------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Bush's Missile Shield Draws Concerns
Germany's Scharping Criticizes U.S. Over DU Munition
German Official Says U.S. Used Depleted Uranium
Plutonium fear over NATO missiles
Germans Protest Against Nuclear Waste Shipments
Berlin Probes Uranium Arms
New provocations threatening India-Pakistan peace
Clinton Backs Sale of Top Fighter to Israel
Nuclear handoff happens at high noon
Bush Blocks Clinton's Regulations
No Honeymoon Likely for New President's Foreign Policy Team
Senate Confirms 7 Cabinet Officers
Bush Sworn In As 43rd President

MILITARY
U.S.: Colombian Abuses Continue
Iraq Says Airstrike Kills Six
Puerto Rico Presses Case to End Vieques Bombing
Pentagon Says Commander Admits He Altered Records
Osprey Data Falsified For 2 Years, Letter Says

OTHER
FBI's Security Plans Cover All Possibilities
Keeping C.I.A. Chief Puts Pressure on Relationship

ACTIVISTS
For Many Protesters, Bush Isn't Main Issue
Protesters scuffle with police along inaugural route
Meet against nuclear weapons
French Shipment Draws Protest


-------- NUCLEAR

Bush's Missile Shield Draws Concerns

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 20, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Bush-World-Rdp.html

PARIS (AP) -- George W. Bush received best wishes from around the world on his inauguration day, although there were some jitters over his proposed missile defense shield, his support of the death penalty and his perceived lack of political experience.

British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook insisted Saturday that Bush's presidency would not lead to cooler relations between Britain and the United States. Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Clinton enjoy a warm relationship.

``America is our oldest friend,'' Cook told BBC radio. ``It is our closest ally, it is our biggest trading partner, and because of that, it is very important that we continue to be allies of trust, we continue to be the people they can rely on in times of difficulty.''

Daily newspapers in India, Japan and other nations expressed reservations about Bush's espousal of a missile defense shield.

``While campaigning, Mr. Bush spoke of reducing the United States' nuclear arsenal and replacing it with a missile defense system,'' said an editorial in the Hindustan Times. ``The U.S. is determined to pursue the latter goal. It is less clear if it will carry out the former.''

The mass-circulation Asahi Shimbun in Japan said in an editorial on Saturday that the proposed system ``is not a shield, but a spear. As partners with the United States, it is our job to state that clearly.''

Some Swiss papers ignored Bush entirely in favor of long farewells to Clinton. Others attacked Bush's support of the death penalty. The mass circulation Blick devoted its center pages to pictures of 85 of the 152 people put to death in Texas while he was governor, along with their last words.

French newspapers reflected strong feelings by critics who say Bush does not have sufficient political experience or knowledge of foreign policy to be president.

``Debutant ball'' was the headline on the front page of Liberation newspaper, a reference to the traditional inaugural balls held in the new president's honor. ``George W. does not have the experience of his father,'' another headline said.

In a number of foreign cities, including Paris, there were demonstrations by Americans who believe Vice President Al Gore should have won the close election, which was ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

About 60 people gathered at the Torch of Liberty in Paris chanted ``Gore got more!'' -- a reference to the fact that more Americans voted for Gore, although Bush won in the Electoral College.

Pope John Paul II, in a telegram to Bush, expressed hope that his leadership would enable the American people to rediscover the values that are the foundation for ``a society distinguished by real justice and freedom with respect for the dignity and for the rights of all, especially the poor and the defenseless and those who lack voice.''

In Pakistan, an editorial in the English-language daily, The Nation, expressed fears that the Bush administration will favor India in its territorial dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir.

Taiwanese papers expressed hope that Bush -- whose Republican party is perceived as favoring the island's interests over those of rival China -- will be more willing to assist Taiwan militarily.

People in the Philippines were too engrossed with the swearing in of a new president of their own to pay much heed to the big inaugural bash in the United States.

Just hours after Joseph Estrada quit Saturday as president over a corruption scandal, his deputy, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, was sworn in to replace him.

In Thailand, Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai released a letter Friday congratulating Bush.

``I can assure you,'' the letter read, ``that the United States will receive full cooperation from Thailand to further strengthen our ties for the benefit and the well-being of the two nations.''

-------- depleted uranium

Germany's Scharping Criticizes U.S. Over DU Munition

By REUTERS
January 20, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-balkans.html

RAJLOVAC, Bosnia (Reuters) - German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping strongly criticized the United States on Saturday for failing to inform their NATO partners that depleted uranium munitions could also contain traces of radioactive plutonium.

Scharping, in the Balkans for a two-day visit to German peacekeepers, said the United States had apparently known for some time about the possible contamination of uranium used in making tank-busting munitions with tiny amounts of plutonium.

``It should be the damned duty of a friendly nation to inform their partner,'' Scharping told journalists after visiting German soldiers at Rajlovac near Sarajevo. The minister travels to Kosovo on Sunday.

``The Internet is not the way to share information between governments,'' the minister said, alluding to the fact that much of the information about the possible health risks of depleted uranium munitions is available on the public Internet.

Scharping took the highly unusual step on Wednesday of calling in the U.S. charge d'affaires in Berlin to seek more information about plutonium traces in the weapons that U.S. forces fired during the Bosnia war and the Kosovo conflict.

The United States belatedly confirmed a German television report this week that some depleted uranium munitions -- already the focus of a health scare -- also contain minute traces of more radioactive plutonium.

The dispute over depleted uranium erupted earlier this month as some countries suggested a connection with leukemia and other diseases affecting some young NATO soldiers who served as peacekeepers in Kosovo and Bosnia.

HUNT FOR PLUTONIUM

Scharping, heavy criticized in Germany for not reacting quickly enough to the health concerns, was accompanied to the Balkans by a senior researcher from the Munich Research Centre for Environment and Health who planned to take earth and water samples during the trip to test for traces of plutonium.

The center has already tested over 100 German soldiers who served in Kosovo and found no evidence of increased levels of uranium or any sickness that could be linked to it.

Scharping has repeatedly said the health risk from the depleted uranium which is used to make munitions better able to penetrate tanks is negligible.

But he said this week that he had summoned the U.S. charge d'affaires to ``express the concerns that are triggered by the word plutonium.''

According to media reports, a particle as small as a millionth of an ounce of plutonium, if inhaled, can cause a fatal cancer.

NATO said this week that the presence in depleted uranium of plutonium in minute quantities had ``long been established'' but was ``irrelevant'' as it did not increase the extremely limited DU risks openly acknowledged.

There is no proof of any mystery illness among NATO peacekeepers and no ``Balkans syndrome'' to be explained, the medical chiefs of NATO's 19 armies all agreed last week after a day of comparing records.

----

German Official Says U.S. Used Depleted Uranium

Associated Press Saturday,
January 20, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21848-2001Jan20?language=printer

BERLIN, Jan. 19 -- Germany's defense minister, Rudolf Scharping, said today that U.S. Army documents show there have been numerous incidents involving depleted uranium ammunition held by U.S. troops stationed in Germany.

Parts of the documents that were released to the media by the U.S. Army indicated three rounds of depleted uranium ammunition were burned when a U.S. Army tank caught fire at Conn Barracks, Schweinfurt, in 1985, and one round was fired at a practice range in Grafenwoehr in 1996 or 1997. Pieces of the shell and soil from the impact point were sent for safe disposal.

Depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal, is used in anti-armor ammunition because of its penetrating power. U.S. forces used the ammunition in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995 and during NATO's 78-day bombing campaign in Yugoslavia in 1999.

--------

Plutonium fear over NATO missiles

January 20, 2001
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/01/20/defence.plutonium/index.html

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Fresh health fears have been raised over missiles used by NATO during conflicts in the Balkans and the Gulf after the United States confirmed some uranium-coated munitions may also have contained traces of plutonium.

NATO confirmed that faint traces of radioactive uranium 236 (U-236) and plutonium could be present in some depleted uranium (DU) ammunition fired during the Balkans conflicts of the 1990s.

But spokesman Mark Laity said in a statement that the traces were so small as to be meaningless in health terms.

In a letter to NATO Secretary-General George Robertson, Portugal's prime minister, Antonio Guterres, called for a full explanation of where and why such ammunition was used.

Spain, Germany and Switzerland have also raised concerns.

Warning that the issue threatened to further inflame public opinion, Guterres said NATO must demonstrate that the plutonium, even in the "negligible quantities" admitted by the alliance, posed no special danger.

A World Health Organization team is going to Kosovo this week to take more samples in places where DU anti-tank rounds were fired by U.S. planes in the 1999 NATO campaign.

NATO was reacting to reports from independent laboratories that they had discovered traces of plutonium in spent rounds of the special, tank-busting DU ammunition.

German Defence Minister Rudolf Scharping last Wednesday took the highly unusual step of calling in the U.S. charge d'affaires in Berlin to seek more information -- after a German television network reported on the plutonium factor.

The reports added to the political furore surrounding the use of DU ammunition which erupted following news of cancer deaths amongst a number of former peacekeepers from several NATO countries.

Defence and health experts dismiss suggestions of a "Balkans Syndrome," denying a direct link between the deaths and the ammunition.

According to some medical experts, a particle as small as a millionth of an ounce of plutonium can cause a fatal cancer if inhaled.

U.S. experts brought in by NATO in recent days to calm fears of a cancer risk from uranium ammunition used in Kosovo, Bosnia and the Gulf, stressed that DU is 40 percent less radioactive than the natural uranium people eat, drink and breathe.

U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen said DU was no more dangerous than "leaded paint."

What the U.S. experts did not say was that some DU comes from recycled nuclear fuel, not ore, and contains traces not only of highly radioactive U-236, but of plutonium as well.

NATO has said in a statement that the presence in DU of U-236 and plutonium in minute quantities had "long been established" but was "irrelevant" as it did not increase the extremely limited DU risks openly acknowledged.

The furore erupted over DU munitions in early January, but there has been no mention in NATO public records of serious safety failures at the Kentucky plant which made the material.

When a Pentagon spokesman was asked, last Thursday, about U-236 traces, he said: "As you know, we discovered some stray elements, transuranics they're called, in depleted uranium, the Department of Energy did, a year or so ago.

"They consisted of plutonium, neptunium and americium. Now these are very, very small amounts and as soon as they were discovered as indicating possibly a flaw in production in the production process, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission suspended the operation at this plant, which is in Paduhac, Kentucky."

He added: "Now, the labs in Europe have found tiny elements of U-236, which is not normally in depleted uranium.

"These were so small that United Nations scientists said they did not change the very low radiotoxicity of the depleted uranium...We're looking into how this could have happened."

-------- germany

Germans Protest Against Nuclear Waste Shipments

By REUTERS
January 21, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-germany.html

AHAUS, Germany (Reuters) - Hundreds of demonstrators on Sunday protested against plans to resume the transport of nuclear waste in Germany after a three-year lull.

The waste is due to go to an interim storage site in the western German town of Ahaus.

The group organizing the protest said more than 750 anti-nuclear activists had turned out. ``We are pleading for a speedy end to the use of nuclear power,'' protest organizer Burkhard Helling said in a statement.

The interior ministry of the North-Rhine Westphalia state, where Ahaus is located, has said it was preparing for the first transportation in the first half of March, but would not give precise dates for security reasons.

Storage facilities at nuclear plants across Germany have filled up as a result of a 1998 stoppage of waste transportation.

The ban -- imposed after a safety scare over radiation leaks from containers during transport -- was lifted after commitments by the German nuclear industry last summer to gradually phase out atomic energy by the mid-2020s.

Uncompromising anti-nuclear protesters, who cite safety risks, plan to disrupt waste transports in order to force operators to pull out of nuclear power production sooner. Such protests have frequently led to clashes with police in the past.

The resumption of the waste transports is bound to be politically sensitive for Germany's Green party who have been junior coalition partners to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats since the autumn 1998 election.

Environment Minister Juergen Trittin, himself a leading Green, defended the waste transports on Sunday, saying nuclear power company EnBW had met all safety demands.

Nuclear waste has also been building up in Germany because the French reprocessing plant at La Hague has for some time refused to take any more German fuel until it can send reprocessed waste back to Germany for permanent storage.

--------

Berlin Probes Uranium Arms

Saturday, January 20, 2001
International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/8131.htm

BERLIN The German defense minister said Friday that U.S. documents showed there have been numerous accidents involving the use of depleted uranium ammunition by U.S. troops stationed in Germany.

Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping told Parliament that the documents indicated incidents involving the ammunition took place between 1981 and 1990 at U.S. Army installations, including those near the southern city of Grafenwoehr and the central city of Schweinfurt.

U.S. authorities, he said, were trying to determine "to what extent there were possible accidents" involving the ammunition, which has been at the center of a widening scare over possible links to cancer in NATO troops.

Mr. Scharping called on the top U.S. diplomat in Berlin on Wednesday to supply Germany with all possible information the military held on depleted uranium munitions. The United States has complied, although some files had not yet arrived, said Detlef Puhl, a spokesman for the German Defense Ministry.

-------- india / pakistan

New provocations threatening India-Pakistan peace initiative

Saturday, Jan. 20, 2001
San Jose Mercury News
Washington Post
BY PAMELA CONSTABLE
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/world/docs/kashmir20.htm

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Hopes for improved relations between India and Pakistan, raised by a unilateral Indian cease-fire in Kashmir and a proposed trip to Pakistan by separatist leaders from the part of Kashmir ruled by India, have plunged again after a rash of guerrilla attacks in Kashmir and India's testing of a nuclear-capable missile.

India's cease-fire, announced in November, unleashed a flurry of diplomatic and political maneuvers aimed at beginning a dialogue among Indian, Pakistani and Kashmiri leaders over how to end the decadelong armed conflict inside the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, India's portion of the disputed Kashmir territory, which has killed more than 50,000 people.

But in the past week, Kashmiri insurgents backed by Pakistan have launched two bold attacks, first a grenade attack on Farooq Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, and then an assault on the heavily guarded airport in Srinagar, the state's summer capital, that left 11 dead.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said the attacks had ``vitiated the atmosphere for resumption of talks'' between India and Pakistan. He said it was ``distressing'' that Pakistan had done nothing to rein in the guerrillas, ``even as it professes its eagerness to resume talks with India.''

The attacks came as India was considering whether to issue passports to two of the five separatist leaders from Indian Kashmir who had asked to visit Pakistan this week in an effort to open talks on Kashmir. Indian officials said Wednesday that they would not issue all the requested passports, which means the trip might be canceled.

Earlier in the week, India appeared to offer an olive branch to Pakistan when Vijay Nambiar, the Indian ambassador to Pakistan, called on Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler, in the first high-level contact since Musharraf seized power 15 months ago.

But on Wednesday, India unexpectedly test-fired the Agni 2 ballistic missile, which has a 1,500-mile range. Pakistani authorities issued a statement Thursday calling the test a ``direct threat'' to their security and a blow to the region's fragile stability.

Tensions between the two countries have triggered unease around the region and the worldsince they both established themselves as nuclear powers three years ago. India successfully tested five nuclear devices in May 1998, and Pakistan responded by testing several nuclear devices within weeks.

India and Pakistan have continued to develop their nuclear and missile programs amid mounting hostility over Kashmir, the mountainous border region which both countries claim. The two countries have fought three wars over Kashmir, and tensions between them have been especially high since spring 1999, when Pakistan-based insurgents seized several mountain peaks inside Indian-controlled territory. Pakistan supports the guerrillas but denies providing them with arms or training.

-------- israel

Clinton Backs Sale of Top Fighter to Israel

By Greg Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 20, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21009-2001Jan19?language=printer

President Clinton told Israel yesterday that he would recommend allowing that country to buy America's most advanced fighter plane, the F-22, which the Air Force touts as a super-weapon that could decide future battles.

Arms control advocates reacted with outrage. "It is unprecedented for a U.S. president to promise the most technologically advanced weapon in the world to a foreign country before it is even produced," said Luke Warren of the Council for a Livable World.

But one defense industry expert said there was nothing unusual in Clinton's offer, noting that Israel operates 98 F-15Cs, the top air-to-air fighter in the U.S. arsenal.

"There's a tradition here of giving them our top-line fighters," said the expert, Loren Thompson, a consultant at the Lexington Institute, a think tank in Arlington.

Clinton made his offer in an open letter to the people of Israel released yesterday. Clinton said that of all the issues he has tackled as president, "none has meant more to me than the future of your region and of your country."

As part of the "continuing effort" to enhance Israeli security, he said, "I am recommending that when our most advanced fighter aircraft, the F-22, becomes available for sale, Israel, if it so chooses, will be among the first, if not the first, foreign customer."

The F-22 is a twin-engine jet being built by Lockheed Martin Corp. with help from Boeing Co. Scheduled to enter service after 2005, it incorporates stealth technology, agility, speed and electronic wizardry. That led to a sticker price of over $85 million -- making it the most expensive fighter ever. Members of Congress tried to kill the $61.7 billion program in 1999, and the Pentagon is waiting for test results before it releases $2.1 billion to buy the first 10 planes.

Warren complained that Clinton's letter will force the Bush administration to honor the offer to Israel, but White House spokesman P. J. Crowley said the letter merely reflects the U.S. commitment "to help Israel maintain its security and technological edge."

"This is not binding and will be subject to further discussion and negotiation," Crowley added.

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

THE 'FOOTBALL': Nuclear handoff happens at high noon
THE BUSH INAUGURATION

SATURDAY • January 20, 2001
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bob Deans - Cox Washington Bureau
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/saturday/news_a396b3a3408b02a20057.html

Washington --- Little noticed amid the pomp and ceremony of the transfer of presidential power today will be the addition of a strategic hanger-on to incoming President George W. Bush.

From the moment he takes the oath of office, Bush will be shadowed by a uniformed military aide lugging an arm-stretching briefcase that White House insiders know as the ''football.''

Inside it is the blueprint for 21st century Armageddon: the top secret plans for launching a nuclear war.

Only the president has the legal authority to order a U.S. nuclear strike, in perhaps the single most awesome responsibility he bears as the country's commander in chief.

Bush and his national security team have been getting classified briefings on the football and its doomsday contents for weeks. Beginning at noon today, the football stays with Bush.

''The military aide with the so-called 'football' goes up to Capitol Hill with one president, he comes back from the Hill with the new president,'' said White House National Security Council spokesman P.J. Crowley. ''It's all part of the seamless process that is the hallmark of American democracy.''

Defense analysts say it would take less than 15 minutes for a nuclear missile fired from Russia or China, for instance, to hit the United States.

U.S. security policy mandates that the president must be ready at all times to order a retaliatory strike, wherever he is around the world.

Lighting the fuse to a nuclear strike with ballistic missiles launched from air, land or sea isn't just done on the fly.

The handbook for such an attack is something called the Single Integrated Operational Plan, or SIOP, outlining dozens of options for striking at thousands of potential targets referred to by the Strangelovian term DGZs (Designated Ground Zeros).

The SIOP is part of what's kept in the football, so named because the first SIOP, compiled in 1960, was code-named ''Dropkick.'' The actual launch codes --- also known as ''go-codes'' --- that commanders would employ to set off a nuclear strike are kept at the Pentagon and other military installations.

Presidents keep with them small cards containing the codes they would need to authenticate their commands.

In the decade since the collapse of the Soviet Union, officials in Washington and Moscow have worked to minimize the risks of a nuclear attack, but the danger still exists.

''The good news is that we are not in the same kind of hair-trigger situation that we were on in the Cold War,'' said Crowley.

-------- us nuc politics

Bush Blocks Clinton's Regulations

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 20, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Bush-First-Acts.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Getting his new administration off to a quick start, President Bush on Saturday signed an order establishing ethical standards for his new administration, formally submitted his Cabinet nominations to the Senate and acted to suspend a batch of 11th-hour orders by his predecessor.

The blocked regulations issued by former President Bill Clinton include new Medicare guidelines and environmental protections. With the stroke of a pen, Bush also proclaimed Sunday as ``a national day of prayer and thanksgiving'' and ordered a temporary federal hiring freeze until his new Cabinet members get in place.

Bush issued his first two executive orders and submitted the Cabinet nominations while still at the Capitol after being sworn in. Three hours later, the Senate confirmed seven of his Cabinet nominees.

The president served notice with his 15-minute inaugural address that he planned to move ahead on themes he had sounded repeatedly during his presidential campaign: an education package, proposed Social Security and Medicare changes, a big tax cut and increased defense spending.

``We must show courage in a time of blessing, by confronting problems instead of passing them on to future generations,'' Bush said.

At Bush's behest, White House chief of staff Andrew Card issued a directive to effectively prevent a series of last-minute Clinton actions from taking place.

Among the actions targeted are environmental restrictions on runoff from animal feeding operations, and more than 800 pages of new guidelines for managed care programs under Medicare, and Clinton's designation -- made hours earlier -- of the former military post of Governor's Island in New York Harbor as a national monument.

Clinton left office with a flurry of decisions, many of which have drawn sharp criticism from Republicans.

Card's directive imposes a moratorium that would prevent any new rules from being printed in the Federal Register -- unless specifically approved by the incoming administration. It also ordered all agency heads to withdraw any proposed regulations that have already been sent to the Federal Register but have not yet appeared.

That would essentially block the most recent of Clinton's executive orders because most rules cannot take effect until a certain time after their publication in the Federal Register. It also puts a 60-day delay on any regulations already printed in the Register but which have yet to take effect, Bush aides said.

Older regulations would not be covered, but are actively under review by the incoming Bush administration. Many may be rescinded, Bush officials said.

``As we had indicated, we intend to review all these Clinton administration regulations and orders,'' said Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer.

He said imposing a moratorium on the printing of new rules ``enhances our ability to review them.''

The freeze would not affect the more than 150 pardons issued by Clinton in his final hours.

Imposing a freeze on rules has been done in the past by other incoming presidents.

Then-President Reagan used a similar technique in 1981 to block scores of last-minute executive orders by his predecessor, Democrat Jimmy Carter.

And when he took office in 1993, Clinton moved quickly to block several orders that Bush's father, George Bush, had put in place in the closing days of his administration.

One would have required federal contractors to inform nonunion employees of their rights to get a refund of any dues withheld from their paychecks. The younger Bush may issue a new executive order reimposing that blocked order of his father's, the GOP officials said.

Bush also signed an executive order spelling out a code of ethics for members of his new administration.

It calls on all members of his administration to ``maintain the highest standards of integrity'' and spells out a series of rules -- including standard prohibitions against using public office for private gain, holding financial interests that conflict with official duties, and a requirement not to engage in discriminatory practices.

And Card imposed a freeze on hiring of new federal employees ``unless and until'' a Bush-appointed agency head approves the hiring, preventing holdover Clinton officials from hiring new employees.

As with most inaugural addresses, Bush's speech was thematic and short on specific proposals. It amounted to a summary of what were longtime campaign promises, beginning with education reform. ``Together, we will reclaim America's schools, before ignorance and apathy claim more young lives,'' Bush asserted.

Bush planned to make his education package the first legislation he sends to Congress.

He would require more student testing, punish and reward states depending on pupil performance, expand public charter schools, spend $5 billion to boost literacy over five years and $8 billion over 10 years for more college scholarships and grants.

``We will reform Social Security and Medicare, sparing our children from struggles we have the power to prevent,'' Bush said. He has proposed allowing younger workers to put a portion of their Social Security taxes into the stock market in search of higher returns; and allowing private companies to compete to provide prescription drug and other medical benefits under Medicare.

And he got in a plug for his 10-year, $1.6 trillion tax-cut plan. ``We will reduce taxes, to recover the momentum of our economy and reward the effort and enterprise of working Americans,'' Bush said.

He pledged to ``build our defenses beyond challenge'' with a strong military.

And, in a clear reference to the national missile defense system he has championed, Bush vowed to ``confront weapons of mass destruction, so that a new century is spared new horrors.''

----

No Honeymoon Likely for New President's Foreign Policy Team

By THE NEW YORK TIMES
January 20, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/20/world/20DIPL.html?pagewanted=all

Every president takes office believing he can set the foreign policy agenda for his administration, only to discover that a major portion of that agenda has already been set by the world.

The crises of the world do not take a time- out for a new American leader. President Clinton arrived hoping to focus on domestic issues, but was immediately faced by crises in places like Somalia, Haiti and Taiwan, along with hardy perennials like Russia and the Middle East.

President-elect George W. Bush was confronted by the killing of the president of Congo this week, and might see the election of a hawkish prime minister in Israel and the crumbling of the peace accord in Northern Ireland in his first month in office. Further down the line, Mr. Bush's enthusiasm for a missile-defense system is certain to generate fierce opposition in Europe and in Russia.

Much has been said, too, about Mr. Bush's inheriting the problem of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi strongman against whom his father went to war, but whom he left in power. In recent years, Washington's focus has been on simply keeping sanctions against Iraq in force over growing opposition, especially from Russia and France.

In Asia, the first big decision, due in April, will be whether to sell destroyers, advanced weapons and radar systems to Taiwan - a decision that could prompt China to respond by accelerating its own military buildup.

Beyond that a host of other challenges, large and small, will vie quickly for American attention. What follows is a tour of those likely to prove most urgent.

Western Europe

During the campaign, Mr. Bush and his top national security aide, Condoleezza Rice, said European allies should carry more of the military burden on their continent. As president, Mr. Bush may find they are doing more than he would like.

The European Union is planning a rapid- reaction force of 60,000 troops for peacekeeping missions and crises in Europe and perhaps elsewhere that is to be ready by 2003. The Clinton administration has said the plans are fine as long as the American- led North Atlantic alliance retains the primary role for security in Europe. To ensure that, the United States has proposed that NATO do the planning for the nascent force.

While most European nations generally like the idea, the French want the force to be more independent. Aides to Mr. Bush also favor a strong NATO, and some are skeptical of the European Union's effort.

Speaking at his Senate confirmation hearing this week, Gen. Colin L. Powell, Mr. Bush's choice for secretary of state, stressed that NATO "is the bedrock of our relationship with Europe." He warned that the United States would support European efforts to strengthen their military "as long as it strengthens NATO, not weakens it."

During the campaign, Ms. Rice called for phasing out American troops in the Balkans peacekeeping operation, NATO's main mission currently. That idea may have to be dropped, or at least deferred, if the Bush administration wants to protect the American leadership role in NATO and maintain NATO's priority over the European Union.

Mr. Bush's plan to develop a national missile defense raises several other issues for Europeans. First, they believe it threatens arms control agreements, particularly the 1972 antiballistic missile treaty. That accord, which Mr. Bush's choice for defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, dismissed last week as "ancient history," restricts the testing and deployment of antimissile systems. While the Bush administration is likely to propose that the treaty be modified to accommodate a missile defense, the Russians are unlikely to go along.

Europeans fear that would lead Mr. Bush to simply abandon the A.B.M. treaty, and Russia would respond by declaring agreements to reduce nuclear warheads to be null and void. Michael R. Gordon

Russia

If Mr. Bush makes good on his pledge to unfurl a missile-defense umbrella over the United States, Washington and Moscow would be entering an era of profound disagreement about how to maintain global security against the use of nuclear weapons, even as they continue to work to reduce their number.

The prospect of missile defense threatens to drag the onetime superpower rivals, as well as China, India and Pakistan, into a new arms race, many experts say. Russia and China are alarmed that a new American "shield" might undermine deterrence - that concept of strategic stability that comes from knowing that the terrible cost of using nuclear weapons is the certainty of retaliation.

Last year, Russia demonstrated that it intended to pursue an active foreign policy in Europe and Asia to defend what President Vladimir V. Putin sees as Russian national interests, whether the issue is missile defense or a desire to thwart the eastward expansion of NATO to the Baltic states in the north and to Georgia to Russia's south.

Mr. Putin insists he is not looking for a confrontation with the United States - in fact, the opposite. Moscow, he says, will seek cooperation within a relationship where differences of opinion can be aired openly and frankly.

But those differences are sharp: Moscow is building a nuclear power plant in Iran and will now sell weapons to Iran's army. Russia and France have been courting Iraq, once a major market for each, and oppose continued sanctions against Baghdad.

Mr. Putin, a pragmatist thus far, realizes he needs assistance from Mr. Bush to strengthen the Russian economy. He will look to the United States and Europe for support in restructuring foreign debt, attracting investment and gradually integrating Russia into western institutions, including the World Trade Organization. For that, he needs a calm Western front.

Patrick E. Tyler

The Balkans

Even with Slobodan Milosevic deposed, the Balkans are not going away. Mr. Bush has said he would "very much like to get our troops out" of the Balkans, where more than 9,000 American soldiers are stationed in Bosnia and Kosovo. But the Europeans and the Kosovar Albanians will oppose that.

The 1995 Dayton agreement was an American-imposed peace and Bosnia and Herzegovina is an American-designed country. Five years later, the peace is holding, but the country is badly riven by ethnic nationalism. Will a Bush administration redesign Bosnia and the Dayton accord if it intends to withdraw troops?

Kosovo, still formally a province of Serbia, is now administered by the United Nations and patrolled by NATO-led troops. With Mr. Milosevic gone, the push for independence, which is what most ethnic Albanians want, is becoming a dream deferred.

Kosovo is becoming more explosive, with new attacks on Serbs by the supposedly disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army outside of Kosovo but under the eyes of American peacekeeping troops.

The new democratic government in Belgrade wants to retaliate, and Kosovars trust Washington to protect them. Will a Bush administration confront the ethnic Albanians, let alone the looming and unanswered question of Kosovo's final status?

President Vojislav Kostunica of Yugoslavia is trying hard to hold on to Montenegro, Serbia's last partner in what remains of the Yugoslav Federation. Montenegro's president, Milo Djukanovic, is pressing for independence, and has scheduled a referendum on the matter this summer.

Will a Bush administration oppose Montenegrin independence and give the help Mr. Kostunica he thinks he needs, risking some Republican wrath, especially in the Senate? If Montenegro becomes independent, what answer will Mr. Bush give to Kosovo's Albanians? Or to the Bosnian Serbs, who want independence for their part of Bosnia and Herzegovina?

How hard should a new president push Mr. Kostunica to hand over Mr. Milosevic to the international tribunal on war crimes? American aid to Serbia, aimed at consolidating the anti-Milosevic victory there, will be cut off on April 1 unless Mr. Bush can certify to Congress that the new government is cooperating with the tribunal. That may mean that Belgrade must arrest some suspected war criminals.

Mr. Bush will have to consider how much pressure to place on the government when popular unhappiness with a bad economy, power shortages and a restive Montenegro is reaching its peak. Steven Erlanger

China

During the campaign, Mr. Bush suggested he would treat China more like a rival and give stronger support to Taiwan. He will have to define what this means, most immediately in responding to Taiwan's requests to buy submarines and advanced naval destroyers.

China says it would view such sales as a major buildup and a grave intrusion into its internal affairs, but it is also building up its missile forces off Taiwan and upgrading its own naval and air power. Mr. Bush's challenge is to bolster Taiwan's defenses while still encouraging Taiwan and Beijing to negotiate about the future status of the island, which Beijing considers an inalienable part of "one China."

China expects to enter the World Trade Organization this year and will start opening its markets, a longtime goal of American officials who say capitalism will eventually help make China more free.

But in the short run, the human rights situation in China may worsen as the government tries to contain labor and farmer unrest, and to control the gush of information on the Internet. How tough should Bush be in condemning rights violations, at the potential cost of cooperative relations in other spheres?

Mr. Bush's plan to push ahead with a national missile defense has frightened and angered the Chinese because even a limited system will neutralize their small nuclear forces. Erik Eckholm

The Korean Peninsula

The Korean peninsula will present the new administration with what may be the most delicate challenge outside of the Middle East.

In his last weeks, President Clinton pushed for an agreement with North Korea that would take that country out of the missile export business, and guarantee an end to its nuclear weapons program. But he suspended the effort because time was running short to complete a strong agreement.

The Bush administration will have to decide quickly on whether to pursue the Clinton diplomacy along much the same lines, or to undertake a new approach altogether.

President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea is one foreign leader who wants to visit Washington soon to meet with Mr. Bush. The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize last year for engineering the summit meeting between the North and the South, Mr. Kim will strongly urge Mr. Bush to continue the Clinton effort with Pyongyang.

He will also seek more information about an antimissile defense, for which the threat of a North Korean missile attack has been cited as the principal justification.

Mr. Kim is said to hold strong reservations about such a shield, which some experts have said could make reconciliation with North Korea more difficult.

Howard W. French

Japan

In his campaign, Mr. Bush raised the prospect of strongly reinforced ties with Japan, and if most Americans missed this message, Japanese leaders received it loud and clear. The Japanese are anxious to discuss a variety of fronts, from security matters to North Korea and the economy.

One major question involves the presence in Japan of 47,000 American troops, which are mostly concentrated in the southern province of Okinawa, where they have long drawn strong local opposition.

Foreign policy advisers to Mr. Bush have said that Washington should reduce its military presence there. But military planners say a reduction of the troops in Okinawa would require Washington to upgrade its presence somewhere else. At present Guam, a United States protectorate in the Western Pacific, is cited as the most likely candidate.

In economic matters, Japan, which has the world's second largest economy, remains stuck in a slow growth mode, barely above recession. The slowdown in the United States threatens Japan's nascent recovery, and the two governments will have to coordinate policies to prevent a global recession.

Japan's economic weakness, coinciding with the American slowdown, confronts the Bush team with a dilemma. On one hand, some of Mr. Bush's economic advisers have already strongly criticized the Clinton administration's longstanding advice to Japan to maintain its heavy deficit spending until growth is restored.

On the other hand, Washington will badly want Japan to help pick up some of the slack in global consumption due to the downturn in the United States.

Howard W. French

India and Pakistan

Mr. Bush can expect a roller-coaster ride through the beautiful Himalayan region of Kashmir to the north of both India and Pakistan, a jeweled crown on two inseparable heads.

For a half century, both nations have claimed this land as their own and fought each other repeatedly to prove their seriousness. Nuclear weapons are now part of the picture, prompting President Clinton to call the region "the most dangerous place in the world."

Right now, India and Pakistan seem in a rare conciliatory mood, moving slowly toward informal talks about when they might have a more formal conversation. But the mutual distrust is so overwhelming that the roller-coaster can jump the tracks at any turn. Indeed, when they last talked, Pakistan was simultaneously planning a major incursion into the mountains above a vital Indian supply route.

Mr. Clinton interceded then, pointing the Pakistanis toward a face-saving retreat.

Interventions by Mr. Bush will undoubtedly be necessary and that may be tricky. The Indians can be prickly about what they believe to be strictly a bilateral matter. Recently, though, they have seemed open to Washington's maneuvering in the background - so long as it involves pressuring the Pakistanis and is done with the utmost discretion.

Mr. Bush will be tempted time and again to play peacemaker. India and Pakistan are in a nuclear-arms race, though as both are impoverished and new to the competition, the race is more of a mosey than a sprint. America will require great effort to merely slow the development of bigger bombs of bigger and missiles of greater endurance.

Barry Bearak

Iraq

"Bush Is Criminal," says a floor mosaic at the front entrance of the once gleaming Rashid Hotel in downtown Baghdad, and the portrait in stone depicts a rather sinister Bush senior. The artwork harks back to the 1991 Gulf War, when the first President Bush advocated toppling Saddam Hussein. The sentiments have not changed much on either side, nor, with the new administration, have the personnel.

The Arab press refers to the new president almost universally as "Bush, al-ibn," or Bush, the son, and an unbowed Saddam Hussein is expected to quickly test the new president to free Iraq of the fetters in place since his father was president. Mr. Hussein's target would be the measures the United States has pushed to hobble his regime: economic sanctions, military overflights and limits on armaments.

Just as likely, Iraq will probably continue testing missiles and continue to welcome flights at its refurbished Baghdad airport - some in defiance of the blockade. It will also continue to refuse to admit any United Nations weapons inspectors.

International support for the sanctions will be ever harder to muster. Even France and Russia, who American officials say favor keeping some control over Iraq's checkbook, favor easing the United Nations policy of reviewing whatever Baghdad buys with its oil money.

Middle Eastern governments will be reluctant to support tougher sanctions given the growing anti-American sentiment among Arabs due to Washington's support for Israel. Doing something to alleviate suffering in Iraq has become a popular means of defying the United States.

Neil MacFarquhar

Israel It would be difficult for any American president to equal Mr. Clinton's degree of personal involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No one here expects a similar intensity of engagement from Mr. Bush or even from his administration. The State Department position of special Middle East envoy is being eliminated with Dennis Ross's retirement to civilian life, and it is possible that the Israelis and the Palestinians will be left to deal directly with each other, at least initially.

The Bush administration is also expected to try to place the conflict more in the strategic context of the Middle East as a whole. It is expected that General Powell will more personally direct Middle East policy, and that he will focus more on Iraq, seeing it as unfinished business.

Still, Mr. Bush inherits the Israeli-Palestinian crisis at a complex moment. It is possible that intense Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the coming weeks will significantly alter the picture.

More probably, however, he will face the prospect of continuing violence and stalemated talks. And if polls are right, an Israeli election on Feb. 6 could well bring a hard- line hawk, Ariel Sharon, to power, with potentially volatile implications for the region.

Mr. Sharon is advocating a gradualist approach to the peace effort that may marry well with the Bush camp's inclinations. Republicans have criticized Mr. Clinton for, in their view, prematurely pressuring the parties to secure a final peace deal.

And indications are that Mr. Bush's team may support Mr. Sharon's goal of seeking a long-term interim arrangement instead, deferring decisions on the explosive issues of Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees.

The Palestinians oppose this approach, but still they are very eager for a change in American administration, having perceived Mr. Clinton's peace team to be almost monolithically pro-Israeli.

Deborah Sontag

Africa

General Powell's meetings with Africa analysts at the State Department this month did not register a reaction in Africa, where officials do not expect much of a change between the outgoing president and the new one.

Aside from the uncertainty in Congo, what relatively little attention Africa gets from the White House will be focused mostly on those nations considered important economically to the United States, the largest being Nigeria and South Africa. These countries, which suffer from various degrees of instability, also derive their importance from their critical role in tackling African problems that the West cannot ignore, including peacekeeping and AIDS. South Africa, the continent's economic giant, lurches forward, weakened by social problems, including an out-of-control AIDS rate.

Nigeria remains important because it is the biggest oil producer on a continent that is expected to supply more and more of the crude needed by the United States. And Nigeria and South Africa are the only nations with militaries capable of assuming the role of regional police force.

Like Mr. Clinton, the new president will not want to send American soldiers to Africa, preferring to train soldiers in Nigeria as peacekeepers for places like Sierra Leone. Angola, the continent's second biggest oil producer, remains devastated by its long-running civil war, with Washington now on the side of the government. Adopting a comprehensive policy toward Angola, as well as smaller oil producers like Congo Republic and Equatorial Guinea, might be a tantalizing possibility for the oilman in Mr. Bush. Norimitsu Onishi

South America

Mr. Bush promised to give Latin America greater attention as president and is likely confront a range of diverse issues there.

Brazil and Chile are interested in broad trade agreements. But Hugo Chávez, the rambunctious president of Venezuela, is likely to try to keep oil prices high as he assumes greater power in OPEC.

The drug war in Colombia, however, is likely to become the most pressing issue on the agenda south of the border. Peace talks with Marxist rebels have stalled. Paramilitary gunmen are massacring civilians. Colombia's neighbors brace for a violent spillover. And a growing number of Colombians want "la mano dura," a strong hand against guerrillas whose long-running civil conflict is sustained by the drug trade.

Colombia, in short, is on the brink of chaos. A big question is whether to back the Clinton administration's $1.3 billion regional aid package, which is aimed at curtailing coca production, the main source of funding for two guerrilla groups. Will Mr. Bush throw more support behind a program that has been criticized by some Republicans and Democrats, as well as European allies and Colombia's neighbors? Or will the administration re-engineer American aid?

Mr. Bush, who has expressed a general caution about American involvement abroad, will also have to decide how much to spend on Colombia, now a leading recipient of United States assistance. Some Colombian officials are already calling for $600 annually to maintain the drug war.

Juan Forero

--------

Senate Confirms 7 Cabinet Officers

January 20, 2001 Filed at 8:33 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Bush-Congress.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Only three hours into George W. Bush's presidency, a quick-acting Senate on Saturday approved the first seven members of his Cabinet, including Colin Powell, the first black to be secretary of state.

The Senate confirmed all seven with a single voice vote, putting the first pieces of Bush's government into place in an unusual Saturday session just 13 minutes long. Within hours, several of the new Cabinet members had been sworn into office.

They were among the least controversial of Bush's Cabinet-level appointees and stirred scant opposition in the Senate, even though it is divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats in the new 107th Congress.

Even before the vote, Bush reiterated to lawmakers of both parties his desire to work with them -- a prerequisite in what is the most evenly divided Congress in nearly five decades.

``I'm here to tell the country that things will get done, that we're going to rise above expectations, that both Republicans and Democrats will come together to do what's right for America,'' Bush said at a lunch in the Capitol's Statuary Hall where members of Congress honored the new president.

GOP leaders hope approval of remaining appointees will come this week, including the former Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., to be attorney general and former Colorado attorney general Gale Norton to head the Interior Department.

Despite vocal opposition to them by many Democrats and liberal groups, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., conceded there is ``a very strong likelihood'' the remaining nominees will win Senate approval. He also said he would not support a filibuster of Ashcroft's nomination threatened by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

The only opposition to the nominees approved Saturday was voiced by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. He objected to Senate votes by Abraham in support of shipping nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The Bush administration is due to make a decision on the proposal this spring.

Powell, 63, the most widely known of Bush's picks, was sworn into office early Saturday evening. The son of immigrants from Jamaica and raised in the Bronx, Powell rose through a 35-year Army career to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when Bush's father was president, and even toyed with running for the White House himself in 1996.

Also sworn in after winning the Senate's assent to top-tier Cabinet posts were Paul O'Neill, 65, the former Alcoa Inc. chairman, as treasury secretary; Donald Rumsfeld, 68, as defense secretary, returning to the job he held a quarter-century ago; and former Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Mich, 48, as energy secretary.

In addition, the Senate confirmed Houston schools chief Rod Paige, 67, as education secretary; oilman and Bush friend Donald Evans, 54, to head the Commerce Department; and Ann Veneman, 51, to be atop the Agriculture Department, where she was deputy secretary from 1986 to 1993.

Besides giving the GOP the White House for the first time in eight years, the inauguration of Bush and of Dick Cheney to be vice president restored Republicans to their position as majority of the Senate after 17 days of Democratic control.

Because the vice president can cast tie-breaking votes in the chamber, Democrats had control while Al Gore was still in that office. Cognizant of their 50-50 status, the two parties have agreed to share some power, such as having equal membership on committees and giving both parties equal rights to offer amendments.

The Senate's rapid action was not unusual for a president's first day.

On Jan. 20, 1993, when President Clinton took office, the Senate approved Warren Christopher as secretary of state, Les Aspin as defense secretary and Lloyd Bentsen to be treasury secretary. The Senate confirmed 13 other top Clinton aides the very next day.

Saturday's voice vote underlined the lack of controversy of the seven nominees but was also a matter of convenience to senators, who could be elsewhere without missing a roll call vote. Only six senators were in the chamber.

One lawmaker absent for the confirmations was Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. Following a tradition for first ladies, she was accompanying her husband in his first trip as former president to their home in Chappaqua, N.Y.

The House met briefly Saturday morning, rifling through routine business before its members went outside for the inaugural ceremonies. Among other items, they formally accepted Clinton's budget surplus projections for the coming decade, figures that Bush will mostly ignore.

---

Bush Sworn In As 43rd President

January 20, 2001 Filed at 10:07 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Bush-Rdp.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON (AP) -- George Walker Bush, swearing the same oath as his father before him, became America's 43rd president Saturday, pledging to ``build a single nation of justice and opportunity'' after one of the most turbulent elections in history.

Bush said he would lead with ``civility, courage, compassion and character.''

Seven members of his Cabinet won swift Senate approval as the Republicans moved in after eight years of Democratic rule. On a day blending inaugural pageantry and protests, Bush succeeded Bill Clinton with a promise to heal the nation's divisions.

``People say, `Well, gosh, the election was so close, nothing will happen, except for finger pointing and name calling and bitterness,'' Bush said at a luncheon with congressional leaders. ``I'm here to tell the country that things will get done, that we're going to rise above expectations, that both Republicans and Democrats will come together to do what's right for America.''

The inauguration, witnessed by a crowd stretching out from the West Front of the Capitol, marked the opening of the first Republican-controlled White House and Congress since the Eisenhower era. Spectators were bundled in heavy coats and ponchos on a cold, raw day.

Police in riot gear stood five deep between Bush's motorcade and protesters on the inaugural parade route. An egg was thrown from a group of demonstrators toward Bush's limousine, startling Secret Service agents. A few blocks later an orange was tossed toward his car, rolling past. Police pinned down two protesters who jumped security barriers and got within 30 feet of the limousine.

The new president delighted onlookers when he got out of his car. Protected by heavy security, he walked the last block of the parade holding hands with his wife.

Bush and his extended family watched the inaugural parade with umbrellas overhead during an intermittent hard rain. There were bands, floats, riders on horseback, a precision lawn chair demonstration team -- even a group of Idaho women in red house dresses and blue aprons who danced with shopping carts.

It was a pomp-filled end to a campaign which saw Bush finish second in the popular vote but a narrow winner in the all-important electoral competition. Departing Vice President Al Gore, Bush's defeated rival, watched the proceedings stoically, a silent reminder of the five-week post-election battle that was stopped by the Supreme Court.

Richard Cheney was sworn is as vice president at 11:57 a.m.

Bush followed at 12:02 p.m., then reached for his father's right hand and hugged him, putting his left hand around his dad's head. The senior Bush wiped away a tear and the new president's eyes welled up, too. It was the second time in American history a son had followed his father to the White House. John Quincy Adams traced his father's steps 176 years ago.

A traditional 21-gun salute marked the change of command as Bush fought back tears again -- and snapped a salute to the crowd -- after the National Anthem was played.

In one of his first acts, Bush formally submitted his Cabinet nominations to the Senate. Among those quickly confirmed and sworn into office were Colin Powell as secretary of state, Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary, Paul O'Neill as treasury secretary and Spencer Abraham as energy secretary.

Bush signed an executive order establishing ethical standards for his new administration, and moved to halt Clinton's blizzard of executive orders and rules. Among the targets were new Medicare guidelines and environmental protections.

The president also ordered a temporary federal hiring freeze until his new Cabinet members are in place.

In a 15-minute inaugural address, Bush thanked Gore for ``a contest conducted with spirit and ended with grace.'' Pledging to work for reconciliation, Bush said, ``Sometimes our differences run so deep it seems we share a continent but not a country.

``We do not accept this and will not allow it,'' Bush declared. ``Our unity, our union, is the serious work of leaders and citizens in every generation. And this is my solemn pledge: I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity.'' His promise brought a burst of applause from spectators.

It was a day of triumph and glory for the new president and his family, which bears one of the most prominent names in American politics. It began with worship at St. John's Episcopal Church, across Lafayette Park from the White House, and ran late into the night with eight black-tie inaugural balls drawing almost 50,000 revelers.

``I'm looking forward to getting to work. There's a lot to be done but before we start to work there's some dancing to be done,'' he told the cheering crowd at the Texas-Wyoming ball, held in part of the Washington Convention Center.

Bush's father, the nation's 41st president but vanquished by Clinton in 1992, watched with pride as his son swore his oath, his left hand resting on the same Bible that George Washington used. Former first lady Barbara Bush watched with a smile, wearing a transparent rain poncho.

A black limousine, its flags snapping in the wind, carried Bush and Clinton to the Capitol after their meeting at the White House.

Clinton left office with 11th hour pardons for 140 Americans, including his former Whitewater business partner Susan McDougal, brother Roger Clinton, who spent two years in jail in the 1980s on a drug charge, and former CIA Director John Deutch, accused of mishandling national secrets on a home computer. Another pardon went to Patricia Campbell Hearst Shaw for her actions in the 1970s as Patty Hearst.

In the final moments before Bush came calling, Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, were spotted through a window dancing together in the foyer. When the new first family arrived, Bush's wife Laura greeted Mrs. Clinton with, ``Good morning, senator.''

Clinton wasn't leaving quietly. He spoke to wistful supporters -- including Cabinet and staff -- at an unusual rally at Andrews Air Force Base before flying to New York, his newly adopted home state. ``I left the White House but I'm still here,'' he said at one point. ``We're not going anywhere.''

Aides organized a second rally to welcome Clinton to New York.

As Bush took his oath of office, wife Laura held the Bible, a wide smile on her face. Twin daughters, 19-year-olds Jenna and Barbara, watched expectantly and broke into grins as their dad finished. A smile kept crossing as he recited the oath. He breathed a deep sigh at the end.

Bush was sworn in by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who voted with the majority in the 5-4 decision that handed him the presidency.

Bush offered a special message to Americans who ``doubt the promise, even the justice, of our own country,'' promising that he would strive to ensure opportunity and equality for all. He found scant support among minority voters in the disputed election; blacks opposed him 10 to 1 and some still question the legitimacy of his victory.

Democratic Rep. William Jefferson, a black lawmaker from Louisiana, said most Democrats came to the inauguration because ``we realize we have to go on with out responsibilities.'' But Jefferson also said he couldn't help but think about ``the opportunities lost'' with Gore's defeat.

Bush promised to make America ``more just and generous'' and set a handful of specific goals:

-- Action to ``reclaim America's schools.''

-- Reform of Social Security and Medicare.

-- Tax cuts ``to recover the momentum of our economy'' and reward the effort of working Americans.

-- A national defense ``beyond challenge,'' and action to confront ``weapons of mass destruction,'' the national missile defense system he advocates.

Bush won office in the closest presidential election in 124 years. Gore received 539,947 more votes than Bush on Nov. 7 but, when the battle for Florida ended in the Supreme Court five weeks later, Bush had 271 electoral votes, one more than a majority. Gore had 267.

The new president inherits a Congress sharply divided, with an evenly split Senate, the first since 1881, and a House in which Republicans hold only a five-vote edge. Cheney's tie-breaking Senate vote gives Republicans the edge there.

-------- MILITARY

-------- colombia

U.S.: Colombian Abuses Continue

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 20, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20995-2001Jan19?language=printer

The Clinton administration has concluded that Colombia's security forces have not fully complied with human rights conditions Congress placed on a $1.3 billion emergency aid package last summer. But the administration also said it is under no legal obligation to certify compliance before disbursing the remainder of the aid.

In one of President Clinton's final official acts yesterday, he signed a letter to be sent to Congress today along with a "progress report" on human rights in Colombia. The report says that "despite positive developments," the administration is not satisfied that Colombia's military has severed its ties with right-wing paramilitary groups.

Congress conditioned the aid on certification by the secretary of state that Colombia had taken specific steps to improve the military's human rights performance. But the legislation also allowed a presidential waiver on U.S. national security grounds. Clinton waived compliance last August, before the bulk of the money, all but about $35 million that technically fell under the fiscal 2001 budget, was released.

The State Department told the White House this month that Colombia was not in compliance. It recommended that another waiver be issued.

But under an interpretation by the White House legal staff, the legislative restrictions applied only to the bulk of the money passed as a supplemental appropriation and disbursed last year, rather than to the small amount in the 2001 budget. Therefore, the lawyers said, no new certification was required.

The legislation also requires the State Department to consult with "internationally recognized human rights organizations regarding . . . Colombia's progress." After meeting with department officials, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Washington Office on Latin America charged last week that the rights situation in Colombia had "deteriorated" since the waiver last August, and they called on Clinton to withhold the rest of the aid.

Referring to specific legislative requirements, the organizations charged that Colombian President Andres Pastrana had not issued a directive requiring civilian jurisdiction over military human rights cases. They also said the military had refused to suspend officers facing credible allegations. And they said paramilitary groups -- which both the Colombian and U.S. governments hold responsible for the vast majority of civilian massacres -- continue to operate unhindered, "often in collusion with security force personnel."

A senior administration official yesterday described the human rights report to Congress as a voluntary document not required by the legislation. It notes positive developments, including the establishment of a Colombian equivalent of the independent U.S. military's Judge Advocate General Corps. It also notes a series of dismissals and investigations of military officials. But overall, it says, "the administration does not believe that the government of Colombia has made sufficient progress in vigorously prosecuting in the civilian courts the leaders and members of paramilitary groups and Colombian Armed Forces personnel who are aiding and abetting these groups."

-------- iraq

Iraq Says Airstrike Kills Six

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 20, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq-US.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq said U.S.-British warplanes killed six of its citizens in airstrikes Saturday on southern Iraq and that its air defense units hit one of the aircraft.

The U.S. military denied any aircraft was hit, saying all planes returned safely after a raid conducted in response to Iraqi anti-aircraft fire.

In a statement issued through the official Iraqi News Agency, the Iraqi military said allied aircraft attacked civilian targets in two districts in the southern province of al-Muthana, 220 miles south of Baghdad.

``Three people were martyred when enemy warplanes bombed southern Iraq and a residential house was destroyed in Salman and a farm was burned in Samawa,'' the statement said.

Later, the Iraqi military said the death toll had risen to six and that rescue workers were looking for more casualties while digging through the rubble of bombed houses.

The Information Ministry invited foreign journalists in Baghdad to go on an official trip to the sites on Sunday.

The U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., said allied planes attacked Iraqi radar systems and anti-aircraft artillery, but its statement made no mention of civilian casualties.

``Coalition aircraft never target civilian populations or infrastructure,'' the command said. ``The sites were targeted to further degrade Iraq's ability to jeopardize coalition pilots and aircraft.''

The allied aircraft were fired on while patrolling the no-fly zone over southern Iraq, which was established after the 1991 Gulf War to protect Shiite Muslim rebels from Iraqi government forces.

Iraq does not recognize the no-fly zone and has been challenging allied aircraft since 1998.

``Our heroic (anti-aircraft) missile units confronted the enemy warplanes, hitting one of them while it was violating our skies,'' the Iraqi statement said.

The statement did not give the nationality of the plane or say that it fell to the ground. Iraq has previously claimed to have hit allied aircraft, but has never provided evidence.

The airstrike came hours before President George W. Bush's inauguration.

-------- puerto rico

Puerto Rico Presses Case to End Vieques Bombing

By John Marino
Special to The Washington Post Saturday
January 20, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19867-2001Jan19?language=printer

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Surrounded by religious and political leaders, Gov. Sila Maria Calderon knelt in prayer Thursday in front of the island's Capitol and called on her God to "give us the light and understanding to see and choose the correct path to achieve the longed-for peace in Vieques."

Dozens of community leaders joined Calderon, while thousands of other Puerto Ricans observed a silent prayer. "The National Prayer for Peace in Vieques" is the latest in a series of actions meant to pressure the U.S. government to order the Navy off its controversial training ground on the offshore island of Vieques before President Clinton leaves office today.

Calderon, armed with preliminary results of a study showing that Navy training could be harming the hearts and other internal organs of Vieques's 9,600 residents, has drawn reaction from President Clinton.

The president hasn't ordered a cessation of activities on Vieques, but the White House has ordered the Health and Human Services Department to analyze the study and deliver a preliminary report on its findings to the White House and the secretaries of Navy and defense by the end of February. The Navy also said it is taking the study "very seriously and will give such reports due attention," said spokesman Lt. Jeff Gordon.

On Friday, Clinton ordered the secretary of defense to find an alternative training site. In a memo, Clinton said that voters in Puerto Rico are likely to reject the referendum that would allow the Navy to use live munitions on Vieques and asked for a report by March 9 on all the training that the Atlantic Fleet will need through May 1, 2003.

Calderon said she was pleased with the White House order, saying it shows "the seriousness of the situation and the importance of clarifying it as soon as possible."

With the commonwealth Health Department reporting a 26.6 percent higher cancer rate through the 1990s on Vieques than on the main island of Puerto Rico, there have long been suspicions that Navy training has been harming the health of Vieques's residents. A number of studies have been undertaken since the April 19, 1999, death of David Sanes Rodriguez in a botched Navy training mission sparked a call for the Navy to end the training it has conducted there for 60 years.

Most studies, however, have focused on whether the contamination is affecting the local environment and the civilian population, which is sandwiched between a Navy bombing range on the island's east end and a Navy munitions storage facility on the west.

A study released Jan. 10, undertaken by researchers at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez Campus, says that vegetation and crops in Vieques civilian areas 10 miles from the bombing range showed signs of heavy contamination by metals including lead, cadmium, magnesium and copper.

The study released by Calderon, who was sworn in Jan. 2, focuses on the effects of exposure to shock waves from sonic booms created by Navy ship-to-shore shelling.

Undertaken by local heart specialists Roberto Torres Aguiar, Carlos Rios and Guillermo Tirado, the study indicates that Vieques residents could be suffering from "vibroacoustic disease," a newly discovered ailment caused by exposure to low-frequency noise.

The study showed that among the 50 Vieques fishermen and their families who were examined, 49 showed a thickening of tissues in the pericardium, the heart's outer lining, while 39 showed other heart abnormalities. All had been bathing or swimming in the water during ship-to-shore shelling.

The study compared the findings to a control group of 50 fishermen and their families in Ponce, on Puerto Rico's southern coast. They showed 25 with heart concerns, about normal for the group of that size and age. Only one of the Ponce children showed any sign of heart abnormalities.

The noise-associated disease is believed to impact internal organs, such as the lungs and intestines, as well as the nervous and immune systems.

The study's authors cautioned that this was a "pilot" study, and that several other tests would be required.

The island's first female governor is perhaps best known for her tough stand on the bombing range run by the Navy, and the Vieques issue is likely to dominate San Juan-Washington dealings during her first months in power.

Calderon has clashed with Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, who called on her to commit to an accord on the Navy's future on Vieques brokered by the White House and her predecessor, Pedro Rossello. She has refused.

The accord allows the Navy to train with dummy ordnance, and it establishes a referendum in which residents will vote whether they want the Navy to leave by May 1, 2003, or remain indefinitely for an additional $50 million in economic aid.

Caderon made campaign pledges that Navy officials say break the accord. When Calderon refused to publicly support the accord last month, Danzig said the Navy would hold off on a pledge to transfer its western Vieques land holdings by Dec. 31 and to begin spending $40 million in economic development projects on the island.

On her first day on the job, Calderon said she would remove the Puerto Rico Police Riot Squad guarding the gate to the base, forces that have kept demonstrators from disrupting military activities. But she said she will replace riot officers with a contingent of regular police.

One campaign pledge that undoubtedly would break the accord is enactment of tougher noise regulations to ban Navy ship-to-shore shelling off Vieques, which Calderon said she would do within her first 100 days in office.

She cited as justification the health concerns revealed in the new study. But there is also strategic value in attempting to ban ship-to-shore shelling, since Navy officials argue that Vieques's value is that it is the only place its Atlantic Fleet can have a full range of training.

"The legislation is ready, ready, ready," Calderon said, but she declined to say when -- or if -- she would file it.

-------- u.s.

Pentagon Says Commander Admits He Altered Records

By ELIZABETH BECKER and STEVEN LEE MYERS
January 20, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/20/national/20OSPR.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, Jan. 19 - A Marine commander has acknowledged that he falsified maintenance records of the V-22 Osprey squadron, Pentagon officials said today, as details emerged on the accusations that the commander ordered subordinates to cover up problems in the Osprey aircraft program.

In an anonymous letter mailed to the Navy last week, someone claiming to be a mechanic in the Marine Corps' only V-22 squadron said that efforts to falsify maintenance and performance reports had been "going on for over two years."

"What we have been doing is reporting aircraft that are down, as in they can't fly, as being up, as in full- mission capable," the letter said. "However, this is the first time it will affect safety."

That letter and an accompanying audiotape instigated a raid on Thursday of the offices of Lt. Col. Odin F. Leberman, the squadron commander at New River Marine Corps Air Station, in North Carolina. Colonel Leberman was relieved of duty. In acknowledging that he doctored records to put the Osprey program, projected to cost more than $30 billion, in a favorable light, Colonel Leberman also confirmed that the voice on the tape was his, two officials briefed on the inquiry said.

With his acknowledgment, the commander is more likely to face criminal charges should the investigation by the Marine Corps inspector general confirm accusations in the letter, according to defense officials.

William S. Cohen, the departing secretary of defense, said today that the Osprey would remain grounded until the completion of a separate investigation, prompted by a fatal Osprey crash last month, to examine the program.

If the accusations prove to be true, Mr. Cohen said, "that would be a very serious charge, certainly, and it would have consequences, certainly, for the individuals involved."

These disclosures added to the concern of Pentagon supporters of the aircraft that it could be one of the first programs slashed by the incoming administration. The Osprey, a tilt-rotor aircraft, takes off and lands vertically, like a helicopter, but flies horizontally, like a propeller plane,

The Marines said today they were delaying a decision on whether to go into full production of the aircraft, which is being built by the Boeing Company's helicopter division and Textron Inc.'s Bell Helicopter unit, until the inspector general completes the investigation. The Marines have proposed buying 360 of them.

The Pentagon is already investigating flaws in the Osprey, which crashed twice last year, killing 23 marines. The Osprey has been grounded since the second crash.

To avoid any effort to attribute the most recent fatal crash to the altered maintenance records, the Marine Corps announced today that the crash was the result of a broken hydraulic line, Lt. Gen. Fred McCorkle, deputy commandant of the Marines, said.

"It's not possibly related to maintenance," said General McCorkle, who said the Marines were "99 percent" certain that a hydraulic failure led to the crash.

According to the anonymous letter, the squadron officers were unhappy about the doctoring of records, and one officer is described in the letter as having "butterflies in his stomach about the way we are doing business and how he is concerned about the safety of aircrafts."

The question of whether to build the V-22 Osprey has been contentious for nearly 20 years. As secretary of defense in the first Bush administration, Vice President-elect Dick Cheney tried to cancel the program, calling it too expensive, but yielded to pressure from the aircraft's patrons in Congress.

Critics of the program seized on the letter and audiotape as one more example of why it should be canceled. In November, Phillip E. Coyle III, the Pentagon's head of weapons testing, released a report warning that the Osprey would be difficult to maintain.

"This comes at the worst moment for the Osprey supporters," said John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World, an institute here that specializes in national security and opposes the program. "With the new administration coming in and wanting to cut programs, I'd say the Osprey's chance of survival is no better than 50-50."

Members of Congress, who have been the most loyal supporters of the Osprey, said they would withhold judgment during the investigation.

"The allegations, if true, represent a serious blow to the program, and they need to be fully and promptly investigated," said Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, who is the ranking Democratic member on the Armed Services Committee.

The anonymous letter writer said that after working on the plane for two years as a mechanic the writer was convinced that "this plane is not ready for the fleet."

And after warning that "this is how we have been doing business," the writer ended the letter with the admonition that "this is illegal."

----

Osprey Data Falsified For 2 Years, Letter Says

By From News Services
Saturday, January 20, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20973-2001Jan19?language=printer

The Marine Corps' V-22 Osprey squadron doctored maintenance records for two years because of an "attitude that we have to have the plane whether or not it is ready," a mechanic said in an anonymous letter released yesterday.

The letter writer said the falsification of maintenance records at Marine Tilt-Rotor Training Squadron-204 in New River, N.C., "is not what caused" two crashes last year that killed 23 Marines, "but if it continues it will cause many more."

"The Marine Corps takes the allegations in this letter, in this anonymous letter, although unsigned, very seriously," Lt. Gen. Fred McCorkle, head of Marine Corps aviation, said in releasing it. "Although the MV-22 is very important to the future of the Marine Corps, nothing's more important than the safety of our Marines and the integrity of our Corps."

The Marine Corps announced Thursday that the V-22 squadron's commander, Lt. Col. O. Fred Leberman, had been relieved of duty. Marine Commandant James Jones dispatched an eight-member team led by the Corps' inspector general, Brig. Gen. Timothy F. Ghormley, to New River to investigate.

Three unidentified senior Marine Corps officials said Leberman had admitted asking subordinates to falsify maintenance records, but a Marine Corps spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Betsy Judge, declined to confirm that report.

McCorkle said that, like the anonymous mechanic, the Marines "see no relationship" between the falsified maintenance records and the crashes.

Critics of the Osprey, which the Marines want to replace their fleet of Vietnam-era CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters and CH-53 Sea Stallion troop transports, said the investigation was further evidence the $40 billion program should be killed. But political allies of the V-22 argued that Congress should continue the program.

The V-22 is built by Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. of Fort Worth and Boeing Co.'s helicopter division near Philadelphia; it takes off like a helicopter, then tilts two giant rotors on its wingtips forward and flies like a propeller plane.

-------- OTHER

-------- police

FBI's Security Plans Cover All Possibilities

By Arthur Santana
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 20, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21307-2001Jan19?language=printer

As tens of thousands of people pour into Washington today to watch inaugural celebrations, an elite force of about 70 FBI agents will be in full SWAT gear, hidden away at the FBI's field office building downtown on Fourth Street NW.

Their orders: to emerge only if catastrophe strikes, something the FBI has been working to avoid for about a year by gathering intelligence from all over the world.

As the only agency with a presidential mandate to collect intelligence for today's events, the FBI has a pivotal role in security -- not through a show of force, but by using a behind-the-scenes approach that relies on stopping bad guys before they strike and, if they do strike, swooping down on them in force.

"It's our big hammer, and we've got it back here if we need it," said Jim Rice, FBI supervisory special agent in charge of coordinating today's events.

About 10 months ago, the FBI's Washington field office notified 56 branches in the United States and 44 others around the world to look for anything suspicious that seemed related to the inauguration and expected protests.

Based on that intelligence, Rice said, "the possibility of international terrorism is low." Police officials expect to field bomb threats by telephone and e-mail, he said, but they do not expect bombs. However, he said, "the possibility of civil disobedience is fairly high."

Even though FBI officials try to anticipate what will happen today, Rice said they still plan for everything.

"We sat down months and months ago and tried to figure out every possible thing that could happen, from mass civil disturbances and riots like you saw in the '60s to chemical-biological attacks, and we came up with a plan on how we're going to mitigate each one," Rice said.

One tool the FBI has used to discern what might be in store is the Internet, Rice said. Agents have monitored Web sites of protest groups, learning their plans with much greater ease than at the last inauguration, he said.

"It's an electronic billboard," Rice said. "And that's what these groups use it as. You monitor it, almost like you would read the want ads in the paper."

On the other hand, agents must be sure Web sites are legitimate, because some can be run by a single person posting bogus information. "You cannot judge the validity of all the information that's on there," Rice said.

The Internet also has allowed protest groups that plan illegal activity to communicate far more efficiently than before via e-mail, Rice said.

More reliable, Rice said, are the traditional methods of gathering information, such as interviewing protest groups and going undercover.

"Sometimes it's just a matter of completely debriefing the people that you arrest in these cases, because a lot of them will talk to you," Rice said.

"A lot of them will talk just to get their point across."

Preparing for protests that took place here in April during meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the FBI learned through out-of-town undercover officers not only how many buses were on their way, but also the kinds of things protesters were planning, Rice said.

"Every law enforcement agency in the country helps," Rice said, adding that every FBI field office has a liaison with the police in its area.

For now, Rice said, intelligence gathering is over. FBI agents will simply observe crowds. They'll join thousands of federal, state and local police officials who plan to be out in force, including 2,400 officers who will line the parade route, one standing every six to eight feet.

Today's weather will also be a factor in what happens, Rice said. "If it's rainy and cold, that may keep the crowd number down, and that takes away the security of the lawbreakers," Rice said. "They have no one to hide behind."

-------- spying

Keeping C.I.A. Chief Puts Pressure on Relationship

January 20, 2001
By JAMES RISEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/20/politics/20TENE.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, Jan. 19 - With the possible exception of the presidency, no institution in Washington is as closely associated with the Bush family today as the Central Intelligence Agency.

Former President George Bush served as C.I.A. director in the Ford administration, and if President Jimmy Carter had taken Mr. Bush up on his offer to stay on as director of central intelligence during Mr. Carter's tenure, the dominos of American political history might have tumbled in quite a different way. Mr. Bush might never have run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, he might never have been tapped to be Ronald Reagan's running mate, and his son might not be about to become the 43rd president of the United States.

As it is, being C.I.A. director was perhaps the elder George Bush's second-favorite job in his long run in government. And when George Bush the younger visits C.I.A. headquarters, he will arrive at a building that bears his family name, the George Bush Center for Intelligence.

With so much family history tied up in the place, many observers of the American intelligence community were puzzled by the belated and casual way the Bush transition team let it be known that George J. Tenet, the current C.I.A. director, would be kept on, at least temporarily.

Although it appeared to some that the C.I.A. job was treated almost as an afterthought, the decision to keep Mr. Tenet seems to have had much to do with important personal dynamics within the Bush national security circle - and might reflect the influence of former President Bush.

The decision to retain Mr. Tenet was not formally announced by the president-elect or anyone else; instead, Ari Fleischer, the press spokesman, revealed it in response to a reporter's question at a routine briefing earlier this week.

As with other personnel matters, the decision to keep Mr. Tenet was made by Mr. Bush and such a small group around him that details of the process remained secret. Even members of the transition team involved in intelligence policy were caught off guard. But several Republicans emphasized that the handling of the decision to keep Mr. Tenet did not reflect a lack of interest in intelligence policy or a lack of other strong candidates, but rather the confluence of events during an odd transition.

Mr. Tenet, a Democrat who served as a Congressional staff member and later in the Clinton White House before moving to the C.I.A., does not yet have a relationship with President-elect Bush. Intelligence officials said that Mr. Tenet met with Mr. Bush and other members of the new national security team on Thursday.

But he and Mr. Bush have mutual allies. On Capitol Hill, Representative Porter Goss, the Florida Republican who is chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, stated publicly that Mr. Bush should keep Mr. Tenet.

Mr. Tenet has also developed a good relationship with Eli S. Jacobs, a private investor and former owner of the Baltimore Orioles, who has served on several government panels relating to intelligence and defense and who has been close to a number of C.I.A. officials over the years. Mr. Jacobs, in turn, is close to the Bush family, including the president-elect, who was managing general partner of the Texas Rangers at the same time that Mr. Jacobs owned the Orioles. Mr. Jacobs has been a strong advocate for Mr. Tenet, and appears to be one of the few people who is friends with both President-elect Bush and Mr. Tenet.

But, in an interview, Mr. Jacobs said that he played no role in Mr. Bush's decision to keep Mr. Tenet.

Clearly, however, Mr. Tenet's most important ally in the new power structure is the senior Mr. Bush, who, as a former president, still receives intelligence briefings.

Mr. Tenet presided over the April 1999 ceremony at which the C.I.A. headquarters was renamed for former President Bush; during the ceremony, Mr. Bush heaped praise on Mr. Tenet. Later that year, Mr. Tenet headed a C.I.A.-backed conference on the cold war held at the George Bush presidential library. That conference was packed with veterans of the first Bush administration, including Paul D. Wolfowitz, a defense and foreign policy adviser to the Bush campaign and Vice President-elect Dick Cheney, while former President Bush gave a speech.

The elder Mr. Bush has made it clear that he believes the C.I.A. job should be apolitical and removed from the election cycle, as he first suggested to President Carter, who decided against it in 1977. That is why some Republicans speculate that Mr. Bush may have told his son that there was no reason to make an immediate change.

The last time a C.I.A. director was kept on when control of the White House shifted parties was in 1969, when President Richard M. Nixon retained Richard M. Helms, a holdover from the Johnson administration.

The truncated transition this year after the Florida recount meant that President-elect Bush had little time to find jobs for several prominent figures within the Republican foreign policy community.

Initially, Donald H. Rumsfeld appeared to have been considered for C.I.A. director, but the decision to name him secretary of defense scrambled many of the chess pieces. Mr. Rumsfeld brought a strong presence to the Defense Department, and that in turn seemed to squash plans to name Richard Armitage, a former Defense Department official, to be deputy defense secretary.

Mr. Armitage is close to Gen. Colin L. Powell, named to be secretary of state, and Mr. Rumsfeld clearly wanted his own choices at the Pentagon. (Mr. Armitage is now said to be General Powell's choice as deputy secretary of state.)

Meanwhile, a spot had to be found for Mr. Wolfowitz, another former Defense Department official who advised the campaign. As a result, the C.I.A. post was left open while the Bush team played musical chairs.

Republicans said that Mr. Wolfowitz made it clear that he did not want to serve at the C.I.A., and so instead is expected to be named Mr. Rumsfeld's deputy at the Pentagon.

With Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Wolfowitz and Mr. Armitage out of the picture, Mr. Tenet's chances brightened.

Perhaps another reason the Bush team has moved cautiously on Mr. Tenet was that one influential senator - Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence - said that Mr. Bush should find a new nominee for the C.I.A. post. Senator Shelby's criticism of Mr. Tenet appeared to be based, at least in part, on the way Mr. Tenet handled the investigation into whether the former C.I.A. director, John M. Deutch, improperly placed classified information on unclassified government computers in his home. Mr. Deutch is said to be negotiating now with the Justice Department over whether to plead guilty to a misdemeanor.

Some Republicans say that the incoming president's inner circle remains neutral about Mr. Tenet. To keep the job for long, Mr. Tenet will have to develop a comfort level with the new president and his key advisors, one Republican noted.

Several Republicans observed that the key test could be the degree to which Mr. Tenet can forge a rapport with Mr. Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. Mr. Rumsfeld developed a deep interest in intelligence when he chaired a commission on the ballistic missile threat two years ago. His panel concluded that emerging nuclear powers could develop ballistic missiles in less time than estimated earlier by the C.I.A., leading to tension with the agency.

During his confirmation hearings, Mr. Rumsfeld stated that a close relationship with the director of central intelligence will be critical to his ability to do his job - which suggests that Mr. Rumsfeld could be Mr. Tenet's probation officer.

-------- activists

For Many Protesters, Bush Isn't Main Issue

By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 20, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20597-2001Jan19?language=printer

Many protesters attending the inaugural parade today began laying plans months before they knew who would ride up Pennsylvania Avenue in the bulletproof limousine.

These activists form a relentless cadre -- they call it a movement -- for whom the problems of the country and the world go deeper than who inhabits the White House.

Yesterday, they were making final preparations: registering allies from across the country at the protest "welcome center" in the Kaffa House restaurant, at 1212 U St. NW, where Jimi Hendrix on the stereo competes with C-SPAN on the television. They got training in activism and held a final strategy session on how best to peacefully communicate their message.

What is that message? The activists sometimes confound onlookers with the diversity of their concerns, from the environment and civil rights to Third World debt and corporate power. It's all the same struggle, they say.

Beginning with the protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle nearly 14 months ago, activists have built a list of demonstrations that reads like a world tour, including: Washington, in April, against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund; Philadelphia and Los Angeles over the summer at the political conventions; Prague, in September, against the World Bank and IMF; Washington, today, at the inauguration.

The next stop is in April in Quebec City, where political and business leaders from 34 countries in the Western Hemisphere plan to discuss creation of a massive free trade zone.

This mix of mobilizations against both global trade and domestic politics is part of the puzzle for those who wonder what connects the passionate talk about sweat shops, campaign finance reform, rain forests, racism and prisons.

"We are all unified behind a fear and loathing of corporate control in our country," says David Levy, 43, a think tank policy researcher and an organizer of the Justice Action Movement, a D.C.-based coalition. "We're environmentalists, human rights campaigners, poverty advocates, feminists, but we all agree that the electoral system is fundamentally undemocratic because of the influence of big money."

The close election, the dispute in Florida and the role of the courts galvanized others to call for electoral reform, and they're in town, too. While grateful for the company, the global justice crowd is different; its concerns about the political system predate the nation's education in dimpled chads.

"The government is for sale, and big business bought it," Levy says. "The average citizen has very little effect, very small voice, and big money controls government decision-making. We we want to make this country a true democracy again, not a plutocracy." Demonstrators have printed thousands of stickers depicting a U.S. flag with "Sold" stamped across the stripes. Instead of 50 stars, there are 50 corporate logos.

There is ample evidence to support their view, says Daniel Holstein, 25, another Justice Action Movement organizer, such as corporations that gave $1 million each in cash and services to the political conventions. Or corporations that financed the presidential debates. Or corporations chipping in for inaugural festivities. Not to mention bundles of corporate soft money for candidates.

It is profoundly naive, says Holstein, to think those corporations don't wield influence over Congress and the president.

"Because our voices aren't heard in the halls of decision-making, we take to the streets, where we cannot be silenced," he says. "We feel we are the patriots. We are the true Americans. We're standing up for what America truly means."

But what does all this have to do with the IMF and WTO? The international finance and trade bodies seek to make the world profitable for the same corporations that are running the show in U.S. politics, the demonstrators say. The work is done in the guise of alleviating poverty, or stabilizing currency, they say, but the market-driven solutions hold investors' interests uppermost.

Framing the issues this way has allowed disparate causes to unite against common enemies. Save-the-rain-forest and anti-sweatshop activists, for example, stand against the same trade and development policies that might boost corporate investment in a poor country engaged in selling off its natural resources. Global capitalism is unjust and ineffective in these situations, the activists say.

"In the last 20 years, the U.S. government has more thoroughly been a representative of the corporate elite," says Brian Becker, 48, co-director of the International Action Center, whose members demonstrated against the IMF and are in Washington for the inauguration. "There's been a transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top. This goes under the name of globalization. It affects working people and poor people, and it's inherently unjust."

Two of the New York City-based action center's concerns are racism and what it calls the "prison industrial complex." President-elect Bush, a death penalty supporter, is a favorite target. But global trade?

"Globalization is a war against the poor in the Third World, conducted by the corporate power structure in the U.S.," Becker says. "The prison industrial complex is the most glaring example of the domestic component of that assault against poor people."

Tonight, protesters will party at three counter-inaugural balls at 9 p.m. "Democrazy! The People's Dance Party" is at 2K9, at 2009 Eighth St. NW. "Jah Provides Justice" is at the Kaffa House. "The Auctioneer's Ball" is at Insomnia, at 714 Sixth St. NW. The $10 admission will help establish a permanent protest headquarters in the District.

In coming weeks, the demonstrators plan meetings to focus on what they are for, rather than what they are against. But, they promise, that doesn't mean they're backing off. They say the list of cities on the protest tour will grow.

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Protesters scuffle with police along inaugural route

01/20/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/inaug/2001-01-20-approtests.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - George W. Bush's motorcade lurched through the largest inaugural protests since Richard Nixon on Saturday, enduring thousands of protesters who hurled insults, bottles, tomatoes and an egg. Protesters clashed briefly with police clad in riot gear at a few flash points while Bush remained inside his armored stretch car for most of the parade up a soggy, cold Pennsylvania Avenue. Police ordered the motorcade to slow in anticipation of some protests, and then to speed through others. A couple of protesters threw bottles and tomatoes before the presidential limousine arrived, and one hurled an egg that landed near the motorcade, the Secret Service said.

But the protesters managed little else to interrupt the festivities in the face of a massive show of 7,000 police officers. As the day grew darker and colder, authorities had arrested only six people and activists began to disperse, said Terrance W. Gainer, executive assistant chief of police. One of them was charged with assault with a deadly weapon after slashing tires and trying to assault an officer, Gainer said.

"Hail to the Thief," read one sign along the parade route questioning the legitimacy of Bush's election win in Florida. Other protesters sported buttons declaring, "illegitimate Son of a Bush."

"If he had won clearly, I wouldn't have troubled to come here," said Mack Wilder, a construction worker from Greensboro, N.C., who joined over 100 others from the state for a five-hour bus journey through fog and rain.

Some said the deeply conservative tinge of Bush's Cabinet drove them into the streets. "By having people like (John) Ashcroft nominated, he is definitely not being a healer, which is what he promised to be," said Barbara Katz.

Bush remained in his limousine for most of the traditional parade route up Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House.

The new president finally exited for a brief walk only after he reached a secure zone near the White House filled with inauguration ticketholders and no protesters.

The protests were the largest since those during Nixon's 1973 inauguration at the height of the Vietnam war. Those protests drew about 60,000; organizers of the Bush protests anticipated 20,000.

Protesters - as well as the celebrants - faced little worse than mild drizzle and fog.

Though protesters had many disparate causes, most said they were motivated by the Florida election controversy.

Bob Rogers, one of the organizers of the "Voter March," said the fact that Bush captured the White House even though Al Gore won the popular vote by 500,000 guaranteed busloads of demonstrators.

"These are moderate, working people, motivated by anger, embarrassment, that kind of sentiment," he said. "They're wondering, 'We put a man on the moon, why can't we count the vote?"'

On the Capitol steps where he was sworn in, Bush exchanged smiles and pleasantries with Al Gore - a civility that at times extended into the streets. Pro-and anti-Bush protesters joked with each other, and jostled each other on crowded subway trains.

At some junctures, the sides exchanged insults. When pro-Bush people chanted, "Help is on the way," protesters countered "Hell is on the way."

At one point, protesters took over a section of inaugural parade bleachers set aside for ticketed guests.

Earlier, a few officers were hurt after protesters threw bottles at them. One policeman, Sgt. Keith Deville, was seen bleeding from the eye. He was treated on the spot and returned to work, Police Chief Charles Ramsey said.

Two streakers jumped barriers while a cowboy in underwear sang to the crowd. The streakers were detained by police.

The marchers faced stringent security measures, including a first: Checkpoints along the parade route. There were miles of steel fencing, and Secret Service agents in long black overcoats jogged alongside the motorcade.

The security frustrated even Bush supporters. "Security is tighter than it needs to be," said Rep. Tom Davis, R.-Va., fuming as he waited to be ushered through a barricade.

Authorities were worried because many of the expected demonstrators participated in recent protests, such as the one in 1999 in Seattle that resulted in violence and hundreds of arrests.

Ramsey, who wielded a nightstick and strode alongside his men, anticipated that the security would cost $4 million - $1.7 million more than budgeted.

"It ain't a D.C. event," he said, "it's a national event."

There were also inaugural day protests in Boston, Tallahasse, Fla.; Northampton, Mass.; Seattle, San Francisco and Sacramento, Calif.

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Meet against nuclear weapons

Saturday, January 20, 2001
The Hindu By Our Staff Reporter
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2001/01/20/stories/0420401s.htm

CHENNAI, A convention against nuclear weapons is being organised here on January 20 to focus attention on the weapons of mass destruction and the need to hasten the process of nuclear disarmament.

The meet is being put togther by Movement Against Nuclear Weapons, an umbrella organistion of more than 30 groups. A procession would be taken out from Mandaiveli at 6 p.m.

The first meeting of the National Coordination Committee, an organ created by the national convention for nuclear disarmament and peace last November in New Delhi, was held here today.

The committee was in the process of finalising its charter of demands, Admiral (Retd.) L. Ramdas, former Chief of Naval Staff, told presspersons here today. Broadly, the demands would stress the need for India rolling back its nuclear weaponisation programme, the need for greater transparency and accountability in Government actions, an immediate halt to research in the field of development of weapons systems and payment of appropriate compensation to radiation victims who were exposed during Uranium mining and waste disposal operations.

The convention will also discuss the possibility of organising a convention for the Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry region, said Mr. J. Sri Raman, convenor, MANW, one of the organisers of the convention.

---

French Shipment Draws Protest

Saturday, January 20, 2001
International Herald Tribune
Reuters
http://www.iht.com/articles/8133.htm

PARIS French maritime authorities arrested six Greenpeace activists in the northern port of Cherbourg on Friday as they protested a shipment of nuclear fuel headed to Japan, the environmental group said.

Activists swimming and in canoes and boats surrounded a British-flagged ship, the Pacific Pintail, waving flags and a "Stop Plutonium" banner while the freighter was being loaded with reprocessed fuel, Greenpeace said.

Cogema, a French nuclear-processing company, said the ship later left the port along with a companion ship, the Pacific Teal, as an escort.

Greenpeace has said the nuclear cargo, recycled from spent nuclear fuel, contains enough plutonium to make 20 atomic bombs. The group has voiced concern over the ship's route around Cape Horn, at the tip of South America, where gales and strong currents can make navigation difficult.

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