranking Democrats on military and foreign policy committees, said he had been open to the possibility of a decision this fall to go ahead with the system, until it failed a critical flight test last weekend.

Considering the failure and other factors, "it just does not make sense to me that we would make any decision to move forward until we have more information" about the system's technological feasibility, impact on arms control agreements and overall implications for national security, Daschle said.

Daschle, along with Sens. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) of the Armed Services Committee and Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) of the Foreign Relations Committee, urged Clinton to set aside plans to decide soon whether to build the missile shield. Under the administration's plan, the first 20 interceptor missiles would be based in Alaska by 2005 and the force would grow to 100 interceptors by 2007, at a cost estimated by the Pentagon at $26 billion and by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office at $30 billion.

Although Daschle emphasized that he and his colleagues were speaking only for themselves, their comments underscored misgivings among many congressional Democrats about the missile defense program, especially after the failure of two out of three attempts to intercept dummy warheads high over the Pacific.

Pentagon experts are still analyzing data from the latest test, in which the interceptor "kill vehicle" failed to separate from its booster rocket. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, who is discussing missile defense on a visit to China this week, is expected to review the data and make a recommendation to the White House by mid-August.

In Beijing yesterday, a top official warned that China might halt cooperation on arms control and anti-proliferation efforts if the United States erects a missile shield. Russia and U.S. allies in Europe also have objected to the antimissile system on grounds that it would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and could ignite a nuclear arms race in Asia.

Asked whether Cohen would consider recommending that Clinton postpone the first step toward deployment of a missile defense, construction of a high-powered radar station in the Aleutian Islands, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, said, "I don't think Secretary Cohen has put any bounds on recommendations that he'll make to the president."

Daschle's appeal to Clinton to put off a decision came as the GOP-controlled Senate voted 52 to 48, largely along party lines, to defeat a proposal that would have required more extensive testing of the antimissile system against decoys and other countermeasures that an enemy might use to fool U.S. interceptors.

The proposal, sponsored by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and backed by all other Democrats, also would have required an independent review of ground and flight tests before the system could go into operation.

The proposal was described by Levin as a "common-sense, fly-before-you-buy" approach. But Republicans argued that it was unwarranted. If it had passed, it would have been an "unprecedented effort by the Senate to micromanage a weapons system testing program," Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) said.

Cochran and John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, argued that the Pentagon already is planning tests that include countermeasures. But Philip E. Coyle, director of the Pentagon's operational test and evaluation program, endorsed Durbin's proposal, saying it would "reinforce the need for realistic testing."

Warner initially indicated he could accept Durbin's proposal, then opposed it, contending the issue had become politicized. Only three Republicans--Olympia J. Snowe and Susan M. Collins of Maine and James M. Jeffords of Vermont--supported it.

Durbin denounced the vote, saying Republicans "ran like scalded cats" when asked for "an honest test" of the missile defense system.

Durbin's proposal was an amendment to legislation authorizing defense programs for next year, including $4.5 billion more than Clinton requested and $19 billion more than current spending. The bill itself was approved, 97 to 3.

In his comments urging Clinton to forgo a decision on missile defenses, Levin said the pressure is off for a decision this fall because the target date of 2005 for deployment of the shield is no longer viable. "Since no deployment could occur until a later date, there is no reason for a decision to be made this year," he said.

Biden was more sweeping in his condemnation of the plan. "This system is not ready for prime time," he said. "No president--this one or the next one, unless things change drastically--should in fact deploy this system."

Staff writer Roberto Suro contributed to this report.

----

Senate approves $1.9 billion for missile defense

July 14, 2000
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-200071401543.htm

Republican senators Thursday beat back Democratic efforts to delay implementation of the National Missile Defense program and authorized $1.9 billion for development of the system.

They defeated a Democratic amendment by a 52-48 vote. Three Republicans - Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, James M. Jeffords of Vermont and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine - joined all 45 Democrats in support of the amendment.

The defeated measure would have required the Pentagon to test the system against all possible countermeasures to the program, including warheads surrounded by decoys.

"This amendment is an unprecedented effort by the Senate to micromanage a weapons system testing program," said Sen. Thad Cochran, Mississippi Republican, and a leading missile defense proponent.

"In no other program has the Senate tried to legislate in this way, to dictate to the Department of Defense how a classified national security testing program should be conducted."

He said adequate measures are already in place to ensure that the missile system is properly designed and tested to account for any potential counteraction.

"There is no need for a third layer of requirements, levied in an overly broad statute, to deal with some vague technical notions that someone, somewhere, has imagined," Mr. Cochran said.

Democrats, however, said moving forward with the system without even more tests than those scheduled would harm, rather than increase, U.S. security.

"A Senate that is misled by blind faith in a missile system that cannot defend America is as pitiful as a $60 billion missile system that can be misled by a cheap decoy," said Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, who offered the defeated amendment.

Mr. Durbin said that to prove the effectiveness of the defense shield, it was necessary to test it against countermeasures used to disguise incoming warheads and confuse missiles launched to destroy them. Those could include decoy balloons and nuclear warheads shrouded in cooled metal, he said.

A panel of prominent U.S. scientists that opposes the system recently said warheads could be enclosed in cool shrouds or placed in balloons with numerous empty balloons deployed with them, making it impossible for the U.S. missile to select the right target.

Mr. Durbin's amendment also required an independent review team convened by the defense secretary to assess whether enough tests are conducted to assure the effectiveness of the system before it becomes operational.

"If the fate of Americans will truly hang in the balance, we owe this nation, and every family and every mother, father and child, our very best effort in building a credible effective deterrence," Mr. Durbin said.

Sen. Paul Wellstone, Minnesota Democrat, had a harsher view of the National Missile Defense system, calling it "make-believe" and an "illusion."

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota said simply, "I can't imagine that we would want to build something that didn't work."

The National Missile Defense system, scheduled for deployment in 2005, is designed to defend the United States from intercontinental-range ballistic missiles armed with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

The Defense Department has conducted three tests of the system, failing twice. On Saturday, a missile test failed when the nonexplosive "kill vehicle" did not separate from the second stage. As a result, the interceptor fired from an island in the Pacific Ocean failed to hit a target warhead fired minutes earlier from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

In October, an interceptor missile successfully slammed into a target, but in a January test, a coolant problem caused it to miss.

The Pentagon plans to conduct 12 to 15 flight tests before the $60 billion system is ready.

A final recommendation to President Clinton on whether to proceed with deployment of the national missile defense system will be made in three to four weeks, said Defense Secretary William S. Cohen.

Mr. Cohen said he will carefully analyze all the information about the developing program, which would include 20 to 100 interceptors based in Alaska, along with satellite sensors and ground radar. The recommendation must be made this year if the Pentagon is to meet the tight deadline of having a system in place by 2005 -when North Korea is expected to have the capability of hitting the United States with a long-range missile, Mr. Cohen said.

Mr. Cohen said this week that the failed test was not a major setback and that he could still recommend going ahead with the project.

"The failure here was not the failure of the most sophisticated elements of it," he said. "That's something that's not fatal to the program, and so I would reserve the judgment until I get all the way through the analysis," he said.

Democratic and Republican senators earlier this week urged Mr. Clinton to press ahead with a missile defense system and let his successor decide whether to deploy it.

"President Clinton, notwithstanding this disappointment [of the latest failed test], ought to decide to at least keep the process moving forward," Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat and a member of the Armed Services Committee, told interviewers on "Fox News Sunday."

The missile system funding is part of the defense authorization bill for fiscal 2002 funding that passed by a 97-3 vote. The bill authorizes $310 billion for defense, $4.5 billion more than President Clinton requested, and a 4.4 percent increase over last year's funding.

"This sends a strong message throughout the world that America is committed to remaining strong and leading in the cause of freedom and human rights," said Sen. John W. Warner, Virginia Republican and chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

The bill includes a 3.7 percent pay raise for military personnel, effective Jan. 1, and improves military health care by allowing veterans age 65 and older to buy prescription drugs at discount prices.

----

Missile defense compass

July 14, 2000
Kim Holmes and Baker Spring
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/commentary-200071404034.htm

Critics of a U.S. national missile defense are trying to use the recent test failure as "proof" the technology is unworkable. They are wrong, but the debate threatens to eclipse a more fundamental question: If the United States needs to protect itself from the growing arsenal of missiles around the world, what's the best way to do it?

We think the president's efforts to limit the United States to a ground-based missile defense alone are a mistake. A sea-based missile defense could be built more quickly and for less money than the administration's system. Best of all, it would be more effective. Certainly, the president deserves credit for recognizing the need (albeit belatedly) for some type of national missile defense. We live in an unsettled world, with an increasing number of unpredictable outlaw nations working overtime to beg, borrow, build or steal the kinds of missiles and warheads that can threaten both their neighbors - Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea - and our neighborhoods. We need to be able to defend ourselves against this growing threat.

And the decision to proceed with any type of national missile defense will implicitly acknowledge that the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty is a Cold War-era relic. That treaty with the former Soviet Union was based on the premise that neither the United States nor the U.S.S.R. would be the first to use nuclear weapons, because such a misstep would trigger a nuclear holocaust. The treaty thus prohibited national missile defenses for both sides.

Though the White House is still trying to tip-toe around this sensitive issue, any effort to build a national missile defense recognizes that the ABM Treaty (which legally died when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991) has outlived its usefulness. The world in which we live requires new thinking, new tactics and new technology. In short, we can no longer rely on the deterrent power of Mutually Assured Destruction.

The president favors a single missile-defense site in Alaska where 100 interceptors (estimated cost: $17 billion) would be based by 2007. This is enough, the president contends, to protect the United States from the type of limited attack it might face in the future. We do not oppose land-based defenses. But they should be America's last line of defense, not its first or only.

Our plan calls for a mobile, sea-based missile defense, based on the Navy's 20-year-old Aegis system, which defends the U.S. fleet against aircraft and cruise missiles. An upgraded Aegis could protect the United States, our friends and allies, and our troops and military bases overseas. It could be deployed in less than five years, at an initial cost of $3 billion. Soon after, space based interceptors could be added, at an extra $5 billion. Since the interceptors would be positioned globally - and could be repositioned as the threat changes -they would be able to destroy target missiles during the "boost" phase of flight, when a missile is more vulnerable and before decoys or mock warheads have been released. In other words, we would kill the target early, when it is moving more slowly. The president would try to kill it on the way down, when it is traveling much more quickly and is surrounded by decoys.

Our plan would cost less because the United States already has invested some $50 billion in Aegis ships and technology, with 22 Aegis cruisers and destroyers currently deployed. Aegis is tried and true. Today, Aegis interceptors can knock cruise missiles out of the sky. The system easily could be upgraded to protect against ballistic missiles. Adding a space component would improve the targeting, tracking and kill capabilities even more. For all these reasons, it's the best way to go.

And apparently the Pentagon agrees. A still unpublished Pentagon study supports a sea-based system. An earlier Defense Department study, made public last year, also endorsed the feasibility of the proposal by the Heritage Foundation's Commission on Missile Defense.

The Navy already has started upgrading Aegis. Known as the Navy Theater-Wide program, NTW is intended to defend U.S. forces against shorter-range missiles. Under the Heritage proposal, the Navy would place 650 anti-missile interceptors on the 22 Aegis ships and improve NTW's capabilities to make it effective against long-range missiles.

It is too early to tell whether President Clinton will give a "limited green light" on his missile-defense system before leaving office. But defining the parameters of that system could be the most important decision the next president will make.

Kim R. Holmes, Heritage Foundation vice president, oversees Heritage's Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis International Studies Center. Baker Spring is a Heritage senior defense policy analyst.

-------- us nuc waste

U.S. Bans Recycling of Nuclear Scrap
Energy agency responds to fears of radioactivity

Marla Cone,
Los Angeles Times
Friday, July 14, 2000
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/07/14/MN53614.DTL

Reacting to fears about low-level radioactive material that is recycled into consumer goods, the U.S. Department of Energy yesterday suspended the release of scrap metals from its nuclear weapons facilities.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said the ban will remain in effect until the department establishes a new policy aimed at ensuring that there is ``no detectable'' radioactivity in metals that are sent to recyclers. Until now, the department's policy allowed the metals to contain low levels of contamination.

For years, metals and other waste from the nation's nuclear facilities have been routinely sent to scrap dealers and landfills, and recycled into products such as construction beams, silverware and cars.

Much of the concern about the recycled waste centers on Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Simi Valley (Ventura County) operated by Boeing's Rocketdyne Division.

Boeing spokesperson Daniel Beck said the Energy Department's decision is likely to slow down and increase the cost of a major cleanup of radioactive soil, concrete and other material at the Santa Susana facility. The cleanup, so far costing $60 million, is being conducted by Boeing but paid for by the U.S. government.

Environmental groups and labor unions had complained that the Energy Department was not adequately screening the recycled waste.

Daniel Hirsch, president of Committee to Bridge the Gap, a nuclear watchdog group, called the decision ``a tremendous victory for all those who have fought to prevent radioactive waste from ending up in consumer goods such as spoons, frying pans, jewelry, zippers and automobiles.''

Hirsch added that the details of the new policy are yet to be determined. He fears it will not be broad enough to encompass all contaminated materials, rather than just metals.

For example, the Santa Susana facility has been sending low-level radioactive soil and building debris to landfills.

A senior Energy Department official said yesterday that the temporary ban, as well as a new permanent policy, applies only to recycled metals because there is more of a potential for the public to be exposed to them than materials taken to landfills.

Officials at the Energy Department say their old policy limited the recyclables to ones of low levels of radioactivity less than the dose in a chest X-ray.

But Richardson acknowledged yesterday that consumers need to be assured that the waste has no radioactive residue at all.

The costs of disposal could surge for Rocketdyne and other facilities because mildly contaminated materials may have to be sent to special dumps licensed for radioactive waste disposal instead of commercial recycling centers and regular landfills. Highly contaminated waste is already sent to special dumps in Washington state, Utah and Nevada.

But Energy Department officials say the costs may not increase because the agency hopes to find alternative ways to dispose of the materials without sending them to the special dumps. For example, the department is launching a study to see if scrap can be recycled into waste containers used by the federal agency.

Beck said the Rocketdyne facility currently has no scrap metal waiting to be shipped off-site, so the ban will have no immediate effect on the cleanup.

01/13/2000 - DOE may dump plan to sell radioactive scrap metal .
01/12/2000 - Energy Department cancels planned sale of radioactive metal .
09/19/1999 - Radioactive recycling: Is it safe? .
06/21/1998 - Gulf War uranium exposure ignored .

----

Energy Dept. halts sales of nuclear plants' scraps

Friday, July 14, 2000
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/national/nuke142.shtml

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department took steps yesterday to ensure that radioactive metals are no longer recycled into braces, zippers, toys and other consumer products, ordering a halt to sales of thousands of tons of scrap metal left at nuclear weapons facilities.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said sales will not resume until weapons site managers can assure that the metals are free from any detectable radioactive contamination. He said that by year's end, he wanted a new standard to evaluate the material.

Supporters of the recycling program contend the levels of contamination are too low to pose a health and safety threat. Critics of such sales have argued that metals with any trace of contamination should not go into general commerce.

The Energy Department cannot say how much contaminated scrap metal already has been sold, although some estimates are "in the low tens of thousands of tons" over the years, according one government source, speaking on condition of anonymity. Records on such sales are incomplete, the official said.

"They don't know. They don't have an inventory on how much has gone out," agreed Richard Miller, an official of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Union, which represents atomic plant workers. After the metal has gone into commerce, it is melted with other like metals and is not tracked, he said.

Richardson's decision to suspend further sales came six months after the department canceled plans to sell 6,000 tons of nickel from a defunct uranium enrichment plant near Oak Ridge, Tenn., because of concern that the contaminated metal would go into civilian commerce.

Yesterday's announcement stops the expected sale to private buyers of about 15,000 tons of metal including steel, aluminum, copper and nickel used in machinery, furniture and remnants of torn down buildings at closed weapons production facilities.

Over the long term, the department has planned to sell about 30,000 tons of metals annually over 20 years as part of the decommissioning of many of the facilities that made up the Cold War-era nuclear weapons production complex.

It was not immediately clear yesterday how much of that metal will be sold for recycling when the new standard is established.

Richardson said the department was studying whether to recycle much of the contaminated steel for reuse within the weapons complex for such things as storage crates for other contaminated material.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission for some time has been trying to develop a new minimum allowable contamination level for recycled material. It is not known when that standard will be issued.

----

Metal Recycling Sales Halted

WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
by staff writer Matthew Vita
Friday, July 14, 2000; Page A05
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/14/110l-071400-idx.html

The Energy Department took steps to ensure that radioactive metals are no longer recycled into braces, zippers, toys and other consumer products, ordering a halt to sales of thousands of tons of scrap metal left at nuclear weapons facilities.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said sales will not resume until weapons site managers can ensure that the metals are free from any detectable radioactive contamination. He said that by year's end, he wanted a new standard.

Recycling supporters contend contamination levels are too low to pose a health threat. Critics argue that metals with any trace of contamination should not go into general commerce.

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

From Deterrence to Aggression

By EUGENE J. CARROLL JR.
Los Angeles Times
Friday, July 14, 2000 http://www.latimes.com/news/comment/20000714/t000066170.html

We Are Taking a Detour From Deterrence Nuclear weapons: New, smaller weapons are more likely to be used for fighting, not just defense.

The U.S. Senate is preparing to take a major step to abandon all pretense that U.S. nuclear forces exist only to deter war. An amendment to the pending Defense Authorization Act for 2001 would lead to the development of a new nuclear weapon designed expressly for fighting. The new weapon is to be a low-yield device with earth penetration capability, intended to destroy deeply buried bunkers.

Paul Robinson, director of Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., which would build the device, is a strong advocate of it. Robinson apparently favors a new, low-yield device because U.S. leaders presumably would be more ready to employ smaller weapons than to use the larger city- and silo-busting high-yield weapons in our current arsenal. He considers large weapons "self-deterring."

This thinking is an eerie throwback to the days of the Cold War, when weapon designers provided the U.S. military with an array of explosives to "prevail" in a survivable limited nuclear war. Among the 70,000 U.S. nuclear weapons produced during the Cold War were suitcase bombs, neutron bombs, torpedoes, depth charges, artillery shells, air-to-air missiles and anti-tank rockets. The laboratories were like nuclear ice cream factories, churning out the flavor of the day to meet the latest craving of the customers.

Not only is the Senate's action a throwback to those unlamented days of preparing to prevail in nuclear war, but it also is a flagrant repudiation of a solemn pledge the United States made in May at the Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York. We joined with Britain, France, China and Russia in a commitment to accomplish the total elimination of nuclear arsenals, leading to nuclear disarmament. Nothing could be more contrary to that commitment than a congressional order to develop a new, more usable nuclear weapon.

Regrettably, this action is merely one more blatant signal that the United States is determined to pursue nuclear dominance indefinitely through enhanced readiness to fight a nuclear war. Additional preparations include the decision to resume production of tritium and plutonium pits for thermonuclear weapons, continued subcritical explosive testing in Nevada and rejection of Russian proposals to reduce nuclear numbers 75% below START II levels.

The thinking behind all of this was revealed by then-Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre when he said in March: "Nuclear weapons are still the foundation of a superpower . . . and that will never change." All of these actions are supportive of President Clinton's signing in 1997 of a directive whose overarching principle was that nuclear weapons would remain the cornerstone of U.S. security indefinitely. Far from emphasizing deterrence, the document reasserted the need for all three arms of the U.S. triad of nuclear forces--intercontinental ballistic missiles, sea-launched ballistic missiles and long-range strategic bombers. It declared the U.S. right to make first use of nuclear weapons and to target not only Russia and China but also any prospective nuclear states that might threaten U.S. interests in the future.

Authoritative sources subsequently have revealed that the U.S. has expanded the list of worldwide targets planned for destruction under the new doctrine. In short, with plans for new nuclear weapons, Congress is joining the White House in putting into place all of the elements of a war-fighting strategy. There is no way a deterrent strategy can justify or rationalize developing new nuclear weapons to make them more usable for fighting purposes. This is the ultimate antithesis of deterrence and a total abrogation of the legal and moral obligation of the U.S. to work for the elimination of all nuclear weapons.

Retired Navy Rear Admiral Eugene J. Carroll Jr. Is Vice President of the Center for Defense Information in Washington

----

U.S. Sets Stage to Design New, Deep-Burrowing "Mini-Nuke"

by Sally Light and Marylia Kelley - marylia@earthlink.net
Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 17:30:07 -0700 (PDT)
from Tri-Valley CAREs' July 2000 newsletter, Citizen's Watch

The Senate Armed Services Committee Report includes a provision for Fiscal Year 2001 that would "require the Secretaries of Defense and Energy to assess requirements and options for defeating hardened and deeply buried targets. The provision would expressly authorize the Department of Energy (DOE) to conduct any limited research and development that may be necessary to complete such assessments." (Sec. 1018)

If approved by the full Congress and the President, this new law would lift certain key restrictions imposed by a 1994 law barring the DOE nuclear weapons labs from conducting research and development that could lead to the production of a precision, low-yield nuclear weapon with an explosive force of less than 5 kilotons.

Thus, the change would enable the Livermore and Los Alamos labs to design an entirely new nuclear weapon for the U.S. arsenal, a "mini-nuke" capable of burrowing up to 1,000 feet underground before detonating.

In the 1990s, the weapons labs "modified" an existing B61 to create the B61-11, with a variable yield beginning at 50 kilotons and an earth-penetrating capability of about 300 feet.

If developed, the new "mini-nuke," would be tailor-made for use in conventional conflicts, and against non-nuclear adversaries. This continues an already insanely dangerous trend in U.S. nuclear policy, one in which various existing nuclear bomb designs are being "modified" or "refurbished" to make them more "usable."

As soon as it was deployed, the U.S. considered using the B61-11 earth-penetrator against Khadafy, and, according to one former Pentagon official, the current idea would lead to a lower-yield, "deep penetrator that could hold at risk a rogue state's deeply buried weapons or Saddam Hussein's bunker without torching Baghdad."

Design studies for a new "mini-nuke," savage the spirit, not to mention the preambular language, of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and abrogate the disarmament imperative in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

According to a June 12, 2000, article by Walter Pincus in the Washington Post, support for this new, low-yield nuclear weapon comes from a small group of senior Republican Senators and nuclear weapons lab officials (no surprise).

This cadre of Strangeloves also thinks the U.S. should scuttle the CTBT altogether and resume full-scale underground nuclear blasts. As Sandia Lab President C. Paul Robinson explains it, "The U.S. will eventually need a new, low yield nuclear weapon."

In a wider context, the Senate authorization for "mini-nuke" research must be seen as part of an overall U.S. plan to keep nuclear weapons forever. Witness, as two more examples, the current push to revive Star Wars and the U.S. Space Command's plan to militarily control the earth from the sky by 2020, using space-based nuclear weapons and exotic laser technology.

Public outcry is crucial. What we all do, or fail to do, right now will impact our Mother Earth's future.

Call us for copies of the NPT, CTBT or the U.S. Space Command's "Vision 2020" report. See also articles & fliers in the edition of Citizen's Watch.

Marylia Kelley Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) 2582 Old First Street Livermore, CA USA 94550
http://www.igc.org/tvc/ - is our web site, please visit us there!
(925) 443-7148 - is our phone (925) 443-0177 - is our fax

Working for peace, justice and a healthy environment since 1983, Tri-Valley CAREs has been a member of the nation-wide Alliance for Nuclear Accountability in the U.S. since 1989, and is a co-founding member of the Abolition 2000 global network for the elimination of nuclear weapons, the U.S. Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and the Back From the Brink campaign to get nuclear weapons taken off hair-trigger alert.

---

U.S. Sets Stage for New Mini-Nuke Design

From: marylia@earthlink.net (marylia)
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 06:58:59 -0700 (PDT)

I just received an e-mail on the mini-nukes, and while it is very informative , it is also frustrating that by the end of the email I still do not know who I should be protesting to. It would be much more effective to tell the recipients how to take action.

Thanks, Tara

Reply: Thanks for your note asking how the provision in the Senate Armed Services Report mandating research and development activity on a new "mini-nuke" can be stopped. I have appended that article again below for clarity. The mini-nuke language is section 1018 of the Senate Armed Services Committee Report. The "assessment" and attendant R&D for mini-nukes can be stopped in two ways. First, the Senate Defense Authorization has yet to go before the whole Senate for a vote. Folks can call their Senators and ask them to "strike" the language in that section -- meaning take it out. If that doesn't occur, then the second opportunity to "strike" that mini-nuke language will come when the Senate and House have a conference committee (probably in mid to late August) to work out the places where one body's language is different than the other. Since there was no such mini-nuke language in the House bill, the Senators and Representatives who are participating on the conference committee can decide to put it in or strike it out. Therefore, folks can also call their Representative and ask him or her to work with the conference committee to make sure the mini-nuke language is taken out. I hope the above does not sound too esoteric or complicated. In short, it means that both your Senatrors and your Representative have an opportunity to get rid of the mini-nuke language NOW. Calls should be made by constituents in July to give them a chance to get educated on this topic. You may want to send them a copy of the article with your comments. Peace, Marylia

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Missile failure bodes success Daniel Scorr

Christian Science Monitor
FRIDAY, JULY 14, 2000
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/07/14/fp11s1-csm.shtml

WASHINGTON, Count your blessings in the failure of the Feb. 7 antimissile test. The real problems would have come if the antimissile test had worked.

First, there would have been an argument about whether the test was rigged, as several scientists said it was, with a single target and a single decoy instead of the myriad that could be expected in a real missile attack. In addition, the decoy that was used was designed to be easily distinguishable by the defense sensors of the interceptor rocket.

Had the thing worked, then President Clinton would have been under congressional pressure to take the first steps toward deployment by the year 2005 of a $60 billion system that would theoretically protect all 50 states.

Had that happened, we soon would have had Russia and China issuing dire warnings about full-scale resumption of the nuclear arms race. And they would have been supported, to some extent, by our allies in Western Europe who fear "decoupling." That is, America seeing to its own defense while leaving its friends vulnerable.

Had the test worked, missile defense would have become an almost immediate issue in the presidential campaign. Vice President Al Gore would have been obliged to defend the Clinton administration's position. Gov. George W. Bush would have attacked the national missile defense plan as inadequate and would have pushed his much broader plan.

But the test didn't work, and although the Pentagon says that only one thing went wrong - the darned interceptor didn't separate from the booster rocket - it is clear that Mr. Clinton is in no position to say that the system is feasible, as he has to before moving toward deployment. What a relief that must be to him.

While Defense Secretary William Cohen says that more tests are planned, there will probably be no more on Clinton's watch, and he can happily kick the can down the road to his successor. The Russians, of course, are having a field day, saying they always knew the thing didn't work, (although, if so, why were they so upset about it?).

The people who are most distressed about the failure are Boeing, the lead contractor, and dozens of contractors and subcontractors scattered across the country that were supposed to share in that $60 billion. They have so much influence in so many congressional delegations that the project will probably stay alive, which teaches us once again that nothing succeeds like failure.

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Clinton Is Urged to Defer to Successor on Missile Shield

Washington Post
Friday, July 14, 2000 ; A18
By Helen Dewar Washington Post Staff Writer
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40092-2000Jul13.html

Leading Senate Democrats yesterday called on President Clinton to let his successor decide whether to build a national missile defense system, while Republicans rejected a proposal to require more extensive tests before deploying the missile shield.

Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.), flanked by ranking Democrats on military and foreign policy committees, said he had been open to the possibility of a decision this fall to go ahead with the system, until it failed a critical flight test last weekend.

Considering the failure and other factors, "it just does not make sense to me that we would make any decision to move forward until we have more information" about the system's technological feasibility, impact on arms control agreements and overall implications for national security, Daschle said.

Daschle, along with Sens. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) of the Armed Services Committee and Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) of the Foreign Relations Committee, urged Clinton to set aside plans to decide soon whether to build the missile shield. Under the administration's plan, the first 20 interceptor missiles would be based in Alaska by 2005 and the force would grow to 100 interceptors by 2007, at a cost estimated by the Pentagon at $26 billion and by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office at $30 billion.

Although Daschle emphasized that he and his colleagues were speaking only for themselves, their comments underscored misgivings among many congressional Democrats about the missile defense program, especially after the failure of two out of three attempts to intercept dummy warheads high over the Pacific.

Pentagon experts are still analyzing data from the latest test, in which the interceptor "kill vehicle" failed to separate from its booster rocket. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, who is discussing missile defense on a visit to China this week, is expected to review the data and make a recommendation to the White House by mid-August.

In Beijing yesterday, a top official warned that China might halt cooperation on arms control and anti-proliferation efforts if the United States erects a missile shield. Russia and U.S. allies in Europe also have objected to the antimissile system on grounds that it would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and could ignite a nuclear arms race in Asia.

Asked whether Cohen would consider recommending that Clinton postpone the first step toward deployment of a missile defense, construction of a high-powered radar station in the Aleutian Islands, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, said, "I don't think Secretary Cohen has put any bounds on recommendations that he'll make to the president."

Daschle's appeal to Clinton to put off a decision came as the GOP-controlled Senate voted 52 to 48, largely along party lines, to defeat a proposal that would have required more extensive testing of the antimissile system against decoys and other countermeasures that an enemy might use to fool U.S. interceptors.

The proposal, sponsored by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and backed by all other Democrats, also would have required an independent review of ground and flight tests before the system could go into operation.

The proposal was described by Levin as a "common-sense, fly-before-you-buy" approach. But Republicans argued that it was unwarranted. If it had passed, it would have been an "unprecedented effort by the Senate to micromanage a weapons system testing program," Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) said.

Cochran and John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, argued that the Pentagon already is planning tests that include countermeasures. But Philip E. Coyle, director of the Pentagon's operational test and evaluation program, endorsed Durbin's proposal, saying it would "reinforce the need for realistic testing."

Warner initially indicated he could accept Durbin's proposal, then opposed it, contending the issue had become politicized. Only three Republicans--Olympia J. Snowe and Susan M. Collins of Maine and James M. Jeffords of Vermont--supported it.

Durbin denounced the vote, saying Republicans "ran like scalded cats" when asked for "an honest test" of the missile defense system.

Durbin's proposal was an amendment to legislation authorizing defense programs for next year, including $4.5 billion more than Clinton requested and $19 billion more than current spending. The bill itself was approved, 97 to 3.

In his comments urging Clinton to forgo a decision on missile defenses, Levin said the pressure is off for a decision this fall because the target date of 2005 for deployment of the shield is no longer viable. "Since no deployment could occur until a later date, there is no reason for a decision to be made this year," he said.

Biden was more sweeping in his condemnation of the plan. "This system is not ready for prime time," he said. "No president--this one or the next one, unless things change drastically--should in fact deploy this system."

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For Hillary Clinton, A Heap of Invective

Washington Post
Friday, July 14, 2000; Page A08
By John F. Harris
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/14/105l-071400-idx.html

New York State Republican Chairman William Powers may have set a record for the longest consecutive string of nasty adjectives in a letter seeking contributions to help defeat Democratic Senate candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The first lady is: "opportunistic, hypocritical, and egotistical." Also: "cold-blooded and hotheaded." Not to mention: "abrasive and annoying, brash and bitter, calculating and scheming, distant and deceitful, polarizing and power-hungry."

To summarize, according to Powers: "In her ruthless quest for power, she claims to be a 'New Democrat,' but she's a fraud, a phony, and a pretender. . . . She's a hard-core, hard-line, hard-nosed ultra-liberal who uses people and hates Republicans."

When it comes to political fundraising appeals, the conventional wisdom has always been that it does not pay to be subtle. The question in New York is whether there's a price to be paid for perhaps overdoing it.

Clinton's campaign yesterday condemned Power's alliterative work, and called on her GOP opponent, Rick Lazio, to renounce it. "He should stop offering excuses, disown this latest attack mail, and tell the people of New York that he won't allow a dime raised by it to be used in this campaign," said press secretary Howard Wolfson.

In a statement, Powers said, "The truth hurts."

And Lazio spokesman Dan McLagan said Hillary Clinton is trying to divert attention from her own negative fundraising appeals. He added that Powers was writing for himself, not for Lazio. "Chairman Powers is more than capable of expressing his opinion, and is free to do so," McLagan said.

Voters Content But Disengaged

Americans are satisfied with the presidential field and content with media coverage of the campaign, a new survey concludes. But most people aren't paying attention and many don't think it matters who wins, factors that could drive turnout below the 49 percent who voted in 1996.

The Pew Research Center poll found that 62 percent of Americans are satisfied with their choice of candidates, up from 46 percent at this point in 1996 and 37 percent in 1992.

Despite that satisfaction, nearly one-third believe the election makes little difference and close to half agree "things will be pretty much the same" no matter who wins. The disengagement is most acute among young Americans: 39 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds said it doesn't matter who wins, while 23 percent of those 65 and over said the same. The survey of 2,174 adults has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percent.

So far, many Americans appear to have little idea where candidates stand. Asked who has proposed building a missile defense system and reducing U.S. nuclear weapons even if Russia refuses to do so, just 18 percent correctly said George W. Bush, while 20 percent said Al Gore.

NARAL Grades V.P. Prospects on Abortion

The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League released ratings for 10 possible running mates for Vice President Gore yesterday and found that all would be acceptable, though some received higher marks than others.

Among the 10, the group gave A grades to Sens. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), John F. Kerry (Mass.), Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) and former Maine senator George Mitchell. Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.) received a B, and Sen. Evan Bayh (Ind.) and House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) got C's. NARAL executive vice president Alice Germond faulted Gephardt and Bayh for supporting a ban on a procedure opponents call "partial birth" abortion.

On the GOP side, Sens. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.), Rep. John R. Kasich (Ohio) and Oklahoma Gov. Frank A. Keating were awarded F's. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, whose main knock as a VP hopeful has been his support for abortion rights, got a D. Germond said Pennsylvania has among the strictest abortion laws in the country, something Ridge has done "nothing to change."

Planned Parenthood is also getting involved in the presidential race. The group's political arm began running its first ad of the campaign yesterday, a 30-second spot criticizing Bush's positions on abortion and family planning. The ad will air on national cable stations through the GOP convention--part of a $5 million political effort.

Staff writer Ben White contributed to this report.

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Senate Rejects Move for Tougher Testing of Antimissile System

New York Times
July 14, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/071400missile-defense-rts.html

WASHINGTON, July 13 -- Five days after the failure of a crucial missile test, the Senate narrowly rejected today an effort to require more stringent and thorough testing of a proposed national missile defense system.

With President Clinton facing a decision later this year on whether to deploy the system at a cost of up to $60 billion, senators voted largely on party lines, 52 to 48, to kill a measure requiring testing of the project against decoys and other countermeasures intended to foil the system.

The proposal, offered as an amendment to a $310 billion defense authorization bill, also called for an independent panel to evaluate missile defense testing, which has suffered several failures.

"If we are to go forward with a national missile defense system, we should have honest, realistic testing for countermeasures so we can say to the American people 'your money is being well spent,' " said Senator Richard J. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat and the principal sponsor of the measure.

Three New England Republicans, Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine and James M. Jeffords of Vermont, broke ranks to side with Democrats on the vote.

Mr. Clinton has faced pressure from Congressional Republicans to take steps to construct the system, intended to shield the United States from limited attacks by countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

But the system has been opposed by Russia and China, which say it violates the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty.

Two of three Pentagon tests have been unsuccessful, the most recent one on Saturday when an attempt to intercept and destroy a dummy warhead in space failed because the weapon did not separate from the second stage of its liftoff rocket.

The malfunction shed little light on the system's feasibility, because it never gave the sophisticated radar, sensors and communications systems a chance to prove themselves.

Critics say the heat-seeking missiles used to intercept a missile carrying a nuclear, biological or chemical weapon could be easily evaded by simple countermeasures.

Supporters of today's measure on tougher testing say the current tests do not gauge the system's effectiveness under realistic conditions.

"A good test asks tough questions," said Senator Paul Wellstone, a Minnesota Democrat.

"This test doesn't. It's make-believe."

But opponents said the measure was unnecessary because testing against countermeasures already was planned for the future.

"This amendment is an unprecedented effort by the Senate to micromanage a weapons system testing program," said Senator Thad Cochran, a Mississippi Republican and a leading missile defense proponent.

To have a defense system in place by the target date of 2005, construction must begin on a radar system on Shemya Island in Alaska next spring. But Democrats said there was no need to rush the decision.

"If we pour concrete in Alaska now, in my humble opinion, we should all pour concrete in the cavity of our brains," Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, told reporters.

After the vote, some Democrats, including Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Senate Democratic leader, called on Mr. Clinton to leave the decision to the next president.

The defense authorization bill provides $1.9 billion for the missile defense system, more than double the amount spent last year.

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Missiles and Leaders

New York Times
July 14, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/00/07/14/letters/l14mis.html

To the Editor:

In your July 9 front-page article discussing the missile defense test failure, Gov. George W. Bush said, "Given the right leadership, America can develop an effective missile defense system."

Was the test failure due to a failure of leadership by President Clinton? Were previous test failures a result of poor leadership by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush? Does Governor Bush suggest that as president, he can take control of the missile defense program and make it work?

The failures have been of hardware and technology. I doubt if Governor Bush can solve the problem with leadership.

LEONARD SCHWARTZ Lafayette Hill, Pa., July 10, 2000

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CPAN: Americans Favor Missile Defense, Reject Foreign Leaders Dictating U.S. Defense Policy

U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770
07/14 13:29
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0714-122.html

Contact: Diana Banister or Kevin Mcvicker, 800-536-5920 or 703-739-5920, both of Craig Shirley & Associates

WASHINGTN, July 14 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Coalition to Protect Americans Now (CPAN), a newly formed political organization, today urged President Clinton to reject threats from China and Russia, and proceed to deploy a comprehensive, layered missile defense system that would protect all Americans and their allies from missile attack.

"To allow foreign leaders, especially ones who often act like our adversaries, to dictate our foreign and defense policy is not the American way," says Tom Mead, executive director of the Coalition to Protect Americans Now. "Some of our greatest presidents, courageous men like Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, never backed down to foreign threats. Their policy was 'peace through strength' not appeasement and acquiescence.

"Now we're dealing with a President who can't recognize the Cold War is over and has defaulted on his obligation to protect Americans from missile attack. Experts believe rogue dictators and unstable nations like North Korea, Iran and Iraq are feverishly working to acquire the technological capabilities to launch nuclear weapons at the United States as early as 2003.

"Yet, for seven years the Clinton/Gore administration has sabotaged every effort to deploy an effective missile defense system and appears to be willing to leave the decision to its successor. That is not the kind of leadership this country deserves."

A recent poll commissioned by CPAN and conducted by The Polling Company indicates that 73 percent of the American people are in favor the United States deploying a missile defense system as soon as possible.

"Missile defense will be a key issue in the Presidential and Congressional elections," says Mead. "Will our political leaders vow to protect our nation and its allies from the new threats that face us or will they shirk their responsibility and leave the next generation of Americans defenseless?"

For more information, please contact Diana Banister or Kevin McVicker at Craig Shirley & Associates 800-536-5920 or 703-739-5920.

<a name="military"></a>

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We're listening

July 14, 2000
Inside the Ring
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
Notes from the Pentagon.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring-200071423343.htm

Echelon, the supersensitive snooping network operated worldwide by the United States, with British assistance, is based at Menwith Hall Station, England. It uses major downloading posts at the Joint Analysis Center, Molesworth, England, and Bad Abiling Station, Germany, as well as other sites around the word.

"The military downlinks only have access to military-related information, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro and these places," an intelligence source tells us.

"However, at the [National Security Agency and the White House], they have links into economic intelligence that gives the United States and England incredible power over the global economic status and overall picture of the European financial markets."

The U.S. government does not acknowledge the existence of Echelon, a vacuum for millions of telephone calls, faxes and e-mails. Its satellites and ground-based listening posts home in on communications based on "hearing" key words or certain telephone numbers.

The powerful Echelon has been in the news this year. A former Canadian intelligence agent claims it eavesdrops on average citizens and creates files on the innocent. Paris has begun an investigation to determine if the Americans and British are using Echelon to spy on French companies.

The National Security Agency, this country's electronic eyes and ears, briefly broke out of its shell in March. In a letter, the NSA assured members of Congress that it does not violate U.S. law by intercepting domestic communications.

Still, some in the intelligence field with whom we spoke are not so sure.

Said a second intelligence source: "It is quite an incredible system and it clearly has the capability to monitor line-to-line telephone conversations as well as cellular phones. It can also derive specific information from anything in a microwave transmission to a simple computer message. It is used primarily for national-level strategic intelligence collection. However, I am not unconvinced that economic data is not collected by this system."

Officer shortage

The Army is running short on officers and is cutting corners on promotions to fill the gaps. That's the message sent out last month by Army Lt. Gen. David H. Ohle, the deputy chief of staff for personnel. Gen. Ohle gave a presentation to an infantry conference and made these points:

• The Army is extremely short of captains and to solve the problems the service has decided to promote more second lieutenants to first lieutenant and captain at a faster pace.

"Commanders were asked not to hold their captains from attending the career course," one defense official stated.

• The Army also is running short on majors.

"To fix that problem the next major [promotion] board will have a selection rate of 93 percent," an official told us. Gen. Ohle also said he did not believe the quality of officers would decline as a result of the higher selection rate for promotion.

• The Army is also is running short on lieutenant colonels and colonels. Army officials have been directed to work with light colonels and colonels to find them an assignment that "is to their liking."

"The days of take this assignment or retire are over," the official said.

To deal with the problem of lieutenants leaving the service, all Army leaders have been asked to talk to lieutenants about staying in.

"Many lieutenants are getting out and saying they were never asked or had a discussion to stay in," the official said, noting that Army leaders have been directed to "change" in order to keep younger officers in. "Working 12-to 15-hour days in garrison every day doesn't help," the official said.

Gen. Ohle said the Army chief's goal of filling out all divisions to 100 percent can be met. But doing so will be difficult. To fully staff all the divisions, it will require an additional 12,500 soldiers to meet the authorized amount now permitted by Congress.

Also, beginning Oct. 1, all retiring service members must wait six months after submitting a request before leaving.

"We used to work hard to get you retired in a week or two, if circumstances required it. Not under this regulation anymore," Gen. Ohle said.

Mrs. Cohen in China

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen has been having protocol problems after hastily adding his wife, Janet, to his weeklong trip to China and Australia.

Mrs. Cohen was put on the trip only three days before his arrival July 11, driving the bureaucracy-heavy Chinese military crazy.

First, there was a dispute over not allowing Mrs. Cohen to ride with her husband to the hotel because it would upset the rules laid down by Lt. Gen. Xiong Guangkai, the deputy chief of staff for intelligence in the People's Liberation Army.

Then on Wednesday, Mrs. Cohen was late in leaving the hotel and the defense secretary left her behind to avoid offending his Chinese hosts. Well, the Chinese insisted that Mrs. Cohen be there for the meeting and waited until she arrived before starting the session.

Later, the Chinese insisted that Mrs. Cohen, a former TV newscaster, visit China's government-run television station. Mrs. Cohen was hesitant, but agreed to go as long as her husband went along as her guest. This created huge problems for the Chinese, who had trouble figuring out the protocol for that event.

Intercepts

• Elaine Donnelly, who keeps an eye on military tradition as head of the Center for Military Readiness, is not confining herself to the U.S. armed forces. Her latest newsletter takes readers on a tour of military social issues in seven foreign nations.

Canada funded a soldier's sex-change operation and is designing a "combat bra" at a cost of $2.4 million. An advisory committee wants Canada's relatively small armed forces to include 28 percent women and "fast track" promotions for them.

Britain is setting up trials for women in land combat. At the same time, it is so low on ammo that some recruits fire "imaginary" bullets. British soldiers who don't like their orders can sue commanders under the European Convention on Human rights.

Sweden has opened its small coastal submarines to mixed-sex crews, who shower and bunk together during brief stints at sea. "Love relationships" are not unusual, the Navy Times reports.

• Adm. Dennis Blair, head of U.S. Pacific Command, is defending a decision by U.S. Forces Korea to send a warning message to the troops about possible attacks from South Korean citizens. The command sent the alert in late June after an Army major was fatally stabbed and a military wife assaulted - both in broad daylight.

"We've had these pretty big demonstrations down off of Osan," said Adm. Blair, referring to the site of a U.S. base. "And so we have upped the level of concern of U.S. officers and all of our folks around the base. We haven't buttoned up the bases or any of that. We've just told people to watch out for each other, to be more careful because there are more disturbances in the air and prudent measures are being taken. . . . The Korean officers and officials that I've talked to do not see it as a long-term increase in antipathy toward the United States."

• Bill Gertz can be reached at 202/636-3274 or by e-mail at gertz@twtmail.com. Rowan Scarborough can be reached at 202/636-3208 or by e-mail at scarbo@twtmail.com.

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Analysis: Lockheed Buy Prepares BAE for Mega-Deal

Reuters
July 14, 2000 Filed at 11:20 a.m. ET
By Alessandra Galloni
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-bae-ush-dc.html

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's BAE Systems gained important ground in the United States on Friday by signing a deal to buy Lockheed Martin's aerospace electronics units and is now well placed for a major U.S. link up.

The British defense contractor had been a frontrunner to buy Lockheed's businesses, which make jet self-protection systems, infra-red radars and reconnaissance and navigation systems, and analysts said it ended up negotiating a good price.

The $1.67 billion cash deal is about 1.4 times sales, which is considerably lower than the benchmark price/sales ratio for similar defense deals of about 1.8 times, they said.

And while the deal will be earnings neutral in the first year, it will propel BAE into a leading position in the world's fast growing defense electronics business.

``With this, BAE has one of the best portfolio's in defense electronics capability in the world and that's where the big bucks are,'' said Morgan Stanley aerospace analyst Tim Bennett.

But the greater strategic value of the deal, which needs to be approved by U.S. regulators, is that it furthers BAE's steady expansion into the huge U.S. defense market, preparing it for what many see as the company's ultimate goal -- merging with a big aerospace company such as Boeing Co.

``If BAE gets this, its another example of being credible in the U.S. Strategically, the next step is a mega-deal,'' said Nick Fothergill at Donaldson Lufkin and Jenrette.

``And while this puts them closer to Lockheed, its also gives them such scale in a high value added business, that they become more attractive to Boeing.''

BAE shares did not reflect the industry's optimism on Friday, largely because the deal did not come as a surprise, analysts said. The shares were sluggish for most of the day and were trading 1.99 percent down at 432p by 10:30 a.m.

BAE CLOSES IN ON U.S.

As its partners in continental Europe have consolidated, BAE has sought more and more deals in the United States.

The purchase of Marconi Electronic Systems from Britain's General Electric Co. last year included a big U.S. business. Earlier his year, BAE bought Lockheed's control-systems unit.

As a result, about 25 percent of BAE's sales are generated in the United States and the company already does more business with the Pentagon than with the British Ministry of Defense.

CSFB analyst Harald Hendrikse says that, with this exposure to the U.S. market, BAE will benefit from an expected 50 percent growth in the U.S. defense budget between 2001 and 2004.

But many analysts believe BAE's ultimate goal is to merge with Boeing. BAE itself has stoked speculation by saying that, since its acquisition of Marconi, it needed one more big deal.

It has suggested a merger with smaller U.S. firm Northrop Grumman Corp would get in the way of a bigger U.S. deal. There are only three U.S. companies that could make a bigger deal, and two of them -- Lockheed and Raytheon Co are close competitors of BAE in defense. Boeing is the third.

GROWTH IN DEFENSE ELECTRONICS

With the new Lockheed unit, BAE Systems's North American business will have turnover of 2.772 billion pounds and will employ 25,000 people, according to a BAE spokesman.

The deal includes New-Hampshire-based Sanders, which produces airborne electronic warfare and countermeasures for jets including the U.S. airforce's F-22 fighter.

``BAE will basically dominate the cockpit of fighter aircraft like the F22, the F10 and the Joint Strike Fighter,'' said Fothergill, who estimates revenue from Sanders could grow 15 percent per year over the next four years.

``It'll be on the cutting edge of jamming systems, mechanisms that grab missiles with a laser: the supersexy stuff.''

Like BAE's other U.S. deals, the Lockheed purchase is likely to face extensive regulatory review, especially because of the potential for national security fears from a foreign company gaining such highly sensitive and often classified technology.

But BAE and Lockheed said they would work closely with regulators and indicated they did not expect major problems.

``We have had a very good security record in the United States over the last 15 to 20 years,'' a BAE spokesman said. ``It's a well-worn path.''

---

Lockheed Plans To Sell Unit

Associated Press
July 13, 2000 Filed at 9:08 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/f/AP-Lockheed-BAE.html

BETHESDA, Md. (AP) -- Lockheed Martin Corp. plans to sell its aerospace electronics unit to a British defense firm in a $1.67 billion deal announced Thursday evening.

The sale is part of a Lockheed restructuring announced in September.

The North American unit of BAE Systems will acquire all the assets of Lockheed's Aerospace Electronics Systems, which employs about 5,300 workers in five states. All active employees will be offered jobs with BAE Systems, Lockheed said in a news release.

Aerospace Electronics Systems includes Sanders, a New Hampshire firm that makes ``black box'' data recorders in airplanes; Fairchild Systems; and Space Electronics and Communications.

Major products include systems for aircraft self-protection, tactical surveillance and intelligence along with reconnaissance and navigation systems. The unit posted $1.2 billion in revenue last year.

BAE Systems, headquartered in Farnborough, England, will pay cash for the businesses. Lockheed will apply $1.3 billion toward debt reduction and take a one-time charge $1 billion or $2.50 a share for goodwill and intangibles in the third quarter.

The transaction, approved Thursday by the boards of both companies, is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

BAE has snapped up four of the eight business that Lockheed put on the block last year in an effort to streamline itself and boost the company's sagging stock. In April, Lockheed announced plans to sell its Control Systems business to BAE.

Lockheed sold a subsidiary maintaining underground nuclear waste tanks at a site in Washington state to Denver-based CH2M Hill Companies in December.

``We are making excellent progress on the execution of our plan to refocus Lockheed Martin,'' said Lockheed Martin chairman and chief executive Vance D. Coffman.

BAE Systems, the world's third-largest defense and aerospace group, was formed last year when British Aerospace acquired Marconi Electronics.

Lockheed, the No. 2 defense contractor, had more than $25 billion in sales in 1999 and employed about 140,000.

Related Information From Hoover's Inc. Lockheed Martin Corp

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U.S. Military Aid to Colombia Brings Focus on Abuses
Wellstone & El Salado massacre
Friday July 14 10:07 PM ET
From: coreya@ucs.orst.edu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One day after President Clinton boosted military aid to Colombia, a U.S. senator called on his administration on Friday to investigate recent massacres by death squads linked to the Colombian army.

"This is no longer Colombia's business. It is our business because we provided the money for a military that is complicit in human rights violations and the murder of innocent people, including small children," Sen. Paul Wellstone, a Minnesota Democrat, said on the floor of the Senate.

Wellstone wrote to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright seeking an investigation into massacres of Colombian peasants last weekend and in February by right-wing paramilitary groups that rights groups say are backed by Colombia's army.

The senator asked the administration to ensure that army troops and officers linked to rights violations do not join U.S.-funded battalions formed to fight drug traffickers and left-wing guerrillas.

Clinton signed a bill on Thursday that provides $1.3 billion for the war on drugs in Colombia, raising U.S. military involvement in the violence-wracked South American nation.

The aid includes 60 helicopters to deploy U.S.-trained troops in an anti-drug offensive in southern Colombia, source of most of the cocaine and heroin sold on U.S. streets.

Wellstone said the aid package has few strings attached and will be going to a military that ``does not lift a finger while these paramilitary death squads massacre innocent people.''

Wellstone referred, in particular, to the massacre of 28 villagers in El Salado, in the northern province of Bolivar, in February.

Right-wing gunmen danced and drank as they tortured and beheaded victims in the village's basketball court during the raid, government investigators said.

Nearby marine units failed to stop the executions.

Army Complicity With Death Squads

Just one week ago, 20 hooded gunmen killed six peasants in a village square in northwest Colombia as an army helicopter hovered overhead and soldiers patrolled nearby, according to a church group.

The massacre in the hamlet of La Union, in the war-torn banana region of Uraba, was the latest sign of complicity between death squads and the military, said the Bogota-based Intercongregational Commission for Justice and Peace.

Human rights groups, such as Amnesty International, have long criticized the Colombian army for abetting paramilitary groups and allowing them to do the ``dirty work'' of repressing peasants who sympathize with guerrillas in a civil war that has killed 35,000 people in the last decade alone.

Rights activists fear the militarization of U.S. anti-drug aid to Colombia will only make matters worse.

White House drug policy director Gen. Barry McCaffrey stressed on Thursday that the aid package provides $48.5 million for improved human rights support.

McCaffrey said Colombia's government had made progress in investigating rights abusers in the miliary and cutting ties to the paramilitary groups that, like the guerrillas, are involved in the multibillion dollar drug trade.

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From: Colombian Labor Monitor xx738@prairienet.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JULY 14, 2000 4:51 PM
CONTACT: Senator Paul Wellstone Jim Farrell or Mark Hilpert 202/224-8440

Wellstone Demands Albright Investigate Latest Frenzy of Killing and Torture by Death Squads Tied to Colombian Military

WASHINGTON - July 14 - U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone today strongly called on Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to move swiftly to investigate the reported murder and disappearance of 71 civilians in February in El Salado and six civilians this past weekend in La Union, Colombia., and see to it that those involved in these atrocities are brought to justice.

According to an article in today's New York Times, on February 17th a paramilitary group killed 36 people in El Salado, sixteen of which were executed in the town's basketball court. Another 18 were killed in the surrounding countryside, and 17 are still missing. Both massacres were allegedly committed by paramilitary groups in collaboration with members of the Colombian Armed Forces. Yesterday, President Clinton signed a bill that will provide hundred of millions of dollars in military assistance to the Colombian government to support its counter narcotics efforts.

In his letter to Albright today, Wellstone wrote: "During the debate surrounding Plan Colombia, the Administration and the Colombian government pledged to work to reduce the production and supply of cocaine while protecting human rights. The continuing reports of human rights abuses in Colombia confirm our grave reservations regarding the Administration's ability to effectively manage the use of the resources that will be provided while protecting the human rights of Colombian citizens."

During the debate in Congress over Plan Colombia, Wellstone and others objected to the plan's military component, the "Push into Southern Colombia," given the detailed and abundant evidence of continuing close ties between the Colombian Army and paramilitary groups responsible for gross human rights violations. The final package was conditioned on the Administration and the Colombian government ensuring that ties between the Armed Forces and paramilitaries are severed, and that Colombian Armed Forces personnel who are credibly alleged to have committed gross human rights violations are held accountable.

Wellstone put the following questions to Secretary Albright:

"1) How will the Administration ensure a vetting process guaranteeing that Colombians indirectly facilitating human rights violations, as well as those accused of direct violations, will not serve in battalions being trained by the United States military?

2) What will the Administration do to ensure that the alleged murders and human rights abuses in El Salado are investigated, and that those responsible are prosecuted?

3) How will the Administration address the needs of the victims at El Salado, including the nearly 3,000 residents displaced by the incident?"

While the evidence in this case strongly indicates the link between the armed forces and the paramilitaries in the massacre at El Salado, it clearly confirms a negligence of the duty of the Colombian military and police to protect the civilian population. Similarly, on July 8, helicopters and soldiers from the Colombian 17th Army Brigade appear to have facilitated killings of six men by a paramilitary unit in La Union. "We are very concerned about the credibility of the vetting process used to insure that Colombian soldiers accused of human rights violations will not serve in the battalions scheduled to receive training from the United States military. It is our understanding that the vetting process checks only for those accusations of direct involvement in human rights violations and does not consider the fact that soldiers may indirectly facilitate abuses. This is reported to have been the case in El Salado," Wellstone wrote. cIn June, Wellstone blasted the Clinton Administration's "Push into Southern Columbia" military plan during Senate debate, and offered an amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill that sought to transfer $225 million from aid earmarked for the Columbian military into U.S. domestic drug treatment programs. The Wellstone amendment failed by a vote of 89-11following an intensive lobbying effort against it by the Administration.

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U.S. biowarfare against the Colombian people

From: iacenter@iacenter.org
*News Advisory*
July 7, 2000
Attention: Assignment Editor
Contact: Brad Lawton; Andrew McInerney (212) 633-6646

A portion of the 1.3 billion dollars allotted to the Colombian Military in the recent US "Plan Colombia" package is set aside to facilitate the large scale distribution of a toxic fungus (Fusarium oxsporum, EN-4 strain) over coca-producing regions. "The U.S. plans to spread this toxic fungus are only part of the Plan Colombia, 90% of which is military aid and includes 18 Blackhawk and 42 Huey II helicopters. The US had to enact Plan Colombia, heightening the war against the impoverished Colombian people, in order to maintain its imperialist domination of the region. The spraying of the Fusarium fungus as a Biological Warfare agent is just another example of US escalation of the Colombian civil war," stated Andy McInerney, a Colombia expert at the International Action Center.

The US Government's imperial alibi for use of the toxic fungus is the "War on Drugs," but numerous Colombian scientists are still opposed to the plan. Eduardo Posada, head of the Colombian Center For International Physics, wrote a letter of opposition to the Colombian Minister of the Environment stating that, "The mortality rate for people infected by Fusarium is 76 percent." Posada lists the scientific literature indicating that fusarium toxins are "highly toxic" to animals and humans.

The application of the fungus in Colombia will explode the internal refugee problem. People fleeing from the areas rendered unlivable by the EN-4 application will certainly be malnourished and potential victims for infection by the fungus, which has been documented in medical literature to kill patients with suppressed immune systems. Jeremy Bigwood, an ethnobotanist, stated at the 13th International Conference on Drug Policy Reform that, "To then apply a myoherbicide from the air that has been associated with a 76% kill rate in hospitalized human patients is tantamount to biological warfare."

The US government and Dr. David Sands, who developed the EN- 4 strain as a mycoherbicide, or fungal plant-killer, while working for the Department of Agriculture, continue to maintain that the fungus is not harmful to humans, animals, or plants, other than the intended target. Sands however can hardly be counted as nonbiased as vice president of Ag/Bio Con Inc., the corporation that owns the EN-4 strain and the plans for the deployment apparatus.

The US-directed coca eradication crusade of the past decade has failed to stop coca growing, but has destroyed farms and sickened peasants. Despite the massive effort of the Colombian National Police to spray coca fields from the air with glyphosate (Roundup as marketed by Monsanto), tebuthiuron (Spike 20 as marketed by Dow Agro) and other powerful chemical herbicides, coca production in Colombia has expanded. There have been reports that Roundup has sickened children and killed food crops, but the effects of Roundup do not compare to the threat posed by the toxic fungus. Even Luis Parra, a herbicide expert monitoring the chemical spraying to eradicate coca, is opposed to the use of Fusarium. He says, "It is very different to apply a chemical herbicide (such as Roundup) that has known predictable and undeniable risk, than to apply a microbe (such as a mycoherbicide) where the risks are unknown."

The problem of drug trafficking was recently addressed at a June 29-30th Conference of Illicit Drug Crops and Environment, held as part of talks between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia- People's Army (FARC-EP) and the Colombian Government. Representatives of 21 nations heard testimony of peasants from coca-producing regions about the devastating effects of fumigation on their lives. The FARC presented the government with a five year test plan to stop coca growing completely in one region of Colombia through government aid that would allow farmers to plant alternative crops. The government rejected the plan completely. The U.S. refused even to attend the conference. "The Solution is not fumigation. Money is needed for social investment in order to begin plans to replace cocca, poppy and marijuana with healthy products", said Raul Reyes, a spokesman for the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia).

"We are organizing against US intervention in Colombia and in support of the Colombian people's struggle for liberation," explained Sara Flounders, co-director of the International Action Center and leading activist against US use of depleted uranium weapons.

Stop U.S. intervention in Colombia!
U.S. Hands off the Liberation Movements!

International Action Center
39 West 14th Street, Room 206
New York, NY 10011
email: iacenter@iacenter.org
web: www.iacenter.org
CHECK OUT THE NEW SITE
www.mumia2000.org phone: 212 633-6646 fax: 212 633-2889

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Colombians Tell of Massacre, as Army Stood By

New York Times
July 14, 2000
By LARRY ROHTER
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/americas/071400colombia-violence.html

EL SALADO, Colombia -- The armed men, more than 300 of them, marched into this tiny village early on a Friday. They went straight to the basketball court that doubles as the main square, residents said, announced themselves as members of Colombia's most feared right-wing paramilitary group, and with a list of names began summoning residents for judgment.

A table and chairs were taken from a house, and after the death squad leader had made himself comfortable, the basketball court was turned into a court of execution, villagers said. The paramilitary troops ordered liquor and music, and then embarked on a calculated rampage of torture, rape and killing.

"To them, it was like a big party," said one of a dozen survivors who described the scene in interviews this month. "They drank and danced and cheered as they butchered us like hogs."

By the time they left, late the following Sunday afternoon, they had killed at least 36 people whom they accused of collaborating with the enemy, left-wing guerrillas who have long been a presence in the area. The victims, for the most part, were men, but others ranged from a 6-year-old girl to an elderly woman. As music blared, some of the victims were shot after being tortured; others were stabbed or beaten to death, and several more were strangled.

Yet during the three days of killing last February, military and police units just a few miles away made no effort to stop the slaughter, witnesses said. At one point, they said, the paramilitaries had a helicopter flown in to rescue a fighter who had been injured trying to drag some victims from their home.

Instead of fighting back, the armed forces set up a roadblock on the way to the village shortly after the rampage began, and prevented human rights and relief groups from entering and rescuing residents.

While the Colombian military has opened three investigations into what happened here and has made some arrests of paramilitaries, top military officials insist that fighting was under way in the village between guerrillas and paramilitary forces -- not a series of executions. They also insist that the colonel in charge of the region has been persecuted by government prosecutors and human rights groups. Last month he was promoted to general, even though examinations of the incidents are pending.

What happened in El Salado last February -- at the same time that President Clinton was pushing an aid package to step up antidrug efforts here -- goes to the heart of the debate over the growing American backing of the Colombian military. For years the United States government and human rights groups have had reservations about the Colombian military leadership, its human rights record and its collaboration with paramilitary units.

The Colombian Armed Forces and police are the principal beneficiaries of a new $1.3 billion aid package from Washington. The Colombian government says it has been working hard to sever the remnants of ties between the armed forces and the paramilitaries and has been training its soldiers to observe international human rights conventions even during combat.

"The paramilitaries are some of the worst of the terrorists who profit from drugs in Colombia, and in no way can anyone justify their human rights violations," said Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, the White House drug policy director. But he said "the Colombian military is making dramatic improvements in its human rights record," and noted that the aid package includes "significant money, $46 million, for human rights training and implementation."

But human rights groups, pointing to incidents like the massacre here, say these links still exist and that mechanisms to monitor and punish commanders and units have had limited success at best.

"El Salado was the worst recorded massacre yet this year," said Andrew Miller, a Latin American specialist for Amnesty International USA, who spent the past year as an observer near here. "The Colombian Armed Forces, specifically the marines, were at best criminally negligent by not responding sooner to the attack. At worst, they were knowledgeable and complicit."

The paramilitary attack on El Salado killed more people and lasted longer than any other in Colombia this year. But in most other respects it was an operation so typical of the 5,500-member right-wing death squad that goes by the name of the Peasant Self-Defense of Colombia that the Colombian press treated it as just another atrocity.

The paramilitary groups were founded in the early 1980's, mostly funded by agricultural interests to protect them from extortion and kidnapping by the left-wing guerrillas. The paramilitary groups were declared illegal over a decade ago, but have continued to operate, often with clandestine military support and intelligence, and in recent years have become increasingly involved in drug trafficking.

Over the past 18 months, more than 2,500 people, most of them unarmed peasants in rural areas like this village in northern Colombia, have died in more than 500 attacks by what the Colombian government calls "illegal armed groups" involved in the country's 35-year-old civil conflict. And according to the government, right-wing paramilitary groups are responsible for most of those killings.

Since the El Salado massacre, nearly 3,000 residents of the area have fled to nearby towns, including El Carmen de Bolívar and Ovejas, as well as the provincial capital, Cartagena. Early this month, more than a dozen of the survivors were interviewed in the towns where they have taken refuge under the protection of human rights groups or the Roman Catholic Church.

Despite efforts to protect them, however, some have recently been killed in individual attacks or have disappeared, actions for which the same paramilitary group that attacked their village has been blamed. As a result, all of the survivors interviewed for this story spoke on condition that their names not be used.

Their accounts, however, coincide with investigations conducted by the Colombian government prosecutor's office and by the Colombia office of the United Nations high commissioner for human rights.

Members of a paramilitary unit had attacked this village in 1997, killing five people and warning that they would eventually come back. Many residents fled then, but returned after a few months believing that they were safe until the death squad suddenly reappeared on the morning of Feb. 18.

"I looked up at the hills, and could see armed men everywhere, blocking every possible exit," a farmer recalled. "They had surrounded the town, and almost as soon as they came down, they began firing their guns and shouting, 'Death to the guerrillas.' "

The death squad troops, almost all dressed in military-style uniforms with a blue patch, made their way to the basketball court at the center of the village. They took tables and chairs from a nearby building, pulled out a list of names and began the search for victims.

"Some people were shot, but a lot of them were beaten with clubs and then stabbed with knives or sliced up with machetes," one witness said. "A few people were beheaded, or strangled with metal wires, while others had their throats cut."

The list of those to be executed was supplied by two men, one of whom was wearing a ski mask. Paramilitary leaders, who have acknowledged the attack on El Salado but describe it as combat with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, later said that the two men were FARC deserters who had dealt with local people and knew who had been guerrilla sympathizers.

"It was all done very methodically," one witness said. "Some people were brought to the basketball court, but were saved because someone would say, 'Not that one,' and they would be allowed to leave. But I saw a woman neighbor of mine, who I know had nothing at all to do with the guerrillas, knocked down with clubs and then stabbed to death."

While some paramilitaries searched for people to kill, others were breaking into shops and stealing beer, rum and whiskey. Before long, a macabre party atmosphere prevailed, with the paramilitaries setting up radios with dance music and ordering a local guitarist and accordionist to play.

In addition, a young waitress from a cantina adjoining the basketball court was ordered to keep a steady supply of liquor flowing. As the armed men grew drunk and rowdy, they repeatedly raped her, along with several other women, according to residents and human rights groups.

As night fell, some residents fled to the wooded hills above town. Others, however, stayed in their homes, afraid of being caught if they tried to escape, unable to move because they had small children, or convinced that they would not be harmed.

Saturday was more of the same. "All day long we could hear occasional bursts of gunfire, along with the screams and cries of those who were being tortured and killed," said a woman who had taken refuge in the hills with her small children.

Of the 36 people killed in town, 16 were executed at the basketball court. An additional 18 people were killed in the countryside, residents and human rights workers said, and 17 more are still missing, making for a death toll that could be as high as 71.

By Friday afternoon, however, news of the slaughter had spread to El Carmen de Bolívar, about 15 miles away. Relatives of El Salado residents rushed to local police and military posts, but were rebuffed.

"We made a scandal and nearly caused a riot, we were so insistent," said a 40-year-old-man who had left El Salado early on Friday because he had business in town. "But they did nothing to help us."

Not only did the armed forces and the police not come to the aid of the villagers here, but the roadblock they set up prevented humanitarian aid from entering the village. Anyone seeking to enter the area was told the road was unsafe because it had been mined and that combat was going on between guerrilla and paramilitary units.

In a telephone interview, three Colombian Navy admirals said that residents of El Salado were accusing the military of complicity in the massacre because they had been coerced by guerrillas." The roadblock was set up, they said, to prevent more deaths or injuries to civilians.

"At no point was there collaboration on our part, nor would we have permitted their passage" through the area, Adm. William Porras, the second in command of the Colombian Navy, said of the death squad unit. "We never at any point were covering up for them or helping them, as all the subsequent investigations have shown."

But local residents, Colombian prosecutors investigating the massacre and human rights groups say there was no combat. Villagers say that the armed forces had not been in the center of El Salado recently, and that they had left the outlying areas a day before. Residents also say they had passed over the dirt road that Friday morning and there were no mines.

"The army was on patrol for two or three days before the massacre took place, and then suddenly they disappeared," recalled a 43-year-old tobacco farmer. "It can't be explained, and it seems very curious to me."

What has been established is that the villagers were simple peasants, and not the guerrillas the paramilitary leader says his troops were fighting. "It is quite clear that these were defenseless people and that what they were subjected to was not combat, but abuse and torture," said a foreign diplomat who has been investigating.

Residents said the paramilitaries felt so certain that government security forces would stay away that late on Friday they had a helicopter flown in. It landed in front of a church and picked up a death squad fighter who was injured when a family he was trying to drag out of their house to be taken to the basketball court resisted.

In a report published last February, Human Rights Watch found "detailed, abundant and compelling evidence of continuing close ties between the Colombian Army and paramilitary groups responsible for gross human rights violations." All told, "half of Colombia's 18 brigade-level units have documented links to paramilitary activity," the report concluded.

"Far from moving decisively to sever ties to paramilitaries, Human Rights Watch's evidence strongly suggests that Colombia's military high command has yet to take the necessary steps to accomplish this goal," the report stated.

At the time of the El Salado massacre, the senior military officer in this region was Col. Rodrigo Quiñones Cárdenas, commander of the First Navy Brigade, who has since been promoted to general. As director of Naval Intelligence in the early 1990's, he was identified by Colombian prosecutors as the organizer of a paramilitary network responsible for the killings of 57 trade unionists, human rights workers and members of a left-wing political party.

In 1994, Colonel Quiñones and seven other soldiers were charged with "conspiring to form or collaborate with armed groups." But after the main witness against him was killed in a maximum security prison and the case was moved from a civilian court to a military tribunal, the colonel was acquitted.

According to the same investigation by Colombian prosecutors, one of Colonel Quiñones's closest associates in that paramilitary network was Harold Mantilla, a colonel in the Colombian Marines.

Today, Colonel Mantilla is commander of the Fifth Marine Battalion, which operates in the area around El Salado and is one of the units said by residents and human rights workers to have failed to respond to appeals for help.

After the paramilitary unit left El Salado, the police captured 11 paramilitaries northeast of here on the ranch of a drug trafficker who is in prison in Bogotá. Along with four others who were arrested separately, they are facing murder charges, but their leaders and most of the others who carried out the killings remain free.

More than four months after the massacre, El Salado is virtually deserted. Only one of the town's 1,330 original residents was present when a reporter and human rights workers visited early this month, and he said the village remains as it was the day the death squad left, except for the two mass graves on a rise near the basketball court where the bodies were buried and later exhumed for investigators.

The tables and chairs used by the paramilitary "judges," smashed or overturned as they left, are still strewn across the basketball court.

"I don't know if the people are ever going to want to come back again," the resident said. "What happened here was just too terrible to bear, and we didn't deserve it."

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Four Die in Colombia Rebel Attack

Associated Press
July 13, 2000 Filed at 9:55 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Colombia-Rebels.html

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Leftist guerillas attacked three towns with rockets Thursday, killing the wife and three children of a police officer who was fighting off the attack.

The attack on the town of Colombia left the police station and dozens of homes destroyed. The officer's home was hit by the missiles fashioned from natural gas canisters

Fighters from the country's largest rebel band also attacked Vegalarga, another town in Huila State, and Alpujarra, in neighboring Tolima, leaving police barracks, stores, banks and homes in damaged by the missiles, officials said.

Army troops in helicopters pursued the retreating members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The group is engaged in peace talks with the government of President Andres Pastrana aimed at ending Colombia's 36-year conflict. However, the slow-moving negotiations are proceeding without a cease-fire.

-------- drug war

Colombian Faces U.S. Trial

New York Times
July 14, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/colombia-us-ap.html

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, July 13 -- Colombia extradited a suspected cocaine smuggler to the United States today, the second time President Andrés Pastrana has sent one of his countryman to stand trial abroad.

Orlando García, 47, faces a New Jersey indictment for allegedly shipping 230 pounds of cocaine to the United States, officials said. A heroin suspect was sent to the United States last November.

-------- fiji

Last of Hostages Freed in Fiji as Chiefs Pick New President

New York Times
July 14, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/071400fiji-hostages-ap.html

SUVA, Fiji, July 13 -- After two months of national crisis, the leader of a coup here freed the ousted prime minister and 17 others today.

Later the Great Council of Chiefs, Fiji's traditional power, elected as president Ratu Josefa Iloilo, who was the choice of the coup leader, George Speight.

Mr. Speight made clear that three decades of democracy in Fiji were at an end. His rebels said they had taken the hostages inside Parliament in a effort to disfranchise Fiji's ethnic Indian minority.

This morning, the former prime minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, shook hands with Mr. Speight and they hugged. The hostages then were taken to the Red Cross building for medical checkups.

Later, Mr. Speight walked into a news conference wearing a Western-style suit jacket, the traditional Fijian sulu skirt and sunglasses in the evening darkness. A horde of reporters chased him, asking him how he felt. "Excellent," he replied.

What was left behind was a vastly different Fiji.

The elected government is gone, ethnic tensions remain inflamed and the tourist industry is ravaged. The United States and other countries have urged their citizens to leave, and the tiny nation faces the possibility of sanctions.

The crisis began May 19 when Mr. Speight's rebels stormed Parliament and took several dozen hostages, including Mr. Chaudhry.

The rebels are indigenous Fijians who said the nation's large ethnic Indian minority had too much power. They demanded that Fiji's Constitution be scrapped and that Mr. Chaudhry be deposed.

In the days after the seizure, Speight supporters looted and burned ethnic Indian homes and businesses, and many Indians made plans to flee the country. The violence led Fiji's military to declare martial law.

On Sunday, after weeks of negotiations, military leaders and Mr. Speight reached a deal to free the hostages in exchange for meeting many of Mr. Speight's demands, including a new government and a new Constitution curtailing Indian rights.

The Great Council of Chiefs' selection of Mr. Iloilo as president raised hopes that civil unrest would abate. They were to meet Friday to choose two vice presidents, endorse the cabinet proposed by Mr. Speight and decide who will serve on a commission to write a new constitution.

For the most part, the civil disturbances that began sweeping the country a week ago in support of Mr. Speight began easing shortly after the hostage release. Roadblocks that had cut off traffic between the international airport and the capital, Suva, were removed.

-------- ireland

Despite Calls for Protest, Soldiers Remove Barrier in Ulster

New York Times
July 14, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/late/14ap-nireland.html

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Despite continuing calls for protests at the site, security forces on Friday dismantled a steel barrier blocking members of a Protestant brotherhood from marching through a Catholic neighborhood.

The barrier was removed from the area near Drumcree church in Portadown, the site of years of tension between Catholics and members of the Protestant Orange Order. The Orangemen demand the right to march through a Catholic neighborhood. Catholics say the parade just inflames sectarian hatred.

Orangemen in Portadown, furious at having their parade blocked for a second year, called Friday for more demonstrations. But they found themselves out of step with Orange Order leaders, who said it was time to end days of protests over the issue.

``People have had enough,'' said Robert Saulters, the group's Grand Master of Ireland. ``I think it's time we sat back and reflected.'.

The Royal Ulster Constabulary said police and the army would maintain a reduced presence around Drumcree, where 2,000 troops were brought in to help prevent Sunday's march from going down Garvaghy Road into the Catholic neighborhood.

Northern Ireland's Parades Commission told the Orangemen they might be allowed to march on the road if they negotiate an agreement with Catholic residents, but the Orangemen refuse to hold talks.

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NORTHERN IRELAND: ORANGEMEN URGE PROTEST

New York Times
July 14, 2000
World Briefing

Portadown Orangemen called for renewed province-wide protests against the decision denying them the right to parade through a Catholic neighborhood near Drumcree church despite widespread criticism from fellow Protestants of their earlier request to "take to the streets" and the nights of violence that followed. The Royal Ulster Constabulary issued figures showing that over 10 days there were 329 attacks on the police and army, leaving 81 officers and 6 soldiers injured, 305 firebomb incidents, 105 vehicles hijacked and 404 others burned, and 174 buildings damaged. Warren Hoge (NYT)

-------- korea

S.Korea Narrows Family Reunions

Associated Press
July 14, 2000 Filed at 6:36 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Koreas-Family-Reunions.html

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- South Korea's Red Cross came up with a list Friday of 200 candidates who may be reunited with their relatives in communist North Korea after half a century of separation.

South Korea will hand over its pared-down list to North Korea, which will in turn hand over a separate list of 200 North Koreans to the South on Sunday.

After both sides identify those whose families are dead or cannot be found, the number will be narrowed to 100 each. Names of the selected South Koreans will be released late this month.

The deal is part of an agreement struck by South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il during a historic summit June 13-15 in Pyongyang.

The two leaders agreed to ease hostilities and seek an eventual unification of the Koreas.

During last month's summit, both sides agreed to avoid confrontation -- especially along their heavily armed border. But the South still wants to build missiles capable of reaching most of the North.

Under a 1979 deal with Washington, Seoul cannot develop a missile with a range longer than 112 miles, but senior U.S. and South Koreans officials met Friday to work on an agreement that allows South Korea to build such missiles.

Robert Einhorn, U.S. assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation, met with Song Min-soon, director-general of the South Korean Foreign Ministry's North American affairs bureau, and the Defense Ministry policy coordinator, Maj. Gen. Cha Young-koo.

The meetings took place behind closed doors.

Earlier this month South Korea's Red Cross used a computer lottery to select 400 candidates out of 75,000 names they have registered since the 1980s. The number was halved after they sorted out those who have died, are ill or too weak to endure the physical and emotional stress of the journey to Pyongyang.

Of the 200 candidates, 162 are 70 years or older, the Red Cross said.

About 1.2 million people fled North Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War and settled in South Korea. There is no mail, telephone or other direct means of communications between the Koreas.

In the first official family reunions in 1985, 50 people from each side crossed the border for visits with relatives. Efforts to arrange more reunions failed because of political tensions.

-------- u.s.

UN Committee Supports End to U.S. Navy Bombing on Vieques

By Cat Lazaroff
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 11:12:01 -0800
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul2000/2000L-07-13-07.html

NEW YORK, New York, July 13, 2000 (ENS) - A United Nations committee has decided to recommend that the organization officially urge the United States to stop military training activities on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, and return military lands there to Puerto Rico.

The resolution, approved Wednesday, marks the first time in 28 years that the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization has reached consensus on the issue of Puerto Rican sovereignty on Vieques.

Acting without a vote, the Special Committee approved a draft resolution under which the United Nations General Assembly would "encourage the U.S. government to order a halt to its armed forces' military drills and manoeuvres on the inhabited island of Vieques, return the occupied land to the Puerto Rican people, halt the persecution, arrests and harassment of peaceful demonstrators, respect their fundamental rights, and decontaminate the impact area."

For more than a year, hundreds of protesters have camped out on the U.S. Navy bombing ranges on Vieques to prevent the resumption of live fire ammunition training on the island. Training was halted in April 1999 after a stray bomb fired by an F-16 fighter killed a base security guard and injured four other Puerto Ricans.

On May 4, 2000, U.S. federal agents arrived in helicopters at dawn to remove more than 200 protesters. The protesters removed include grassroots community leaders, religious leaders, elected officials from Puerto Rico and the United States including two members of the U.S. Congress and members of the Puerto Rican Legislature; leaders of the Puerto Rican Independence party, students, union members, and well known artists.

But that did not end the protests. Almost every week since early May, handfuls of protesters have been arrested from trespassing on Navy property. Activists claim the protesters have been sprayed with pepper spray and have suffered other abuses at the hands of federal agents and police.

The United Nations Special Committee, which works to ensure the rights of protectorates, colonies, and other non-self governing territories, heard testimony by several petitioners seeking an end to Navy training on Vieques. The Navy owns two-thirds of the 52 square mile (135 square kilometer) island and has conducted live fire training there since 1941.

Decades of military activities have destroyed coral reefs off the Vieques coast and left the island littered with bomb fragments, unexploded ordnance, and radioactive materials from depleted uranium ammunition. These environmental depredations have helped push many Puerto Ricans to support an end to the status of Puerto Rico as a U.S. protectorate.

Juan Maria Bras of Causa Comun Independentista (Proyecto Educativo Puertorriqueno) said the U.S. military had set off the Vieques crisis with the sole purpose of affirming the domination of Puerto Rico, despite the consensus in the commonwealth that it must cease its activity there. "In continuing military exercises on Vieques, raw force had prevailed against what was right," Bras said. "The Navy must end the bombing immediately and leave Vieques forever."

Venessa Ramos of the American Association of Jurists, said that her organization was defending the right of the people of Puerto Rico to gain self-determination and independence. She denounced the use and abuse of Vieques for military exercises, and referred to local authorities as "imperial lackeys" for their complicity. She also pointed out that some ammunition used on Vieques contained depleted uranium, and she condemned the arrests that had occurred in the protests caused by the deaths of inhabitants due to the military bombings.

Those carrying out civil disobedience represent the entire range of Puerto Rican citizens, she said. She requested that the Special Committee draft resolution order the unconditional withdrawal of military forces from Vieques and the return of control to Puerto Rico. And she called on U.S. President Bill Clinton to release Puerto Rican political prisoners. She asked the Special Committee to assist Puerto Rico in achieving sovereignty through a process that included a constituent assembly.

In the draft text it sent to the General Assembly, the Committee expressed its hope that President Clinton would release all Puerto Rican political prisoners serving sentences in U.S. prisons on cases related to the struggle for the independence of Puerto Rico. The group asked the Assembly to "reaffirm the international community's hope that the United States Government would assume the responsibility of expediting a process that would allow the Puerto Rican people to fully exercise their inalienable right to self determination and independence."

Under a December 1999 agreement between Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Rossello and President Clinton, residents of Vieques would have three years to hold a referendum to decide whether they want the bombing to continue on the island. In addition, inert bullets would take the place of live ordnance bombing.

But Marisol Corretjer of Partido Nationalista de Puerto Rico said international law does not uphold the presence of the U.S. in Puerto Rico at all, as it derives from an act of aggression carried out in 1898. The act of aggression invalidated any preceding treaty, such as the Treaty of Paris, under which the U.S. acquired Puerto Rico. Rather than trying to perpetuate its colonial dominance, the U.S. must begin a genuine decolonization exercise, Corretjer said.

Wilma Reveron of the Comité Puerto Rico en la ONU, spoke of the widespread condemnation of the U.S. for evicting protesters from Vieques and resuming military training there. Many people had been imprisoned, and she "found it ironic that those who had raped women in Vieques, polluted its land, and destroyed its lagoons, fisheries, flora and fauna were not only free, but also protected by the whole federal justice system of the United States." That meant that the justice system was in the service of the Navy, Reveron argued, so the people of Puerto Rico had no legal recourse except through the United Nations.

Reveron pointed to the cancer rate of the Vieques population as perhaps the best dramatization of the situation of colonial peoples, whose right to life and health had been violated. The Vieques protests demonstrated the willingness of the Puerto Rican people to take action to change their status. They had joined together to say that not one more bomb should be loosed on the island and to demand that the Navy leave Vieques at once.

Alfredo Marrero of the Comité Pro Rescate y Desarollo de Vieques, said Puerto Rico's colonial situation was most visible in Vieques. The island's situation demonstrated the most negative repercussions of United States colonialism. Many people had died in fights or as a result of bombs strewn all over the land. Vieques was contaminated with napalm, depleted uranium and other toxic materials in its water. He said it had taken the Navy a long time to admit its use of depleted uranium. The Navy treated the population of Vieques like laboratory rats, Marrero said. The anti-Navy demonstrations had shown the unity of the Puerto Rican people and the consensus across all groups, ages and social strata.

----

Army Colonel Sentenced for Not Reporting Wife's Heroin Smuggling

New York Times
July 14, 2000
By ALAN FEUER
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/regional/ny-colonel.html

After being chided by a federal judge for not apologizing for his crimes, a United States Army colonel who once ran the government's antidrug operations in Colombia was sentenced yesterday to five months in prison for never reporting that he knew his wife was smuggling heroin through diplomatic mail from Bogotá to New York City.

The colonel, James C. Hiett, stood with his hands clasped tightly before him in Federal District Court in Brooklyn as Judge Edward R. Korman pronounced his sentence in a weary, troubled whisper.

Moments before the sentence was handed down, Judge Korman asked the colonel if he had anything to say on his own behalf.

His lips set and his chin held high, Colonel Hiett said that he did not.

"How is it you have nothing to say?" Judge Korman then asked, slapping his hand on the desk in what seemed like inadvertent frustration.

"I didn't think I could speak at this point to tell you what I really feel, sir," Colonel Hiett answered crisply, his jaw muscles quivering with restrained emotion.

"The only thing that I did -- that I consciously did -- was try to protect my wife after the fact."

Colonel Hiett admitted in April to paying his household bills with thousands of dollars he knew his wife had earned from shipping heroin from the United States Embassy in Bogotá to accomplices in Manhattan and Queens.

His wife, Laurie Anne Hiett, pleaded guilty in January to drug trafficking charges and is serving a five-year prison term.

The case of Colonel Hiett, who oversaw about 200 American troops charged with training Colombian security forces in counternarcotics operations, has been an embarrassment for the Army, which cleared him of all involvement in the smuggling scheme last year after a three-month investigation.

Despite the Army's findings, Judge Korman excoriated the colonel yesterday.

"When someone in a position of trust engages in conduct like this, it undermines confidence in the military," Judge Korman said.

"It undermines confidence in the country's drug program. And that's what abuse of trust is about."

Colonel Hiett, 48, has already filed for his retirement, which is to take effect in November.

Federal prosecutors have said that he could face a reduced pension, even court-martial.

But Army officials did not return phone calls yesterday seeking comment on the colonel's case.

In an emotional twist to the hearing yesterday, Judge Korman allowed the mother of an Army captain who died in a military plane crash last year while serving under Colonel Hiett's command to address the court before the sentence was issued.

The mother, Janie Shafer, of Brunswick, Md., has accused Colonel Hiett of causing the death of her daughter, Capt. Jennifer Shafer Odom, by revealing secret information about military surveillance flights to Colombian drug traffickers.

Although Judge Korman allowed Ms. Shafer to speak, he acknowledged that there was no evidence to support her allegations.

Standing at the lectern with a photograph of her dead daughter pressed to her chest, Ms. Shafer begged Judge Korman to investigate the plane crash, which the Army has ruled an accident.

Judge Korman said he had no power to investigate the crash, but he consoled Ms. Shafer with gentle words from the bench.

"I'm looking at the picture of your daughter and I'm holding back tears myself," he said.

"I can just imagine your suffering as a parent myself."

---

NATIONAL NEWS BREIFS
Navy Raises Bonuses for Aviators Staying On

New York Times
July 14, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/brief-navy.html

WASHINGTON, July 13 -- The Navy, in an effort to retain its aviators, is nearly doubling its bonuses for those who stay -- to up to $245,000 for a 25-year stint.

''This program is designed to help these aviators in which the Navy has invested so much, to decide to stay Navy,'' said the Navy personnel chief, Vice Adm. Norb Ryan Jr.

The move increases the current $125,000 maximum bonus for those who agree to stay. New aviators can now get that amount with just a five-year commitment, half of it payable in advance, the Navy said.

All services except the Marines have had difficulty meeting recruitment goals in recent years, and the Navy has been losing pilots to commercial aviation.

---

Rockwell Looks Solid, Beating Analyst Estimates

New York Times
July 14, 2000
By MICHAEL BRICK NYTIMES.COM/THESTREET.COM
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/financial/14tsc-rockwell.html

Rockwell International , a maker of electronic devices for industrial and aviation equipment, reported earnings Friday that surpassed Wall Street's expectations.

In a conference call with analysts, company officials predicted growth in their main business lines and said they expect no additional restructuring costs.

For the third quarter ended June 30, net income was $170 million, or 90 cents a diluted share. In the comparable quarter last year, the Milwaukee, Wis.-based company reported earnings of $150 million, or 77 cents a diluted share. Analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial had predicted earnings of 87 cents a diluted share.

Revenue was $1.82 billion compared to $1.81 billion in the comparable quarter, the company said.

Rockwell said it expects earnings for fiscal 2000 to total between $3.40 and $3.45 a share, assuming "continuation of current global business conditions and relatively stable currency rates." Analysts polled by the same research firm predict annual earnings of $3.42 a diluted share.

"Anytime you're making a projection, there's some uncertainty," said W. Michael Barnes, the company's chief financial officer, speaking to analysts in a conference call. "Our plan and expectation is that volume and automation will be some better in the fourth quarter."

He said that prediction includes net gains from the second and third quarters, as well as one-time gains.

Shares of the company's stock rose 2 5/16, or 7 percent, to 36 1/2 in midday trading, off a 52-week high of 64 15/16.

Once a giant of the defense industry, Rockwell continues to reconfigure its business. The company sold its aerospace and defense operations to Boeing and spun off its automotive unit as Meritor and its semiconductor unit as Conexant Systems . Domestic sales account for about 80 percent of its business. The company's remaining restructuring efforts are ambitious: Rockwell has said it intends to cut cycle time and inventory by 50 percent, reduce floor space by 25 percent and cut costs and defects by 30 percent apiece in the next four to six years.

In the quarter, the automation division reported sales of $1.142 billion, which is $8 million more than in the comparable quarter. Avionics and communications sales were $631 million, a gain of $12 million.

But the air transport systems business, a portion of the avionics division, declined 7 percent.

"The systems business was down a little more compared to the same quarter last year," Barnes said. "But it was not down -- in fact it was a little better -- on a sequential basis."

Expenses were significantly reduced thanks to a $28 million gain from the demutualization of Metropolitan Life Insurance. But the automation division took a $15 million charge and the company endured a $5 million equity loss due to SourceAlliance.com, an e-commerce spinoff that raised $25 million in outside financing.

In the quarter, sales in electronic commerce and the science center fell $8 million at $47 million.

Barnes criticized analysts for continuing to focus scrutiny on the company's e-commerce operations, noting that Wall Street hardly discusses the results from much larger business segments.

"I don't think it's necessary to keep quantifying what we're spending on our e-commerce initiatives," he said. "At this point, I don't plan to talk about it any more, because why would you?"

Earlier this year, the company created Rockwell Technologies, a separate business that will market licensing rights for items such as computer chips or a process used to create a sophisticated coating for glass. As it places increased emphasis on selling ideas in addition to electronics products, the company has filed four lawsuits to protect its technology.


-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

TRENDS in RENEWABLE ENERGIES

Issue #138 (week of July 10 - 14)
From: Bill Eggertson <eggertson@renewables.ca>

- A Canadian company has developed a process that uses solar energy to produce hydrogen from water. SHEC claims to have a process that uses reflectors to concentrate sunlight, in order to create the heat that is required to spilt water into hydrogen and oxygen. Reflectors are relatively inexpensive to manufacture, and the process delivers the potential for an economically viable renewable energy source of hydrogen. The renewable energy cycle uses water in the production of hydrogen, which is returned when the hydrogen is consumed as a fuel. The company uses a proprietary water splitting technology that converts water into hydrogen and oxygen with no pollution.

- Australia researchers are working on a system to integrate solar energy with natural gas for the generation of electricity. The hybrid solar-gas system has good potential for use in western Australia, and uses concentrated solar thermal energy to reform natural gas and steam into a mixture of carbon dioxide and hydrogen. The process increases the energy content of the natural gas by 20 percent with embodied solar energy. Variants on the process can produce fuel gases in which the energy content of the natural gas is boosted by up to 40 percent with solar energy, with greatly reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

- Seattle will use renewable energy to provide power to its residents under the looming threat of power shortages, high prices and brownouts. The municipal utility is seeking proposals to provide up to 100 MW of green power, with proposals due by August 25. The RFP supports the Earth Day Resolution passed this year by Council, which commits Seattle to meet increases in electrical demand with a combination of renewable energy resources and conservation. If conventional fossil fuels must be used for generation, the utility must offset any resulting greenhouse gas emissions. More than 60 percent of electricity in Seattle is currently generated by large hydroelectric plants.

- A Florida-based energy company has expended its position as the largest generator of wind power in the U.S. FPL Energy has purchased a 104 MW wind farm in Minnesota from Enron Wind. The Lake Benton II site sells its output to NSP under a 25-year contract. FPL operates wind energy facilities in five states, where total capacity is 974 MW and the company's net ownership is 587 MW. The company will add up to 1,000 MW of wind energy by the end of next year at new projects.

- Consumers in Maryland will not pay sales tax on solar panels and appliances that carry the Energy Star label. A new state law drops the tax on energy efficient appliances or solar power, and tax incentives have been established for the use of solar power, hybrid automobiles, fuel cells and biomass fuels.

- A number of renewable energy groups in Canada want the federal department of environment to become the first 'full green' agency. Environment Canada should follow the leadership of U.S. agencies which have set a target for the consumption of green power by 2010, says the Canadian Solar Industries Association. It should commit to becoming the first federal department that is fully dependant on renewable energy, such as PV electricity and solar thermal heating for all facilities. Such tangible leadership would promote sustainable development more than any single act. All federal departments in Canada must develop a three-year Sustainable Development Strategy before the end of this year.

- A coal power group in Minnesota says renewable energy sources must be developed if the state is to have a secure supply of power. Two-thirds of electricity in Minnesota comes from coal, and the coalition wants that fossil fuel to remain a key element to resolve the pending power crunch. It has released a five-point plan to improve the reliability of the grid, including preservation of existing renewable sources. It wants support for more renewables through lower regulatory hurdles.

- Several Catholic schools in Toronto will purchase renewable energy under a special pilot project. More than $16 million will be invested to retrofit 132 schools, which will result in annual savings of $1.5 million and displace 6.4 million kilograms of carbon dioxide. The work includes the installation of PV panels at several schools, as well as green roofs.

- A pilot program in California will document the source of renewable energy electricity sold in the state. The program will track "specific purchases" that requires retail power suppliers to disclose information on sources, which was part of the 1997 deregulation law. The program may lead to a larger venture to be launched in the near future. Generators in 14 states and in parts of Canada and Mexico are eligible to participate, and the retailers can use the certificates to document the power content they claim on their labels.

- A new U.S. lab in Massachusetts wants to purchase renewable energy. GSA has issued a RFP from energy companies that can provide 100 percent green energy for EPA's laboratory being built in Chelmsford; the deadline is August 2.

- The world's leading manufacturer of wind turbines has received an order for 200 machines to be installed in the U.S. The order with Vestas is worth 500 million kronar. With an option for an additional 600 turbines, the potential value of the contract is worth 2 billion dkr. The order was placed by FPL Energy, the world's largest owner of wind power plants. FPL expects to add up to 1,000 MW of wind power by the end of next year.

- Renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative transport systems will be introduced at U.S. Parks in the southeast. DOE and the National Park Service will incorporate solar systems as part of the national Green Energy Parks Initiative instituted last year. One site in Georgia will use solar hot water systems.

- The power utility in Toronto wants to purchase 15 MW of renewable energy power. THES has released a RFP for electricity from wind, solar, landfill/sewage gas, run of the river water and anaerobic digestion from waste. The capacity must be ready by November, and will form a growing green power pool that will be available for purchase by customers once the power market deregulates in Ontario.

- Renewable energy systems in remote areas are not maintenance-free, and any suggestion that they are will harm the credibility of the renewable energy industry, says a major report released in Australia. Maintenance is needed mainly for the balance of system components and includes regular servicing and storage battery replacement, says ACRE. The survey is the most extensive field market survey on the use of renewable energy systems in remote area power supplies, and details the use of 350 power and water pumping systems at 130 remote sites. Lack of maintenance support for systems was one of the main complaints quantified in the survey, and is one of the major issues to be tackled to obtain a viable renewable energy product in remote regions.

- Solar energy is being used to light the giant fireflies at a science center near Manhattan. The balsa wood fireflies at the Liberty Science Center are illuminated by a 6 kW grid-connected PV system that has 40 panels and batteries. The artwork is powered by solar equipment donated by GPU Solar and funded partially by the DOE. The PV panels are located on one of the center's flat roofs, and the entire power plant covers 1,000 ft2.

- The rising price of natural gas makes renewable energy look more attractive, and a Canadian environmental group says BC Hydro should drop its plan for build gas-fired power stations on Vancouver Island. Generating electricity from natural gas hurts the environment and will hurt rate-payers when prices rise, warns the Suzuki Foundation. Rather than build a new pipeline from the mainland to west coast island, the utility should reduce demand by expanding conservation programs, as well as moving to alternative energy sources.

- AWEA says the proposed national energy strategy of Vice President Al Gore is "bold, decisive support for renewable energy and energy efficiency that will protect the environment while creating new high-tech jobs." A proposal to provide a tax credit for consumers who purchase green power from renewable energy and an increase of the existing production tax credit for wind-generated electricity received specific praise from the wind energy lobby group. Wind power costs only slightly more than electricity from fossil fuels, and is "a bargain" when hidden environmental and public health costs are included.

- The British government will reduce the administrative burden on small companies that generate electricity from renewable energy sources. A licence will not be required from generators that provide less than 100 MW of power to the grid, up from the current exemption of 50 MW. The change affects small power companies, including companies that generate from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, and those that use co- generation facilities.

- The cost of electricity generated from wind turbines will be competitive "within a few years" if the technology receives adequate R&D funding, says U.S. President Bill Clinton. In a national radio address, Clinton said Republicans in Congress are blocking efforts to meet future energy needs, including a reduction of $67 million in funding for solar and renewable energy in the latest House appropriation. The President has asked for funding of $343 million, but that was met with cuts to solar electricity and wind power research, as well as reductions in requested funding for biomass fuels and biopower.

- A number of key officials from the electricity sector met in Chicago to discuss activities to stimulate significant investments in solar energy. The UPVG says a range of organizations are collaborating to improve air quality, electric system reliability, and environmental sustainability while contributing to local economic development. The meeting discussed the roadblocks to solar panels in urban centres, and how other communities can get recognition as solar cities. Last year, Spire opened an office in Chicago to supply $8 million in PV systems to the region.

- Carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels in the U.S. rose 1 percent last year, reaching 1,511 million metric tonnes. The 1999 increase was slightly below the average annual growth rate of 1.2 percent from 1990 to 1999, but higher than the 1998 growth rate of 0.1 percent, says EIA. The emission of carbon dioxide accounts for more than 80 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

- Lee Iacocca has joined the Advisory Board of Commonwealth Energy. He is founder and chair of EV Global Motors, but is best-known for his years with Ford Motor and Chrysler.

- The NREL will use software to help it develop hybrid electric vehicles. The DOE facility has awarded a $650,000 contract to Mechanical Dynamics of Michigan to supply simulation software that will be implemented in the ADvanced VehIcle SimulatOR project, part of the Hybrid Electric Vehicle program.

- A demonstration program of fuel cell buses in California has ended, and the companies involved now will move to the pre- commercial stage of the technology. Ballard and XCELLSIS have concluded their demonstration program with TransLink, and will start field trials of the pre-commercial engines with transit firms in Palm Springs and Oakland.

----

Pacific Hydro signs wind power supply deal

AUSTRALIA : July 14, 2000
Story by Wendy Pugh
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7465

MELBOURNE - Australian renewable energy company Pacific Hydro Ltd said yesterday it had signed an agreement to sell power from its A$33 million windfarm project to electricity retailer Powercor.

Construction on the 18.2 megawatt windfarm at Codrington in south-west Victoria will start this year and be completed in second quarter 2001 amid plans for further wind power generation.

"This A$33 million project is the first non-government wind farm development in Australia and will be Australia's largest wind far when completed," Pacific Hydro managing director Jeff Harding said in a statement.

The in-principle sale and purchase agreement would see the project's entire output marketed by Powercor, a unit of Scottish Power Plc , to meet demand for green energy. Terms of the agreement were not released.

Harding told Reuters Pacific Hydro planned to develop another windfarm of similar size in the region within two to five years.

Wind farms are also being developed by state-owned generators in Queensland, New South Wales, Tasmania and Western Australia.

Western Australian state-owned Wester Power said last month its 22 MW wind-power project would come on line later next year.

Harding said that in Europe last year 3,500 MW of new wind power generation installed, but Australia was only starting to see the potential of the alternative energy source to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"This is the start of what could be an enormous market in Australia because the demand for renewable energy is being driven by Australia's fairly appalling record on reducing CO2 levels," he said.

Renewable energy projects are also expected to get a boost from a Federal Government mandate for an additional two percent of renewable energy to be sourced by 2010

Harding said the Codrington project would save over 76,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year, equivalent to a 20,000 hectare tree plantation.

Pacific Hydro has about 160 MW of mostly hydro power generation in Australia and New Zealand, and is also expanding in the Philippines. It is 35 percent owned by Development Australia Fund (DAF) and 20 percent by American Electric Power .

Pacific Hydro shares were up one cent at 11:50 a.m. (0150 GMT) yesterday at A$1.81 in an overall lower market.

-------- imf / world bank

STINGING IMF AND WORLD BANK, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES VOTES TO END ANTI-POOR POLICY

Robert Weissman
Essential Information | Internet: rob@essential.org
For Immediate Release, July 14, 2000
For More Information, Contact Robert Weissman, 202-387-8030

In a stinging rebuke to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday voted to end one of the financial institutions' most anti-poor policies.

A provision in the House foreign operations appropriations bill will require the IMF and World Bank to cease requiring poor countries to impose "user fees" (charges) for primary education and primary healthcare, including prevention and treatment efforts for AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and infant, child and maternal well-being. The requirement takes effect in 2002.

"IMF and World Bank-imposed user fees deny poor people in Africa and elsewhere access to the most critical basic services," said Robert Weissman, co-director of Essential Action, a Ralph Nader-founded corporate accountability group. "Few policies are more cruel."

"The House of Representatives action will remove barriers imposed by the IMF and World Bank, so more children and especially girls in poor countries will be able to go to school, more families will be able to access services to prevent disease, and more sick people will be able to seek treatment and care," Weissman said.

An amendment added to the foreign operations appropriations bill in committee by Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Illinois, stipulates that funding for the IMF/World Bank's Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative will be made available only when the IMF and World Bank certify that they have stopped requiring countries, as a condition of receiving loans or through other means, to charge user fees for primary education and primary healthcare.

"A debt of gratitude is owed to Representative Jackson for his leadership in ending the IMF and World Bank's heinous practice of forcing governments in poor countries to charge their most vulnerable citizens for basic services," Weissman said.

"For too long, Congress has provided monies to the IMF and World Bank without examining what the institutions are actually doing," Weissman said. "With its recent action, the House of Representatives has taken a first step to end the World Bank and IMF's use of U.S. tax dollars to impose 'structural adjustment' policies that worsen the lives of the world's poorest people."

-------- spying

U.S. and E.U. Clash Over Echelon Spying

Policy.com
Friday, July 14, 2000, 12:56:47 PM EDT
by Paul Flatin, Policy.com
http://www.policy.com/news/dbrief/dbriefarc750.asp

July 13, 2000 -- The European Parliament voted last week to investigate allegations that the United States and allies such as Great Britain used Cold War satellites to conduct industrial espionage in Europe. U.S. intelligence officials never have publicly confirmed the existence of the so-called "Echelon" system and deny eavesdropping on ordinary Americans and Europeans.

Allegedly, Echelon is a spy system of satellites and listening posts around the globe that can intercept millions of telephone, fax and e-mail messages, and in the past, Washington has been accused of using it for economic espionage against its allies. The United States and Britain both have denied the charges. The system includes stations run by the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

With last week's vote, the European Union created a special committee to immediately begin investigating whether the Echelon system really exists and whether European industry has been damaged by global interception of communications. It will also consider whether the spy system violates EU privacy laws and what can be done to protect individuals. The special committee will aim to report back in eight months, and suggest possible countermeasures and sanctions against the nations that participate in the Echelon network.

Critics accuse the U.S. intelligence community and its English-speaking partners of waging what is in effect a new Cold War. Led by France, many European countries worry that what was originally set up as a Cold War tool aimed at the Soviets has been redirected at civilian targets worldwide. A report commissioned by the European Parliament and written by British investigative journalist Duncan Campbell said there was evidence that the Echelon system was behind hundreds of U.S. Commerce Department "success stories," when U.S. companies beat off European and Japanese commercial competitors.

Campbell calls the Echelon system the "Big Brother of the cyberspace age." His report cited a 1994 attempt by the French-led European Airbus consortium to challenge America's Boeing Co. on airliner sales to Saudi Arabia. Then-CIA director James Woolsey is alleged to have used the Echelon information to help Boeing beat Airbus on the $ 6 billion Saudi deal. The French company Thomson also is reported to have lost a radar contract for Brazil to an American firm.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher flatly denied the allegations of industrial espionage last week. "The notion that we collect intelligence in order to promote American business is simply wrong," he said "Our intelligence agencies are not authorized to provide information to private firms. It's not the policy nor the practice of American intelligence services to conduct economic espionage."

Woolsey has acknowledged the United States has secretly collected information on European companies but said it only did so when companies were suspected of violating U.N. sanctions or offering bribes to gain business.

"Some of our oldest friends and allies have a national culture and a national practice such that bribery is an important part of the way they try to do business in international commerce," Woolsey said at press briefing in March. "We have spied on that in the past. I hope, although I have no immediate verification, that the United States government continues to spy on bribery."

French authorities, which have been the most critical of Echelon, launched an investigation of their own last week. French state prosecutor Jean-Pierre Dintilhac told reporters last week that his office had began a preliminary investigation into whether U.S. spying had "harmed the interests of the [French] nation." But analysts say it is difficult to see how a U.S. agency could be sued in a French court.

Security experts say Echelon evolved out of Cold War espionage arrangements set up by the United States and the United Kingdom in 1948, and that they later brought in Australia, Canada and New Zealand in their capacity as Britain's Commonwealth partners. Under a 1947 agreement called UKUSA, the English-speaking countries agreed to share responsibility for overseeing surveillance in different parts of the world.

In the 1970s, the group set up a network of ground stations and orbiting satellites devoted to the interception of satellite communications. The SIGINT, or signals intelligence, is then processed by the various members and sent to the secretive U.S.National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters at Fort Meade, Md. The NSA maintains powerful supercomputers that can sift through the raw data and find pertinent information by searching for key words, addresses, etc.

But Jeffrey Richelson, an expert on U.S. intelligence capabilities with the National Security Archives at George Washington University, says critics are wrong to assert that "Echelon" is synonymous with the entire UKUSA eavesdropping effort. He describes it as simply a software network that links some of the stations and intercepts only transmissions that contain key words of interest to the five countries. For example, Australia may request that the system's advanced supercomputers focus on the names of terrorists who it suspects may try to disrupt the upcoming summer Olympics.

"It has never been proven to have an industrial espionage capability, certainly not as much as the EU nation's spy networks have," Richelson says. "There is a great deal of hypocrisy here, especially from France, which leads the world in the use of industrial espionage."

James Bamford, author of the groundbreaking expose on the NSA titled The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America's Most Secret Agency, agrees. From his extensive study of the NSA, Bamford concludes that the agency is simply not geared for carrying out industrial espionage, noting that it would be impossible for America's corporations to keep such important U.S. government aid a secret.

"It has become this urban legend like 'Area 51,' but [the NSA's] resources are really limited. They can't listen to everything everywhere and in the end they need human beings to narrow down all the information into what is most important," Bamford says. Bamford contends that the NSA is much more focused on detecting information about foreign companies transferring advanced nuclear or missile technology to rogue nations likes Iraq or North Korea.

Richelson says the EU's special committee is unlikely to find any hard evidence of Echelon being used for economic intelligence and he expects it will only produce a controversial "political document." He says, "I think they will write a report that will be badly flawed. It will not be an objective, scholarly work but one that involves sketchy evidence and leaps of faith. ...The one obvious solution for them is to use fiber-optic cables and sophisticated encryption [that] cannot be intercepted."

--

Intelligence Needed to Catch Terrorists, Criminals

Statement by Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet
April 12, 2000
http://www.odci.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/dci_speech_041200.html

Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, testifies that the United States does not engage in industrial espionage. While the United States does not pass along industrial or trade secrets to American companies, the intelligence community is alert for evidence of foreign companies engaging in bribery or other anti-competitive tactics.

--

Iraqi Rebel: Where Are the Arms?

By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 14, 2000; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/14/098l-071400-idx.html

A guerrilla commander from the marshes of southern Iraq agreed to a series of meetings last fall with CIA officials interested in undermining Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

But Sayid Khaddem Al-Batat said in an interview this week that he declined to accept covert CIA support. "Everything must be open," said Al-Batat, expressing deep reservations about whether the Clinton administration truly is committed to "regime change" in Baghdad.

Al-Batat arrived in Washington late last month and joined Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella organization of the Iraqi opposition, to lobby for full implementation of a federal law authorizing up to $97 million in military assistance to groups working to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

While clearly supporting Chalabi's INC leadership, Al-Batat drew a sharp distinction between opposition members who "fight" from luxury hotels in the United States and opposition members like himself who fight the dictator with AK-47s inside Iraq.

Al-Batat, a Shiite Muslim, claimed that his forces destroyed the headquarters of the Iraqi military's 2nd Battalion, 32nd Brigade, in a May 29 battle. Al-Batat wouldn't reveal how many people he commands but said U.S. pilots patrolling a "no-fly zone" over southern Iraq take reconnaissance photographs of the entire area. "I'm sure they have accurate information about the battles we have waged, and the results," Al-Batat said.

If only they would bomb tanks and infantry units instead of radar installations, he added, the aerial attacks might actually help.

THANKS FOR THE MEMOIRS: Is the CIA's Publications Review Board (PRB) orchestrating a crackdown?

After prohibiting two former operatives, Garrett Jones and John Spinelli, from appearing on a History Channel program, "Top Secret Missions of the CIA," without getting questions and answers cleared in advance, the PRB recently dispatched security personnel to retrieve documents from the attorney of a flamboyant former operative turned author, Bob Baer. Baer has written a manuscript about his adventure-filled career and appealed a series of PRB redactions to the CIA's executive director, David W. Carey.

Now it seems another ex-agency employee, Patrick G. Eddington, has also submitted memoirs for prepublication clearance and been forced to appeal PRB redactions to Carey. "There's no question in my mind that for those of us who are questioning the agency's practices and policies, there's a special level of review," said Eddington, who resigned after nine years as an imagery analyst in October 1996 and wrote his first book, "Gassed in the Gulf: The Inside Story of the Pentagon-CIA Cover-up of Gulf War Syndrome."

Eddington, 37, said he submitted a manuscript with the working title, "Eye Spy: An Intelligence Memoir," in the spring of 1999. CIA employees are required to sign lifetime secrecy agreements requiring prepublication review of anything they publish while on active duty or in retirement.

After the Publications Review Board, chaired by Scott A. Koch, redacted about 5 percent of the manuscript dealing with the capabilities of spy satellites, Eddington said, he filed his appeal with Carey's office in August 1999. "As I am sure you understand, your appeal contains complex, cross-directorate issues that require careful review and consideration by numerous agency officials," Koch replied in an Aug. 31 letter.

But now, 11 months later, Eddington is still waiting for Carey to rule so that he can either complete a deal with a publisher or file a lawsuit in federal court protesting the CIA's redactions. "I've been willing to give them a year," Eddington said. "We're getting close to a year. This is directly interfering with my ability to make a living as a writer and researcher, and that's just unacceptable."

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield denied that the agency employs more stringent review standards for its critics. "Whether a manuscript is critical of the CIA is immaterial," Mansfield said. "What is relevant is whether a manuscript contains information that is still classified. There have been many written documents over the years that have been critical of the agency, including works by [Eddington] that have sailed through the publication review process."

Vernon Loeb's e-mail address is loebv@washpost.com


-------- activists

When NOT To Use Email
NetAction's Email Outreach "Do's and Don'ts"

http://www.netaction.org/training/part2.html

Grassroots activists and nonprofit organizations that have tried it know that email can be a powerful tool for outreach and advocacy. Online action alerts make it possible for activist groups to mobilize their supporters almost instantly. Electronic newsletters let nonprofit groups communicate with their members for a fraction of the cost of traditional newsletters.

But email isn't always the most appropriate tool. In our Virtual Activist Training Guide, NetAction advises against using email to communicate with policy makers. In recent months, several readers have asked us why this is the case. So we decided it was time to revisit the issue.

Although there are certainly exceptions, most policy makers still don't give email correspondence the same attention they give to phone calls and letters. There are a number of reasons for this:

* Policy makers know that email correspondence requires less effort than picking up the phone or writing and mailing a letter, so it's less valuable as an indicator of public opinion.

* It's not always possible to confirm that the sender is a constituent. Correspondence from people who don't vote in the decision maker's district gets less attention than correspondence from constituents.

* Since Internet users may have more than one email address, it's possible for a small number of people to generate a large volume of correspondence. This also diminishes its value as an indicator of public opinion.

* Many decision makers still don't use email regularly and consequently don't place much value on email correspondence.

While all of this is likely to change over time, NetAction believes we have a long way to go before policy makers really accept email correspondence as an indicator of public opinion.

This does NOT mean that email is a less effective tool for outreach and advocacy. It just means that we need to recognize its limitations and develop our online advocacy strategies accordingly.

Email is still a powerful tool for educating and mobilizing activists. Use it to let your members know when phone calls or letters are necessary, and to distribute sample letters and the addresses and phone numbers of targeted decision makers. Use it to educate activists by directing them to online background information. Use it to "brainstorm" with other activists about strategy, and to recruit volunteers.

But for the time being, we recommend that you pick up the phone or put a letter in the mail box when you want to communicate your concerns to policy makers.

-----

CANADA: NEW INDIAN CHIEF

New York Times
July 14, 2000
World Briefing THE AMERICAS
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/world-briefs.html

Canadian Indian tribes have elected as their national chief a Quebec Cree known for leading a North American protest campaign that stopped a major hydroelectric dam planned for northern Quebec. Matthew Coon Come, a former Cree chief, told delegates of the Assembly of First Nations that his main priority will be securing self-government and land rights. James Brooke (NYT)

---

EGYPT: RIGHTS ACTIVIST HELD AGAIN

New York Times
July 14, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/world-briefs.html

Prosecutors ordered Said Eddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian-American human rights activist, held for questioning for a second 15-day stretch in prison without charges. The detention of Mr. Ibrahim, who is accused of defaming Egypt in a documentary on citizens' voting rights, has alarmed human rights and pro-democracy groups throughout the Middle East. Abeer Allam (NYT)

--- New York Times

King Estate and CBS Settle Suit Over Rights to Famous Speech

July 14, 2000
By DAVID FIRESTONE
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/071400atl-king.html

ATLANTA, July 13 -- In exchange for a cash payment, the estate of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has dropped its lawsuit against CBS News over the rights to Dr. King's 1963 masterwork, the "I Have a Dream" speech.

Neither side would disclose the amount of the payment, which is considered to be a tax-deductible contribution to the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, in Atlanta. As part of the settlement reached on Wednesday, CBS will retain the right to use its film of the speech and to license it to others, although the network agreed to provide information on how outside parties could contact the estate "regarding the estate's claimed intellectual property rights," according to a news release issued by both sides.

CBS also agreed to provide film of Dr. King's speeches for the King estate's own productions.

Dr. King's heirs sued the network in 1996 after CBS began selling a videotape that included excerpts of the civil rights leader's best-known words, delivered on Aug. 28, 1963, at a civil rights rally at the Lincoln Memorial. The excerpts were part of a five-volume documentary, "The 20th Century With Mike Wallace," that was selling for $99.95.

The family, which has long been criticized by scholars for its aggressive profit-making approach to Dr. King's legacy, argued that outside corporations should not be allowed to exploit Dr. King's memory without giving a share to the estate. "It has to do with the principle that if you make a dollar, I should make a dime," said Dexter Scott King, Dr. King's son and president of the estate, in 1997.

In July 1998, a federal judge in Atlanta ruled against the family, declaring that the speech was a news event in the public domain. The judge, William C. O'Kelley, noted that the speech had been shown live and that the text had earlier been given to news organizations.

Last November, however, a federal appeals panel in Atlanta overturned that decision and sent the case back to the lower court.

The settlement means there will not be a formal legal resolution of these issues. Both CBS and the King Family were circumspect about the settlement, refusing to discuss any aspect of it beyond the news release, which said that both sides were pleased with the resolution.

But Floyd Abrams, the First Amendment lawyer who represented CBS in the case, said the settlement preserved the network's original contentions about the public nature of the speech.

"From CBS's perspective, this has always been about the principle that they have right to use footage they take of news events," Mr. Abrams said. "From their vantage point, that principle remains inviolate, and is consistent with this resolution."

He said the settlement grew out of a meeting earlier this year between Leslie Moonves, the president of CBS Television, and Dexter King and his mother, Coretta Scott King.

* NucNews Digest by OneList Subscribers

COLLATED ITEMS ON NMD JULY 5-JULY 14

Fri, 14 Jul 2000 18:19:59 +1000
FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <nonukes@foesyd.org.au>

John Hallam
Friends of the Earth Sydney,
17 Lord Street, Newtown, NSW, Australia, 2042
Fax (61)(2)9517-3902 ph (61)(2)9517-3903
nonukes@foesyd.org.au
http://homepages.tig.com.au/~foesyd

Dear All, First of all my apologies for the infernal length of this thing. It has in fact taken literally hours to compile so I really do hope it is useful.

I have tried to be at least representative if not exhaustive, and even that is exhausting.

Last time I did this I asked 'is this the calm before the storm?' as there were relatively few items.

It certainly was.

The most obvious thing is of course the test- and above all the fact that it failed.

The fact that what failed was a supposedly uncontroversial and well - established bit of technology simply shows that the degree of reliability required if we are attempting to save Los Angeles or New York or Sydney from incineration in this way is simply not attainable.

The NYT editorial by Richard Perle is a disturbing view into the headspace of the advocates of BMD, complete with bald assertion that the ABM treaty is 'defunct'.

If there is any theme emerging from this mass of material it is probably that Clinton may well punt the decision to his successor.

Nontheless, its essential that the administration, the Congress, and the presidential candidates all feel the heat on this, and all hear as loud and clear from as many people as possible around the world, and in their own backyards (and their own congressional districts), from Yakutsk to Texas and from Buenos Aires to Patchewollock (thats in Victoria Australia) to Toronto to Broolyn or wherever you happen to be, that MND/BMD is anything but what the planet needs.

The depth of opposition to the scheme and the distinguished and influential quarters from which it appears to be coming, and finally the fact that some in the US Congress now seem to be prepared to put their heads up over the parapet and oppose or at least be critical of NMD, are certainly cause for some optimism.

I suspect that we may owe Mr Daryl Kimball a great deal for that.

In amongst the letters from Nobel Laureates and the rumblings from Congress, the Australian Senate passed a motion calling on the US not to proceed with BMD. This is not noted in media nor have I included the press release as that recieved plenty of circulation on Abolition Caucus and elsewhere. However it will have had its impact, and will be conveyed to Mr Cohen while he is here.

(Note that this compilation is as far as possible in chronological order. The most recent items are therefore right at the end.)

Happy reading, again my apologies for the length (in part because I have been focussed for the last week on the fact that the US secy of defence wil be here in Sydney tomorrow, and the lobbying and prganising associated with that has taken a great deal of time - there is therefore a full weeks accumulation).

CONTAINS

1) NYT July 5, 2000 U.S. Study Reopens Division Over Nuclear Missile Threat

2) Missile Shield Under Attack Wash Post July 6

3) It's missile-test time TIME July 6 2000

4) NYT JULY 6 Pentagon Gives a Preview of Missile Defense Test Tomorrow

5) Global security, politics collide in big defense test DENVER POST JULY 7

6) TIME, JULY 7 It's Missile-Test Time - Time for Clinton Fudge!

7) U.S. Weighs Possible Foreign Reaction to Missile Defense Wash Post July 7

8) Naradonline Its failure is a success

9) FAS Press Release - July 06, 2000 NOBEL LAUREATES WARN AGAINST MISSILE DEFENSE DEPLOYMENT

10) LETTER FROM NOBEL LAUREATES TO CLINTON JULY 6 2000

11) July 7, 2000 WASH POST Critics Asking Clinton to Stop Advancing Missile Plan

12) July 7, 2000 CNN MISSILE TEST

13) MIAMI HERALD FRI JULY 7 Anti-missile test is rigged

14) CHICAGO TRIBUNE JULY 7 MISSILE DEFENCE TEST READY

15) WASH POST JULY 7 2000 Watershed for Missile Defense

16) PRESS BRIEFING BY CDI PRESIDENT BRUCE BLAIR 7 JULY 2000

17) ABC NEWS JULY 7 KEY MISSILE DEFENCE TEST

18) Missile Test - CHICAGO TRIBUNE/ASSOCIATED PRESS JULY 7

19) 10 JULY 2000 The Washington Times - Both parties tell Clinton to press missile defense

20) CBC News Fri JUly 7 Anti-'Star Wars' activists prepare for missile test

21) July 7, 2000 CNN Anomaly delays missile test

22) Friday July 7 Pentagon Says Problem Delays Missile Test

23) Friday July 7 Greenpeace Enters U.S. Base to Block Missile Test (Reuters)

24)Saturday July 8 Pentagon Says Missile Test Fails (AP)

25) Saturday July 8 U.S. Fails to Hit Target in Anti-Missile Test

26) CNN Anti-missile system fails test for second time July 8, 2000

27) July 8, 2000 Antimissile System Fails Over Pacific, Pentagon Reports (NYT)

28) USA TODAY 9 JULY 2000 Missile failure brings renewed criticism

29) Monday July 10 Cohen Plays Down Failed U.S. Missile Defense Test

30) NYT July 9, 2000Key Missile Parts Are Left Untested as Booster Fails

31) July 9, 2000 NYT Strategy Misfire: Missile Failure Carries Political Cost

32) Monday July 10 Putin to Press Clinton to Drop Anti-Missile Plan (Reuters)

33) Monday July 10 Clinton, Putin Discuss Missile Defense, Chechnya

34) July 10, 2000 NYT Scientist Is Not Subtle in Taking Shots at Missile Shield

35) NYT July 10, 2000 Decision on Defense System May Fall to Next President

36) THE TIMES, July 10 2000

37) THE IRISH TIMES JULY 11 2000 Failed missile test a threat to NMD

38) Tuesday July 11 China Greets Cohen with Anti-Missile Salvo (Reuters)

39)Tuesday July 11 Pentagon Looks to Next Missile Test

40) Tuesday July 11 US Missile Defense Plans Uncertain (AP)

41) Wednesday July 12 Putin Sees U.S. Missile Concerns But No Threat Now (Reuters)

42) 12/7/2000 The Washington Times Hegemony and missile tests

43) July 13, 2000 NYT Engineer Charging Antimissile Fraud Is Snared in a Federal Clash

44) NYT July 13, 2000 A Better Way to Build a Missile Defense

45) Washington Post Thursday , July 13, 2000 Calling a Bomb a Bomb

46) Denver Post July 13 2000 Of politics and missiles

47) Thursday July 13 Senate Votes on Missile Testing (AP)

---------

1) U.S. Study Reopens Division Over Nuclear Missile Threat
NYT
July 5, 2000
By ELAINE SCIOLINO and STEVEN LEE MYERS

WASHINGTON, July 4 -- Intelligence officials, military officers and policy experts in the Clinton administration are deeply divided over the seriousness of missile threats posed by countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq, even as the administration says the United States needs to build a national missile defense system.

Officials at the State Department dissented from an intelligence report last fall that stated that North Korea could soon develop a ballistic missile that could threaten the United States. They are also quite likely to dissent again as intelligence agencies prepare a new assessment for the president, administration officials said.

Some officials in the White House, State Department, Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency argue that the threat has been almost exclusively defined by technological abilities and that the emerging analysis discounts political, economic and social factors that could make a threat less likely.

The officials said the intense focus on missiles that could hit American soil also obscured the more immediate threat posed by nuclear weapons carried by terrorists or fired from ships. The officials said the change in focus devalued the concept of deterrence, by which the sheer force of the American arsenal would inhibit even the most irresponsible leader from attacking American soil.

Dissension exists even on the technological side. A senior Pentagon official acknowledged that Iran's ballistic missile program had problems and was "certainly not clicking along really fast."

The Pentagon schedule to build a missile defense is entirely driven by the belief that North Korea will have a long-range missile by 2005. Indeed, the coming intelligence report will reportedly find that North Korea could develop a missile that could strike the United States by 2005, the same finding that was in the report last year.

In the case of Iran, the study last year reported that some experts believed that the threat was "likely before 2010." Others have said there is "less than an even chance by 2015," a split that persists.

As for Iraq, officials agree that Iraq will pose no concrete threat to the United States as long as international sanctions remain in place.

The assessments are crucial, because they are driving the decision by President Clinton to decide in the fall on proceeding with a $60 billion program to build a limited missile defense in five years. Mr. Clinton has repeatedly said -- as recently as this week -- he will make his decision on four factors, the cost, the technological feasibility, the effects on other countries and the urgency of the threat.

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen has declared the existence of a threat in five years.

"I believe by the year 2005 a threat will be present that could threaten the security of the United States," Mr. Cohen said in an interview on CNN on Saturday.

That finding is being fiercely contested by some officials, including experts on Korea, who point to North Korea's suspension of its missile tests in the fall and the progress between the leaders of North and South Korea since their successful meeting last month.

The intelligence report being completed for Mr. Clinton is known as a National Intelligence Estimate and is supposed to reflect the consensus of all the intelligence agencies, including, among others, the C.I.A., the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research. But as experts from those agencies have contributed their views and information to drafts in recent weeks, there is little consensus.

In fact, as a missile defense has emerged as an important difference between Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush in the presidential campaign, many intelligence officials have complained that what is supposed to be a coldly analytical process has evolved into a roiling political debate.

In the report last year, the rules of classic intelligence analysis were altered, the officials said, to measure not whether countries were likely to threaten the United States, but whether they "could" do so. The officials said that change skewed the results toward the most alarming assessment.

"There's a lot of pressure from the Hill driving this process," said a longtime intelligence official involved in preparing the new report. "You end up with realms of possibility, including what is least likely to what is unthinkable. We are writing in worst-case language. Frankly, from my perspective, this is nonsense."

Senior administration officials efended the process. "We don't live here to make anybody happy," a senior intelligence official said. Still, that official acknowledged that people on all sides of the debate were "looking for something in what we say to support their own arguments."

The intensely partisan politics swirling around the urgency of the threat were on display on Thursday at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. At one point, John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, pressed Larry D. Welch, a former Air Force chief of staff who heads an independent team that is reviewing the Pentagon's plans, to enunciate the extent of the nation's vulnerability to missiles.

"Look straight into the cameras and say, 'We are as a nation defenseless,' " Mr. Warner demanded after trying several ways to have the witness say that affirmatively.

General Welch replied: "We as a nation have no missile defense to deal with these threats. That's correct."

But at another point, John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said, "There's nothing that I'm aware of that suggests that the threat of an attack on the United States is 'increasingly likely' in the next few years."

Mr. Kerry said the threat depended on not only the ability to build weapons, but also on "analysis of the nature of the relationships with a country, the rationale for an attack, the possibilities of an attack, the levels of deterrence."

The central question asked by many critics of the national missile defense is why its advocates appear to have discounted deterrence as a counter to the missile threat, even though deterrence governed American strategic thinking throughout the cold war.

Many senior officials have said deterrence no longer held when it came to countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq. The officials regard the leaders of those countries as capable of irrational self-destructive behavior.

"We didn't like the Soviets, but we roughly understood them to be extremely cautious," said Leon S. Fuerth, Mr. Gore's national security adviser. "We never have had the depth of understanding about what makes the North Koreans tick to give us that confidence."

As for Iran, a senior Pentagon official pointed out that Iranians seized American hostages 20 years ago; still chanted, "Death to America"; and were involved in state-sponsored terrorism.

Intelligence officials say Iran is considering developing a rocket that can put satellites in orbit, a move that would represent a significant step toward possessing an intercontinental ballistic missile. Tehran has begun discussing the project with France, India and Russia.

The officials also cite Iran's efforts to develop a longer-range missile, the Shahab-4. But Iran is still faces difficulties in its program to build the Shahab-3, a missile with a range of 780 miles. Those problems have prompted experts to question the Iranian missile threat to the United States. "There is an Iranian threat to U.S. forces in the region, not to the continental United States," said an official.

Some officials complain that all the attention focused on the potential missile threat diverts attention from more likely threats like chemical or biological weapons prepared in the United States and hidden in a truck or even a cruise missile carried aboard a ship.

Even Mr. Cohen acknowledges those facts. "I think the act of terrorism taking place on the United States is more likely than intercontinental ballistic missile," he said in his interview on Saturday.

But at another point he added, "To say that we can't protect against everything doesn't mean that we shouldn't protect against those that can cause us catastrophic harm."

Administration officials vehemently deny that the missile program is aimed at curbing the military ability of Russia or China. The analysis last year and the report being prepared find that the United States defines those two countries as a threat only in the case of an accidental unauthorized launching.

But especially on Capitol Hill there are those who argue that the ultimate threat is China's ability to strike the United States. Five years ago, an npublished report prepared for the House National Security Committee by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization cited the possibility of China's "using its ballistic missiles to prevent U.S. action in Korea" as a pivotal threat that justifies a defensive shield.

"It's easy to talk about North Korea, Iran and Iraq, but people don't like to talk about Russia or China," said Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona. "But people privately also are a little worried that there could be another threat from China. I'm candidly telling you that behind closed doors you hear some people expressing some concerns about ultimate threats like China."

------

2) Missile Shield Under Attack
By Sharon LaFraniere
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, July 6, 2000 ; A14

MOSCOW, July 5 - The presidents of Russia and China, in their first meeting as heads of state, reaffirmed their joint opposition today to a U.S. proposal to erect a national missile defense system, a Kremlin official said. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in one of his strongest condemnations yet, said a U.S. decision in favor of the system "will signify the undermining of the global balance." Chinese President Jiang Zemin agreed that a 1972 arms control treaty should not be altered to allow the United States to put up missile interceptors, according to a top Putin aide who briefed reporters after the meeting.

Putin and Ziang met for 50 minutes at a regional security summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, also attended by the leaders of three Central Asian countries.

Putin and Ziang, who met when Putin was prime minister last year, have previously warned that the United States could set off a new arms race if it goes ahead with the plan to build radar and 100 missile interceptors in Alaska.

President Clinton has promised to decide in the coming weeks whether to approve the $60 billion project, and the Pentagon has scheduled a crucial test over the Pacific Ocean for Friday. Washington contends it needs the interceptors to defend itself not against Russia or China, but against unpredictable, smaller powers such as North Korea, Iraq or Iran. But China argues that the interceptors would cancel out its small force of long-range missiles and force it to build up its nuclear forces.

The United States contends that Russia has the firepower to overwhelm such a defense, and while Russia agrees, it argues the system would undercut the foundation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Putin said at a news conference that Russia will consider it highly significant if Washington proceeds with the project despite the Russian legislature's recent surprise ratification of the START II arms reduction treaty and his own suggestion that Russia and the United States create a joint missile defense system. If despite "decisive support by China and other states . . . decisions are taken nevertheless aimed at disruption of the 1972 treaty, this will signify the undermining of the world balance," he said.

In an interview published today, Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev, head of Russia's strategic rocket forces, said Russia might respond by increasing the number of warheads on its Topol-M missile, or by reviving a program to build mid-range ballistic missiles.

The presidents of three Central Asian countries--Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan--joined Putin and Jiang in a declaration that the 1972 ABM Treaty must be upheld.

The missile defense system is expected to come up again Friday, when China and the United States resume arms control talks after a year-long hiatus.

----------

3) It's missile-test time
TIME
July 6 2000
By Tony Karon

(TIME.com) -- It would make President Clinton's life a lot easier if the damned thing would just miss.... The president has delayed green-lighting construction of the controversial National Missile Defense scheme pending the completion of three field tests, the third of which takes place Friday night somewhere over the Pacific. While the first test arguably succeeded, the second failed, leaving the third test as some kind of tie-breaker on the technical viability of the scheme.

If the test succeeds, the president faces the tough decision of whether to go ahead with the program; if it fails, he punts the problem to the next occupant of the Oval Office.

Critics have pointed out that the tests are primed to succeed, andclaim that the system has an inherent inability, in battlefield conditions, to distinguish an enemy warhead from cheap decoys that would be deployed to distract it.

Advocates counter that they're simply trying to establish whether the system can walk before trying to make it run.

But it's not only the scientific viability of the $60 billion system that's hotly contested between advocates and critics. For one thing, there is sharp disagreement over the extent of the supposed threat to America's cities. Advocates, led by hawkish Republicans and their allies in the military and the arms industry, insist that North Korea could be in a position to drop warheads on your home town by 2005; critics, ranging from State Department and intelligence officials to Russia and European NATO members, pooh-pooh this timetable.

And even if Pyongyang, whose missile program has been dormant for the past two years, could muster the technical wherewithal to develop such long-range missiles, the naysayers argue, there are a growing number of political and economic factors militating against North Korea's pursuing this course.

Then there are the consequences: Building the system would violate the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, and Moscow has not only shown no interest in renegotiating the pact to allow Washington to go ahead, it has also warned that if the U.S. withdraws from the treaty all other arms-control agreements are null and void.

The reason for Moscow's hostility is that they see the system as a precursor of a larger umbrella that could eventually neutralize the deterrent value of Russia's own nuclear arsenal.

And its fears are well grounded -- while President Clinton is considering a limited system involving some 20 interceptors to guard against one or two missiles fired by "rogue states," candidate George W. Bush has committed himself to a comprehensive, "Star Wars"-like anti-missile shield that would eliminate all threats.

And, needless to say, the Chinese, whose long-range nuclear fleet comprises only about 20 single-warhead missiles, is taking the matter personally, because its own nuclear deterrent might be eliminated by even President Clinton's limited defense. Beijing has warned that if Washington goes ahead it will be forced to expand its own missile fleet, which might prompt India to do the same in response, triggering a similar response from Pakistan.

Despite the depth of opposition, though, the pressure on President Clinton to give the go-ahead may prove compelling. Missile defense remains overwhelmingly popular on Capitol Hill, and the Republicans would pounce on any caution by the administration to proclaim candidate Gore as soft on security. So whether the third test succeeds or fails, look for the President to create a very Clintonesque fudge that allows the system to proceed far enough to cover Gore, but not far enough to cross the line drawn by the Russians and Chinese.

---------

4) Pentagon Gives a Preview of Missile Defense Test Tomorrow
NYT
JULY 6
By ELAINE SCIOLINO

WASHINGTON, July 5 -- With ceiling-to-floor slide projections and glossy press packets, the Pentagon described for reporters today how a mock warhead would thunder aloft on Friday night and a $30 million rocket would try to destroy it in a high-altitude collision.

The exercise, the third and most demanding in a series of 19 tests for a national missile defense system, is to last 30 minutes.

If it succeeds, unlike the previous one, President Clinton may order building the first phase of a $60 billion system to combat what his Administration has identified as threats from countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq. But if the warhead proceeds on course untouched, that would contribute to mounting criticism from scientists, experts on arms control and foreign policy and even some administration officials who doubt the wisdom and effectiveness of trying to build a system to protect American soil from missile attacks.

In October, the Pentagon hailed its first test as a complete success, but later acknowledged that the kill vehicle had initially drifted off course and picked out the decoy balloon instead of the mock warhead. In a more complicated test in January, the kill vehicle missed the mock warhead by 300 to 400 feet after a cooling line had clogged and shut its heat-seeking sensors.

The briefing today was not in the Pentagon press room, but in the Rossyln, Va., office of Boeing. With its three-year $2.4 billion contract, Boeing is the primary contractor for the program.

If all goes according to the Pentagon plan, sometime between 10:01 p.m. Friday and 2:01 a.m. Saturday eastern time, the Pentagon would fire a 63-foot rocket with the mock warhead and a deflated Mylar balloon, to be a decoy, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., 125 miles north of Los Angeles. Five minutes later, officials said, the rocket would release its fake warhead, and the balloon decoy would inflate to more than 6 feet in diameter.

About 15 minutes after that, a 54-inch 130-pound "exoatmospheric kill vehicle" would be launched from Kwajalein Atoll about 4,300 miles away in the Pacific Ocean and guide itselfto a collision with the incoming mock warhead. If the kill vehicle finds and destroys the warhead, the sky will fill "with a big flash," said a Pentagon briefer.

This time a communications system has been added that would transmit information directly to the kill vehicle about the location of the target after it has lifted off.

But critics say the test on Friday is grossly misleading because it is occurring under conditions that do not reflect those of a real attack. They also say that the so-called "decoy" is not really a decoy, but more like a lure that would attract the kill vehicle to the real target, and that an adversary would use not one, but many decoys. An adversary might even hide the warhead in a decoylike balloon, they say.

There is one technical area that the Pentagon had not worked out in advance of the test. Reporters who want to watch a televised satellite feed will have to do so in the Boeing auditorium. "The Pentagon just doesn't have the necessary equipment," a Pentagon official said.

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5) Global security, politics collide in big defense test
DENVER POST
JULY 7
By Bruce Finley Denver Post International Affairs Writer

July 7, 2000 - CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN OPERATIONS CENTER - You won't see the rockets'[Image] red glare tonight in the U.S. military's landmark test of missile defense technology. But expect plenty of political heat.

Other countries rail against U.S. plans to deploy a shield against enemy missiles, warning this could start a new arms race. And with presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore both supporting missile defense in concept, critics contend short-term election jockeying is intruding on global security.

The success or failure of the test tonight - an attempt to obliterate a mock warhead high over the Pacific Ocean by aiming a 122-pound interceptor very carefully - is billed as the best indication yet whether the proposed $60 billion shield against enemy missiles is feasible. President Clinton is to decide this year whether to move ahead on first-phase deployment.

The system would be run from a "battle management center" here, a mile inside Cheyenne Mountain west of Colorado Springs where early warning operations were set up during the Cold War. The proposed defense system is designed to protect Americans from what U.S. officials describe as serious potential threats from North Korea, Iran, Iraq and other nations.

"More and more nations in the future are going to invest in ballistic missiles," said Vice Adm. Herbert Browne, deputy chief of the U.S. Space Command, headquartered near Colorado Springs. "Some of those will be able to reach North America. We'reconvinced that we need to defend our country from this growing threat. Yes, we believe the threat is real."

Today, military crews are poised for action in Colorado Springs, at Vandenberg Air Force Base north of Los Angeles and on Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific. Sometime after 8 p.m. MDT, they'll launch a rocket from Vandenberg carrying the mock warhead and a deflated Mylar balloon to serve as a decoy.

Satellites and ground-based radar stations are to detect the warhead and decoy balloon in flight, then send the data to early warning system operators in Colorado Springs.

Those computer operators then are to relay the location and trajectory of the mock warhead to Kwajalein, 6,000 miles away. That data will be programmed into the 55-inch interceptor, what military officials call an exoatmospheric kill vehicle, atop another rocket. Crews on Kwajalein will launch it. As it thunders up, high-powered Xband radar on Kwajalein is to track the warhead and send even more detailed data to the interceptor in flight.

About 20 minutes into the exercise, if all goes as planned, the nonexplosive interceptor, moving at about 15,000 mph, will distinguish between the 6-foot-diameter decoy balloon and the mock warhead. Pentagon planners are hoping to see a big flash as the force of impact destroys the mock warhead.

"Everybody will be happy if we hit the target," said Lt. Gen. John Costello, commander of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense, also based in Colorado Springs.

This is the third of 19 planned tests. Pentagon planners claim one hit and one miss. Critics have questioned whether the hit was for real.

"That's baloney," Costello said. In January, an interceptor missed a mock warhead, Pentagon officials said, because a cooling system clogged and shut down heat-seeking sensors.

The first-phase missile defense deployment, should Clinton approve it, would begin with construction of X-band radar on Shemya Island above the Arctic circle off Alaska. Construction would begin next spring to have a limited defense system operational by 2005 when, according to a 1999 U.S. intelligence estimate, North Korea could have the capability of attacking the United States.

Other countries adamantly oppose U.S. plans. The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a cornerstone of arms control, limits the development of missile defense systems. U.S. officials are negotiating to change the treaty. For nearly a year, U.S. diplomats have been broaching the idea of missile defense with Chinese, European and Russian leaders.

No one's on board.

Russia views the perceived threat from North Korea skeptically, said Mikhail Shurgalin, spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Washington.

"We fear this could, at a certain point, start up a new arms race, a new cold war," Shurgalin said. "We think those threats in general are probably exaggerated. We understand that other countries are concerned, too, like China and European countries. The world is a fragile thing. Before you make a move, it is better to find out what other people think. It is better to work out a compromise."

As for China, negotiations are said to be equally difficult. A senior Clinton administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said China plans to modernize its nuclear arsenal whether or not the United States moves ahead with missile defense. The question, critics say, is how many missiles China will build, and whether that motivates India and perhaps Pakistan to build more missiles.

France has led European opposition. French officials took no position on today's test. But more consultation is needed before anything is deployed, said Francois Delattre, spokesman at the French Embassy in Washington.

"We think there are many questions," Delattre said, such as "the nature of the threat, the evolution of the threat, and a possible arms race." Nobel laureatescientists this week urged Clinton to reject the proposed missile defense. And today, critics plan demonstrations, including one outside Peterson Air Force Base east of Colorado Springs, headquarters for U.S. Space Command. Critics contend missile defense won't work, costs too much and causes more international conflict than it promises to resolve.

Yet Democratic political concerns - not leaving Gore vulnerable to Bush on whether Americans are adequately protected - are likely to force Clinton to approve a deployment he otherwise might reject, said John Pike, weapons analyst for the Federation of American Scientists.

"For the political tacticians who are not worried about Chinese nuclear missiles, who are only worried about getting their candidate elected, this decision is very simple," Pike said. "I think these people are playing politics with national security. I am an American, and I am unhappy about it."

Gore and Bush were awaiting word on the outcome of tonight's test, their campaign spokesmen said. White House officials rejected the charge that Clinton's decision will be influenced by presidential politics.

Clinton hasn't decided yet and will base his decision on objective criteria, national Security Council spokesman P.J. Crowley said. "We're in a situation where whatever decision the president makes is not going to please some groups," Crowley said. "So he's just going to do what's right for the country."

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6) It's Missile-Test Time - Time for Clinton Fudge!
TIME,
JULY 7

As the President awaits a crucial test, he has to find a 'yes' to National Missile Defense that he can convince Russia and China is a 'no'

It would make President Clinton's life a lot easier if the damned thing would just miss.... The President has delayed green-lighting construction of the controversial National Missile Defense scheme pending the completion of three field tests, the third of which takes place Friday night somewhere over the Pacific. While the first test arguably succeeded, the second failed, leaving the third test as some kind of tie-breaker on the technical viability of the scheme. If the test succeeds, the President faces the tough decision of whether to go ahead with the program; if it fails, he punts the problem to the next occupant of the Oval Office. Critics have pointed out that the tests are primed to succeed, and claim that the system has an inherent inability, in battlefield conditions, to distinguish an enemy warhead from cheap decoys that would be deployed to distract it. Advocates counter that they're simply trying to establish whether the system can walk before trying to make it run.

But it's not only the scientific viability of the $60 billion system that's hotly contested between advocates and critics. For one thing, there is sharp disagreement over the extent of the supposed threat to America's cities. Advocates, led by hawkish Republicans and their allies in the military and the arms industry, insist that North Korea could be in a position to drop warheads on your home town by 2005; critics, ranging from State Department and intelligence officials to Russia and European NATO members, pooh-pooh this timetable. And even if Pyongyang, whose missile program has been dormant for the past two years, could muster the technical wherewithal to develop such long-range missiles, the naysayers argue, there are a growing number of political and economic factors militating against North Korea's pursuing this course.

Then there are the consequences: Building the system would violate the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, and Moscow has not only shown no interest in renegotiating the pact to allow Washington to go ahead, it has also warned that if the U.S. withdraws from the treaty all other arms-control agreements are null and void. The reason for Moscow's hostility is that they see the system as a precursor of a larger umbrella that could eventually neutralize the deterrent value of Russia's own nuclear arsenal. And its fears are well grounded Ã' while President Clinton is considering a limited system involving some 20 interceptors to guard against one or two missiles fired by "rogue states," candidate George W. Bush has committed himself to a comprehensive, "Star Wars"-like anti-missile shield that would eliminate all threats. And, needless to say, the Chinese, whose long-range nuclear fleet comprises only about 20 single-warhead missiles, is taking the matter personally, because its own nuclear deterrent might be eliminated by even President Clinton's limited defense. Beijing has warned that if Washington goes ahead it will be forced to expand its own missile fleet, which might prompt India to do the same in response, triggering a similar response from Pakistan.

Despite the depth of opposition, though, the pressure on President Clinton to give the go-ahead may prove compelling. Missile defense remains overwhelmingly popular on Capitol Hill, and the Republicans would pounce on any caution by the administration to proclaim candidate Gore as soft on security. So whether the third test succeeds or fails, look for the President to create a very Clintonesque fudge that allows the system to proceed far enough to cover Gore, but not far enough to cross the line drawn by the Russians and Chinese.

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7) U.S. Weighs Possible Foreign Reaction to Missile Defense
Wash Post
Friday , July 7, 2000
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer; A13

On Tuesday morning, in a conference room on the seventh floor of CIA headquarters, Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet will convene a meeting of the heads of U.S. intelligence agencies to hash over their differing analyses of how foreign governments might react to a U.S. national missile defense.

Deep disagreements have delayed the intelligence community's effort to produce an authoritative, collective assessment, known as a National Intelligence Estimate. Originally scheduled to be delivered to the White House in June, it is now expected to be given to the White House in late July, still in time to play a role in President Clinton's decision whether to proceed with construction of the system.

The NIE is supposed to address some of the toughest, and most important, questions about missile defense: whether it would cause Russia to abandon arms control agreements, sow dissension among NATO allies and prompt China to enlarge its tiny nuclear arsenal, possibly setting off an arms race with India and Pakistan.

An annex to the document will update last year's intelligence estimate of the missile threat to the United States, the underlying rationale for building a missile shield. New attention, in particular, is being paid to the question of how soon North Korea, Iran and Iraq might possess intercontinental ballistic missiles.

In 1998, a congressionally appointed panel headed by former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld selected 2005 as the earliest date by which North Korea might possess a missile capable of hitting the United States. But intelligence officials said that neither last year's intelligence estimate, nor the annex to the new document, adopts that date. Rather, the document says the timetable could vary enormously depending on whether North Korea resumes long-range missile testing and how much help it receives from Russia and China.

Without 2005 as a firm deadline, the pressure on Clinton to move ahead with construction may ease. On the other hand, sources said, proponents of missile defense are likely to argue that North Korea could be ready to fire a missile even before 2005, and that there is always the risk of an accidental missile launch by Russia or China.

"The NIE may provide more questions than answers," a senior administration official said yesterday, "because all these questions are somewhat imponderables."

Among those who will gather at CIA headquarters Tuesday are the heads of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the electronic intelligence-gathering National Security Agency, the satellite-managing National Reconnaissance Office, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and other active and retired personnel.

At a previous meeting of this so-called National Foreign Intelligence Board last Friday, members argued over the effect of a U.S. missile defense shield on China and Russia as well as on NATO allies such as Britain, France, Germany and Denmark.

In particular, participants disagreed over whether a national missile defense, or NMD, would prompt Beijing to increase its strategic nuclear force from 24 fixed-silo intercontinental missiles to several hundred mobile ones with multiple warheads--or whether China is already planning such a modernization.

"The question is whether NMD will really make China beef up, or whether they planned to ramp up anyway," said one official. Another official familiar with the discussions said Beijing appears to be less concerned with a missile shield covering the 50 states than with the possibility that the Pentagon might someday provide a so-called theater missile defense system to protect Taiwan.

The intelligence community is also divided on how seriously to take Russian threats that if the United States creates a missile defense, Moscow will resume building intermediate-range SS-20 missiles to threaten Europe. One official argued that the threat is hollow because Russia's finances and construction capacity are so limited that it could build either SS-20s or longer-range SS-27s, but not both.

Another bone of contention is NATO allies' opposition to missile defense. The Pentagon's proposed network of interceptor missiles, high-speed computers and advanced radars would require upgrading early-warning radar stations in territory controlled by Britain and Denmark, which have questioned the need for a U.S. missile shield.

Officials familiar with the process of writing the NIE said many of the disagreements stem from a perennial problem in intelligence analysis, the difference between the capabilities of foreign countries and their intentions. Military intelligence analysts, one official said, tend to focus on potential capabilities, such as whether North Korea has the ability to produce missiles capable of carrying a nuclear or chemical/biological warhead. Diplomatic analysts, the official added, tend to focus on political motives, such as whether it is in the interest of North Korean leaders to develop such weapons.

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8) Naradonline Its failure is a success
T K Arun
Net Consult India
www.naradonline.com

Its failure is a success The failure of today's missile interception experiment would be a boon if it dissuades the US from going ahead with the NMD project [Image]The Pentagon has announced that the missile interception test that it carried out today failed. This is all to the good. It is to be hoped that this would persuade President Clinton to at least not go ahead with the proposed National Missile Defence project in the remaining months of his presidency, if not to altogether abandon it.

The National Missile Defence project is a modified Star Wars scheme of Reagan vintage. It seeks to develop capacity to shoot down ballistic missiles as they approach the US and destroy them in outer space. The US government claims that it needs such a project to defend itself against rogue states with missile and nuclear capability. The argument is specious. If the US goes ahead with the project, it would endanger its own security, that of other major powers and the lives of all people on earth.

As many as 50 Nobel prize winners have written a letter to president Clinton, asking him not to go ahead with the NMD project. They point out that the technical feasibility of the project is suspect, that it would upset the present global strategic balance, push Russia and China into a fresh arms race and force them to go into a Ã"launch on warningÕ mode and upset AmericaÕs longstanding strategic alliance with Europe.

One of the first issues that had been raised by RussiaÕs new president, after assuming office, had been to demand that the US drop its NMD project. The Russians argue, with credibility, that this violates the Anti-Ballistic Missiles treaty that they have signed with the Americans.

For the first time, India raised its voice against the NMD project when foreign minister Jaswant Singh visited Russia. This reticence is regrettable. The NMD project has the very real potential to drag the world into yet another arms race and increase the risk of nuclear war, possibly by accident.

India must make it clear to the US that Indian public opinion would see the NMD as a hegemonic, offensive policy stance. This would make it all the more difficult to develop any kind of consensus on India joining the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The US cannot both ask the world to exercise restraint on armament and seek to skew the strategic balance further in its own favour.

India must raise its voice against the NMD project in international fora without being apologetic about it. Our national interest lies in the project being scrapped.

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9) NOBEL LAUREATES WARN AGAINST MISSILE DEFENSE DEPLOYMENT
FAS Press Release -
July 06, 2000

Scientists say system would do "grave harm" to U.S. security interests.

For more information, contact Henry Kelly or Charles Ferguson at (202) 546-3300.

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) today released a letter to the President signed by 50 American Nobel laureates in the sciences stating that under current circumstances, "any movement toward deployment" of a ballistic missile defense system would be "premature, wasteful, and dangerous."

The letter was drafted by Dr. Hans Bethe. Bethe headed the group that designed the world's first nuclear bombs and was a senior advisor to a number of Presidents on nuclear weapons issues, including the design of ballistic missile defense systems facing countermeasures. He is one of the founders of FAS.

The essential point of the letter is that security benefits of the proposed system are at best uncertain while the dangers incurred by a hasty move toward deployment are large and real. It could undermine hard-won arms control agreements with Russia and frustrate efforts to place further limits on offensive missiles. It could stimulate a Chinese missile buildup and encourage dangerous "launch on warning" strategies. And, by appearing to separate the defense of the US from the defense of Europe, deployment could strain our most valuable security alliance.

The letter underscores the scientific community's skepticism about the technical feasibility of defense systems designed to attack weapons in outer space. A system with a high probability of destroying a weapon in space protected by decoys and other countermeasures faces enormous technical challenges. The test record would not be adequate to justify a decision to deploy the proposed system even if the test planned for July 7 achieves its objectives.

"A rush to deploy this system risks rekindling the Cold War arms race" said Henry Kelly, President of FAS. "While preferable to the massive national system proposed by many of the administration's opponents, this system could dangerously compromise US security interests. No emergency forces a hasty decision," said Kelly, "We urge the President not to make any move toward deployment before carefully considering technical and diplomatic alternatives."

The Federation of American Scientists was founded in 1945 by scientists who built the first atomic bomb. FAS addresses public policy issues created by advances in science and technology.

The letter and additional information on missile defense can be found at www.fas.org

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10) LETTER FROM NOBEL LAUREATES TO CLINTON JULY 6 2000
July 6, 2000

President William Jefferson Clinton
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20502

Dear Mr. President:

We urge you not to make the decision to deploy an anti-ballistic missile system during the remaining months of your administration. The system would offer little protection and would do grave harm to this nation's core security interests.

We and other independent scientists have long argued that anti-ballistic missile systems, particularly those attempting to intercept reentry vehicles in space, will inevitably lose in an arms race of improvements to offensive missiles.

North Korea has taken dramatic steps toward reconciliation with South Korea. Other dangerous states will arise. But what would such a state gain by attacking the United States except its own destruction?

While the benefits of the proposed anti-ballistic missile system are dubious, the dangers created by a decision to deploy are clear. It would be difficult to persuade Russia or China that the United States is wasting tens of billions of dollars on an ineffective missile system against small states that are unlikely to launch a missile attack on the U.S. The Russians and Chinese must therefore conclude that the presently planned system is a stage in developing a bigger system directed against

them. They may respond by restarting an arms race in ballistic missiles and having missiles in a dangerous "launch-on-warning" mode.

Even if the next planned test of the proposed anti-ballistic missile system works as planned, any movement toward deployment would be premature, wasteful and dangerous.

Respectfully,

Sidney Altman YALE UNIVERSITY 1989 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Philip W. Anderson PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 1977 Nobel Prize in physics
Kenneth J. Arrow STANFORD UNIVERSITY 1972 Nobel Prize in economics
Julius Axelrod NIH 1970 Nobel Prize in medicine
Baruj Benacerraf DANA FARBER CANCER INST. 1980 Nobel Prize in medicine
Hans A. Bethe CORNELL UNIVERSITY 1967 Nobel Prize in physics
J. Michael Bishop UNIVERSITY OF CALIF., SAN FRANCISCO 1989 Nobel Prize in medicine
Nicolaas Bloembergen HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1981 Nobel Prize in physics
Paul D. Boyer UCLA 1997 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Steven Chu STANFORD UNIVERSITY 1997 Nobel Prize in physics
Stanley Cohen VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY 1986 Nobel Prize in medicine
Leon N. Cooper BROWN UNIVERSITY 1972 Nobel Prize in physics
E. J. Corey HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1990 Nobel Prize in chemistry
James W. Cronin UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 1980 Nobel Prize in physics
Renato Dulbecco THE SALK INSTITUTE 1975 Nobel Prize in medicine
Edmond H. Fischer UNIV. OF WASHINGTON 1992 Nobel Prize in medicine
Val L. Fitch PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 1980 Nobel Prize in physics
Robert F. Furchgott SUNY HEALTH SCIENCE CTR. 1998 Nobel Prize in medicine
Murray Gell-Mann SANTA FE INSTITUTE 1969 Nobel Prize in physics
Ivar Giaever RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE 1973 Nobel Prize in physics
Walter Gilbert BIOLOGICAL LABORATORIES, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 1980 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Sheldon L. Glashow BOSTON UNIVERSITY 1979 Nobel Prize in physics
Roger C. L. Guillemin THE SALK INSTITUTE 1977 Nobel Prize in medicine
Herbert A. Hauptman THE MEDICAL FOUNDATION OF BUFFALO 1985 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Dudley R. Herschbach HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1986 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Roald Hoffmann CORNELL UNIVERSITY 1981 Nobel Prize in chemistry
David H. Hubel HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1981 Nobel Prize in medicine
Jerome Karle NAVAL RESEARCH LABORATORY 1985 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Arthur Kornberg STANFORD UNIVERSITY 1959 Nobel Prize in medicine
Edwin G. Krebs UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON 1992 Nobel Prize in medicine
Leon M. Lederman ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 1988 Nobel Prize in physics
Edward B. Lewis CALTECH 1995 Nobel Prize in medicine
Rudolph A. Marcus CALTECH 1992 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Franco Modigliani MIT, SLOAN SCHOOL 1985 Nobel Prize in economics
Mario Molina MIT 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Marshall Nirenberg NIH 1968 Nobel Prize in medicine
Douglas D. Osheroff STANFORD UNIVERSITY 1996 Nobel Prize in physics
Arno A. Penzias BELL LABS 1978 Nobel Prize in physics
Martin L. Perl STANFORD UNIVERSITY 1995 Nobel Prize in physics
Norman F. Ramsey HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1989 Nobel Prize in physics
Burton Richter STANFORD UNIVERSITY 1976 Nobel Prize in physics
Richard J. Roberts NEW ENGLAND BIOLABS 1993 Nobel Prize in medicine
Herbert A. Simon CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIV. 1978 Nobel Prize in economics
Richard E. Smalley RICE UNIVERSITY 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Jack Steinberger CERN 1988 Nobel Prize in physics
James Tobin YALE UNIVERSITY 1981 Nobel Prize in economics
Daniel C. Tsui PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 1998 Nobel Prize in physics
Steven Weinberg UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, AUSTIN 1979 Nobel Prize in physics
Robert W. Wilson HARVARD-SMITHSONIAN, CTR. FOR ASTROPHYSICS 1978 Nobel Prize in physics
Chen Ning Yang SUNY, STONY BROOK 1957 Nobel Prize in physics

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11) Critics Asking Clinton to Stop Advancing Missile Plan
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
July 7, 2000
WASH POST

WASHINGTON, July 6 -- A leading critic of national missile defense, Theodore A. Postol, said in a letter to President Clinton today that Mr. Clinton's advisers had made misleading statements about the proposed shield and urged creating an independent commission of top scientists to evaluate the plan.

Three major science groups also opposed the plan. The American Physical Society, with 42,000 physicists; the Federation of American Scientists; and the Union of Concerned Scientists jointly announced that they urged Mr. Clinton not to deploy a missile defense system, regardless of how its ground-based interceptor performs in a test on Friday night.

An antinuclear organization, Greenpeace, announced that it was sending a Dutch icebreaker, the Arctic Sunrise, to a "hazard zone" designated by the Air Force off the launching site at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., to try to stop the test.

"Mr. President, you have the finger on the Star Wars button," Greenpeace wrote in a letter to Mr. Clinton. "We urge you take it off and make the world a safer place."

To the Pentagon, the attacks might look like the revenge of the scientists. Fifty Nobel laureates have said any movement to deploy a missile defense system would be "premature, wasteful and dangerous."

The most relentless and detailed criticism has been from Dr. Postol, a professor of science and national security studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He contended in his letter Clinton that Pentagon officials have in recent weeks "made numerous technologically illiterate and highly misleading statements" about the missile proposal.

Dr. Postol said a statement by the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, Jacques Gansler, at a news conference on June 20 that the system's X-band radar could discriminate between a real target and a decoy was based on faulty science.

Dr. Postol added that the contention at that news conference by Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Kadish of the Air Force, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization at the Pentagon, that the decoy to be used on Friday was "representative" of the expected decoy threat was also false.

In statements today, the Pentagon defended the integrity of its program without addressing Dr. Postol's specific statements.

"Dr. Postol has raised issues that the independent review team and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization are addressing," a spokesman for the Pentagon, Kenneth H. Bacon, said in astatement. "Developing a national missile defense system poses difficult technical challenges."

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen "is confident that his team is following a systematic and reasonable course to solve these problems," Mr. Bacon added.

A spokesman for the National SecurityCouncil, P. J. Crowley, said, "We've asked the Pentagon for an analysis of the questions he raises, and the Pentagon is in the process of getting back to us."

The Pentagon said that weather conditions appeared good and that the test on Friday was on schedule.

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12) MISSILE TEST
July 7, 2000
CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Weather permitting Friday, the Pentagon plans the third and final preliminary test of a proposed U.S. National Missile Defense system.

The test -- essentially, a missile designed to shoot down other missiles -- is the last before President Clinton decides whether to give the green light to the defense system, which critics call unreliable.

Plans call for the test to occur between 7 p.m. PDT Saturday) over the Pacific Ocean.

The scenario for Friday's test is similar to that of the last, unsuccessful test in January: a target missile, a Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile with a dummy warhead, launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

Twenty minutes later and 4,300 miles (6,880 kilometers) away, the interceptor rocket takes off from Kwajalein Atoll in the remote Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

If it works as designed, a "kill vehicle" will detach from the interceptor rocket and guide itself into the path of the dummy warhead, destroying it 144 miles above the Earth.

Although much is riding on the outcome of the test, U.S Defense Secretary William Cohen says it is not a make-or-break event. In a sense, some defense critics agree. T Regardless of the outcome, they believe Clinton will move forward with building a nationwide shield against missiles.

Cohen stressed that the test is only one in a series of more than a dozen that will ultimately determine the feasibility of defending all 50 states against a limited attack of ballistic missiles.

"We are trying to take it step by step because it's very, very difficult technology we are trying," Cohen told reporters Thursday in Tampa, Florida, where he presided over a change of command ceremony at U.S. Central Command.

The goal of the missile defense system is to destroy a hostile warhead in space by ramming it head-on with an interceptor missile. "We are trying to hit a bullet with a bullet," Cohen said.

'The test won't prove anything'

Many critics believe the technology is not workable and that the Pentagon's testing methods are fatally flawed.

"The real problem that's most difficult is to select the real warhead, relative to decoys, and this test doesn't do anything to address that problem," said Ted Postol, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. "The test won't prove anything," he told CNN.

Fifty U.S. Nobel laureates sent a letter to Clinton warning him Thursday that any movement toward deployment of a ballistic missile system would be "premature, wasteful and dangerous."

Other critics say that even if it worked, the weapon would not be worth the international outcry against it -- most notably Russia's threat to unravel other arms control treaties.

The United States acknowledges that deployment of the missile shield would require revision of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty signed by the United States and Russia in 1972.

Russia and China worry that even a limited system could evolve and neutralize their nuclear missiles in years ahead, and have said they would simply build more nuclear warheads to overwhelm the system.

'Countries that want to intimidate the United States'

But missile defense supporters say all the criticism ignores a more important issue: Is the system necessary?

"Countries that are building ballistic missiles are countries that want to intimidate, coerce or blackmail the United States. We're saying that should not happen," said Peter Huessey of the Pentagon-affiliated National Defense University.

All we're trying to do is repair a strategic balance that has been upset by these countries," he told CNN.

The Clinton administration has said the anti-missile system is intended to defend against nations such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq, which may soon develop missile systems capable of reaching U.S. territory.

"Those countries are going to build up their missile defenses whether we improve our defense or not," said U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Mississippi.

Deployment in 2005?

A previous test firing for the anti-missile project in January was unsuccessful, but the first test launch of the system in October 1999 hit its target, the Pentagon said.

President Clinton is expected to make a final decision whether to continue with the project this fall, with planned deployment in Alaska by 2005.

Friday's test is expected to be watched closely by Boeing Co., integrator of the proposed system, and Raytheon Corp., which builds the 121-pound anti-missile weapon.

CNN National Security Correspondent David Ensor, CNN Military Affairs Correspondent Jamie McIntyre, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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13) Anti-missile test is rigged
Miami Herald
Sandy Grady
Friday, July 7, 2000,
Philadelphia Daily News.

WASHINGTON -- To fix a baseball game, it helps to have the pitcher lob tosses that a hitter couldn't miss. To rig a football game, you might tip the defense that every running play would go inside left tackle.

In sports, chicanery brings the wrath of district attorneys and howls from Las Vegas bookies. But in the surreal world of anti-missile defense -- with its big corporate bucks and political pressure -- a fixed game rates a shrug. It doesn't seem to bother anyone that today's ballyhooed flight test of a prototype missile interceptor over the Pacific Ocean is semiphony.

A flash of light and a direct hit will signal Bill Clinton to start moving dirt for a $60 billion missile shield in the remote Aleutian Islands. Fair enough -- if the test weren't as rigged as the 1919 ``Black Sox'' World Series.

In real life, a nuclear ICBM attack might strike with dozens of warheads surrounded by decoys, giving defenders seconds to sort out the chaos. The test, however, has been dumbed down like a tee-ball for Little Leaguers.

Let's see, a slowed-down, 37-year-old Minuteman II missile will fly a familiar route from California to the Kwajalein atoll. According to chief tester Philip Coyle, the intercept crew will know exactly the ``timing, direction and countermeasures.'' They'll even hear a countdown of the launch. And a radar beacon will be attached to the Minuteman. I guess they couldn't hang a red lantern around the target.

In truth, most anti-missile tests are highly suspect. Back in the '80s, the Pentagon even had a bomb to blowup the target vehicle in case of a miss.

The bigger truth is that success or failure in the ``Potemkin'' test will be a meaningless sham. If the defense blows it, there'll be 16 more tests at $100 million a shot. Nothing will stop what I'd call the ``Grandson of Star Wars.''

Since Ronald Reagan's dreamy March 23, 1983, speech -- ``I call upon the scientific community to render these weapons impotent and obsolete'' -- Washington junkies have been hooked on Star Wars illusions. I heard Edward Teller, the Dr. Strangelovian father of the H-bomb, expound his nutty idea for a nuclear explosion in space to trigger a laser beam. I was once numbed by ex-Lt. Gen. Daniel Graham bloviating about Brilliant Pebbles -- hundreds of tiny interceptors floating in space like ping-pong balls. Reality never dampens fantasies.

In her superb new book, Out There in The Blue -- Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War, Frances FitzGerald marvels at the unkillable anti-missile mojo: ``The persistence of the push for deployment was phenomenal. It survived declining defense budgets. It survived a fall-off of public interest so complete newspaper readers thought the program died. It survived the collapse of the Soviet Union.''

What in 2000 keeps Grandson of Star Wars thriving? Well, politics surely. Newt Gingrich's Contract for America pushed missile defense. So Clinton and now Al Gore don't want to look soft on defense. George W. Bush has upped the ante to build a system that ``defends 50 states, our allies and our forces overseas.''

Don't underestimate the lobbying muscle of defense contractors Boeing, Raytheon, TRW and Lockheed Martin, who love those multimillion contracts. Don't discount the hard-right think tanks.

But if Clinton gives a ``limited green light'' to start building the Aleutian Island site, say goodbye to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia. Do Star Wars backers doubt that China, which supposedly has stolen U.S. high-tech magic, could build hundreds of missiles to overwhelm the system?

In the vicious circle, offense wins.

More mystery: Grandson of Star Wars roars ahead with zero focus by public or Congress. ``There's no real debate,'' Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., says. ``Eighty percent of my colleagues are not paying attention.''

It's a wasteland. Folly keeps repeating. Gentleman, start your rigged test countdown . . . For ``Grandson of Star Wars,'' the fix is in.

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14) MISSILE DEFENSE TEST READY CLINTON TO DECIDE ON CONTROVERSIAL SYSTEM'S FUTURE
July 7, 2000
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
By William P.Bohlen,

WASHINGTON -- The Defense Department is set to launch a test late Friday or early Saturday that could determine the fate of the planned National Missile Defense system.

Though many more tests are necessary, this test is critical, supporters and critics say, as it is the one President Clinton has said he will rely on in deciding whether to move forward with the program.

The goal of the upcoming $100 million test is to shoot down a dummy missile warhead in space.

The results will help the Defense Department determine the feasibility of a national missile defense system aimed at countering attacks from nations such as North Korea, Iran or Iraq.

But the program's opponents fear the missile defense system could harm U.S. relations with Russia, China and smaller nationswith nuclear capabilities.

Warning Clinton of an impending arms race, 50 Nobel laureates this week signed a letter urging the president to reconsider the anti-ballistic missile plan.

They said the benefits are "dubious" and thepotential dangers great. "The system could undermine the hard-won arms-control treaty we have with Russia," said Henry Kelly, president of the Federation of American Scientists, whichsent the letter. "[And] it could certainly stimulate a Chinese missile buildup."

The letter urged Clinton not to authorize the deployment of the system even if this test succeeds.

This weekend's test follows two disappointing ones, and critics say the latest trial won'tproduce results that are accurate or realistic enough to determine whether the programshould be approved.

The exercise involves launching a Minuteman II missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, followed 20 minuteslater by an anti-ballistic "hit-to-kill" rocket launched4,300 miles away from Kwajalein island in the Pacific.

The weapon will have to distinguish between a decoy balloon and themock warhead before hitting its target 144 miles aboveEarth. Lisabeth Gronlund, a senior staff scientist with the Union ofConcerned Scientists and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist, said, "The Pentagon in this test is assuming that the attacker can deploy a balloon, but ... they have not assumed that the adversary would do the far simpler thing of putting the warhead in the balloon."

What's more, say other critics,including the Coalition to ReduceNuclear Dangers, a consortium of arms-control groups, even successful tests will not prove real-world effectiveness of an anti-ballistic missile system because the Pentagon has lowcriteria for technical readiness that do notaccurately reflect an actual attack situation.

"I couldn't disagree with them more," Navy Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said at a Pentagon press conference Thursday. "This is a walk-before-you-run process. ... This test is important, but there are many tests yet to come."

Last month, North Korea said it would extend its moratorium on testing long-rangemissiles, and the U.S. announced that missile control talks would begin soon. Nevertheless, some believe missile defense tests are necessary because of the threats smaller, nuclear-armed nations could pose someday.

Sean Conway, spokesman for Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.), head of the Senate ArmedServices strategic forces subcommittee, said Allard supports a long-range anti-ballistic defense system.

"I think his feeling is that this is very important to the long-term security of the United States," Conway said. "We need to make the commitmentand the investment now for what he believes will be a big payout in the future. This is something that would be irresponsible if we didn't proceed forward on it."

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15) Watershed for Missile Defense
Friday , July 7, 2000
By Roberto Suro
Washington Post

Sometime between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. tonight, a dummy warhead is to be borne aloft on a missile fired from the California coast, and about half an hour later an interceptor launched from a South Pacific atoll will try to find the target and slam into it about 140 miles above the Earth.

Regardless of whether it is a hit or a miss, the results of tonight's $100 million flight test will be closely analyzed from Capitol Hill to the Kremlin because it is the last practice run before the Clinton administration decides whether to begin building the controversial National Missile Defense system.

The otherwise routine exercise has taken on extraordinary significance as officials, even within the administration, debate whether a costly, high-tech shield to defend the nation from ballistic missile attacks is necessary, whether it will work as planned and whether the potential diplomatic damage outweighs its benefits.

Advocates, including presidential candidate George W. Bush and many other Republicans, argue that a missile shield is essential to protect the United States and that the administration's plans do not go far enough. Critics, including several prominent scientists and former Clinton defense officials, contend that the system has too many technical problems and that it will set off a new arms race.

Meanwhile, Russia and China complain that if the United States builds its own missile defense, it will negate their countries' strategic deterrents and give America too much power in the world. The European allies quietly grumble that no real threat exists to justify the effort and that the shield could cause Americans to go their own way in foreign policy without sufficient consideration of their allies.

The process of sifting through these issues will go into high gear moments after the "kill vehicle" and the target warhead race toward each other in the night sky at a combined speed of more than 15,000 miles an hour. Within a few weeks the Pentagon will deliver an assessment of the system's technical capabilities.

By the end of the month the nation's top intelligence officers are due to resolve deep differences over the potential threat of ballistic missile attack and the likely reaction of key nations if President Clinton presses ahead.

Tonight's test will be only the third attempt at an actual intercept. Since the score thus far is one hit and one miss, tonight's result will help shape the verdict on feasibility. This also will be the most complete test of the system because in past attempts the interceptor received more help to find its target than it will tonight.

A key aspect of the test is gauging how well the missile carrying the kill vehicle can be guided toward the incoming warhead by computers rapidly processing data from a high-powered X-band radar and other sensors. In the final seconds, infrared sensors aboard the kill vehicle will attempt to distinguish the warhead from a decoy and home in on the target. If it's a direct hit, the 120-pound kill vehicle will destroy the target simply by kinetic energy, not explosives.

"There's not yet enough evidence to show that the system will work, and Friday's test won't change that," said Robert Park of the American Physical Society, who joined representatives of the Federation of American Scientists and the Union of Concerned Scientists in releasing statements yesterday urging Clinton not to make a deployment decision because the system has not proved its feasibility.

Focusing on the foreign policy implications, 50 American Nobel laureates sent the president a letter yesterday arguing that "the system would offer little protection and would do grave harm to this nation's core security interests" by igniting an arms race with China and Russia.

The proposed missile shield is a much smaller version of President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed "Star Wars" by critics, a system that was never built and quietly faded once the threat of nuclear war diminished with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Interest in missile defense revived after a congressional commission reported in 1998 that North Korea, Iran or Iraq could develop a ballistic missile threat against the United States within five years of deciding to acquire such a capability.

Demanding action from the White House and the Pentagon, a bipartisan majority in Congress enacted legislation last year requiring the creation of a missile shield to cover the 50 states as soon as technically feasible. The administration set a target date of 2005 to have a system operating based on intelligence estimates projecting that North Korea could have a long-range missile capability by then.

While declaring confidence in their ability to create an effective defense eventually, senior Pentagon officials have repeatedly warned that the administration's schedule is highly accelerated and very risky because development and testing of the system will continue even as construction and manufacturing are underway.

"I think one of the things we have to guard against is, if we hit tomorrow night, then there might be a natural tendency for many to throw up their hands and say, 'We did it! It worked just fine,' but such a declaration would be way premature," said Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, during a news briefing yesterday.

Whether the kill vehicle slams into the target warhead as planned will be evident immediately tonight, but missile defense officials will assess the data from the test for at least two weeks before reporting to Defense Secretary William S. Cohen on the system's readiness.

"We're going to have to take the time in that next couple of weeks to take a real hard look at the data to see which systems performed as we wanted them to and which performed below par, and take a really hard look to be cautious of being overly optimistic as we take a look at what actually happened tomorrow night," Quigley said.

Clinton has said he will consider Cohen's recommendation on the feasibility of the shield, along with input from the State Department and intelligence agencies on the nature of the ballistic missile threat, as well as assessments of the potential foreign policy implications before deciding whether to authorize the first construction work in Alaska. Given the short building season there, the president must give the go-ahead by late November to keep the project on schedule.

Critics contend that tests of the system, including tonight's planned intercept, are unrealistic because only one simple decoy accompanies the target warhead, while any nation capable of launching a long-range ballistic missile would also be capable of much more challenging countermeasures.

"In essence, the Pentagon is asking the wrong question to get the answer they want," said Lisbeth Gronlund, a research fellow in security studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Speaking for the Union of Concerned Scientists at a news conference yesterday, Gronlund said, "they have defined the threat to be less than what it might actually be in the real world."

How the Test Should Work

1. Target missile launches from Vandenberg Air Force base in California.

2. Satellite detects plume from launch and notifies battle management center in Colorado Springs.

3. Center analyzes data and authorizes battle management node in Kwajalein to launch kill vehicle.

4. Kwajalein launches interceptor missile and activates X-band radar.

5. Kill vehicle separates from booster, takes star sightings to determine its coordinates, and receives updated information on the target's location from the X-band and early warning radars.

6. Kill vehicle becomes autonomous and uses on-board electronics to distinguish the target from a decoy and debris and homes in.

Past Tests

Jan. 17, 1997: Booster carrying kill vehicle failed to launch because of communication malfunction.

July 7, 1997: Repeat of Jan. 17 test demonstrated kill vehicle's ability to identify and track objects in space, using infrared sensor.

Jan. 15, 1998: Again tested kill vehicle's ability to identify and track objects in space.

Oct. 2, 1999: Made a hit on target warhead, despite a failure in the star tracker.

Jan. 18, 2000: Missed target after infrared sensors failed on kill vehicle because of a problem with a cooling system.

SOURCE: Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, Federation of American Scientists

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16) "Why a Thin U.S. National Missile Defense Looks Thick to the Russians"
7 JULY 2000
Press Briefing on National Missile Defense
By Bruce Blair

I believe that the United States has not appreciated the Russian view that the ABM Treaty is the cornerstone of stability and that even a thin U.S. missile shield is threatening. Nor have we grasped the fact that the fielding of U.S. missile defenses will increase the net nuclear threat to the United States.

The simplest way to explain the Russian view is that a U.S. missile shield would be the straw that breaks the back of Russia's nuclear deterrent. Russia today can barely cope with U.S. offensive power alone, let alone a combination of offense and defense, a one-two punch they fear could deliver the knock-out blow to their strategic forces. The first punch would decimate Russia's strategic retaliatory forces. Why? Because Russian forces today are more vulnerable than they have ever been, going back at least to the early 1960s. On a given day, Russia could count on fewer than 100 and perhaps a few as nine weapons surviving a sudden U.S. missile attack, out of an arsenal of 6,000. On a given day, these weapons would reside on a single submarine and a single regiment of land-mobile rockets. Through Russian eyes, a U.S. missile shield around U.S. territory could deliver the second and decisive punch, by mopping up this small residual force once it launched in retaliation.

U.S. officials often point out that Russia's thousands of weapons could easily overwhelm a thin U.S. missile defense consisting of only one or two hundred interceptors. What they do not point out is that Russia's second-strike force may consist of only tens of weapons. One or two hundred U.S. interceptors is a relatively big and threatening number. Like military planners the world over, the Russians will assume that the interceptors would work, and that their deterrent arsenal could be checkmated by the Americans in this situation.

[Risk-averse planners on both sides credit the opposing missile shields with higher effectiveness than they deserve, and seek to overcome defenses by throwing more warheads at them than the defensive interceptors can possibly engage. The offense seeks to exhaust the defense's resources. For example, as late as the 1990s, 69 U.S. nuclear warheads were assigned to attack a single above-ground radar station in the ring of Russian interceptors around Moscow, even though the Russian interceptors would almost certainly have failed to destroy many of them.]

So if Russian is going to overwhelm this shield, it must plan to launch massively and quickly in a crisis, either firing first or firing on warning from decrepid early warning sensors. Russia must get its forces off the ground before incoming U.S. missiles can strike them. That unfortunately is a dangerous escape valve because it increases the danger of launch on false warning or miscalculation.

And so our thin defense is not so thin through Russian eyes. It would represent a real threat that would reinforce Russia's hair-trigger readiness to launch on warning. In trying to protect ourselves against small rogue attacks or small accidental or unauthorized launches by Russia, we would actually increase the risk of an accidental or mistaken large-scale Russian missile launch. If this risk grows by even a fraction of 1 percent, then the additional peril to Americans would far outweigh the benefits of protecting them partially from a nebulous, uncertain future threat from a country such as North Korea.

As Russia's arsenal shrinks from aging and retirement, this thin defense will loom even larger to the Russians. Economic pressures could easily drive the numbers of Russian strategic weapons down to the low hundreds over the next 10 to 15 years. Russian confidence in their deterrent force would wither proportionately, even for scenarios in which Russian forces launch first or on warning.

To the extent that Russian planners do discount the performance of U.S. missile defense against their small second-strike force, it only reinforces their suspicion that the United States' real scheme is to lay the groundwork for a later fast thickening of the defenses that would be designed to negate their deterrent. American officials dismiss such suspicions as unwarranted, on the grounds that U.S. defenses are not aimed at Russia at all, except for possible scenarios of accidental Russian launches. But Americans cannot dictate Russian perceptions, and Russian suspicions while perhaps unfounded are understandable in the light of recent setbacks in U.S.-Russian relations and in the light of statements such as the following taken from a 1995 analysis prepared for Congress by the Pentagon's BMDO: Defenses against the Former Soviet Union ballistic missile threat "...could augment deterrence by significantly increasing the Soviet planners' doubts that any military attack on the United States could succeed." (National Missile Defense Options, Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, July 31, 1995, p. 1)

Fielding a missile defense on top of thus could redound to our grave disadvantage. Severe disruption of U.S.-Russian relations and of strategic stability might be avoided, however, if fully offsetting reductions in offensive forces are made. If severe constraints on offensive firepower are imposed then missile defenses may be tolerable, and in fact in theory stability could even be strengthened. One promising formula for striking a stable balance between offense and defense is to cut deeply the offensive missile arsenals and take all silo-busting U.S. warheads off alert and put them in long-term storage. By de-alerting most or all of the current 2,200 U.S weapons on high alert, a U.S. national missile defense would appear far less threatening to Russia. Russian strategic missiles would be far less vulnerable to sudden U.S. offensive forces, and thus they would be far more capable of overwhelming U.S. defenses. Russia in fact would be able to dealert its own strategic missiles and thereby greatly reduce the risk of a mistaken or unauthorized Russian missile attack. Neither country is presently pursuing this formula, though it is at least encouraging that George W. Bush seems to grasp and support it.

Let me close with the recommendation that no matter what decision on NMD is taken, mutual dealerting ought to be the main item on the nuclear security agenda. Progress toward eliminating the hair-trigger on U.S. and Russian nuclear missiles is more critical to American security than anything else on the table today.

Bruce G. Blair, a former Minuteman missile launch officer, is president of the Center for Defense Information and a co-author of "The Nuclear Turning Point."

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17) KEY MISSILE DEFENCE TEST
The Pentagon's test tonight of a national missile defense system began this morning around 12:30 ET.
ABC NEWS
By David Ruppe
July 7

The Pentagon's controversial defense system draws fire from critics. States

The test was originally scheduled to occur sometime between 10 p.m. ET and 2 a.m. Saturday. But a technical glitch discovered Friday evening set the launch back by at least two hours, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. The problem, he said, was related to electronic signals inside the missile that tell ground controllers its course offlight. But he said engineers were workingdiligently and he expected the test to commence by midnight ET.

Important Decision Pending

The test could factor heavily into President Clinton's decision, expected this fall, on whether the United States should begin building the expensive National Missile Defense, or NMD, system, which is projected to cost $60 billion over the lifetime of the program.

If all goes according to plan, a complex machine called a Ã'kill vehicleÃ" Ã' roughly the size of several breadboxes laid end-to-end Ã' will slam into the mock warhead Ã' acone-shaped object about 5 feet long Ã' at a speed of about 12,000 miles perhour, approximately 144 miles above the Pacific Ocean.

The mock warhead was launched on a modified Minuteman II missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.,and will fly for about 20 minutes before the intercepting kill vehicle is launched fromKwajalein Atoll in the southern Pacific and guided by sophisticated radar.

About 10 minutes later, sensors on thekill vehicle are supposedto guide the vehicle into the target and not a decoy.

Initially, there were reports of three activists from Greenpeace being caught and charged with trespassing after infiltrating Vandenberg in an effort to stop the test. Greenpeace deniesthe report.

In the weeks following the test, the Pentagon will make a report to Clinton on whether the system is technologically feasible.

A test in March was unsuccessful. The kill vehicle missed the target because of a mechanical problem, officials said.

In a test last October, the kill vehicle hit the target. However, Pentagon officials acknowledged only part of the system had been tested. Part of the course of the interceptor had been pre-set, rather than being determined by radar, they said.

In making his decision Clinton is expected to take into account the technological feasibility of the system as well as the nature of a potential threat, the cost of the program, and the system's impact on arms control and U.S. allies.

Too Simple?

Some critics have charged this evening's test and previous ones are too simplistic to be the basis of a decision onwhether to build the system.

For instance, they note the timing and direction of the kill vehicles have been pre-set and that the number and types of decoys used to distract the kill vehicle from the target have been limited.

Pentagon officials have acknowledged tonight's test will not exactly reflect theconditions the systemwould face against a real threat. But they maintain the test will not be invalid. The NMD system, they say, still will have to detect, track and aim the kill vehicle at the target, just as in a real situation.

'What we'll have to do is to use all of our sensors, our radars and so forth, to locate the warhead that goes throughspace and send a command from those radars to the booster rocket, which carries the kill vehicle into space, it will basically upload that data into the killvehicle,' says Air Force Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the program.

The kill vehicle gets another radio update of the target from a ground system. And then it's totally on its own.

As for the decoys, numerous additional tests with varying decoy challenges are scheduled for later in the program, says Lehner. Those tests, though,would occur after Clinton is expected to make his decision.

Scientific Skepticism

Some prominent scientists have charged the system's tests have been dumbed down because, they say, the kill vehicle cannot distinguish between anenemy warhead and decoys.

The scientific community is skeptical about the enormousdifficulty of trying to distinguish between a warhead and countermeasures that could be launched by any nation sufficiently technically capable to produce an intercontinental ballistic missile, said Henry Kelly, president of the Federation of American Scientists, at a Thursday pressconference.

Kelly and scientific experts representing the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists and the American Physical Society said the system would not be proved technically feasible even if the test were successful.

In a briefing at theNational Press Club in Washington today, Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist Theodore Postol, a leading critic of the system, charged that tonightÕs test was fixed.

He said the kill vehicle was programmed to locate in space the mock warhead, a piece of a rocket, and the decoy, and then head for the dimmer of the three rather than distinguish between the shapes and sizes of the objects as it would normally have todo.

It's just simply been told home on the dimmest object. It doesn't know what it's homing on, he said.

A group of 50 Nobel laureates this week published an open letter to Clinton, rejecting the system. They said it would 'offer little protection and would do grave harm to this nation's core security interests.

Is NMD Necessary?

Proponents of the system say a national missile defense is needed primarily to counter potential ballistic missile threats from North Korea, Iran and Iraq, as well as to protect against accidental or unauthorized Russian or Chinese launches.

The intelligence community gives no firm estimate for when threats from the smaller countries mightmaterialize. U.S. intelligence experts say those countries could develop missiles that could reach the United States by 2005 or by 2015.

Critics say the system is not needed because no country would risk the massive nuclear retaliation by the United States that a ballistic attack could provoke.

Supporters say they want to deny countrieslike North Korea even theopportunity to threaten an attack.

What we are determined to do is make sure the United States is not put in a position of being blackmailed by acountry through the threat of launching an ICBM at the United States, Defense Secretary William Cohen said Thursday.

International Implications

Critics also say the system could harm global arms-control efforts. Russia and China have expressed strong opposition to the system, claiming it could reduce the effectiveness of their ballistic missile systems.

Both countries have threatened to boost their ballistic missile capabilities if the system is developed.

The head of Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces, Vladimir Yakovlev, today called the tests 'the first step toward global nuclear instability,' according to Interfax news service.

Russian President Vladimir Putin today said Russian nuclear arms control efforts would be 'shattered' if the United States decided to deploythe system, Agence France Presse reported.

'I believe it's important for the United States to have a capability to defend the American people against such a limited type of attack or the threat of attack, or an unauthorized or accidental type of launch,' Cohen said.

System Has Support

The NMD system appears to have strong support in the Republican-controlled Congress. The House and Senate last year passed legislation, signed by Clinton, calling for theUnited States to deploy a national missile defense system 'as soon as is technologically possible.'

If Clinton were to decide against building the system, the next president, who will take office in January, ultimately could undo that decision Ã' though not in time to begin building the system in Alaska next spring, the goal for having the system operating by 2005.

Leading presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush have bothsaid they favor the program.

Gore says he supports Clinton's approach of pursuing a limited defensive system that designed to protect only the 50 U.S. states. Bush favors a more ambitious system also designed to protect U.S. allies.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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18) Missile Test
CHICAGO TRIBUNE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
JULY 7
By Robert Burns

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon's rocket scientists stood ready Friday to light the fuse on a $100 million missile defense test which, if successful, could move the United States a step closer to building a nationwide anti-missile shield.

Congress says it is urgently needed; critics decry it as unworkable.

But late Friday, a technical glitch in the target missile, to be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., set back the launch by at least two hours, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

He said engineers were hoping to fix the problem -- related to electronic signalsinside the missile thattell ground controllersits course of flight -- in a short time, and the test was still expected to commence by midnightEDT.

Officials had said the latest they would wait before scrapping the test and rescheduling it for another date was 2 a.m. EDT Saturday.

At stake is the future of a multibillion dollar project that has upset Russia and China and caused many of America's closest European allies to wince at the prospect of a U.S.-only defense against missile attack.

Although President Clinton says he will decide soon whether to keep the project moving toward an anticipated deployment in 2005, it will be up to his successor to make the final steps to build and deploy it.

This fast-approaching decision deadline for Clinton gave Friday's test extra urgency and public attention.

The plan was for an interceptor rocket to launch from an Armymissile range on Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific 20 minutes after a target missile flies aloft from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The intent was for a small, maneuverable "kill vehicle" carried into space by the Kwajalein rocket to guide itself into the path of the target missile, pulverizing both in a collision at 16,000 miles an hour.

If it works, Defense Secretary William Cohen is likely to recommend to Clinton that he take the first steps in a phased building plan that would have the missile defense system ready to use by December 2005.

If it fails, Cohen could still recommend going ahead, but it would appear more likely that he would favor another option such as stretching out the timetable to allow for more flight tests. The Pentagon's independent advisers have said the 2005 timetable may be overly ambitious.

Kenneth Bacon, Cohen's spokesman, said Friday before the test that Cohen did not expect to make his recommendation for another three or four weeks and he could not predict what it would be.

This was the third in a series of missile intercept tests. The first, last October, succeeded. The second, in January, failed. Friday's test was delayed more than two months to fix the problem that plagued January's test.

The anti-nuclear activist group Greenpeace hoped to halt Friday's test by placing a ship in the Pacific where a rocket stage is expected to splash down about 110 miles offshore from Vandenberg, said Steve Shallhorn, the group's campaign director.

The Air Force has asked pilots and sailors to avoid the area during the test or risk damage or injury but said the test could continue even with a ship in the zone.

Greenpeace also set up camp outside Vandenberg's main gate, and a group of protesters not affiliated with Greenpeace threatened to delay the launch by breaking into the base. Pentagon officials said launch preparations were proceeding on schedule.

At the White House before Friday's test, spokesman P.J. Crowley said that even if themissile hit its target there would be weeks of detailed analysis before the Pentagon could verify that everything worked properly.

"I would say a hit doesn't automatically suggest success, nor does a failure automatically come with a miss tonight," Crowley said.

One of the biggest backers of missile defense in Congress, Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., said in an interview Friday that he believes America can afford a missile defense even though defense dollars are tight.

"Without a doubt, Congress will approve the funding for a missile defense system" so long as U.S. military leaders feel confident it is technologically ready for deployment, Cochran said. Cost estimates range from the Pentagon's $36 billion to the General Accounting Office's $60 billion.

By law, the Pentagon must deploy a national missile defense as soon as it is technologically feasible.

Feasibility and cost are two of four factors Clinton has said he will take into account in deciding whether to give the Pentagon the go-ahead to begin preparing a construction site on Shemya Island in the Aleutians. A high-powered "X-band" radar would be built there to track a missile in flight toward the United States.

The other two factors Clinton will consider are the urgency of the missile threat against the United States and the implications of building a missile defense for U.S. foreign relations.

Clinton needs to decide soon because construction on Shemya cannot begin before next spring, leaving barely enough time to complete the radar and get the rest of the project done by the 2005 target date.

The 2005 date is significant because intelligence officials believe North Korea will have the capability by then of fielding a long-range missile that could reach U.S. territory. Recently, however, North Korea has reaffirmed a pledge not to test any longer-range ballistic missiles so long as it is engaged in discussions with the United States about improving diplomatic relations and reducing the risk of war on the Korean peninsula.

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19) Both parties tell Clinton to press missile defense
10 JULY 2000
The Washington Times
Joyce Howard Price
www.washtimes.com

Democratic and Republican senators yesterday urged President Clinton to press ahead with a missile defense system and let his successor decide whether to deploy it.

The advice came one day after a test in which a "hit-to-kill" missile did not separate from the second stage of its liftoff rocket and failed to intercept and destroy a dummy warhead in space over the Pacific Ocean.

"President Clinton, notwithstanding this disappointment on Saturday morning, ought to decide to at least keep the process moving forward," Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat, told interviewers on "Fox News Sunday."

Mr. Lieberman, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said the president should at least authorize the beginning of the construction of radar facilities on Shemya Island in the Aleutians.

"That may mean nothing more than putting out the contract to turn the earth in Alaska for bids from contractors and then to let the incoming president next year decide whether we should actually begin to turn the earth," said Mr. Lieberman, who noted that no deployment decision has to be made before 2003.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, Nebraska Republican, who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee, agreed that the next president should make the call.

"The technological piece of this is not yet in place," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation" program. "The cost obviously is not in place. I don't think we've brought our allies on, I don't think we've handled that very well, and how we're dealing with the Russians and Chinese on this are important.

"So therefore it's only responsible in my opinion to allow the next administration working with the new Congress, to start making these decisions."

National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger said the latest failure will be an "important" factor in deciding whether the system should be deployed. Mr. Clinton plans to make that decision by late summer or early fall after hearing recommendations from Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Mr. Berger.

"Clearly the failure of the test on Saturday is important in assessing how far along this system is technologically. . . . Obviously, this does go to the question of technical feasibility," Mr. Berger said yesterday on CBS' "Face the Nation."

The missile defense system Ã'estimated to cost $60 billion Ã' has been tested three times, failing twice. Few, however, think the results spell the end of the project.

"Too much has been made of this test over the weekend," Mr. Lieberman said. He called the failure "disappointing," but said, "There are more tests to come . . . there are 16 more tests in the program."

Sen. Fred Thompson, Tennessee Republican, who appeared on Fox, agreed tests of the system should continue. "We need it. . . . We've had one successful test, and a couple of unsuccessful tests. We're simply going to have to continue until we perfect it."

The senator, who chairs the Government Affairs Committee, said: "I'm more concerned the president will cut a quick deal for an inadequate system than I am that we don't have the technological capability of perfecting the system."

Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican and a member of the intelligence committee, said the latest test mishap "really didn't establish that the program can't work.

"The thing that failed in this test is something that we've done hundreds of times before . . . it's not something that technologically we don't know how to do," Mr. Kyl said.

The enthusiasm so many lawmakers have for the missile defense system is not surprising. Last year, Congress adopted a statement of policy that said the United States would develop a national missile defense as soon as it's technologically possible.

"We've decided that we want to protect our people from incoming missiles. And that's the right decision, and we ought to pursue it," said Mr. Lieberman, who is believed to be under consideration as a running mate for Vice President Al Gore, the prospective Democratic presidential nominee.

Mr. Lieberman asked whether the enactment of that legislation, which the administration also supported, means that the system will go forward no matter what.

The law, he said, stipulates that it is U.S. "policy to develop a national missile defense" and "deploy when it's technologically possible." Nevertheless, he said, the law is "subject to the annual authorization and appropriation process, meaning we'll always make priority decisions."

The system is meant to protect the United States from missiles fired by rogue nations, such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

The CIA has said North Korea could be capable of such an attack by 2005, and system advocates want it to be in place by then.

Russia and China strongly oppose such a plan, and many of the United States' NATO allies find it worrisome. They fear it would trigger an arms buildup.

On CBS yesterday, Mr. Berger reiterated that Mr. Clinton would be considering four criteria in deciding whether to go forward with the missile system the threat of missile attack, technological capability, the system's cost, and the impact on allies and the arms race.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, is concerned about a repudiation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty the United States signed with the former Soviet Union in 1972. That treaty prohibits either party from developing a national missile defense system. "Right now, you have China with 18 intercontinental missiles . . . if we break the ABM Treaty, they are going to go to 250 to 500 overnight," he said.

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20) Anti-'Star Wars' activists prepare for missile test
CBC News
Fri JUly 7

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, CALIF. - A group of anti-nuclear activists are hoping to stop a test of an American missile defence system set for Friday night.

The $100 million test will launch a Minuteman II missile around 10 p.m ET from Vandenberg air force base in California.

Twenty minutes later, an interceptor missile will be launched from an island in the South Pacific. If it's successful, the interceptor will destroy the missile 250 kilometres above the Earth.

The United States Air Force has asked planes and ships to stay clear of the area but it says the test would go ahead, even if there is a ship there.

Greenpeace is planning on sailing into the area where the rocket stage could splash down.

The test is designed to set up a defensive shield around the United States. If it works, it would see the Americans fire missiles at any warheads heading towards theStates.

"We are trying to hit a bullet with a bullet," said American Defense Secretary William Cohen.

Critics say the program is too expensive and it won't work.

"We think Star Wars is a step in the wrong direction. It's going to make the world a more unstable place," said Steve Shallhorn, campaign director for Greenpeace. "We're sending a message to President Clinton asking him to take a finger off the Star Wars button and cancel the program."

The test is an important one for the military. It is the last one before Clinton decides whether to move forward and build anationwide shield against missiles.

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21) Anomaly delays missile test
July 7, 2000
CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon says that an "anomaly" discovered in a telemetry battery of the target missile at Vandenberg Air Force Base has delayed the test of the National Missile Defense system.

A senior defense official says the problem with the battery is being repaired, and that the test had been rescheduled for 12:17 a.m. EDT Saturday.

The announcement came as anti-nuclear protesters said they would try to stop Friday night's critical test of the anti-missile system, planned to take place 144 miles above the Pacific Ocean.

Plans call for a modified Minuteman II target missile to be launched from California. If the test succeeds, the Minuteman will be struck down by a second "kill vehicle" missile fired 20 minutes later from the Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific, 4,300 miles away.

"It's designed to protect all 50 states from rogue attacks by nations with a handful of missiles," Keith Englander, National Missile Defense technical director, told a news conference at Vandenberg.

The anti-nuclear group Greenpeace said it had dispatched a ship carrying 23 protesters 110 miles off shore rom the seaside base, in the test's so-called "hazard zone."

Although the Air Force has asked pilots and mariners to avoid the area during the test, the test could continue even with a ship in the zone.

Greenpeace also announced Friday that it had sent protesters onto the base itself to thwart the launch. But base officials said everything remained ready for launch.

"According to the Air Force's own safety procedures the missile cannot be launched with Twenty-three people people in that part of the base," said Greenpeace spokeswoman Mary Macnutt.

"Everything is fine so far," Air Pacific. Force Lt. Col. Rick Leonard, a missile defense spokesman, said "There are some high cirrus clouds in the California launch area, but they present no problem."

But security has been heightened at the base, according to Maj. John Cherry, director of public affairs. He said there have been at least three trespassing arrests in and around the facility during the past two days.

Cherry said one person was arrested on the base Thursday night, in a location far from any sensitive areas. The arrested person, Cherry said, would be turned over to U.S. marshals.

The local sheriff's department also made two separate trespassing arrests on private property near Vandenberg late Wednesday night and early Thursday, Cherry said. Both incidents involved people whorefused to identify themselves and who failed to cooperate with authorities.

It was the third test of the project known as the U.S. National Missile Defense system, a plan that is bitterly opposed by Russia, China, and many of Washington's European allies.

The goal of the missile defense system, the Pentagon said, is to protect the U.S. mainland from missiles that might be developed by nations such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq. A U.S. missile would be launched to destroy a hostile warhead by ramming it head-on.

The U.S. military has described the strategy as "trying to hit a bullet with a bullet."

In fact a missile test in 1999 was successful, but a subsequent test in January failed.

The missile test by the Pentagon will cost $100 million, officials said.

Pentagon officials are still working on cost estimates for a national missile defense program. Most recent estimates, which call for 100 missile interceptors at a single site -- in Alaska -- place the cost at $36 billion for 20 years.

The General Accounting Office, the auditing arm of Congress, estimates the program will cost $60 billion if -- as many missile defense proponents urge -- the system is expanded to two interceptor sites,each with 100 interceptors.

Technological and strategic concerns

An independent panel of retired military officers and weapons experts told the Pentagon in a report last month that it believes missile defense is technologically feasible, but that the Pentagon may not be able to have a reliable system in place by 2005, the target date. The date is significant because the CIA has said it believes North Korea could have a long-range missile capable of reaching U.S. soil within five years.

Englander said he could not respond to critics of the system point for point because much of his argument would involve classified information.

"By getting a hit tonight and looking at all the data... we believe it will get the technical question off the table," Englander said. "We believe it will get us on the path we should be on."

Many critics say the technology is not feasible and that he Pentagon's testing methods are fatally flawed. Other critics say that even if it worked the weapon would not be worth the international outcry against it -- most notably Russia's threat to unravel the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Moscow says the system violates.

Moscow and Beijing both fear that a mature and successful anti-missile system could eliminate the strategic threat of their nuclear arsenals.

Vladimir Yakovlev, the head of Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces, was quoted by the Interfax news agency Friday as saying the tests "are the first step toward global nuclear instability."

A U.S. missile defense system, he said, would "lead directly to nuclear anarchy."

European leaders of Germany and Italy have said they fear the National Missile Defense system could spark a new arms race.

On Thursday 50 American winners of the Nobel prize sent a letter to Clinton warning him that any movement toward deployment of a ballistic missile system would be "premature, wasteful and dangerous."

Friday, another critical scientist, Ted Postol , a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that three members of the Defense Security Services came to his office "unannounced" a few weeks ago. They showed him a classified document with the word "secret" marked all over it, Postol claimed.

"This, in my view, was almost certainly an attempt to entrap me and put me in a difficult position," Postol told reporters at a Washington news conference. He said he didn't read the document.

Postol, who teaches science, technology, and national security policy at MIT, sent a letter earlier this year to the Defense Department and the White House explaining why the system will not work. He claims the Pentagon classified his letter, although he maintains he got all the relevant information from the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, an arm of the Department of Defense.

In an editorial published in the New York Times Friday, Postol argued against the anti-missile system and the Defense Department's tests.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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22) Pentagon Says Problem Delays Missile Test
Friday July 7
By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Friday night that a technical problem had delayed for at least two hours a planned attempt to shoot down a missile in space in a test of the U.S. National Missile Defense system.

``It is being fixed right now, but the earliest possible launch of the target vehicle (from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California) is now going to be sometime shortly after midnight'' EDT, said Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman.

Whitman said the ``anomaly'' was in the telemetry battery on the target atop a Minuteman II rocket at Vandenberg, which was scheduled to be fired high over the Pacific Ocean sometime during a four-hour test ``window'' beginning at 10 p.m. EDT.

After the missile launch, the military planned to fire a ''hit-to-kill'' weapon from Kwajalein Atoll more than 4,300 miles away in the Pacific in an attempt to shoot down the warhead in a crucial $100 million third test of the system.

The telemetry system on the Vandenberg rocket measures distances between objects such as the distance from the target warhead to the ground.

Meanwhile, the environmental group Greenpeace said it had seven protesters on the military base north of Los Angeles to block the launch. Officials at Vandenberg said they had no indication that activists were inside the base or near the launch site.

Greenpeace spokeswoman Mary Macnutt told Reuters that their mission was to urge President Clinton to cancel the missile test and the entire Star Wars program.

``According to the Air Force's own safety procedures the missile cannot be launched with people in that part of the base,'' she said.

There have been two previous tests of the National Missile Defense (NMD). A test in October 1999 was successful, but a January test failed when the weapon missed a warhead in space.

The results of Friday's attempt to ``hit a bullet with a bullet'' 144 miles high in space were expected to weigh heavily in President Clinton's planned decision in the coming months on whether to begin building a limited missile defense based in Alaska for use beginning in 2005.

The program is bitterly opposed by Russia and China, who fear that a mature and successful U.S. anti-missile system could neutralize their nuclear arsenals. But the U.S. Congress is pressing for rapid deployment of limited protection against threats from such states as North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

Clinton's decision, expected by November, will be based partly on advice from Defense Secretary William Cohen in coming weeks on technology and cost and partly on implications for ties with Russia, China and America's skeptical European allies.

White House spokesman P.J. Crowley cautioned reporters on Friday that the results of the third test would not automatically signal Clinton's decision.

``I would say a hit doesn't automatically suggest success, nor does a failure automatically come with a miss,'' Crowley said. ``I think everyone needs to understand that this is going to be a process that unfolds over many weeks.''

Scientific groups and many former U.S. government officials say NMD technology is deeply flawed. And Europe fears nuclear arms control could unravel and a new arms race begin if the United States breaks the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty by building even a limited system. The 121-pound ``hit-to-kill'' weapon, built by Raytheon Co., is designed to hit and smash the target into space dust at a speed of 15,000 mph in a flash that would be captured by long-range cameras.

The test will be closely monitored by Raytheon and Boeing Co., integrator of the proposed NMD system.

On Thursday 50 American winners of the Nobel prize sent a letter to Clinton warning him that any movement toward deployment of a ballistic missile system would be ``premature, wasteful and dangerous.''

Clinton is expected to decide by November at least whether to issue contracts for pouring concrete on wind-swept Shemya Island off Alaska, where a new X-Band radar guidance system for the first phase of NMD would be built. Anti-missile weapons would be based elsewhere in Alaska.

Pentagon officials say that because of extremely harsh winter conditions on the island, barges must begin ferrying equipment there next spring if the radar is to be completed by 2005.

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23) Greenpeace Enters U.S. Base to Block Missile Test
Friday July 7
Reuters

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (Reuters) - The environmental group Greenpeace has sent several protesters into this military base in a move to prevent the $100 million test of a planned U.S. National Missile Defense system scheduled for later on Friday.

Greenpeace said several teams of activists were sent to the launch site, where the U.S. military planned to shoot down a dummy missile warhead launched into space.

``According to the Air Force's own safety procedures the missile cannot be launched with people in that part of the base,'' said Greenpeace spokeswoman Mary Macnutt.

Air Force officials were not available to comment.

Greenpeace declined to say how many protesters were in the base or how they entered. The activists were equipped with supplies and prepared to stay in the vicinity for several days.

The environmental and anti-nuclear group also sailed a Dutch ship on Thursday toward an area declared off-limits, in another effort to block the test.

The 164-foot Dutch vessel Arctic Sunrise, with 23 passengers aboard, was headed on Thursday toward waters designated a ''hazard zone'' by the U.S. Air Force, which mandates the area be clear of ships prior to the test.

The test is part of a U.S. plan to build a limited missile defense system, a move opposed by Russia and China and which has spurred concern from Europe.

Weather permitting, a Minuteman missile with a dummy warhead is scheduled to be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base toward the Pacific Marshall Islands.

A U.S. ``hit-to-kill'' weapon will be fired atop its own rocket from Kwajalein Atoll 4,300 miles (6,919 km) away about 20 minutes after the Vandenberg launch in an attempt to maneuver, intercept and smash into the ``enemy'' warhead 144 miles (231 km) above Earth.

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24) Pentagon Says Missile Test Fails (AP)
Saturday July 8
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The missile interceptor the Pentagon is developing as the key component of a national missile defense not only missed its intended target over the Pacific Ocean early Saturday, it didn't even try to hit it.

In a new twist for the Pentagon's oft-criticized missile defense program, the ``kill vehicle'' that was supposed to guide itself into the path of a dummy warhead in space - destroying it by the force of impact - never separated from the booster. So it never activated its sensors to hunt for the approaching target.

The interceptor passed harmlessly by the target, and few of the critical technologies of missile defense were put to the test.

The $100 million test was the third to attempt an intercept, and the second to fail. The first failure, in January, was blamed on moisture inside the ``kill vehicle'' that prevented it from using heat-seeking devices to ``see'' its target.

``We did not intercept the warhead that we expected to have tonight. We're disappointed with that,'' said Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.

Kadish said he had never had a concern about the booster properly releasing the ``kill vehicle.''

``It wasn't even on my list'' of potential problems, he said, adding that it had been used successfully on earlier tests. He said the kill vehicle did not separate from the booster because it did not receive the necessary electronic signal. It may take days for officials to understand why the signal was not received, he said.

At an early morning news conference in the Pentagon, Kadish was asked what he learned from the failure.

``What it tells me is we have more engineering work to do,'' he replied.

Anthony Cordesman, a defense strategist at the private Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an interview after Saturday's test that, logically, the failure should mean a delay in the Pentagon's fast-track timetable for building a national missile defense. The target date is December 2005, but even the Pentagon's own advisers have acknowledged that this may be overly ambitious.

President Clinton is expected to decide by this fall whether to approve sticking to that timetable. The president will base his decision in part on a recommendation from Defense Secretary William Cohen, who told National Public Radio on Friday that he expected to make his recommendation in three or four weeks.

It remained unclear Saturday whether the Pentagon still believed the missile defense project was ready to move toward deployment.

``Logically, you do regroup after something like this and you don't go forward with the existing schedule,'' Cordesman said, although he added that pressure from Congress might compel the Pentagon to go ahead.

The next attempted intercept is scheduled for this fall, but that schedule might now be put back. More than a dozen additional flight tests are scheduled before 2005.

If Saturday's test had succeeded, it could have moved the United States a step closer to building a national missile defense shield that Congress says is urgently needed, but that critics decry as unworkable.

After technicians fixed a last-minute glitch that delayed the start of the test by about two hours, a modified Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile with a dummy warhead atop its second-stage rocket blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., at 12:19 a.m. EDT.

The rocket headed toward the central Pacific.

Twenty-one minutes later, at 12:40 a.m. EDT, an interceptor missile carrying the ``kill vehicle'' launched from Kwajalein Atoll.

The ``kill vehicle'' was supposed to separate from the second-stage rocket booster exactly 2 minutes and 37 seconds into flight, then maneuver itself into the path of the mock warhead. Television monitors showed no flash indicating a collision.

Nearly a half-hour passed before officials who monitored the flight test from a basement office in the Pentagon reported that the interceptor missile had missed its target.

The ``kill vehicle'' was programmed to use target data gathered from ground-based radars to maneuver itself into the path of the dummy warhead 140 miles above the Earth. The goal was a 16,000-mile-an-hour collision that would disintegrate the warhead by sheer force of impact.

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25) U.S. Fails to Hit Target in Anti-Missile Test
Saturday July 8

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States failed on Saturday to hit a speeding target warhead in space with an anti-missile weapon in a crucial $100 million test of a proposed National Missile Defense system, the Defense Department said.

``We failed to achieve an intercept this evening,'' said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.

It was the second failure in three tries for the system and is expected to weigh heavily in a decision by President Clinton in coming months on whether to begin building a limited missile defense next year over bitter objections from Russia and China.

The Pentagon gave no immediate details of the failure other than to say that the prototype anti-missile weapon fired from Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific did not hit a warhead launched on a Minuteman II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, some 4,300 miles away.

The weapon, with a previous successful intercept last October and a test failure in January of this year, was launched from Kwajalein at 12:40 a.m. (0440 GMT). It was supposed to intercept and smash into the warhead about 10 minutes later in space at a speed of 15,000 mph.

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26) Anti-missile system fails test for second time
CNN
July 8, 2000

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, California -- A crucial test of a U.S. anti-missile system flopped early Saturday when an interceptor missile failed to destroy a dummy warhead over the Pacific Ocean, the Pentagon said.

The failure was the second in the missile defense system's history and is certain to be seen as a setback for the controversial program.

Early indications were that a problem occured during the separation of the "kill vehicle" from the rocket carrying it, said Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.

Gen. Kadish said Saturday's test had presented a very challenging job for the missile-defense program. "This is rocket science," he told a news conference at the Pentagon.

A missile test in October 1999 was successful, but a subsequent test in January this year failed.

Interceptor launched from Pacific atoll

The interceptor missile was launched from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific a few minutes after the launch of the Minutemane II target rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

That missile put into space the kill vehicle -- designed to crash into the mock warhead and destroy it. The intercept was expected to take place about 30 minutes after the 12:18 a.m. launch of the first missile.

National Missile Defense Director Keith Englander earlier had told reporters at Vandenberg the intercept system is designed to protect "all 50 states from rogue attacks by nations with a handful of missiles."

The anti-nuclear group Greenpeace said it had dispatched a ship carrying 23 protesters into the test's so-called "hazard zone" 110 miles off shore from the seaside base.

Although the air force had asked pilots and mariners to avoid the area, it said the test would be conducted even with a ship in the zone.

Program to protect U.S. mainland

The goal of the missile defense system, the Pentagon said, is to protect the U.S. mainland from missiles that might be developed by nations such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq. A U.S. missile would be launched to destroy a hostile warhead by ramming it head-on.

The U.S. military has described the strategy as "trying to hit abullet with a bullet." The missile test cost $100 million, officials said.

Pentagon officials are still working on cost estimates for a national missile defense program. Most recent estimates, which call for 100 missile interceptors at a single site -- in Alaska -- place the cost at $36 billion for 20 years.

The General Accounting Office, the auditing arm of Congress, estimates the program will cost $60 billion if -- as many missile defense proponents urge -- the system is expanded to two interceptor sites, each with 100 interceptors.

Technological and strategic concerns

An independent panel of retired military officers and weapons experts told the Pentagon in a report last month that it believes missile defense is technologically feasible, but that the Pentagon may not be able to have a reliable system in place by 2005, the target date. The date is significant because the CIA has said it believes North Korea could have a long-range missile capable of reaching U.S. soil within five years.

Many critics say the technology is not feasible and that the Pentagon's testing methods are fatally flawed. Other critics say that even if it worked the weapon would not be worth the international outcry against it -- most notably Russia's threat to unravel the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Moscow says the system violates.

Moscow and Beijing both fear that a mature and successful anti-missile system could eliminate the strategic threat of their nuclear arsenals.

Vladimir Yakovlev, the head of Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces, was quoted by the Interfax news agency Friday as saying the tests "are the first step toward global nuclear instability."

A U.S. missile defense system, he said, would "lead directly to nuclear anarchy."

European leaders of Germany and Italy have said they fear the National Missile Defense System could spark a new arms race.

Scientific opposition

On Thursday 50 American winners of the Nobel prize sent a letter to Clinton warning him that any movement toward deployment of a ballistic missile system would be "premature, wasteful and dangerous."

Friday, another critical scientist, Ted Postol , aprofessor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that three members of the Defense Security Services came to his office "unannounced" a few weeks ago. They showed him a classified document with the word "secret" marked all over it, Postol claimed.

"This, in my view, was almost certainly an attempt to entrap me and put me in a difficult position," Postoltold reporters at a Washington news conference. He said he didn't read the document. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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27) Antimissile System Fails Over Pacific, Pentagon Reports
July 8, 2000 (NYT)
By ELAINE SCIOLINO

WASHINGTON, Saturday, July 8 -- In a major setback for the Clinton administration's plan to build a missile shield to protect American soil from enemy attack, a missile fired from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific failed to hit a mock warhead launched4,300 miles away in California.

"We failed to achieve an intercept this evening," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.

The last test, conducted in January, also ended in failure. In that case, the kill vehicle missed the mock warhead by between 300 to 400 feet after a cooling line clogged and shut down its heat-seeking sensors.

At 12:19 a.m. today, a 37-year-old remodeled Minuteman rocket containing a mock warhead and a decoy balloon thundered aloft over the Pacific Ocean from a tightly guarded launching pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base, 125 miles north of Los Angeles.

Twenty-one minutes after that, a 54-inch, 130-pound "exoatmospheric kill vehicle" was launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. Instead of guiding itself to a collision with the incoming mock warhead in midflight, it missed.

In a press briefing, Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Kadish, the director of the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, explained that the problem occurred when the kill vehicle did not separate from its booster in the second stage.

"The kill vehicle failed to do its job,"he said.

An aditional malfunction, although one that did not affect the test result, was that the decoy balloon accompanying the mock warhead did not inflate as it was supposed to.

Today's test was counted on to determine whether President Clinton proceeds with a plan to begin development of a $60 billion national missile defense thatadministration officials contend is crucial to defend against missile attacksfrom countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq. But opponents charge that such a system is technically unsound, unnecessary and a waste of money.

Even though some senior Pentagon officials said a decision to move forwardwas possible even if the test failed,today's miss will make it politically more difficult for Mr. Clinton to moveforward with even the most basic decisionto issue contracts for pouring concrete for a radar guidance system in theAleutian Islands. That move is under consideration even though many arms control experts insist that it would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic MissileTreaty.

Because of harsh winter conditions in that area of Alaska, barges must begin ferrying equipment by next spring if the radar is to be completed by 2005, the date when the administration has concluded North Korea could have a ballistic missile capable of hitting the United States.

The test failure is certain to reinforce calls in Congress that the decision on whether to move forward with a national missile defense program should be left to the next president.

The final analysis of what went wrong in today's test will take about three to four weeks.

In October, the Pentagon initially hailed its first intercept test as a complete success. But it later was forced to acknowledge that the kill vehicle initially had drifted off course and picked out the large bright decoy balloon instead of the mock warhead.

In the second, more complicated intercept test, in January, the kill vehicle missed the mock warhead by between 300 to 400 feet after a cooling line clogged and shut down its heat-seeking sensors.

Not since 1983, when President Reagan envisioned a defense based in space thatwould render nuclear weapons obsolete, has an issue of military technology seized the imagination of American policymakers and politicians and alarmed America's friends and foes.

The issue has also entered the presidential campaign, with Vice President Al Gore endorsing a limited version of the plan and Gov. George W. Bush backing a more ambitious system that could be deployed in space.

And it has raised a chorus of criticism from a sizable swath of scientists in the United States, some of whom argue that the proposed $60 billion system is not feasible and that the tests are rigged.

The test had been scheduled to take place during a four-hour window that began lateFriday night. But a last-minute technical problem set back the launching by about two hours. The problem was related to electronic signals that keep the ground control informed about the missile'sflight.

"Hitting a bullet with a bullet" is how a Pentagon official described the hoped-for collision. "Steel on target," another said.

The three tests held so far are part of a series of 19 planned tests.

After the failure of the test in January. a new communications system was added for today's test that transmits information directly to the kill vehicle about the location of the target after it has lifted off. Called a global-positioning-system transmitter, it used the same technology that helps motorists to avoid getting lost.

Even before the failure today, critics said the new test was a misleading guide because it was taking place under conditions that do not reflect a real attack. They said the decoy was not a true decoy but was more like a lure that attracts the kill vehicle to the real target, and that an adversary would use many decoys, not one.

In three or four weeks, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen is to give Mr. Clinton a formal recommendation of whether building the system is feasible.

Mr. Clinton is expected to decide thisfall whether to put America on the road to a national missile defense system bystarting construction of the radar in the Aleutian Islands.

Administration lawyers have advised Mr. Clinton that in their view, he could begin building this first phase of the missile defense without violating the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, one of the cornerstones of arms control agreements between Washington and Moscow.

But the administration has been hit by a storm of criticism from prominent scientists, arms control experts, former officials and the General Accounting Office over the cost, technology and effect on relations with other nations.

Lawrence J. Korb of the Council on Foreign Relations called the entire system a "shield of dreams" whosesupporters believe that "if you build it, it will work."

Even within the administration, a debate is raging among intelligence and Pentagon officials and policy experts over the nature and extent of the potential threat from countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq that is the official justification for building a missile shield. Some senior Pentagon officials have warned that the administration's schedule ismuch too accelerated and therefore risky, because testing would continue even as construction has begun.

Russia and China are adamantly opposed to an American missile defense because they consider it a threat to their ability to defend themselves. European nations are also distressed that the United States would take such a position without regard to Europe's security.

In an attempt to stop the test, Greenpeace, the anti-nuclear organization, said a small team ofmissile defense opponents entered the grounds of Vandenberg Air Force Base on foot. Equipped with survival gear and supplies for several days, they intended to stay inside the area as long as they could, according to a Greenpeace statement.

In addition, the Dutch vessel Arctic Sunrise threatened to enter one of the hazard zones designated by the Pentagon in the waters off Vandenberg.

An unidentified man was caught entering the base, but a base spokesman, John Cherry, said there was no evidence of intruders in the heavily guarded area around the launching pad.

At a news briefing in Washington on Friday, a group of business leaders and scientists weighed in with 11-hour criticism of both the test and the entire plan.

"Stop this insensate and tortuously rationalized arms race that drains money away from our vital civilian programs,"said Alan Kligerman, the chief executive officer of Akpharma Inc., and a board member of Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, which seeks to cut military spending. He added: "If I would represent my products and sell them with the same shortcomings in the products as regard to what they are supposed to do, I would be indicted. My products would be seized." by the Food and Drug Administration.

Bruce Blair, president of Center for Defense Information, argued at the samebriefing that the development of a national missile defense was justifiably seen by Russia as a threat to its nuclear deterrent.

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28) Missile failure brings renewed criticism
Some want Clinton to put off deciding whether to let defense system go ahead
9 JULY 2000
USA TODAY
By Andrea Stone

WASHINGTON -- A failed test of a proposed national missile-defense system has left President Clinton with virtually no new information to help him decide whether to OK the controversial program, but it gave plenty of ammunition to critics who say the system can't work and will spark a global arms race.

The administration had set a deployment deadline of 2005 for the system. Intelligence estimates say that by then, countries such as North Korea will have developed long-range missiles capable of reaching the United States. After Saturday's failed test, the ability to meet that deadline is in question.

''Clearly, the failure is important in assessing how far along the system is technologically,'' national security adviser Samuel Berger said on CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday.

He said that there is no ''statutory deadline'' to deploy by 2005 and that the timetable depends as much on how the national missile-defense (NMD) system affects arms control and relations with European allies, Russia and China.

Allies fear that an America-only shield will prompt a renewed arms race and leave them vulnerable. Russia argues that the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 forbids such defensive systems and has refused U.S. overtures to amend the agreement. China says it doubts the U.S. administration's position that the system, which would shield all 50 states from a limited missile attack, is not aimed at China but is designed with countries such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq in mind.

Defense Secretary William Cohen leaves for China today to try to ease concerns. China has 18 to 20 long-range missiles. It threatened to beef up its arsenal if the United States deploys a missile-defense system.

Technology, not diplomacy, was the biggest problem Saturday.

The system's interceptor, which is designed to hit and kill an incoming missile, failed to separate from its booster rocket. The test was aborted before it had a chance to demonstrate the new technology.

With the presidential election in November, politicians from both parties hope Saturday's failure will persuade Clinton to bow to growing demands that he leave the decision to his successor.

Republican George W. Bush said he was ''disappointed'' by the test but said the nation should press forward to deploy an NMD system. He repeated a promise to make it a top priority if he is elected.

A spokesman for Vice President Gore, who supports a limited missile-defense system, said the Democratic candidate was declining to comment until a Pentagon review is complete.

Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., said on Fox News Sunday that he fears Clinton ''will cut a quick deal'' that will tie the next president's hands. Many Republicans, including Bush, favor a bigger system that would include sea- and perhaps space-based interceptors.

Some in the president's own party favor waiting. They say recent moves toward reconciliation on the Korean peninsula make it less crucial to push ahead on technology that is far from perfected. ''It's hard to see how they can recommend a deployment decision of a missile system that doesn't work,'' Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said. ''The test failure should and will mean the president will not announce a deployment decision.''

As envisioned, the $60 billion system would eventually employ 100 ground-based interceptors in Alaska and would incorporate a vast network of satellites, radar stations and command centers around the globe.

Much of the pressure on Clinton to decide this fall revolves around the need to award contracts for a high-power radar station on Alaska's Shemya Island, where bad weather severely limits construction time. Officials say that if work doesn't begin next spring, they won't make the deadline in 2005.

Saturday's failure makes it far more difficult to adhere to that schedule.

The test began at 12:19 a.m. ET when a target warhead was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., over the Pacific Ocean. About 20 minutes later, a 37-year-old modified Minuteman II missile carrying an interceptor ''kill vehicle'' was fired from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

At 2 minutes and 37 seconds into flight, an internal electronic signal should have released the kill vehicle from the booster rocket and instructed it to search out the dummy warhead and destroy it on impact. The interceptor apparently never got the message.

Such a failure ''wasn't even on my list,'' said Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. He said the test ''tells me we have more engineering work to do.''

Kadish said other elements of the system, including command and control systems, worked properly. A prototype radar was able to differentiate between the mock warhead and a decoy balloon. However, that may have been made easier because the Mylar polyester balloon failed to inflate.

Saturday's test was the second failed intercept attempt in three tries. A flight test in October ended in a successful intercept over the Pacific Ocean. Faulty heat-seeking sensors caused the kill vehicle to miss in a second test in January.

A fourth test is scheduled for October or November, when Clinton is expected to make his deployment decision. He will rely in part on a report by Cohen on the technical feasibility and cost of the system. The report is due next month. Assessments of the missile threat and of the system's effect on arms control and relations with Russia, China and allies will come from intelligence agencies and the State Department.

Meanwhile, critics say the $100 million test raises questions about Pentagon capabilities. The test ''amounts to quality-control failure'' and ''raises questions whether management of the program is as it should be,'' says Baker Spring, a defense analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.

Another critic, John Pike, a weapons analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, says the failed test means at least three of the four criteria Clinton will use in deciding whether to deploy NMD point to killing the project: ''The threat's gone down. The technology remains unproven. They haven't got a deal (with Russia) on the ABM Treaty.'' (The fourth criterion is cost.)

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29) Cohen Plays Down Failed U.S. Missile Defense Test
Monday July 10
By Tabassum Zakaria

ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska (Reuters) - Defense Secretary William Cohen on Monday played down the failure of a crucial test for a proposed national missile defense, saying the glitch was in a ``routine'' area and not in the more sophisticated rocket science behind the plan.

``It (interception) didn't happen because of a failure for something that's quite routine, not because of the science involved toward the interceptors,'' Cohen said in his first public response to the failed test. ``It would have been helpful to have this test succeed,'' he added.

Early Saturday morning the much-anticipated test failed because the so-called ``kill vehicle'' did not separate from its booster rocket. The trial never progressed to testing if the weapon could find a dummy warhead in space and smash it out of the sky.

It was the last test before Cohen's deadline, now four weeks off, to make a recommendation to President Clinton on the technical feasibility and cost of the system. Clinton will decide the next step later this year.

Russia and China are adamantly opposed to the system, which is aimed at shielding the United States from attacks from so-called ``rogue'' states like North Korea, Iran and Iraq, and U.S. allies in Europe are worried it could lead to a renewed arms race.

Cohen said the test failure did not automatically mean he would recommend against moving forward with the system.

``What I have to do is to await the full report, all of the analysis... So at this point I'm just going to withhold any judgement,'' Cohen told reporters traveling with him to China.

``The test itself was a disappointment but it was one of those failures that was least expected, something that was routine,'' Cohen said.

``Most of the other elements appeared to be working quite well with the exception of the failure of the decoy to inflate and the separation of the kill vehicle,'' he said.

``The failure here was not the failure of the most sophisticated elements of it,'' he said. ``That's something that's not fatal to the program, and so I would reserve the judgement until I get all the way through the analysis.''

If a decision is made to move forward, there would be at least another 12 to 15 tests before the system would be deployed. In the previous two kill vehicle interception tests, one succeeded and one failed.

Development of the missile defense system is being tied to a deadline of 2005, when U.S. intelligence estimates North Korea will have a missile capable of hitting U.S. soil.

``They (North Korea) have indicated that they are not going to resume, for the time being at least, testing of the longer-range missiles, but that could be either suspended and could go forward whenever they choose to do so,'' Cohen said.

``We cannot adjust or calibrate whether or not we are going to go forward with an NMD program based upon what the North Koreans may say from time to time,'' he said.

``I think that it's clear that based on what they have done in the past that they could achieve a long-range capability by 2005,'' Cohen said.

The proliferation of missile technology to countries the United States considers hostile such as Iraq was a factor in the need for a missile defense, he said.

``We never want to have the United States put in the position of being blackmailed ... and prevented from carrying out our security interests in the conventional way,'' he said.

``I believe that any president would want to assure the American people that we would not be prevented or intimidated from carrying out our national security interests,'' Cohen said.

Cohen planned to broach with Chinese leaders the issue of missile technology proliferation, including U.S. suspicions that China is sending technology to Pakistan -- an accusation both countries deny.

``Just generally speaking we are concerned about the transfer of (missile) technology to Middle East countries and to Iran specifically,'' he said, adding he was not accusing China of currently supplying Iran with technology.

Asked if China had stuck to a commitment to stop exporting cruise missile and nuclear technology to Iran, Cohen replied: ``To the best of my information, yes.''

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30) Key Missile Parts Are Left Untested as Booster Fails
NYT
July 9, 2000
By ELAINE SCIOLINO

WASHINGTON, July 8 -- A crucial test in the Pentagon's program to defend the United States from missile attacks collapsed in failure because the high-speed interceptor that was supposed to destroy a dummy warhead in space never separated from its booster rocket, the Pentagon said today.

The failure was a setback in the Pentagon's quest to demonstrate the workability of a complex $60 billion defensive system in time for President Clinton to decide whether to proceed with its initial deployment before he leaves office.

The unexpected malfunctioning of the booster meant that the experiment produced few meaningful lessons about the weapon's capabilities.

Today's dramatic miss will make it politically and diplomatically more difficult for Mr. Clinton to move ahead with a plan that the administration contends is crucial to defend against attack from countries like North Korea bu that opponents say is technically unsound, militarily unnecessary and a waste of money. And it reinforces calls in Congress to leave the decision to the next president.

Officials said the component that failed appeared not to be one of the sophisticated elements that the Pentagon was hoping to demonstrate: the targeting radar, homing sensors and communications links. Instead, it was a failure in a well-developed technology that has been used successfully in rockets that have launched satellites and missiles for decades.

The failure underscored the frailty of any such complex weapon system, even in the carefully controlled world of test shots. And in a separate failure, the target of the interceptor also malfunctioned when a Mylar polyester balloon that accompanied the simulated warhead as a decoy never inflated.

Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Kadish, director of the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, appeared humbled by the chain of events.

"What it tells me is we have more engineering work to do," he said at an early morning news conference.

"And as we've said all along, this is a very difficult, challenging job," he added. "This is rocket science, so there's a lot of things that can happen in this process."

The ability of a 54-inch, 130-pound "kill vehicle" to shed the rocket that propelled it had been viewed as a given. When the separation failed to occur, the important part of the $100 million test -- homing in for the collision in space -- was never even attempted, apparently because the interceptor's on-board sensors were designed to turn on only after the separation.

Asked where the successful separation of the kill vehicle from its booster had ranked on his list of concerns, General Kadish gave a direct answer. "It wasn't even on my list," he said.

Without its sensors working, the kill vehicle streaked blindly into space, and few of the critical technologies of the missile exercise were actually tested.

Although General Kadish expressed confidence that the research program could continue, the failure complicates the political decision about proceeding with deployment.

"I don't think we should draw conclusions from any one test that are irrevocable," he said. "No one test tells you everything you need to know. We have a body of tests even before this one that tells us an awful lot. And we have increasing confidence as a result of that."

Even though today's test was only the third in a series of 19 intercept tests planned by the Pentagon, it was supposed to have been the defining one that would have let Defense Secretary William S. Cohen recommend that Mr. Clinton proceed with a limited missile defense.

But both General Kadish and Dr. Jacques Gansler, an under secretary of defense, acknowledged that the president and Mr. Cohen might decide to seek more data before they can judge whether to move forward with a defensive shield.

"We need more flight tests," Dr. Gansler said.

"We need more flight tests," General Kadish echoed.

The next test will take place in October or November, Dr. Gansler said. But he noted that if construction is to begin on a radar system on Shemya Island in the Aleutians in the spring, a decision should be made before then.

The Pentagon calculates that construction must begin next spring if a limited missile defense is to be completed by 2005, when intelligence estimates have said North Korea could field a long-range missile.

Today's failure could enable Mr. Clinton to delay making a decision at least until after the presidential election. The president has said he will decide in several weeks whether to go along with the Pentagon timetable.

P. J. Crowley, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said, "The failure of the intercept will have to be fully evaluated by the Pentagon first, but it obviously will be an important factor that the president will take into account when analyzing the technical feasibility of national missile defense."

Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic contender for the presidency, today declined to say how he thought the administration should respond to the failed test. "I'll wait until we receive a report from the military and from Secretary Cohen," he said in an interview.

His Republican competitor, Gov. George W. Bush, who has called for a more ambitious plan that could be deployed in space, said he would press forward with a vigorous missile defense plan.

"While last night's test is a disappointment, I remain confident that given the right leadership, America can develop an effective missile defense system," Mr. Bush said in a prepared statement.

Both Russia and China adamantly oppose the missile defense because they consider it a threat to their nuclear deterrents. Even the United States' European allies are distressed that the country would take such a serious unilateral move.

Building a missile defense would require a change in the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which Russia has refused to accept.

In October, the Pentagon hailed its first test as a complete success, but later acknowledged that the kill vehicle initially had drifted off course and picked out the large bright decoy balloon instead of the simulated warhead.

In a second, more complicated test in January, the kill vehicle missed the target warhead by 300 to 400 feet.

This morning's test was delayed two hours by technical problems. Later, the gleaming white reconfigured Minuteman carrying the dummy warhead thundered aloft over the Pacific Ocean from Vandenberg Air Force Base, 125 miles north of Los Angeles, at 12:19 a.m. Eastern Time.

Twenty-one minutes later, the rocket containing the kill vehicle lifted off from Kwajalein Atoll, about 4,300 miles away in the Marshall Islands. The kill vehicle was supposed to separate from the second-stage rocket booster 2 minutes and 37 seconds into flight, then move into the path of the mock warhead for a spectacular, blinding collision at 16,000 miles an hour over the Pacific.

But television monitors showed no bright white flash indicating a collision. About 30 minutes later, officials told reporters that the kill vehicle had sailed by its target.

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31) Strategy Misfire: Missile Failure Carries Political Cost
July 9, 2000
NYT
By MICHAEL R. GORDON

MOSCOW, July 8 -- With the failure today of the Pentagon's antimissile test, the Clinton administration has reaped all of the diplomatic disadvantages of its program to build a national missile defense and none of the potential rewards.

The program has led to an arms stalemate with Moscow. It has strained relations with Bejing. And it has raised alarms in Western Europe, where American allies fear the antimissile program could spur a new arms race and reflects a penchant to go it alone on security policy.

The administration had been hoping the test would demonstrate that a new defensive system was virtually at hand and give it more negotiating leverage with the Russians, who have been adamantly opposed to the antimissile plan. Now, as the Clinton administration's days wind down, it has little to show for its efforts.

One reason the administration pursued missile defense was to protect Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee, against chargesthat the Clinton administration was soft on defense. Even those political gains have been dissipated. Republican supporters of missile defense are likely to criticize the Clinton administration's management of the antimissile program.

All military programs suffer setbacks from time to time, andthe test failure today does not mean that a missile shield can never be constructed. The failure occurred when the kill vehicle that was supposed to slam into a dummy warhead failed to separate from its booster. So the ability of the kill vehicle to intercept the warhead -- the key capability that was to be assessed -- was never actually put to the test.

Still, after all the months of preparation, the failure was an unqualified embarrassment for the Pentagon and suggested that it had been in too much of a rush to build a defense.

The failure also raised questions about the Clinton administration's diplomacy, which seems to be out of sync with the United States' technological capabilities. For almost a year, the administration has been in the oddposition of lobbying Russia, China and Western Europe to acquiesce in the Pentagon's antimissile plans before that program has even gotten off the ground.

Even before it can demonstrate the feasibility of its new antimissile technology, for example, the Clinton administration has demanded that Moscow agree to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a move that is needed so that the Pentagon can legally begin construction of a new battle-management radar system in Alaska and the deployment of 100 interceptors there.

That American demand has become a major obstacle in the quest to negotiate a third strategic arms reduction treaty with the Russians that would make deeper cuts in strategic nuclear arms. The Russians have proposed that a Start III accord reduce strategic warheads to a level of 1,500, while the United States has insisted on 2,000 to 2,500 warheads.

But a Start III accord is not possible while the two sides are at loggerheads over missile defenses. Washington has continued to press for a compromise, and before today's test, the Clinton administration had calculated that a success might soften Moscow. If the test worked, Washington would be to able to tell the Russians that the momentum toward a missile shield was all but unstoppable and that they would be wise to negotiate a broad understanding on defensive and offensive systems before President Clinton's term ran out. If the Russians failed to amend the ABM accord during Mr. Clinton's term, a future administration might simply abandon the agreement -- or so the argument went.

The test failure, however, undercut that diplomatic strategy. Emboldened by thetest failure, Russia reaffirmed its opposition to the missile defense plan today.

"In its current technical form, the national missile defense system, which is being tested, cannot guarantee the protection of U.S. territory," said Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev, the commander of Russia's strategic missile force. "Even the first trials, which began with a failure, are an attempt by the U.S. military to defy the world community."

Still, there may be a silver lining in the dark cloud for President Clinton. He has faced the difficult decision of whether to move ahead with an antimissile program in the face of Russian opposition and concerns that it would violate the ABM treaty. Now, he has a justification to leave that decision to a future administration.

And the test failure may also lead to some rethinking of the potential missile threat from third world states and how to deal with it. One reason the administration has wanted to move quickly with the system and the diplomacy to allow it is the intelligence assessments about the evolving missile threat.

The only country that has the potential over the next several years to field an ocean-spanning missile that could strike the United States with a nuclear payload is North Korea, which intelligence estimates say could have such a weapon by 2005. And North Korea cannot do so as long as its observes a moratorium on missile flight tests, a ban it has recently agreed to extend.

Still, advocates of missile defense have argued that North Korea might break out of that accord and build a rudimentary intercontinental-range missile in a matter of months. Even though the United States has more than 6,000 nuclear warheads, the proponents of a national missile defense insist that might not be sufficient to deter an attack.

With the test failure, however, the Pentagon's goal to deploy a limited defense by 2005 is likely to slip. And some military experts have already said that goal is too optimistic.

Missile defense advocates may not like the idea of relying on deterrence, but the test results today indicate that the United States has no choice but to depend on it for years to come.

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32) Putin to Press Clinton to Drop Anti-Missile Plan
Reuters
Monday July 10
By Andrei Shukshin

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin will try to persuade President Clinton at the upcoming G8 big power summit to drop plans to deploy an anti-missile defense system, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Monday.

Ivanov said the question of Washington's plans for the National Missile Defense (NMD) would be raised when Putin meets Clinton on the sidelines of the July 21-23 summit on the Japanese island of Okinawa.

He said Putin would offer new initiatives, including further cuts to nuclear arsenals, to boost the case against the NMD, which Moscow sees as a threat to global stability.

``There can be no doubt or misunderstanding (of Russia's position) on the issue,'' Ivanov told a news conference.

``This is the line we are going to pursue. We have a whole program of action which was laid out in detail (to Clinton) at the June summit in Moscow...and we are sure that these problems will be on the table at the U.S.-Russian meeting in Okinawa.''

Putin has offered an alternative to the NMD -- providing for the interception of missiles at an early launch stage. But Washington has said this plan is technically flawed.

Russian officials have countered that the NMD is technically impossible after a test of the system failed earlier this month -- the second failure of three trials.

The United States wants to build a national defense system against what it says is a potential threat of missile attacks by so-called ``rogue states,'' such as Iran and North Korea.

Moscow staunchly opposes the plan, saying it would destroy the landmark 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) and could start a new arms race.

Russia, which recently ratified the START-2 agreement reducing the number of Russian and U.S. nuclear warheads to about 3,500 each, has said it wants to move quickly to cut the number by a further 4,000 under a new START-3 deal.

Ivanov, who was presenting Russia's new foreign policy concept to reporters, said Putin was likely to come up with fresh proposals to reinforce Moscow's position.

``After President Putin's initiatives in Europe, I see possible new initiatives to preserve strategic stability and make the world community join efforts in combating potential threats, no matter where they could come from.''

Ivanov did not elaborate on what Moscow's new initiatives would include but said Putin would also discuss U.S. defense plans with China on a trip to Beijing before the summit.

China and Russia see eye-to-eye in their opposition to U.S. national anti-missile defense system plans.

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33) Clinton, Putin Discuss Missile Defense, Chechnya
Monday July 10
By Deborah Zabarenko

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton discussed a failed U.S. missile defense system test and concerns about Chechnya with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday in a ''businesslike'' 15-minute phone call.

``This is the second time that President Putin has picked up the phone and called President Clinton so I think that's evidence that they are establishing a businesslike relationship,'' White House National Security Council spokesman P.J. Crowley said in describing the conversation.

Much of the call was about the upcoming summit of the seven leading industrialized nations and Russia in Okinawa, Japan, on July 21-23, and Crowley said Saturday's failure of a test of a proposed anti-missile defense system would be discussed at the summit.

``President Putin briefly mentioned that he was aware that the test on Saturday had failed but that they would ... talk about missile defense in Okinawa within the context of following up on their discussion when the president was in Moscow'' in June, Crowley said.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said earlier in Moscow that Putin would try to persuade Clinton to drop plans to deploy the anti-missile defense system when the two meet.

Putin will offer new initiatives, including further cuts to nuclear arsenals, to boost the case against the National Missile Defense system (NMD), which Moscow sees as a threat to global stability, Ivanov said.

Crowley said Clinton would hear from his national security team before deciding whether to move the defense system forward.

Clinton is under domestic pressure to take steps to construct the NMD at a cost of up to $60 billion to shield the United States from attacks from so-called rogue states like North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

The U.S. attempt to intercept and destroy a dummy warhead in space failed on Saturday because the ``hit-to-kill'' weapon fired from Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific did not separate from the second stage of its liftoff rocket.

In their phone conversation, Putin and Clinton also discussed debt rescheduling for Russia, and Clinton noted concerns in Congress over continuing instability in Chechnya with regard to that.

Putin said he will stop in Beijing and North Korea on his way to the Okinawa summit, and Clinton noted he will be involved in peace talks at Camp David with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

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34) Scientist Is Not Subtle in Taking Shots at Missile Shield
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
July 10, 2000 NYT

WASHINGTON -- The left lens of his eyeglasses is missing. The pocket of his multicolored sportsshirt bulges with plastic rulers and scraps of paper. And his rolling suitcase holds more charts and manuals than clean shirts and toiletries.

Theodore A. Postol knows how to play the role of the rocket scientist that he is. He also knows how to infuriate Washington officialdom.

Dr. Postol, a big, bearded 54-year-old physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has combined evidence,emotion and expletives in his crusade to prove that a proposed $60 billion missile shield for the United States is based on faulty science, fantasy and outright fraud.

The Pentagon insists that his assertions are based on outdated information and ignorance of classified materials. Dr. Postol's scientist friends insist that he is one of the country's most learned ballistic missile experts and credit his research group at M.I.T. with groundbreaking analysis.

Still, even his closest colleagues acknowledge that Dr. Postol suffers from a problem that has little to do with science and a lot to do with style. As a scientist, he brings laserlike precision to his work. But as a diplomat, he has all the subtlety of a Gatling gun.

"This is a weapons system that is supposed to protect our families from nuclear attack, and these guys at the Pentagon are lying about its performance," Dr. Postol said during a visit to Washington last week. "They know nothing, nothing. But they wrap themselves in the flag and point at me and say, 'You're not defending the country.' So I don't care who I offend."

Indeed, in Dr. Postol's view, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen and Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Kadish, the head of the Pentagon's ballistic missile office, are "technically illiterate" about missile defense. Condoleezza Rice, the chief foreign policy adviser for Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, is "not interested in the truth." Leon S. Fuerth, the national security adviser for Vice President Al Gore, is "uninformed and shows no interest in becoming informed."

Richard Garwin, a renowned physicist known for being politically independent and outspoken himself, said of Dr. Postol: "Ted is a sound, original and energetic scientist who has done great work in this field. But diplomacy and Ted Postol are an oxymoron. Many, many times I have told him, 'You will be more effective if you are more controlled and edit your language.' "

Dr. Postol noted what his good friend had said and explained: "I am a very polite person with people on the street, with taxi drivers. But if you talk about people with responsibility in government and they show no interest in the truth, I'm not going to say, 'They're nice people but they don't know the details.'"

[T] he second of three children, Dr. Postol grew up in a decaying neighborhood of Jewish immigrants in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn. He said his father, a welder, beat him from the time he was a toddler. His mother, who worked in an Army data communications center, was "a genius who basically lived for her children," Dr. Postol said.

Although he was not interested in the basics of elementary education and had trouble reading, he recalled, he began building spaceships in kindergarten. "When the teacher asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I said, 'I want to study the stars.' "

Dr. Postol discovered physics as an undergraduate and then a graduate student at the institute, which he attended on scholarship. "I was blessed with a tremendous physical intuition," he said.

Exempted from the draft because of an eye ailment, Dr. Postol stayed away from protests of the Vietnam War. Seminars by teachers who had helped build the atomic bomb made him a passionate critic of nuclear war.

But he has not always been an outsider. He worked in the 1970's at an Energy Department nuclear lab, then co-wrote a study on MX missile basing for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. He studied submarine warfare from 1983 to 1984 for the chief of naval operations.

"Working in the Pentagon turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life," he said. "The sky was the limit. I could pretty much get into everything. I could learn whatever I wanted about nuclear war plans, ballistic missiles, early warning."

Dr. Postol also learned to respect the military, he said. "The military officer would never abandon the battlefield without taking his wounded with him. The academic would say, 'You're on your own.' "

In the high-tech world, he is a rare bird: an institute professor with no outside consulting income. "I have a rich wife," he joked, referring to the woman with whom he has lived for 17 years, a senior official at an investment company. They have never married and have no children.

Dr. Postol has angered the Pentagon many times before, most dramatically when he successfully challenged the "success" of the Patriot missile in shooting down Iraqi missiles in the Persian Gulf war. But he still holds security clearances that give him access to classified material. ("I don't use them anyway," he said. "They're useless.")

And despite his opposition to the missile defense plan, he said that if the United States was determined to build it, he would help develop what he believes is a more feasible approach: a boost-phase technology that would shoot at enemy missiles in the first few minutes after launching. "I don't like missile defense," he said, "but if we have to have it, let's have a system that works."

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35) Decision on Defense System May Fall to Next President
NYT
July 10, 2000
By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, July 9 -- Senior advisers to President Clinton said today they still expect him to make a decision this summer on whether to proceed with a missile defense system, but they acknowledged that the failure ofa major test on Saturday made it far more likely that Mr. Clinton's successor would ultimately decide the fate of the huge project.

"Obviously, this does go to the question of technical feasibility or how far along the system is," Samuel R. Berger, Mr.Clinton's national security adviser, said today on the CBS show "Face the Nation." He left open the possibility that Mr. Clinton could decide to defer construction of the antimissile system, which would be designed to ward off limited attacks by countries possessing only a few nuclear weapons.

"The practical effect of the failure is that whatever decision the president makes, it will now be easier for the next president to modify," one senior official said. Another added: "Whether you think the whole thing is a good idea or a bad one, we're running out of time" to make much of a difference while Mr. Clinton is still in office.

The flaw that doomed the test had nothing to do with the most sophisticated elements of the system, which are supposed to track an incoming missile, differentiate it from a limited number of decoys and intercept it before it hits the United States. Instead, the 130-pound interceptor failed to separate from the booster rocket that would have sent it speeding toward its target. As a result, the "kill vehicle" got nowhere near the target.

The dismal result fueled the arguments of those who say the defense system is a waste of money and will disturb relations with Russia and China. At the other end of the spectrum, it also gave fuel to supporters of the project who argue that Mr. Clinton's plan is insufficiently ambitious.

"The technological piece of this is not yet in place," said Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican who is a strong supporter of missile defense, also appearing on CBS. "The cost obviously is not in place. I don't think we've brought our allies on -- I don't think we've handled that very well -- and how we're dealing with the Russians and Chinese on this are important."

"So therefore it's only responsible in my opinion to allow the next administration working with the new Congress to start making these decisions," he added. Some lawmakers in both parties made the same point today.

At a news conference a week ago, President Clinton said he expected to make a decision about the next step in "a few weeks." Mr. Berger appeared to extend that deadline today, saying he still expected a decision this summer. He said the Pentagon would have to make a full assessment of what went wrong, based on data beamed back to earth before the interceptor plunged into the ocean.

One lesson Pentagon planners and the White House may draw from the test is that any missile defense system may require a significantly larger fleet of antimissile rockets than currently planned.

The Air Force learned this lesson in the aftermath of the 1986 Challenger accident, when military leaders concluded that the shuttle flights would not be frequent enough to lift their spy satellites into space. They shifted the satellite launches back to unmanned rockets.

But the failure rate of those launches was higher than initially expected.

Moreover, the arithmetic of offensive and defensive missile launches almost always favors the country initiating an attack. Even if half or more of its rockets are intercepted, an attack can be considered a success.

But if even a few rockets make it through a defensive shield -- leading to a nuclear disaster that takes thousands of lives -- the shield may well be considered a failure.

For that reason, several advisers to Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, are urging him to support a system that edges back toward President Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" dreams rather than President Clinton's limited defense.

Mr. Clinton's plan, one of Mr. Bush's advisers said, was designed to "come up with the smallest possible program to meet the standard, and it never had a strategic context." It was chiefly intended, he argued, to protect Vice President Al Gore from the charge of being too soft on defense.

Whatever Mr. Clinton decides in coming months, said the adviser, "we have to go back and look at the strategic logic."

That reassessment could also examine the nuclear threat that the system would deter. The failure of this test may only encourage nations like China, which is believed to have only two dozen intercontinental missiles, to vastly increase their arsenals in order to overwhelm any defensive system.

On the other hand, any new president may have to reassess the nature of the threat from what the State Department previously called "rogue nations." North Korea's recent opening to the South has prompted questions about whether its leaders may be rational enough to be deterred by the prospect of a retaliatory attack -- much as the old Soviet Union was during the cold war.

Referring to North Korea, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, said today: "The threat is not at all clear to me."

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36) THE failure of the "son of Star Wars"
THE TIMES,
July 10 2000
BY MICHAEL EVANS, DEFENCE EDITOR AND IAN BRODIE IN WASHINGTON

THE failure of the "son of Star Wars" missile test after the "killer" rocket missed its target over the Pacific has provided America's sceptical European allies with more fuel to dissuade Washington from going ahead with the project.

The test, the third of a series to prove the technical feasibility of knocking out an incoming intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with a non-nuclear interceptor, was unsuccessful on Saturday because the "kill vehicle" that should have hit the Minuteman ICBM target failed to separate from its booster rocket.

While Pentagon officials argued that the technical hitch could be rectified for the next test, in the autumn, the aborted flight test will be greeted with sighs of relief in Europe.

European members of Nato have tried to adopt a low-profile approach towards America's plan for a national missile defence system. They have listened to many US intelligence briefings on the missile threat faced by the United States from countries such as North Korea and Iran in the next five to ten years, but without any enthusiasm for the project.

Even Britain has been noticeably cautious. Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, is known to be against the programme because of the impact it could have on arms control treaties with Russia.

European alliance sources said that if the failed test delayed the decision on a missile defence system and provoked greater debate within the United States, governments in Europe would be "greatly relieved". Sandy Berger, President Clinton's national security adviser, said yesterday that the test failure would be an important factor in the President's decision on deployment.

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37) Failed missile test a threat to NMD
THE IRISH TIMES
JULY 11 2000
From Joe Carroll, in Washington

THE US: The failure of the latest test for the controversial US National Missile Defence (NMD) project has sown doubts about its future, doubts which President Clinton may resolve before he leaves office.

The President is now waiting for a report on the feasibility of the project before he decides whether to order deployment of a first phase of 20 interceptors based in Alaska by 2005 and a radar detection system against incoming missiles. The cost is estimated at $60 billion.

While the US says the NMD is aimed at protection against a possible missile attack from "rogue nations" such as North Korea, Iraq or Iran, both Russia and China have strongly opposed it while European allies of the US have expressed concern it could lead to an escalation of the nuclear arms race.

At the White House, the National Security Council spokes man, Mr P.J. Crowley, said that the failure "will have to be taken into account as we make a judgement on technical feasibility". The Republican presidential candidate, Governor George Bush, called the test failure a "disappointment", but said that pressing ahead with NMD would be a priority if he is elected next November.

US officials were embarrassed when the "kill vehicle" failed to separate from its booster rocket and go on to intercept a dummy warhead over the Pacific Ocean. A decoy balloon, launched with the dummy warhead from Vandenberg Air Force base in California, failed to inflate.

The interceptor rocket, fired 20 minutes later from Kwajalein Atoll 4,300 miles away in the central Pacific, apparently swerved off course as it approached the dummy warhead. It also failed to release the "kill vehicle", which was supposed to hunt down its target using highly sophisticated sensors while travelling at 15,000 miles an hour.

This was the third test of the system, which is designed by the Boeing and Raytheon aerospace companies. The second test also failed and the first was a partial failure. Another 16 are scheduled over the next five years to make the system more accurate. But military and scientific critics have predicted that it will be a costly failure and be unable to distinguish between incoming nuclear warheads and decoys.

Congress has already voted in favour of NMD but has left the decision on deployment of its first phase to the President. Such deployment would be seen by Russia as a breach of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.

Mr Clinton has proposed amending the ABM in talks with President Putin of Russia, so far without success. Mr Putin has instead offered to work with the US and other countries in developing a new system to counter missile threats from North Korea.

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38) China Greets Cohen with Anti-Missile Salvo
Reuters
Tuesday July 11
By Paul Eckert

BEIJING (Reuters) - China greeted Defense Secretary William Cohen Tuesday by urging Washington to drop plans to build anti-missile defense systems that have united China and Russia in opposition.

``We urge the United States to drop as soon as possible this plan, which does not serve its interest and harms that of others,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi told a news conference as Cohen arrived.

China is bitterly opposed to plans to build a National Missile Defense (NMD) system to protect vulnerable parts of the United States from missile attacks and a Theater Missile Defense system (TMD) to shelter U.S. and allied troops in Asia.

Beijing fears such an umbrella could cover Taiwan, which it regards as a renegade province that must be re-united with the mainland, and says the system would spark an arms race in Asia.

China got no comfort on TMD last weekend, when a senior U.S. arms negotiator said the United States had not ruled out sheltering Taiwan under it.

``We don't rule out the possibility that some time in the future Taiwan may have TMD capabilities,'' U.S. arms control adviser John Holum said after two days of talks in Beijing.

Holum spoke to reporters Saturday after the first arms control talks in more than a year between the United States and China, during which a U.S. test of the proposed NMD system failed.

A U.S. official told reporters China sees U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, arms control and the missile defense issue as linked.

``The Chinese would like to tie Taiwan arms sales into non-proliferation discussions, NMD, TMD -- all these things from the Chinese point of view tie into the discussion of proliferation and it's a contentious issue,'' said the official.

Cohen Undaunted By Test Failure

The timing of the much-anticipated NMD test added insult to injury for the worried Chinese.

It failed because the so-called ``kill vehicle'' did not separate from its booster rocket. The trial never progressed to testing whether the weapon could find a dummy warhead in space and smash it out of the sky.

Cohen told reporters on his way to China the failure did not automatically mean he would recommend against moving forward with the system.

He must make a recommendation to President Clinton in four weeks on whether to go ahead with the NMD system.

``What I have to do is to await the full report, all of the analysis... So at this point I'm just going to withhold any judgement,'' Cohen told reporters traveling with him.

Russia and China are adamantly opposed to the system, which is aimed at shielding the United States from attacks from states like North Korea, Iran and Iraq. U.S. allies in Europe are worried it could lead to a renewed arms race.

``No matter what the United States says, it will not change China's opposition to the anti-missile defense program,'' said Chinese spokesman Sun.

China Fears Global Balance Upset

Asked about reports China's senior arms negotiator said NMD would force Beijing to change its policy on nuclear disarmament, Sun said: ``We will determine our disarmament policy in accordance with the development of the anti-missile system.''

The Guangzhou Daily quoted China's top disarmament diplomat, Sha Zukang, Tuesday as saying the NMD meant that ``China could not help but take a more cautious approach toward joining nuclear disarmament efforts.''

Development of the missile defense system is being tied to a deadline of 2005, when U.S. intelligence estimates North Korea will have a missile capable of hitting U.S. soil.

China has said it fears the NMD system would upset the global strategic balance and reduce the value of its modest nuclear deterrent capability.

Pakistan Proliferation Fears

Cohen planned to broach the issue of missile technology proliferation with Chinese leaders, including U.S. suspicions that China is sending technology to Pakistan -- an accusation both countries deny.

Holum said he failed to bridge gaps with China over alleged Chinese sales of missile technology to Pakistan.

The New York Times said last week China had stepped up shipment of special steels, guidance systems and technical expertise to Pakistan.

``Our view (is) that China is proliferating with respect to Pakistan, dealing with what we think we have evidence of,'' said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

``The Chinese resist that and the rest of it is in a state of negotiation, but it is moving forward,'' the official said.

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39) Pentagon Looks to Next Missile Test
Tuesday July 11
By DAVID BRISCOE,
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon is doing a second-by-second analysis of the latest test failure of its proposed national missile defense system, as it prepares for what has become an even more critical test as early as October.

``We're going to press forward,'' said Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, spokesman for the troubled program. ``This particular malfunction doesn't do anything to degrade our confidence in the overall technology that's been developed.''

Defense Secretary William Cohen, in Beijing for a meeting with Chinese defense chief Gen. Chi Haotian on Wednesday, said the second failed test out of three was disappointing but does not mean the Clinton administration will give up the goal of having the system ready to defend against incoming missiles by 2005.

Cohen said he will tell the Chinese, who oppose the U.S. system, that both a national missile defense and regional missile defenses are needed to counter a ``proliferation of missile technology.''

When he returns, Cohen is to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee to defend the program before Congress for the first time. The committee chairman, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said Congress would conduct an ``in-depth analysis'' of the latest tests.

The next test of the system designed to knock incoming missiles out of the sky with an unarmed ``kill vehicle'' is set for October or November and will be very similar to the one that had a double failure Saturday. The interceptor vehicle failed to separate from its second-stage booster, and a decoy balloon from the incoming rocket, designed to deceive the interceptor, failed to inflate.

``It would have been desirable to have two successful intercepts, but it doesn't mean the technology is not there yet,'' Cohen said en route to Beijing, adding that he remains convinced a national missile shield is needed.

Cohen said he had not decided whether to recommend that President Clinton proceed with construction for the system's ground-based radar in Alaska - the next step in a plan for 100 missiles to protect against limited nuclear attack from present or future enemies or terrorists.

Rep. Curt Weldon, a House Armed Services subcommittee chairman, agreed.

``Should it slow down where we're going? No. Will it? Probably,'' said Weldon, R-Pa., chairman of the military research and development subcommittee.

Weldon accused Clinton of not really supporting the system and predicted he'd use the booster failure as an excuse for not going ahead.

Also on Capitol Hill, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, asked the Pentagon inspector general to investigate the failure of a decoy balloon in Saturday's test. That would have made the test suspect even if it had succeeded, Kucinich said. In an interview, he said the Pentagon knows the system can't tell a decoy from a real incoming missile.

``The American people deserve an investigation of this matter to determine whether the performance failure of the balloon decoy was indeed the result of a technical malfunction,'' Kucinich said in a letter to the inspector general. He and 50 other House Democrats earlier asked the FBI to investigate allegations by some scientists that the tests were rigged.

John Isaacs, president of the anti-nuclear Council for a Livable World, said Tuesday that the test failure should ``slow the program down significantly. ... The bottom line is that the national missile defense is still not ready for prime time.''

For proponents, Saturday's missile miss offered stark evidence of the vulnerability of American cities to long-range missiles that might be developed by countries like North Korea or Iraq. Had the missile been armed and aimed at a real target, an American city could have been destroyed.

For critics, it underscored the folly of committing $40 billion or much more to a missile shield that has angered Russia, China and Europeans and probably wouldn't work anyway.

Top administration officials said after the test failure that they expect Clinton to make a decision by the end of summer. No matter what the president decides, his successor is likely to make the important decisions on future construction and deployment.

On the Net: Ballistic Missile Defense Organization: http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/html/

Union of Concerned Scientists: http://www.ucsusa.org/

CIA assessment of missile threat: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/nie/nie99msl.html

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40) US Missile Defense Plans Uncertain (AP)
Tuesday July 11
By DAVID BRISCOE,
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon is doing a second-by-second analysis of the latest test failure of its proposed national missile defense system, as it prepares for what has become an even more critical test as early as October.

``We're going to press forward,'' said Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, spokesman for the troubled program. ``This particular malfunction doesn't do anything to degrade our confidence in the overall technology that's been developed.''

Defense Secretary William Cohen, traveling to China, said the second failed test out of three was disappointing but does not mean the Clinton administration will give up the goal of having the system ready to defend against incoming missiles by 2005.

When he returns, Cohen is to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee to defend the program before Congress for the first time. The committee chairman, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said Congress would conduct an ``in-depth analysis'' of the latest tests.

The next test of the system designed to knock incoming missiles out of the sky with an unarmed ``kill vehicle'' is set for October or November and will be very similar to the one that had a double failure Saturday. The interceptor vehicle failed to separate from its second-stage booster, and a decoy balloon from the incoming rocket, designed to deceive the interceptor, failed to inflate.

``It would have been desirable to have two successful intercepts, but it doesn't mean the technology is not there yet,'' Cohen said en route to Beijing, adding that he remains convinced a national missile shield is needed.

Cohen said he had not decided whether to recommend that President Clinton proceed with construction for the system's ground-based radar in Alaska - the next step in a plan for 100 missiles to protect against limited nuclear attack from present or future enemies or terrorists.

Rep. Curt Weldon, a House Armed Services subcommittee chairman, agreed.

``Should it slow down where we're going? No. Will it? Probably,'' said Weldon, R-Pa., chairman of the military research and development subcommittee.

Weldon accused Clinton of not really supporting the system and predicted he'd use the booster failure as an excuse for not going ahead.

Also on Capitol Hill, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, asked the Pentagon inspector general to investigate the failure of a decoy balloon in Saturday's test. That would have made the test suspect even if it had succeeded, Kucinich said. In an interview, he said the Pentagon knows the system can't tell a decoy from a real incoming missile.

``The American people deserve an investigation of this matter to determine whether the performance failure of the balloon decoy was indeed the result of a technical malfunction,'' Kucinich said in a letter to the inspector general. He and 50 other House Democrats earlier asked the FBI to investigate allegations by some scientists that the tests were rigged.

For proponents, Saturday's missile miss offered stark evidence of the vulnerability of American cities to long-range missiles that might be developed by countries like North Korea or Iraq. Had the missile been armed and aimed at a real target, an American city could have been destroyed.

For critics, it underscored the folly of committing $40 billion or much more to a missile shield that has angered Russia, China and Europeans and probably wouldn't work anyway.

Top administration officials said after the test failure that they expect Clinton to make a decision by the end of summer. No matter what the president decides, his successor is likely to make the important decisions on future construction and deployment.

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41) Putin Sees U.S. Missile Concerns But No Threat Now
Reuters
Wednesday July 12
By Oleg Shchedrov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview he saw some merit in Washington's concerns about rogue states' possible nuclear missile plans, but no threat from any country at the moment.

Putin -- a staunch critic of U.S. plans to build a National Missile Defense against such missiles -- told Reuters, Russia's ORT television and Japan's NHK television that efforts to ward off new threats should not damage the existing nuclear balance.

``I believed and still believe that the position of U.S. President (Bill Clinton) has some basis to it,'' Putin said late on Tuesday. ``And the basis is that we should assume that such threats can theoretically, in principle, emerge one day.

``But we do not believe that there are such threats now nor that they are coming from any specific states,'' he said.

``In every concrete case we should of course clearly assess and make it clear to everyone what we are talking about, what threats, what the scale of threat is and where it comes from.''

The United States, worried by potential threats from so-called rogue states like Iraq, Iran or North Korea, is considering setting up a system which would allow it to detect and destroy any incoming ballistic missile attack.

Washington is pressing Moscow to allow changes in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) pact, under which each state can protect only a limited part of its territory against such attacks.

Clinton is under domestic pressure to quit the ABM pact, which Russia sees as a backbone of all subsequent arms deals, if Moscow refuses to amend it to allow the new U.S. anti-missile shield.

Moscow Fears Unpredictable Consequences

Russia says altering the ABM could bring about unpredictable consequences for international stability and has offered the West the idea of setting up a multinational non-strategic system which would not violate the pact. The idea is to shoot down rogue rockets as they are launched rather than in mid-flight.

``The difference in our approaches is that we offer to move further, preserving the level of mutual trust and the balance of strategic arms created as a result of the ABM pact, to work together on limiting potential threats which in theory may emerge,'' Putin said.

The Russian military has pointed to a second failed U.S. anti-missile test as evidence that the national missile defense will not work. The system may cost up to $60 billion, and Russia has said its project could be realized for much less.

Putin reiterated Moscow's position that a further cut in atomic weapons by the leading nuclear states could also contribute to a reduction of potential threats.

He repeated Moscow's call to the United States to limit the number of each side's nuclear warheads to 1,500 in the next arms reduction pact, rather than 2,500 as Washington would prefer.

``What can be better for mankind than reducing the threshold of the nuclear threat?'' Putin said.

``We are proposing that we should follow that road. It is clear to everyone, even if the person is not an expert.''

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42) Hegemony and missile tests
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
7/12/00
Helle Bering
www.washtimes.com

That was a collective sigh of relief you heard last week, when the American missile defense test fell, well, a bit short of the desired result. It was the third such test and the second to fail. Not that the failure proved that the advanced technology involved in "hitting a bullet with a bullet" was unworkable. What happened was that the high-speed interceptor fired from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, which was supposed to destroy a dummy warhead deployed on a rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, failed to separate from the booster rocket. This is pretty basic stuff. It was embarrassing perhaps, but certainly not devastating to the concept of national missile defense (NMD).

Nonetheless, political leaders from Europe to Beijing, who had been having fits of the vapors en masse, were pleased at the failure all as one. Governments all over Europe were said to be "greatly relieved." The weeks leading up to the test had been filled with increasingly hysterical rhetoric from abroad. Russia and China, of course, are adamantly opposed. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that a U.S. decision to go ahead would "signify an undermining" of the global military balance, no less. Not surprisingly, his sentiments were dutifully echoed by the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan and Tajikistan. Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev, head of Russia's strategic missile force, threatened to increase the number of warheads on the Russian long-range Topol-M missile or even revive the Russian medium range missile program. Mr. Putin even went so far as to propose European-Russian cooperation on missile defense in a blatant attempt to seed division in the NATO alliance.

The Chinese meanwhile are frantic at the idea that Taiwan might be protected from their missile batteries on the coast of the Taiwan Strait. During a visit to Rome last week, Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji warned that a U.S. theater missile defense would be able to protect Taiwan and therefore constitute a "blatant interference in Chinese affairs." The bizarre implication of this statement is that the world should then consider it an internal matter if China unleashes a rain of missiles on Taiwan. Come again?

Barely less intense has been the European reaction. Missile defense today dominates just about every discussion between European and American politicians. French and German officials have warned that for the Americans to abrogate the obsolete 1972 Antiballistic Missile treaty will somehow cause all arms control regimes to unravel the world over. Exactly how this would happen, given that the ABM treaty is, strictly speaking, a matter between Russians and Americans, has yet to be satisfactorily explained.

What we are talking about here is defensive weapons capability, so what accounts for the virulence of the reaction? It is, of course, reminiscent of the chorus of denunciation and ridicule that greeted President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. Back then, in Cold War days, it would clearly have affected the balance of power between the United States and the Soviet Union, which made the reaction more understandable.

When it comes right down to it, an argument could be made that balance of power is still the real issue. Indeed, it seems that the rest of the world wants to preserve the arms control regimes to tie down the United States itself. This proposition is made convincingly in Peter Rodman's insightful new monograph published by the Nixon Center, "Uneasy Giant: The Challenges to American Predominance."

"American military policies we see as defensive and necessary, whether on land mines or missile defense, prompt new charges of unilateralism, which other nations seek to restrain through arms control," Mr. Rodman writes.

Now, there is broad bipartisan support here in Washington in favor of proceeding with NMD. Even The Washington Post editorial page has warmed to NMD, in an interesting reversal. So is there anything we can do to make our undeniable "hyperpower" status, as French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine put it, more palatable to the rest of the world? Should we even try?

As suggested by Mr. Rodman, a U.S. foreign policy based on Wilsonian idealism helps create misperceptions abroad. "How else to explain the paradox that international resentment of American power seems to be so high in the time of an administration so eager to be virtuous and that has made it standard procedure to apologize for much of postwar American power in foreign policy." Somehow the "assertive multilateralism" proposed by then-U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright gives the rest of the world the heebie-jeebies. You never know where it is going to strike next.

Some of us believe that perhaps an internationalist policy based more openly and honestly on U.S. national interest might make other countries less suspicious of ulterior U.S. motives. That would be closer to the model proposed by Texas Gov. George W. Bush. This is worth thinking about since missile defense is clearly going to happen. E-mail: helle.bering@washtimes.com.

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43) Engineer Charging Antimissile Fraud Is Snared in a Federal Clash
July 13, 2000 NYT
By WILLIAM J. BROAD

An engineer who leveled charges of fraud in antimissile research against a big contractor is becoming caught in a federal clash.

Pentagon agents are trying to question her about leaks of military secrets, even while Congressional and criminal investigators are gearing up to examine the merit of her accusations.

Nira Schwartz, a senior engineer in 1995 and 1996 at TRW, a military contractor, has charged that the company falsified work that was meant to help antimissile interceptors to distinguish incoming warheads from decoys.

The company strongly denies the charge. Dr. Schwartz contends that TRW fired her when she protested.

Yesterday, Dr. Schwartz objected to Pentagon plans to have security investigators question her about information she had provided to antimissile critics. She said the questioning was clearly aimed at shielding the $60 billion antimissile plan from scrutiny.

"They're trying to kill the messenger," she said in an interview. "Right now, the court case is the only way to bring this issue to justice. The nation needs an independent evaluation of the project. Otherwise, we're being taken for a ride."

Her case, which languished in federal court in Los Angeles for years, rose to prominence in recent months as the Clinton administration has pressed ahead with plans to deploy the antimissile system, and as scientists and critics have backed her charges and broadened them to contend that the Pentagon has tried to cover up the purported flaw.

Her top scientific ally, Theodore A. Postol, an arms expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who opposes the weapon, said Pentagon investigators were seeking to question Dr. Schwartz about declassified documents that she shared with him, apparently one in particular. They are doing so simply to harass her, he said.

"This is outrageous," Dr. Postol said yesterday, adding that three Defense Security Service investigators confronted him over the same matter last month. "It's very clear they know where the document comes from. This is a transparent case of intimidation."

Retroactively, Pentagon officials in May classified as secret a letter that Dr. Postol sent the White House and Dr. Schwartz's declassified document, which he included.

That meant that the contents were taken out of circulation and treated as highly sensitive. Dr. Postol promptly denounced the Pentagon move as political censorship.

Yesterday, Dr. Postol said the Pentagon document in question had beendeclassified by the Defense Criminal Investigative Service in the course of reviewing Dr. Schwartz's charges. He said the Pentagon was apparently going out of its way to avoid investigating itself.

On Tuesday David W. Affeld, Dr. Schwartz's lawyer, wrote Lieut. Col. Bill Groves, the general counsel of the Pentagon's antimissile program, to complain about Defense Department plans to interrogate his client.

"I am concerned," he wrote, "that the 'investigation' of Dr. Schwartz is motivated not to preserve national security, but rather to intimidate an outspoken critic of the program" as the White House considers whether to press ahead with the costly antimissile plan. Dr. Postol provided a copy of the letter. Mr. Affeld declined comment.

Arthur L. Money, an assistant secretary of defense in charge of security policy, said last night that no decision had been made on whether to contact Dr. Schwartz. "Our focus is internal to the Department of Defense on whether any leaks occurred," he said.

Legal experts said that if Dr. Schwartz were found guilty of leaking military secrets, it might cripple or kill her lawsuit, especially if the finding ended her ability to review classified documents needed to prove her allegations.

Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who has called for Congressional and criminal inquiries into Dr. Schwartz's charges, denounced the Pentagon's interrogation plan.

"Obviously," he said yesterday, "hits are being put out on anyone who betrays this high-tech code of silence."

Mr. Markey and, separately, Representative Howard L. Berman and Senator Charles E. Grassley have called on the Congressional General Accounting Office to investigate the antimissile charges.

Yesterday, Robert E. Levin, a General Accounting Office official, said plans for an investigation were so far unfocused. "We haven't really started interviewing witnesses," he said.

Members of the House have asked the F.B.I. to investigate the fraud charges.

John Collingwood, a bureau spokesman, said he could not comment on whether an inquiry was underway.

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44) A Better Way to Build a Missile Defense
NYT July 13, 2000
By RICHARD PERLE

WASHINGTON -- Far from lamenting last week's highly publicized test failure, advocates of a defense against ballistic missiles should rejoice. The move to deploy an ill-conceived system supported by the Clinton administration has been stymied, and the prospect of a far more effective defense is greatly increased.

The system that failed in Saturday's test conformed to the main provisions of the 1972 ABM treaty between the United States and the late Soviet Union. That treaty, which became defunct when the Soviet Union collapsed, expressly prohibits the deployment of national missile defenses and allows only a tiny, highly localized defense based on old, ground-based technology. So it is hardly surprising that a system designed to fit within it, like the one the Clinton administration is recommending, would turn out to be inadequate.

The system's inadequacy is inherent in its technology and architecture. It relies on a small number of ground-launched interceptors, based on U.S. territory, that must be maneuvered with astounding precision to collide with incoming warheads at closing speeds of 15,000 miles per hour.

Since each enemy missile may carry several nuclear warheads, along with a large number of decoys, the 100 interceptors could be overwhelmed. And the interceptors will have only one shot: there is no chance to fire a second time if an interceptor misses.

To make matters worse, the entire system depends on a small number of ground-based radars, including one located on Shemya Island in Alaska. If that single radar were destroyed, the entire system would be disabled.

Surely nations capable of building long-range ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads could damage or destroy a large, immobile radar on that frozen, barren island.

If this technology is so fragile, why build it when the potential exists for a far more effective missile defense system? Unfortunately, the Clinton administration's primary concern seems to be the defense of the ABM treaty.

Administration officials are prepared to subordinate military effectiveness to a 30-year-old treaty that they persist in calling a "cornerstone" of stability.

A more effective system, although inconsistent with the treaty, would intercept hostile missiles (or missiles launched accidentally) early in their flight, just after lift-off, during what is known as the "boost phase." Television viewers familiar with shuttle launches have seen the booster rockets lift the shuttle into space, plumes of flame burning brightly as the shuttle rises gracefully into space. Similar rockets can, and do, deliver nuclear warheads.

During the boost phase, missiles move relatively slowly. They are easy to pinpoint: the intense heat from their rocket motors is readily detected by sensors based on satellites. If hostile rockets are intercepted in the beginning, during the boost phase, as opposed to the "terminal" phase of the administration's system, there are neither decoys nor multiple warheads to contend with.

A successful intercept destroys all the warheads and all the decoys before they can be separated from the rocket that carries them into space.

Moreover, a properly configured missile defense system protects widely. A missile destroyed in the boost phase will never reach its intended target -- whether it is Washington or Paris or American forces abroad.

One approach to a national missile defense would be to deploy interceptors on navy ships, possibly on Aegis cruisers, which could then be positioned as necessary. Such a sea-based system might work together with lasers and other devices in space to provide a limited but technologically sophisticated system with global reach and effectiveness.

Opponents of a robust missile defense argue that it would encourage the proliferation of nuclear weapons and lead to instability.

The opposite is far more likely. Imagine a sharp rise in tension between India and Pakistan. Both countries have nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Suppose the United States could dispatch an Aegis cruiser to the region with instructions to intercept any ballistic missile fired by either side. Such a capability in American hands would be highly stabilizing, reducing the likelihood of conflict, discouraging the use of offensive missiles, reassuring both sides.

Other nations, like Iran, Iraq and North Korea, are actively trying to acquire missiles capable of attacking the United States. They believe that acquiring even a single missile will catapult them into a select class of states capable of inflicting massive damage on the United States. Given time and money, a single missile, or even several, is not beyond their reach.

But suppose that we were to construct a defense that could intercept all the warheads and decoys carried by 100 or 200 enemy missiles. A Saddam Hussein or a Kim Jung Il would need that number to be confident he could land a missile on New York or Chicago or an allied capital. In that case, even a determined adversary might well throw up his hands and conclude that such a missile force is beyond his reach.

The best way to protect against a missile attack is to discourage our adversaries from investing in the missiles in the first place.

There can be no more powerful disincentive than to have a shield that guarantees their hugely expensive programs will fail. It is that shield, based on our most advanced technology -- not an outdated treaty -- that will protect us best.

Richard Perle, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was assistant secretary for international security policy at the Defense Department from 1981 to 1987. He is an adviser to Gov. George W. Bush.

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45) Calling a Bomb a Bomb
Washington Post
Thursday, July 13, 2000
By Mary McGrory

The Democrats have been quiet since the failure of the latest nuclear missile defense test. It's good news, but they are not sure whether the president sees it that way, and they don't want to press him while he's conducting delicate negotiations at Camp David.

In the meantime, the air is filled with sophistries from missile defense fans, who are busy translating the failure into a "disappointment" and assuring us that the humiliating setback will not make the slightest difference in the mad rush to pour concrete now to meet a self-inflicted deadline of 2005, when, according to Pentagon calculations, North Korea will be targeting Detroit.

The lessening of that likelihood, evident in a summit meeting of North and South Korean leaders, was brushed aside. "There are other rogue states," they snap. The only official reaction was to change the designation of "rogue states" to "states of concern." North Korea hasn't tested since 1998, and plans are going forward for massive north and south family reunions.

Nuclear missile defense is not about foreign policy. Neither is it about technology. It's about religion. It's about being a Republican, about being an American. Belief in a defensive shield is an article of faith, a litmus test. A heretic in the GOP is someone who insists that the system work and be needed.

Republican demagoguery and presidential triangulation have taken the heart out of Democrats who know better. Republicans roar, "You don't want to defend your country against missile attacks?" and Democrats cower. The answer from 25 Nobel laureates is not that we don't want to but that we can't.

The scientists have stepped into the political vacuum left by the Democrats. They have organized forums and seminars and letters to editors. They have formulated a reply to the GOP charge that it is immoral not to erect defenses against incoming missiles. Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Ted Postol says it is more immoral to assure people that they will be entirely safe under a nuclear umbrella that will not protect them.

Defense Secretary William Cohen, a Republican, emitted a striking sophistry about the fiasco: "The test itself was a disappointment but it was one of those failures that was least expected. . . . That happens from time to time--that you have a failure of something that's fairly routine."

That is a kind of logic that you can't apply at Wimbledon, which was happily going on at the same time. Say Venus Williams had tripped over a tennis ball and missed a shot. Would the judges have discounted it because it did not involve her backhand or serve or other basic elements of her game? I don't think so.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) made a more sensible comment: "It's hard to see how they can recommend a deployment decision on a missile system that doesn't work." Dorgan is a forthright skeptic. He invited Frances FitzGerald, author of "Way Out There in the Blue," the history of Ronald Reagan and Star Wars, to address a group of dubious Democrats. She told them that Reagan had found the inspiration for the shield from the silver screen. In "Torn Curtain," a 1966 Alfred Hitchcock movie, Paul Newman pledges: "We will produce a defensive weapon that will make all nuclear weapons obsolete, and thereby abolish the terror of nuclear warfare." That is almost precisely the phrasing Reagan used in presenting his Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars.

Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan (D-N.Y.) points out that the failure of the kill vehicle to do its stuff gave President Clinton the perfect out. But Democrats don't know if the president wants it. He likes to have it both ways. While Clinton would like to avoid the opprobrium of being the Democratic commander in chief who broke ground for a space extravaganza historically resisted by his party, he does not want to give the Republicans a free shot at his chosen successor, Al Gore, for being "weak on defense." And although old Democrats have trouble watching Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbot--who as a journalist was a stellar proponent of arms control--over in Moscow negotiating his heart out to sabotage the central arms control scroll, the ABM treaty, Clinton seems to expect some credit for resisting George W. Bush's grandiose scheme for a real, all-out Star Wars scenario.

Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle (S.D.) expects Democrats to speak up now, to preach the old Democratic gospel of diplomacy and deterrence. And Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) introduced a measure that calls for future tests to be conducted under conditions more truly representative of space when all hell is breaking loose. Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) is pushing for hearings in the House so that Democrats can finally talk back.

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46) Of politics and missiles
Denver Post
July 13 2000

A long time ago, in a reality far, far away, the Reagan administration dreamed up a missile defense system that never worked and gave the United States less security than old-fashioned diplomacy.

Today, the Clinton administration is considering an updated version of the "Star Wars" concept. But the idea is being driven by politics, not military need.

Since 1976, U.S. attempts to destroy mock incoming warheads with missile intercept systems have failed 70 percent of the time.

In recent months, two of the three tests of the new system have failed outright, and the third hit a decoy, not the intended target. So last weekend's debacle (in which a test missile didn't separate from its booster rocket) was only the latest chapter in a long, sorry farce.

The test did, however, succeed at messing up diplomatic and international security relationships.

Russia is balking at new arms reduction treaties, because it says the proposed U.S. missile intercept system would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty - the cornerstone of nuclear sanity for nearly three decades.

China is so angry that now winning Beijing's cooperation on other diplomatic fronts may be difficult. Western European allies are alarmed because the new system would leave them vulnerable while undermining existing nuclear restraints.

Meantime, negotiations already are resolving the perceived threats that the anti-missile system supposedly would thwart. North Korea suspended tests on its own missile system in response to South Korea's peace overtures. Iranian moderates have toned down their country's antiAmerican rhetoric. And credible experts say Iraq no longer can make missiles capable of reaching the West.

Instead, the $60 billion proposed system is designed to protect two things: Al Gore's prospects and the defense industry's income.

In recent years, defense contractors have poured millions of dollars into a Washington, D.C., think tank called the Center for Security Policy. The center gets up to 35 percent of its budget from defense contractors, has spent large sums on "issue advertising" in the Washington area, and has buttered up Republicans in Congress.

GOP presidential nominee George W. Bush has made a campaign issue out of his call for an even larger and more costly anti-missile system. Yet experts say Bush's strategy would shred the deterence and diplomatic strategies that have successfully prevented nuclear war for a half century.

Neither Bush's proposal nor Clinton's approach would protect against the most likely nuclear threat: Terrorists sneaking small nukes into the United States in suitcases or other disguises that an anti-missile system could never detect.

President Clinton plans to decide whether to pursue the anti-missile program by fall, based on cost, technical feasibility, diplomatic relations and extent of the military threat.

Tragically, the decision appears more likely to be predicated on politics.

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47) Senate Votes on Missile Testing
Thursday July 13
By JIM ABRAMS,
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Concerned by failures in past testing, the Senate is voting on a measure that would require more thorough future testing before the Pentagon could build a national anti-missile defense system.

``Is it too much to ask that we be certain that this system works before we move ahead with deployment?'' said Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn.

In an amendment to a $310 billion bill authorizing defense programs, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., is demanding that the Pentagon test the system against countermeasures an adversary might use to stop it.

Such countermeasures, which are used to disguise incoming warheads and confuse missiles launched to destroy them, could include decoy balloons and nuclear warheads shrouded in cooled metal, Durbin said.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, argued that the Durbin amendment was unnecessary because the Pentagon is already including the effects of countermeasures in its experiments.

The Pentagon has set a timetable for having a national anti-missile defense system ready for initial deployment by the end of 2005. Estimates of the cost of building that system, which would be designed only to counter very limited attacks from such hostile nations as North Korea, run as high as $60 billion.

The proposed system is also strongly opposed by nuclear weapons nations such as Russia and China, which say it violates the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty limiting missile defense systems.

Despite those obstacles, there is strong sentiment in Congress for proceeding with research and development of the defense system.

But Durbin argued that ``once that system becomes operational it should work.'' He said that ``if the fate of Americans will truly hang in the balance, we owe this nation, and every family and every mother father and child, our very best effort in building a credible effective deterrence.''

His amendment also requires an independent review team convened by the defense secretary to assess whether enough tests are conducted to assure the effectiveness of the system before it becomes operational.

President Clinton has said he would decide soon whether to keep the project moving toward the 2005 target date for deployment, but that decision may be postponed because of a failed missile intercept test over the Pacific last week. The device that was supposed to destroy an incoming missile in the test did not separate from its booster rocket.

It was the second failure out of three tests of the intercept program.

The defense authorization bill, which the Senate was to vote on Thursday, would provide $1.9 billion for the National Missile Defense program, more than double the amount authorized in fiscal 2000.

The bill budgets nearly $310 billion, $4.5 billion more than the president requested and $19 billion more than the current year, for weapons procurement, military readiness and personnel.

It includes a 3.7 percent pay raise for members of the military, $64 billion for procurement and $4.1 billion for operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and Southwest Asia.

The Senate bill also includes an amendment, sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., to add offenses motivated by sexual orientation, sex or disability to the list of hate crimes covered under federal law.

The House version has provisions to improve the health care coverage of military retirees and expand their access to prescription drugs.

On the Net: The bill, S. 2549, may be found at http://thomas.loc.gov

-

John Hallam Friends of the Earth Sydney,
17 Lord Street, Newtown, NSW, Australia, 2042
Fax (61)(2)9517-3902 ph (61)(2)9517-3903
nonukes@foesyd.org.au
http://homepages.tig.com.au/~foesyd

* NucNews Digest by OneList Subscribers

1. Price Anderson Act [PAA] & DOE Material, Mothersalert Web Sites
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

2. Some History On Official Lying Re "Permissable" Dose Standards
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

-----------

Message: 1
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 01:52:11 -0400
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

Price Anderson Act [PAA] & DOE Material, Mothersalert Web Sites
http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/priceanderson

You are all invited to join the brand new Price-Anderson list which will attempt to have the US nuclear industry held fully responsible for any and all economic, personal & health damage it may happen to inflict upon anyone/anything either here in the United States or anywhere else in the world. This is an INTERNATIONAL, not just a domestic issue. Currently and since 1957 Congress has mandated that they be held accountable for only a minute percentage of the damage. The nuclear industry constantly touts their safety, if they're so safe why don't they want to be held responsible for any damage this "safe" industry may happen to inflict?

For a GROSS underestimate of what NRC & industry admit to re their damage potential see: http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/crac.html The CRAC-2 Report

Also for NRC Admitting To Congress The Likelihood Of Meltdown see: http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/proability.html

And For NRC Allowing Industry To Break NRC's Own Safety Laws see: http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/violations.html

Please spread this invitation to anyone else you think may happen to be interested. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: price-anderson- request@energy-net.org In the body of the messsage write "Subscribe." To unsubscribe send e-mail to the same address and write "Leave" in the body of the message.

-Bill Smirnow

These are great sites for bookmarking:

PRICE-ANDERSON AMENDMENTS ACT (PAAA)

1. Price AndersonAmendments Act [PAA] http://www.io.bnl.gov/paaa.htm

2. Mothersalert Home Page http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert

2B. Motheraslert Price Anderson Home Page http://www.geocities.com/priceanderson

3. NRC & Sandia Labs Look At Catastrophic Effects of Commercial Reactor Meltdowns http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/crac.html

4. NRC Admits to Congress That A 45% Chance [Possibly As High as 99%] Of A Meltdown Exists Over A 20 Year Period http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/probability.html

5. Jane Rickover's [daughter-in-law of Admiral Hyman Rickover] signed, notorized statement about 3 Mile Island Cover Up and that the nuclear industry would have ended if the facts had ever been told to the public http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/rickover.html

6. Dr Rosalie Bertell's signed, notorized statement about the ONGOING cover up of the 3 Mile Island Accident By Jimmy Carter http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/bertell.html

7. Dr Rosalie Bertell's documentaion that 1.2 BILLION people have been killed, maimed and sickened by both the milita