------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Airstrikes May Complicate U.N. Talks
Japanese relatives examine video of sunken ship
Navy delays scan of collision wreckage
Sub Incident Erodes Trust in Japan Chief and the U.S.
New Bush, Old Team, Ponder Saddam Hussein
Navy to Open Court of Inquiry on U.S. Sub
Depleted Uranium: America's Military 'Gift' That Keeps on Giving
RISING ANGER HITS PENTAGON'S DU USE
Britain Has No Plans to Buy Into U.S. Missile Shield
NATO Chief Robertson to Build Better Ties in Moscow
A Wary Eye On the Future For Military Contractors
The Bush Defense Agenda
Getting More Bang for the Armed Forces Buck
Deregulation Leaves Nuclear Reactors Working Harder
Colorado
Bush must keep cleanup moving
Brush douses fire; EPA smolders
ATOMIC RESEARCH CASTS SHADOW ON TENNESSEE TOWN
ORNL to produce plutonium-238 for space program
Toxic Utah: Mending toxic Utah
Capping of tailings site halted
Learning from a toxic legacy
Where to get more information on toxic issues

MILITARY
Israel, US To Stage Joint Exercise
Burmese Junta in Talks With Democracy Leader
Colombian troops call for talks with protesters
A Softer Way to Fight Drug Abuse
States
Baghdad Vows Retaliation
USA SPACE COMMAND
Veteran Diplomat Is Bush's Pick for U.N. Post

OTHER
States
Army Ordered to Alter the Snake River Dams
NEW JERSEY

ACTIVISTS
Greenpeace to try and stop plutonium shipments
Eco-Terrorism or Adolescence in Bloom?
New York
Iraqis Protest U.S. Airstrikes
Iraqis March to Protest Against Western Air Attack
Iraqis protest U.S. airstrikes
Palestinians Protest US - UK Airstrike
-
-------- NUCLEAR

Airstrikes May Complicate U.N. Talks

February 18, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-UN-Iraq-Stalemate.html

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The latest allied airstrikes near Baghdad are likely to complicate upcoming U.N.-Iraq talks aimed at breaking a stalemate over U.N. sanctions and getting weapons inspectors back into the country.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is to meet with Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf on Feb. 26-27 for talks that had been seen as a chance to start a dialogue on the intertwined issues of sanctions and weapons inspections.

In a letter to Annan and the Security Council, al-Sahhaf said the U.N. chief should ``condemn the dangerous aggression and the increase of tension'' and should take ``speedy steps to prevent such attacks from taking place again,'' the official Iraqi News Agency said Sunday.

Iraq wants the U.N. to lift crippling economic sanctions imposed after it invaded Kuwait in 1990. The United Nations says Iraq must first let inspectors back in to make sure President Saddam Hussein is not developing weapons of mass destruction.

Though a major breakthrough had not been expected from the meeting, the fact that Baghdad requested it and sent such a high-level delegation was seen as positive.

Iraq's supporters on the Security Council -- Russia, China and France -- had been hoping the United States and Britain, would help their efforts to nudge Iraq into cooperation with weapons inspections.

Instead, U.S. and British warplanes launched their most serious attack on Iraq in two years, hitting air defense and radar sites south of Baghdad Friday night.

The Pentagon said the attack was meant to thwart Iraq's improving capability to target U.S. and British planes that patrol a no-fly zone set up over southern Iraq after the Persian Gulf War.

But the raid drew widespread condemnation, some of it from key U.S. allies in the Middle East and Europe who said it was time for Washington to reconsider its policies toward Iraq.

Russia, France and China all said the airstrikes were unprovoked and would damage international efforts to resolve the sanctions issue. All three countries want the sanctions lifted.

China called on the United States and Britain on Saturday to stop military action in Iraq immediately to create a favorable atmosphere for the upcoming talks, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said.

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Annan hopes the meetings will go ahead as scheduled ``because all the major issues remain unresolved and unless we talk out these differences we don't think they can be resolved.''

Under Security Council resolutions, the sanctions cannot be lifted until U.N. inspectors certify that Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons have been destroyed. The inspectors left Iraq in December 1998, just ahead of allied airstrikes launched to punish Iraq for blocking inspections.

In December 1999, the Security Council formed a new inspection agency to replace the old one, which had been tainted by allegations that its inspectors spied on Iraq on behalf of the United States.

The new inspectors are ``ready to go whenever Iraq might give the signal,'' Eckhard said. But Iraq continues to bar them, insisting that its weapons of mass destruction have been eliminated and sanctions should be lifted immediately.

After meeting with Annan on Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin Power challenged Iraq to agree to resume inspections during the upcoming talks. In return, he held out the possibility of Iraq becoming ``a progressive member of the world community again.''

But the U.S. and British patrols of the no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq -- and the bombing raids -- have also become an issue in the sanctions debate.

``It is inadmissible to call upon Iraq to cooperate and at the same time continue to bomb Iraq's territory,'' Russia's U.N. Ambassador Sergey Lavrov told the Security Council last year.

Iraq claims the flights are illegal and a violation of its sovereignty, and both Russia and China insist there is no Security Council authorization for them.

The United States and Britain say the patrols were authorized under resolutions calling for the protection of Iraqi minorities -- Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north.

---

Japanese relatives examine video of sunken ship

02/18/2001
USA Today
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-02-18-japanfamily.htm

HONOLULU (AP) - Japanese family members examined videotape of the sunken ship Ehime Maru sitting upright on the ocean floor as a top U.S. Navy official announced a high-level investigation into why a U.S. submarine surfaced directly underneath it, leaving nine of their relatives missing.

The videotape, taken by robot submersibles, shows the exterior of the fishing vessel seemingly in pristine condition, with no signs of the nine men and boys who have been missing since Feb. 9 when the USS Greeneville collided with the ship during an emergency surfacing drill.

Damage to the bottom of the boat was not visible because of the downward angle of the video, taken 2,033 feet below the ocean surface, Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Greg Fondran said Saturday.

Relatives have demanded answers as to why the 360-foot nuclear-powered submarine stationed two civilians at key controls during the emergency drill. As the 6,900-ton submarine surfaced, its rudder superstructure knifed through the hull of the 500-ton Ehime Maru, which sank within minutes.

Twenty-six survivors were plucked from the waters near Pearl Harbor. The remaining nine crew and passengers are missing and presumed dead.

"The court of inquiry will provide a full and open accounting for the American and Japanese people," Adm. Thomas Fargo, commander of the Pacific Fleet, said during a news conference Saturday.

Fargo said the Navy expected to convene the inquiry - the Navy's highest form of administrative investigation - at Pearl Harbor on Thursday.

The hearing could result in a recommendation for courts-martial of the USS Greeneville's officers, Fargo said.

The submarine's commander, executive officer and officer of the deck have been named parties to the inquiry.

Three Navy flag officers will make up the court, Fargo said. A flag officer of the Japanese Maritime Self-defense Force will be invited to participate as an adviser.

"The seriousness in which I view this tragic accident is reflected in the level of investigation and the seniority of the court members," Fargo said.

The submarine's commander, Cmdr. Scott Waddle, was reassigned to a staff position after the incident. The other two officers named were Lt. Cmdr. Gerald K. Pfeifer and Lt.j.g. Michael J. Coen.

"The families have been a great concern of ours throughout this past week," said Fargo. "I've got a great empathy for the Japanese people and their families and we'll do everything in our power to make sure we have a full accounting on this accident and take care of their needs here in Hawaii."

As for the families' demand for an apology from Waddle, the admiral noted that because Waddle's actions are under investigation "there are legal implications, I think, with respect to that. It will certainly be his judgment."

Adm. Dennis Blair, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, offered the apologies of the U.S. government when he met with Seishiro Eto, Japan's senior vice minister for foreign affairs, on Saturday, said command spokeswoman Army Lt. Col. Christy Samuels.

Anguished family members and the Japanese government have called for the ship's recovery, an operation experts say would be difficult and expensive.

Whether the Ehime Maru is in a condition that would allow it to be raised intact could not be determined from the videos taken Saturday, said Jon Yoshishige, a spokesman for the Pacific Fleet.

The Coast Guard has extended its search for bodies through the holiday weekend.

---

Navy delays scan of collision wreckage

02/18/2001 - Updated 07:18 PM ET
USA Today
http://usatoday.com/news/nphoto.htm

PHOTO: The sunken Japanese fishing vessel, Ehime Maru, taken by video cameras mounted on the deep-diving vehicle. (AP/U.S. Navy)

HONOLULU (AP) - The Navy's efforts to scan the wreckage of a Japanese ship sunk by a U.S. submarine were set back Sunday when a deep-sea robot was removed from the sea for repairs. The Navy is using the robot to evaluate the feasibility of raising the 190-foot Ehime Maru, which sank minutes after the USS Greeneville surfaced underneath it Feb. 9. Late Saturday, crew members using the robot noticed a tear in the tether used to raise and lower it. Navy officials said a separate sonar device, which was being towed through the ocean depths scanning for debris near the shipwreck, still was in use. They said the video-equipped robot could be ready to use Monday.

Families of nine men and teen-age boys missing since the sinking are pressing the Navy to recover any bodies that may be entombed in the Ehime Maru, even if that means conducting what experts say would be a monumental and unprecedented salvage of the entire ship.

Videotape taken by the robot since Friday showed the exterior of the ship seemingly in pristine condition, but the Coast Guard said the full extent of damage had not been determined.

The Navy said the deep-sea robots may be too big to enter the wreckage to retrieve any bodies from it.

The commercial fishing training vessel was headed toward fishing grounds 300 miles southeast of Oahu when the USS Greeneville collided with it during an emergency rapid-ascent drill. Twenty-six people were rescued, but there have been no signs of the nine missing during a continuing Coast Guard search.

The Navy announced Saturday it would conduct a court of inquiry, its highest-level administrative investigation, into the accident. The inquiry will focus on the actions of the Greeneville's three top officers: The submarine's captain, Cmdr. Scott Waddle; its executive officer, Lt. Cmdr. Gerald K. Pfeifer, and the officer of the deck, Lt. j.g. Michael J. Coen.

Three admirals with subpoena powers will oversee the public hearing, which could result in a recommendation for courts-martial, said Adm. Thomas Fargo, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet. The board is scheduled to convene Thursday.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on ABC's "This Week" Sunday that a congressional inquiry should follow the military review, which he praised.

"The seriousness of this accident and the tragedy involved requires that there be this kind of a very thorough, very high-level and perhaps most important very open hearing," Levin said. "I think this hopefully will give the Japanese some confidence as to just how seriously we take this tragedy."

The court of inquiry is expected to address why periscope and sonar sweeps conducted before the Greeneville surfaced failed to detect the fishing vessel. The National Transportation Safety Board reported the Greeneville crew had tracked several ships in the area, but investigators have not said when the ships were tracked and where they were located.

The hearing could also touch on the presence of 16 civilian guests on the submarine at the time of the collision. Two civilians supervised by crew members were at key controls when the Greeneville made its rapid ascent, and one was allowed to pull the levers that initiated the drill.

Some of the guests had already spoken publicly about the accident. Many did not return phone calls from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Michael and Susan Nolan of Honolulu issued a statement expressing their sorrow over the incident and saying they did not believe it was caused by neglect or carelessness.

"We very deeply regret the loss of life resulting from the accident and extend our most sincere sympathy and heartfelt aloha to the survivors of the accident and to the families and friends who have missing loved ones," the statement said.

The Nolans also defended the Greeneville crew against criticism that crew members did not take survivors aboard. Fargo has said the ocean was too rough to open the submarine's hatches.

The Nolans said, "They were frantic in their efforts to lend help immediately upon the collision and were prepared to lend all available assistance to help the people from the Ehime Maru. These are compassionate people, from the captain and his officers throughout the entire crew..."

---

Sub Incident Erodes Trust in Japan Chief and the U.S.

February 18, 2001
New York Times
By STEPHANIE STROM
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/18/world/18JAPA.html

TOKYO, Feb. 17 - Tempers have flared with the news that civilian visitors were at the controls of the nuclear submarine that caused a Japanese boat to sink last week off Hawaii, leaving nine people missing and presumed dead.

Today, with the United States announcing that a remote-control vehicle had located the wreckage of the Japanese vessel, the 25-member municipal assembly of the ship's home port, Uwajima, unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a direct apology for the accident, full disclosure of its causes, and medical and psychological support for the victims and their families.

According to The Associated Press, the resolution did not specify who should make the apology.

The mounting Japanese irritation over the accident has worsened the personal and political troubles of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who according to some experts may not survive long in his job.

Foreign Minister Yohei Kono has called Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to demand more information about precisely what the civilians aboard the submarine Greeneville were doing at the controls last week and to ask why American officials had not told Japan that the civilians were taking part in the maneuvers.

The Japanese press and senior officials have challenged the practice of having civilians aboard a military vessel during an exercise.

Interviews in which John M. Hall and Todd Thoman, two of the 16 civilians aboard, said they had been at control positions when the submarine was making its ascent have played repeatedly on Japanese television.

"It's outrageous," Toshitsugu Saito, director general of Japan's Defense Agency, said at a news conference. The American Navy "is slack."

Heated reaction has been slow to emerge here. The news media have covered the American side extensively and matter-of-factly, praising the United States for its prompt apology and President Bush for calling for a silent prayer for its victims.

But Japanese patience has evidently begun to wear thin. Suspicions have been raised among a people who are all too accustomed to bureaucratic stalling and coverups, said Aiji Tanaka, a political science professor at Waseda University.

"In the beginning, the U. S. Navy said the civilians on board had no relationship to the accident," he said. "But then the National Transportation Safety Board started investigating, some slightly different information was released and now, we find out that some of the civilians actually had their hands on the controls. Bit by bit, day after day, revelations are made in a way that is very, very similar to various Japanese political and bureaucratic scandals."

The episode has distracted the press from the fast-mounting woes of gaffe-prone Prime Minister Mori, whose first response to news of the Ehime Maru's fate was apparently to ask his secretary whether it was all right to continue his golf game.

Not only did he continue his game for about two more hours, but he also apparently did not list his membership at the course where he was playing as one of his assets nor report it to tax authorities as a gift, although the membership seemingly qualifies as both.

Mr. Mori and his office have insisted that he does not really "own" the membership and thus need not declare it, but even his political allies have had difficulty accepting those explanations.

On Friday, Makoto Koga, secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, declared the membership "inappropriate," and speculation swirled that the party's largest faction, headed by a former prime minister, Ryutaro Hashimoto, was angling for Mr. Mori's resignation. "It looks like the Hashimoto faction is about to throw out a net to catch Mori like a rabbit," said Takao Toshikawa, a well-known political expert. "I think the possibility of the prime minister's resignation is very high, possibly next month."

The party will hold its annual convention on March 13, and many speculate that Mr. Mori will be forced to resign then. Falling stock prices and two major scandals, coupled with Mr. Mori's plummeting popularity, long ago convinced the party's elders that they cannot risk going into the July election for the Upper House with Mr. Mori still in office.

They had hoped, however, to keep him in office until just before the voting, replacing him at the last minute with someone more popular.

The ruling party's most important coalition partner, the Komei party, has stepped up its demands for Mr. Mori's replacement. But this is a challenge for the ruling party. Burgeoning scandals have tainted Mr. Hashimoto and Mr. Kono, leaving political analysts betting on Junichiro Koizumi, a Mori supporter who has a knack for appearing to buck the status quo while in fact supporting it wholeheartedly. Single and dapper, he is prone to quixotic ventures with public appeal.

---

New Bush, Old Team, Ponder Saddam Hussein

February 18, 2001
New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/18/world/18IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all

LONDON, Feb. 17 - Soon after the 1991 Persian Gulf war came to an end, senior aides to President George Bush predicted that Saddam Hussein would be overthrown within six months. A decade later, much of the old Bush national security team is back in power - and still trying to fashion a plan to contain the ambitions of the Iraqi leader.

The American and British air strikes carried out Friday against radar installations and anti-defense sites near Baghdad will reduce the growing risk to pilots who patrol the southern no-flight zone.

And they also send the message that the new Bush administration is determined to keep the pressure on Iraq - even as Washington ponders its options. Since Iraq fired more surface-to-air missiles in January at American and British patrols than in all of last year, officials here say a riposte was necessary.

But Friday's air strikes do not decisively change the military situation in the Persian Gulf or provide a guide for how the incoming Bush administration hopes finally to dispense with the man whose survival has haunted Washington for years.

The United States has been reasonably successful in containing Iraqi power. But it has yet to figure out how to oust Saddam Hussein, or compel him to allow unfettered United Nations weapons inspections. The latest high-tech air strikes are more of a signal than a strategy.

President George W. Bush and his aides are, of course, just at the beginning, still hammering out a new and, they say, more muscular Iraqi policy. There are no easy answers.

Economic sanctions are already in place and could no doubt be more strictly enforced. But it will take considerable lobbying by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell just to maintain them in the face of France, Russia, Middle Eastern and Asian states who see business in Baghdad.

The new Bush administration seems to pinning much of its hope on the Iraqi opposition, which will soon receive $29 million in aid. So far, the opposition has not amounted to much. No one in the American political or military establishment has the appetite for another war with Saddam Hussein that might settle things once and for all.

That leaves air strikes, already a well-tried option. In 1998, for example, the United States and Britain carried out a four-day raid, after United Nations weapons inspectors withdrew from Iraq in the face of Iraqi intransigence.

Standing alongside President Vicente Fox of Mexico on Friday, Mr. Bush called the air strike routine. In fact the attack, which involved two dozen strike aircraft firing missiles at targets close to Baghdad and approved at the highest levels of the American and British governments after careful planning, was anything but routine. But, with no quick fixes for its Iraq problem, the Bush administration is evidently wary of raising expectations at home or anxieties among nervous allies abroad.

"Operations such as the one last night would not be needed if Saddam stopped attacking us," Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain said today. "But as long as he does, I will continue to take the steps necessary to protect our forces and to prevent Saddam from once again wreaking havoc, suffering and death."

For now, Saddam Hussein may not even be America's most dangerous foe. Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born extremist who is the FBI's most wanted terrorist suspect, has in recent years struck with more deadly effect at American interests, orchestrating the August 1998 bombing of two American embassies in East Africa, and is suspected of being behind last October's bombing of the destroyer Cole in Yemen.

Saddam Hussein, in contrast, is confined within his country, visibly defiant, seemingly determined to preserve some modicum of Iraq's programs for developing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons - and apparently interested in shooting down an American or British pilot.

That Mr. Hussein has held onto power for so long is a testimony to the ruthless way in which he runs Iraqi society. While the first Bush administration never explicitly set his ouster as an objective in the 1991 conflict, American military planners did what they could to loosen his grip on power. American warplanes and missiles struck his bunkers, intelligence services and political apparatus in the hope that his regime would be shattered. But he hung on without major internal challenges.

In one of history's perhaps more curious twists, the first Bush administration relaxed the military pressure against the Saddam Hussein regime at a time when it was in the best position to squeeze the Iraqi leader. Concerned that the American military would be portrayed by the media as piling on in a one-sided rout, the Bush administration halted the 1991 ground war at 100 hours, a move that allowed much of the Republican Guard in Iraq, the most effective and loyal force in Saddam Hussein's military, to escape.

Nor did the Bush administration rush to impose a no-flight zone in southern Iraq when Shiite rebels were attacked by Iraqi helicopters in the wake of the Gulf war. The Bush administration did not declare a southern no-flight zone until August 1992, some 18 months after the end of the war.

Bush administration officials later explained that they were initially wary of establishing an air-exclusion zone in the south to parallel the one they set up in northern Iraq in 1991 to protect the Kurds. A second no-flight zone, officials initially worried, might entangle the United States in an Iraqi civil war or encourage the breakup of Iraq, which Bush strategists saw as a counterweight to Iran.

Having put the world on notice that it has the will to keep the pressure on Iraq, the new Bush team faces the task of explaining its broader strategy, particularly when General Powell visits the Middle East later this month.

President George W. Bush, however, is not the only one to make Iraq the target of his first major military action. President Clinton's first military strike was also against Iraq: a June 1993 attack in which 23 cruise missiles were fired at an intelligence headquarters in Baghdad.

Mr. Clinton ordered the strike in retaliation for an assassination attempt against George W. Bush's father, which Saddam Hussein was accused of sponsoring. General Powell is familiar with that attack as well. He was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time and delivered the Pentagon briefing on the raid.

---

Navy to Open Court of Inquiry on U.S. Sub

February 18, 2001
New York Times
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/18/national/18SUBM.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 - A senior naval commander said today that he would convene a formal court of inquiry to investigate the collision of the submarine Greeneville and a Japanese training vessel off Hawaii, setting the stage for what amounts to a public trial of the submarine's captain and crew.

The inquiry, to be led by three admirals, could begin as soon as next week with the first public hearings to determine why the Greeneville struck and sunk the Japanese vessel, the Ehime Maru, while surfacing during a brief voyage from Honolulu on Feb. 9.

A naval court of inquiry is a rare investigative forum but, when convened, usually a dramatic one, with sworn testimony and cross-examination in an open courtroom. It is not a criminal prosecution, but it is a significant step toward one and could lead to criminal charges against the Greeneville's captain, Cmdr. Scott D. Waddle, and two other officers.

The decision to convene the court - made by Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, commander of the Pacific Fleet - could help to assuage some of the public anger in Japan over the Navy's handling of the early stages of the investigation, which some Japanese have criticized as secretive.

"The seriousness in which I view this tragic accident is reflected in the level of investigation and the seniority of the court members," Admiral Fargo said at a news conference in Honolulu. "It will provide a full and open accounting for the American and Japanese people."

It was a measure of the diplomatic tensions caused by the accident that senior American officials were careful to notify their Japanese counterparts of Admiral Fargo's decision before it was announced publicly, one official said.

Admiral Fargo also said he would allow a Japanese naval officer to serve as an adviser to the proceedings. The Ehime Maru, a 190-foot training vessel, sank quickly after the Greeneville slammed into it as the submarine burst to the surface some nine miles off Diamond Head, near Honolulu. Twenty-six people who had been aboard the ship were plucked from the sea afterward. Nine others, including four students, remain missing, though presumed dead.

The Navy announced today that a deep-sea robotic vehicle, the Scorpio II, had found the wreck of the Ehime Maru late Friday roughly 1,000 yards from the site of the collision reported by the Greeneville. It was sitting nearly upright on the ocean floor 2,003 feet beneath the surface.

The Scorpio, equipped with sonar and two video cameras, recorded images of the ship, but military officials said they would not release them until they had a chance to show them to the families of the nine people still missing. A second submersible is expected to join the search effort.

The court of inquiry will begin its work once the National Transportation Safety Board completes the first phase of its own separate investigation into the collision. Officials said that investigation - focused on questions the accident raised for civilian shipping - was expected to be completed on Wednesday. It is likely to take much longer for the safety board, which reviews all major transportation accidents and makes recommendations on how to avoid them, to reach its conclusions. It cannot impose penalties.

The Navy court's scope will extend not only to the accident itself, but also to the circumstances leading up to the accident and the events that followed it. In the days after the Ehime Maru sank, members of its crew criticized the submarine's crew for not doing more to rescue those thrown into the choppy water.

Navy officials have said that the Greeneville immediately called for help, but that it could not take part in the rescue by opening its hatches or dispatching life rafts because of the swelling seas.

In addition to the actions of Commander Waddle, the inquiry will focus on the roles of two other officers, Lt. Cmdr. Gerald K. Pfeifer, the executive officer, and Lt. Michael J. Coen, who was the officer of the deck at the time of the accident.

The court will be led by Vice Adm. John B. Nathman, commander of the naval air force in the Pacific. The other members of the court are Rear Adm. Paul F. Sullivan, director for plans and policy at the Strategic Command, and Rear Adm. David M. Stone, commander of Cruiser Destroyer Group Five.

The court will have sweeping power to review documents or records and subpoena witnesses, both military and civilian, to testify under oath. All witnesses will have the right to legal representation.

Fifteen civilians and their naval escort were visiting aboard the submarine on its daylong voyage, and two of the civilians were at control stations when the submarine surfaced during its exercise, a maneuver known as an emergency main- ballast blow.

While senior Navy officers have said the two civilians at the controls could not have contributed to the accident, they have acknowledged the possibility that the presence of so large a number could have created a distraction for the crew.

Civilians cannot be tried by military courts, but anyone refusing to testify before a court of inquiry faces possible prosecution in federal court.

Eugene R. Fidell, a military lawyer and the president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said the decision to seek a court of inquiry reflected the gravity of the case but did not necessarily predict a criminal prosecution. If the court recommended criminal charges against any officer or sailor, a court martial would be convened.

Mr. Fidell said a desire to compel civilian witnesses to testify could have prompted the decision to seek a court of inquiry. Another reason could be the public scrutiny the court's proceedings would attract, he said.

"It's a way of telegraphing to the Japanese that we're going to get to the bottom of this," he said.

The Navy, which had declined to release the names of the civilians aboard the submarine because the preliminary inquiry was under way, listed them tonight after the decision to hold an open inquiry was announced.

These are the civilians' names:
Jay Brehmer, Overland Park, Kan.
Carol Brehmer, Overland Park.
Jack Clary, Stow, Mass.
Pat Clary, Stow.
Helen Cullen, Houston.
John M. Hall, Sealy, Tex.
Leigh Anne Schnell Hall, Sealy.
Mike Mitchell, Irving, Tex.
Mickey Nolan, Honolulu.
Susan Nolan, Honolulu.
Anthony Schnur, The Woodlands, Tex.
Susan Schnur, The Woodlands.
Todd Thoman, Houston.
Deanda Thoman, Houston.
Ken Wyatt, Golden, Colo.
Catherine Graham Wyatt, Golden.

-------- depleted uranium

Depleted Uranium: America's Military 'Gift' That Keeps on Giving

Sunday, February 18, 2001
Los Angeles Times
By DAN FAHEY
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/20010218/t000014657.html

BOSTON--Despite scant coverage in the U.S. media, a controversy over depleted-uranium ammunition used in the Gulf and Balkan wars has been raging in Europe. Several governments that provided troops for these conflicts fear that a rash of unexplained illnesses in veterans--including hemorrhaging, tumors and cancers--may have been caused by ammunition fired by U.S. warplanes.

Germany, Italy, Norway and the European Parliament have called for a moratorium on using the ammunition, while the World Health Organization has announced plans for a study of civilians in Kosovo and Iraq who may have been exposed. Last week, Pekka Haavisto, the head of the United Nations' investigation of depleted uranium, warned of the necessity to "closely follow the state of health" of those exposed to the ammunition in the Balkans.

Questions abound: Is there a causal link between depleted uranium and serious illnesses? What constitutes dangerous levels of exposure? How many soldiers and civilians have been exposed? How much plutonium is there in the ammunition?

One thing is certain: The Pentagon has inflamed the controversy by withholding information and stonewalling investigations. It is likely to remain a major headache for the Bush administration, especially for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Depleted uranium is a chemically toxic heavy metal that emits low-level alpha radiation. It is used in armor-piercing ammunition because it is extremely dense and pyrophoric, which enables it to punch and burn its way through hard targets such as tanks. But depleted uranium also contaminates the impact area with a fine depleted-uranium dust that presents a health hazard if inhaled in sufficient quantities. In the aftermath of the Gulf War, research on rats conducted by the military's Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute found that depleted uranium's chemical toxicity--not its radioactivity--may cause immune system damage and central nervous system problems and may contribute to the development of certain cancers.

Dr. David McClain, the military's top depleted-uranium researcher, told a presidential committee investigating Gulf War illnesses in 1999 that "strong evidence exists to support [a] detailed study of potential DU carcinogenicity." A separate Army-funded study conducted by the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute in Albuquerque, N.M., found that depleted uranium caused cancer when implanted in laboratory animals. While Fletcher Hahn, a senior scientist at Lovelace, cautioned about applying the findings to human beings, he also called the study "a warning flag that says we shouldn't ignore this."

Despite the military's own research, however, in recent weeks Pentagon spokesmen have dismissed concerns about depleted uranium as unscientific hysteria and propaganda. For example, Army Col. Eric Daxon recently attributed concerns about depleted uranium to "a purposeful disinformation campaign" by the Iraqi government. Yet, the Army anticipated the current controversy even before the war against Iraq. A July 1990 report from the U.S. Army Armament, Munitions and Chemical Command predicted that, "Following combat, the condition of the battlefield and the long-term health risks to natives and combat veterans may become issues in the acceptability of the continued use of DU [ammunition] for military applications." The report added that depleted uranium is "linked to cancer when exposures are internal."

Six months after the Army's prescient report, U.S. and coalition fighting forces charged into Kuwait and Iraq, oblivious to the hazards of the 320 tons of depleted-uranium ammunition shot by U.S. tanks and aircraft. When thousands of veterans reported myriad health problems after the war, a series of federal investigations queried the Defense Department about its use of depleted uranium. In each case, the Army Surgeon General's office asserted that only 35 veterans had been exposed, a number so small that it did not justify further research.

Through Congressional inquiry and the determined work of Gulf War veterans' advocates, however, the Pentagon was forced to dramatically increase its estimates of the number of veterans exposed to depleted uranium.

In January 1998, the Pentagon's Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses made a long-overdue admission: "Combat troops or those carrying out support functions generally did not know that DU contaminated equipment such as enemy vehicles struck by DU rounds required special handling. The failure to properly disseminate such information to troops at all levels may have resulted in thousands of unnecessary exposures."

The Pentagon's figure of "thousands" tells us little about the effects of depleted uranium on these veterans. Unfortunately, until 1998 the Department of Veterans Affairs accepted the Pentagon's original number and examined only 33 veterans exposed to depleted uranium. Some of these veterans continued to excrete depleted uranium in their semen and urine six years after the war. Several have mild central nervous system problems. The VA removed a bone tumor from one veteran who was wounded by DU shrapnel.

In the absence of an epidemiological study of a larger number of exposed veterans, however, no firm conclusions about the role of depleted uranium can be drawn. Unfortunately, the lack of candor has continued even after Kosovo. When the war ended, a United Nations task force asked NATO to identify areas contaminated with depleted uranium so that peacekeepers, civilians and relief workers might be warned about the potential hazard. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization inexplicably refused to comply with the request. In February 2000, eight months after the war, NATO finally confirmed that U.S. jets had released the equivalent of 10 tons of depleted uranium in Kosovo and Serbia. Another seven months passed before NATO disclosed the 112 locations of contamination. But it wasn't until last month--19 months after the bombing stopped--that NATO finally posted warning signs at the sites.

From all accounts, peacekeepers, civilians and relief workers in Kosovo were surprised to learn about depleted-uranium contamination in their midst. There, as in Iraq, children had long been playing on destroyed equipment. In addition, adults had scavenged destroyed equipment for usable parts and scrap metal.

European outrage increased when the U.N. disclosed that some depleted-uranium ammunition used in Kosovo contains plutonium and other highly radioactive elements. Pentagon spokesmen asserted that the amounts of plutonium in the ammunition are extremely low, but they have failed to publicly disclose the levels of plutonium in ammunition shot in Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq and Kuwait and on training ranges in Japan, Germany, Puerto Rico and the United States.

The Pentagon's history of withholding information about depleted uranium has fueled suspicions among many of our allies. Rumsfeld should try a new approach: ordering full disclosure of all information and complete cooperation with international investigations.

Dan Fahey, Who Attends the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Is a Navy Veteran and Former Board Member of the National Gulf War Resource Center

--------

RISING ANGER HITS PENTAGON'S DU USE

Sun, 18 Feb 2001
Workers World newspaper
By Paddy Colligan

Thousands of people in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal have recently protested the Pentagon's use of depleted-uranium weapons in Europe. They charge that DU is the cause of a cancer epidemic among European NATO troops who occupied Bosnia and Kosovo, where the U.S. used DU-enhanced weapons.

The Labor Center of Athens called thousands to Athens, Larisa and Karditsa in Greece Feb. 8 and 9 to demand that NATO be abolished, its bases and nuclear weapons expelled from the region, and Greek soldiers returned from Yugoslavia. Under pressure from soldiers worried about the health risks of DU, the Greek government has declared that none of its troops will be forced to stay in Kosovo.

A demonstration was called by the Clark Tribunal in Italy-- the group that organized the anti-NATO war crimes tribunal after the war against Yugoslavia. At this Feb. 3 protest, delegations of soldiers and organizations called for the guilty to be removed from power and held responsible for crimes against the Balkans' people and Italy's soldiers.

In Brussels, Belgium, a conference titled "Uranium: The Victims Speak" will start March 1. It will bring together soldiers contaminated by DU with people "whose countries have been turned into nuclear and chemical waste dumps." They will strategize with anti-NATO forces about building opposition to DU.

DU IN IRAQ, VIEQUES, BALKANS

Where DU has been used--southern Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and bombing ranges in Vieques, Okinawa and south Korea--it presents an enormous and continuing danger for civilians living in the contaminated areas.

There has been a documented increase in the rates of childhood leukemia and rare forms of cancer in southern Iraq, where the U.S. used huge amounts of DU materials during the 1991 Gulf War.

A lawsuit challenging the U.S. Navy's use of Vieques--a small island off the coast of Puerto Rico--as a bombing range is demanding restitution for people living on the island. Over a third of the island's 9,000 inhabitants suffer from serious illnesses and cancers that doctors have linked to six decades of Pentagon bombing. DU weapons have been tested there.

Lt. Gen. Boris Alekseyev, the Russian Armed Forces' top environmental safety officer, has charged that in occupied Kosovo, U.S. "soldiers are stationed in an uncontaminated area that was not hit by a single bomb or missile containing depleted uranium."

On the other hand, he said, "the Italians are serving in areas where the bombardment with uranium-containing munitions was the most intensive." Russian troops in the area are being screened for signs of illness. (Kommersant, Jan. 10)

The British government admitted "that thousands of British troops serving in Kosovo were placed at risk from the deadly effects of depleted uranium, the substance linked to Gulf War Syndrome, after a health warning failed to reach soldiers during the 1999 NATO conflict." (Guardian, Feb. 8) It has been forced to agree to test any soldier who requests it for DU exposure.

The World Health Organization appealed on Feb. 1 for $2 million to fund research into the effects of DU ammunition in the Balkans and Iraq.

In West Concord, Mass., a demonstration in January targeted Starmet, one of the two DU munitions producers in the United States. Starmet, now bankrupt, is leaving behind a leaking, unlined waste pit in a residential neighborhood where it buried 400,000 pounds of depleted uranium from 1958 to 1985. The bill for the cleanup is $50 million.

Both Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority continue to call for international investigations of Israeli use of DU weapons. Palestinian forces charged the Israeli military with using DU weapons against the latest uprising. At first the Israelis denied the charge. But they were later forced to concede that they had used DU weapons in the past.

The anger sweeping Europe about depleted uranium has provided an outlet for NATO rivals to raise their differences with Washington. It also raises other problems for the Pentagon: Will the women and men in the U.S. occupation forces in the Balkans become concerned about their own health? Will they question why they are risking their lives for yet another ill-conceived U.S. military adventure, cynically sold to them as a humanitarian rescue mission?

Copies of an International Action Center leaflet informing U.S. service people about DU's dangers and the events in Europe, and asking them to investigate the dangers to themselves and others, were distributed at a demonstration against Plan Colombia at Fort Bragg, N.C., on Feb. 10.

-------- missile defense

Britain Has No Plans to Buy Into U.S. Missile Shield

February 18, 2001
Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-britain.html

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has no plans for now to ``buy into'' a U.S. missile shield aimed at protecting Washington from attacks by rogue states, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said Sunday.

Cook said Britain had more pressing military spending priorities -- including helping build up a European rapid reaction force -- than paying for Washington to extend its planned National Missile Defense umbrella across the Atlantic.

``It would have a big opportunity cost on other things that we currently spend our current defense budget on. So at the moment there is no proposal that we should buy into it,'' Cook told BBC TV's ``Breakfast with Frost'' program.

``And I'm very conscious of the importance of the other priorities in our defense budget -- in particular making sure we develop the rapid, flexible mobile forces which we can contribute to crises such as Kosovo,'' he added.

One of the potential arguments for President George W. Bush's plan to build the missile system is that it could protect allies of the United States, including European nations which have expressed concern about the proposals.

Strongest criticism has come from China, Russia and France which warned of a renewed global arms race.

Even Britain, Washington's longstanding ally, has trodden warily on the issue. Prime Minister Tony Blair is likely to be asked for an early warning radar station at Fylingdales in northern England to be upgraded so the system can be installed.

HANDLE WITH CARE

``As Tony Blair expressed it the other day, this is definitely an issue in the box marked 'Handle with Care','' Cook said.

``There are a lot of unresolved questions to be answered, of which perhaps the most critical is how the United States can take this forward in terms of its own relationship with Russia.''

Cook, who held talks in Washington with officials in Bush's new administration, said Blair would discuss the missile shield when he meets Bush in Washington this week.

``It's very important that whatever is done reduces tension, reduces the sense of insecurity in the United States (and) does not increase tension with Russia,'' he said.

The Americans have promised to consult allies on the plan. In return they want to be consulted on European Union plans for a military rapid reaction force to deal with crises where the Europe's NATO allies do not want to be involved.

Earlier this month Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he was a ``little worried'' by the force, which critics fear may drive a wedge between members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

``I found an understanding of (the force) in Washington,'' Cook said. ``It will be a capability available for NATO if NATO also decides to carry out crisis management.''

---

NATO Chief Robertson to Build Better Ties in Moscow

February 18, 2001
Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-russia-.html

MOSCOW (Reuters) - NATO Secretary General George Robertson flies to Moscow this week to underpin improved ties and tackle the tricky issues of the proposed U.S. national missile shield and the alliance's further eastward expansion.

Robertson's arrival Monday for a three-day visit will set the seal on efforts by both Moscow and the Alliance to get relations back on track after they were ruptured by the U.S.-led air attacks on Yugoslavia in 1999.

His talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other officials also follow a week of delicate diplomacy and military action which have sharpened the debate on Washington's proposed National Missile Defense (NMD) scheme.

Russian officials have discounted German suggestions that Moscow was softening its opposition to the system, which is also regarded with skepticism by Washington's European allies.

To underline its continued military strength, Russia has just sent warplanes on exercises near its borders with Japan and Norway and test-fired three strategic missiles.

Robertson told Russian journalists ahead of his visit that he wanted to discuss Moscow's concerns about NMD and find out more about an alternative proposed by Moscow.

``We very much look forward to hearing what those proposals involve,'' Robertson told Itar-Tass news agency in Brussels.

A senior Russian general said Friday that Moscow's theater defense plan for Europe, involving a mobile anti-missile force, was ready and might be presented to Robertson.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer praised Moscow's ''constructive'' approach to arms control during talks last week. He predicted that Moscow would eventually agree to talks on NMD.

But with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov due to meet new Secretary of State Colin Powell in Egypt this week, Russian patience on the issue wore thin as officials made increasingly strident comments in Washington.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Moscow was ``part of the problem'' of spreading missile technology rather than trying to solve it. Central Intelligence Agency chief George Tenet had made similar comments a week earlier.

RUSSIAN MISSILE LAUNCHES SERVE AS A REMINDER

The lines of the debate were drawn more sharply at the weekend after Russia launched three strategic missiles almost simultaneously from a launch-pad, a submarine and a bomber.

Planning for such an event made it unlikely that it was timed to coincide with the U.S. barbs, but it served as a reminder that Russian missiles were in good working order.

Moscow acknowledges U.S. concerns of a missile threat from ''rogue states'' like Iran, Iraq and North Korea, but says NMD is aimed chiefly at itself and China.

Putin has come up with an alternative plan for regional defense systems located near suspect countries' borders which could shoot down missiles in their ``boost phase'' soon after launch.

At least two of NATO's European members, France and Germany, have sought more details of the Russian proposal.

Robertson, who met Putin in the Kremlin last year, is expected during the visit to reopen NATO's Moscow mission. The mission was shut in March 1999, a day after Alliance warplanes began 11 weeks of bombing Yugoslavia in response to Belgrade's crackdown on Kosovo's ethnic Albanians.

The relationship had already been strained by NATO's decision two years earlier to take in three former Warsaw Pact states -- Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic.

Moscow has made plain it is especially unhappy about future membership for ex-Soviet countries like Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Georgia. Robertson said he would tell Russians they had nothing to fear from expansion.

``I would not want to make light of the concerns expressed by Russia on this topic, but I do wonder sometimes whether a large part of the problem is a question of perception, rather than fact,'' he told Interfax news agency.

He said he would fulfil in Moscow one of diplomacy's most important tasks -- ``to bring perception into line with reality.''

---

A Wary Eye On the Future For Military Contractors

February 18, 2001
New York Times
By KENNETH N. GILPIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/18/business/18INSI.html

MOST people didn't notice, but on Wall Street the $125 billion military industry was on a roll well before George W. Bush arrived in Washington.

Feeding off the Clinton administration's outlays for the Pentagon in fiscal year 2000 -- the first major increase in military spending since the mid-1980's -- the Standard & Poor's aerospace index soared 57 percent last year. Expectations are that the good times will continue. But so far that assumption is largely based on campaign rhetoric, because Mr. Bush will not submit his first budget until the end of the month. But last week, he suggested that sweeping changes lie ahead.

Byron K. Callan, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, took some time on Thursday to talk about his expectations. Following are excerpts from the conversation:

Q. Mr. Bush said he intended to emphasize new technology and weapons systems. That implies a fair amount of change. Is the Pentagon capable of that?

A. It's a very interesting space to watch. There are a series of strategic studies under way right now.

Still, there is a side of me that says there will not be that much substantial change, that not many major programs will be canceled.

But in the same breath, there are some areas that are near and dear to the secretary of defense, like missile defense and space in general.

Q. Are you expecting a big increase in the military budget?

A. There is a modest upside to spending. But the very clear signal is that the administration is not going to shovel money through the door of the Pentagon. During the campaign, Al Gore was talking about a bigger defense budget than Mr. Bush.

Q. During the 1990's the Pentagon encouraged, and the Clinton administration condoned, an extensive consolidation of the military industry. Mr. Bush seems to suggest that new suppliers, particularly of technology, will be part of the Pentagon's future.

A. There are five big contractors - Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop-Grumman and Raytheon. And there are whole layers of companies below them that are not in the public eye. But to really open up the system there would have to be a great deal of reform in very unique regulatory requirements ranging from a separate and distinct cost-accounting system to intellectual property rights.

To bring in the broader economy, you have to make it as easy to do business with the Department of Defense as it is with I.B.M. or General Motors. There are some political as well as bureaucratic walls to climb.

Now in some areas defense companies have been taking commercial technologies, dealing with these arcane regulations and applying them to defense contracts. Cisco Systems has teamed with a couple of defense contractors, for example.

Q. Military contractors' stocks had a very nice move last year. Are you optimistic that they can go higher?

A. I am modestly cautious. We are entering a period of change, and you don't know how that change is going to play out. Part of that change is due to the change in the defense budget, but the other change is in the rest of the investment scene. The meltdown in technology has made other areas relatively attractive, including defense.

Q. Which of these stocks do you like?

A. I look at things that have low expectations, or are perceived not to be doing well. I am focusing on three: General Dynamics, Northrop-Grumman and Boeing.

I like Northrop-Grumman because they are doing things with unmanned air vehicles and sensors, and there is a possibility they will make more B-2 bombers.

Talk of change has made people pessimistic about General Dynamics, but I don't think there will be much change in procurement of naval vessels or armored vehicles. The naval programs will be stable, and they are well hedged for change in the armored vehicle area.

As far as Boeing is concerned, its prospects are primarily tied to the commercial aircraft market, which accounts for about 60 percent of their business. But they are the leading company in ballistic missile defense.

Also, L-3 could potentially do very well in this environment. They have an electronics focus and a commercial focus as well.

Q. In the 1980's, when the Reagan administration budgeted huge amounts for the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Soviet Union was this country's obvious antagonist. Today's threats are much more diffuse.

A. The threat today isn't as obvious to hedge against as it was in 1980, but it is something the United States will have to hedge against in the future. I think missile defense will be a major research and development area.

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

The Bush Defense Agenda

February 18, 2001
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/18/opinion/18SUN1.html

In his first weeks as president, George W. Bush has given every indication that he intends to challenge several cold-war customs that still shape American defense strategy nearly a decade after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. This reassessment is long overdue. If executed in an enlightened fashion, it could clear away Pentagon cobwebs and launch a new era in the management of nuclear weapons and the development of novel military technologies. If mishandled, especially by rushing to construct unproven missile defenses, the effort could lead the nation into a new arms race with Russia and China.

Mr. Bush plans to order a reconsideration of two bedrock assumptions of cold-war military policy. One is that reductions in America's strategic nuclear arms should be limited to those specified in treaties that are painstakingly negotiated with Moscow. The other is that money spent on conventional weapons be used primarily to build on familiar technologies rather than to invent a new generation of weapons systems. There is good reason to take a fresh look at both practices.

Arms control treaties were necessary during the cold war to maintain a balance of power as Moscow and Washington first limited the growth of their nuclear arsenals and then started to make cuts. The treaties ensured that reductions could be verified by both sides. Arms control progress also eased superpower tensions. This page has vigorously supported those treaties and believes they must remain valid and should be fully implemented.

But the treaty process has been beset by problems, including protracted negotiations, limited goals and a long-running failure by both countries to honor the terms of the agreements. The most recent treaty, which was signed in 1993 and calls for 3,500 strategic warheads on each side, has never entered into force because of lingering disputes. As a result, Washington and Moscow today have more than 6,000 warheads apiece.

In a world with only one superpower, the United States, it may be possible to take a different approach that allows Washington and Moscow to act on their own to cut warheads more deeply and quickly. This can be done without undermining American security if Washington retains a sufficient number of weapons to deter or respond to a nuclear attack.

Mr. Bush has asked the Pentagon to tell him how many warheads it needs. Under this approach, American commanders will work out the size of the nuclear arsenal really required to carry out their targeting strategy. If that formula were applied today, Washington could reduce the number of warheads it fields to around 2,500 without any loss of deterrence. A new strategy review could reduce that number even further.

Even if Russia chose to reduce its numbers more slowly, Washington would still have the means to strike a devastating blow against Moscow's nuclear forces. In reality, with Russia strapped for the cash needed to maintain its nuclear forces, Moscow would likely match American reductions, as it did when Mr. Bush's father eliminated thousands of battlefield nuclear weapons in 1991. Under the treaties that would remain in effect, Mr. Bush or a future president could expand America's nuclear arsenal if changed conditions required it. Weapons design and manufacturing facilities should be kept ready for such a contingency.

But the entire equation of independent, mutually beneficial reductions could easily be undone at the outset by an American drive to build a missile shield. Research and testing are warranted to develop defenses against the kind of limited missile attack that could someday come from nations like North Korea, Iran and Iraq. But aiming for a more ambitious system, and pressing ahead with construction without negotiating a revision of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Moscow, would likely provoke Russia and China to build new missiles and warheads. The Bush administration's unconcealed contempt for the ABM treaty is a dangerous prelude to discarding an agreement that has stabilized nuclear competition by limiting missile defenses. Mr. Bush and his aides must be mindful that their desire to erect a costly missile shield could undermine their other defense initiatives.

One of those initiatives is Mr. Bush's idea for revamping America's conventional weapons. The last comprehensive revolution in military technology came during the Eisenhower era, more than 40 years ago. During that period, the United States developed compact nuclear warheads, long-range missiles, nuclear-powered submarines and surface ships, and photo-reconnaissance satellites. Stealth airplanes were designed 25 years ago.

Equally revolutionary advances can be achieved in the years ahead, if the Pentagon redesigns its weapons procurement system to emphasize the development of new technologies. Some replenishment of existing weapons is required, but the military services are inclined to pour acquisition funds into incrementally improved versions of current airplanes, tanks and ships rather than look over the horizon at radically new ideas. That tendency was one reason Dwight Eisenhower instructed the Central Intelligence Agency to develop new reconnaissance airplanes and satellites, instead of leaving the work to the Pentagon.

The Bush administration deserves public and Congressional support for taking up the challenge of nuclear cuts and new weapons technology. It should not let wishful missile defense timetables divert its energies from these vital tasks.

---

Getting More Bang for the Armed Forces Buck

February 18, 2001
New York Times
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/18/weekinreview/18MYER.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON -- AFTER a decade of post-cold-war downsizing, there is broad agreement in Washington that the Pentagon needs more money. Some say a few billion dollars, others $100 billion more a year. Details aside, defense spending seems headed up.

President Bush, however, has temporarily put the brakes on major spending increases by asking a simple question: Why and how is the United States already spending some $300 billion on defense every year? To get an answer, the president asked Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld to conduct a complete review of the military's strategy, structure and weapons.

In a speech last week at the sprawling naval yard in Norfolk, Va., as part of his "national security week," Mr. Bush spoke of "a revolution in the technology war." He challenged Mr. Rumsfeld "to challenge the status quo as we design a new architecture for the defense of America and our allies."

How new Mr. Bush's military will be remains to be seen. But his approach, which seems to have surprised even his own party, may at least provide a hearing for those who believe America needs to revolutionize the way it goes to war.

Presently, the military is required to be able to fight and win two major regional wars simultaneously. This "two war" strategy took shape a decade ago, when Mr. Bush's father was president, Dick Cheney was secretary of defense and Colin L. Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Gordon Adams, a professor at George Washington University who served at the Office of Budget and Management during the Clinton administration, calls this strategy "a set of manacles that make it impossible to consider anything but the status quo."

Michèle A. Flournoy, who recently headed a study at the National Defense University on the subject, agrees, adding that the strategy is outdated because of its focus on traditional ground battles of the sort the nation has fought in the Persian Gulf and on the Korean Peninsula. Future wars, she said, are far more likely to emphasize air and sea power. Armored divisions won't much help defend Taiwan against Chinese missiles fired across the Strait of Taiwan, for example.

But revolutionizing the armed forces would mean defeating the nation's most determined foes of revolution: the armed forces and their allies. Members of Congress will fight to the death for weapons programs in their own districts, just as the services will resist upsetting the delicate funding balance between them.

Cindy Williams, the editor of "Holding the Line: U.S. Defense Alternatives for the Early 21st Century" (The MIT Press), noted that over the past 10 years, the armed services have maintained nearly the same percentage of the defense budget. She called this compact, referring to the location of the Pentagon, "the Treaty of Northern Virginia."

Contributors to her book, a diverse group of seven defense experts, argue that it is possible to hold annual defense spending at about $300 billion over the next decade (more than the estimated combined spending of Russia, France, Japan, China, Britain and Germany), and invest in new weapons.

Billions could be saved every year, they said, by reducing the nation's nuclear stockpile, relying on allies for more weaponry and troops, and reforming the Pentagon bureaucracy. But beyond that, the writers often seem to be touting the virtues of their chosen service branch.

Owen R. Cote Jr., an associate director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Security Studies Program, believes the future United States military should rely on naval forces, in part because American forces will have less access to bases overseas from which to launch aircraft or ground troops - either because of political sensitivities or enemies' ability to threaten them with longer range missiles, or both.

The U.S. Navy, with no real rival, would remain roughly its present size, with more than 300 ships. But Mr. Cote would place more cruise missiles on nuclear- powered attack submarines and develop new generations of "land attack" missiles for subs and other ships.

In his view, Army forces are either too bulky to move quickly or too light to withstand an enemy on its own territory, so Mr. Cote would cancel two of its biggest projects (the Crusader mobile artillery system and the Comanche helicopter), cut divisions and eliminate the National Guard's combat role. The Air Force would concentrate on long-range bombing.

IN stark contrast, James T. Quinlivan, a senior analyst at the Rand Corporation, a private research group, would maintain the central role of the Army. Only it can occupy another country, he writes, and "However rarely executed, the ultimate threat of `our flag over their capital' is a tool that must be available to U.S. leaders."

Mr. Quinlivan would eliminate two of the Navy's 12 aircraft carriers, slow the development of a new attack submarine and downsize both the Marine Corps and the Air Force.

Karl Mueller, a professor at the Air Force's School of Advanced Airpower Studies in Alabama, opts for air power, which "reduces the risks of U.S. casualties by placing fewer U.S. troops in harm's way."

Mr. Mueller would reduce the Army's combat forces by 30 percent, and cancel most of its new weapons systems. The Navy would lose three aircraft carriers and both it and the Marine Corps. would suffer aircraft fleet reductions.

These proposals illustrate the fundamental obstacle to reforming the military: the fact that it isn't really a unitary force, so much as a rivalrous group of them.

Nonetheless, Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld envision a high-tech military, with highly expensive new weapons. The military wants them, too, but will be unable to pay for them and maintain the status quo. Money, then, may force the restructuring that nothing else could.

As Mr. Rumsfeld himself acknowledged, the present military was built for the cold war, not the threats of tomorrow.

"I approved the M-1 tank," Mr. Rumsfeld said on PBS's "Newshour" on Wednesday night, referring to his first stint as secretary of defense during the Ford administration. "I was at the roll out for the F-16 aircraft, and the F-15 was brand new, and I approved the B-1 bomber. That is all 25 years ago. These capabilities are what we have today in large measure. And they are good but they were designed for the cold war."

Tellingly, though, Mr. Rumsfeld demurred when asked if he would push for major change. "Well," he said, "time will tell."

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

Despite Fear, Deregulation Leaves Nuclear Reactors Working Harder, Longer and Safer

February 18, 2001
New York Times
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/18/nyregion/18NUKE.html?pagewanted=all

PLYMOUTH, Mass. - Last year, technicians at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station here found a problem they could not repair in a part of the electrical generator. They called General Electric, which built the part, but were told that that company's expert was moose hunting in Maine. In the old days, Pilgrim's managers would have notified their corporate parent, a Boston utility that did not operate any other reactors, and waited. But now Pilgrim is owned by the Entergy Corporation, a large power company with seven other nuclear plants, which is more eager - and able - to keep Pilgrim running.

Entergy found a specialist at another of its reactors, River Bend, in St. Francisville, La., and put him and his test equipment on a company jet, flew him to the airport in Provincetown and took him to the plant. Boston Edison did not have a company jet, or, more important, another reactor to draw experts from.

Entergy's dispatching the specialist is an example of a fundamental change that is coming to the way nuclear reactors are operated, one that regulators and safety advocates have feared for years. Until recently, the reactors were run by regulated utilities with little experience or aggressiveness in operations, and which make roughly the same amount of money whether the plants run poorly or well. Now, unregulated companies are buying and running the reactors, companies that satisfy shareholders and make money only if the plants run reliably and churn out as much electricity as possible.

Nuclear plants generate more than one-fifth of the nation's electricity and have the potential for accidents that can cause widespread disruption. So the question arises, are higher production levels consistent with safety?

The question is relevant in New Jersey, where Oyster Creek in Lacey Township was sold, and in Connecticut, where Millstone Point 2 and 3 in Waterford are being sold. In New York, Entergy, of Jackson, Miss., bought Indian Point 3, in Buchanan, and the James A. FitzPatrick reactor, in Scriba, Oswego County, from the New York Power Authority in November. By July, Entergy expects to close the sale of Indian Point 2 from Consolidated Edison. The two Indian Point plants are on the east bank of the Hudson River, 35 miles north of Manhattan.

In legal filings, Entergy said it was counting on operating the two Indian Point plants far more regularly than the previous owners, enough to generate 85 percent of the electricity that would result from round-the- clock, 365-day operation, a measure called capacity factor. But in interviews, company officials say they are aiming for well over 90 percent. Consolidated Edison struggled for years to reach 75 percent; the Power Authority's record was even worse.

Entergy's plans go further: the company will seek permission to raise the power output of each plant, and probably to extend their licenses beyond 40 years.

And they may run better. Reactors bought by companies that specialize in nuclear operations show better performance, as measured by such safety yardsticks as the number of unplanned shutdowns and the number of hours when safety equipment is out of service.

Seven years ago, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned that deregulation was creating an "incentive to cut corners." But now, the commission's administrator for the region that includes Pilgrim and the Indian Point plants said that so far, this did not appear to be happening, and that fear of financial failure, counterintuitively, had been good for safety.

"Most people have gotten the understanding if you do it right the first time, and you emphasize safety and managing things better, it has a positive effect on the bottom line," said Hubert J. Miller, the regional administrator. The commission has no interest in the profitability of the plants whose safety it regulates, he said, but has observed that smooth operations, with fewer component failures and fewer unplanned shutdowns, are elements of safety as well as reliability and profitability.

Even the nuclear industry's best- informed critic, David Lochbaum, the specialist on reactors with the Union of Concerned Scientists, agreed that reactors owned by a company holding only one or 2 might run better as part of a chain of 20, and that reliable operation can be consistent with safety.

"If you have good management, you can serve both masters," Mr. Lochbaum said. Companies that buy reactors may do a better job than the original owners, he said. While some people had the premise that "they're going to run these reactors until they melt down, take the decommissioning money and go somewhere else," he said, they may instead be trying "to protect their investment, which is good for public health and safety."

"If you have a caretaker owner, a nonattentive parent, that company isn't generally going to do as well as someone whose inkling is that nuclear power is their business future," he said.

Spencer Abraham, the federal energy secretary, said in an interview that if separate companies ran each of the nation's 103 operating nuclear plants, they might lack the expertise to do it well, but that companies that own multiple plants could pool expertise. Otherwise, he said, "at some plant, you're going to have the 103rd best person."

Certainly the companies buying reactors voice similar philosophies. "As a result of deregulation, I think safety is going to be a bigger issue," said Donald C. Hintz, the president of Entergy, "because not having safety issues is the ticket to get in the game. You're not going to be able to run at all if you are not running by the highest levels of safety."

Regulated utilities could spread their costs over captive ratepayers. But Mr. Hintz said in a telephone interview that for a company like his, with income only from the power it produces, it would be a greater financial risk to do "something stupid."

"You can't afford to have a long shutdown; you'll never recover," he said.

Not that his company walks on water; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposed fines of more than $500,000 against Entergy's reactors in the late 1990's, and complained that Arkansas Nuclear 1 had inadequately analyzed problems in a steam generator, the same flaw that felled Con Ed. But the company clearly has more nuclear expertise than the utilities it is buying from.

Entergy pools its expertise; managers of its three reactors in the Northeast hold a conference call at 10:30 a.m. every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and confer frequently with the other plants as well, company executives say.

Another company that is trying to specialize in reactors, Exelon, holds conference calls daily, and recently issued an annual report boasting that 8 of its 10 plants had capacity factors above 90 percent, with a reduction in low-level errors and incidents.

The drive toward reducing errors and component failures seems evident here at Pilgrim, a 29-year-old reactor that Entergy has owned for a year and a half. Entergy did not have a tough act to follow; when the reactor shut down in the spring of 1986 because of a mechanical failure, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ordered Boston Edison to keep it closed until management improved; that took until the end of 1988. In that sense, Pilgrim is not so different from the Indian Point plants, both of which have had shutdowns lasting for months.

Entergy is not set up to endure such long closures, and does not plan to have them.

Michael Bellamy, Entergy's vice president for the Pilgrim plant, said, "People understand they have to make a decision aimed at keeping us toward the center of the road, away from the shoulders." Operation is more conservative than it would have been under a regulated utility, which could survive a long shutdown, he said.

Operators have had to briefly shut the Pilgrim reactor three times since Entergy bought it, and the company points to its responses in those cases as examples of how it will run Indian Point better than the previous owners did.

On one of the occasions Pilgrim shut down, a warning light in the control room alerted operators to a low oil level in a pump that circulates water in the reactor. Engineers pondered the problem. Annoyingly, the light indicated only that the oil had fallen below a certain level, and did not tell them how much was left or whether the level was still declining.

Fixing the leak or putting in more oil would require shutting the plant down for days, with a revenue loss of about $500,000 a day; perhaps they should just wait to see if the plant started vibrating, before shutting the reactor, and hope that it lasted until the next stop for refueling.

But they decided that the pump might fail suddenly and trigger safety systems that would make the reactor shut down automatically, not a big risk but an undesirable outcome. So they stopped it, and then found that, in fact, the remaining oil would have lasted for months.

Longtime employees say Boston Edison would have done the same, but probably not what Entergy did next: set to work on designing a bigger oil reservoir and a more sophisticated monitoring system, so that the plant never has to shut again because of a similar uncertainty.

Mr. Bellamy is one of only three Entergy employees sent up to Pilgrim. The plant employs about 96 percent of the people who worked here under Boston Edison, although some of the holdovers are in different jobs now.

Engineers at the plant are not entirely happy; they are trying to form a union, because they say they lost pension benefits in the transition. But several said operations had improved with the transition.

"There are some benefits when we have a problem," said Paul D. Smith, who came to Pilgrim in 1969, three years before Boston Edison finished building it. "Now we all speak the same language, all the way to the top of the house." He noted that the entire corporate chain was now made up of nuclear specialists. Under the prior ownership, he said, "We were the only nuke in the house, and after it went to a certain level, it had to get translated."

Mr. Smith and others said they feared that Pilgrim might have developed a problem that Boston Edison could not have addressed, and the plant would have closed. Entergy has five reactors in the South, plus Indian Point 3, FitzPatrick and Pilgrim; it plans to add Indian Point 2 and is a likely bidder on Vermont Yankee and possibly Seabrook.

Seabrook, in Seabrook, N.H., and owned primarily by Northeast Utilities, a Connecticut company, would mark the ultimate reversal of the nuclear trend. It was built by 16 utilities, but could easily end up owned by a single company, as one of 16 or so reactors.

-------- colorado

Colorado

01/02//18
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm
`
Golden - Significant progress will have to be made in stabilizing discarded plutonium and shipping waste from Rocky Flats to meet the deadline to clean up the former nuclear weapons plant, a report says. Work in some areas is on track to meet the December 2006 deadline. But more work is needed to get waste packaged and shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, according to an assessment of Rocky Flats.

-------- kentucky

MAKING THE CASE
Bush must keep cleanup moving

Sunday, February 18, 2001
The Paducah Sun
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2001/nn11042.htm

Paducah, Kentucky If a recent news story is any indication, the bean counters in the Bush administration need a quick lesson in the history of federal nuclear facilities such as the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

And while they're reviewing this history, which records the exposure of plant workers to radioactive materials and the government's reckless disposal of many tons of contaminated waste, perhaps they should work on identifying the difference between frivolous and essential government spending.

We think money that is allocated to right a wrong the federal government committed - a wrong that damaged the environment and endangered the health of workers who put their trust in the government - falls into the latter category.

But a story that appeared in the Wall Street Journal last week suggests some in the Bush administration have a different view. Administration budget officials have targeted the cleanup program at former nuclear weapons facilities for major cuts, the Journal said.

This news isn't going down well with Congressman Ed Whitfield, who represents the First District, and Sens. Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning. We feel certain that, if necessary, they will educate the Bush team on the long political struggle that finally produced federal action on the cleanup of the uranium enrichment plant in Paducah.

In fairness, it should be stressed that the president has not yet released his proposed budget. We don't know whether or not his budget will recommend major reductions in funding for the Department of Energy.

The Wall Street Journal reported that officials in Bush's budget office want to trim $1 billion from DOE's budget, with $400 million coming out of the cleanup program.

According to the Journal, Spencer Abraham, the new energy secretary, opposes the cuts and wants to aggressively push the cleanup.

If a debate is going on within the administration about DOE funding - and we're inclined to believe there is, given that the Journal is a highly credible source - the president would be wise to listen to his energy secretary, not his budget advisors.

As a former U.S. senator, Abraham probably has gained a basic understanding of DOE's problems, most of which relate to credibility.

The agency lost credibility here in Paducah because, over a period of many years, it failed to adequately protect enrichment plant workers and the environment from the hazardous by-products of the nuclear weapons program.

Then DOE presided over a lackadaisical cleanup effort that went on for 12 years before a single drum of contaminated material was removed from the site.

The agency's credibility problem was aggravated by a combination of extravagant promises and lack of follow-up from Abraham's predecessor, Bill Richardson.

With Whitfield, McConnell, Bunning, community leaders, plant union officials and Gov. Paul Patton all pressing for action, DOE finally got the plant cleanup moving last year.

As Whitfield and eight other congressional representatives noted in a letter sent to Abraham, the cleanup is now in a critical phase. The Bush administration needs to increase funding for the cleanup, not cut it. Otherwise, it may take several decades to repair the damage the federal government did in Paducah and other areas where nuclear weapons facilities were located.

The federal government has a moral responsibility to these communities to deal with the plants' legacy of radioactive contamination. In our view, this is not optional spending - it's obligatory.

On a less idealistic level, Kentucky's congressional delegation surely will remind Bush that he carried this state on his way to his razor-thin victory in the Electoral College. If Bush fails to follow through on DOE's commitment to the Paducah cleanup, he will suffer political consequences in western Kentucky.

Administration officials should keep in mind, too, that this state's Democratic governor may decide to pursue a lawsuit to force the federal government to clean up the plant grounds. Gov. Patton threatened to use that option against the Clinton administration.

If Bush and Congress don't produce the needed funds, Patton probably wouldn't hesitate - nor should he hesitate - to take the feds to court.

Sen. McConnell says he wants to meet with Bush to discuss funding for the Paducah cleanup. We expect that McConnell will help the president avoid a serious misstep on an issue of great importance here and in other areas of the country where the federal government has failed to live up to its obligations as the overseer of the nuclear weapons program.

-------- ohio

Brush douses fire; EPA smolders
Handling of accidents perturbs state agency

Feb 18, 2001
Toledo Blade
BY TOM HENRY BLADE
http://www.ohiocitizen.org/campaigns/prevention/brush/douses.htm
http://www.ohiocitizen.org/campaigns/prevention/brush/douses.htm

ELMORE - The second accident in three days occurred yesterday at the Brush Wellman plant here, this time a fire inside the facility.

And like Thursday's accident, when a chemical reaction in a 55-gallon barrel caused a 100-foot-wide plume of beryllium-tainted smoke to waft through a residential area, the company did not immediately notify the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

Yesterday's fire occurred at 3:15 p.m. near a melting furnace, where a slight crack allowed molten metal to drip on floor paint, said Larry Chako, Brush environmental and utility services manager.

"It was just a tiny fire. It was out in a matter of minutes," he said.

The plant's emergency response team extinguished the blaze.

The Ottawa County sheriff's office put Elmore volunteer firefighters on standby in case the fire spread.

Workers were evacuated temporarily from the building where the fire occurred because many metals heated at the plant contain trace amounts of beryllium - a metal linked to a deadly lung disease.

If any beryllium was released, it was quickly trapped by the building's air filters. Workers were sent back in when the blaze was extinguished because indoor air tests showed no beryllium present, Mr. Chako said.

State environmental regulators view the two events as proof that the company has gotten lackadaisical about communicating with them.

Jeff Steers, assistant chief of the Ohio EPA's district office in Bowling Green, said he plans to take up the matter with Brush.

Even if no laws were broken, the company needs to improve its notification procedures and open up access to agency inspectors, Mr. Steers said.

On both occasions, Brush's primary contact has been with the sheriff's office.

The company believes it is obligated to call state and federal regulators only when there is a "reportable quantity" of a substance released, Mr. Chako said.

For smaller incidents, the company contacts the sheriff's office under a countywide emergency plan, which calls for the sheriff's office to notify the Ohio EPA and other agencies, Mr. Chako said.

Mr. Steers said the company, to be a good corporate citizen, should take it upon itself to notify the Ohio EPA whenever there is an accident - regardless how big or small.

"We are charged with protecting human health and the environment," he said. "We'll make the call on when we should respond."

Regulators are perturbed about the company's decision to limit access to one of their inspectors Thursday, Mr. Steers said.

Mike Czeczele, supervisor of the Ohio EPA's emergency and remedial response unit in Bowling Green, responded to the accident - but found out about it only because he happened to be listening to a police and fire scanner, said Heather Lauer, Ohio EPA spokeswoman.

Mr. Czeczele, a volunteer for the Elmore fire department, is trained to use a self-contained breathing device, Mr. Steers said.

Brush allowed him onto its property, but did not let him into the contained area where the chemicals were vaporizing. The company claimed safety reasons: Mr. Czeczele did not have his own respirator and did not have medical clearance to use one from the company, Mr. Chako said.

That explanation didn't sit well with Mr. Steers, one of Mr. Czeczele's supervisors.

"There's still unanswered questions how all this happened," Mr. Steers said. "We want to make sure there's not a repeat of this."

Beryllium is a metal used to make nuclear weapons.

Seven homes southwest of the plant were evacuated as a precaution after Thursday's event, because of trace amounts of beryllium in the plume. Exposure to even small amounts of beryllium dust can cause a chronic, fatal lung disease.

Officials are still trying to figure out what caused the chemical reaction. Test results on the container are expected to be completed tomorrow, Mr. Chako said.

"We still don't know why [the 55-gallon drum] did what it did," he said.

-------- tennessee

ATOMIC RESEARCH CASTS SHADOW ON TENNESSEE TOWN
RESIDENTS SUE U. OF C., OTHERS FOR ILLNESSES

February 18, 2001
Tribune Higher Education Writer
By J. Linn Allen
http://www.chicago.tribune.com/version1/article/0,1575,SAV-0102180396,00.html# top</A>

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. Gently fingering his operation-scarred neck, Steve Heiser considered how his damaged health was seemingly linked to a war fought years before he was born.

"They didn't only drop the atom bomb on Japan," he said, keeping up a smile even as his soft, twangy voice faltered. "It dropped here too, but it didn't explode--it just opened up."

Shades of the past are rising from the rippling East Tennessee hills around the nuclear weapons and research complex in Oak Ridge, spreading out to Chicago and elsewhere around the country.

Heiser, 49, who had his thyroid removed after being diagnosed with cancer about four years ago, is suing the University of Chicago and other contractors involved with the Oak Ridge operations that helped create the first atomic bombs and still continue today to work on weapons and do nuclear research.

He is part of a new class action suit that claims contaminants released from the Oak Ridge plants--radioactive iodine in particular--sickened people in a broad area extending for miles around.

A few miles away, Fannie Ball, 60, also a victim of thyroid cancer, wheezed as she spoke of noxious fogs settling on her neighborhood and of the strange smell of the creek where her children played.

Ball is suing the University of Chicago and other contractors in a separate action, claiming that racial discrimination caused African-Americans to be isolated in a section of Oak Ridge called Scarboro that was particularly exposed to contamination.

The black community is nestled against a ridge that separates modest, squat homes from an atomic weapons plant, only a half mile away, that government documents say has poisoned the water and air in past years. Scarboro is closer than any other area of town to the factory.

Along with the University of Chicago, the two class action suits, filed last month in federal court in Tennessee, target a roster of some of America's top corporations involved at Oak Ridge over the years.

In some ways the suits seem to be a complaint against history itself--against World War II, against the atomic era, against the segregated society of the South half a century ago. But to the victims of disease, the issues are anything but abstract: They are sick, they blame the people who ran the complex, and, in Ball's words, they want "recognition and compensation."

The suits stem in part from the Clinton administration's moves in recent years to open up the annals of the nation's nuclear weapons programs, long shrouded in secrecy.

Recently the government released a list of sites--including the University of Chicago and other area locations--where workers on hush-hush projects may have been exposed to toxic and radioactive materials.

The Oak Ridge suits are being filed largely in reaction to a federally underwritten Tennessee state study that came out last year, which itself was sparked by releases of data early in the Clinton years. The study said pollutants from the complex could well have caused abnormally high rates of cancer and other diseases, though there is no ironclad evidence to show that they did.

A challenging case

Winning the suits likely will be tough. Linking the plaintiffs' sicknesses directly to the Oak Ridge contamination will be difficult, and in any case, the defendants typically would have had clauses in their government contracts exempting them from liability. Oak Ridge has been a government-funded enterprise from the beginning.

But the plaintiffs are represented by law firms around the country experienced in suits over radiation poisoning, and the attorneys are well aware of such contract clauses.

The University of Chicago's involvement starts in the frantic months in the early 1940s when America was racing Nazi Germany to build the weapon that could determine the outcome of World War II.

After scientists led by Enrico Fermi created the world's first controlled chain reaction in 1942 on the Hyde Park campus, the Army began a Herculean building program on a 59,000-acre site in Tennessee to construct facilities to produce enriched uranium and plutonium for the bomb. Two other centers for what was called the Manhattan Project were at Los Alamos, N.M., and Hanford, Wash.

The Army persuaded a team of University of Chicago scientists to operate the first pilot plutonium plant at Oak Ridge, although the scientists would have preferred to do the work at what became Argonne National Laboratory near Lemont instead of in the backwoods 500 miles from their campus.

Laboring day and night, the scientists and thousands of construction workers got the plant, called X-10, up and running in only nine months. It began producing plutonium from irradiated uranium in November 1943.

At the plant's center was a graphite reactor, designed and operated by the University of Chicago team, that still stands today as an attraction for visitors to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The University of Chicago withdrew as the contract operator in 1945--about a month before the first atomic bomb was dropped on Japan--and the management was taken over by Monsanto Corp., one of a series of operators at the Oak Ridge complex over the years.

Though the university relinquished its oversight more than 55 years ago and contamination from the X-10 plant and two others (which the school didn't supervise) called K-25 and Y-12 has occurred over a long time, the institution is central to the case, contends one of the plaintiff's attorneys.

"They committed the original sin," said George Barrett, a Nashville lawyer who has successfully sued Vanderbilt University in an unconnected case involving radiation poisoning.

The university was in charge when the X-10 plant began running, and it was there when black workers were originally put in segregated compounds, Barrett said.

There is little doubt that the Oak Ridge complex posed a possible health risk to its workers and area residents from the very beginning. The seven-year, $14 million study released last year by the Tennessee Department of Health stated flatly that "environmental contamination of the region by the U.S. government's industrial operations on the Oak Ridge Reservation has occurred since 1943."

The study homes in on airborne radioactive iodine, intentionally released from X-10, and mercury from the Y-12 weapons plant as the substances most likely to have affected the health of people living around the complex.

Radioactive iodine tends to concentrate in the thyroid gland, and the study concluded that up to 150 cases of thyroid cancer beyond the normal rate may have occurred because of the Oak Ridge pollution. There have been no epidemiological surveys to determine the actual number of cases that have occurred, however.

In addition, the study estimated that 350,000 pounds of mercury were released from 1950 to 1982, mostly into a creek that runs through the Y-12 site and then ambles not far from the Scarboro community.

A visible contamination

Children from Scarboro as well as other areas used to swim and play at the creek during those years, residents say. The study said central nervous system and kidney damage could have resulted from that kind of exposure. It added that fish from waterways that the creek fed into could have damaged fetuses carried by women who ate significant amounts.

The mercury so saturated the Scarboro area that residents almost treated it as part of the natural environment, they said. "The kids caught it in bottles, and you saw these little bubbles and beads and stuff," said R.L. Ayres, a 77-year-old Scarboro plaintiff who has lived there since the first houses were built in the early 1950s.

Even today, Scarboro children get sick at an alarming rate. A 1998 survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a third of the community's children have potentially severe respiratory problems. Some 13 percent have been diagnosed with asthma, compared with a national average of 7 percent.

"Had we not been put over here, we'd have a better chance of not getting the first dose of everything," Ball said.

Black workers who had been segregated in huts during the war were given the Scarboro area to live in starting in the early 1950s. It was located in a valley previously containing trailers for whites.

The University of Chicago's policy is not to comment on pending litigation, but Alvin Weinberg, a Chicago scientist who led the design team for the first Oak Ridge reactor, called it "ridiculous" to connect the school with segregation of blacks.

University scientists basically did what the government told them to do, said Weinberg, 85, who became director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory after the war and still lives in the town.

"It was a Southern, segregated town, and the Army wasn't interested in social experiments," he said. In any case, no one at the time thought the area that became Scarboro would be contaminated, he said. "What they were mainly interested in was winning the ---damn war. That's something people lose sight of," he said.

Both Ball and Heiser, however, said they appreciate the crucial work that went on at Oak Ridge but are angry at being kept in the dark about the risks for decades afterward. "Any of us would have worked for our country, because they needed us, but they could have told us after the war," Ball said.

The lawsuits charge that the Oak Ridge managers failed to warn the public about the dangers of radioactive and other harmful emissions. The U.S. Department of Energy began to declassify information on the problem in the early 1990s, though contamination warnings were posted on waterways around Oak Ridge about 10 years before that.

A `haunting' backdrop

Heiser, who grew up about 10 miles east of Oak Ridge and has always lived in the area, said the plants were "always there, haunting everybody" because of vague fears about radiation.

But when he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 1997, he said he didn't make the connection because--unlike so many in surrounding counties--he hadn't worked there. The doctors asked him whether he ever had radiation treatments for acne or excessive dental X-rays, he said.

It was only when the state study came out detailing risks from the radioactive iodine emissions that he came to believe Oak Ridge was responsible for the event that he said has changed his life and put him into "a different category."

He is undergoing regular medical treatment, is weaker than he used to be and suffers sudden chills, he said. A mechanic who has been athletic all his life, he continues to play softball and basketball, "but I'm good for just so much. It's like a light switch going off," he said.

His wife, Darlene, 46, a lifelong area resident who also is a party to the suit, said doctors say she has an enlarged thyroid, though she hasn't been diagnosed with cancer.

In addition to money damages, their suit asks for an admission of wrongdoing, a public apology and a court-supervised fund to pay for medical and biological monitoring of people who may have been affected. It also seeks a fund for scientific research on the issues involved.

Ball, who became disabled and stopped working at Oak Ridge in 1989, takes 14 pills a day for asthma and diabetes as well as her thyroid condition, and she said she has been tested for lung and bladder cancer.

A Scarboro resident since 1954, she has a 42-year-old daughter who never worked at the Oak Ridge plants but who also has been diagnosed with thyroid problems, she said.

She doesn't know much about the University of Chicago, whose supervision at Oak Ridge ended long before she got there, but she said she believes the finger should point somewhere for Scarboro's ills.

"Whoever was here, whether it was Chicago or whoever, they should clean what they messed up."

--------

ORNL to produce plutonium-238 for space program

February 18, 2001
KNoxville News-Sentinel
By Frank Munger,
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/24038.shtml

OAK RIDGE -- Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been tabbed for a new role in the U.S. space program -- producing and processing plutonium-238 for power-generating systems aboard spacecraft -- but there's still the question of funding.

In one of his last acts before leaving office last month, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson signed the record of decision for the program to re-establish a domestic source of the nuclear material for space exploration. The notice was published in the Jan. 26 Federal Register.

For the past decade, the United States has supplied its needs by purchasing plutonium-238 from Russia. The current contract expires next year, and the existing U.S. inventory is expected to run out in 2005.

Based on plans approved by the U.S. Department of Energy, ORNL's High Flux Isotope Reactor would share the role of producing the plutonium -- along with a DOE reactor in Idaho -- and other Oak Ridge facilities would be used to extract and purify the plutonium-238 after it comes out of the reactors.

ORNL facilities also would be used to prepare the targets of neptunium-237, which are irradiated in reactors to create the plutonium isotopes.

"We're very anxious and very enthused," said Bob Wham, program manager at ORNL's Radiochemical Engineering Development Center, where the plutonium processing would be conducted.

Before that work can be done, however, the Oak Ridge lab must prepare two unused "hot cells" -- heavily shielded enclosures -- at REDC, which is adjacent to the High Flux Isotope Reactor.

The project to equip and configure the facilities for the plutonium work is expected to cost up to $40 million, and that money has not yet been approved by Congress. In fact, it's not clear at this point whether any money for the project will be included in the Bush administration's initial budget proposal for fiscal 2002. That budget is to be submitted to Congress in early April.

"We're crossing our fingers," Wham said. "There's a general sense that it will get support."

No timetable for plutonium production has yet been set, but if the United States wants to have a domestic supply available in 2006, or thereabouts, then preparations would need to begin in the near future.

Plutonium-238 is different from its highly fissionable nuclear sister, plutonium-239, which is used in nuclear weapons, but the two isotopes share the same dangers if ingested or, particularly, if inhaled. The radioactive material must be handled in sealed quarters to protect workers.

Oak Ridge workers will use remote manipulators to process and purify the plutonium in the hot cells, which have concrete walls 41/2 feet thick.

"The containment system is formidable," Gordon Michaels, the lab's nuclear technology chief, said recently.

Plutonium-238, which has a half-life of 87.7 years, is the isotope of choice for space missions because of its heat-producing capabilities. Some configurations can reach temperatures of 1,000 degrees Celsius, according to a DOE information sheet.

The plutonium role is expected to mean long-term work for about 70 people at ORNL.

Michaels said it would help solidify the lab's nuclear mission and provide "an interesting and challenging scientific operation" for the staff.

The plutonium work will not compete with existing research operations at the High Flux Isotope Reactor or interfere with other lab activities, officials said.

After Oak Ridge workers have extracted and purified the plutonium, the nuclear material will be shipped to Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico -- where it will be formed into pellets used in the space power systems.

The iridium cladding for the fuel pellets also is made at ORNL. That cladding is designed to protect the plutonium and keep it intact under almost any conditions, including a major explosion.

Frank Munger may be reached at 865-482-9213 or twig1@knoxnews.infi.net.

-------- utah

Toxic Utah: Mending toxic Utah
Environmental laws score hits - and misses

Sunday, February 18, 2001
Deseret News
By Jerry D. Spangler and Donna Kemp Spangler
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,255006829,00.html

Ignore the suffocating winter inversions for a moment, take a deep breath and consider what may seem improbable: The air in Utah is cleaner than it has been in decades.

Not only that, the water is safer to drink and the lands are less polluted.

As toxic as Utah's environment is, scientists are quick to point out that today's environment is better, in some cases far better, than it was two or three decades ago.

And they point to myriad environmental laws, most passed in the mid-1970s over the objections of industry, that established then-unprecedented limits on pollution. Those laws have been tweaked over the years, but they remain hallmarks of a radical shift in policy toward the environment.

"Personally, I believe most of the environmental legislation that passed, though I had concerns at the time, have proven workable," said U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, who participated in those environmental debates as a novice lawmaker in the early 1970s. "The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act are clear successes, and wilderness, too."

But there have been failures, too.

Superfund, the program designed to clean up the nation's worst environmental disasters, has helped lawyers more than the environment, insisted Hatch, R-Utah. And he's no fan of how the Endangered Species Act has been used to bludgeon private property owners.

"By and large, I think our environmental legislation has been on the plus side," he said.

Conservationists, while unified in their belief Congress hasn't done enough for the environment and has moved too slowly when it has, admit things are better than they were before passage of the 1970s laws.

But many conservationists wonder what the future holds. They are suspicious a new Republican administration may be too sympathetic to industry, and those fears are heightened by conservatives in Congress pledging major revisions to laws that have been hallmarks of environmental protection.

Voluntary compliance

The administration of environmental laws generally falls to state regulators under cooperative "primacy" agreements that allow for local enforcement. Those agreements mandate that states must have laws at least as stringent as the federal laws, but they can have tougher laws if they so choose.

Utah's approach has been simply to follow the letter of the federal law. "We don't have any indication there is a need (for stricter standards)," said Dianne Nielson, executive director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.

In recent years, Utah has taken a decidedly different approach to enforcement of environmental laws, one based largely on incentives that foster voluntary compliance.

"The best way (to achieve better environmental results) may not be to pass new laws but to work with business and industry to voluntarily make changes," Nielson said. One example of that, she said, is a successful state program that is cleaning up sites contaminated with hazardous materials.

Another example can be found at Magnesium Corp. of America's plant in remote Tooele County. Long labeled the nation's worst air polluter, according to the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory, the company voluntarily plans to add a new "sealed cell" production unit that is much cleaner than its traditional production technology. In doing so, it will set the standard for magnesium refineries.

"That's why Magcorp is such a positive story for us," said Stephen Packham, DEQ toxicologist. "Their new cells are going to be so efficient, reduce chlorine emissions 90 to 95 percent."

But rank-and-file regulators inside the department, while supportive of the voluntary programs, are nonetheless skeptical of a statewide regulatory system built too much around voluntary compliance with environmental law. Only rarely does DEQ impose civil penalties or fines for noncompliance.

When it comes to filing the appropriate public disclosures or reporting dangerous leaks and spills, there are laws requiring industry to take certain actions. But who's to say if the law is ever followed?

In most cases, "We rely on the honesty and goodwill of industry," said one DEQ scientist. "We could be doing a lot more."

The air we breathe

One area where the state could be doing more is air pollution, more specifically the fine particulates that seep deep into the lungs where they cause respiratory ailments, said Brigham Young University professor C. Arden Pope, a national expert on air pollution and its costs to public health and the economy.

"If Utah does as little as it can get away with, then I see it as a problem," Pope said. "If not, we'll continue to have this ugly pollution along the Wasatch Front, and it will get worse," he said.

A pending U.S. Supreme Court decision, expected later this year, could allow the EPA to set tougher fine particulate standards for all states. Currently, the EPA requires state regulators to measure the fine particulate matter that causes poor visibility and threatens public health.

The focus of the summer air pollution problem is ozone, a harmful chemical reaction caused mostly by car fumes and heat. In the winter, microscopic particulate matter known as "PM2.5" is a concern.

But as bad as this winter has been and last summer was, "Utah's air has been much better the last 10 years than it was before that," insisted Bob Dalley, state director of air monitoring.

"The last decade or so we've done a pretty good job," Pope agreed. "Things have improved, and the state deserves credit for it. But I don't think we can say we're done with it, that (the problem) is over."

Dalley agrees, warning it will get worse in the years ahead. "Because of urban sprawl, increased population and the increased distance we drive, sometime within the next 10-year period the trend of improvement we see will have switched," he said.

That predicted trend, which is not unique to Utah, is why state and federal regulators are pushing hard to promote cleaner-burning vehicles, more mass transit and cleaner industry.

The years ahead portend major changes as more and more environmental mandates are passed down from Congress or from federal agencies like the EPA. Critics of mandates claim these changes will come with steep costs to consumers and taxpayers.

For example, local governments are now grappling with how to comply with federal standards limiting the amount of polluted rainwater that is allowed into storm drains. And farmers, dairymen and feedlot operators are faced with tough restrictions on pollution from fertilizers and animal wastes that wash into local waterways.

And recently, the Clinton administration approved new regulations that are expected to cut air pollution from heavy-duty trucks and buses by more than 90 percent over the next decade.

The Bush administration has put those regulations on hold pending further review. But if the new federal standards are approved, it will require new large trucks and buses to meet stringent tailpipe emission limits and direct refiners to produce virtually sulfur-free diesel fuel.

It is a standard not unlike the lead-free gasoline requirement implemented more than two decades ago for most motorists. And like the lead-free gas regulation, the new diesel rules come with plenty of grumbling, mostly from the trucking industry that warns increased costs will inevitably be passed along to consumers.

But not everyone is crying the blues. Lynette Phillips, Utah Department of Transportation spokeswoman, said it's too early to tell exactly how the new legislation will affect the state. "If it does impact us, we'll have to deal with it," she said. "Anything that will help the environment, we're in favor of."

It's a gas

The diesel regulation could have positive effects beyond less sulfur in the air.

The higher costs of the sulfur-free diesel fuel could prompt companies, especially those with large fleets of smaller trucks, to look more at converting to natural gas vehicles, a much cleaner energy source that remains in relative abundant supply.

The state has aggressively used tax incentives to encourage businesses to convert their fleets to cleaner-burning fuels. A tax incentive law was amended in 1998 to allow for a $3,000 income tax credit on the purchase of new cleaner-burning fuel vehicles, and $2,500 for conversions. Several Utah businesses have converted their fleets, but the total number of vehicles burning compressed natural gas, propane or electricity remains comparatively small, only about 2,500.

However, the potential is huge. Utah has the fourth-largest compressed natural gas infrastructure (primarily refilling stations) in the nation, and that has state environmental quality officials hopeful. They see the shift to natural gas vehicles as a critical element in the state's compliance with tougher standards imposed by the federal Clean Air Act.

The state of Utah has already begun converting its own fleet of vehicles to compressed natural gas. Currently, 587 of the state's 6,697 light-duty vehicles are powered by natural gas, said Steve Saltzgiver, director of the Division of Fleet Services. With the exception of law enforcement vehicles, three-fourths of all replacement vehicles purchased by the state this budget year will burn alternative vehicles, part of the state's compliance with the federal Energy Policy Act.

With all the progress being made, the trend toward cleaner vehicles has not yet moved into the marketplace or public consciousness. It is still extremely difficult topurchase a private car that burns natural gas.

That example highlights a major complaint by Utah environmentalists: It simply isn't easy for average citizens to engage in environmentally sound practices. Even something as simple as voluntary recycling is difficult here given the cost of simply burying trash vs. recycling it.

Making a difference

Conservationists rue the fact that Utahns in general pay little attention to environmental concerns. And people invariably trust environmental and health officials to ensure the air is not dangerous, that the water they drink is not contaminated.

They leave the tough fights to environmentalists, but they rarely get actively engaged themselves.

Consequently, Utah's home-grown environmental movement languishes somewhere between indifference and ineffective. It is comprised of small single-focus groups usually consisting of a handful of dedicated volunteers without funding or political savvy.

When it comes to fighting for state funding for health studies of cancer clusters or tougher state pollution standards, they typically find themselves no match for high-powered industry lobbyists. And Utah's pro-industry Legislature has been anything but sympathetic, they say.

Proposals to encourage recycling through deposits on soft drinks or to require state agencies to use recycled materials have received chilly responses from lawmakers loath to impose any environmental mandates no matter how worthy.

But that's not to say citizens haven't made a difference. It was citizen activists who led the battle for two decades to win compensation for victims of Cold War nuclear testing and uranium mining.

Another group, Citizens Against Chlorine Contamination, recently hounded environmental regulators to do something about Magcorp's chlorine pollution. And members also pushed for dioxin testing at the Tooele County plant. With the EPA breathing down its smokestacks, the company relented.

People can make a difference, said Chip Ward, a Grantsville activist who wrote about the Magcorp case in his book, "Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West."

"People often wonder if they can made a difference against seemingly insurmountable odds," he said. "The Magcorp story illustrates that they can, and it underlines the powerful relationship between the vitality of a community's civic environment and the health of its natural environment.

"Chalk one up for citizen activism. Commitment and determination pay, and winning feels good."

But by and large, Utah's environmental voice has been scarcely a whisper. When it comes to battling for tougher environmental laws, Utah activists have typically joined with politically powerful allies like the Sierra Club. And the battlefield has typically been in Washington, D.C., not Utah. And the results have been national policies, not solutions to local problems.

Chip Ward likens the public apathy toward environmental problems to the proverbial frog in a pan of boiling water. Add the frog to water already boiling and it will immediately jump out. Put the frog in cold water and then raise the heat to boiling and the frog will cook to death.

Utahns, Ward says, are the frogs in a pan, and the water is getting hotter and hotter.

-------

Capping of tailings site halted
Trustee for Atlas says wildlife agency won't let it continue the job

Sunday, February 18, 2001
Deseret News
By Donna Kemp Spangler
http://deseretnews.com/dn/staff/card/1,1228,131,00.html
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,255006938,00.html

The trustee for the bankrupt Atlas Corp. has packed its bags and gone home.

PricewaterhouseCoopers had been working to put a soil cap over the 130-acre pile so the radioactive dust wouldn't blow into nearby communities. But Keith Eastin, financial director for PricewaterhouseCoopers, said he has suspended all operations in light of a letter he received from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The FWS said in the Feb. 8 letter that it was withdrawing a "biological opinion" issued in 1998 that had permitted PricewaterhouseCoopers to do work within the critical habitat of endangered fish in the Colorado River.

"We can't do anything," said Eastin. "And I don't understand why (FWS) is doing this now." Things have changed since the opinion was issued, FWS officials said, and the trustee is overreacting.

For instance, Congress has passed legislation that would transfer ownership of the 13 million tons of radioactive waste to the U.S. Department of Energy and remove the contaminated tailings from the banks of the Colorado River.

But until then, PricewaterhouseCoopers should continue with its reclamation efforts, such as preventing erosion and reducing the dust, the FWS says.

The tailings are allowing about 19,000 gallons of contaminated water to leak each day into the Colorado River and releasing radioactive radon gas into the air.

And Henry Maddux, field supervisor for the FWS's Salt Lake office, said maintenance work can still be done without harming the endangered Colorado pikeminnow and razorback sucker.

"We're not going to put our fish in front of human safety," said Maddux. "I think they are overreacting by taking their ball and going home."

Grand County Council Chairwoman Kimberly Schappert agreed.

"What they were doing was not the intent of the legislation," Schappert said. "It was never the intent to be capped. . . . When Keith Eastin says (FWS) is shutting them down, that's baloney."

Eastin asked the federal government for permission to pursue a long-term remedy that calls for draining the pile and capping it with materials to prevent precipitation from leaching additional contaminants into the river.

FWS granted the trustee a permit that exempted it from provisions of the Endangered Species Act. The Grand County Council and the environmental group Grand Canyon Trust sued the FWS over its decision.

FWS officials repeatedly warned PricewaterhouseCoopers of the need to revisit the issue, but the trustee "ignored us," Maddux said.

Eastin responded that his company has spent $700,000 on studies that suggest the contamination is less-threatening than what government studies had shown.

Regardless, Schappert believes PricewaterhouseCoopers has left the site in a bigger mess.

"They've done a lot of dirt moving that didn't need to be done," she said. "We're now left with a pile of dirt that will blow this spring and kick up airborne contaminants and erosion from the wind and water."

E-mail: donna@desnews.com

---

Learning from a toxic legacy

Sunday, February 18, 2001
Deseret News
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,255006676,00.html

From the perspective of 2001, Utahns may not appreciate the near hysteria that gripped the nation during the early years of the Cold War. The Soviet Union had to be stopped at all costs, and America constantly had to build bigger, more lethal weapons to combat the threat.

But even when those realities are processed through the dim lenses of memory and brought into a clearer light, it is hard to justify the deliberate lies that allowed the federal government to literally sacrifice the health of thousands of unsuspecting Utahns and Nevadans in the name of victory.

There were indeed lies, from people who should have known better. That much is clear.

In the eight-part series that ends today, the Deseret News has catalogued this history of deceit, which ultimately led to a legacy of death, poison and contamination in Utah that now extends beyond the government and into private industry. Along with it, quite naturally, comes a legacy of mistrust. Many Utahns believe a government that told deadly lies once may very well do so again.

More importantly, however, the series has put a human face and breathed emotions, passions and tears into an issue that may have been treated all too clinically in the past. The government's many above-ground tests of nuclear weapons in the 1950s and '60s caused cancer in thousands of Utahns who were good citizens living normal lives. In some cases, entire families, even extended families, suffered horrific and painful illnesses and death.

Their children swam in ponds that were contaminated by wind-blown fallout. They ate vegetables grown in gardens that were watered by irradiated water and swept by the lingering plumes of nuclear blasts. They breathed it, ate it, drank it - literally were engulfed by it.

The true value of a series like this is the lessons it offers. The first is that the federal government owes these victims a great debt. Congress, with the help of Utahns like Sen. Orrin Hatch, has approved compensation for many of these sufferers, but the government has run out of money and now has $20 million in unpaid claims. In a time of surplus, that is inexcusable.

The other lesson is that Utah must do more to counter the current threats. Credible surveys list Magnesium Corp., located in the West Desert, as the nation's No. 1 polluter. Meanwhile, other private companies accept various levels of toxic and radioactive wastes for storage in the state.

Finally, the Goshute Indian Tribe is trying to win approval to store spent nuclear fuel rods on its reservation. They must be stopped. Utah cannot afford to perpetuate the legacy of waste and poison. The state is too beautiful, and its people are too precious.

---

Where to get more information on toxic issues

Sunday, February 18, 2001
Deseret News
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,255006828,00.html

Here are phone numbers and Web addresses that may be helpful to readers wanting to know more about Utah's toxic past, present and future:

Department of Justice Help Line: 1-800-729-7327

Environmental Defense Fund: www.scorecard.org

Families Against Incinerator Risk: 364-5110 or www.fair-utah.org

Marriott Library, University of Utah, Special Collections Department: 581-8863; www.lib.utah.edu/spc

Opposition to High Level Nuclear Waste: 366-0523 or www.deq.state.ut.us/HLW/Hlw_opp.htm

Private Fuel Storage: www.privatefuelstorage.com

Recycling Hotline: 974-6902

Utah Downwinders: www.downwinders.org

Utah Rivers Council: 486-4776


-------- MILITARY

Israel, US To Stage Joint Exercise

February 18, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Israel-US-Missiles.html

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli and American air defense forces will conduct missile launches during a five-day joint exercise in southern Israel this week, a spokesman for the Israeli army said Sunday.

The exercise, which starts Monday, was planned more than a year ago and is not related to the U.S. and British airstrikes Friday on Iraq, the spokesman said.

However, until Sunday the military had refused to comment on the joint exercise or even confirm foreign reports that it was to take place.

The announcement came after Iraq threatened to take revenge on Israel and the United States for the airstrikes south of Baghdad, which killed two people.

``We will teach the new American administration and the Zionist entity (Israel) lessons on Jihad (holy war) and steadfastness,'' the Iraqi government's official Qadissiya newspaper said in a front page editorial Sunday.

The official Iraqi news agency said Saddam has ordered the formation of a 300,000-man volunteer force charged with aiding the Palestinians and freeing Jerusalem from Israeli control.

The U.S.-Israeli exercise, called Juniper Cobra, is part of routine training to test ``interoperability of American and Israeli air defense systems,'' the military spokesman said.

The spokesman said U.S. forces will fire Patriot missiles during the exercise, and the cruiser U.S.S. Porter, which carries radar capable of detecting missiles as they approach Israel, which will be stationed off the Israeli coast.

About 400 personnel from the U.S. 69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade have arrived in Israel from Ansbach, Germany for the exercise, the spokesman said.

The United States deployed Patriot missiles in Israel during the 1991 Persian Gulf war after Israel was hit by Scud missiles fired from Iraq. They proved ineffectual, and 39 Scuds hit Israel cities during the war.

Patriot missiles returned to Israel in 1998, when Baghdad's obstruction of U.N. weapons inspections triggered a confrontation that ended with a brief U.S. and British air campaign against Iraq.

The announcement Sunday made no mention of the Arrow missile, which Israel developed with U.S. financial support after the war for defense against incoming ballistic missiles. So far, one Arrow battery has been deployed with what officials called ``initial operational capability.''

-------- burma/myanmar

Burmese Junta in Talks With Democracy Leader

February 18, 2001
New York Times
By SETH MYDANS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/18/world/18BURM.html?pagewanted=all

BANGKOK, Feb. 17 - The first sign that something unusual was going on was the disappearance of editorial cartoons pillorying Myanmar's pro-democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, as a "democracy princess," a "political stunt actress" and a "Satan of destruction."

Then the diatribes against her that have been a staple of the state-controlled press became more muted and indirect. Soon after that, newspapers stopped printing periodic announcements of forced "voluntary resignations" of members of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's political party.

"The papers are even less interesting now than they were, if you can imagine that," said a Western resident of Myanmar, formerly Burma.

During the last month the reason has emerged, and it has stirred a tremor of excitement among experts watching the long, sad political standoff in Myanmar, a police state.

For the first time since 1994, the military junta that runs the country has begun holding talks with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi. Both sides have suspended their war of words in a tentative period of what diplomats call confidence building.

Small convoys of government vehicles have been observed entering and leaving Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's home, where she has been confined for the last four months. Diplomats say she has been talking with top leaders of the junta who in the past refused to deal directly with her.

But beyond this, almost nothing is known: why the military government has decided to talk, what subjects are being discussed or where this new approach might lead.

Most experts agree, though, that there is still a clear bottom line. The military that has ruled Myanmar since 1962 and the current junta - in power since 1988 - have no intention of giving away or sharing any substantive power.

"At this point, the most we can expect is some loosening up around the edges," said Josef Silverstein, an expert on Myanmar who is an emeritus professor of political science at Rutgers University.

It is still possible that the talks are just a ploy to make the government appear flexible in the hope that international sanctions will be eased and foreign aid from countries like Japan will begin to trickle in again.

The United States and Europe have been squeezing Myanmar for years with political pressure and sanctions. The United States has banned new business deals there by American companies and refuses visas to Myanmar government officials. The European Union has scaled back contacts with an Asian regional grouping that includes Myanmar.

They are responding to the quashing of a democratic movement that swelled in 1988 with a peaceful nationwide uprising. Thousands of people were killed in massacres by the military.

Two years later, in a monumental miscalculation, the military held a parliamentary election in which Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won 88 percent of the seats. The junta quickly annulled the results and instituted an even more thorough political clampdown.

Late last year, it appeared that the government was determined to eliminate once and for all the National League for Democracy, jailing its members or forcing them to resign and isolating Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi from her supporters.

Now the government seems to have changed tack sharply. In its first substantive gesture, last month it released 85 members of the party who had been imprisoned during the last year. It is still believed to be holding as many as 1,700 political prisoners, including 35 people who were elected to Parliament in 1990.

The news has touched off a debate over whether the sanctions have caused this new softening.

If the talks are more than public relations, several factors may be at play, and economic pain appears to be chief among them. Myanmar's economy is a mismanaged shambles and getting worse, with inflation rising and the currency rapidly losing value, some of the last foreign investors pulling out and economic growth slowing to a crawl.

Monopolies run by the military and its cronies have skewed and sapped the economy. The World Bank recently described Myanmar as "trapped in abject poverty."

A European diplomat in Myanmar who has not supported sanctions said he had come to believe that they were decisive. One final straw, he said, was a recommendation last November by the International Labor Organization to its 175 member nations to reconsider doing business with Myanmar.

But other experts disagree.

"The difference in analyses is whether the sanctions were at the heart of the economic downturn and therefore of the willingness of the government to make concessions," said David I. Steinberg, director of Asian studies at Georgetown University, who visited Myanmar last month. "I say the sanctions played a minor part."

A parallel source of pressure has come from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the regional economic grouping that admitted Myanmar as a member in 1997 and has mostly pursued a policy of economic and political engagement.

The Asian financial crisis that same year dashed hopes in Myanmar for a surge in regional trade and investment. And the continuing political intransigence of the government has soured some of its neighbors on forging closer ties.

The push for a more flexible approach to the opposition may have come from Myanmar's strongest backer in the region, Malaysia, whose prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, visited early last month. Myanmar has become a liability to the 10-member Asean grouping, straining relations with Western nations and embarrassing the Malaysians who insisted on its admission.

More broadly, it may be that both sides, like a pair of exhausted boxers, are ready to seek a way out of their futile 12-year standoff.

Despite all its efforts, the military government is still reviled by much of the population, still struggling for legitimacy, beset by enemies on all sides, and by reported internal rifts.

It continues a seemingly endless battle against ethnic insurgencies and is so nervous about dissent that it has kept most universities closed for years.

The democratic opposition, ground down and unable to function openly, has won nothing, although it maintains high respect abroad and continues to draw young recruits into its ranks. It has come under increasing criticism for promoting sanctions and boycotts that have contributed to the hardships of the population and failed to force reforms.

A number of experts say that at least some members of the military government would like to compromise. The junta has said for years that it wants to shift to civilian government - though these civilians may mostly be military men in suits.

The trick is to find a way to loosen its grip without losing everything. The examples of Russia and Eastern Europe are not encouraging. And so the junta hangs on for dear life.

"Once you begin to pull that thread, the whole sweater can unravel," said Mr. Silverstein of Rutgers. "That's what the military is worried about."

-------- colombia

Colombian troops call for talks with protesters

02/18/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-02-18-colombia-blockade.htm

LIZAMA, Colombia (AP) - The leaders of massive protests blocking major highways in northern Colombia offered Sunday to lift the blockades if President Andres Pastrana agreed to meet with them and promised not to arrest them.

The offer came after Pastrana threatened to jail leaders of the blockades, the latest crisis in a nation tangled by a 37-year war involving leftist rebels, government troops and right-wing paramilitaries.

There was no immediate response from the government, which had warned it might move to disperse the demonstrators by force. The protesters oppose Pastrana's plans to cede territory in the area to a leftist rebel group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, in an effort to get peace talks going.

In a statement listing their demands, the protest leaders also requested the presence of a U.N. human rights envoy, an end to aerial fumigation of drug crops in the area, and security guarantees for thousands of protesters.

During a brief visit to the tense northeastern region Sunday, Pastrana said the protesters were being intransigent and threatened to start issuing arrest orders.

"They have resorted to de facto measures, but with de facto measures they are not going to get anything," the president said in comments to local RCN television.

On Saturday, Interior Minister Humberto de la Calle warned the protesters would be removed by force if they did not abandon the blockades.

But police and army commanders insisted on a negotiated solution to the standoff on the highways, which has strangled commerce between Caribbean port cities and the capital, Bogota, since Thursday.

"If force is used to clear the highways, the civilian population will get hurt - it would cause death and injury," army Gen. Martin Orlando Carreno said. "We must negotiate to get these people out."

Police Gen. Fortunato Guanarita added, "We must wait for a dialogue."

Pastrana flew Sunday with his peace envoy, Camilo Gomez, from Bogota to Barrancabermeja, 37 miles from the main highway blockade in the village of Lizama.

Authorities said Pastrana made the trip to observe an offensive against armed groups and cocaine-producing plantations in the area.

Some 3,000 protesters - many carrying sticks or machetes - milled around the highway Sunday at Lizama.

The demonstrators have strong links to a paramilitary group that is an enemy of the ELN and has massacred people it suspects of being rebel sympathizers.

Colombia's paramilitaries maintain covert ties with factions in the army and police forces. Leftist rebels have pressed Pastrana to take stronger action against the paramilitaries.

Some of the people blocking highways told journalists they had been forced to do so by the paramilitaries. Others said they came voluntarily because they fear the rebels will cause mayhem if they are given free reign over an enclave.

Speaking from a Medellin prison, a jailed guerrilla leader accused drug traffickers and paramilitaries of orchestrating the protests and assured residents in the area that would not happen.

"The communities should understand the benefits of this project," the ELN's Felipe Torres told Radionet Radio.

Pastrana ceded a southern enclave twice the size of New Jersey two years ago to a larger rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to spur peace talks.

-------- drug war

A Softer Way to Fight Drug Abuse

February 18, 2001
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/18/opinion/L18DRU.html

To the Editor:

Re "Antidrug Program Says It Will Adopt a New Strategy" (front page, Feb. 15):

The new antidrug strategy of DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) should consider an idea that I presented to the Glen Cove, N.Y., Board of Education recently: granting academic credit to any high school student who remains drug- free. Testing would be through the same non-invasive hair test already used by more than 1,600 companies.

What better way for parents, schools and students to overcome peer pressure and discourage drug use?

PHIL ENRIGHT Glen Cove, N.Y., Feb. 15, 2001 The writer is a member of the Glen Cove Board of Education.

To the Editor:

In California, whenever a draconian initiative is passed, the police, judges and district attorneys jump on it with vigor. Their feeling is that such laws, despite any warts, must be zealously enforced because they represent "the will of the people."

Yet the same people are now criticizing Proposition 36, overwhelmingly approved by California voters to provide treatment instead of prison for drug users (news article, Feb. 12). While these law enforcement officials assert that the law lacks financing, their real agenda is to undermine Proposition 36 because it eliminates the coercion they cherish.

Proposition 36, though not perfect, provides millions of dollars to finance treatment programs. It is a clear reflection of the voters' dismay with the failed "war on drugs." If those in the justice system devote their energies to making Proposition 36 work, the will of the people to reduce the scourge of drugs will be advanced.

KENNETH I. CLAYMAN Public Defender, Ventura County Ventura, Calif., Feb. 14, 2001


To the Editor:

Re "California Lacks Resources for Law on Drug Offenders, Officials Say" (news article, Feb. 12):

Drug treatment professionals have long asserted that coercion is a necessary part of addiction care. But research shows that coercion does not improve outcomes.

If we were really serious about treating addiction as a disease, the idea that any type of coercion was needed would be abhorrent. And if providers based their treatment on the research, they would find that empathy, respect and support lead to far better outcomes and greater engagement in treatment than do the traditional humiliation and confrontation.

MAIA SZALAVITZ New York, Feb. 13, 2001

---

States

01/02//18
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Nevada

Carson City - A bill reducing penalties for possession of marijuana has been introduced in the Legislature. Sixty-five percent of voters last November approved the ballot question to let doctors recommend marijuana for cancer, AIDS and other patients. However, state laws don't include a way to automatically implement their wishes.

South Dakota

Pierre - Students arrested for drugs would be able to get back into sports and other high school activities sooner under a bill sent to the Senate floor. Students competing in sports, music and other activities are less likely to get involved with drugs again, said Sen. Garry Moore, the sponsor.

-------- iraq

Baghdad Vows Retaliation

Sunday, February 18, 2001
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19097-2001Feb17?language=printer

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 17 -- Iraq threatened to retaliate for major U.S.-British airstrikes on its air defense system, while people in the street insisted today that the raids only increased their support for President Saddam Hussein.

Two people were killed and 20 were wounded in Friday night's missile attack on air defense and radar sites south of Baghdad, the official Iraqi News Agency reported. The dead were identified as Ghayda Atshaan Abdullah, a woman who died hours after the 9 p.m. attack, and Khalil Hameed Alwash, a man who died early today.

Two people are in critical condition, hospital officials said.

"The American administration claimed the strikes were in self-defense," the state-run newspaper Al-Qadissiya said today in a front-page editorial. "They are laughing at the world by telling such lies. Iraq was defending its skies from illegal American-British airstrikes.

"This crime will not go without strong punishment for the aggressive Americans," the paper added. It did not say how Iraq would retaliate.

Hussein met today with top aides to discuss the airstrikes and plans for retaliation in the event of a repeat attack, Reuters news service reported. The Iraqi News Agency said warplanes returned to Iraq this morning in what was apparently the first resumption since the raids on Friday.

The agency later reported that Hussein ordered the formation of 21 divisions, or about 300,000 men, to serve as the nucleus of a volunteer force whose declared aim is to free Jerusalem from Israeli control. Hussein charged on Friday that the airstrikes were aimed at diverting Iraq's attention from helping the Palestinians in their clashes with Israeli forces.

Baghdad appeared to be functioning normally today, but people expressed fear of more airstrikes. They also said they saw them as aimed not at Iraq's improved air defense capability, as the U.S. State Department said, but as an attempt to undermine Hussein.

-------- space

CONTROLLING THE WORLD'S ECONOMY FROM OUTER SPACE:
USA SPACE COMMAND

Sunday, February 18 2001
mai-not-digest
Karl Grossman
USA Space Command Site:
http://www.spacecom.af.mil/usspace

As last month's report of the "Space Commission" chaired by incoming Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld puts it: "In the coming period, the U.S. will conduct operations to, from, in and through space in support of its national interests both on the Earth and in space."

Star Wars is back....

And a key rationale for Star Wars now. U.S. military documents acknowledge, is the global economy of which the U.S. is the engine. The U.S. would, from the "ultimate high ground" of space, "dominate" the planet below in part to keep the global economy on track. Says the U.S. Space Command's "Vision for 2020" report , its cover depicting a laser weapon shooting a beam down from space zapping a target below: "The globalization of the world economy will also continue with a widening between `haves´ and `have-nots.´" From space, the U.S. would keep those "have-nots" in line....... U.S. citizens are not aware of the broad military plans of the U.S. But other nations of the world do understand. That´s why, at the United Nations last November 20, a resolution was introduced on which 163 nations voted yes for "Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space." Grossman notes that a country leading in the international effort to stop the U.S. plans by strengthening the Outer Space Treaty and barring all weapons from space is Canada. FYI- -janet

-------- u.n.

Veteran Diplomat Is Bush's Pick for U.N. Post

February 18, 2001
New York Times
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/18/world/18NATI.html

WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 - President Bush has selected John D. Negroponte - a three-time ambassador who has served in some of America's most sensitive diplomatic posts - to become the next ambassador to the United Nations, an administration official said today.

Mr. Negroponte, who served as ambassador to Mexico in the previous Bush administration, is a skilled bureaucratic infighter who speaks five languages and is close to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, under whom he served as a deputy on the National Security Council in the late 1980's.

He also once served as a deputy to Richard C. Holbrooke, the current ambassador, who called him "a superb professional diplomat" and eminently qualified for the job.

"If it's true that he has been selected, I think it is very good news for the United Nations and for the United States," Mr. Holbrooke said.

The Bush administration official, confirming that Mr. Negroponte had been offered the job and had accepted it, said his credentials and his new assignment were a natural fit. The announcement will be made officially after the routine and time- consuming process of formally vetting senior appointees is completed.

In a career of nearly four decades, Mr. Negroponte, 62, occasionally drew criticism, especially for his role in carrying out the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

As ambassador to Honduras between 1981 and 1985, Mr. Negroponte oversaw a military buildup that turned much of that country into a springboard and refuge for the anti- Sandinista rebels known as contras. Mr. Negroponte, who was occasionally referred to as the American proconsul, was criticized for using aid to buy Honduran compliance.

His nomination in 1989 to become ambassador to Mexico drew howls of protest from intellectuals and leftist political leaders, who were distressed by his holding of posts in Vietnam and Central America and his close ties to American intelligence agencies. Mexican newspapers dramatically pondered what dark purpose President Bush might have in appointing him.

But by the time he left the Mexico City post in 1993, he was widely praised for overseeing an important warming in relations as reflected by the North American Free Trade Agreement. He then served as ambassador to the Philippines for three years.

Mr. Negroponte, whose appointment requires Senate confirmation, would succeed Mr. Holbrooke, a voluble and flamboyant diplomat, who raised the profile of the United Nations position. As one of his last acts, Mr. Holbrooke succeeded in persuading Congress to release hundreds of millions of dollars in back dues to the United Nations after winning administrative reforms and a permanent reduction in the American dues. The two men are old friends, who were roommates in Saigon in 1964 and 1965.

It is unclear whether Mr. Negroponte, a behind-the-scenes negotiator, will maintain a similar profile to that of Mr. Holbrooke. While the position is the last major national security post to be filled, an administration official said earlier this week that it was "highly unlikely" that it would carry cabinet rank, as it did under President Clinton.

But Mr. Holbrooke said that does not matter. Indeed, he has long maintained that it is unnecessary to have cabinet rank for the job.

Mr. Negroponte, a Yale graduate, served as political officer in Saigon between 1964 and 1968, during the Vietnam War. Fluent in Vietnamese, he was the country expert at the side of Henry A. Kissinger during the Paris peace talks in the early 1970's.

Press reports said he viewed the terms of the incipient agreement to be so harmful to South Vietnam that he quietly resigned his position on the National Security Council and was reassigned to a post in Ecuador.

-------- OTHER

-------- environment

States

01/02//18
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Alaska

Juneau {ndash} The Senate approved a resolution urging President Bush to overturn the ban on logging and road-building in roadless areas of the Tongass and Chugach National Forests. Some Alaska officials condemned the federal government for violating the Tongass Land Management Plan, adopted after a decade of negotiations. Sen. Robin Taylor, R-Wrangell, said the ban will devastate communities that are already hurt by logging cutbacks on the Tongass.

Hawaii

Port Allen - A 20-foot baby humpback whale suddenly surfaced and leaped onto the back of a whale-watching boat, breaking the knee of a woman passenger. Sandra Gieb, a tourist, was sitting in the rearmost seats on the 40-foot catamaran when the 15-ton whale shoved its head over the back transom, said Doug Phillips of Na Pali Eco Adventures. It slipped back into the water.

Idaho

Hagerman - Property owners and local legislators want to create a new state park on southern Idaho's Billingsley Creek, renowned for its clear spring water and recreational opportunities. The proposed park would cover 300 acres along the creek that pours into the Snake River. The landowners want to sell the property to keep it from being developed.

Indiana

Evansville - Alcoa Warrick Operations will use a $500,000 federal grant to develop an energy-efficient way to smelt aluminum. If the three-year project is successful, officials say enough energy could be saved annually to heat 49,500 Indiana homes for a year. The technology will be used to reduce the creation of aluminum oxides and save about 60 million pounds of aluminum metal each year.

Maine

Lewiston - State representative Joe Brooks wants to keep Maine clean by putting a 5-cent refundable deposit on cigarettes. He's introduced a bill that would increase the price of a pack of cigarettes by $1, or 5 cents a butt. Smokers could redeem their deposits by bringing butts in batches of 20 to recycling and redemption centers.

New Mexico

Farmington - Wildlife officials say it's possible that endangered lynx may be wandering into New Mexico from Colorado. Trappers who accidentally catch the rare species are urged to release them. A biologist for the Department of Game and Fish suggests that hunters and trappers learn the difference between the federally protected lynx and the more common bobcat.

Texas

Clute - A study showed Brazoria County is meeting anti-pollution standards. Brazoria is one of eight counties ordered to comply with measures to reduce smog in the Houston area, which has violated federal air standards about 100 times in the past two years.

West Virginia

Parkersburg - Construction shouldn't disturb a pair of bald eagles nesting at Blennerhassett Island Historical State Park. Assistant Park Superintendent Joe Sizemore said the arrival of the two eagles and their nest near the sternwheeler landing won't hurt plans to build a gift shop and ticket booth on the island.

---

Army Ordered to Alter the Snake River Dams

February 18, 2001
New York Times
National News Briefs
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/18/national/18NATI.html

PORTLAND, Ore., Feb. 17 (AP) - A federal court has ruled that the United States Army Corps of Engineers' operation of four Snake River dams violates the Clean Water Act.

The decision, made on Friday, could cost the agency millions of dollars to modify the dams and protect endangered salmon in eastern Washington State.

The United States District Court in Portland ordered the corps to find ways to lower water temperatures behind the dams to protect the river's water quality as well as its threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead trout. The court gave a deadline of 60 days.

The ruling supports environmental groups who say the dams raise water temperatures and add levels of nitrogen that violate water-quality standards. The Nez Perce tribe and the State of Oregon joined the lawsuit brought by the environmental groups.

Dutch Meier, a corps spokesman in Walla Walla, Wash., said the corps would study the problem and decide what action to take.

It was not clear how the ruling would affect the National Marine Fisheries Service's plan for saving Columbia Basin salmon from extinction.

---

NEW JERSEY

February 18, 2001
New York Times
Digest
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/18/nyregion/18DIGE.html

Plan to Sink Subway Cars Appears to Have Stalled New Jersey may be dumping a plan to use 650 New York City subway cars for artificial reefs. The state's environmental officials have turned down offers to use the decommissioned cars, said Al O'Leary, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York.

The authority was notified last week that New Jersey would not be taking the cars into the reef program, Mr. O'Leary said. A spokeswoman for the state's Department of Environmental Protection would not confirm the report. The spokeswoman, Sharon Southward, said that the project had been delayed while its environmental impact was reviewed.

The initial plan for the 650 subway cars was to submerge them at sites off Atlantic City, Long Beach Island and the Shark River inlet. (AP)

-------

Contamination Everywhere

Sun, 18 Feb 2001

The Government and Corporations Pollute but no one takes resposibility. Any questions as to why 67% of all men and 40% of all women living today will get Cancer? Our Government sits on it's collective a--- and does nothing to interfer with corporate profits or their PAC Contributions. Jack Shannon

Source of contaminant still a mystery Public account of TCE probe set for March 6 at Glenville Senior Citizens Center By ANDREA BULMER Gazette Reporter

GLENVILLE - Soil and water contamination has been linked to past dumping practices by the military and industry at sites all over the country. The former Navy Depot on Amsterdam Road in Glenville, which was commissioned in 1943 to store strategic materials for national defense purposes, is no exception.

Toxic levels of TCE, a cleaning solvent used mainly to degrease heavy machinery, were detected in residential wells across the street from the depot more than a decade ago. Traces of the suspected carcinogen also turned up in the Schenectady and Rotterdam water supplies serving nearly 140,000 people.

Pockets of soil contaminated with lead and heavy metals have also been discovered on various parcels all over the site.

However, neither the military nor the companies that have occupied property surrounding the depot will own up to any of the contamination discovered there. And, there's no way to prove who is responsible.

Regulators continue to uncover additional contaminated areas, but despite hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on investigating the site, there's still no resolution.

Recent actions by regulators indicate that the future won't be any different. After years of fruitless searching for the source of TCE contamination, the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the Defense Logistics Agency/Defense National Stockpile Center are preparing to pack up their TCE testing equipment.

The two agencies plan to give a public accounting of the investigation at 7 p.m. March 6 at the Glenville Senior Citizens Center on Worden Road.

The search

In 1991, regulators discovered toxic levels of TCE, or trichloroethylene, in residential wells located on Amsterdam Road - Route 5 - across from the old depot. Because the levels of TCE in the residential wells exceeded the state maximum level of five parts per billion, the houses were forced to hook up to the municipal water supply.

Traces of the chemical also were found in the Schenectady and Rotterdam municipal wells on the other side of the Mohawk River. At the time, the county and state departments of health said the presence of TCE in the water supply was not a threat. The agency maintains the same position today. TCE has not been detected in the Schenectady wells since 1997, but has occasionally appeared in Rotterdam's wells at trace levels below federal safety standards, DOH officials said.

State and federal environmental regulators, however, are concerned because the contamination is flowing within the strata of soils and rock that make up the Great Flats Aquifer, the major source of drinking water for nearly 140,000 people in Schenectady County.

Now the TCE contamination may pose an economic threat as well. Private developers and the Defense Department have major plans for many of the parcels of the former Navy Depot.

After following several false leads, investigators think they have a better idea of the source.

The only trouble is, officials from the three environmental engineering firms which were conducting the testing have completely different theories.

When the origin is finally discovered, its coordinates on the map could impose a huge financial burden on the owner of that property.

DEC's theory

In August, DEC issued a report to the Army Corps of Engineers stating that because they have ruled out other parcels in the park, preliminary information indicates the source of the TCE contamination may be a former depot "burn pit" located in the 300 block of what is now the Scotia-Glenville Industrial Park.

Fire training areas, where oils were used to accelerate fires and then extinguished in training drills, have historically led to environmental problems, said Jeffrey McCullough, federal projects manager for DEC's division of environmental remediation.

DEC officials said they based their conclusion on data from an extensive groundwater investigation involving tests from monitoring wells and soil samples.

The interesting thing about DEC's theory is that neither DEC nor DLA/DNSC officials have conducted tests on the burn pit property.

"Investigating that area makes as much sense as [investigating a landfill adjacent to the depot] and if we come up with nothing, I'll really be stumped," McCullough said.

DEC is welcome to investigate the property, said David Buicko, chief operating officer for the Scotia-Glenville Industrial Park, which is owned by the Galesi Group and occupies the western portion of the former depot site.

"Nothing we have done since we purchased the property [in 1985] has created any kind of environmental problem," Buicko said. "We want to cooperate as much as possible," he said.

In his report to the Army Corps, McCullough suggested that the Corps take a look at the site under terms of the Formerly Utilized Defense Sites program. DEC had already run up a $301,458 bill for work at the depot, including a previous investigation at Building 15 in the industrial park.

Site ruled out

In 1995, DEC investigated Building 15, near the 200 block, thinking that the site was possibly the source of the TCE contamination. Officials have since ruled out the site as the possible TCE source.

Building 15 was occupied from 1985 to 1992 by Olivia Colors, a ceramic glaze manufacturer, and by the Navy during World War II as a train repair station.

Investigators dug test pits, took soil samples, and installed monitoring wells only to conclude that "the historic activities at Building 15 appear not to have any current impact on the groundwater." That is according to a 1999 DEC report written by Valerie Woodward, engineering geologist for DEC's division of environmental remediation.

However, the investigation did lead to the discovery of PCBs, lead and other heavy metals inside the concrete pits and the septic system. The soil surrounding the building was also contaminated, the report said.

Building 15 was eventually added to the state's Superfund list and awaits approval for cleanup. The Superfund program is designed to identify and clean up hazardous waste sites which pose a significant threat to public health.

The TCE investigation, however, remains active.

In 1999, the DLA/DNSC decided to investigate the remaining Navy property in the depot area, following the direction of its landlord, the General Services Administration.

The federal investigation is part of a Department of Defense initiative to identify and correct contamination from past practices at all of the remaining and decommissioned depots, a total of nearly 80 sites nationwide, said Kevin Reilly, environmental protection specialist for DOD.

GSA plans to sell the remaining federal property at the Scotia site within the next 20 years, Reilly said. To date the Scotia depot has sold or converted nearly 277 acres of the original 337-acre depot, he said. The current depot encompasses approximately 60 acres.

When DLA/DNSC began its independent investigation, federal investigators told DEC they believed the TCE was coming from a dump located to the "north of the northern depot property line," adjacent, but off DLA/DNSC property.

However, after officials installed monitoring wells near the landfill and conducted an extensive groundwater investigation, McCullough reported that the TCE plume was not coming from the landfill.

The landfill, known as the Sacandaga Road landfill, was then added to the Superfund program as a separate entity from the TCE investigation because it is located on private property owned by Scotia Sand and Gravel Co.

DLA/DNSC's theory

As part of DLA/DNSC's independent investigation, its landlord, GSA, had contracted with the Army Corps of Engineers and hired Parsons Engineering Science, a consulting firm based in western New York, as a quality control measure.

Parsons also conducted an extensive groundwater investigation within the current depot boundaries, beginning in May of 2000. They took soil gas samples and borings and set up monitoring wells.

DLA/DNSC's Reilly said based on scatter graphs and other information compiled by Parsons, including that groundwater flows southwest, he does not think the TCE is coming from the burn pit. "A little south of it," Reilly said.

GEP'S theory

In 1999, Tom Macaulay, the Glenville Energy Park power plant developer, negotiated a 30-year lease with the Galesi Group for the 300 block, excluding the burn pit parcel.

To avoid being held liable for cleanup costs, GEP hired Earth Tech, an Albany-based consulting firm and Alpha Geoscience, a Latham-based consulting firm, to conduct due diligence and perform hydrogeologic studies, respectively.

"We need to know what the existing conditions are," Macaulay said.

Some of the investigative work was also done to satisfy state air and water requirements necessary to obtain a state permit to build the power plant. Because GEP plans to draw three million to four million gallons of water per day from the Schenectady wells, GEP must prove that the plant will not alter the flow of TCE. Officials said they have scientific proof that the TCE plume will not be affected by GEP's water use. However, they will not release that information until the permit application is filed with the state this spring.

Earth Tech conducted its own set of tests on the GEP parcel. They reviewed decades of aerial photographs of the site, studied the geophysics, measured soil gas, and drilled monitoring wells, said Mark Williams, an engineer at Earth Tech.

Macaulay said he does not think the TCE plume is originating from the burn pit or just south of the burn pit.

Unlike the other two investigating agencies, Macaulay suspects that the source of the plume may be buried underneath the ferrochrome pile, which is a few degrees north and east of the 300 block on DLA/DNSC property. Ferrochrome is an alloy consisting of iron and chrome and would not likely cause contamination of soil or water, DLA/DNSC's Reilly said.

Macaulay said he based his theory on Earth Tech's studies regarding groundwater flow patterns and because to date GEP's parcel has registered the hottest hits of TCE (310 parts per billion).

After investigating the depot area for nearly a decade, the DEC is wrapping up.

"I'd say the investigation is winding down or pretty much over," McCullough said. "There isn't really much for us to do out there other than work with the Army Corps and the potential responsible party for the landfill."

McCullough's passing of the torch to the Army Corps may render the project lifeless and the potential for cleanup unlikely for another decade. The Army Corps, much like the Superfund program, is running low on money and has several remedial projects on its list, McCullough said.

DEC will, however, offer its information and provide oversight to any further investigation, McCullough said.

DLA/DNSC officials are also winding down their investigation.

The DLA/DNSC does not have to locate the source before leaving the property, Reilly said. However, Reilly said if the source is found to be on current Department of Defense-occupied land then he'd be more than happy to clean it up. "If it's on my site, I'll take care of it," Reilly said. "But, [all of the tests conducted] so far indicate that it's not an issue."

DLA/DNSC officials also plan to have Parsons continue monitoring and have offered assistance to any other agencies that wish to investigate the TCE contamination, Reilly said.

Earth Tech's studies for GEP are nearly complete; they expect to continue some work on GEP's parcel.

Neither Earth Tech representatives nor GEP officials will be at the public meeting. For reasons unknown to GEP, federal and state regulators did not invite them to share their information at the meeting, Macaulay said.

One thing investigators can agree on is that after a decade of work there are still many unanswered questions, as the source remains unknown, and may never fully be confirmed.


-------- activists

Greenpeace to try and stop plutonium shipments

Sun, 18 Feb 2001
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-18feb2001-27.htm

A flotilla of seven Greenpeace yachts is leaving Sydney today to try to stop plutonium shipments through the Tasman sea.

Greenpeace says the mission of the venture is to draw world attention to the use of the Tasman Sea and the South Pacific as a nuclear highway.

A farewell ceremony has been held on Sydney Harbour for the flotilla.

The protest fleet has received the support of the New Zealand Government and the Federal Opposition's environment spokesman, Senator Nick Bolkus.

-----

A Federal Case in Suffolk:
Eco-Terrorism or Adolescence in Bloom?

February 18, 2001
New York Times
By AL BAKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/18/nyregion/18ELF.html?pagewanted=all

Over the last two months, a rash of destruction in Suffolk County - fires set in newly built subdivisions, anti-meat graffiti, torched construction equipment - posed a puzzle: Was it the work of a smart, devoted band of eco-terrorists or young vandals merely blowing off adolescent steam?

Last week, after three high school students pleaded guilty in the incidents, and a 19-year-old was charged as the mastermind, it appeared that both possibilities might have shreds of truth.

To hear the United States government tell it, the local youths are terrorists. They constitute a Suffolk cell of the Earth Liberation Front, a militant environmental terrorist group whose "campaign of violent crime has stretched from the Pacific Coast to the Rocky Mountains to the Midwest," said Barry W. Mawn, the head of the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Lawyers for two of the youths, however, paint their clients as impressionable teenagers who got in over their heads. They described them as bright young people who learned about the Earth Liberation Front through the Internet and who made the mistake of acting to carry out its anti-sprawl mission here on Long Island.

The contrast in views about the suspects was underscored on Wednesday in United States District Court in Central Islip. As one of the teenagers, Matthew Rammelkamp, prepared to plead guilty to arson conspiracy, the judge, William D. Wall, looked down from the bench and asked sternly if he had used any drugs.

"I've taken medicine for acne," Mr. Rammelkamp, 16, said. "Acutane."

To be sure, the handful of crimes in Suffolk County in December and January appear less dramatic when compared with some of the other violence the Earth Liberation Front has claimed responsibility for since 1997: a $12 million arson at a mountaintop ski resort in Vail, Colo.; a $1 million arson at a lumber company's office in Oregon; and the freeing of 310 minks, ferrets and polecats from a research farm in Wisconsin.

When the Long Island group sought to burn an upscale subdivision in Middle Island on Dec. 9, three of four gasoline-and-punk incendiary devices failed to ignite. Their plot to free some ducks from a Center Moriches farm failed miserably. And a later plan to burn the farm was never carried out.

The four charged in the attacks do not seem to fit the profile of the stereotypical terrorist. Mr. Rammelkamp is a first-rate student, takes advanced placement biology, plays electric guitar and wants to go to college, his mother, Debra, said. Jared McIntyre, 17, who is the son of a New York Police Department sergeant, is studying global warming at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and writes for the Longwood High School newspaper, The Lion's Roar. George Mashkow III, 17, is bright but troubled, a poor student who is easily led, his lawyer said. All three pleaded guilty to arson conspiracy.

The fourth youth, Connor Cash, 19, is more of a mystery, but officials said he had been arrested before. Mr. Cash has maintained his innocence.

What little information has emerged about the four teenagers has been spun in contrasting webs. Either they plotted a wave of federal crimes together or they landed in hot water for amateurish pranks.

"I am banking all my years of working with juveniles that this kid is no terrorist," said Charles C. Russo, the lawyer for Mr. Mashkow.

"He is a kid in crisis. He is not an impassioned environmentalist that is working for a cause," he said. "He succumbed to the peer pressure here and he joined in this vandalism. Yeah, it is high-end vandalism, but it is vandalism. There are environmental terrorists out there, but they are infecting these kids through the Internet. These kids are not the leaders of these environmental attacks."

Whatever the motivations of the four, one thing is clear: ELF has claimed credit for more destruction in Suffolk than the arrested teenagers have been blamed for, including the trampling, last July, of a Cold Spring Harbor cornfield used in genetic research, the first ELF act covered in local news reports.

Loretta E. Lynch, the United States attorney for the Eastern District, was asked a series of questions at a news conference on Thursday about the case. Was another ELF cell active on Long Island? Did these teenagers take directions from the group? In most cases, Ms. Lynch declined comment, and the questions seemed to hang in the air like a Montauk fog.

Other investigators admitted to being mystified.

"Is this all of it or is there more out there?" a law enforcement official asked in an interview, noting that the police had not proclaimed victory in the case or said that the movement was dead.

George A. Stamboulidis, the assistant United States attorney prosecuting the case, declined comment.

Mr. Rammelkamp's lawyer, Thomas F. Liotti, said the three youths who pleaded guilty had no connection to any centralized ELF leadership, and he criticized the federal government for bringing the case against them.

Richard J. Kaufman, the lawyer for Mr. McIntyre, has declined comment on the case, as has Frederick K. Brewington, the lawyer for Mr. Cash.

Craig S. Rosebraugh, a spokesman for ELF in Portland, Ore., said the youths were strangers to him. But Elaine D. Close, who works with him, said their actions fit the group's model of acting in autonomous groups with no chain of command.

"People take actions under the guidelines of the ELF. The guidelines are very widely circulated, and have been for quite a while," Ms. Close said. "But beyond that, I don't know if there is anything we can add."

One theory to consider, said Bill Wasley, the director of law enforcement for the United States Forest Service, is that the teenagers were recruited by a core group of nomadic ELF members who came to Long Island, planted the seeds of their movement, and disappeared. Alternatively, he said, the core members may limit their supervision of the movement to anonymous instructions via the Internet.

Despite the unanswered questions about the case, the indictments were significant because they represented the first major infiltration by law enforcement into more than $30 million worth of damage for which ELF has claimed responsibility.

But here in New York, the activity appears to have been halted - at least for now. No more communiqués announcing mayhem in Suffolk have come from Mr. Rosebraugh's Portland office. No more Suffolk subdivisions have gone up in flames.

Lest anyone consider further violence, however, Mr. Mawn of the F.B.I. offered one parting shot.

"The ELF has a motto, which it often leaves in spray paint at the scene of the crime. It reads, `If you build it, we will burn it,' " he said. "In response, let me say, `If you burn it, we will find you.'"

---

New York

01/02//18
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Central Islip - A fourth teen was arrested in connection with an environmental group's string of arsons on Long Island luxury homes under construction. Police charged Connor Cash, 19, with arson and arson conspiracy. Cash was the group's ringleader, according to U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch. His group has been linked to the Earth Liberation Front, which has claimed responsibility for a wave of attacks nationally.

---

Iraqis Protest U.S. Airstrikes

February 18, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Thousands of Iraqis marched in the rain Sunday to protest U.S. and British airstrikes, and Iraqi television showed damaged houses and shops in a town where one man was killed when allied missiles hit nearby.

President Saddam Hussein met with his top air defense commander to explore ways of protecting the country from allied attacks in the wake of the raid, which targeted radar and command-and-control sites.

Friday night's strikes around Baghdad -- which killed two people and wounded at least 20 -- have raised strong condemnations from Arab allies of the United States. And Iraq warned that it raised tensions ahead of key talks with the United Nations.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf is due to meet U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan for Feb. 26-27 discussions seen as a chance to restart dialogue on resuming weapons inspections and lifting economic sanctions.

In a letter to Annan and the Security Council, al-Sahhaf said the U.N. chief should ``condemn the dangerous aggression and the increase of tension'' and should take ``speedy steps to prevent such attacks from taking place again,'' the official Iraqi News Agency said Sunday.

The news agency reported Saturday that Saddam ordered the training of about 300,000 volunteers for what he called the Al-Quds -- or Jerusalem -- Army aiming to free Jerusalem from Israeli control.

``If little Bush considers his aggression a message to Iraq, then we have the answer, which is the formation of al-Quds Army ... ready for jihad (holy war) and liberating Palestine,'' the official Iraqi daily Al-Thawra said in a front-page editorial Sunday.

The United States and Britain said the strikes were needed to thwart Iraq's improving capabilities in targeting allied jets patrolling a southern no-fly zone. They said five military facilities were hit.

Democrat and Republican policy experts expressed approval Sunday of the decision to bomb Iraq's air defenses.

``I think they wanted to send a signal to Saddam Hussein that this continued gradual escalation on his side will not be tolerated. And I think most Americans are very supportive of that,'' said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on ``Fox News Sunday.''

Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke told CNN's ``Late Edition'' that the strikes were ``well within the bounds of previous policy.''

Sen. Carl Levin, ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, agreed the strikes did not represent a policy change.

``This is a continuation of a policy -- not a very satisfying policy by the way but the best that is available to us probably,'' Levin told ABC's ``This Week.''

Iraq's state-run satellite station repeatedly broadcast footage showing civilian buildings in two towns it said were damaged by the raids.

In the farming village of al-Hafriya, 25 miles south of Baghdad, houses had windows were shown with shattered and doors torn off after a missile struck on the outskirts of town. Two stores, for agricultural supplies and automotive spare parts, suffered similar damage. A 28-year-old man from the town was killed.

``This is an agricultural area and there are no military installations here,'' Fawzia Ibrahim, a resident of one of the damaged houses, told the TV station.

In al-Rashdiya, 12 miles north of the capital, a witness said the missile had landed in a field of mud, softening the explosion.

Foreign media have not been allowed access to the bombed sites. It was not known where the strikes' other reported victim -- a woman -- was from.

More than 2,000 people -- including Deputy Foreign Minister Nabil Najim -- took part in Sunday's protest in central Baghdad, and at least 1,000 others gathered across the city near the offices of the ruling Baath party. ``This dangerous aggression shows how much the Americans and Britons hate Iraqis and do not respect any international law,'' Najim told the demonstrators.

Popular Syrian film star Raghda, who flew to Baghdad on Saturday night, told the crowd: ``Nothing could stop me from coming here. The people of Iraq and children of Iraq are in my heart.''

The demonstration came amid renewed Arab condemnation of the airstrikes.

Egypt, a key U.S. ally that rallied behind the drive to oust Iraqi troops from Kuwait 10 years ago, sent Economy Minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali and Public Sector Minister Mokhtar Khattab to Baghdad to show solidarity with Iraq.

``We are here to support the Iraqi people and promote economic and financial relations between our countries,'' Boutros-Ghali told reporters.

In Jordan's parliament, many members lashed out at the United States. Prime Minister Ali Abu-Ragheb told lawmakers: ``The condescending attitude and the use of force will lead to no results, but only incites sentiments...''

In Syria, the state-run newspaper, also called Al-Thawra, called Friday's attack a ``dangerous precedent in international relations.'' Libya and Tunisia in a joint statement called for the lifting of sanctions imposed on Iraq and for the ``immediate cessation to all acts of aggression.''

---

Iraqis March to Protest Against Western Air Attack

February 18, 2001
Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/iraq-protest.html

BAGHDAD, Feb 18 - Thousands of Iraqis marched through Baghdad on Sunday to protest against Friday's U.S. and British air attack near the capital.

The demonstration, the biggest in Baghdad since four days of U.S. and British bombing in December 1998, was organised by President Saddam Hussein's ruling Baath Party.

Demonstrators chanted slogans against the United States and new U.S. President George W. Bush, shouting ``Long live Saddam Hussein!.''

U.S. officials said 24 U.S. and British planes struck five Iraqi military targets in Friday's attack, five to 20 miles (eight to 32 km) from Baghdad, using various long-range precision-guided weapons.

Iraq vowed revenge on Saturday for the raid, which Baghdad says killed two civilians.

---

Iraqis protest U.S. airstrikes

02/18/2001
USA Today
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2001-02-18-iraqprotest.htm

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Thousands of Iraqis demonstrated Sunday against the latest U.S.-British airstrikes, as state-run Iraqi television showed homes and shops damaged in the raids.

More than 2,000 people - including Deputy Foreign Minister Nabil Najim - protested in the center of the capital, and at least 1,000 others gathered across the city near the offices of the ruling al-Baath party.

"This dangerous aggression shows how much the Americans and Britons hate Iraqis and do not respect any international law," Najim told the demonstrators. "This aggression must be condemned."

Popular Syrian film star Raghda, who flew to Baghdad on Saturday night to show her solidarity with the Iraqis, also addressed the crowd. "Nothing could stop me from coming here," she said. "The people of Iraq and children of Iraq are in my heart."

The United States and Britain said their raid Friday night - the largest in two years - struck air defense sites around Baghdad that had helped improve Iraqi targeting of allied planes patrolling a southern no-fly zone.

Iraq's state-run satellite station repeatedly broadcast footage of civilian buildings damaged at two sites targeted in the airstrikes which killed two people and injured at least 20.

The images showed two badly damaged homes in the farming village of al-Hafriya, 25 miles south of Baghdad, where the explosion from a missile that hit the outskirts of town shattered windows and tore off doors. Two stores, for agricultural supplies and automotive spare parts, suffered similar damages.

"This is an agricultural area and there are no military installations here," Fawzia Ibrahim, a resident of one of the damaged houses, told the TV station, questioning why the town was targeted.

In al-Rashdiya, 12 miles north of the capital, a witness said the missile had landed in a field of mud, softening the explosion. Foreign media have not been allowed access to the bombed sites.

Iraqi media continued attacking the United States and Britain for the airstrikes.

"The little Bush administration tried to show that it is strong and able to do what the former Clinton administration could not do," said al-Thawra daily in its front page editorial Sunday. "If little Bush considers his aggression a message to Iraq, then we have the answer, which is the formation of al-Quds (Jerusalem) Army ... ready for jihad (holy war) and liberating Palestine."

Another newspaper, al-Qadissiya, called the United States and Britain "fools" in a front-page editorial and said: "The Americans and the Zionists and their agents will not harvest but failure, disappointment and eternal defeat."

The Arab world continued to criticize the attack, with Syria's state-run al-Thawra newspaper calling it a "provocative step that implies a lot of disregard of the Iraqi people's dignity and life. It is a dangerous precedent in international relations."

A joint Libyan-Tunisian statement issued in Libya on Sunday called for lifting the sanctions imposed on Iraq and for the "immediate cessation to all acts of aggression against (the Iraqi people)."

---

Palestinians Protest US - UK Airstrike

February 18, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Mideast-Iraq.html

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- About 1,000 Palestinians protested outside Gaza City on Sunday, denouncing the U.S. and British airstrike in Iraq and expressing support for Saddam Hussein.

The rally took place as Israelis and Palestinians exchanged fire in the southern Gaza Strip and a Palestinian wounded two days ago died in the hospital.

``Saddam, we wait for your rockets to hit Tel Aviv,'' the Gaza crowd shouted, as they fired automatic rifles in the air. Saddam is ``the leader who will liberate Palestine,'' one of the banners read.

Iraq has promised to retaliate for Friday's airstrikes, which the United States says were ordered to protect pilots patrolling Iraqi skies and that killed two people. Some Israelis fear the Jewish state might be targeted.

After meeting with security officials Sunday, Prime Minister Ehud Barak issued a statement saying that Israelis had ``no need to take any special steps'' but that the government ``continues to watch developments and is keeping closely in touch with the United States.''

Israel's Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh warned, however, that a renewed Western campaign against Iraq could radicalize the Palestinians and broaden the atmosphere of conflict in the Middle East.

``We can definitely see (Saddam) as a potential danger,'' Sneh told Israel Radio. ``His position in our conflict with the Palestinians is an extreme one and (he) could be influential in the short term.''

Saddam launched 39 Scud missiles at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War -- and won enthusiastic support from Palestinians.

Israeli security officials were not ruling out the possibility that Saddam might now attack Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians' five-month uprising, Israel's Channel 2 TV said. The violence has claimed 404 lives, most Palestinian.

Israeli analysts have also expressed concern that the combination of the Palestinian uprising and renewed tensions in the Persian Gulf could strengthen an emerging alliance between Iraq, Iran and Syria -- countries Sneh said were ``a triangle that is forming and has an interest in widening the conflict.''

Israeli experts believe Iraq has some Scuds left and could try to fit them with biological or chemical warheads.

Israeli and American air defense forces will begin a five-day exercise Monday in which Patriot missiles will be fired against a simulated Scud missile attack, an Israeli army spokesman said. The cruiser U.S.S. Porter, which carries advanced radar capable of detecting incoming missiles, will be off the Israeli coast and will also take part in the exercise.

The spokesman said the exercise was planned a year ago and is not related to the current tension with Iraq.

In Baghdad, the official news agency said Saddam ordered the formation of a volunteer force of about 300,000 men whose aim would be to free Jerusalem from Israeli control.

Iran, for its part, is prodding the Lebanese militia Hezbollah to provoke Israel into opening another front on its northern border, which has been mostly quiet since Israel's troop pullout from south Lebanon in May, Sneh said.

Israel's response was muted after a rocket attack by the militia killed an Israeli soldier on Saturday. On Monday, Hezbollah sent two giant balloons over the border attached with banners that read, ``Hezbollah will continue to attack Israel'' and ``Israel has no right to exist.''

Israel believes that Hezbollah -- operating with Syrian encouragement -- is increasingly involved in fomenting anti-Israel activity among the Palestinians.

Last week, Israeli helicopter gunships killed a Palestinian security agent in Gaza. Israel said the man was responsible for mortar attacks on a nearby Jewish settlements and had ties to Hezbollah.

Also Sunday, a 35-year-old Palestinian father of four died of wounds suffered two days before. Palestinian eyewitnesses said Ahmed Sarajala was caught in cross fire between Israeli soldiers and armed Palestinians.

In southern Gaza, 12 Palestinians were injured in exchanges of fire with Israeli troops, hospital officials said. The Israeli army spokesman said the Palestinians fired repeatedly at civilian vehicles leaving a Jewish settlement. Nobody was hurt.

------

------- Onelist (submissions from subscribers)