------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Sub Collision Inquiry Continues
Officer kept quiet about sub motions
Pentagon is dogged by rash of accidents, blunders
Japanese captain tells of terrifying collision
Hyde hits North Korea over deal on nukes
Low Uranium Risk in Kosovo, UN Says
KOSOVO: URANIUM RISK PLAYED DOWN
Baghdad Journal: Uncle Sam's Embassy Sitter
After Saddam?
North Korea Suddenly Cancels Conciliation Talks
N. Korea denounces Bush administration
Bush Says Russia not Enemy But Could be Threat
Moscow's offense against US missile defense
China Says Open to Missile Shield Talks With U.S.
Bush should tone down national missile defense
Beijing Softens Stance on Missile Defense Plan
North Korea Denounces Bush Stance
China Wants Defense Talks With U.S.
Powell Cautions Russia on Iran Deal
A Russian game of chess
Define defensive weapon, U.S. tells Russia
U.S.: Russia-Iran Ties Worry Washington
For Whistleblowers, Ethical Mile is a Hard Walk
Congressmen ask NRC to delay approval, add conditions
$5 Billion to Repair Nuclear Plants Sought
Energy czar tells delegation he knows Paducah's needs
Teen accused of hacking into NASA
Resources Are Inadequate to Run Nuclear Plants
Energy Department funding may not be enough
Thompson pushes for nuclear weapons complex upgrades
TVA plans for nuke waste storage ripped
Your Views
What to do with 3.5 million pounds of nickel?
Plant Can Store Nuclear Waste
San Onofre to Store Nuclear Waste

MILITARY
Defending Taiwan
Controller gave jet OK to drop bombs
Rumsfeld reviewing Chinese exchange deal
EU extends Raytheon-Thales probe
COLOMBIA: UNION LEADERS KILLED
U.S. pilots face risks fighting Colombian drug war
Colombia govs. decry U.S. program
Indian PM denounced in arms scandal
Make Russia a Better Neighbor
New space station crew moves into orbiting outpost
New space station crew settles in
Syria Seems Likely to Win Security Council Seat
U.N. refugee chief seeks U.S. funds
Navy Pilot in Fatal Raid Had Approval From Ground
Bombing accident inquiry continues
KOSOVO: U.S. SOLDIER CLEARED
U.S. withdrawing 750 peacekeepers from Bosnia
Controller injured in Navy bombing
Bush suggests 3 new fighters aren't affordable
Pentagon halts beret handout

OTHER
Concern Over Foot-and-Mouth Disease Spreads Worldwide
Bush won't regulate carbon dioxide
McCall Criticizes Pataki's Plan on Toxic Cleanup as Risky
Bush, in Reversal, Won't Seek Cut in Emissions of Carbon Dioxide
Meat From Europe Is Banned by U.S. as Illness Spreads
Foot-and-Mouth's Harsh Approach
New Foot-and-Mouth Cases Prompt Britain to Intensify Slaughter
Bush backs off pledge to curb power-plant emissions
U.S. expands import ban on livestock
Dogs greet travelers as U.S. fights livestock disease
Foot-and-mouth hits Saudi Arabia
British may delay elections over virus
House passes bill for tortoise land
Toxic toads invade Aussie wetlands
Kangaroo exports to Europe rise
Ex-deputy accused of lying about sheriff's death
When Your Mole Betrays You
Terrorism Trial May Keep to Narrower Focus
Bombing Victims Testify in Court
Man goes on trial in terror plot

ACTIVISTS
CHINA: PROTESTS OVER FEES
Protesters demand Wahid's resignation in Jakarta
Zapatistas told Mexico has changed
Indonesian police battle protesters
SIGN ON FOR WHISTLE BLOWER PROTECTION
Granny D Launches Two-week Walk Around U.S. Capitol
Making themselves heard


-------- NUCLEAR

Sub Collision Inquiry Continues

Las Vegas Sun
March 14, 2001 at 3:30:47 PST
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/news/2001/mar/14/031403910.html

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) - A week before the USS Greeneville collided with a Japanese boat, a crewman aboard the submarine suggested the skipper tone down his forceful command style to let subordinates learn better but was rebuffed.

The Greeneville's navigator, Lt. Keith Sloan, testified Tuesday that Cmdr. Scott Waddle responded that junior officers "would learn from him telling them what to do."

"I don't think he was pleased that I questioned him," Sloan said. He added, however, that Waddle had in the past been receptive to suggestions and even openly praised crewmen for bringing concerns to him.

By the time of the Feb. 9 collision, Waddle was "being directive" and "pushing" his officer of the deck, Lt. j.g. Michael Coen, during preparations for a rapid-surfacing drill - essentially taking charge of the maneuver, Sloan said.

Sloan's testimony came as Waddle, Coen and Lt. Cmdr. Gerald Pfeifer, the Greeneville's executive officer, face courts-martial at a Navy court of inquiry into the fatal collision.

The Greeneville was demonstrating the surfacing maneuver for 16 civilian guests when it rammed into the Ehime Maru. Nine Japanese men and boys were killed.

The captain of the Japanese vessel, Hisao Onishi, was to testify when court resumes Wednesday.

Sloan, who also has worked as the Greeneville's officer of the deck, was one of three crewmen who took the stand Tuesday to recount events leading up to the collision.

While Coen is generally methodical while conducting maneuvers, Waddle was moving swiftly and cutting corners the afternoon of Feb. 9, including skipping a standard briefing prior to rising to periscope depth.

"He was definitely going quickly, as in he was not wasting time," said Sloan, who testified he had reminded Waddle earlier in the day that the ship was running late getting back to port.

"My honest opinion was if we were 15 or 20 minutes late, no one was really going to care," Sloan said, although he acknowledged he told investigators after the accident that Waddle "knew we were running late" and "was trying to get things going."

Two crewmen who monitor radar noise emitted from other vessels said they detected no close ships when the Greeneville went to periscope depth to conduct a visual search. However, they said they didn't have time to study full radar contacts before Waddle initiated the drill.

The three admirals overseeing the inquiry have questioned whether Waddle's command style inhibited the crew and other officers from voicing concerns about his actions and stopped one from providing information that may have prevented the collision.

Sloan also said that when the Greeneville first set sail that day, Waddle told him the ship would not be conducting an emergency surfacing drill.

The commander changed his mind at some point during the voyage, Sloan said, adding "it wasn't something that jumped out at me as a big deal that he changed his mind."

Sloan said the 16 guests in the control room made it difficult to see some equipment, such as a graphic plot of sonar contacts and a monitor that displays the periscope search.

"I won't lie, it's a little bit harder" to work amid such a crowd, he said. "But it's not insurmountable."

Earlier Tuesday, Capt. Robert Brandhuber, chief of staff for the U.S. Pacific Fleet's submarine force, recalled looking through the periscope after the collision and seeing two boys on the ship.

"I didn't understand how it happened," said Brandhuber, who was leading the civilian group. "It just wasn't something that I ever wanted to see - and ever want to see again."

Brandhuber said he immediately assumed a more active role in the submarine's operations, telling Waddle: "You need to breathe deep, relax, and execute search and rescue now."

On the Net:

Navy's site on collision: http://www.cpf.navy.mil/greeneville.html

------

Officer kept quiet about sub motions

InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/14/2001
By JEAN CHRISTENSEN Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406387071

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) - A senior officer aboard the USS Greeneville said he felt the crew was rushing through a surfacing maneuver, but he never spoke up _ in part because he didn't want to question the skipper in front of guests and crew.

Capt. Robert Brandhuber was the first eyewitness of the accident with a Japanese trawler on Feb. 9 to testify at a Navy court of inquiry. He said Tuesday he felt in his gut that the crew was moving quickly as it began preparations to surface.

``It's quick, but not something that a submarine shouldn't be able to execute safely,'' Brandhuber said, adding that the submarine already had executed difficult maneuvers exceptionally. He, therefore, believed the Greeneville could handle the speedy procedures.

``I was concerned that it might have been going a little bit faster than I would go,'' Brandhuber said. ``If I could change it, I sure as hell would,'' he added.

Brandhuber, chief of staff for the U.S. Pacific Fleet's submarine force, was the senior officer aboard the Greeneville the day the submarine shot from the ocean and rammed the Ehime Maru. Nine people, including four teen-agers on an expedition to learn commercial fishing, were killed.

Three Navy admirals presiding over the court of inquiry questioned Brandhuber at length about what he saw and heard inside the control room that day and why, if he sensed something was wrong, he never expressed his concerns.

Brandhuber said he was standing in the back of the control room when the Greeneville's crew began procedures to go to periscope depth in preparation for the emergency surfacing drill. He said he began to ``debate with myself'' whether the crew was moving too quickly and whether he should say something.

Testimony has shown the crew got to periscope depth in six minutes when it generally takes 10 to ensure sonar contacts have been properly analyzed. The officer of the deck, Lt. j.g. Michael Coen, and Cmdr. Scott Waddle then spent 80 seconds searching the waters, shorter than the usual three minutes it takes for a thorough periscope search.

Brandhuber said his fears were allayed somewhat when he saw the captain take the periscope stand and report he saw no contacts. He admitted, however, that one reason he didn't speak up is that he didn't want to question Waddle in front of the guests or crew. Brandhuber said he planned to talk with Waddle about the pace of the events later, in private.

Waddle; his executive officer, Lt. Cmdr. Gerald Pfeifer; and Coen have been named as parties in the inquiry, which could lead to courts-martial. Brandhuber is not a party, but the court is examining Brandhuber's responsibilities and actions on Feb. 9.

The court could name additional parties.

The Greeneville's navigator, Lt. Keith Sloan, later agreed that the ship went to periscope depth ``fairly rapidly,'' noting that a standard briefing in which crewmen discuss what maneuvers will be done once at periscope depth was skipped.

Sloan testified that he reminded Waddle shortly before 1 p.m. that they were running behind and had an hour to get back to the entrance of Pearl Harbor at the scheduled time. Sloan, however, said he wasn't concerned about the delay.

``My honest opinion was if we were 15 or 20 minutes late, no one was really going to care,'' he said.

Sloan also said that when the Greeneville first set sail that day, Waddle told him the ship would not be conducting an emergency surfacing drill. The commander changed his mind at some point during the voyage, Sloan said, adding that ``it wasn't something that jumped out at me as a big deal that he changed his mind.''

Sloan said the 16 guests in the control room made it difficult to see some equipment, such as a graphic plot of sonar contacts and a monitor that displays the periscope search.

``I won't lie, it's a little bit harder'' to work amid such a crowd, he said. ``But it's not insurmountable. It's no worse than battle stations.''

Brandhuber offered a chilling account of the sinking of the Ehime Maru. He paused to gather composure as he recalled looking through the periscope after the collision and seeing two boys on the ship. He said that when he saw the young men, he initially feared they'd struck a whale-watching boat.

``I didn't understand how it happened,'' he said. ``It just wasn't something that I ever wanted to see _ and ever want to see again.''

Brandhuber said he immediately assumed a more active role in the submarine's operations, telling Waddle: ``You need to breathe deep, relax, and execute search and rescue now.''

------

Pentagon is dogged by rash of accidents, blunders

USA Today
03/14/2001 - Updated 06:16 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-03-14-military-mistakes.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - A U.S. sub fatally collides with a Japanese fishing vessel. A Navy warplane accidentally bombs soldiers during war exercises. Half the missiles aimed at radar targets near Baghdad miss their mark. Missile-defense tests keep going awry. Recent high-profile accidents and failures are not connected, analysts say, but they do underscore problems the military is having with readiness and morale.

"There is going to be an inevitable risk when you push the envelope, whether it's doing night drills in training or testing new weapons systems based on principles never deployed before," said Daniel Goure, a defense analyst at the private Lexington Institute.

During last year's presidential campaign, George W. Bush warned about "a military in decline," citing inadequate training, broken equipment, too few spare parts and too many overseas deployments.

As president, Bush has ordered Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to undertake a top-to-bottom review of all Pentagon programs and weapons systems.

"We're in pretty good shape over the course of the next decade, I hope - so long as our mission is defined and we don't try to be all things to all people in the world, kind of endless deployments," Bush said on Tuesday.

The Defense Department has had to explain in recent days how a state-of-the-art nuclear submarine could have rammed a Japanese trawler off Hawaii on Feb. 9, killing nine people, including four teen-agers; and why six military personnel - five Americans and a New Zealander - were killed on Monday when a Navy jet bombed the wrong location during war games in Kuwait.

"There is a problem somewhere in our training, and I think we need to find out what the problem is and get it solved before we lose more people," said Mike Freligh, the father of one of those killed in Kuwait, 25-year-old Army Sgt. Freligh.

"There are too many accidents happening," he told CBS.

In other recent military accidents, a plane carrying members of a National Guard engineering crew crashed on March 3 in Georgia, killing all 21 people on board, and two Army helicopters collided on Feb. 14 during a night training exercise near Honolulu, killing six men.

Two crashes last year of the troubled V-22 Osprey aircraft - which blends qualities of a helicopter and a plane - killed 23 Marines. A Pentagon review is under way.

In addition to accidents, there have been some embarrassing incidents of technology failures.

More than half of the precision-guided weapons the Navy used in the Feb. 16 attack on Iraqi radar sites went astray. Defense officials later said that on-board sensors had too little time to adjust the bombs' flight path to account for heavy winds.

And so far, the Pentagon has failed in two of three attempts to shoot down a mock ballistic missile in space as part of early testing of a national missile defense system.

Another test is expected in May or June.

These accidents, blunders and technological failures have come at a time when the Pentagon is working hard to maintain its equipment, compete with private industry and boost re-enlistment rates.

"I don't think we know enough yet to make an argument that these accidents are readiness problems. That would be jumping to the wrong conclusion," said Michele Flournoy, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That said, I think there are specific instances of real readiness shortfalls," including equipment shortages and "tempo strains" from over-deployment, added Flournoy, a former Pentagon policy analyst.

Military specialists in industry and in Congress expect that Rumsfeld's presidentially ordered review probably will result in an administration request later this year for big increases in defense spending.

Supporters of added spending point to a report by the Congressional Budget Office that the United States would have to spend an extra $50 billion a year over the next 15 years just to keep the military the size it is today.

John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World, an arms control advocacy group, said, "Accidents happen and have always happened in the military."

"It's not a lack of money in the Pentagon. A lot of the accidents can be characterized as errors of judgment."

---

Japanese captain tells of terrifying collision

USA Today
03/14/2001 - Updated 02:40 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-03-14-sub.htm

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) - The captain of the Japanese trawler Ehime Maru took the stand in a Navy court Wednesday and recounted the terrifying moment a submarine crashed into his ship last month.

Hisao Onishi spoke through an interpreter before a courtroom packed with families of the Japanese victims and officers of the USS Greeneville. Nine Japanese boys and men were killed.

The submarine struck near the stern of the Ehime Maru, tossing the ship upward. Onishi then heard a "terrible metal hitting sound" between the helmsroom and the stack, followed by more banging.

"We felt an impact as if the stern of the ship was lifted up," he said.

Through a window from the steering wheel, Onishi saw the water level rising and his instruments went dead. He ordered his navigator to gather everyone for an emergency evacuation.

Crewmen and training students began gathering on the deck. People were yelling and trying to ensure they had lifejackets on.

"However, no one was in a state where they could respond," Onishi said. "They were clinging onto handrails and some structural things of the ship."

Within minutes, waves began throwing people from the vessel. Onishi was tossed from the ship before he had a chance to drop the life rafts. From the ocean, he looked back at the sinking vessel and saw people on the deck.

The life rafts dislodged themselves and surfaced. Several people began climbing aboard and pulling others inside, he said.

The submarine, which Onishi thought had gone, returned and was drifting near the life rafts. Onishi saw several people on the bridge of the sub. "We were hoping that they would lower their inflatable rubber boat but the only thing they did was to lower the Jacob's ladder."

"They were watching us," he said.

From the water, he watched the Ehime Maru sink. It took only five minutes.

Life preservers were floating in the water and Onishi said, "I was hoping that I would find somebody clinging to them. We yelled and searched for them, but I was not able to find anybody."

Not until about an hour later, when the Coast Guard arrived, was Onishi able to conduct a head count. He learned then that nine were missing.

Vice Adm. John Nathman, who is overseeing the Navy court of inquiry into the Feb. 9 crash, thanked Onishi for coming to Hawaii to testify and said he appreciated how difficult it was to return.

"Your testimony is important for a more complete understanding of the collision," Nathman said.

The skipper of the Greeneville, Cmdr. Scott Waddle; his officer of the deck, Lt. j.g. Michael Coen; and Lt. Cmdr. Gerald Pfeifer, the Greeneville's executive officer, face courts-martial at the court of inquiry.

The Greeneville was demonstrating the surfacing maneuver for 16 civilian guests when it rammed into the Ehime Maru.

Prior to his cross-examination of Onishi, Waddle's civilian attorney, Charles Gittins, told Onishi that Waddle "as the commanding officer of the submerged submarine accepts responsibility for this accident."

Waddle sat straight and looked at Onishi as Gittins spoke.

At the conclusion of his testimony, Onishi implored the court to conduct a thorough investigation and find a way to ensure "this kind of accident would be prevented in the future."

Relatives of six of the victims appeared calm and took notes for the first half of Onishi's testimony. However, when he said he couldn't find nine they began sobbing and brushing away tears.

When Onishi was done, Kazuo Nakata was still too upset to talk with reporters.

"I would like to say something, but I can't think," said Nakata, father of a missing teacher. "I can't say anything."

Waddle made a rare appearance before television cameras on his way into court Wednesday. He praised his crewmen for testifying truthfully.

"They made me very proud," Waddle said.

On Tuesday, the Greeneville's navigator, Lt. Keith Sloan, testified that a week before the accident he suggested that Waddle tone down his forceful command style to let subordinates learn better. But he said he was rebuffed.

Sloan said Waddle responded that junior officers "would learn from him telling them what to do."

"I don't think he was pleased that I questioned him," Sloan said. He added, however, that Waddle had in the past been receptive to suggestions and even openly praised crewmen for bringing concerns to him.

By the time of the collision, Waddle was "being directive" and "pushing" Coen during preparations for a rapid-surfacing drill - essentially taking charge of the maneuver, Sloan said.

Sloan, who also has worked as the Greeneville's officer of the deck, was one of three crewmen who took the stand Tuesday to recount events leading up to the collision.

---

Hyde hits North Korea over deal on nukes

Washington Times
March 14, 2001
By Ben Barber THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2001314222855.htm

Rep. Henry J. Hyde of Illinois, the Republican chairman of the House International Relations Committee, yesterday backed President Bush's hard-line stance toward North Korea, threatening to block completion of a 1994 nuclear deal unless the North clearly reveals its nuclear past.

Mr. Hyde said the nuclear deal, in which the United States, South Korea and Japan promised the North two modern atomic power plants, depends on the North explaining its earlier manufacture of plutonium "in quantities sufficient to build nuclear weapons."

The "Agreed Framework," as the deal is known, "got us past the 1994 nuclear crisis," Mr. Hyde said.

"It did so not by resolving the dispute between North Korea and the [International Atomic Energy Agency], but rather by postponing resolution of the dispute to a point well into the future."

If the dispute is not resolved, Mr. Hyde told the American Enterprise Institute, "and we continue to insist on verification, then under the terms of the Agreed Framework the reactors should not be completed."

Mr. Hyde offered the warning as North Korea abruptly canceled Cabinet-level talks with South Korea. Mr. Hyde and other knowledgeable officials in Washington say Mr. Bush's harsh warning last week that the United States would insist on "verification" of all deals with the North prompted the last-minute cancellation by the Pyongyang government.

The Bush administration's chill toward North Korea followed a year of North Korean overtures toward both the United States and South Korea, including visits to Pyongyang by Madeleine K. Albright, the secretary of state in the Clinton administration, and by South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

"If there has been no break with the past, President Bush's insistence on verification will make it very unlikely that the nuclear reactors will ever be completed in North Korea," Mr. Hyde said.

Mr. Hyde proposed that Congress and the Bush administration form a "Bipartisan Accord on North Korea" to cement in place verification demands made by the United States.

"If the North Korean government is genuinely interested in improving relations with the United States, it too must accept that it needs to give us signs of reassurance and understanding.

"What we need is a signal of a genuine break with the past and a commitment to cooperation in the future.

"The best way for the North Korean government to send such a signal, perhaps the only way for it to do so, is to acknowledge the need for verification, to cease resisting its existing verification obligations, and to positively embrace the concept as a way of demonstrating to the world that it no longer has anything to hide."

Mr. Hyde also said any North Korean willingness to conclude a future agreement to stop missile production or proliferation must be verified.

In addition, he said that any U.S. launch of North Korean satellites -part of a missile deal now being offered by Pyongyang - must not allow the transfer of sensitive technology.

The United States negotiated the Agreed Framework in 1994 for North Korea to freeze its nuclear weapons programs in return for the provision to build twin light-water nuclear power plants and supply fuel oil until the plants were completed.

But Republicans opposed the deal because it did not allow full verification of how much plutonium the North already had produced as potential bomb fuel.

Yesterday, Mr. Hyde said Republicans had in the past slowed the framework process by delaying shipments of fuel oil.

"There is probably no more contentious foreign policy issue than this over the past decade," said Mr. Hyde, who projects considerable influence in the House. He called for a bipartisan agreement on future policy toward the North.

The Clinton administration signed the nuclear deal when worries about the North's nuclear program "gave rise to a crisis that some say almost led to war in the spring of 1994," Mr. Hyde said.

"Skeptics in Congress had few means to slow down the nuclear project, because [the reactors were] not funded by the United States [but by South Korea and Japan]. So . . . we restricted U.S. funding for the purchase of heavy fuel oil under the Agreed Framework."

It was not clear how North Korea would react to any attempt to block construction of the nuclear power plants, which were said earlier to be of a design that makes it difficult to extract nuclear weapons fuel.

Some officials have suggested offering conventional coal or oil-fired power plants instead. Others suggested simply selling or giving them electricity generated in South Korea.

The unraveling of the Agreed Framework comes as the Bush administration tacked sharply away from the previous administration's accommodating stance in recent days, with one official calling North Korean leader Kim Jong-il a "despot."

Mr. Bush's shift came as South Korean President Kim visited Washington last week seeking support for his own dovish "sunshine policy" toward the North. Yesterday's brief announcement by North Korea that it would not attend scheduled ministerial talks - the latest in a series of high-level meetings since the leaders of North and South met in Pyongyang in June - was seen by some as a reaction to Mr. Bush's strong condemnation of North Korea last week.

Kim Sung-han, a North Korea expert at South Korea's state-funded Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, speculated in Seoul that the cancellation was "an indirect protest of the results" of the Bush-Kim summit, the Associated Press reported.

However, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher dismissed any link between a tougher U.S. policy toward the North and the cancellation as "pure speculation."

"They didn't specify any reasons for postponing the South-North ministerial," Mr. Boucher told reporters at the State Department.

"There's no reason to believe that - as has happened in the past when these things have been postponed - that this ministerial will not be rescheduled."

-------- depleted uranium

Low Uranium Risk in Kosovo, UN Says

International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, March 14, 2001
AP
http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=13382

GENEVA Contamination caused by depleted uranium ammunition used in Kosovo is low, but there are still possible dangers from radiation in the water supply, the United Nations Environment Program said Tuesday.

The United States and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces used munitions containing depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal, during the 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, as well as in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995.

In its final report on samples taken from 11 sites across Kosovo in November, the agency said it found low levels of radiation and mild contamination from depleted uranium dust.

------

New York Times
March 14, 2001
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/world/14BRIE.html

KOSOVO: URANIUM RISK PLAYED DOWN A United Nations mission investigating the environmental effects of American depleted-uranium weapons used in Kosovo announced that it found no widespread contamination from low-level radioactive dust, but that some risks still existed in some places, including ground water. The group said that certain sites should be decontaminated, that munitions and shrapnel should be cleaned up and that in the areas that drew the most fire from the weapons, wells and ground water should be monitored for a number of years. Marlise Simons (NYT)

-------- iraq

Baghdad Journal: Uncle Sam's Embassy Sitter (and Lightning Rod)

New York Times
March 14, 2001
By JOHN F. BURNS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/world/14BAGH.html?pagewanted=print

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 13 - As diplomatic assignments go, Krzyzstof Bernacki's new job is about as improbable as they come. The 44-year-old Polish envoy had just arrived last month when he paid a courtesy call on the protocol chief of Iraq's Foreign Ministry, only to find himself in a diplomatic cul-de-sac over the American bombing of Iraqi radar communications sites near Baghdad a few days before.

Sticking to the script laid down by Saddam Hussein after the bombing, the Iraqi greeted Mr. Bernacki as though he were personally responsible for the attack. "Stop the killing!" he said. A perplexed Mr. Bernacki explained that his purpose in visiting the ministry was only to introduce himself, but the Iraqi would not be appeased. "Stop the killing - innocent children, civilians!" he said again. Finally, the Polish diplomat resorted to a stiff rejoinder that ended the exchange. "You have to comply with U.N. sanctions, and the problem will be solved," he said.

Mr. Bernacki may have many such conversations if he serves a full four-year assignment as America's stand-in here. As minister plenipotentiary and head of mission in the United States Interests Section of the Polish Embassy in Iraq, he works in the American Embassy, occupies the ambassador's office, dines on golden-eagle tableware that is standard for American ambassadors, and in other ways comports himself as a double for the made-in-America envoy he is not. When pressed, he also states official American policy - that Iraq, to be accepted back into the international community, must comply with United Nations resolutions requiring a verified end to all Iraqi programs aimed at developing weapons of mass destruction.

Since the American Embassy was closed a few days ahead of the bombing of Baghdad that began the Persian Gulf war on Jan. 17, 1991, there have been no American diplomats here. The State Department asked Poland to act as a surrogate, and the interests section was opened. It is a common diplomatic device when countries rupture relations, but need to protect empty embassies and residences, to offer at least bare-bones consular services, and to maintain a channel of communications.

"I like to put on a show," Mr. Bernacki, a trim, dapper man in well-cut trousers and polished shoes, said as he led visitors upstairs to his office. He is not allowed to fly the American flag from the embassy flagpole, but the Polish and American flags hang behind his desk. On the wall, there are still official photographs of Bill Clinton and Madeleine K. Albright, but Mr. Bernacki prefers to keep them until portraits of George W. Bush and Colin L. Powell arrive. "I think it's better not to remove them," he said. "They'll leave marks on the wall."

Otherwise, the embassy, behind concrete blocks set across the approaches from either end of Arasat al Hindeia Street in the wealthy al Mesbah district of Baghdad, is just as it was when Washington closed it - or as much as it reasonably could be, given the passage of 10 years.

Photographs of Arkansas and Texas and the Statue of Liberty line the walls, and a brass plate with the words "United States Marines" identifies a room behind the foyer, bolted shut, as the erstwhile redoubt of the embassy's security detachment.

But the passing of time, and the pervasive quiet, have lent what was once one of the busiest American embassies in the Middle East the atmosphere of a museum. Paint peels from the walls, and the artwork could do with a good dusting.

Heading the interests section is no feather bed. For six years, until December, the job was held by Ryszard Krystosik, a career diplomat who was Poland's ambassador to Washington during his country's transition from Communism to democracy. Mr. Krystosik's wife remained in Warsaw. Mr. Bernacki was accompanied here by his wife, Agneiszka, and 5-year-old twins, a boy and girl. The couple's previous posting was five years in Belgium, where Mr. Bernacki was involved in negotiating for Poland's eventual admission to the European Union.

Baghdad, they have found, is not Brussels. The family is subjected to tight travel restrictions: no movements beyond 18 miles from the city center. It is a restriction not imposed on diplomats in mainstream posts at the Polish Embassy, so weekend trips organized by other Poles will be off limits to the Bernackis. Although the agreement between the governments stipulated reciprocal terms, diplomats at the Iraqi Interests Section in Washington - Iraqi citizens - are on a slightly longer leash, with a limit of 25 miles from the center of Washington.

The job definition, too, is narrow. Mr. Bernacki, two other Polish diplomats and an Iraqi staff of 14 are charged with "protecting" the embassy, along with its equipment and furnishings, as well as the furnishings for the old American ambassador's residence, which was closed in the late 1990's when the lease ran out. In addition to the golden-eagle plates, the Bernackis have the ambassador's cut-crystal glasses for their wine.

But Mr. Bernacki's salary, while paid by Washington, is a Polish diplomat's, not an American's, and there are precious few perks with the job. Even the ambassador's car, a heavily armored 1988 Chevrolet Caprice, sits idle in the embassy garage. The windshield, made of specially laminated, bulletproof glass half an inch thick, has degraded with the years, until it is mostly opaque. "Since I wouldn't be able to see where I was going, I have decided not to use it," he said.

All in all, it is not a post many diplomats in midcareer would campaign for, but Mr. Bernacki, who joined the Polish Foreign Ministry in 1990, after the fall of Communism, sees it as an opportunity. When Mr. Bernacki visited Washington on a familiarization trip in November, officials at the State Department, citing the repressive conditions faced by foreigners in Iraq, particularly a diplomat representing the United States, asked how the job fell to him. "`Why you?' they asked me," Mr. Bernacki said. "And I told them, `Because you deserve the best.'"

Talking to an American reporter, the Polish diplomat was cautious in his remarks about Iraq. But he has been influenced, inevitably, by Poland's experience with autocratic government, which ended when the Solidarity movement toppled the country's Communist rulers. Mr. Bernacki, a student leader, spent five years in the 1980's in self-exile, working as a banker in Mexico, and remembers how suddenly political change can come.

"I don't think it will happen tomorrow, but in a country like this it can happen any day, and then I would go into the history books as the last head of the U. S. Interests Section in Baghdad," he said wryly.

Among Iraqis working at the embassy, there are several with wistful memories of working at the embassy long before the gulf war. Encountering faces of visitors from that era for the first time in years, they break into broad smiles and offer cryptic remarks suggesting that they, too, hope the Americans will someday return. A guard scanning the battery of television sets linked to video cameras on the embassy's roof used a common Arabic invocation. "Inshallah! Inshallah!" he said, meaning, "With the grace of God."

---

After Saddam?

Washington Times
March 14, 2001
Tony Blankley
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-column-200131419611.htm

Almost exactly 10 years ago former President George Bush instructed Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf to stop the war against Saddam Hussein. Since then, and up to this moment, our Iraqi policy has been a series of partially successful, but limited, restraining efforts against him.

His military forces have been kept at half pre-war strength. So far he has been deterred by our policies and our 25,000 troops in theater from again invading his neighbors. And, the Clinton Defense Department put in motion various improved chemical and biological war-fighting capabilities. We have improved our ability to detect such weapons on the battlefield, vaccinated our soldiers against anthrax, improved our soldiers chemical protective gear and increased our fast sealift and airlift capabilities to the Persian Gulf.

However, the central objective of ending his capacity to threaten the world with weapons of mass destruction has not only failed, but virtually has been written-off as a plausible objective.

Now, it is the turn of President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell to come in for the same harsh criticism from hawkish Republicans and editorial writers that candidate Bush and the Republicans have been leveling at Bill Clinton for the past three years. Specifically, Mr. Powell's recent call for reducing and focusing economic sanctions has been condemned as a retreat, just as Mr. Clinton's decision to acquiesce to Saddam's ending of the inspections regime was so condemned.

While the allegations of failure are fair, the possibly successful alternative policies are shockingly difficult to implement.

To give Mr. Powell his due, if he is able to rebuild the currently collapsed Gulf War alliance to support limited sanctions, he may be able to maintain the 10-year policy success of limiting Saddam's conventional war-fighting capability. But neither the sanctions regime, nor the no-fly zone enforcement are capable of addressing Saddam's nuclear, chemical and biological capabilities.

Those capacities are judged to have increased over the last 10 years. Specifically, Saddam is believed to have three nuclear weapons, possibly lacking only the nuclear fissile material. Moreover, according to the Brookings Institution, late last year he recalled many of his nuclear scientists back to the nuclear project and informed them that their work was "integral to the struggle against the enemy."

Over the last 10 years, our policy on Saddam's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons has shifted from disarming him to deterring him. Reversing this potentially catastrophic policy shift may have to become the primary foreign policy objective of the Bush administration. Recent intelligence findings ambiguously provide both hope and despair on this front.

According to both British and American intelligence sources, last December in a secret ceremony Saddam is believed to have informed his family and top aides that he is dying of cancer - perhaps within the year. He designated his youngest son - Qusay Hussein - as his successor. British intelligence describes Qusay as being "mercurial." One American intelligence source bluntly called him a manic depressive.

Whether out of concern for Qusay's mental stability, or because of simple power-lust, Saddam's three half-brothers - Barzan, Watban and Sabawi - and his older son, Uday, are believed to be prepared to challenge the succession - even at the price of an overt power struggle.

While some intelligence sources characterize this analysis as wishful thinking, Mr. Powell is reputed to give this intelligence assessment credibility. Thus the hope at the State Department is that this impending succession crisis will provide the long-awaited opportunity for opposition forces supported by the United States to seize power and end the threat of Saddam's Iraq.

Given this possibility, it is reasonable for Mr. Powell to continue with his cautious, minimalist sanctions policy, while using all available resources to prepare the Iraqi opposition for its ultimate moment.

But if this hoped-for event does not materialize and the Hussein policies survive his death (and particularly if the new leader is mentally unstable) the policy of deterrence, rather than disarmament, may be judged an unacceptably risky policy.

Then, Mr. Bush must face the grim challenge of disarming a possibly nuclear (and definitely chemical and biological) Iraq, which has provocatively positioned itself as the champion of Palestinian irredentism. One cringes at the thought of such American military action in the murderous Mideast cauldron with few if any Arab allies. It is easy to understand why the feckless Bill Clinton shrunk from such an appalling military challenge, preferring to temporize and hope for the best.

Current critics of Mr. Powell should either explain how they can realize the disarming of Iraq without such military action, or forthrightly describe the dimensions of the military solution. The time for casual complaining is coming to a close. The president and the public may soon have to decide whether the risk from Iraq justifies the cost and danger of the solution.

Email: tonyblankley@erols.com

Tony Blankley is a columnist for The Washington Times. His column appears on Wednesdays.

-------- korea

North Korea Suddenly Cancels Conciliation Talks With South

New York Times
March 14, 2001
By DON KIRK
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/world/14KORE.html

SEOUL, South Korea, March 13 - North Korea today abruptly postponed meetings planned for this week between North and South Korean cabinet members on major topics affecting inter-Korean relations.

In a terse telephone message to the North-South liaison office at the truce village of Panmunjom, a Northern official said only that "a number of circumstances" were responsible for causing a "delay" in the talks, South Korean officials said.

Caught off guard by the North's decision, South Korea's unification minister, Park Jae Kyu, responded by saying he hoped that the two sides would agree on another date "as soon as possible."

The two sides were to have spent four days discussing such matters as arrangements for the next round of visits by members of families divided by the Korean War, and plans for linking the railroad between North and South.

There was speculation here that the North, by canceling the meeting, was sending a clear signal that its leader, Kim Jong Il, was unhappy about comments in Washington last week by President Bush after a meeting with President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea.

Mr. Bush said he had "some skepticism about the leader of North Korea," particularly when it came to honoring agreements. The United States signed an agreement with North Korea in Geneva in 1994 under which it abandoned plutonium processing at a suspected nuclear weapons plant in return for the promise of construction of twin nuclear reactors to help fill the North's energy needs. Two senior administration officials said later that there was no evidence that North Korea was violating the agreement.

South Korean officials searched for reasons other than North Korean anger with Mr. Bush for the cancellation of the meetings. One theory was that the man who was to head the North's delegation, Jon Kum Jin, might be severely ill.

Analysts also suggested that the North might be in a policy quandary.

"The North needs time to think about its strategy about how to deal with the United States as well as South Korea," said Kim Sung Han, professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, an adjunct of South Korea's foreign ministry.

Mr. Kim said the North might have been upset by recent remarks by Kim Dae Jung in which he seemed to have accepted the principles of "verification" and "reciprocity" - terms the North views as "interference in internal affairs."

The Bush administration has called for "verification" of compliance with the Geneva agreement, as well as new agreements for doing away with production, testing and sale of missiles and other weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, Washington is demanding "reciprocity" from the North for gestures of good will by South Korea and the United States.

Some analysts believed that the North's cancellation of the talks might have reflected negotiations on a lesser level - between South and North Korea over payment by the Hyundai group for tours to the Mount Kumkang area of North Korea. Hyundai executives have said the financially pressed group no longer has the funds.

North Korea believes that the basic contract "is not between the North and Hyundai but between North and South Korea," said Choi Won Ki, author of a book on negotiations with the North. "So no matter what, the North believes the South should send the money."

---

N. Korea denounces Bush administration

USA Today
03/14/2001 - Updated 11:34 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-03-14-korea.htm

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea strongly denounced the Bush administration Wednesday, saying it has adopted a hostile policy aimed at "stifling" the communist country.

It was the North's first direct criticism after President Bush met last week with South Korea's president and laid down a hard line toward the North, ruling out an immediate resumption of Clinton-era negotiations with the communist government.

Pyongyang's angry reply Wednesday came a day after it abruptly called off Cabinet-level talks with South Korea - striking a blow to reconciliation efforts. Some in the South said the Bush administration's stance may have sparked the move.

Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper for the North's ruling Workers' Party, said Washington was "escalating its provocative and reckless" rhetoric against the North.

It also objected to U.S concerns about human rights and allegations that the North sponsors terrorism.

Raising such issues is a clear indication that the United States "only intends to step up its hostile policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK (North Korea)," said the paper's commentary, carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency

"If the U.S. imperialists dare turn to confrontation with the DPRK, the army and people of the DPRK will take thousand-fold revenge on them," the commentary said, using the abbreviation for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

At the White House talks last week, Bush met with South Korea's President Kim Dae-jung. Afterward, Bush expressed skepticism at North Korea's intensions and said any deal in which the North agrees to limit its missiles must include verifiable terms that would prevent cheating.

Meanwhile, South Korea's Culture and Tourism Minister Kim Han-gil was to arrive in Seoul later Wednesday from a four-day visit to North Korea. His trip to the North overlapped President Kim's visit to the United States, prompting speculation that he may have an answer to why North Korea called off the planned talks Tuesday.

In recent weeks, North Korea has angrily threatened to pull out of missile and nuclear accords with the United States, partly to protest what it views as a hardline approach in Washington.

The Korean peninsula was divided into the communist North and pro-Western South in 1945. The 1950-53 Korean War ended without a peace treaty, and their border remains sealed and heavily fortified. The United States keeps 37,000 troops in the South under a defense treaty.

-------- missile defense

Bush Says Russia not Enemy But Could be Threat

Russia Today
Mar 14, 2001
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=309735§ion=default

WASHINGTON -- (Reuters) President George W. Bush said on Tuesday that his administration planned to make it clear to Russian President Vladimir Putin that it did not see Russia as an enemy, although it may be a threat.

In an interview with reporters from regional newspapers, Bush explained his theories about Russia in relation to missile defense.

"Missile defense is the ... beginning of focusing resources on the true threats facing America," Bush said in the interview, a transcript of which was released by the White House.

"Russia is not an enemy. They may be a threat, if they decide to be, but they're not the enemy," he said. "And it's going to be very important for my administration to make that very clear to Mr. Putin."

Bush and Putin are at odds over Bush's plans to build a missile defense shield. Putin is a strong supporter of the Cold War-era Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Bush has vowed to scrap if necessary to build the shield.

Bush has said the United States needs to create a national missile defense umbrella to protect its territory from a surprise attack by "rogue states" such as Iran and North Korea.

"Anybody with a nuclear weapon is a threat," Bush said. "But the true threats to stability and peace are these nations that are not very transparent ... that don't let people in to take a look and see what they're up to."

The United States urged Russia this week not to provide Iran with advanced conventional weapons or sensitive military technologies when it resumes its arm sales to Iran. Putin has told the United States he would go ahead selling arms to Iran and to complete construction there of a nuclear power plant.

The United States has complained repeatedly to Russia about the transfer of missile and nuclear technology to Iran.

---

Moscow's offense against US missile defense
On Monday, Putin announced Russia will resume arms sales to Iran.

By Scott Peterson
Christian Science Monitor
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 2001
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/03/14/fp1s3-csm.shtml

MOSCOW - What President Bush calls his most "urgent" military objective is to build a national missile defense system that would shield Americans from any ballistic missiles fired by "rogue" nations - like North Korea or Iran.

But Russians say the future missile threat is overblown, and believe NMD is less about US protection and more about the way it sees itself in a new global view.

"NMD is about American strategic hegemony in the world," says Alexei Pushkov of the Presidential Foreign Policy Council in Moscow. "Even if I am wrong, this is how it is perceived all over the world, and perceptions here are much more important than reality."

In fact, most of Europe and Asia opposes the plan. But perhaps most important, Russia - for decades the counterpoint in an arms race with the US - views NMD as a threat to its dwindling superpower status and is working to undermine it. Moscow this week is ramping up its courtship of Iran. And rhetoric is heavy against any changes - or scrapping by the US altogether - of the landmark 1972 Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty with Russia, which would be required to deploy NMD.

Long considered a cornerstone of European security, the ABM treaty limits missile arsenals and prohibits missile defenses. US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has dismissed the accord as a "straightjacket," and says Russia is "part of the problem" of proliferation, by selling missile and nuclear technology to Iran and North Korea. North Korea, in turn, has been a chief source of missile technology to the Middle East.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin warned last week that an American pullout would "create legal consequences over which Russia has no control."

The result from all this political posturing, threats, and counterthreats, Russia says, could be new arms races. While cash-strapped Moscow is ill-equipped to take on such a task - and still maintains a large arsenal - China, especially, could feel obligated to fortify its 20-strong long-range missile force that would be neutralized by NMD. That, in turn, could touch off arms buildups in India and Pakistan.

"America is changing the rules, which could lead to a very serious crisis," says Mr. Pushkov. "There has been one strategic balance, but now it will be a new strategic imbalance. The US is a bit carried away by [its] unilateralism ... because nobody takes the threat seriously."

On Monday, Iran's President Mohammad Khatami arrived in Russia for four days of talks with Mr. Putin. Countering the $60 billion US missile plan is said to be high on their agenda.

Mr. Khatami - in the first visit to Russia by an Iranian leader in decades - was met by Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who is responsible for Russia's military-industrial complex and overseas arms contracts. At the Kremlin, Khatami told Putin that Iran wants to "begin a new spring in our relations."

After their meeting, Putin announced Russia formally agreed to resume sales of arms to Iran, which it had not done for five years. Moreover, Putin restated Russia's aim to help Iran with its nuclear power plant, which the US believes could be used to advance Iran's nuclear weapons program.

This is not likely to please the US, which has already slapped sanctions on several companies in Russia for selling nuclear and missile expertise to Iran.

That, Russia contends, is hypocritical. "The Americans are present in the [Iranian] market. US-made aircraft are in the air, supplies are available through third parties and third countries, while Russian planes stand idle," Gen Leonid Ivashov, who works at the Defense Ministry, told state television on Sunday.

And Iran even wonders why it is on the US "rogue" nation list. "It's almost meaningless to say that somehow Iran, or North Korea, or Libya can threaten American national security," says Nasser Hadian-Jazy, an American-educated political scientist at the University of Tehran. "That's an excuse for missile defense, and is due to domestic pressure," he says. "The Defense Department does not want its budget cut, so it needs a viable, imminent threat."

Meanwhile, Putin is signaling Russia's willingness to play hardball. First came a tough military message: Russia defiantly launched an array of long-range missile tests from air, sea, and land last month, amid a bluster from top generals that NMD was "pure fantasy." Second, Putin sent a shot across the diplomatic bow by offering his own counterproposal last month for a mobile defense for Europe, to be created hand-in-hand with NATO.

While many in Washington, and at NATO, took this as a sign Moscow had at least recognized a missile threat, analysts here say it is a tactic to delay NMD, while the Russian offer is examined, and a bid to insert Russia into the missile-defense debate.

"Of course it is a tactic.... There is no military threat, so Russian generals are suspicious," says Pavel Felgenhauer, a military analyst in Moscow. "They are asking: 'Why is the US spending so much money on this? They must be up to some kind of mischief - like a decision to undermine Russia's nuclear deterrence.'"

The limited system currently on the table was put forward by former President Clinton. It envisions an interceptor base for 250 "hit-to-kill" rockets in Alaska, designed to knock out "tens" of missiles arcing over from North Korea. Some 20 interceptors could be in position by 2006.

But questions remain about NMD, as well as the threat it is meant to offset. "Hitting a bullet with another bullet" remains a technical challenge despite Pentagon efforts since the 1950s. A 1998 Defense Department report warned that NMD programs were in a "rush to failure" and "highly unlikely" to succeed. In the wake of a second test failure, Mr. Clinton decided six months ago to delay deployment.

Precision about any missile danger has become "more a matter of faith and ideology ... than intelligence and threat analysis," says Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

A system won't be deployable "in any significant strength" for nearly a decade, Mr. Cordesman notes, after Bush leaves office even if he is elected to a second term, and "threats can mature in three to eight years - or never."

Last year, the CIA told Congress that US territory is anyway "more likely" to be attacked by "non-missile delivery means." And 50 American Nobel laureates have warned that NMD will do "grave harm" to core US security interests.

Among their concerns may be the strong reaction from Russia and China - which announced last week it would boost defense spending by 18 percent because of "profound changes" worldwide. These are only the first signs that presage a troubled future if NMD goes ahead, says Joseph Cirincione at the Carnegie Center for International Peace in Washington. "Unlike any other weapons system, the [negative] impact from the deployment of NMD is felt years before any military capability is actually yielded."

"It is very unwise for the US to think that Russia is a weak country today," warns Pushkov, of Russia's Presidential Foreign Policy Council. "Russia can still use the fact that it has a very important nuclear potential as a bargaining factor."

"This approach is really dangerous," adds Pavel Ivanov, at the institute for National Security and Strategic Studies in Moscow. "There are hawks on both sides, and America's decision to bury the ABM Treaty will signal to the Russian military that they must reanimate their claims that 'Our Motherland is in Danger.' The final end could be the Nikita Khruschev approach: 'We'll make missiles like sausages.'"

---

China Says Open to Missile Shield Talks With U.S.

Inside China Today
Mar 14, 2001
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=309985

BEIJING -- (Reuters) China's top arms control diplomat has welcomed American offers to discuss U.S. missile shield plans that Beijing stridently opposes.

In an advance sounding of a key message Vice Premier Qian Qichen is expected to deliver in the United States next week, Sha Zukang on Wednesday slammed the National Missile Defense (NMD) proposal as "a U.S. program of unilateral nuclear expansion".

"We hope the U.S. will give up the idea, just as they have done with ... Star Wars," Sha, director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Department of Arms Control, told a news conference.

But, in contrast to the categorical opposition China has voiced since last year, Sha said Beijing was willing to talk with Washington to "narrow our differences".

"We noted and we appreciated the statement from the new administration in the U.S. saying that NMD is not targeted at China," he said.

"China welcomes the statement and we are ready to have dialogue and discussions with the Americans," he said.

The first opportunity for talks will come when Qian, Beijing's top foreign policy official, visits the U.S. from March 18 to 24. He will become first senior Chinese official to meet President George W. Bush.

RUSSIA SEEN PRODDING CHINA

Last year, China used every opportunity to attack NMD and the Asian regional version, known as Theater Missile Defense (TMD), with Russia joining in the criticism.

"But diplomatically the issue has progressed, and Russia has taken a more sophisticated, proactive approach even as its bottom-line opposition hasn't changed," said a Western diplomat.

"China recognizes that the issue has moved to a new stage," he said.

The Russians floated a proposal last month for a missile defense system as an alternative to U.S. plans. Washington has welcomed the Russian proposal as a sign Moscow recognized the threat from countries developing long-range missiles.

"China is a open-minded and we have a series of proposals on the table, including those by Russia," he said.

Sha reiterated the main point of China's opposition, saying Beijing feared it would negate its modest strategic arsenal. He said Washington was overstating the ballistic missile threat from hostile states such as North Korea and Iraq.

"To say the least, the U.S. has over-exaggerated the missile threats from the so-called 'countries of concern'," he said.

China voiced relief last year when former President Bill Clinton handed to his successor the decision on whether to go ahead with the missile defense shield. But it was alarmed at Bush's campaign promises to turn NMD into reality.

"WE HATE THE IDEA"

In another message Qian is likely to deliver to Bush, Zha turned emotional in attacking proposed U.S. sales of advanced weapons to Taiwan. China views the island as a rebel province and has vowed to reunify with it, by force if necessary.

"We hate the idea. We condemn this idea," he said.

"Among the arms they have sold or proposed to sell to Taiwan, Aegis is the worst," he said.

Aegis radar systems, fitted on destroyers and capable of tracking more than 100 targets simultaneously, are at the top of a hi-tech weapons shopping list put forth by Taiwan which the Bush administration is to decide upon next month.

Beijing worries that Washington's providing Taipei with Aegis and other advanced arms would effectively revive a long-defunct U.S.-Taiwan military alliance and draw the island China claims as a wayward province into a U.S.-proposed missile defense system.

Taiwan is the most sensitive issue in China-U.S. ties and has the potential to drag the two into war. Washington has had no diplomatic relations with Taipei since 1979, but is the island's biggest arms supplier.

---

Bush should tone down national missile defense

Seattle Times
Editorials & Opinion : Wednesday, March 14, 2001
By Peter H. Rose Special to The Times
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=rose14&date=20010314

This week, Seattle will be in the center of the debate over the national missile defense (NMD) system. Thursday and Friday, the Union of Concerned Scientists will conduct a briefing on national missile defense and on the U.S. nuclear weapons policy of the new Bush administration. It will be held at the Westin Hotel, in connection with the national meeting of the American Physical Society.

In general, scientists and physicists have been opposed to NMD based on questions about its feasibility and practicality.

To date, President Bush has issued many strong words about these topics, but not much solid information. He has pledged to deploy a "robust" defense system - a step beyond the minimal NMD system promoted by the Clinton administration - one that will protect both the U.S. and our troops abroad, as well as other countries.

To reach such a goal, Bush must consider either ship-borne or other forward-based systems, such as air- or space-borne systems. Systems like that were the goal of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (or "Star Wars," as it was known), on which the U.S. spent more than $60 billion over 10 years - yet we still have no technologies that can answer this challenge.

Consequently, the president's goal represents no immediate answer to any current threat that the Pentagon can conjure. The best the president can honestly promise the country with this approach is a continuation of research and development - i.e., "Star Wars II" - with no defined goals or time scale.

If we proceed this way and break the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, we lose arms-control progress, spend lots of money, lose credibility with our allies, and gain nothing in our overall sense of security.

Of course, the president can retreat from his campaign position and support proceeding with the Clinton administration's more modest NMD program. But here he inherits a multitude of serious problems with no immediate answers and a program whose modest goals have been seriously questioned by many. The first three tests of this program have had little success; the rocket booster to launch the interceptor into space is now a year behind schedule; the crucial software for testing the system is now many months behind schedule; the proposed test program has been slipping almost on a month-by-month basis (the next test is now scheduled for June of this year), and, worst of all, the system still has no prov-en or even conceptual way to perform the absolutely essential task of discriminating a warhead from cleverly designed decoys in outer space!

All these concerns mean that the earliest possible deployment date for a minimal NMD system would be 2008 and probably even later.

Even the Pentagon's former director of operational test and evaluation, Philip Coyle, and a high-level Pentagon advisory committee headed by retired Gen. Larry Welch have called the planned test program inadequate and called for more-extensive testing against realistic targets. A more realistic schedule relaxes the urge to start to build a radar facility at Shemya Island in Alaska, which is the step that currently interferes with the ABM treaty. Yet, the Pentagon is clamoring to take this step, insisting that they can meet an earlier deployment date.

The new president has rightly called for an early and major review of the U.S. nuclear weapons policy by the Pentagon, which should address all the issues of missile defense, nuclear targeting, reduction of nuclear weapons and de-alerting ballistic missiles. Recommendations from this review will clearly influence this administration's decisions about NMD.

In view of all the above, why is the administration clamoring for abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972? Donald Rumsfeld, the new secretary of Defense, has called the treaty obsolete and ancient history. But the ABM treaty has been a critical part of all current and potentially future arms-control treaties that are in place or under discussion.

Without the ABM treaty, Russia and China will not reduce their nuclear forces; in fact, both have stated strongly that they will build up their offensive systems and a new arms race will be upon us.

In view of the real situation in defense-system technology, not with "faith-based" thinking based on our infinite technical ingenuity, the U.S. does not have to face the abrogation issue at this time. Backing off would allow time for serious and constructive international negotiations to come to reasonable agreements, both with our friends and allies as well as with our potential opponents.

With the more than $100 billion that would be saved by not building a missile-defense system, we should be able to make some creative solutions. After all, a defense system that does not work and is only in the mind of the proponents will only make things worse.

Peter H. Rose, a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists, is a retired scientist/engineer who has been involved in ballistic missile and anti-ballistic missile research since 1955. He was CEO of Seattle-based Spectra Technology, Inc., which actively pursued research and development in laser technology for the Strategic Defense Initiative.

---

Beijing Softens Stance on U.S. Missile Defense Plan

Washington Post
Wednesday, March 14, 2001; 12:22 PM
By John Pomfret Washington Post Foreign Service
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3814-2001Mar14.html

BEIJING, March 14 - China today signaled a softening of its stance on U.S. plans to create a national missile defense system, saying it was looking forward to discussing the issue with the United States when its top diplomat visits Washington next week.

Sha Zukang, China's chief arms negotiator, reiterated China's opposition to the system, saying it would constitute a program of "unilateral nuclear expansion." However, Sha also added that China wished to narrow its differences with the United States over the system that the Bush administration wants to create for protection from missile attack.

Sha, known to American diplomats for his blunt and somewhat blustery style, also announced that China did not contest American plans to deploy a missile defense system in Asia to protect American troops there - something that China in the past has stridently opposed. He reiterated, however, that China would view with alarm any American attempts to transfer such technology to Taiwan - the island of 23 million people 100 miles off China's coast that Beijing claims as one of its territories. The seasoned arms control negotiator was referring specifically to the Aegis radar system mounted on Arleigh-Burke class destroyers that the Bush administration is considering selling to Taiwan. A decision is due next month.

"The Aegis is the worst!" Sha said.

Sha's statements, made in a news conference, were apparently intended to pave the way for Vice Premier Qian Qichen, who will visit the United States next week. By depicting China's position as flexible, Beijing is hoping to show the new Bush administration that it wants good ties with the United States.

"The U.S. is too big. We cannot kick them to the moon," Sha opined. "China has been living on the Earth for at least 5,000 years. We will be here forever."

"We have a love-hate relationship" with the United States, Sha continued. "But we do have a lot of common interests. We want to be their friends. It seems to me that they have the same good intentions."

China also might be responding to signs that Russia and Europe are willing to engage the Bush administration about national missile defense. Chinese analysts acknowledge that Beijing is worried about being left out on the cold on this issue - therefore it is moving quickly now to open talks with the United States.

Sha's comments are part of a charm offensive that China has carried out since President Bush was elected president. In early January, Qian, in an interview with The Washington Post, expressed flexibility in dealing with the future of Taiwan. China has since dispatched two delegations of diplomats to Washington to lobby against U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

China opposes the Bush administration's plan because a missile defense system will nullify China's nuclear deterrent. However, Sha said even if the system was deployed, China would not necessarily take radical steps, such as defying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty - a veiled threat he made late last year.

Sha also did not bite when asked if China would move to resume substantial sales of the weapons of mass destruction to countries the United States views with concern if the missile shield were deployed - again something that he had hinted was possible last year.

Most unusual, Sha said, China understood American plans to deploy what is called a theater missile defense system in Asia to protect American troops - another softening of Beijing's policy.

"There is a gray area here," he said. "China is not opposed to TMD per se . . . to protect troops and military bases."

---

North Korea Denounces Bush Stance

New York Times
March 14, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Koreas-US.html

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- The reconciliation process on the Korean Peninsula suffered another setback Wednesday, with North Korea unleashing one of its biggest barrages of anti-U.S. rhetoric since President Bush took office.

The verbal attacks came a day after Pyongyang abruptly canceled Cabinet-level talks with South Korea that were to set an agenda of cross-border exchanges on their divided peninsula for the rest of the year.

At the same time, a scattering of symbolic shows of friendship remained on track: South Korea said the two countries had agreed to form a single team for the world table-tennis championship in Japan next month.

And the two countries planned on Thursday to hold the first-ever formal exchange of letters from family members who were separated during or before the 1950-53 Korean War. North Korea, however, has refused appeals from the South to allow those who receive letters to respond with their own.

In its latest display of displeasure with the United States, the Pyongyang government delivered a string of denunciations of what it perceives as a hard-line policy toward the North by the Bush administration.

''(North Korea) has closely followed the U.S. attitude towards (North Korea) after the emergence of the Bush administration in the U.S., which has taken a provocative approach,'' Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper for the ruling Workers' Party, said in a commentary carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

North Korea's virulent declarations against the United States had faded after the Seoul and Pyongyang governments agreed to pursue rapprochement at an unprecedented inter-Korean summit in June.

Now, however, warming U.S.-North Korean ties are on hold: Bush told South Korean President Kim Dae-jung in Washington last week that he would not immediately resume talks on the North's missile program and that he was skeptical of its totalitarian government.

Joseph Nye, a Koreas expert and dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, said he believed Washington will maintain its policy of trying to engage the North as long as it responds with concrete gestures.

Nye said that after a recent conversation on North Korea policy with a U.S. administration official, ``the impression I got was that they were tightening the policy somewhat, but not reversing it.''

Impoverished North Korea is heavily dependent on the United States for food aid and fuel oil, and its sharp outbursts -- reminiscent of the North's Cold War-era diatribes -- may be as much a negotiating tactic as a sign of deteriorating relations.

Still, South Korean officials are concerned about Pyongyang's statements, which included condemnation of Washington's plans for missile defense, a program designed to thwart possible attacks from ``rogue'' states such as North Korea.

``The U.S. can neither be justified nor tolerated in trying to establish (missile defense) for aggression under the absurd pretext of 'threat' from (North Korea),'' Rodong Sinmun said.

In recent weeks, North Korea has threatened to pull out of missile and nuclear accords with the United States. It is upset by delays in the construction by a U.S.-led consortium of two nuclear reactors, in exchange for which the North suspended its suspected nuclear weapons program.

The Korean Peninsula was divided into the communist North and pro-Western South in 1945. The 1950-53 Korean War ended without a peace treaty, and their border remains sealed and heavily fortified. The United States keeps 37,000 troops in the South under a defense treaty.

---

China Wants Defense Talks With U.S.

New York Times
March 14, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-China-US.html

BEIJING (AP) -- China wants to start talks with U.S. officials on Washington's plan to build an anti-missile shield and the first contacts could start this month, China's arms control chief said Wednesday.

Sha Zukang, head of the Foreign Ministry's arms control department, said China wants talks to ``narrow our differences'' over the proposed National Missile Defense system, which China and Russia strongly oppose.

``We are ready to have dialogue .... we are ready to talk to them,'' Sha told reporters at a briefing.

Sha said China approved of U.S. dialogue on missile defense with Washington's European allies and Russia and wants a similar dialogue.

The talks could start when Vice Premier Qian Qichen, China's senior leader for foreign policy, visits Washington and New York, Sha said. President Bush is scheduled to meet with Qian in Washington on March 22, White House officials have said.

Sha said his office has forwarded ``talking points'' to Qian on the missile defense. Qian will be the first Chinese leader to visit since Bush's inauguration in January.

Sha reiterated Beijing's opposition to the missile defense system as a threat to China's security. The system would throw off the global strategic balance, hamper arms control efforts and trigger an arms race, he said.

He also warned against sales to Taiwan of destroyers equipped with the Aegis battle management system that could link up with a U.S. missile defense network, calling that a ``very, very serious issue.''

China opposes all weapons sales to the island it considers a breakaway province, but ``Aegis is the worst,'' Sha said.

China worries a U.S. missile umbrella could blunt its small nuclear deterrent force. It also fears a localized version of the system for Asia could include Taiwan, frustrating Beijing's plans to bring about reunion with the island that split from China in 1949.

The Bush administration says the United States needs the system as a safeguard against missile attack from adversaries such as Iraq and North Korea.

But Sha said Washington has exaggerated the threat. The ``absolute security'' of a missile defense shield would make the United States more likely to bully other countries, he warned.

``In my view, the development of (National Missile Defense) is tantamount to drinking poison to quench the thirst,'' Sha said.

---

Powell Cautions Russia on Iran Deal

New York Times
March 14, 2001 Filed at 1:25 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Russia-Iran.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday criticized Russia for cutting a new weapons deal with Iran.

``It is not wise to invest in regimes that do not follow international standards of behavior,'' Powell said.

Testifying before a friendly Senate Budget Committee, Powell said the Bush administration will pursue a ``realistic'' policy toward Moscow, intending to nudge Russia into a better relationship.

Ten years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Powell said, Russia ``no longer presents a threatening face to us.'' But, he said, ``Our goal should not be to see if we can make Russia our best friend.''

Zeroing in on an agreement Russian President Vladimir Putin reached with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, Powell said ``we have to be candid with the Russians'' and tell them they should not be ``investing in weapons sales in countries such as Iran which have no future.''

``We don't want an enemy, we want a friend,'' Powell said, ``but we have to be realistic''

Powell told a reporter, meanwhile, he will ask Sergei Ivanov, Putin's national security assistant, to provide details of the decision to resume selling arms to Iran after a five-year hiatus.

``What exactly did they agree to? We will try to find that out,'' Powell said of the late afternoon meeting with Ivanov, who also saw his U.S. counterpart, Condoleezza Rice.

Afterward, Ivanov called their White House meeting a ``no-rubbish'' session.

They discussed the Bush administration's plan to build a missile defense system, but only in ``conceptual terms, because the administration itself is not quite ready yet,'' Ivanov told reporters through a translator. ``And we understand that, because the administration has not been formed completely yet.''

Ivanov said his government was awaiting a full accounting of reports that the United States tunneled beneath the then-Soviet Embassy in Washington.

``This issue was discussed on the level of foreign ministries already,'' he said. ``Our minister of foreign relations has already sent his message to the Department of State, and now we are expecting answers to our questions.''

Ivanov invited Rice to Moscow, and she accepted, he told reporters. He did not announce a date, but said the two share an interest in basketball and classical art. ``There is some personal chemistry, as we say,'' he said.

Ivanov also said the first likely meeting between the presidents of the two nations was likely to take place at the G-8 summit of top industrialized countries and Russia in Genoa, Italy, in July.

There was no immediate confirmation from the Bush administration.

On another issue, Powell said he did not intend to imply any change in policy when he referred to Taiwan last week as the Republic of China in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, said Beijing voiced strong concern and dissatisfaction with his use of the expression.

``I'm still tightening my new saddle,'' Powell said with a smile, during a break in the hearing.

In his testimony, Powell said the Bush administration's budget for the next fiscal year includes about $75 million for Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuela and Panama to strengthen their efforts to control drug production and the drug trade.

At the same time, the administration is seeking congressional approval for $156 million for Peru and $101 million for Bolivia for their coca eradication and other anti-drug programs.

Overall, the Bush administration is requesting about $23.9 billion -- a 5 percent increase over this year-- for international programs.

``Together,'' Powell told the committee, ``we can continue this very positive effort we have begun to pull the State Department into the 21st century.''

While most senators did not press Powell on the budget, the senior Democrat on the committee, Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, said the administration was not open about its spending plans.

``The Bush administration has left huge questions unanswered about how much money it will be seeking for the State Department over the next several years and where it will be spent,'' Conrad said in a statement distributed at the end of the hearing.

``I can only conclude that the Bush administration has left these details out because they know that they cannot afford the large increases they will be seeking without cutting back on other priorities or driving us back into deficit,'' Conrad said.

-------- russia

A Russian game of chess

Wshington Times
March 14, 2001
Helle Bering
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-column-200131419457.htm

We may soon come to long for the good old days of bumbling Boris Yeltsin. The Russian leader tended to explode with the predictability of a Yellowstone geyser, displaying a range of tempers from dead drunk to cunning to hopping mad, and even at times to charmingly effusive. Soon we may not have old Boris to kick around anymore. According to reports, his health is going south again.

When it came to the crucial strategic issues of the first decade after the Cold War, Mr. Yeltsin did not always play his cards very well. In the areas where his wily foreign minister and later prime minister Yevgeny Primakov was expert, i.e., Iraq and the Middle East, the Russians quite successfully interfered with American plans. When it came to Europe, however, the revolving Yeltsin governments were unable to halt the progression of East and Central European countries seeking closer economic and military ties with the European Union and NATO.

In 1999, NATO accepted three new members for the first time in more than a decade, former Warsaw Pact members, over furious Russian objections. They were not even able to use the NATO-Russian Founding Act of 1994, which gave the Russians a consultative role in NATO, to their advantage. The Russian government, after much delay, only this month allowed NATO Secretary General George Robertson to preside over the opening of a NATO liaison office in Moscow, all of two rooms rented in the Belgian embassy.

Particularly the inclusion of Poland, a neighbor to the Russian military enclave of Kaliningrad, was humiliating. Should either Poland or Lithuania, Kaliningrad's neighbor to the north, join NATO, the Russians warned, consequences for the Baltic region would be devastating. And what happened? Nothing, actually - except the Russians looked pretty silly.

As explained last week by former Russian Deputy Foreign Minster Andrei Federov at a conference of the Center for Security and International Studies, the Russians really do not want to find themselves in that situation again. While they know they cannot block NATO enlargement, the Russians very much want to influence its course and define their own place in European security architecture. A prime goal this time is to prevent the Baltic countries from joining NATO in the next round of enlargement, which may happen in 2002. According to Mr. Federov, the Russians would like to postpone any decision on the Baltics until 2005, which coincides with the timeline for the Russian currency union with Belarus. A union with Moldova will undoubtedly be the next aim, and beyond that Ukraine, creating a strong Eurasian power block.

An additional Russian concern is that we now have a U.S. administration determined to move ahead with missile defense, which worries the Russians almost as much as NATO expansion. In an even weaker position than his predecessor, Mr. Putin will have to rely on his wits and the tactics he learned in the KGB, and both of which he may desperately need.

According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty analyst Paul Goble, speaking to the Joint Baltic American National Committee this weekend, "Subversion is the weapon of the weak, just as it was for the Soviets in the 1930s." According to RFE/RL reports, Mr. Putin has asked the Russian Duma for $50 million to conduct a campaign against enlargement in the media in Europe and the United States. This certainly smacks of the Soviet disinformation campaigns of the 1980s, first against the intermediate range nuclear missiles in Europe and later against Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative.

On missile defense, Mr. Putin is being quite creative, playing to the fears and concerns of Europeans opposed to American plans. Presumably with a straight face, he told Lord Robertson that the Russians now acknowledge the threat to their own security from rogue states - like the Iranians perhaps, to whom Russians have been selling nuclear technology over bitter American objections.

According to Lord Robertson, who was in Washington last week fresh from his meeting with the Russian president, "Putin is moving along the same path as Europeans, away from Cold War perceptions. This presents opportunities for new enhanced regimes." In fact, Mr. Putin argued that since Europe and Russia are clearly much further down the road as far as local threats are concerned, they very much need theater missile defense. The United States, he blithely asserted, is at no risk from ballistic missiles yet from rogue states, so why not leave the Antiballistic Missile treaty alone? (This treaty being what stands in the way of U.S. National Missile Defense). Obviously, Lord Robertson was quite taken with Mr. Putin's very reasonable posture.

Under Mr. Putin, the Russians surely will find other ways to work on splits within the U.S.-European alliance. As they do so, we will have to recognize what they are doing and not allow ourselves to be deflected from legitimate and important goals.

E-mail: hbering@washingtontimes.com.

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Define defensive weapon, U.S. tells Russia

The Hindu
Wednesday, March 14, 2001
By Sridhar Krishnaswami
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2001/03/14/stories/03140003.htm

WASHINGTON, MARCH 13. The Bush Administration has expressed concern at Russia's increased trade in ``defensive'' weapons and nuclear cooperation with Iran. The State Department has taken the position that sale of advanced conventional weapons or sensitive technologies are of particular concern to the U.S.

``It is particularly counter-productive for the Russians to sell things...in their neighbourhood, in areas that affect us as well as that might threaten us all,'' said the State Department spokesman, Mr. Richard Boucher. Washington, in the meantime, is saying that it is up to Moscow and Teheran to define what is meant by defensive weapons.

The Russian sale of weapons to Iran and cooperation in sensitive technologies has been a matter of concern to the U.S. in the last several years including during the eight years of the Clinton administration. ``The issue of Russian proliferation activities is a top priority issue for the administration. It's one that the United States has raised frequently with the Russians in the past and one that we will continue to raise into the future,'' said Mr. Boucher.

In the present context, the issue gets into sharper focus given the Bush Administration's seemingly tough posturings on such issues as the National Missile Defence System which is vehemently opposed by Russia.

The U.S. has also said the issue will be raised when Mr. Sergei Ivanov, Secretary of the Russian President's Security Council, meets the National Security Advisor, Ms. Condoleeza Rice, and the Secretary of State, Gen. Colin Powell, on Wednesday. ``... he is not coming to talk to us about this. But obviously we may end up talking about this to him.''

The U.S. is also expected to extend the six year trade and investment ban on Iran which will expire on Thursday if the President, Mr. George W Bush, does not renew it. The Republican administration has made it known that it has little stomach for sanctions, but for obvious political reasons punitive measures will be sought and maintained on some countries.

Gen. Powell has said on more than one occasion that Washington will seek to improve relations with Iran which has been in the deep freeze since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. At the same time no substantive changes in American policy can be expected for the next several months, including on the sanctions front. Aside from concerns on the nuclear and missile technology fronts, the U.S. accuses Iran of sponsoring terrorism and impeding the West Asia peace process.

The first major test for the administration will come in August when the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act expires. This focuses on penalising foreign energy firms doing business with the two countries. Several major firms in Europe and the Asia Pacific have consistently and blatantly flouted this law and the Bush Administration will have the ``choice'' of doing away with the law or reinforcing it in a meaningful fashion.

---

U.S.: Russia-Iran Ties Worry Washington

Radio Free Europe
By Charles Recknagel
01/03/14
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2001/03/14032001121409.asp

This week's visit of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami to Russia has prompted worried reactions from the United States. Washington is particularly troubled by Moscow's promises to sell Tehran new weapons and to complete construction of an Iranian nuclear power plant. RFE/RL correspondent Charles Recknagel looks at the reasons for U.S. concerns.

Prague, 14 March 2001 (RFE/RL) -- -- Since Iran's President Mohammad Khatami began his visit to Russia on Monday (12 March), there have been ample signs that both countries intend to forge stronger ties in spite of any U.S. criticism.

Russian President Vladimir Putin followed up a meeting with Khatami by saying Moscow planned to resume sales of conventional arms to Iran after having desisted for more than five years. Putin also reiterated Russia's intention to help Iran complete its nuclear power plant near the Gulf port of Bushehr.

Putin's remarks were not unexpected. But they have sparked a worried response from Washington because they represent setbacks for U.S. policy goals in the region.

The Russian president's promise to renew arms sales completes a move by the Kremlin to withdraw from a secret Yeltsin-era pledge made to Washington in 1995 to refrain from selling weapons to Tehran. The Kremlin said last year it was abandoning the pledge but would not supply Iran anything related to weapons of mass destruction.

At the same time, Putin's promise to complete the long-stalled Bushehr reactor now adds to U.S. fears that Iran will not only build up its conventional forces but also try to develop nuclear weapons.

The United States accuses Iran of sponsoring terrorism and is especially concerned with the possibility Tehran could use any future nuclear capability to threaten Israel -- a state Iran does not recognize -- or other U.S. allies in the Mideast.

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said shortly after Putin's remarks on 12 March that Washington cannot yet evaluate Russia's intentions because it does not know what kind of arms Moscow envisions selling.

But Boucher said Washington feels it is counterproductive for Russia to sell any advanced conventional weapons or sensitive technologies to Iran. He said the United States would voice its concerns, in his words, "quite energetically and repeatedly if that was the area that they started going into."

Analysts say that while the United States may be using guarded language in publicly criticizing the growing Russian-Iranian ties, the two countries' growing cooperation genuinely worries Washington and the level of that worry is likely to increase.

Geoffrey Kemp, a U.S. policy expert at the Nixon Center for Peace in Washington, tells RFE/RL that Washington recognizes Iran's need to upgrade its conventional military equipment, particularly for land operations. Iran's stores of such equipment were badly drained by the 1980 to 1988 Iran-Iraq war, when Tehran was subject to a worldwide embargo.

But Kemp says Washington is much less comfortable with Iran upgrading its naval capabilities, which it could use to project military power well beyond its borders.

"What would be of most concern to Americans would be any upgrading of the Iranian missile force, its maritime interdiction capabilities, submarines. These are much more troubling to the United States than tanks, artillery, and the more normal equipment you associate with land warfare."

Better Iranian naval capabilities would not only threaten the Gulf, where the United States has oil interests. They could also be a future worry for its economic involvement in Caspian Sea resources. Washington is keen to bring Caspian basin energy to Western markets through a pipeline from Baku to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. That suggests the United States may one day have to worry about how to protect its large energy investments in the region. Kemp says:

"You will have a Russian fleet and an Iranian fleet, presumably on the Caspian, and the interesting thing is that at what point will there be an American fleet on the Caspian? If you are going to invest in all this very expensive infrastructure and have Baku become as important as [oil terminals] in the Gulf, then ultimately the question of defending the assets becomes one that the Americans are going to have to talk about."

Russia and Iran are currently at odds over how to divide the energy resources of the Caspian Sea and the subject is high on the agenda of Khatami's visit, which ends tomorrow.

Russia favors a plan to divide the seabed among the states bordering the Caspian by using a principle that would leave Iran with about 13 percent of the seabed. Iran would like to divide the rights equally, giving each of the five shoreline states 20 percent.

Beyond worrying over Iran's future ability to project itself as a naval power, the United States sees still greater threats in Iran's ambitions to develop long-range ballistic missiles and from talk in Tehran that Iran needs to be a nuclear power.

Analysts say that raises two questions regarding Russia which the United States must now address.

One question is how to crack down on unofficial Russian cooperation in helping Iran develop missiles. Last month, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency identified Russia as a supplier of ballistic missile technology to Iran, an accusation Moscow strongly denies. So far Iran has built and tested several missiles, including the Shihab-3, which has a range of over 1,000 kilometers. Tehran says it is trying to build a longer-range version, the Shihab-4.

A second question is whether -- once Russia helps Iran complete the Bushehr nuclear power plant -- projects for other nuclear reactors will follow. If so, they would make it increasingly difficult for the United States to assure no such facilities are used for weapons development.

On both issues, Washington could impose sanctions on Russian firms or even on the Russian government. Washington previously has imposed sanctions on several Russian scientific institutes for allegedly helping Iran develop nuclear technology.

But with or without such punitive measures, there is every indication that Russian-Iranian military cooperation will be a continuing source of friction in U.S.-Russian relations.

Patrick Clawson, a policy expert with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington, tells RFE/RL that the United States regards Russian-Iranian cooperation as intended to limit U.S. influence in the region.

"The United States government is not going to be happy about that relationship so long as that relationship is based on a common suspicion about -- and hostility to -- the United States, and unfortunately that is the basis on which Iran has tried to promote the relationship."

Putin addressed that U.S. concern in his remarks to the press after meeting Khatami on 12 March. The Russian president said growing Moscow-Tehran cooperation, in his words, is not "aimed at any third party." Russia and Iran, he added, share a "coinciding analysis of the situation in the world today."

(RFE/RL's Persian Service correspondent Homayoun Majd contributed to this report)

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

For Whistleblowers, Ethical Mile is a Hard Walk

Engineering Times
March 2001
By Rachel Davis Associate Editor
http://www.nspe.org/etweb/13-01feature.asp

"I don't even want to think about the pain I was going through from December through May of last year," remembers nuclear engineer and whistleblower David Lappa. That was the period during which he waited for a federal judge to rule on whether his Freedom of Information Act suit against the Department of Energy (DOE) would yield the evidence he needed to be successful in his whistleblower reprisal lawsuit against his employer.

As a full-time employee of DOE contractor Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at the University of California (UC), Lappa had a successful career, serving as a consultant to the International Atomic Energy Agency and as a task leader responsible for modeling the nuclear waste packages for Nevada's Yucca Mountain repository. Then, in 1997, after nearly two decades of work at Livermore, he refused to sign a committee report that he claims failed to disclose important evidence that the committee's research had uncovered-evidence showing that employees of the university had willfully mishandled plutonium.

Following his refusal, Lappa says that his signature line was removed from the report and he was denied authorization to write a dissenting report. Lappa says his employer's retaliation included harassment and forced him to resign from his 20-year career at Livermore. Although the U.S. Secretary of Labor ruled that UC had retaliated against Lappa for his protected activities under the Nuclear Whistleblower Protection Act, he says he still had to sue DOE to obtain the evidence he needed to pursue his state court suit against UC. In the press, before the ruling in Lappa's DOE lawsuit, the agency denied his allegations that it was trying to thwart his complaints of retaliation.

Although special interest groups and a few professional organizations have taken steps to help whistleblowers, many engineers like Lappa who choose to blow the whistle end up in a drawn-out battle that can inflict financial, emotional, and career wounds. This is a battle many whistleblowers feel they are fighting alone.

Lappa says that despite a lack of support from engineering organizations and the government, he won his lawsuit against DOE. His state suit against the university is still pending. However, because of the ordeal, Lappa has moved to his wife's native Australia to cope with the career setback and mental havoc the experience has caused.

"It's outrageous what I've had to endure, and the consequences for my wife and my kids," says Lappa. Now he is working in quality assurance for Internet-related software, while carrying out his lawsuit through his attorneys. "I'm not using any of my nuclear engineering education," he says. "I don't intend ever to work in the nuclear industry again."

He adds that along with the burdens of experiencing retaliation and taking on a lawsuit, whistleblowers must also deal with being perceived as a "whiner"-or "whinger," as they say in Australia. He feels that in society, especially for males, a whistleblower is viewed as being weak or "a snitch."

Professional Engineer and NSPE member Joe Carson, a DOE whistleblower, says that after his excruciating experience, his advice to any federal employee thinking about blowing the whistle would be, "If you can live with yourself looking the other way, look the other way." He adds, "That's not to say I wouldn't do the same thing [again] . . . but this is a system with extraordinarily cruel rules."

Still holding onto his employment as a DOE safety engineer, Carson blew the whistle on safety and security violations at the nuclear weapons complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He filed his first complaint of employer reprisal in 1992 and made his first appeal to the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board in 1993. Carson has prevailed seven times against DOE in court since then, and the agency has paid almost $400,000 of his legal fees and costs (with more than $100,000 in legal costs and consequential damages still in litigation). Additionally, he says he is still incurring thousands of dollars per month in legal bills. He explains that his career and personal life have greatly suffered, despite his wins in court (see the June 2000 issue of ET for details on Carson's case).

'Zero Tolerance'

Both Carson and Lappa say they have difficulty stomaching their experiences in light of former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary's 1994 launch of DOE's era of "zero tolerance" for whistleblower reprisal.

Both are also fed up with the law. Although there are federal statutes and constitutional protections for employee whistleblowers, the "patch work" nature of these remedies weakens whistleblower protection, according to the National Whistleblower Center. The Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, which was enacted in the wake of whistleblower activity surrounding the Challenger disaster, "gives very poor protections," explains Tom Carpenter of the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit organization that has provided legal counsel for both Lappa and Carson.

Although they may be few and far between, there are resources for engineer whistleblowers (see box). In addition, some professional organizations have attempted to set up programs to give advice or public recognition to whistleblowers. A circle of engineers at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., for example, has over the years tried to set up programs to help peers through difficult ethical situations.

Between 1995 and 1997, IEEE formed its Ethics Committee, published a bimonthly column on ethics, and started the Ethics Hotline, which ran for about a year before it was discontinued. The hotline provided moral support to engineers and referred several cases to the IEEE Member Conduct Committee, which voted to submit friend-of-the-court (amicus curiae) briefs in two cases. However, those cases are still pending and the briefs have not yet been filed, according to computer science professor Stephen Unger, former chairman of the IEEE Ethics Committee.

Now Unger and other engineers involved in IEEE's ethics endeavors respond to cases on the Ethics Help-Line (e-mail address: helpline@onlineethics.org) sponsored by the Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science at www.onlineethics.org and cosponsored by the NSPE-created National Institute for Engineering Ethics. However, the Help-Line does not give legal advice, nor does it have the resources to conduct investigations.

Unger says engineers also need money to cover their legal fees as they search for new jobs under possible blacklisting conditions. He suggests that professional societies set up ethics support funds to aid whistleblowers who suffer retaliation for defending professional ethics. Currently, minor aid is provided through the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology's Carl Barus Award for Outstanding Service in the Public Interest, he says. The American Association for the Advancement of Science has also given its Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award to whistleblowers such as engineer Inez Austin, who spoke out against potential safety hazards from nuclear waste contamination at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state.

NSPE recently formed the Ethics in Employment Task Force to develop a statement of ethical principles to give some direction to engineers who are faced with ethical concerns in the workplace. NSPE plans for the statement to identify appropriate and reasonable methods for engineers to try to resolve these concerns within the framework of their ethical and professional obligations to their employer and the public. This could include a checklist of "do's and don'ts" for an engineer's interactions with an employer. The task force's goal is to have a written report available for the NSPE Board to consider in the next few months.

Cite and Censure?

Unger suggests that another way for engineering groups to help whistleblowers would be to establish a program similar to the American Association of University Professors' system of defending academic freedom. If a professor claims that his freedom has been infringed at a university, AAUP investigates and writes a report. A special committee then considers the issue and determines whether the report should be published and the university censured.

Engineering groups could also set up informal conflict resolution programs to head off major confrontations and lobby for legislation and regulations that protect whistleblowers, Unger proposes.

Why don't engineering organizations take more concrete actions like these to help whistleblowers? Budget constraints, lack of resources and specialized expertise to conduct investigations, conflicts of interest, and wariness of lawsuits are realities that professional associations must grapple with. However, engineers who have blown the whistle insist that there is more that can be done.

"Don't defend me, defend the concept," Carson challenges professional societies, many of which have chosen not to support his legal battles. He suggests that societies establish a procedure for filing a somewhat generic amicus curiae brief, in any non-frivolous case, that would disavow knowledge of the specific claims of an individual's case and instead focus on defending the Code of Ethics. Carson's status as a PE allows him to cite the legally binding rules of professional conduct of his state board, which incorporate much of the Code of Ethics.

The American Engineering Alliance initiated an amicus curiae brief, joined by the Coalition for a Healthy Environment and the Oak Ridge Health Liaison, which a federal judge admitted in Carson's pending Freedom of Speech lawsuit against DOE. The Center for Government Accountability, Standing for Truth About Radiation, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility have also agreed to join the brief.

Carson says that engineering groups should also follow up on court cases in which whistleblowers are vindicated to address the workplace culture that permitted the whistleblower reprisal.

Engineers point out that whistleblowers, who may still be looking for an anchor to keep them from being cut adrift, need moral support from their colleagues in engineering as well.

Clinical social worker Donald Soeken, former whistleblower and founder of a West Virginia retreat for whistleblowers, says that about half of the people who come to him for help with their mental outlook, or what he calls "bio-psycho-social" counseling, are engineers or auditors.

Engineers are "particularly vulnerable" because they are often absolutists who are trained to be accurate and protect the public, he says. At "The Whistle Stop" retreat, located on a 50-acre farm in the Appalachian Mountains, Soeken leads the whistleblowers in breathing exercises, stress reduction techniques, and discussions to help them relax and recover from their ordeals. Even with the support of their colleagues, whistleblowers often experience family turmoil, anxiety, and severe depression.

"I was fighting back tears on Bay-area television when people were asking, 'What have been the personal consequences to you?'" says Lappa. "But at the same time, I'm very proud of what I did, and I wouldn't do it any other way, looking back. I stood on my hind legs, and I told them, 'This is the way it's going to be.'"

Resources for Whistleblowers

• Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science (www.onlineethics.org) and the Online Ethics Center Help-Line (at e-mail address helpline@onlineethics.org)-counsel engineers and scientists faced with ethical problems that may involve conflicting responsibilities. The Online Ethics Center recommended many of the resources on this list.

• Government Accountability Project (www.whistleblower.org)-a nonprofit organization that protects and provides legal counsel to whistleblowers employed by the federal government and government-regulated industries (concentrates on the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the timber industry).

• Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (www.peer.org)-a nonprofit organization that gives environmental whistleblowers an avenue to report and publicize misconduct in resource and land management, often without revealing their identities.

• Taxpayers Against Fraud (www.taf.org)-nonprofit group that assists individuals with information concerning fraudulent claims for payment submitted by private entities to the federal government.

• National Employee Rights Institute (www.nerinet.org)-provides information, litigates cases, and promotes legislation to advance employee rights.

• The Project on Liberty and the Workplace (www.projectlaw.org)-a public interest law firm committed to defending the civil rights of individuals and community groups threatened by powerful institutions.

• NSPE Board of Ethical Review cases and NSPE ethics resources (www.nspe.org/ethics).

• Public oversight agencies-U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission, and the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board.

• National Employment Lawyers Association (www.nela.org)-gives information and assistance to employees on employment rights and legal protections, litigates key cases, and fosters the development of new employment law advocates.

• The American Chemistry Council (www.americanchemistry.com)-has an award-winning program called Responsible Care, which promotes reducing safety risks at facilities to protect the environment, employees, and the public.

---

Congressmen ask NRC to delay approval, add conditions

ohio.com
Wednesday, March 14, 2001
BY KATHERINE RIZZO Associated Press Writer
http://www.ohio.com/bj/news/ohio/docs/017484.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two congressional Democrats asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday to postpone a crucial licensing decision that must be made before the U.S. Enrichment Corp. can close its Ohio processing plant.

In a letter to NRC Chairman Richard A. Meserve, Reps. Ted Strickland of Ohio and John Dingell of Michigan said they wanted more assurance that the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant would be up to the job of enriching uranium to the grade used by utilities.

Until it's clear that Paducah can handle the work that until now has been done only in Piketon, Ohio, the NRC should require USEC to keep the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in ``hot standby'' condition, the lawmakers said.

USEC wants to close the Piketon plant in June.

It can't do that until the Paducah plant is licensed to do a greater amount of enrichment.

NRC spokesman Pam Alloway-Mueller said the regulatory agency had an internal schedule that sought to complete by Friday a report on its evaluation of whether Paducah can safely handle the extra enrichment duties. But Friday was a goal, not a deadline, she said.

``We're looking at it from a safety standpoint,'' she said.

USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said the company expects to get its regulatory approval this week.

``We are confident that the Paducah plant will successfully serve as USEC's sole enrichment facility,'' she said. ``The NRC approval will come after more than 18 months of intensive plant procedural and physical modifications and extensive scrutiny by the NRC.''

Currently, Paducah does the first stage of uranium enrichment, boosting it to a strength of 2.75 percent. Then USEC ships the material to Ohio, where the job is completed and the material is boosted to about 5.5 percent.

The lawmakers said they were worried about what might happen if Paducah has problems doing the work now handled in Ohio.

``USEC is taking a gamble,'' they wrote, and ``If USEC is wrong, and the Portsmouth plant already has been shut down, U.S. energy security could be compromised.''

USEC is the largest supplier of fuel for nuclear power plants; American utilities use nuclear energy to produce about a fifth of the nation's electricity, and some states get half of their electricity from nuclear generators.

``We believe that ceasing production at Portsmouth before the Paducah plant proves its ability to enrich to commercial fuel specifications threatens the reliability of our domestic source of enrichment services,'' the Democrats' letter said. ``We urge you to carefully examine these matters before acting.''

The NRC did not have a comment on the lawmakers' letter itself.

---

$5 Billion to Repair Nuclear Plants Sought

Washington Post
Wednesday, March 14, 2001; Page A26
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64581-2001Mar13.html

Weeds are growing through one building and concrete is falling from the roof of another at the nuclear weapons plant at Oak Ridge, Tenn., which enriched the uranium used in the 1945 Hiroshima bomb and still handles every nuclear weapon going into and out of the U.S. stockpile, a top Energy Department official told Congress yesterday.

Gen. John A. Gordon, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, painted a dire portrait of Oak Ridge's Y-12 Plant as he asked a Senate Appropriations subcommittee for an additional $300 million next year for repairs to nuclear weapons production facilities.

"We need to spend an additional $300 million to $500 million a year over currently planned levels for the next 17 years . . . to refurbish the weapons complex to perform just its basic mission," Gordon said.

Gordon got a sympathetic reception from Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), chairman of the subcommittee on energy and water development.

"We need to make sure that more resources are put in" to the nuclear complex, said Domenici, whose state contains two major nuclear facilities, the Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories. "This is not a place to save money over the next four years of this president -- and actually, if he tries, it will be harmful in the end."

During last year's campaign, President Bush called for dramatic cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and the administration's initial budget proposal last month contained a $180 million reduction in the $4.5 billion annual allotment for maintaining nuclear weapons, known as the "stockpile stewardship" program.

Gordon contended that increased funding is needed "even if the nuclear stockpile is over time made smaller." He said a tentative agreement between the Pentagon and his agency calls for refurbishing the B-61 nuclear bomb, carried by U.S. warplanes, and the W-76 warhead, mounted on submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Noting that those two weapons make up "60 percent" of the U.S. stockpile, Gordon said the existing weapons complex "cannot fully support that schedule and that plan."

Gordon also said funding is needed to consolidate nuclear weapons facilities that are "spread throughout the landscape" of the sprawling Los Alamos National Laboratory. "I need to pull together in one location at Los Alamos the nuclear operation so that we can do the safety and the protection of those facilities in one place, instead of having guards and guns at five or six or seven different locations," he said. He did not estimate the cost of such a project.

-------- kentucky

New energy czar tells delegation he knows Paducah plant's needs
Spencer Abraham meets Sen. Mitch McConnell, Sen. Jim Bunning and U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield.

The Paducah Sun
Paducah, Kentucky Wednesday, March 14, 2001
By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2001/nn11079.htm

New Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is well aware of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant's unique funding needs, said three federal lawmakers who met with him Tuesday to get better acquainted.

"He, of course, as the secretary of energy, is going to support the president's (budget) number for his department, which the three of us think is likely to be adequate to do the job," said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Louisville. McConnell said Abraham understands the Kentucky delegation will seek as much congressional funding as it can for Paducah plant worker-health programs and cleanup.

McConnell, Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Southgate, and Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Hopkinsville, held a brief teleconference with reporters after the meeting in Washington, D.C. All have been intensely involved in plant budgetary matters, and criticized Abraham's predecessor, Bill Richardson, when they felt funding was inadequate and projects were lagging.

The lawmakers blamed the Department of Energy last year for undue delays in building facilities at Paducah and its sister plant in Piketon, Ohio, to convert tons of hazardous production waste into safer material in hopes of developing commercial uses. Earlier this month, DOE received five bids, and plans to award a contract in August.

Asked if that project is back on track, Whitfield said he is still apprehensive. "I do intend to remain pretty vocal about it because I do think it's an important component of cleaning up the site, as well as creating jobs," he said. "All of us talked about that, and stressed its importance."

Last month, quoting unnamed government sources, The Wall Street Journal reported plans to cut DOE's fiscal 2002 budget by $1 billion. The budget includes $400 million to clean up nuclear weapons plants in Paducah and at other locations.

On Tuesday, Abraham "was receptive" to the needs of the Kentucky delegation and indicated that a final budget had not be compiled, Whitfield said. But the lawmakers anticipate some cuts because DOE's overall budget rose abnormally from $17 billion for fiscal year 2000 and $19.7 billion for 2001, he said.

"It's infrequent that you have that kind of an increase in a budget over one year," Whitfield said. "So we're optimistic, yet we are realistic and know that we have a lot of work to do. The important thing is that we establish a rapport with him, and that he is now aware specifically of some of the problems we face at Paducah."

Whitfield said Abraham was educated on issues such as Paducah plant operator USEC Inc.'s long-term contract to buy uranium blended down from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads, and how that affects USEC's business.

The meeting dealt with a worker-health program that was partially funded last year, Bunning said. He, McConnell and Whitfield led legislation to pay workers and surviving families up to $150,000 for plant-related illness or death.

"I think he really knows that we're going to insist on the workers' plan to be completed, and that we're going to insist on the continuation of the funding for the cleanup," Bunning said. "People expect that and I don't think there's any question that he got a full understanding of that at our meeting today."

-------- new mexico

Teen accused of hacking into NASA

InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/14/2001
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406385656

WASHINGTON (AP) - A 15-year-old Michigan boy has been charged with breaking into at least three NASA computer systems and altering their Web sites.

The teen-ager posted images on the sites related to a hacking group called Electronic Souls, authorities said.

Stephen Nesbitt, who investigates computer break-ins at NASA's Office of Inspector General in Washington, said the teen-ager never got access to any sensitive information.

The boy, whose name was not released because of his age, allegedly broke into NASA systems at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., twice in January. Authorities say he also broke into a U.S. Department of Energy system at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., that same month.

The boy is charged with unauthorized access to computers, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. He is being detained in a juvenile facility until a March 28 pretrial hearing at the Family Division of the 27th Circuit Court in Newaygo County, Mich.

Authorities from the Newaygo County prosecutor's office and sheriff's department did not return calls for comment on Tuesday.

Nesbitt would not discuss details of the case for fear of tipping off other hackers.

Brian Martin of Attrition.org, which monitors Web security issues, said his site had recorded 32 defacements by Electronic Souls since February. Members identifying themselves as part of the group also defaced commercial sites, he said.

``Often times they are doing it for the same reason that someone spray paints the side of a building,'' he said. ``Or they might be doing it to feel powerful or show off their technical prowess.''

Martin said these hackers usually do not get access to sensitive information.

-------- new york

Resources Are Inadequate to Run Nuclear Plants, a Group Claims

New York Times
March 14, 2001
By WINNIE HU
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/nyregion/14NUKE.html

WHITE PLAINS, March 13 - A group opposed to nuclear power told federal regulators today that the company that has acquired two reactors in New York and is negotiating to buy the troubled Indian Point 2 plant has not provided adequate resources to run the plants.

Testifying at a hearing here, members of Citizens Awareness Network said Entergy Nuclear had not pledged enough money to the Indian Point 3 plant in Buchanan, about 35 miles north of Manhattan, and the James A. FitzPatrick plant in Oswego County, to cover problems that could interrupt power production for six months or longer.

"It's a cat's cradle," said Tim Judson, a member of the group. "If more than one string gets loose, the whole thing falls apart and that's not the way to run nuclear reactors."

The group presented its objections during a seven-hour public hearing before an administrative judge for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Charles Bechhoefer, at the White Plains Public Library.

Though the Indian Point 3 and FitzPatrick plants were sold by the New York Power Authority in November for $967 million, the regulatory commission approved the transfer of the plants' operating licenses with the condition that a public hearing could be held afterward, and that if warranted, the earlier approval could be modified or even rescinded.

The Citizens Awareness Network is expected to raise similar questions about Entergy's proposal to buy the more controversial Indian Point 2, which is also situated at the Buchanan site but is operated by Consolidated Edison.

That plant closed in February 2000 for nearly a year after radioactive water leaked from a cracked tube. It has been plagued by a series of minor leaks and mishaps since returning to full power on Jan. 28.

Mr. Judson said his group would examine financial information about Entergy's deal for Indian Point 2. "We'll raise related and different questions," he said. "With Indian Point 2, there's also a question about whether it's safe to operate."

Entergy has pledged $90 million for operations at the Indian Point 3 and FitzPatrick plants, and has insured them against equipment failures and accidents, said Jim Steets, communications manager for Entergy. "We're not envisioning that more is needed than that," he said. "That's a pretty healthy sum. Entergy is financially committed to running Indian Point 3 and the James A. FitzPatrick through the licensing periods."

But Edward Smeloff, executive director of the Pace Law School Energy Project, said Entergy's financial resources would be strained by an extended outage at one or both plants and the resulting penalties from being unable to sell power back to the power authority. "They don't have enough funds available for a six- month outage" he testified on behalf of the citizens' group.

The citizens' group also questioned whether there was enough money to dismantle the buildings and dispose of residual radioactive elements at the two plants when they are eventually closed. Under the sales agreement, the power authority would retain control of a multimillion-dollar trust fund for that purpose.

Officials with Entergy and the power authority have said the money would be available when needed.

-------- ohio

Regulators say Energy Department funding may not be enough

ohio.com
Wednesday, March 14, 2001
http://www.ohio.com/bj/news/ohio/docs/003439.htm

CINCINNATI (AP) -- Proposed federal funding to complete years of cleaning up radioactive wastes at a former Cold War uranium processing plant may not be enough to comply with environmental requirements, regulators say.

Ohio and federal environmental regulators have told U.S. Department of Energy officials that a proposal of $290 million in annual funding from Washington for the Fernald cleanup project probably won't be enough.

They said that amount is insufficient to meet environmental cleanup commitments the department made in a 1991 agreement with the regulators.

The department could face fines from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency if it fails to comply with environmental cleanup commitments made to regulators.

The department has submitted various budget proposals to the new Bush administration and is uncertain what level of cleanup funding Congress will authorize, department spokesman Ken Morgan said Wednesday.

``We don't know what we're going to get,'' Morgan said. ``We're committed to meeting all our agreements.''

Morgan said one department budget proposal requests annual funding of $295.6 million for cleanup at the 1,050-acre Fernald site 18 miles northwest of Cincinnati.

Butget funding in that range might be inadequate to continue removing radioactively contaminated soil and placing it in ground disposal cells at the site, federal and state regulators said in letters to department officials during the past two weeks.

If those projects are shut down, the department runs the risk of losing personnel trained to perform those tasks, wrote Ohio EPA supervisor Thomas Schneider.

A federal EPA regulator assigned to oversee the Fernald cleanup also is concerned.

``In the last decade, notwithstanding a few setbacks, U.S. DOE has managed to transform the Fernald site from an environmental disaster into a model cleanup,'' EPA coordinator Jim Saric wrote. ``However, the Fernald site is still a work in progress.''

The Fernald plant processed uranium for nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Production was shut down in 1989 to concentrate on the long-term cleanup. Department officials said last fall that they want the cleanup contractor, Fluor Fernald Inc., to complete the cleanup by Dec. 31, 2006, at a remaining cost of $2.4 billion.

Fluor Fernald's management has said that is an optimistic scenario.

-------- tennessee

Thompson pushes for nuclear weapons complex upgrades

The Oak Ridger
Wednesday, March 14, 2001
by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff
http://www.oakridger.com/stories/031401/new_0314010026.html

The current state of the United States' nuclear weapons complex, including an Oak Ridge facility, is inadequate, according to U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn.

Thompson spoke Tuesday before the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee about the need for funds to perform upgrades at nuclear weapons facilities, including the Y-12 National Security Complex. Funding for the upgrades falls under the jurisdiction of the subcommittee.

"I am one who believes that there are some core functions of our federal government -- national defense, infrastructure, parks and roads -- that are being shortchanged as we devote a greater and greater percentage of our federal budget to entitlement programs and mandatory spending," Thompson said in his remarks to the subcommittee.

"We keep squeezing that one-third of the budget that we devote to these vital discretionary spending needs tighter and tighter because we don't want to undertake Social Security and Medicare reform. But we aren't going to be able to do that for much longer. That course is not sustainable."

Witnesses at Tuesday's hearing included James Schlesinger, former secretary of defense and secretary of energy, and Gen. John Gordon, undersecretary of energy for nuclear security and administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. The NNSA is the quasi-independent agency within the Department of Energy that oversees the nuclear weapons complex.

Gordon has proposed a new initiative that would invest $300 million to $500 million annually in the repair and modernization of the nuclear weapons complex. Both Thompson and U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who chairs the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, have voiced support for Gordon's proposal.

Earlier this year, the Department of Energy released a draft site-wide environmental impact statement outlining alternatives for the modernization of Y-12, which is managed by BWXT Y-12.

The document proposes the construction of a storage area for highly enriched uranium and a special materials complex as part of the plant's modernization. Existing Y-12 facilities for storage of highly enriched uranium are in buildings that are 35 to 55 years old and require significant maintenance and funding to maintain operations and security protocol, officials have said.

Support for the modernization of Y-12 has been voiced by at least six congressman, including U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District, and by Oak Ridge Mayor Jerry Kuhaida, Knoxville Mayor Victor Ashe and county executives from Anderson, Knox, Loudon and Roane counties.

However, several environmental activist groups believe money would be better spent on health care, housing, education and cleaning up the environment rather than upgrading Y-12.

Members of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance said the special materials complex will serve as a bomb-building facility, adding that if built, it will violate international disarmament treaties.

---

TVA plans for nuke waste storage ripped

Knoxville News-Sentinel
March 14, 2001
By The Associated Press
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/25456.shtml

ATHENS, Ala. -- Tennessee Valley Authority officials said they plan to begin storing radioactive spent uranium fuel rods at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in large, above ground concrete containers in 2005.

TVA officials said the storage process will be safe. But Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, a watchdog group in Knoxville, said the plan is disturbing.

"It's just one of the consequences of choosing nuclear power as an option, that you will have nuclear waste piling up on the banks of the Tennessee River," Smith told The Birmingham News for a Tuesday story.

Used uranium fuel rods from the plant's two operating reactors are currently stored in specially designed racks at the bottom of steel-lined, 40-foot-deep concrete pools inside the plant.

Room in the pools, which were originally meant for temporary storage, is expected to begin running out in several years.

TVA and other utilities around the country are looking for ways to store nuclear waste while waiting for the Department of Energy to build a permanent national nuclear waste storage facility.

The proposed site for the facility, which has been met with opposition, is deep inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain.

"Until such time as DOE accepts the spent fuel, evaluations of available storage expansion technologies have demonstrated that the safest and most cost-effective option for Browns Ferry is dry storage -- the use of above ground, concrete containers with steel inner canisters," TVA said in a statement.

"Dry storage of spent fuel is a proven technology that already is used at 14 U.S. nuclear power plants."

---

Your Views

The Oak Ridger
Wednesday, March 14, 2001
http://www.oakridger.com/stories/031401/opE_0314010056.html

Responds to Smyser's column on black residents
To The Oak Ridger:

I could not sit back and not say anything after reading Mr. Smyser's column Monday, March 1, 2001, "City's black residents weren't coerced to live near Y-12."

No they were not forced to live in Gamble Valley, but it was a take it or leave it situation. If they wanted to live here, that was the only place black people could live. The Atomic Energy Commission made all of the decisions. Yes, the so-called black leaders from the black community were asked to attend a meeting by AEC.

At the first meeting, the black people were told that they would be relocated in East Village but at the next meeting with the so-called black leaders, were told that there had been a change in plans.

Let me remind you, Mr. Smyser, there were several meetings in between the first and second meeting with black leaders. The choice was, black people would be relocated in Gamble Valley. This was not a choice, as I said in the beginning. It was a take or leave situation. These meetings were to tell the black people what they were going to do.

How Gamble Valley's name was changed to Scarboro. The Rev. C.C. Fuller didn't like the name Gamble Valley because only black people would be living over here and he didn't want the name Gamble associated with the black people. The black leaders felt like he was granted his wish to make people think they had a say in what was going on.

The earliest black people did live in hutments where the Woodland residents are located now. It was never called Scarboro Village. It was always called the Hutments, and every last one of them had board floors. I have never seen a dirt floor in any hut, and segregated, "yes," to the max. Yes, there was public transportation. The black bus had Gamble Valley on the front to make sure black people would catch the right bus.

Mr. Smyser, I can't ever remember seeing your face in the black community, and I don't know how you know so much about this community. I will tell you this, the history of the black people will never be told.

R.L. Ayers Oak Ridge

He'll buy the waterfront land for $100/acre
To The Oak Ridger:

Waterfront property for only $54 an acre! Imagine my surprise to learn from The Oak Ridger (Feb. 28,2001) that the Department of Energy had sold 182 acres of shoreline property along the Clinch River to Oak Ridge Land Company.

I would have been willing to pay at least $100 an acre for that land. Indeed, I publicly and formally offer DOE $182,000 for the 182 acres. I'm sure many others, given the opportunity to buy prime waterfront property, would pay several hundred to a few thousand dollars an acre.

What, I wonder, led DOE to cheat U.S. taxpayers by selling the land for so little? Why didn't DOE conduct a public auction so that others could have had an opportunity to bid on that property?

DOE's recent actions show why it is so important that it prepare a thorough environmental impact assessment of the entire DOE reservation. If DOE continues to dispose of the land parcel by parcel all of us will be losers.

Eric Hirst Oak Ridge

---

What to do with 3.5 million pounds of nickel?

Knoxville News-Sentinel
March 14, 2001
By Frank Munger News-Sentinel senior writer
http://www.knoxnews.com/editorsview/munger/fm03142001.shtml

The Department of Energy's moratorium on commercial sales of radioactive scrap metal has not had as much effect on BNFL's Oak Ridge cleanup project as expected.

BNFL originally planned to recycle the metals and sell them commercially as one way to offset cleanup costs at three huge buildings once used to process uranium at the K-25 plant. But, after ex-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson banned the commercial release of materials with detectable amounts of radioactivity, DOE agreed to buy the recycled metals from BNFL at the market rate.

So BNFL, the American subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels, didn't lose anything. In fact, the Richardson decision may have made the contractor's job easier because it didn't have to shop for a customer.

Besides, as a BNFL official noted recently, the declining cost of nuclear waste disposal has made it cheaper -- in some instances -- to bury the scrap rather than worry with recycling.

It's not clear, however, what will happen to the valuable nickel that's been stripped from the K-25 equipment and stockpiled at the site.

BNFL earlier acquired a state permit to process the nickel at Manufacturing Sciences, the company's Oak Ridge recycling unit, but it became a moot issue when DOE banned commercial sales of recycled metals.

So far, BNFL has filled about 3,500 55-gallon drums and 500 boxes with nickel removed from the uranium-enrichment equipment at the Oak Ridge site. It is projected that the buildings contain a total of about 3.5 million pounds of radioactively contaminated nickel.

That's a lot of nickel.

WORDS OF SUPPORT: Kim Rice, a native Oak Ridger who now lives in Morehead, Ky., responded to a recent column about Oak Ridge National Laboratory's plans to produce and process plutonium for the space program.

"This may not mean much to those who, like me, would rather that no plutonium production of any kind took place -- at ORNL or elsewhere -- but I worked with Larry Boyd (a manager in DOE's site office) for a number of years, and there is no one I would trust more with such an operation .... Larry's a man of great integrity who doesn't mind telling the truth or fighting for what's right. He's not the blindly loyal, play-nice-and-get-along type when it comes to safety issues and has no use for people who conduct business that way.

"He and Bob Wham (nuclear program manager at ORNL) have a good relationship built on mutual honesty and respect. If plutonium production is going to go forward -- and that looks unavoidable -- the management of the program couldn't be in better hands."

NUKE RIGHT: U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., last month was named co-chairman of the Renewable Energy and Efficiency Caucus -- a bipartisan group of more than 150 congressmen.

During a recent visit to Oak Ridge, Wamp suggested his role may include pushing the nuclear option.

"Our intent is to have a balanced energy strategy ... and I'm there as the co-chairman kind of from the right to say, don't forget that advanced light-water reactors are a safe, clean alternative to coal-fired emissions. Now some of my friends on the left are not going to like that, but as I said with this caucus, we're going to bounce off the right and the left to establish a consensus in the middle for a balanced strategy."

Wamp noted that the United States has only about 2 percent of the planet's petroleum reserves, yet consumes about 25 percent of the petroleum products.

"You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure you can't pump your way out of that problem," he said.

The congressman said the caucus also will push for greater investments in energy efficiency and other strategies that help real people with real energy concerns.

"The poorest people in this country pay the highest percent of their housing costs for electricity and heating and cooling. Well, that's not fair," he said.

WISHING & HOPING: Oak Ridge retirees who wants details of the proposal for a pension adjustment can get copies at the visitors desk at the Oak Ridge Mall or the Oak Ridge Senior Center.

Bob Wesley, a spokesman for the Coalition of Oak Ridge Retired Employees, which represents about 13,000 contractor retirees or surviving spouses, said a limited number of copies are available currently, but more are forthcoming.

The coalition recently submitted the proposal to BWXT Y-12, the Department of Energy contractor that administers the Oak Ridge pension fund.

An announcement on a pension increase is expected by early May.

Senior Writer Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy for the News-Sentinel. He can be reached at 865-482-9213 or at twig1@knoxnews.infi.net.

-------- us nuc waste

Plant Can Store Nuclear Waste
With nowhere else to put it, Coastal Commission reluctantly allows San Onofre to keep spent rods on the site for 20 years.

Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, March 14, 2001
By SEEMA MEHTA, Times Staff Writer
mailto:Seema.Mehta@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/editions/orange/ocnews/20010314/t000022290.html

The California Coastal Commission reluctantly agreed Tuesday to allow nuclear waste to be stored at the San Onofre power plant just south of San Clemente for 20 years.

The federal government's inability to find a permanent repository for used nuclear fuel makes the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station one of a growing number of nuclear power plants facing the issue of what to do with their spent uranium rods, which will be radioactive for thousands of years.

The commission voted unanimously to approve construction of a new, permanent facility to hold the waste, despite pleas from concerned area residents and numerous environmental groups. They attached several conditions to the permit, including requiring Southern California Edison, owner of the plant, to provide an upfront guarantee that they could afford lifetime monitoring of the waste.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to sign off on the project, and construction would start by 2006 at the latest. "I understand the public's concerns about nuclear safety issues, and I may be in sympathy with them," said Sara Wan, commission chair. "But this commission's jurisdiction is limited."

The state agency is precluded by federal law from ruling on issues of nuclear safety, but its approval was still needed for the construction of facilities to store the waste.

Environmentalists were angered by the vote, which they say allows the creation of a "coastal nuclear waste dump" that threatens the safety of nearby residents.

"It is extremely disturbing when the agency the state of California has created to protect the coastal environment actually locates a nuclear waste storage facility adjacent to the beach," said activist Norbert Dall.

The Coalition for Responsible and Ethical Environmental Decisions and local chapters of the League of Women Voters, the American Assn. of University Women, the Surfrider Foundation and the Sierra Club all objected. They urged the state panel to put off a vote until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission conducted a thorough study of storing "lethal" fuel rods at San Onofre, and a review of alternate sites.

But Southern California Edison officials said the new method of storage would be safer than temporary cooling ponds currently in use at the site. They said the plant will run out of room in the cooling pools in 2007, and if there is no place to put used fuel, the plant would have to stop operating.

Jim Reilly, director of decommissioning at San Onofre, said the new storage tombs would pose no threat.

"You could stand there for a year, 24 hours a day, on the beach, and get the same exposure as a chest X-ray."

San Onofre has two nuclear reactors that provide energy for 2.2 million homes from Santa Barbara to San Diego, which are licensed until 2022. One of these reactors is currently offline because it is being repaired after a February fire. A third smaller reactor was shut in 1992. The plant is just south of the Orange County border.

Plant officials want to wrap the waste in two layers of steel and move it into reinforced concrete casks. This storage method is considered safer than the cooling pools, because it requires less maintenance and is less susceptible to accidents caused by human error. The rods must first spend five years in cooling pools to become safe enough to move to the casks.

By law, the U.S. Department of Energy is required to dispose of all the site's fuel rods--which contain partly spent uranium that will nonetheless remain dangerously radioactive for thousands of years. The department has promised to start accepting used fuel by 2010, but no dump for high-level radioactive waste has yet been built in the country.

Controversial plans for a nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada have been delayed so long that activists and state officials alike worry storage facilities like the one planned at San Onofre will become permanent repositories of nuclear waste.

"We don't know what's going to happen with the storage site. It's a national issue of the utmost urgency as radioactive [fuel] accumulates," said commission executive director Peter Douglas.

Concerned by the federal delays, the commissioners added a condition to their approval limiting storage to 20 years.

Southern California Edison and federal regulatory officials have said that storage might need to stretch until 2050.

Commissioner Shirley Dettloff noted that when the power plant was approved in the early 1970s, state officials were "assured that there would be storage space and we would not be in the position we are in today."

She worried that the 20-year term would stretch into the "indefinite future."

Others agreed.

"The federal government has a responsibility to find long-term storage for spent fuel," said Commissioner Cecilia Estolano. "We shouldn't be encouraging the federal government to not meet that responsibility."

The commission also required Southern California Edison to provide a bond or other funding mechanism to ensure the ailing utility has money available for long-term monitoring.

The utility will be required to seek additional approval from the commission if it wants to expand the site to take waste from other nuclear power plants. Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials at the meeting said they wouldn't object if other power plants wanted to store radioactive waste at the San Onofre site, as long as it is stored safely. But Edison officials insisted that only San Onofre waste will be stored there.

---

San Onofre to Store Nuclear Waste

Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, March 14, 2001
http://www.latimes.com/news/state/20010314/t000022257.html

The California Coastal Commission reluctantly agreed Tuesday to allow nuclear waste to be stored for 20 years at the San Onofre power plant south of San Clemente.

The federal government's inability to find a permanent repository for used nuclear fuel makes the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station one of a growing number of nuclear power plants facing the issue of what to do with their spent uranium rods, which will be radioactive for thousands of years.

The commission voted unanimously to approve construction of a new, permanent facility to hold the waste, despite pleas from residents and environmental groups. They attached several conditions to the permit, including requiring Southern California Edison, owner of the plant, to provide an upfront guarantee that it could afford lifetime monitoring of the waste. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to sign off on the project, and construction would start at the latest by 2006. "I understand the public's concerns about nuclear safety issues, and I may be in sympathy with them," said Sara Wan, commission head. "But this commission's jurisdiction is limited."

The state agency is precluded by federal law from ruling on issues of nuclear safety, but its approval was still needed for the construction of facilities to store the waste.

San Onofre has two reactors that provide energy for 2.2 million homes and are licensed until 2022.

-------- MILITARY

Defending Taiwan

Washington Times
March 14, 2001
Embassy Row
James Morrison
News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.

The U.S. ambassador to China yesterday defended U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and Washington's criticism of China's human rights record.

Ambassador Joseph Prueher told students at Beijing University that any reunion of democratic Taiwan with communist China "must be peaceful."

"We do not want Taiwan to get run over," he added in defense of arming the island.

He also explained that the United States is legally bound to sell Taiwan enough weapons to defend itself. He cited the Taiwan Relations Act among other commitments.

The ambassador said the Bush administration's decision to sponsor a resolution at the United Nations condemning China's human rights record is aimed at "improving human rights in China, not criticizing China."

"What we have done in the past is critique without dialogue," he said of past criticism of China's human rights. "In the future, I hope we can critique, probably both ways, and dialogue to effect positive change in human rights."

To contact James Morrison, call 202/636-3297, fax 202/832-7278 or e-mail morris@twtmail.com

---

Controller gave jet OK to drop bombs

March 14, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2001314224218.htm

The U.S. Navy fighter that dropped three bombs on or near "friendly" troops did so after an air controller gave permission to hit a target in an expansive desert bombing range in Kuwait, Defense Department officials said yesterday.

Providing the first sketchy details for the Monday night mishap, the officials cautioned, however, that it is still too soon to determine whether the forward controller or the pilot made a mistake, or a mechanical error was to blame.

The officials said the controller radioed the pilot to abort moments later, but by that time the F-18 Hornet had released three 500-pound gravity bombs.

Six observers - five American servicemen and a New Zealand officer - were killed. They were the very group of forward controllers that were directing the pilot to the target.

The Air Force identified its casualty as Staff Sgt. Jason M. Faley, a tactical air controller with the 19th Air Support Operations Squadron at the Army's Fort Campbell, Ky.

The Army identified the four killed soldiers as:

Staff Sgt. Troy Westberg of Wisconsin, a medical specialist assigned to the 3rd Special Force Group at Fort Bragg, N.C.; Staff Sgt. Richard Boudreau of Florida, an explosive ordnance disposal specialist assigned to the 707th Ordnance Company; Sgt. Phillip Freligh of Nevada, an explosive ordnance disposal specialist with the 707th; and Spec. Jason Wildfong of West Virginia, an explosives disposal specialist assigned to the 707th.

"There was some kind of mistake somewhere," a defense official said. "Why this would happen is what has to be investigated."

Said another official, "When they cleared the range 'hot' they believe he is on target. They believe he's in the right place to drop the bombs and the range is ready."

The accident happened at night shortly after 7 Kuwait time in an exercise that has become fairly routine for allied aircraft protecting a no-fly zone over southern Iraq.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Persian Gulf, named its deputy commander, Marine Lt. Gen. Mike DeLong, to head an investigative board that was traveling to Kuwait yesterday.

An internal Navy memo obtained by The Washington Times said the pilot was equipped with night-vision goggles, a system that traps ambient light to improve nighttime air operations.

"[Aircraft] released three live Mk-82 bombs on or near [forward air control] position in Udairi bombing range," the memo states. The memo says the weather was clear Monday night.

The Pentagon identified the Navy pilot as Cmdr. David O. Zimmerman, commander of Fighter-Attack Squadron 37 of Hornets onboard the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman stationed in the Persian Gulf.

Cmdr. Zimmerman, a native of Orange Park, Fla., had logged more than 3,000 flying hours. His squadron is based at Oceana Naval Air Station, Va.

The bombs exploded on or near Observation Post 10, where U.S. Army and Air Force observers, and the New Zealand officer, were directing American, British and Kuwaiti warplanes taking part in a close-air-support exercise. Close air support normally is done at low or middle levels as pilots hunt and kill armor targets in close proximity to friendly troops.

Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, described it as a "fairly large-scale exercise" lasting over several days. He said 79 of a planned 85 strikes had been flown when the accident happened.

"The aircraft dropped a total of three Mk-82 bombs," Adm. Quigley said. "These are 500-pound, general-purpose bombs. And tragically, they hit near the service members that were at an observation post on the range."

He said the post consisted of a small structure. The controllers were inside tactical vehicles.

Adm. Quigley said the pilot, as required, flew a daytime sortie over the range Friday and dropped "live" munitions. That evening, he was executing another run, this time using a dummy bomb.

The spokesman described the controllers' job this way: "It is to properly identify targets that aircraft are to engage. It is to provide detailed information to the pilot of the aircraft on location of target, type of target . . . and to transfer that information to the pilot of the aircraft so that the pilot and the forward air controller are in sync. . . ."

A defense official said air controllers typically use lasers or infrared beams to designate the target a pilot is supposed to hit.

"Close air support is pretty dangerous," he said.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a statement, saying: "Tragedies such as this occur without warning and for reasons that are difficult to understand. We will work hard to take care of the families involved, and to find out how such an accident could occur."

---

Rumsfeld reviewing Chinese exchange deal

Washington Times
March 14, 2001
By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2001314223157.htm

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has limited the Clinton administration program of military-to-military exchanges with China to three months and is reviewing its benefits before continuing beyond that, a Pentagon spokesman said yesterday.

"The secretary has approved the planned activities for the military-to-military program [with China] through the end of May," Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said in an interview.

"He has directed an internal review of the 'mil-to-mil' program and will consider several issues, such as how the program has been conducted to date, and assessing its goals," Adm. Quigley said.

Mr. Rumsfeld wants to look closely at "whether the program is meeting its objectives," he said.

"And when he looks at that, it will help to determine future activities of the U.S.-China military-to-military program," Adm. Quigley said.

A key criteria will be whether the program is reciprocal and is providing "mutual benefit," he said.

The first activity for this year is the visit to China beginning today by Adm. Dennis Blair.

Critics in Congress have charged that the program is helping the Chinese military build up its forces by providing sensitive information. China for its part has prevented U.S. military visitors from seeing comparable facilities in China, raising concerns about unequal reciprocity.

The Pentagon has until March 31 to provide Congress with a blueprint of the program for 2001, according to a provision of the fiscal 2001 defense-authorization act passed into law last year.

--------- arms sales

EU extends Raytheon-Thales probe

InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/14/2001
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406386745

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - European Union antitrust regulators extended their probe into a joint venture between U.S. defense firm Raytheon Co. and France's Thales until March 30.

EU officials announced the extension on Tuesday.

The two-week extension, permitted under EU rules, usually means that the companies have submitted concessions to remove antitrust concerns and hope to avoid a longer, in-depth review.

The joint venture, announced last December, will produce ground-based air operations command and control and battlefield systems.

The joint venture, which will employ 1,300 workers, will be based in France and California.

Lexington, Mass.-based Raytheon already works with Thales, which recently changed its name from Thomson CSF, on other defense projects.

-------- colombia

New York Times
March 14, 2001
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/world/14BRIE.html

COLOMBIA: UNION LEADERS KILLED Gunmen shot dead two union leaders for the American coal mining company, Drummond Ltd., after dragging them out of a bus, authorities said. The police said it was not clear who was behind the execution- style killings of Valmore Locarno Rodríguez and Victor Orcasita but said the area was thick with leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups. (Reuters)

---

U.S. pilots face risks fighting Colombian drug war

USA Today
03/14/2001 - Updated 07:48 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-03-14-colombia.htm

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - U.S. civilian pilots are carrying out "risky" missions in Colombia's drug war, flying fumigation planes low sometimes through guerrilla fire, the country's defense minister says. But he insists U.S. troops here face minimal danger.

Defense Minister Luis Fernando Ramirez - who recently accompanied President Andres Pastrana to meet with President Bush in Washington - said in an interview he expects long-term support in the drug war.

U.S. Green Berets are already in this South American nation, training Colombian counternarcotics battalions as part of a $1.3 billion U.S. aid package. The package also will send dozens of combat helicopters to Colombia during the second half of this year and into 2002.

During his Feb. 27 meeting with Pastrana, Bush pledged to bolster anti-drug efforts in Colombia and said he would take up lowering trade barriers to Colombian goods.

Ramirez, a youthful former labor minister who wears conservative business suits and wire-rimmed glasses, is plainspoken about his country's drug problem.

Interviewed Monday at Bogota's sprawling defense ministry complex, Ramirez said Colombia will need more military assistance, especially to modernize aging airplanes, including 35-year-old A-37s used to intercept clandestine drug flights.

"Since drug traffickers are multinational outfits with huge budgets, we will require ... more modern aircraft whose maintenance is not so costly and which are not so risky for the crews," Ramirez told The Associated Press.

But efforts in Colombia will be of little use unless the United States curbs drug consumption, estimated at 300 tons of cocaine a year, Ramirez said.

Colombia produces at least 80% of the world's cocaine and a rising share of heroin. Leftist rebels and rival right-wing paramilitaries "tax" the drug industry, using millions of dollars in revenues to buy arms, recruit combatants and fuel the country's 37-year civil war.

"As long as the United States keeps consuming cocaine there will be violence in Colombia," Ramirez said

Moreover, Ramirez criticized the United States for "very poor" results in combatting drug money laundering.

A kilogram of cocaine in Putumayo - Colombia's major drug-producing region - sells for about $2,000, while in Miami that same kilogram costs $30,000, Ramirez said.

"The $28,000 difference between the value in Putumayo and Miami stays in the United States, in U.S. or European banks," Ramirez said.

Ramirez acknowledged that the work done by American civilians contracted by the U.S. State Department to pilot planes that fumigate drug crops is inherently dangerous.

The crop dusters swoop close to the earth and are frequently hit by rebel gunfire. Just last month, U.S. civilian pilots flew into a firefight to rescue the crew of a downed Colombian police helicopter. The workers are employed by Dyncorp, of Reston, Va.

"There is not only the risk they'll be shot at, but the risk that such a plane will crash is very high," Ramirez said, pointing out that Colombia's mountains make for tricky flying.

Some critics say the contractors are being used for dangerous jobs to avoid the scandal that would erupt if U.S. soldiers began returning from Colombia in body bags.

It's unclear how many U.S. civilian contractors are working in Colombia, although 300 is the maximum allowed, according to limits set by the U.S. Congress; a maximum of 500 U.S. troops is permitted.

"What I can say is that we have concentrated the American soldiers in bases and have made a great effort to protect these bases," Ramirez said. "I would say that the risks ... have been minimized as best we can."

The American soldiers, furthermore, are barred from accompanying Colombian troops into combat.

"Fundamentally, it is the Colombian soldiers and police who will do the fighting," Ramirez said.

--------

Colombia govs. decry U.S. program

InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/14/2001
By GEORGE GEDDA Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406387458

WASHINGTON (AP) - The governors of four Colombian provinces criticized the use of herbicides to eradicate narcotics plants, alleging that the U.S.-backed program is causing economic destruction, environmental degradation, and illness _ including birth defects.

``We need a strategy other than fumigation,'' said Gov. Ivan Gerardo Guerrero, of Putumayo province, one of the most heavily targeted areas of a recent aerial spraying campaign carried out by the Colombian Army.

He said Tuesday that basic food crops were being cultivated on about half of an estimated 75,000 acres sprayed during the December-February defoliation campaign.

After the spraying began, he said there was a 60 percent increase in visits to medical clinics in his province. He said birth defects were reported along with skin problems and allergic reactions.

Speaking through interpreters, Guerrero and his three colleagues outlined their views at a news conference. They also planned meetings with administration officials and members of Congress.

Accompanying Guerrero were Govs. Parmenis Cuellar of Narino province, Floro Alberto Tunubala of Cauca and Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo Martinez of Tolima. All are elected.

All took aim at Plan Colombia, the U.S.-supported program designed to counter narcotraffickers and to deal with the country's social and economic ills. The United States contribution to the $7 billion Colombian program thus far is $1.3 billion.

The aerial spraying program is the centerpiece of President Andres Pastrana's goal of cutting coca production in half by 2005.

``Plan Colombia was not discussed with the Colombian people,'' said Cuellar. ``It has generated a response from the Colombian people.''

He said fumigation, ``instead of diminishing the problem, has caused increasing environmental and social harm.''

Jaramillo, pointing out that 85 percent of U.S. assistance goes for military training and for helicopters earmarked for the Colombian Army, said, ``We don't want to see a Vietnam in Latin America.''

Tunubala, the first Colombian Indian elected to state office, said, ``Fumigation has had a detrimental effect on the population.''

Less than 24 hours earlier, five senior U.S. officials held a briefing of their own for reporters and contradicted in advance some of the criticisms of the governors.

William Brownfield, a senior State Department official, denied that glysophate, the defoliant used in the spraying campaign, is dangerous. He said it is widely used in the United States and Europe.

Rebutting allegations that half the sprayed area in Putumayo consisted of legal crops as opposed to coca or opium poppy, Jim Mack, a second State Department official, said he would be ``astounded'' if that were the case.

Beyond that, there are no reliable figures on defoliation because no scientific analysis has taken place, he said.

Brownfield said to the extent that legal crops have been sprayed, it occurs mostly in situations in which an ``illegal field is surrounded by a legal field.''

In such cases, he said, there is little remedy because the presumption is that the affected grower ``did it intentionally for the purpose of protecting the illegal crop.''

In recognition of the economic impact of defoliation, a group of senators announced Tuesday a bipartisan trade measure for Colombia and three other cocaine-producing countries _ Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.

The measure is intended to help create jobs for those who would lose their livelihoods if the war against drugs is successful.

Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., who co-sponsored the measure with Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, said it would send a message of balance to Colombians who are concerned that they are being forced to ``fumigate themselves into starvation.

Graham, who visited Colombia recently, expressed doubt about the governors' claims of legal crops being wiped out by fumigation.

``Our observers feel that there was great care taken to focus the eradication on the coca,'' Graham said.

-------- india/pakistan

Indian PM denounced in arms scandal

InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition - 3/14/2001
By NEELESH MISRA Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406390141

NEW DELHI, India (AP) - India's prime minister won the backing of the ruling coalition Wednesday, putting the government out of immediate danger despite a scandal over videotapes showing officials receiving bribes to facilitate a fake arms deal.

Angry opposition lawmakers had shut down Parliament earlier in the day, demanding the government resign over the scandal _ revealed by journalists with hidden cameras who posed as weapons contractors trying to push through a sale of equipment.

The president of the ruling party, Bangaru Laxman, resigned Tuesday night after an Internet media company, Tehelka.com, released videotapes of him accepting $2,175.

But at a crucial meeting late Wednesday, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee won the support of the ruling National Democratic Alliance.

All members of the coalition expressed solidarity and their faith in Vajpayee's leadership, said Murasoli Maran, leader of a key alliance partner, the Dravida Munnethra Kazhagham party.

The government suspended army Maj. Gen. P.S.K. Choudhury and four other Defense Ministry officials who appeared on the tapes.

``Strict action will be taken against any other official if any delinquency of conduct is established in due course,'' Defense Ministry spokesman P.K. Bandopadhyay told The Associated Press.

Both houses of Parliament were forced to adjourn Wednesday as the uproar made it impossible for anyone to be heard.

Punching their fists in the air, lawmakers of the Congress party and other groups stood before the elevated chair of the speaker, pointing angrily at ruling party lawmakers.

``There is talk in every street, the prime minister is a thief,'' several opposition members shouted.

As Vajpayee entered the chamber, senior Congress party lawmaker Buta Singh and other party lawmakers shouted, ``He's a thief,'' Press Trust of India reported.

After the adjournment, Vajpayee told reporters there was ``something fishy'' about the tapes' release, but did not elaborate.

``We are ready for any sort of inquiry,'' said V.K. Malhotra, a leader of Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party.

On Wednesday, Jana Krishnamurthy was chosen acting president of the party, Star News channel reported.

The Tehelka.com tapes showed Laxman apparently accepting bribes from two journalists posing as defense manufacturers. They said it was for the ``party fund.''

Laxman said Tuesday he had turned the money over to the party, and that the men he had believed were businessmen never mentioned an arms sale. Accepting commissions to arrange defense contracts is illegal in India and carries a sentence of up to seven years.

The opposition in Parliament has seized on the investigation to challenge the Vajpayee government's image of being corruption-free.

``The mask has fallen. They should step down,'' said Margaret Alva, a Congress spokeswoman. ``We have heard rumors for a long time, but today we have it all on tape.''

The Tehelka.com Web site showed four hours of video Tuesday to support its allegation that top army officers and senior officials of at least two political parties in the governing coalition accepted money from the undercover reporters.

The media firm said it copied the name of a London security business, printed letterheads and sent reporters out posing as defense contractors. They pretended to be pushing a $870,000 deal for hand-held thermal cameras and other defense equipment.

``Our job was to blow the whistle on corruption in India's defense procurement. We wanted to nail them down,'' said Tarun J. Tejpal, editor-in-chief of Tehelka.com.

-------- russia

Make Russia a Better Neighbor

New York Times
March 14, 2001
By ANATOL LIEVEN and CELESTE WALLANDER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/opinion/14LIEV.html

WASHINGTON - American economic and security interests in the former Soviet Union are fundamentally linked. An economically stable Russia, integrated into the Western economy, would be far less likely to want to damage Western interests or dominate its neighbors, like Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova. Stable and prosperous neighbors would in turn support Russia's new generation of political and business leaders who seek success in the global market through domestic economic reform.

How could we help build such improved relationships? There is one way the West could help Russia, and at the same time reduce Russian pressure on its neighbors: debt relief. Russia owes $48 billion of former Soviet debt to the Paris Club, the association of creditor nations that includes Germany and the United States. In recent weeks, Moscow has threatened to default on this year's payments and has demanded forgiveness or renegotiation.

As the Western creditors have pointed out, Russia's complaints about its 2001 payments are unreasonable. Given the robust state of the Russian economy, the $3.4 billion due this year is well within Russia's budget. By 2003, however, Russia will owe $17.5 billion. Since its entire state budget in 2001 is only $42 billion, it will indeed be quite impossible for Russia to pay at that time. If we insist on the full sum, Russia will default.

Since the West will be forced to renegotiate Russia's debt sooner or later, we should try to get something in return. The most obvious goal should be to reduce Russia's ability to control its neighbors.

Over the past five years, economic pressure, not military dominance or internal subversion, has become the most important source of Russian regional power. Russia is too weak to exert the kind of military pressure it exercised against Georgia in 1993. Furthermore, any direct military intervention would cause Russia terrible damage internationally.

But Russia exerts influence over its neighbors through other means. Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova, in particular, have run up enormous unpaid debts to Russia, mostly for gas supplies. Ukraine owes at least $1.4 billion for gas; Gazprom, the state-controlled Russian natural-gas monopoly, claims that the actual amount is more than $2 billion. Moldova owes $861 million for gas, and Georgia owes $179 million. None of these countries can afford to pay these sums. Indeed, their debt burdens are strikingly comparable to the debt burden on Russia: last year, the annual Georgian state budget was barely $400 million.

In recent months, Georgia's inability to pay its loans has led to repeated shut-offs of gas, considerably worsening Georgia's already severe electricity crisis. This pressure contributed to the recent declaration by Eduard Shevardnadze, Georgia's president, that his country may drop its (vain) hope of becoming a NATO member and instead aim at neutral status.

In the case of Ukraine, Moscow has sought to swap its neighbor's debt for equity in Ukrainian state- owned industries, which is likely to leave Russian businesses in control of much of the Ukrainian economy. Already, the debt burden has forced the Ukrainian government to agree to unify the Russian and Ukrainian electricity grids.

By international standards, Russian pressure seems fair enough. Why should Russia provide its neighbors with what is in effect heavily subsidized gas and get nothing in return? After all, the West has also told Russia that failing to pay its debts violates international financial rules, and that default would bring Western economic retaliation.

On the other hand, Russia has no right to expect generosity from the West while taking a ruthless line toward its own debtors. The United States and its European partners should therefore offer to forgive Russia all or part of its debt, while demanding that in return Russia act similarly toward the debts of its neighbors.

We could then use this window of opportunity to help these countries develop alternative energy sources - assuming, of course, that the elites of these countries can summon up enough honesty and competence to move seriously in this direction.

Too much of the American approach toward the former Soviet Union has consisted of rhetorical declarations without real content. By contrast, linking Russia's debt to that of its neighbors would be both very effective and entirely legitimate. It is precisely this kind of practical, sober policy - rather than empty geopolitical obsessions - that should characterize our policy toward Russia and, indeed, the rest of the world.

Anatol Lieven is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Celeste Wallander is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

-------- space

New space station crew moves into orbiting outpost

USA Today
03/14/2001 - Updated 08:41 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-03-14-shuttle.htm

SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) - The International Space Station reached another milestone early Wednesday as its first replacement crew finished moving into its new home.

"The torch is passing from one crew to the next, as well as the phase of flight for the international space station where we go from construction to utilization," NASA flight director John Shannon said.

The new crew of space station Alpha expects challenges and hard work during its four-month stay on the orbiting outpost.

"We are very much looking forward to it. We're more like family than we are like a crew. We are just going to have the time of our lives," said Susan Helms, the last replacement crew member to move into the station.

The crew is made up of Helms, astronaut Jim Voss and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev. They were brought to Alpha by space shuttle Discovery.

They are relieving station commander Bill Shepherd and his two Russian shipmates, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev. They will return to Earth aboard Discovery on Tuesday after more than four months aboard the station.

Helms moved into Alpha early Wednesday, taking Shepherd's place. Voss and Usachev had settled in earlier during the shuttle's mission.

NASA wanted Shepherd to have as much time as possible with Usachev, his successor, before the shuttle departs late Saturday for the ride back to Earth. Shepherd will remain station commander until hatches between Discovery and Alpha close just before the shuttle leaves.

Helms said the biggest challenges she expects for herself during her stay on Alpha will be the psychological ones involved with living in an isolated environment for many months.

"However, I've been mentally preparing myself for that. I feel like that's not going to impact the work getting done," Helms said.

Besides delivering the new crew, Discovery brought up an Italian-made module filled with 5 tons of equipment and supplies.

Inside the space station, both crews have almost finished removing gear in the module, which was attached to Alpha early Monday.

The first experiments for the U.S. science lab Destiny were removed from the module, named Leonardo. The experiments will study the effects of weightlessness on the human body.

"It's a wonderful place," Voss said of the $1.4 billion Destiny lab. "We're going to enjoy working in there."

Also removed from Leonardo were electronics, communications gear, a defibrillator, other emergency medical equipment and the work station for Alpha's robotic arm, scheduled to be delivered in April.

Once emptied and refilled with trash, the module will be put back in the shuttle and returned to Earth.

Astronauts completed two spacewalks during the shuttle's mission. They helped make way for Leonardo, continued to outfit the growing station and prepped the outside of Alpha to receive its robotic arm.

The first spacewalk, a nine-hour excursion Sunday by Helms and Voss, was NASA's longest ever.

"It was too short," Helms joked.

--------

New space station crew settles in

InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition - 3/14/2001
By JUAN A. LOZANO Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406390654

SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) - The international space station reached another milestone early Wednesday as its first replacement crew finished moving into its new home.

``The torch is passing from one crew to the next, as well as the phase of flight for the international space station where we go from construction to utilization,'' NASA flight director John Shannon said.

The new crew of space station Alpha expects challenges and hard work during its four-month stay on the orbiting outpost.

``We are very much looking forward to it. We're more like family than we are like a crew. We are just going to have the time of our lives,'' said Susan Helms, the last replacement crew member to move into the station.

Helms moved into Alpha early Wednesday. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev, who will be the new commander, and astronaut Jim Voss had settled in earlier. The three were brought up by space shuttle Discovery, which was launched last Thursday.

They are relieving station commander Bill Shepherd and his two Russian shipmates, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, who have spent more than four months aboard the station. They will return to Earth aboard Discovery on Tuesday.

NASA wanted Shepherd to have as much time as possible with Usachev before the shuttle undocks from Alpha late Saturday. Shepherd will remain station commander until hatches between Discovery and Alpha close just before the shuttle leaves.

Also Wednesday morning, Discovery commander James Wetherbee had to raise the shuttle-station complex into a higher orbit earlier than planned to avoid a viselike device that was lost early Sunday during the first of the mission's two spacewalks. NASA feared the 10- to 15-pound piece of space junk would pass about 200 feet below the station, too close for comfort.

Last month, another shuttle crew also had to steer the orbiting complex away from a piece of space junk.

Helms said the biggest challenges she expects for herself during her stay on Alpha will be the psychological ones involved with living in an isolated environment for months.

``However, I've been mentally preparing myself for that. I feel like that's not going to impact the work getting done,'' she said early Wednesday.

Besides delivering the new crew, Discovery brought up an Italian-made module named Leonardo filled with 5 tons of equipment and supplies. It was attached to the station early Monday.

Inside the space station, both crews have almost finished removing gear from the module. The equipment includes electronics, communications gear, emergency medical equipment and the work station for Alpha's robotic arm, scheduled to be delivered in April.

The first experiments for the Destiny lab also have been removed from Leonardo. They will study the effects of weightlessness on the human body.

``It's a wonderful place,'' Voss said of the $1.4 billion Destiny lab. ``We're going to enjoy working in there.''

The Leonardo module will be put back in the shuttle and returned to Earth, carrying back a load of trash.

On the Net: NASA: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov

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

Syria, Despite Criticism, Seems Likely to Win Security Council Seat

New York Times
March 14, 2001
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/world/14NATI.html

UNITED NATIONS, March 13 - Syria appears highly likely to be elected to a rotating seat on the Security Council this year, diplomats said this week. The Syrians would replace Bangladesh in a seat that is alternated among nations in the General Assembly's Asian regional bloc, which includes the Middle East.

Voting by the General Assembly for five of the 10 nonpermanent Security Council members will be in the fall to fill seats for 2002-2003. But nations aspiring to hold the places begin campaigns early, sometimes years in advance, because the process often involves extensive of political horsetrading.

Syria's effort, which Israel opposes, has the backing of a majority of Middle Eastern and Asian nations and several important European governments, including France and Germany, according to diplomats. The Bush administration - still in transition and without an ambassador here until the Senate confirms its nominee, John Negroponte - has not made a statement on Syria's candidacy and is still studying the issue.

"Since this vote will not occur until well into the fall's General Assembly, it is simply too early to go into any additional detail on the U.S. position on any Security Council candidacy," said Paul Aronsohn, a spokesman for the United States mission.

When Secretary of State Colin L. Powell visited the Middle East, he met President Bashir al-Assad of Syria, who surprised diplomats by offering to place oil purchases from Iraq under United Nations supervision. Iraq had expected to reopen a pipeline to Syria outside the United Nations "oil for food" program.

Some diplomats here speculate that General Powell may have discussed Syria's candidacy for a Security Council seat while in Damascus and may be prepared not to oppose it. For years many nations turned a cold shoulder toward Syria, contending it had a shadowy reputation on terrorism, an intransigent attitude toward peace with Israel, and dominated its neighbor, Lebanon.

The Clinton administration fought a similar effort last year when Sudan tried to take an African seat. The United States and several African nations mounted a campaign against Sudan, and the Sudanese lost out.

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Yehuda Lancry, said in an interview today that although all regional groups have the right to choose any country for a Council seat, he questions whether Syria meets the criteria set down in the United Nations Charter.

Mr. Lancry gave this quote from Article 23: "The General Assembly shall elect 10 other members of the United Nations to be nonpermanent members of the Security Council, due regard being specially paid, in the first instance, to the contribution of members of the United Nations to the maintenance of international peace and security."

"Here I have to stress the sad fact," Mr. Lancry said, "the fact that my colleagues from Lebanon can't unfortunately portray - that Syria is an occupying power in Lebanon. Syria does not contribute to the maintenance of peace and security.

"Moreover, Syria feeds the lack of stability and security and peace on the Israeli-Lebanese border, using the Hezbollah movement as the tool for this destabilization. That is why we consider that this candidacy is in blatant contradiction with the spirit and the letter of this article."

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U.N. refugee chief seeks U.S. funds

Washington Times
March 14, 2001
By Ben Barber THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2001314213922.htm

The new U.N. refugee chief said yesterday he is asking Secretary of State Colin Powell for more U.S. aid for starving Afghans despite the destruction of ancient Buddhist statues last week.

Ruud Lubbers said he told Mr. Powell - in an effort to obtain a green light from the U.S. government - that the U.N. refugee agency intended to "be more active" in dealing with the extreme Islamic Taleban government in Afghanistan to combat a famine caused by drought.

"I informed him and my impression is he would not block it," said Mr. Lubbers, the former prime minister of the Netherlands who took over as U.N. high commissioner for refugees in January.

"It's very sensitive item here after the destruction of the statues and Osama bin Laden - there is a grim atmosphere," he said. He referred to Afghanistan's recent destruction of ancient Buddha statues as well as to its sheltering suspected terrorist bin Laden, wanted by the United States for the bombing of U.S. embassies and other targets.

World opinion has been inflamed against the Taleban, which has ruled Afghanistan since 1995, for its decision this month to destroy all statues - some of them dating back to the third century - because Islam considers them as idols that must be destroyed.

UNHCR is anxious not to alienate the United States, which is the largest single contributor to its annual $900 million budget.

Mr. Lubbers said that from 1 million to 1.5 million Afghans are at risk of death from famine due to the drought and some were being prevented by Pakistan from crossing the border in search of help.

Pakistan reasons that the Afghan civil war is over now that the Taleban has taken control over about 90 percent of the country. So those seeking entry are no longer viewed as refugees fleeing persecution, with international rights of protection, but as economic migrants.

Close to 100,000 Afghans have made it to the western city of Herat where many children have died in exposed camps lacking adequate shelter, bedding, food or water, reports said.

Mr. Lubbers said he was concerned lest the U.S. government resort to the "old model which says 'that is the enemy and we should not give them assistance.'"

However he said assessments have not yet determined how much aid is required to avert massive deaths in Afghanistan and to start a world appeal for those funds.

He also warned against turning Yugoslav and Serbian forces loose in the border zones adjacent to Kosovo, where massive ethnic expulsions of Albanians in 1999 were only reversed by a NATO bombing campaign.

And he said he refused to send refugee-aid workers back to camps in West Timor where three U.N. workers were killed by a mob of militants blaming the world community for East Timor's separation from Indonesia.

Mr. Lubbers said he expected little change in traditionally bipartisan U.S. backing for humanitarian aid through the UNHCR, which cares for 22 million refugees and millions of internally displaced persons.

"Mr. Powell did not signal any change in U.S. policy," he said at a meeting with reporters yesterday.

"I count on the generosity of the Republicans," he said, noting that he seeks each developed nation to contribute one dollar for each of its citizens.

The U.S. contribution of $240 million last year was about 80 cents per person. Scandinavian nations and Holland gave much more per capita but most European states gave much less than America.

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

Navy Pilot in Fatal Raid Had Approval From Ground

New York Times
March 14, 2001
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/world/14NAVY.html

WASHINGTON, March 13 - As the pilot of a Navy fighter was diving toward his target on a training mission over Kuwait on Monday night, an air controller on the ground told him he was "cleared hot," or approved, to release his three 500- pound bombs, Pentagon officials said today.

Just seconds later, the air controller apparently realized that the plane was aiming at the wrong target and tried to abort the mission, the officials said. But it was too late, as the three bombs exploded near an observation post, killing five Americans and a New Zealander and seriously wounding three other Americans.

A panel led by a three-star Marine Corps general will begin an investigation later this week into the causes of the accident, considered the worst mishap involving live-fire training by American troops in memory.

Pentagon officials said the exchange between the pilot and air controller - which may have been captured on audio tape - makes clear that the mission was going smoothly until the final seconds.

But whether the air controller gave the pilot incorrect coordinates for the target, or the pilot misconstrued the directions he was given, remain central questions for the inquiry. Military officials said it was also possible that something went awry with targeting software on the fighter, an F/A-18 Hornet, though it was not clear today whether the pilot was using that computer program.

"Clearly he fired at the wrong target; the question is why," said a Pentagon official. "Since all three bombs hit in the same cluster, it looks reasonable that he hit what he was aiming at. But there could be 15 reasons why he hit the wrong target."

Today, the Pentagon released the names of the Americans killed in the accident. They were Staff Sgt. Troy J. Westberg of Wisconsin, Staff Sgt. Richard N. Boudreau of Florida, Sgt. Phillip M. Freligh of Nevada and Specialist Jason D. Wildfong of West Virginia, all from the Army. The fifth American was Staff Sgt. Jason M. Faley of the Air Force. The sixth fatality was a New Zealand Army major, John McNutt.

Three Americans remained hospitalized today with serious but not life-threatening injuries, said Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman. One was flown today to Ramstein Air Base in Germany for additional treatment at the Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl. The two others will also be transported there when they are well enough to travel, Admiral Quigley said.

Pentagon officials said that the air controller was probably stationed at the observation post but that they did not know if he was among the casualties.

Pentagon officials also identified the pilot of the Navy F/A-18c, a single-seat fighter, as the commanding officer of a Hornet squadron on the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman, based in the Persian Gulf.

The officer, Cmdr. David O. Zimmerman of Orange Park, Fla., is a decorated pilot with more than 3,000 hours of flight time in his 17 years as a Navy aviator, the Navy said.

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Bombing accident inquiry continues

InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition - 3/14/2001
By ROBERT BURNS AP Military Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406391863

WASHINGTON (AP) - Questions about the bombing range accident in Kuwait that killed six people are focusing on whether blame rests with the Navy pilot who dropped the bombs or the air controller on the ground who was responsible for directing the strike, or both, defense officials say.

The pilot, an experienced F/A-18 Hornet squadron commander, had received the go-ahead from a U.S. forward air controller who then called out ``abort, abort'' in a belated attempt to wave off the misplaced strike.

U.S. officials speaking Wednesday on condition of anonymity said the controller was an Air Force enlisted man who was among three Americans seriously injured in the accident. His name was not released.

On Tuesday, the Air Force announced that one of those injured was Staff Sgt. Timothy B. Crusing, a tactical air controller with the 19th Air Support Operations Squadron at Fort Campbell, Ky. The Air Force did not indicate whether he was the controller in charge at the time of the accident. Other officials said Wednesday that more than one controller was present at the time of the accident.

The U.S. Central Command, meanwhile, was preparing to send its deputy commander in chief, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael P. DeLong, to Kuwait to head an investigation of the incident. DeLong and his team of investigators was scheduled to leave from MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., on Wednesday afternoon.

On Tuesday, officials said the controller told the Hornet pilot as he approached, ``Cleared, hot,'' which is an unambiguous instruction to release the bombs. Seconds later, apparently realizing a mistake had been made, the controller called, ``abort, abort,'' but it was too late.

The father of an Army sergeant killed in the accident said Wednesday he is not interested in placing blame, but wants officials to concentrate on fixing problems that lead to training accidents.

``There's a problem somewhere in our training and I think we need to find out what the problem is and get it solved before we lose more people,'' Mike Freligh of Gosnell, Ark., said on CBS' ``The Early Show.''

He suggested there has been too much carelessness in training, ``but I am also in hopes that with the new administration, things will change. ... I want to know that the training these people are getting is good training and that there is a lot of safety involved. There's too many accidents happening and it starts at the top. The unfortunate thing is that innocent people are being killed. ... There's a cancer somewhere in the system. We've got to find out the cure and get it fixed.''

Freligh said he does not think the pilot of the plane that dropped the bombs should be held accountable. ``I feel very, very much grief for the pilot of this plane and I'm not looking for blame,'' he said. ``What I'm looking for is a solution to the problem.''

Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said Tuesday he did not know in detail the sequence of events that led to the fatal accident Monday evening at the Udairi training range in northern Kuwait.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld expressed sympathy for the families of the victims and pledged to find out how the accident happened. It marked the third calamity for the Navy in recent months. Following the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors in October, the attack submarine USS Greeneville accidentally sank a Japanese fishing boat off Hawaii on Feb. 9, killing nine Japanese.

Quigley said a Navy F/A-18C Hornet, launched from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman in the Persian Gulf as part of a multinational exercise dubbed ``Desert Spring,'' dropped two or three 500-pound bombs on an observation post that was used by forward air controllers.

Five Americans at the observation post and one New Zealand army major were killed, he said. Three other people were seriously injured, one evacuated to a U.S. military hospital in Germany. The other two were in Kuwaiti medical facilities and will be taken to Germany when they are able to travel.

The key question that remained unanswered by the Pentagon on Tuesday was why the bombs struck the observation post instead of the intended target.

The Pentagon identified the Hornet pilot as Cmdr. David O. Zimmerman, who commands the VFA-37 Hornet squadron aboard the Truman. The squadron is home-based at Oceana Naval Air Station, Va.

Zimmerman had flown a daylight and nighttime mission at Udairi three days earlier. He has more than 3,000 Navy flying hours.

Air Force Staff Sgt. Jason M. Faley, a tactical air controller with the 19th Air Support Operations Squadron based at Fort Campbell, Ky., was identified as one of the dead.

The four other Americans killed were members of the Army. They were identified Tuesday as Staff Sgt. Troy J. Westberg from Mankato, Minn., a medical sergeant assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, N.C; Staff Sgt. Richard N. Boudreau of Florida; Sgt. Phillip M. Freligh of Nevada, and Spc. Jason D. Wildfong of West Virginia. Home towns were not provided except for Westberg's. Boudreau, Freligh and Wildfong were explosive ordnance disposal specialists assigned to the 707th Ordnance Company at Fort Lewis, Wash.

Acting Army Maj. John McNutt, 27, was identified as the New Zealander killed.

------

New York Times
March 14, 2001
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/world/14BRIE.html

KOSOVO: U.S. SOLDIER CLEARED An American soldier charged with negligent homicide in the death of a 6-year-old ethnic Albanian boy in Kosovo last summer was acquitted by a court martial in Germany. Pfc. Nicholas Young, who was 19 and serving as a peacekeeper at the time of the accidental shooting, had faced up to three and a half years in prison. An Army spokeswoman did not give grounds for the acquittal, but defense counsel had argued that Private Young's superiors were at fault in giving him a machine gun he was not properly trained to use. (Reuters)

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U.S. withdrawing 750 peacekeepers from Bosnia

USA Today
03/14/2001 - Updated 09:11 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-03-14-bosnia.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is withdrawing about 750 of the U.S. peacekeeping troops from Bosnia and is consulting with NATO allies on additional cutbacks, two U.S. officials said Wednesday.

However, a pledge by Secretary of State Colin Powell to stay the course in the restive Balkans, where more than 9,000 U.S. troops patrol Bosnia and Kosovo, remains in effect.

The commitment did not rule out some reductions, said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The withdrawal of the troops and the possibility of further reductions was described by the official as part of an evaluation of needs the administration was making with leaders of the military alliance.

A White House official told The Associated Press, meanwhile, that the cutback was the result of a review concluded last December. Based on consultation with the European allies, some heavy equipment and tanks that were no longer necessary are being withdrawn, along with the peacekeepers that manned them.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the troop reduction was being accomplished by not replacing soldiers who have completed their tours of duty in Bosnia. The official described the reductions as adjustments and said they would not diminish the ability of peacekeepers in Bosnia to carry out their mission.

CBS reported, meanwhile, that the Bush administration had developed a plan that would reduce by about 80% the 4,400 U.S. troops in Bosnia. It said the plan does not affect the 5,600 American troops next door in Kosovo.

Under the plan, American troops would turn the labor-intensive job of conducting daily foot patrols to keep the streets safe over to civilian police and would only be responsible for preventing an outbreak of fighting, CBS said.

A White House spokesman said he had not seen the CBS report, but he questioned its accuracy.

"The United States intends to review our force posture in the Balkans in close consultation with allies as part of NATO's process of six-month reviews," spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

President Bush registered skepticism about U.S. involvement in peacekeeping operation during the presidential campaign.

But Powell, in his debut last month at NATO headquarters in a diplomatic role, promised worried Europeans that the United States "would avoid any steps that jeopardize" the alliance's unity.

Lord Robertson, the NATO secretary-general, called Powell's participation in his first session of the North Atlantic Council, NATO's policy-making body, "a reminder of the vital importance of the trans-Atlantic link."

The cutbacks are occurring against the backdrop of growing tensions in the Balkans.

Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, created a stir during the presidential campaign when she said the United States should pull troops out and Bush, too, said he wanted to bring Americans home.

After some European alarm, Bush softened his stance, saying two weeks ago there would be "no precipitous withdrawal from the (overseas) commitments we inherited," though he said he would be more "careful" and "judicious" about peacekeeping deployments in the future.

---

Controller injured in Navy bombing

USA Today
03/14/2001 - Updated 07:46 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-03-14-kuwait-accident2.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - The controller who cleared a Navy pilot to release the bombs that killed six people in the Kuwaiti desert was an Air Force enlisted man seriously injured in the accident, officials said Wednesday. The U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for U.S. military operations in the Persian Gulf area, said a military investigation team headed by a three-star general will arrive in Kuwait on Thursday to begin interviews. The team has been instructed to complete its investigation by April 16.

The remains of the five American servicemen and one New Zealand military officer killed in the accident will arrive at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Thursday, Central Command said. Military honors will be rendered.

Central Command said Air Force Staff Sgt. Timothy Crusing was the "forward air controller" responsible for directing the Navy pilot to his bomb targets, which were more than one mile from the observation post where Crusing and about 19 other military personnel were situated when the bombs struck.

The Air Force said Crusing is a tactical air controller with the 19th Air Support Operations Squadron based at Fort Campbell, Ky. On Tuesday, he was listed in stable condition at a hospital.

Officials have said it is unclear whether the bombing accident resulted from mistakes by the Navy pilot or the air controller, or both.

Central Command said it would not comment on Crusing's specific role in the accident. "The specific details of those actions have not been established and will be a focus of the investigation," it said.

Investigators led by Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael P. DeLong will try to determine why the three bombs released by a Navy F/A-18 Hornet hit the observation area instead of the intended target.

According to initial accounts, the pilot, an experienced F/A-18 Hornet squadron commander, had received the go-ahead from the air controller, who then called out, "Abort, abort" in a belated attempt to wave off the misplaced strike.

Five Americans and one New Zealand army major were killed at the observation post. Three other Americans were seriously injured; all three have been flown to a U.S. military hospital in Germany. Their injuries were not life-threatening, officials said.

The Pentagon identified the F/A-18 Hornet pilot as Cmdr. David O. Zimmerman, who commands the VFA-37 Hornet squadron aboard the USS Harry S. Truman in the Persian Gulf. The squadron's home is Oceana Naval Air Station, Va.

Zimmerman had flown a daylight and nighttime mission at Udairi three days earlier. He has more than 3,000 Navy flying hours.

The father of an Army sergeant killed in the accident said Wednesday he is not interested in placing blame, but wants officials to concentrate on fixing problems that lead to training accidents.

"There's a problem somewhere in our training and I think we need to find out what the problem is and get it solved before we lose more people," Mike Freligh of Gosnell, Ark., said on CBS' "The Early Show."

Freligh said he does not think the pilot of the plane that dropped the bombs should be held accountable. "I feel very, very much grief for the pilot of this plane and I'm not looking for blame," he said. "What I'm looking for is a solution to the problem."

The Pentagon has not released the names of all three who suffered serious injuries.

Air Force Staff Sgt. Jason M. Faley, a tactical air controller with the 19th Air Support Operations Squadron based at Fort Campbell, Ky., was identified as one of the dead.

The four other Americans killed were members of the Army. They were identified Tuesday as Staff Sgt. Troy J. Westberg from Mankato, Minn., a medical sergeant assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, N.C; Staff Sgt. Richard N. Boudreau of Florida; Sgt. Phillip M. Freligh of Nevada; and Spc. Jason D. Wildfong of West Virginia. Home towns were not provided except for Westberg's. Boudreau, Freligh and Wildfong were explosive ordnance disposal specialists assigned to the 707th Ordnance Company at Fort Lewis, Wash.

Army Acting Maj. John McNutt, 27, was identified as the New Zealander killed.

------

Bush suggests 3 new fighters aren't affordable

USA Today
03/14/2001 - Updated 07:20 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/nlead.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush says the nation may not be able to afford all three new fighter jets the Pentagon wants.

Analysts have speculated for months that one of the three aircraft could be on the budget chopping block.

The three are the Air Force's $62 billion F-22 stealth fighter; the $200 billion Joint Strike Fighter fleet for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps; and the Navy's $46 billion F/A-18E&F Super Hornet fighter-bomber.

"There are three potential fighters, and I think it is realistic for me, the president, to say to people that I'm not so sure we can afford all three," Bush said in a Tuesday evening session with reporters from around the country.

"Maybe we can," he said. "But if not, let's pick the best one, and the one that fits into a strategy."

As he conducts a top-to-bottom review of the military, Bush said he was considering such hardware decisions with an eye to "keeping the peace in the long run, the best available technology, and the best return on taxpayer dollar."

The president added that Gen. Michael Ryan, the Air Force chief of staff, personally lobbied him Monday on behalf of the F-22 during Bush's visit to Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, Fla.

Ryan "was anxious to tell me what a good airplane" the F-22 is, Bush said, in response to a question about that plane's future.

"But if it's as good an airplane as I think and fits into the strategic review, I'm confident that (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld will recommend them."

During his presidential campaign, Bush recalled, he backed proceeding with prototype F-22s that were under development.

And during the campaign, Vice President Dick Cheney backed the F-22 and the F/A-18E&F Super Hornet. Cheney is a former defense secretary.

---

Pentagon halts beret handout

Washington Times
March 14, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2001314223448.htm

The Pentagon said yesterday that it had started a review of the Army's contested decision to issue the Rangers' exclusive black beret to all soldiers.

A spokesman said Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz also will look into a department decision last fall to bypass a "buy America" law to acquire the wool berets from low-wage factories in communist China and other Third World countries.

The review, requested last month by President Bush, was announced a day after Sen. John W. Warner, Virginia Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, urged Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to suspend the beret program until a new Army secretary examines it.

Mr. Wolfowitz's announcement culminates weeks of intense pressure from former soldiers and members of Congress. They argue that making the berets available to every soldier in the Army voids the uniqueness of the black beret for 3,000 Rangers, one of the Army's most elite combat groups.

"I think it's moving pretty quick and it's exciting," said ex-Ranger David Nielsen, who last week completed a 750-mile protest march from Fort Benning, Ga., to Washington. "I want to find the best way out for everyone. I don't want to see anyone embarrassed. Maybe there's not an 'A' or a 'B,' but maybe a 'C' position that makes everybody look good. Maybe khaki berets for soldiers."

A source close to the issue said Mr. Rumsfeld feels compelled to act in the face of widespread disagreement with the beret policy.

The Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, who set out the policy in October as a symbol of "a transformed Army for the 21st century," is said to be discussing how he should respond if Mr. Rumsfeld suspends the program permanently. Congressional and Army sources say the four-star general is convinced he made the right decision and stubbornly defends it.

Asked a retired soldier who worked in the Bush campaign: "Can Shinseki take a hint?"

He notes the growing number of letters from Republican and Democratic congressmen opposing the general's decision, and the fact that the commander in chief ordered the Pentagon review.

The issue became further inflamed last week when The Washington Times reported that the Defense Logistics Agency bypassed the "Berry Amendment" and ordered hundreds of thousands of black berets from Third World countries, including China.

The amendment requires the Pentagon to buy clothing made of American components in American plants. The agency said waiving the law was the only way it could meet Gen. Shinseki's deadline of having all 474,000 active duty soldiers in a beret by June 14, the Army's birthday.

"I am also troubled by reports of the manner in which the berets are being procured," Mr. Warner said in his letter to Mr. Rumsfeld.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, wrote to Mr. Rumsfeld last week as well, saying "Taking the black beret away from Rangers complicates the laudable goal of creating esprit d'corps in the Army."

In the House yesterday, Rep. Lois Capps, California Democrat, circulated a letter to be signed by her colleagues that calls on Mr. Bush to consider terminating the foreign contracts.

"The seemingly arbitrary deadline for the new berets will cause U.S. firms to lose millions of dollars and send this important business to foreign companies," Mrs. Capps said.

"Military uniforms are a powerful symbol for U.S. soldiers, representing who they are and what they stand for. That is one reason why they are manufactured in our own country, except in times of crisis. The Army's decision to purchase the black berets from companies who manufacture them overseas may undermine the very morale and unity the Army is attempting to instill in its forces with its decision to outfit its soldiers in matching headgear."

Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Mr. Wolfowitz will look at Gen. Shinseki's policy itself as well as the overseas contracts.

"There are several different facets to this overall topic, and the deputy secretary has been asked to take a look at each of them and come back holistically to the secretary with his recommendations on the way ahead," Adm. Quigley said. "His charter is very broad. . . . He'll move it along pretty quick."

There was confusion at the Pentagon after White House spokesman Ari Fleischer announced two weeks ago that the president himself wanted a review, and nothing happened. Mr. Rumsfeld then told reporters that he had not asked the Army for any information. His remarks were taken as a lack of enthusiasm for the president's instructions.

Mr. Fleischer yesterday repeated the president's instructions.

"This is something that DoD [Department of Defense] is looking at now," he said. "Secretary Rumsfeld will be addressing those questions.

"He said he has not asked the Army to do so. I think you should allow the secretary to speak for himself. The secretary is aware, certainly. He had a conversation with the president. So because he says he hasn't asked the Army to is not an indication of what Secretary Rumsfeld is or is not doing."

Rep. Charlie Norwood, Georgia Republican, complained personally about the beret policy last month to Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld during an Air Force One trip to an Army base in Georgia.

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-------- environment

Concern Over Foot-and-Mouth Disease Spreads Worldwide

New York Times
March 14, 2001
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS with DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/world/14CND-HOOF.html

WASHINGTON, March 14 - Norway and Australia today joined the United States and other countries in banning imports of animals and animal products from the European Union, following reports that foot-and-mouth disease had spread to France from Britain.

The Norwegians voted in 1994 not to join other Western European countries in the European Union, leaving Norway outside the ban that the United States imposed on Tuesday on meat and related products from the 15 member countries of the European Union.

The Norwegian minister of agriculture, Bjarne Haakon Hanssen, told reporters today that the ban would last at least two weeks. Norway's decision was likely to be hardest on neighboring Sweden, a vital trading partner that belongs to the European Union.

Australia, which earlier in the week had banned importing horses from Britain, expanded its ban immediately to include all livestock and their products from Europe because of the outbreak of the disease in France.

Australia's quarantine laws are generally strict. Even on domestic flights, interstate travelers are not allowed to bring in some fresh fruit and vegetables at their destinations. The ban in response to the latest epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease was "consistent with Australia's cautious approach to quarantine," the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service said in a statement. It said the restrictions would be reviewed daily and could be expanded further.

New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Estonia and Latvia also announced restrictions today on animals and animal products from the European Union.

The ban Tuesday by the United States on such exports prompted some European officials to complain that the Bush administration was overreacting.

In Brussels, the headquarters of the European Union's executive commission, its spokeswoman for health and consumer affairs, Beate Gminder, criticized the United States' ban as "not proportionate" and "excessive," because it was imposed against animal products from all 15 member countries and not just Britain and France.

"The level of vigilance and surveillance in the E.U. is extremely high," Ms. Gminder said, according to the French news agency, Agence France Presse. "We have felt we have done everything, and put everything in place, that is necessary to combat the disease."

Still, three members of the European Union - Belgium, Portugal and Spain - are closing their borders to French meat, as is Switzerland. Norway previously banned imports of French farm products, and Germany and Italy took protective measures.

Canada also banned meat imports from the European Union, as well as from Argentina, which has found foot-and-mouth disease in the northwest. Argentina said it would voluntarily restrict beef exports.

In Rome, the Food and Agriculture Organization said the rapid new spread of foot-and-mouth disease in Europe demonstrated the virulent virus's ability "to infiltrate a wide geographic area and to cause epidemics in countries which have been free from the disease for many years."

The United Nations food agency pointed out that the highly contagious disease remained endemic in many countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and South America.

"Emergency preparedness, contingency plans and awareness campaigns are of critical importance" in controlling foot-and-mouth disease, the F.A.O. said in a statement. "No country can consider itself safe from the risk of the disease, due to increased international trade, tourism, the movement of animals, animal products and foodstuff."

In Washington, Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman said every precaution would be taken to prevent the foot-and-mouth epidemic in Europe from reaching the United States. "We haven't had a case since 1929," Ms. Veneman told CNN. "The measures we are taking are to ensure that we remain a foot-and-mouth disease-free country."

The Agriculture Department said it was taking the precautions to protect the domestic industry from a possible outbreak of the virus, which could cost the American industry billions of dollars in just one year.

The virus poses little danger to people, even if they eat the meat of infected animals. But it is virulently contagious and is devastating for cattle, swine, sheep, deer and other cloven-hoofed animals, which it generally debilitates and often leaves unable to grow or produce milk.

Kimberley Smith, a spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department, said many items, including most cheeses and cured or cooked meats, are not affected because they are heated in a way that kills the virus.

The ban is expected to hit pork producers the most. European beef is already banned by the United States because of mad cow disease, which can cause fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.

The Agriculture Department is "taking this time to assess our exclusion activities as a precaution to ensure that we don't get foot-and-mouth disease in the United States," Ms. Smith said. Department officials did not detail which European products would be subject to the ban. But they said it would prohibit the importation of live swine, pork and meat from sheep and goats, regardless of whether it is fresh or frozen. Yogurt and most cheeses would be permitted, they said, because those sold in the United States are made from pasteurized milk.

Canned ham or any other food products that have been heated above 175 degrees Fahrenheit are permitted because such processing inactivates the virus, the officials said.

The production of such favored items as French brie and Italian prosciutto is closely monitored to meet stringent export standards, she said, so they are not affected by the ban. Brie entering the United States is made from pasteurized milk and is considered safe.

A spokesman for the European Commission in Washington, Gerry Kiely, said the ban would cost European exporters as much as $458 million a year in sales. The agriculture department put the cost at $400 million at most.

On Tuesday, French officials confirmed that foot-and-mouth disease was found among cattle at a dairy farm in Laval, in northwestern France. Officials said farmers in the area had imported sheep from Britain, which is at the center of the current outbreak and has already slaughtered about 170,000 animals to contain the disease.

The disease, which is so infectious that it can be spread by footwear and cars, appeared in France despite tight precautions. The infected dairy farm, near La Baroche-Gondouin in the Mayenne district, was inside an isolation zone.

Last week France set up double sets of roadblocks in 19 regions and created a 1.8-mile ring around a suspect farm. Under these restrictions, animals are required to remain in the fields, dogs must be kept away and all people and vehicles leaving farms are disinfected. Within a wider radius of about six miles, no animals are allowed to circulate, even to go to slaughter.

Animals believed to be infected are killed and burned in the field on pyres of gasoline-soaked wood, then buried nearby. French farmers have already killed 50,000 sheep: 20,000 imported from Britain since Feb. 1, and 30,000 French sheep that had contact with them.

The foot-and-mouth disease in France was found in a herd of 114 cows that had been grazing near sheep from a neighboring farm that had been imported from Britain. The sheep were all slaughtered last week as a precaution. When six cows showed mouth lesions on Monday, the entire herd was killed immediately and incinerated. Only two tested positive for the disease, French officials said.

The director general for food of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Catherine Geslain-Lanèelle, tried to calm the situation, saying, "At this stage, we shouldn't speak of an epidemic; we have a concentration."

European officials voiced dismay that their livestock producers would be kept from the American market by the second ban in four years. (The first was in reaction to the outbreak of mad cow disease.)

The Bush administration announced the step just hours after a group of veterinarians working for the European Union objected to the existing ban on European beef, saying global fears of mad cow disease had led to restrictions that were "excessive and not supported by any technical arguments."

American agricultural experts and representatives of the livestock industry praised the ban as timely. Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said: "Right now, we just don't know how far this disease has spread. It is common sense to take protective measures."

American experts in animal disease said the United States should take draconian measures if necessary to avoid an outbreak of foot and mouth. In the first two decades of the last century, they noted, there were repeated and devastating outbreaks of the disease, which was likely transmitted when garbage from oceanliners were fed to pigs as food.

The last reported incidence of foot-and-mouth disease in this country was in 1929.

"I think it's a logical step to take," said John Maas, a veterinarian and food-safety specialist at the University of California at Davis. "Slam the door quick, before the damage is done."

Dr. Maas noted that the disease is still endemic in many parts of the world, most notably in parts of China, the Middle East and former Soviet republics. But the risk posed by the European animals was especially worrisome because American authorities have been less vigilant about products from that part of the world, he said.

"The threat is not new," Dr. Maas said. "It's just the direction it's coming from."

American livestock producers expressed sympathy with their European counterparts, even as they acknowledged that they might benefit by taking over European markets in Japan, Russia and elsewhere.

"It's a very unfortunate situation and our producers feel for the producers in the United Kingdom and France," said Nicholas Giordano, the international trade counsel for the National Pork Producers Council, which is based in Des Moines. "We're pleased with the action that the U.S.D.A. has taken, but we don't take any glee in it."

Even including the processed items that are not being banned, European pork exporters provide a small fraction of the pork consumed in the United States, about 4 percent, in sales valued at $200 million to $250 million a year, Mr. Giordano said. Denmark is by far the biggest supplier, accounting for about 70 percent of American imports.

Mr. Giordano predicted that depending on how long the ban lasts, American consumers might detect higher prices for pork ribs, frozen shoulders or unprocessed ham, which are being banned.

But, he said, there may be a more significant economic impact for American producers, who could gain ground in sales to third countries at Europe's expense. The American pork industry, which generates farm income of $11 billion a year, sells to nearly 100 countries, he added.

In addition to the ban on European Union products, the administration said, it plans to send a team of 40 experts to monitor efforts to contain the disease. It also has placed airports and other entry points on heightened alert to inspect travelers and their cargo, and begun a publicity campaign about steps to prevent the spread of the disease.

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Bush won't regulate carbon dioxide

InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/14/2001
By SCOTT LINDLA Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406385709

WASHINGTON (AP) - Backing off a campaign pledge, President Bush told Congress Tuesday he will not regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

The decision, outlined in a letter sent to a Republican senator, came after furious lobbying from the coal industry. It was a blow to conservationists who see curbing emissions of such ``greenhouse gases'' as key to reducing global warming.

The letter cited skyrocketing energy costs, particularly in the West, as one reason for Bush's about-face.

Bush said he supports a ``comprehensive and balanced energy policy that takes into account the importance of improving air quality.''

``I do not believe, however, that the government should impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide, which is not a 'pollutant' under the Clean Air Act,'' Bush wrote to Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.

Bush's letter came a week after Hagel and three other GOP senators _ Larry Craig of Idaho, Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Pat Roberts of Kansas _ raised concerns directly to the president about recent administration comments on climate change and regulating carbon dioxide.

The decision drew sharp criticism from the Natural Resources Defense Council. ``He's turned his back on the weight of all the alarming scientific consensus that global warming is real, and that carbon dioxide is the main cause,'' said David Doniger, a spokesman for the environmental group.

Greenhouse gases _ primarily carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels like coal and oil _ are widely believed to trap heat in the atmosphere, causing the phenomenon known as global warming.

Vice President Dick Cheney told senators of the administration's decision at a weekly policy gathering Tuesday, said an official on Capitol Hill.

Bush promised in the campaign to treat carbon dioxide emissions as pollutants, and Christie Whitman, his Environmental Protection Agency administrator, said last month that the administration was strongly considering such regulations.

Bush pledged last year to require electric utilities to ``reduce emissions and significantly improve air quality.'' The legislation Bush proposed would have established ``mandatory reduction targets for emissions of four main pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon dioxide.''

Explaining the shift, Bush aides said they did not realize there was a contradiction when the president's energy policy was released during the campaign _ that the Clean Air Act does not identify carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

In the campaign, Bush said he would move to ``phase in the reductions'' of all four ``pollutants ... over a reasonable time period.'' Cheney said the campaign position was in error.

He told senators that Whitman was being ``a good soldier'' in repeating the campaign pledge.

Bush also cited an Energy Department study in December that said regulating carbon dioxide would lead to higher electricity prices, particularly in the hard-hit West. It would ``lead to an even more dramatic shift from coal to natural gas for electric power generation and significantly higher electricity prices compared to scenarios in which only sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides were reduced,'' Bush wrote.

Bush's energy task force, chaired by Cheney, is trying to develop a national energy policy.

Carbon dioxide is emitted whenever fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas are burned. It also is found in everyday products such as cola and is emitted when people breathe.

Bush has argued that the nation's energy woes can largely be addressed by tapping domestic supplies of fossil fuels.

``Coal generates more than half of America's electricity supply,'' Bush wrote. ``At a time when California has already experienced energy shortages, and other Western states are worried about price and availability of energy this summer, we must be very careful not to take actions that could harm consumers,'' he said.

The Bush administration has been lobbied aggressively by energy industry officials who vehemently oppose regulating carbon dioxide. They question its role in global warming.

Whitman said last month that Bush recognizes the importance of the challenges posed by climate change, a subject she said has been discussed as part of the administration's emerging energy plan.

``There's no question but that global warming is a real phenomenon, that it is occurring,'' Whitman said after a Senate hearing on other environmental issues.

Bush pledged in the letter to continue seeking ways to reduce global warming through market incentives and other techniques. At the same time, however, he questioned the science behind global warming.

``My administration takes the issue of global climate change very seriously,'' Bush wrote. But later in the letter, he cited the ``incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change.''

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McCall Criticizes Pataki's Plan on Toxic Cleanup as Risky

New York Times
March 14, 2001
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/nyregion/14MCCA.html

ALBANY, March 13 - State Comptroller H. Carl McCall today attacked Gov. George E. Pataki's plans to weaken standards for toxic cleanup and to shift the burden for that work away from the industries that create the pollution.

"A much, much stronger case would have to be made to justify the increased risk to the public health and environment that would occur from weakening cleanup standards," Mr. McCall, a Democrat who plans to run against the Republican governor next year, told a joint meeting of legislative panels.

He said that under Mr. Pataki's proposal, toxic sites in poor and minority communities would be the most likely to be excluded from stringent rules for pollution removal.

Speaking for the Pataki administration, Jennifer Post, spokeswoman for the State Department of Environmental Conservation, said, "The comptroller clearly doesn't understand the Superfund program and has offered a plan that would lead to more money for lawyers, more delays and more roadblocks to cleaning up abandoned sites in our communities."

Mr. McCall's advisers say the handling of toxic cleanups is a political weak spot for Mr. Pataki, whose strong environmental credentials are a central part of his appeal to moderate and liberal voters. Last month, Mr. McCall's office released an audit finding fault with the management of the state Superfund program. And his testimony today was his most pointed public criticism of the governor on the issue so far.

Superfund, which parallels the federal program by the same name, deals with the most severely polluted sites. The state money that helped support it for the last 15 years has run out, and there is a heated struggle between the governor and the Democrats who control the Assembly over how to replenish it. Mr. McCall's comments today put him squarely in the Assembly's camp.

State policy has been to clean Superfund sites to their prepollution condition when that is feasible. Mr. Pataki has proposed a "use-based" standard, under which a site that would be turned into an auto repair shop, for example, would not have to be as pristine as one being converted to a day care center. Business groups say that would encourage companies to buy polluted sites and clean them up, rather than the sites' lying vacant and polluted for decades.

But Democrats contend that the governor's approach would allow sites to remain badly polluted indefinitely, particularly those in poor areas that are most likely to be put to industrial uses.

For most Superfund sites, property owners pay most of the cleanup cost, an approach all sides agree should continue. For abandoned sites, the state has shared the cost equally with the private sector, through fees paid by all businesses in polluting industries.

Mr. Pataki wants to shift some of the burden for such "orphan" sites away from business and onto the taxpayers, saving industry tens of millions of dollars each year.

Mr. McCall said today that he opposed the shift. "I think what we've had has, in fact, worked," he said. "I think there's got to be a sense of shared responsibility because of shared liabilities."

The state has a separate program to clean up brownfields, less severely polluted sites, and there is wide sentiment in both parties to expand it. Mr. Pataki has linked that effort to renewing the Superfund program; the Democrats want to pass a brownfields bill during Superfund talks.

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Bush, in Reversal, Won't Seek Cut in Emissions of Carbon Dioxide

New York Times
March 14, 2001
By DOUGLAS JEHL with ANDREW C. REVKIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/politics/14EMIT.html

WASHINGTON, March 13 - Under strong pressure from conservative Republicans and industry groups, President Bush reversed a campaign pledge today and said his administration would not seek to regulate power plants' emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas that many scientists say is a key contributor to global warming.

The decision left environmental groups and some Congressional Democrats angered at what they called a major betrayal. But the White House said a cabinet-level review had concluded that Mr. Bush's original promise had been a mistake inconsistent with the broader goal of increasing domestic energy production.

The president outlined his new view in a letter to four Republican senators, whose criticisms of Mr. Bush's initial plan had been among a torrent of protests by conservatives and industry leaders who warned that any effort to regulate carbon dioxide emissions could deal a severe blow to the energy industry and to the American economy.

As recently as 10 days ago, Christie Whitman, the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, had described Mr. Bush's campaign promise as if it were already policy.

Administration officials would not say directly today whether Ms. Whitman had supported the change in position but suggested that she had not. They said the views of Vice President Dick Cheney and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham had been most instrumental in the final decision.

A spokeswoman for Ms. Whitman, Tina Kreisher, said the E.P.A. chief would "follow the president's lead."

The burden of any plan to regulate carbon dioxide emissions would have fallen most heavily on coal-burning power plants, which still account for more than 50 percent of the electricity generated in the United States. Mr. Bush said today that a recent Energy Department study had concluded that regulating carbon dioxide emissions would have led to "significantly higher electricity prices."

"This is important new information that warrants a re-evaluation, especially at a time of rising energy prices and a serious energy shortage," Mr. Bush said.

"At a time when California has already experienced energy shortages, and other Western states are worried about price and availability of energy this summer, we must be very careful not to take actions that could harm consumers," Mr. Bush said in the letter. "This is especially true given the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change and the lack of commercially available technologies for removing and storing carbon dioxide."

Mr. Bush said he remained committed to an energy policy that would seek to improve air quality by reducing emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury, which are already regulated as pollutants. But he said he no longer supported the position outlined in a campaign statement of Sept. 29, which had also promised to set "mandatory reduction targets" for carbon dioxide.

Some moderate Republicans who had been preparing to introduce legislation later this week supporting a power plant cleanup including carbon dioxide also expressed frustration with the sudden shift. They and some owners of coal-fired plants had supported the idea of regulating all four emissions from power plants at once, to avoid uncertainty and confusion in years to come.

The pressure to make the decision came in part from lobbyists for coal companies and utilities dependent on coal and from the conservative wing of the Republican Party, which saw any move to regulate carbon dioxide as an implicit endorsement of the goals of the Kyoto Protocol.

This treaty, negotiated and signed by the Clinton administration but as yet unratified, would commit 38 industrialized countries to sharp ongoing cuts in carbon dioxide emissions.

Many senators, particularly Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, and Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, oppose it as a a potential harm to the economy and because it would allow American energy policy, in essence, to be governed by an international treaty. The letter was sent to Mr. Helms, Mr. Hagel, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas and Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho.

Mr. Bush's earlier embrace of the plan had won him praise from environmental leaders, who described the approach as an indication that the administration might be more sympathetic than they had expected.

The representatives of environmental organizations denounced Mr. Bush's turnabout.

"Bush is turning his back not only on his campaign pledge, but on his administrator of the E.P.A. and the world's scientists, who warn this problem is more serious than we previously thought," said Daniel A. Lashof, a senior scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

In the offices of industry lobbyists and conservative Republican congressmen, on the other hand, there was a strong sense of triumph.

Glenn Kelly, the executive director of the Global Climate Coalition, which represents industry groups, said the White House had received "a lot of communications" from those critical of any attempt to regulate emissions that are viewed as contributing to global warming. "Fortunately, the president responded quickly," Mr. Kelly said.

Mr. Bush's earlier position had been more far-reaching even than that of his campaign opponent, former Vice President Al Gore, who had called for strong incentives to encourage voluntary moves by industry to reduce emissions.

The letter from Mr. Bush came in response to a letter sent last week by Senator Hagel, requesting that Mr. Bush clarify his stance.

Mr. Hagel has repeatedly said in recent months that he believes global warming is at least partly caused by emissions of gases from human activities, but he has opposed both the Kyoto Protocol and legislative moves to limit carbon dioxide emissions. Tonight, Mr. Hagel said he welcomed Mr. Bush's response.

A number of members of Congress, including Senators James M. Jeffords, Republican of Vermont, and Joseph I. Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, are preparing various power plant bills that would have included carbon dioxide among regulated emissions. Tonight staff for the bill sponsors said identical bills would still be introduced in the Senate and House on Thursday, but they conceded that there was little hope, at least for now, that such measures could succeed.

Many people involved on both sides of the fight said the decision by Mr. Bush represented a sharp rebuke of Ms. Whitman, the former New Jersey governor.

Among others in the administration who had been seen as supporting restrictions on carbon dioxide was the Treasury secretary, Paul H. O'Neill, who in his previous post as chairman of Alcoa had said in a 1998 speech that the problem of global warming was on par with a potential nuclear holocaust in terms of demanding government action.

Ms. Kreisher, Ms. Whitman's spokeswoman, said: "The administrator has said in the past that President Bush regards climate change very seriously and supports a comprehensive, balanced energy policy that is intended to improve air quality, and the administrator is gratified that he supports that."

A senior E.P.A. official who spoke on condition of anonymity, however, left little doubt that the turnabout had left Ms. Whitman exposed. "If you look at her past statements, she said she was supporting what was in the president's campaign plan," the official said. "It's his prerogative to decide if he wants to change that, and she will follow his lead."

A White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said Mr. Bush had made his decision in consultation with his cabinet.

"The president is following through on his commitment to a multipollutant strategy that will significantly reduce pollutants," Mr. McClellan said. "CO2 should not have been included as a pollutant during the campaign. It was a mistake."

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Meat From Europe Is Banned by U.S. as Illness Spreads

New York Times
March 14, 2001
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS with DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/world/14BAN.html

WASHINGTON, March 13 - The United States banned imports of animals and animal products from the European Union today after learning that foot-and-mouth disease had spread to France from Britain.

The Agriculture Department said it was taking the precaution to protect the domestic industry from a possible outbreak of the virus, which could cost the American industry billions of dollars in just one year.

The virus poses little danger to people, even if they eat the meat of infected animals. But it is virulently contagious and is devastating for cattle, swine, sheep, deer and other cloven-hoofed animals, which it generally debilitates and often leaves unable to grow or produce milk.

The ban, which applies to exports from all 15 countries of the European Union, prompted some European officials to complain that the Bush administration was overreacting.

But three members of the European Union - Belgium, Portugal and Spain - are closing their borders to French meat, as is Switzerland. Norway banned imports of French farm products, and Germany and Italy took protective measures. Canada also banned meat imports from the European Union, as well as from Argentina, which has found foot-and-mouth disease in the northwest. Argentina said it would voluntarily restrict beef exports.

Kimberley Smith, a spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department, said many items, including most cheeses and cured or cooked meats, are not affected because they are heated in a way that kills the virus.

The ban is expected to hit pork producers the most. European beef is already banned by the United States because of mad cow disease, which can cause fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.

The Agriculture Department is "taking this time to assess our exclusion activities as a precaution to ensure that we don't get foot-and-mouth disease in the United States," Ms. Smith said. She said the department could not say how long the ban would last.

Department officials did not detail which European products would be subject to the ban. But they said it would prohibit the importation of live swine, pork and meat from sheep and goats, regardless of whether it is fresh or frozen. Yogurt and most cheeses would be permitted, they said, because those sold in the United States are made from pasteurized milk.

Canned ham or any other food products that have been heated above 175 degrees Fahrenheit are permitted because such processing inactivates the virus, the officials said.

The production of such favored items as French brie and Italian prosciutto is closely monitored to meet stringent export standards, she said, so they are not affected by today's ban. Brie entering the United States is made from pasteurized milk and is considered safe.

A spokesman for the European Commission in Washington, Gerry Kiely, said the ban would cost European exporters as much as $458 million a year in sales. The agriculture department put the cost at $400 million at most.

Earlier today French officials confirmed that foot-and-mouth disease was found among cattle at a dairy farm in Laval, in northwestern France. Officials said farmers in the area had imported sheep from Britain, which is at the center of the current outbreak and has already slaughtered about 170,000 animals to contain the disease.

The disease, which is so infectious that it can be spread by footwear and cars, appeared in France despite tight precautions. The infected dairy farm, near La Baroche-Gondouin in the Mayenne district, was inside an isolation zone.

Last week France set up double sets of roadblocks in 19 regions and created a 1.8-mile ring around a suspect farm. Under these restrictions, animals are required to remain in the fields, dogs must be kept away and all people and vehicles leaving farms are disinfected. Within a wider radius of about six miles, no animals are allowed to circulate, even to go to slaughter.

Animals believed to be infected are killed and burned in the field on pyres of gasoline-soaked wood, then buried nearby. French farmers have already killed 50,000 sheep: 20,000 imported from Britain since Feb. 1, and 30,000 French sheep that had contact with them.

The foot-and-mouth disease in France was found in a herd of 114 cows that had been grazing near sheep from a neighboring farm that had been imported from Britain. The sheep were all slaughtered last week as a precaution. When six cows showed mouth lesions on Monday, the entire herd was killed immediately and incinerated. Only two tested positive for the disease, French officials said.

The director general for food of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Catherine Geslain-Lanèelle, tried to calm the situation today, saying, "At this stage, we shouldn't speak of an epidemic; we have a concentration."

European officials voiced dismay that their livestock producers would be kept from the American market by the second ban in four years. (The first was in reaction to the outbreak of mad cow disease.)

The Bush administration announced the step just hours after a group of veterinarians working for the European Union objected to the existing ban on European beef, saying global fears of mad cow disease had led to restrictions that were "excessive and not supported by any technical arguments."

American agricultural experts and representatives of the livestock industry praised today's step as timely. Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said: "Right now, we just don't know how far this disease has spread. It is common sense to take protective measures."

American experts in animal disease said the United States should take draconian measures if necessary to avoid an outbreak of foot and mouth. In the first two decades of the last century, they noted, there were repeated and devastating outbreaks of the disease, which was likely transmitted when garbage from oceanliners were fed to pigs as food.

The last reported incidence of foot-and-mouth disease in this country was in 1929.

"I think it's a logical step to take," said John Maas, a veterinarian and food-safety specialist at the University of California at Davis. "Slam the door quick, before the damage is done."

Dr. Maas noted that the disease is still endemic in many parts of the world, most notably in parts of China, the Middle East and former Soviet republics. But the risk posed by the European animals was especially worrisome because American authorities have been less vigilant about products from that part of the world, he said.

"The threat is not new," Dr. Maas said. "It's just the direction it's coming from."

American livestock producers expressed sympathy with their European counterparts, even as they acknowledged that they might benefit by taking over European markets in Japan, Russia and elsewhere.

"It's a very unfortunate situation and our producers feel for the producers in the United Kingdom and France," said Nicholas Giordano, the international trade counsel for the National Pork Producers Council, which is based in Des Moines. "We're pleased with the action that the U.S.D.A. has taken, but we don't take any glee in it."

Even including the processed items that are not being banned, European pork exporters provide a small fraction of the pork consumed in the United States, about 4 percent, in sales valued at $200 million to $250 million a year, Mr. Giordano said. Denmark is by far the biggest supplier, accounting for about 70 percent of American imports.

Mr. Giordano predicted that depending on how long the ban lasts, American consumers might detect higher prices for pork ribs, frozen shoulders or unprocessed ham, which are being banned.

But, he said, there may be a more significant economic impact for American producers, who could gain ground in sales to third countries at Europe's expense. The American pork industry, which generates farm income of $11 billion a year, sells to nearly 100 countries, he added.

In addition to the ban on European Union products, the administration said, it plans to send a team of 40 experts to monitor efforts to contain the disease. It also has placed airports and other entry points on heightened alert to inspect travelers and their cargo, and begun a publicity campaign about steps to prevent the spread of the disease.

In an action related to mad cow disease, the McDonald's Corporation, the nation's largest buyer of beef, today announced steps it plans against the disease in this country. The chain has given meat packers until April 1 to document that the cattle they slaughter has been fed according to federal rules. Mad cow disease is contracted by animals that eat the tissue of other infected animals.

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Foot-and-Mouth's Harsh Approach

New York Times
March 14, 2001
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/world/14DISE.html

PARIS, March 13 - Western European countries have chosen to deal with foot-and-mouth disease largely by slaughter and cremation during rare outbreaks rather than by inoculating animals against it, as have many other countries, including some in Eastern Europe.

Most of the time, Western Europe, like the United States, remains disease free by monitoring imports of animals and meat products. None are allowed from countries that cannot be certified as disease free. The disadvantage of inoculations is that standard antibody tests cannot distinguish between the antibodies created in a diseased animal and antibodies created in an inoculated one. Newer tests can, but they have not been widely distributed.

Under the authorized approach for an outbreak in Western Europe in the last decade, all infected animals and others that might have come in contact with them must be killed and their carcasses burned, veterinary officials say. In a Europe-wide outbreak, the slaughter would run into hundreds of thousands of animals. Already more than 200,000 have been killed in Britain and France.

The alternative is that Europe's herds of cattle, sheep and pigs - tens of millions of animals - would become useless commercially. The disease kills young animals and causes adult ones to lose their appetites, drop weight, give less milk and abort spontaneously. It is considered unlikely that consumers would buy the meat, even if it is declared safe.

Some British scientists have argued that killing huge numbers of animals is senseless because between 80 and 95 percent will survive the disease. Some argue for returning to the pre-1991 practice in some places in Europe of inoculating herds around quarantined ones.

Asked about this, Jean Glavany, France's agriculture minister, said recently that French farming was "so fragile that we cannot take the risk of exposing it to an extra epidemic." The measures taken, he said, "may seem draconian, but they follow the principle of prevention." Vaccinations, he said, "are a last step we sadly haven't excluded, but we're not there yet."

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New Foot-and-Mouth Cases Prompt Britain to Intensify Slaughter

New York Times
March 14, 2001
By WARREN HOGE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/world/14CND-BRIT.html

LONDON, March 14 - The confirmation of 25 new cases of foot-and-mouth disease brought the total in Britain to 230 and prompted Prime Minister Tony Blair today to order intensified slaughter of animals in directly affected areas and consideration of easing of restrictions in economically hard-hit regions that are still free of the virus.

Some 180,000 pigs, sheep and cows have been destroyed since the disease was first discovered in Britain just over three weeks ago, and government officials estimated that today's directive to step up and broaden the cull would doom an additional 100,000 animals who show no symptoms themselves but may have come in contact with those who do.

Mr. Blair did not dispute a claim by the Conservative leader, William Hague, in parliament that the situation had now become a "national crisis" affecting many sectors dependent upon farming and the countryside, but the prime minister said the difficulty was weighing any relaxation of the rules with the need to make sure that the government was taking the right precautions.

"At the present time I believe we have got the balance right," Mr. Blair told the Commons. "But at both ends of the spectrum, we keep it under constant review. We don't want to place unnecessary restrictions on people. On the other hand we must do everything we can to eradicate the disease."

While the steps that the Blair government has taken have not provoked partisan political conflict, it is clear that the highly contagious disease has not been brought under control as quickly as was hoped. That has called into question plans to hold local elections on May 3, and Mr. Blair's widely suspected wish to hold a national election on that same day.

"I cannot conceive of how you can possibly have a general election while we have restrictions on movements and disease in significant parts of the country," said Ben Gill, president of the National Farmers' Union. Mr. Blair, whose Labor party is currently ahead of the Tories by 20 points in polls, deflected parliamentary questions on the subject, saying today was not the day to take up that decision.

The spread of the disease ceased being a purely British problem this week when the first cases of the disease on the continent were confirmed on a farm in France. The United States moved Tuesday to ban imports of animals and animal products from the 15-nation European Union.

The highly infectious virus is considered a scourge that must be eradicated immediately even though it poses no danger to humans who consume the meat of infected animals. It attacks cloven-hoofed animals, leaving them underweight, weak and unable to produce milk. The only apparent method of containing the disease is the drastic remedye of incinerating entire herds and restricting the movement of people and animals in the countryside.

The devastating effect the steps have had on agriculture are affecting other businesses in Britain. Culture Secretary Chris Smith said today that tourism officials had warned that the travel restrictions were already costing the tourism industry $150 million a week and would rise to $370 million a week if the crisis continued into April.

Tourism employs 1.8 million people in Britain and contributes $93 billion to the economy. The main impact was in rural areas, Mr. Smith said, but the industry was concerned that people were also canceling trips to London and other cities out of fear of visiting Britain while hoof-and-mouth was still rampant.

Rendering plants were working at full capacity to reduce the piles of diseased carcasses left on farms, Agriculture Secretary Nick Brown said.

The government's chief veterinarian, Jim Scudamore, said that final-year students and retirees had been called into service, and that emergency appeals had brought additional vets from the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

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Bush backs off pledge to curb power-plant emissions

USA Today
03/14/2001 - Updated 06:39 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-03-14-emissions.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush said Wednesday he backed off his campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions because of the country's energy problems and not because of pressure from industry lobbyists.

"I was responding to realities and the reality is our nation has a real problem when it comes to energy," Bush said, reiterating that he fears limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants would increase electricity prices.

Bush told reporters while visiting East Brunswick, N.J., that he is concerned that regulating carbon dioxide emissions would hinder the efficiency of coal-burning power plants and force greater use of natural gas, whose price this winter spiked to more than double last year's level.

Coal, which accounts for half of the nation's electricity generation, has been a relatively cheap fuel for power production.

The president denied criticism from environmentalists and some congressional Democrats that he acted in response to pressure from industry officials. The utility industry has lobbied the White House in recent weeks against regulation of carbon dioxide, a leading heat-trapping "greenhouse" gas that scientists say is causing a warming of the Earth.

"This administration will enforce the clean-air laws of the country," Bush said. "We've got an energy crisis in America that we have to deal with in a commonsense way."

Bush, in a letter Tuesday to Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. said that while he took the issue of climate change "very seriously" he would not support legislation to regulate carbon dioxide, which is a product of burning fossil fuels.

His reversal, from a position taken during his campaign, brought sharp criticism from environmentalists and some congressional Democrats and moderate Republicans.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., called it "a breathtaking betrayal" of the president's campaign promise made on Sept. 29 in which he pledged to support emission controls on several chemicals from power plants including carbon dioxide.

The reversal came as three Republican moderates prepared this week to join Democrats in introducing legislation that would require power plants to curtail carbon dioxide by 2007.

Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., a sponsor of the proposed bill, said Wednesday he was "profoundly disappointed" with the president's reversal and that he would proceed with the legislation anyway.

Boehlert dismissed Bush's explanation that controlling carbon dioxide would lead to higher electricity prices, noting that utilities would have years to deal with the issue and that by then the current electricity price problems likely would have been addressed.

"He took the right stand on Sept. 29 during the campaign when he endorsed controlling carbon dioxide emissions," Boehlert said in a statement. "None of the information cited in his letter to explain the change was unknown on Sept. 29."

Carbon dioxide never has been classified as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act because it has no detrimental human health or environmental impact except as it applies to concerns about global warming.

Bush's letter came a week after Hagel and three other GOP senators - Larry Craig of Idaho, Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Pat Roberts of Kansas - raised concerns directly to the president about the administration's views on climate change and the carbon dioxide issue.

Recently, EPA Administrator Christie Whitman had embraced the idea of requiring power plants to limit carbon dioxide emissions as part of a broader package of regulations that also would address mercury, smog-causing nitrogen oxide and sulfur releases that cause acid rain.

This "four-pollutant strategy" had been part of Bush's energy package announced in September and marked one of the few specific proposals he ventured on the subject of climate change.

Whitman reasserted the pledge in a series of interviews and again at a recent meeting in Italy with environmental ministers from major industrial countries. She characterized the proposal as evidence that the United States was intent on addressing the issue of climate change.

Vice President Dick Cheney told some senators Tuesday that the campaign position on carbon dioxide was a mistake and that Whitman was simply "a good soldier" in reasserting the campaign pledge, according to congressional sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Explaining the shift, Bush aides said they did not realize during the campaign that carbon dioxide was not a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. Ironically, the president in his recent address to Congress, originally had planned a reference to the "four-pollutant" strategy, but the remark was removed at the last minute, according to sources familiar with the issue.

Whitman, the former New Jersey governor, could not be reached late Tuesday on the matter.

Her recent remarks unleashed an intense lobbying campaign by the coal and utility industries which would be most affected. The Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, made clear it strongly opposed mandatory controls on carbon dioxide.

And critics of the Kyoto climate accord renewed charges that Bush - as they often had accused the Clinton administration of doing - was embarking on a "backdoor implementation" of the treaty, which has yet to be ratified by the Senate. The Kyoto accord requires industrial countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels.

---

U.S. expands import ban on livestock

USA Today
03/14/2001
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-03-14-foot-and-mouth.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - A U.S. ban on imports of livestock and fresh meat was expanded to all 15 countries of the European Union after a case of foot-and-mouth disease was found on a farm in France. The ban, which also applies to unpasteurized dairy products, would have the biggest impact on imports of pork from the Netherlands and Denmark. Imports of beef from the European Union already were banned because of mad cow disease.

Imports from Argentina also were banned Tuesday after a case of the disease was found there.

"We want to make sure we're taking the appropriate steps to make sure it doesn't cross the ocean by means of our ports or travelers," said USDA spokesman Kevin Herglotz, adding that "if foot-and-mouth disease were to enter the United States, the cost is in the billions."

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said the ban should present few problems for U.S. consumers. "It is unlikely we will see any price impact at all (because) most of the products that we have are produced here domestically," she said Wednesday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

The United States suspended all meat and animal imports from Britain on Feb. 21 and ordered stepped-up checks of travelers arriving from the United Kingdom. Airline passengers who have visited the British countryside are required to have their shoes disinfected if they appear soiled.

Now, travelers from the European Union also may be subject to additional scrutiny, including disinfection of their footwear if they have been on a farm.

The European Union expressed surprise that the U.S. import ban extended to all 15 member countries. "Thirteen EU states are disease-free. We have measures in place to keep it that way," spokeswoman Maeve O'Beirne said.

Richard Dunkle of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said Wednesday the entire EU was covered by the ban because of the rapid movement of people and animals among the countries of Europe.

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, the senior Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, praised USDA's action.

"Right now we just don't know how far this disease has spread," said Harkin, whose state is a top hog producer. "It is common sense to take protective measures."

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., last week urged the Bush administration to block imports of livestock from anywhere in the world, including Canada, until the department assessed the adequacy of its controls for foot-and-mouth disease.

Foot-and-mouth disease is not harmful to humans, but it spreads so quickly that entire herds and flocks must be destroyed to contain it. The virus can be transmitted by footwear and motor vehicles.

French officials said Tuesday that the disease was found in cattle on a farm that had earlier imported sheep from Britain.

In addition to the ban on shipments from the European Union, USDA said it was sending a team of 40 federal, state and university experts to Europe to monitor and assist in the efforts to contain the disease.

The department said it also will increase its public education efforts in the United States by installing more signs in airports, sponsoring public service announcements and providing a telephone hot line for information.

The appearance of foot-and-mouth in France sent soybean and corn prices tumbling on the Chicago Board of Trade because of fears that the disease could lead to wholesale slaughtering of hogs in Europe, depressing markets for feed ingredients. Soybean prices lost 1% of their value.

The European Union estimated the import restrictions would affect $500 million worth of annual sales in meat and livestock. The United States estimated the impact at less than $400 million.

Chuck Lambert, a spokesman for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said the department was acting properly.

"As conditions change, they've adapted their monitoring and surveillance," he said.

---

Dogs greet travelers as U.S. fights livestock disease

USA Today
03/14/2001 - Updated 06:53 PM ET
Stephen J. Boitano, AP
http://usatoday.com/news/nphoto.htm

CHANTILLY, Va. (AP) - Dogs trained to sniff luggage for contraband food or even soiled boots - signs a traveler may have been on a farm - greeted travelers from London and other European points as inspectors tightened U.S. defenses against foot-and-mouth disease. "It's fair enough, considering you have 10 times as many cattle as we do," British student Anthony Davidowitz said Wednesday as he waited as inspectors disinfected two pairs of his shoes after he arrived at Dulles International Airport. Foot-and-mouth, harmless to humans, could be devastating to the huge U.S. livestock industry. Unchecked, an epidemic could cause billions of dollars in damage, officials say. And people can easily transport the virus on shoes.

A U.S. ban on meat and livestock imports was expanded from Britain to the European Union after a case was confirmed Tuesday in France, and the Agriculture Department heightened its alerts at international airports and seaports.

"We are extremely concerned because we know how quickly it can spread," said Craig Reed, administrator of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. "In two to four days it can be all over the place."

Any travelers who acknowledge on their U.S. Customs declarations that they have recently been on a farm - as Davidowitz did Tuesday - are pulled aside for special questioning. If their shoes or boots are dirty, inspectors take the footwear and disinfect it in a mild solution of bleach and water.

The Agriculture Department also recently added 100 inspectors to its force of 1,800 nationwide to focus on flights arriving from Britain and elsewhere in Europe. At Washington's Dulles International, where USDA's inspection service normally has a staff, two additional inspectors were on duty Tuesday.

The fight against foot-and-mouth disease largely depends on the honesty of travelers to admit when completing customs forms that they've been on a farm or are carrying meat or other food that could harbor the disease. USDA's trained dog teams, known as Beagle Brigades, are supposed to root out scofflaws, but they get to only a portion of any flight's baggage.

At Dulles, travelers from Britain have been noticeably more forthright recently, probably due to the publicity about the disease, inspectors said.

Quincy, a USDA beagle who met Virgin Atlantic Flight 21 from London, sniffed out a couple of apples and a package of meat jerky from among the 248 passengers.

"They're very wise to take precautions," said Pauline Frankel, a Virgin Atlantic passenger who was sent to the special USDA inspection area after she declared a bottle of homemade chutney she was taking to her son in Richmond, Va.

"We thought we would be sprayed with disinfectant," said the suburban London resident. She was allowed to keep the chutney.

Foot-and-mouth disease has been eradicated from the United States since 1929 and from Canada since 1952.

But it was at the top of Agriculture Department's most-unwanted list long before the current outbreak occurred in Britain last month. The disease is found on every continent except North America, Australia and Antarctica, and in every South American country except Chile and Uruguay

Argentina suspended all beef exports Tuesday after confirming a new case.

The virus spreads so quickly, through the air or on motor vehicles or people, that entire herds and flocks must be incinerated to contain it. The disease can kill young animals and limits the growth of older ones.

The virus causes blister-like sores in the hooves and mouths of animals, hence the name.

USDA has a team of 280 veterinarians who can reach any farm or ranch in the country within eight to 10 hours of a possible case being reported. If a case is confirmed, the farm would be quarantined immediately and all its livestock destroyed, USDA officials said.

Should foot-and-mouth disease reach the United States, "What you have seen in the UK is the same thing you will see happening here," said Alfonso Torres, deputy administrator of veterinary services for the USDA inspection service.

U.S. import restrictions against the European Union cover fresh and frozen meat as well as unpasteurized milk products. EU officials expressed surprised that the U.S. ban was extended to all 15 member countries even though the disease has been detected only in Britain and France.

Agriculture Department officials said the broader restrictions were necessary because people and trade flow so freely among the EU nations. The officials noted that livestock were recently destroyed in Belgium and the Netherlands after being imported from Britain.

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, the senior Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, praised USDA's action.

"Right now we just don't know how far this disease has spread," said Harkin, whose state is a top hog producer. "It is common sense to take protective measures."

---

Foot-and-mouth hits Saudi Arabia

USA Today
03/14/2001 - Updated 08:52 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-03-14-saudi.htm

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Officials in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates reported cases of foot-and-mouth disease on Wednesday, the first known incidents of the highly contagious virus in the Mideast.

Saudi agricultural officials said they found two animals with foot-and-mouth in the Red Sea province of Yanbu, 544 miles west of the capital, Riyadh.

"Since the discovery of these two cases, all precautions were taken from the concerned authorities in the region," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The kingdom has been on heightened alert since the announcement last month in Britain of an outbreak there coupled with influx of pilgrims into the country for the Muslim hajj earlier this month. Yanbu is about 90 miles west of the hajj region.

The ailment, which does not affect humans, is so infectious that it can be spread to livestock by people's shoes.

Saudi Arabia has banned meat imports from Iran, Taiwan, India, Turkey and Lebanon out of fear of the disease.

In the United Arab Emirates, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Saeed al-Raqabani said eight animals were found to have foot-and-mouth there. The government has banned imports of animals and birds without prior permission, he said, according to the Emirates News Agency.

---

British may delay elections over virus

USA Today
03/14/2001 - Updated 12:11 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-03-14-britfoot.htm

LONDON (AP) - With fresh outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease cropping up and the rural economy reeling, Britain's farmers on Wednesday urged the government to postpone elections scheduled for early May.

Local elections are planned for May 3 in England, and Prime Minister Tony Blair had been expected to call a general election for the same day.

"I cannot conceive of how you can possibly have a general election while we have restrictions on movements and disease in significant parts of the country," National Farmers' Union president Ben Gill told the British Broadcasting Corp.

Twelve new cases of the infectious livestock ailment were discovered Wednesday, bringing the total to 217 since Feb. 20.

"It is under control, but what I have to keep explaining is that there is an incubation period for the disease," said Agriculture Minister Nick Brown.

Brown said the government was discussing plans to kill as many as 100,000 sheep that had come into contact with infected animals but shown no sign of the disease themselves in an intensified bid to stop its spread.

"We are looking at taking out healthy animals that are at risk on a precautionary basis," Brown said.

Britain's draconian measures aimed at halting the spread of the disease have paralyzed large swathes of the countryside, restricting the movement of animals, closing parks and footpaths and canceling sports and social events.

The latest casualty was the Ten Tors marathon, an annual event in which hundreds of young people walk 35 to 55 miles across rugged Dartmoor in southwestern England.

The army, which organizes the race, called it off Wednesday.

More than 130,000 animals have been slaughtered and their carcasses burned or rendered in a bid to stop the disease spreading. The economic impact has hit everyone from farmers to pub owners.

The government estimates the tourist industry is losing $370 million a week and has set up a task force to look at ways of bolstering the rural economy.

Environment Minister Michael Meacher said inaccurate media reports had given people the impression the countryside was off-limits.

"As a result, hotels, village shops, pubs, many rural enterprises are struggling to cope with lack of business while the wider public believe they can't visit the countryside, which is wrong," he told the BBC.

"The access restrictions are to protect livestock. They are not actually to keep people out of the country," he added.

Foot-and-mouth disease - which strikes cloven-hoofed animals such as sheep, pigs and cows - is easily spread by afflicted animals or by carriers such as humans, horses and wild animals. It can also become airborne.

---

House passes bill for tortoise land

Washington Times
Wednesday, March 14, 2001
DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/help_about/rjstaff_email.html
http://www.lvrj.com/cgi-bin/printable.cgi?/lvrj_home/2001/Mar-14-Wed-2001/news/15641680.html

WASHINGTON -- The House passed legislation Tuesday authorizing the government to pay a southern Utah landowner at least $15 million for his property to complete a desert tortoise preserve.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. James Hansen, R-Utah, would authorize the Bureau of Land Management to purchase 1,550 acres near St. George from James Doyle, a former resident who who now lives in Idaho.

Doyle may end up receiving even more money. A Hansen spokesman said the land has been estimated by the BLM to be worth $28 million. The bill calls for U.S. District Court in Utah to determine its final value.

Doyle, general partner of Environmental Land Technology Ltd., bought the property in 1981 and began developing it for residential and industrial use. But it became locked up after the desert tortoise was listed as an endangered species in 1990.

He has been unable to do anything with the land except pay interest and taxes on it, said David B. Lee, his attorney in Washington, D.C.

After the adoption of a habitat conservation plan in 1996, the BLM was required to buy 12,600 acres for Red Cliffs Reserve in Utah's Washington County to create habitat for the tortoise. Doyle had the largest parcel among dozens of landowners who had to dispose of their property through sale or trade.

The BLM did not have comparable land within Utah to trade with Doyle, and has been unable to come up with money to complete a sale, according to a report accompanying the bill. The bill passed by voice vote. A similar bill passed the House last year but failed to pass the Senate.

-------

Toxic toads invade Aussie wetlands

InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition - 3/14/2001
By MIKE CORDER Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406391420

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Giant crocodiles and lizards beware: Toxic toads are muscling in on your territory in the famed Kakadu wetlands.

Poisonous cane toads have completed their march to the Kakadu National Park in northern Australia, scientists said Wednesday, sparking fears for some local wildlife. The toads were imported decades ago from South America to eat beetles in sugar cane fields on the east coast.

Among animals threatened by the toads are saltwater crocodiles. Crocodiles have been killed in other areas by eating cane toads, which secrete a powerful toxin if attacked.

``Cane toads will become the most prevalent and obvious species in a part of Australia renowned for its biodiversity,'' said amphibian specialist Mike Tyler, an associate professor at Adelaide University.

The cane toad is expected to flourish in the Kakadu wetlands. The park, used as the backdrop for parts of the first ``Crocodile Dundee'' movie, is home to hundreds of species of birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles.

This week, two adult cane toads and dozens of juvenile toads were found in a tributary of the Katherine River on the park's southern edge, National Parks director Peter Cochrane said.

However, he played down the ecological impact.

``There will be ecological consequences of their arrival but we do not consider that the park's World Heritage values will be adversely effected,'' he said.

No one knows yet which species will be worst-affected. ``That's the $64,000 question; ask me again in six or 12 months time,'' Cochrane said.

Quolls, a small cat-like marsupial, and water monitor lizards were among the species most at risk at suffering ``some adverse effects'' from the toads' invasion, he said.

But the toads' arrival was not all bad news, he said.

``The upside, of course, is that some feral animals eat them and suffer the consequences,'' Cochrane said.

---

Kangaroo exports to Europe rise

InfoBeat News
Afternoon Edition - 3/14/2001
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406390167

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Kangaroo meat exports to Europe are rising as livestock diseases there force consumers to look for alternatives to beef, trade officials said Wednesday.

Australia's kangaroo sales to Europe are expected to rise by 20 percent this year from 11 million pounds in 2000, the Kangaroo Industries Association of Australia said.

``Orders are coming from right across Europe but it is our traditional markets of Germany, Belgium, Denmark and France that are buying the most,'' said the association's development manager, John Kelly.

Australia on Wednesday joined the United States and other nations in banning all imports of EU livestock, meat and dairy products, as livestock disease scares hit Europe.

Outbreaks of mad cow disease and foot-and-mouth disease are centered in Britain but are radiating out to other European nations. On Tuesday, a French farm became the first on mainland Europe to confirm foot-and-mouth disease among its animals.

Kangaroo, a lowfat red meat with a strong game taste, is now exported to more than 30 countries, but Europe remains the largest buyer, taking about 80 percent of the total.

-------- police

Ex-deputy accused of lying about sheriff's death

USA Today
03/14/2001 - Updated 10:38 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-03-14-sherrif.htm

DECATUR, Ga. (AP) - A former sheriff's deputy has been charged with lying to investigators about circumstances surrounding the death of the sheriff-elect, a reformer who was gunned down just before he was to take office.

Melvin Duane Walker, 36, was arrested Tuesday on a felony charge of giving a false statement to police. A warrant accusing an unidentified person of the same charge also was issued. A conviction carries a prison sentence of up to five years.

Derwin Brown was shot 11 times when he returned to his Decatur home shortly before midnight Dec. 15. His wife and five children found him lying in the driveway. Brown had defeated incumbent DeKalb County Sheriff Sidney Dorsey in a runoff in August.

Walker and the unidentified suspect are accused of lying about former deputy Patrick Cuffy, District Attorney J. Tom Morgan said. WSB-TV reported that the two allegedly gave false information on a deputy's whereabouts the night of the shooting. Cuffy's home was searched in January by police, who took ammunition and receipts for two guns.

Police spokeswoman Mikki Jones declined Wednesday to say whether Walker and the others are also suspects in the shooting of Brown.

During his campaign for sheriff, Brown had promised to clean up the sheriff's department, which had a history of corruption going back 30 years. Thirty-eight department employees had been told they would be fired when Brown took office Jan. 1.

DeKalb's assistant chief of police, Eddie Moody, said in December that he had no doubt Brown was killed because of his proposed reforms.

Dorsey, the county's first black sheriff, has said he did nothing wrong and accused the media and Brown, who was also black, of waging a racist campaign against him. Cuffy has also denied wrongdoing, saying he believes he was targeted because of his affiliation with Dorsey.

Walker was one of four deputies fired immediately after interim Sheriff Thomas Brown, no relation to Derwin Brown, took office Jan. 1. Walker was also a former employee of Security Investigation Division Inc., a private security company owned by Dorsey.

Dorsey had been accused of assigning inmates to work on houses of supporters of his wife, an Atlanta city councilwoman and allowing deputies to work for his security company while on the clock.

In 1999, former Sheriff Pat Jarvis was sentenced to 15 months in prison and fined $40,000 for fraud. And Lamar Martin, the sheriff in the late 1960s and early '70s, was convicted of bribery.

-------- spying

When Your Mole Betrays You

by Julia Scheeres 2:00 a.m.
Mar. 14, 2001 PST
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,42353,00.html

Computers weren't readily available in 1949 when George Orwell wrote his futuristic satire 1984, but the word "computer" could easily substitute for "television" in the following passage:

"With the development of television, and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end. Every citizen, or at least every citizen important enough to be worth watching, could be kept for twenty four hours a day under the eyes of the police...."

One of the technologies that has raised fears of Orwellian surveillance is face scanning, which can be used to identify people without their knowledge or permission. Yes, Big Brother is watching your face.

Government and software companies argue that facial recognition software -- which converts facial images into a numerical code that can easily be compiled in databases and searched -- protects personal welfare and information.

At this January's Super Bowl, for example, fans may have resented being covertly videotaped and made part of a digital lineup, but Tampa police say the technology allowed them to pinpoint 19 people with criminal records in a crowd of over 100,000.

"We welcome anything that can help law enforcement protect the community," said Joe Durkin, spokesman for the Tampa Police. "The only people that have something to worry about are criminals because today's technology is taking away their ability to blend into the crowd."

But others fear this is an invasion of privacy.

"This is a chilling indicator of what's to come: the common usage of technologies that make it impossible for anyone to go anywhere without being identified," said Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU opposes the involuntary capture of biometric information such as face-recognition scans.

Meanwhile, the Tampa police continue to experiment. The department also used the facial recognition software on a trial basis to monitor the streets of Tampa's popular entertainment district, Ybor City. Durkin said his department hopes to purchase the software and use it regularly if the purchase gets budgetary approval next year.

The CEO of Viisage Technology, Tom Colatosti, said that the brouhaha over the use of his company's FaceFinder software at the game was overblown.

"There's nothing private about your face," said Colasti. "I just think that when people said there was spying it's very outrageous and inflammatory language. There's a big difference between spying and being observed."

Software manufacturers and law enforcement officials argue that surveillance is already pervasive in banks and convenience stores, so what's the beef with having your face broken into bytes and stored on someone's hard drive?

There are plenty of "good" applications for the face scanning technology, proponents say. InnoVentry uses the software in check-cashing machines that cater to customers that don't have enough money to open bank accounts. And what if the software was used to protect innocent children, for example?

"If we could have a database of child molesters and other perverts, parents would demand that day care centers use biometrics to keep them away from their kids," argued John Woodward, a lawyer and senior policy analyst at the Rand Corporation.

He points to a London borough where residents applauded the installation of over 200 surveillance cameras that use face scanning to allow police to patrol the streets remotely. City officials say the cameras have greatly reduced crime in the area.

And if you use your unique "faceprint" to control access to your bank account or hard drive, the technology is actually enhancing your privacy, Woodwards said.

Privacy advocates see it differently. The ACLU's Steinhardt envisions a society where the browsing habits of anonymous shoppers are watched by marketers using video cameras and biometric databases.

"Suddenly your cell phone will ring: 'Mr. Jones, are you interested in green sweaters today?'"

Lauren Weinstein, the moderator of the Privacy Forum, said unregulated use by government -- the major impetus behind the development of biometric technology and now, a major user of it -- is another cause for concern. What if law enforcement not only flagged convicted criminals in biometric databases, but also anti-government protesters or anyone else who pissed officials off?

"The more information you have on your citizens, the more potential there is for abuse if there's a change in the body politic," said Weinstein, who suggests that people don Richard Nixon rubber masks in public to befuddle surveillance cameras.

Although most arguments against biometrics are still hypothetical, they need to be debated, he said.

"For a lot of these privacy situations you have to be thinking about negative outcomes ahead of time," said Weinstein. "There may not be a specific situation yet, but you can see the handwriting on the wall and if you wait until the technology has advanced, it's too late to go back and fix it."

The problem is that the technology is evolving at the speed of light, while American legislators are still scratching their heads over the meaning of it all.

Canada, for example, takes a different approach. In Ontario, the Social Assistance Reform Act of 1997 established minimum standards governing how biometric data is gathered, stored and disseminated. But then again, Canada also has privacy commissioners dedicated to investigating citizens' privacy complaints and advising legislators.

"There are no laws governing biometrics in the United States," said Mike Theime, a consultant who advises companies on biometric security measures International Biometric Group. "I think legislation will wait until it gets on people's radar."

Privacy advocates aren't the only ones worried about unregulated biometrics; one of the pioneers of facial recognition software is troubled as well.

"I feel this whole technology should be taken seriously by the public in terms of personal rights," said Christoph von der Malsburg, who directed government-sponsored research at the University of Southern California. "There should be a public discussion about these things. Do we really want this kind of surveillance?"

-------- terrorism

Terrorism Trial May Keep to Narrower Focus

New York Times
March 14, 2001
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/national/14TERR.html

LOS ANGELES, March 13 - Federal prosecutors opened their case today against an Algerian man accused of transporting bomb-making equipment into the United States from Canada in the trunk of a rented car 15 months ago.

But from the opening arguments in court here, it was unclear just how far the prosecutors would go to prove that the defendant, Ahmed Ressam, 33, planned to blow up West Coast airports and downtown areas, as they have charged, at the behest of Osama bin Laden, the exiled Saudi suspected of orchestrating a series of international terrorist acts.

In pretrial interviews, federal officials made no secret of their belief that Mr. Ressam was one of several Algerians recently arrested in the United States who were linked to Mr. bin Laden through relatives and associates, some of whom might have trained in terrorist techniques at camps financed by Mr. bin Laden.

One of the other Algerians, Abdel Ghani Meskini, pleaded guilty in Manhattan last week to charges of helping Mr. Ressam smuggle explosives into the country and has agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors. A second man, Mokhtar Haouari, is scheduled to go on trial next month in New York for his role in the operation. A third man whom the authorities also believe is involved with the group, Abdelmajid Dahoumane, remains at large.

In addition to being tried here, Mr. Ressam is being tried in absentia in France, where two dozen suspects have been charged with being in a militant Algerian network said to stretch from Turkey to Canada.

Yet for all the speculation that Mr. Ressam and the others might be working for Mr. bin Laden, during his 45-minute opening address to the 12 jurors today, the assistant United States attorney, Steven C. Gonzalez, never suggested any direct link between Mr. Ressam and Mr. bin Laden, who lives in Afghanistan.

Nor did the prosecutor suggest that Mr. Ressam was a key figure in a major international terrorist ring, despite assurances from Judge John C. Coughenour of Federal District Court that he would not place limits on the scope of any conspiracy that the government tried to prove.

Instead, Mr. Gonzalez focused on what Mr. Ressam was doing when he was arrested in Port Angeles, Wash., on Dec. 14, 1999, telling the jury, "The big question here really is, Did the defendant know what was in his trunk?" Posing the government's case in such a way suggested that prosecutors did not have the intention, or possibly the evidence, to conclude that Mr. Ressam worked for Mr. bin Laden.

Even with the possibility that Mr. Meskini might testify against Mr. Ressam, Mr. Gonzalez held strictly to the nine felony counts against Mr. Ressam in outlining the charges against him and describing Mr. Ressam's movements from his home in Montreal through British Columbia and finally to the ferry that took him into Port Angeles.

Conviction on all charges could bring more than 100 years in prison.

With no connections to Mr. bin Laden asserted by prosecutors, Mr. Ressam's lawyer, Joann Oliver, a public defender, made only a 16- minute opening statement before the jury, in which she all but conceded that her client was guilty on at least some charges but contended that Mr. Ressam was no terrorist.

Ms. Oliver dismissed any suggestion that Mr. Ressam was anything more than a downtrodden Algerian who fled to France and later to Canada to make a better life for himself. But along the way, she said, he was duped by friends "who turned out to be his downfall."

"This trial is not going to be about a terrorist bomber," she told the jury, describing her client as "a young man who is very quiet, very religious, and probably a very gullible person."

She added: "Those same qualities - in some cases, virtues - led to his undoing. He was used and abused by his so-called friends and left alone in the United States."

Mr. Ressam's problems began when he entered the United States using fake documents and fled on foot after customs agents began searching the trunk of his car. Investigators said they found extensive bomb-making equipment, which, combined with other evidence gathered in Canada, France and Seattle, convinced them that Mr. Ressam was planning to explode bombs in Seattle and, perhaps, California.

Referring to the fertilizers, chemicals, batteries and wires taken from the spare-tire compartment in Mr. Ressam's car, Mr. Gonzalez told jurors, "He was planning for those to be used in a horrible way."

But in her remarks, Ms. Oliver suggested that Mr. Ressam was merely the pawn of others, notably Mr. Dahoumane, who had been accompanying Mr. Ressam as he drove to the border crossing "and then disappeared," she said.

"But the danger of those chemicals and devices," she said, "cannot overshadow evidence of Mr. Ressam's knowledge of what they were intended for or whether or not he knew about it. At the end, the evidence will be clear that Mr. Ressam is not a bomber and not a terrorist."

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Bombing Victims Testify in Court

InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/14/2001
By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406387028

NEW YORK (AP) - Victims of the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Tanzania tesified Tuesday about the horror of seeing people burned beyond recognition in the explosion.

Elizabeth Slater, an information specialist with the State Department, told jurors of seeing a guard barely clinging to life.

``He didn't have any skin left,'' Slater said as jurors leaned forward to hear her hushed description of the Aug. 7, 1998 bombing.

The testimony came as prosecutors finished presenting evidence about the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya and began outlining the attack in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania that left 11 dead and 86 injured.

The nearly simultaneous bombings killed 224 people in all, including 12 Americans, all of whom died in the Nairobi attack. The twin blasts are blamed on Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, who landed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List after the bombings.

If convicted, Wadih El-Hage, 40, and Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, 36, could face life sentences, while Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali, 24, and Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, 27, could face the death penalty. The four were accused of joining a conspiracy led by bin Laden.

The men offer different defenses: Al-'Owhali says his confession was coerced, and Mohamed says he didn't know what the explosives were intended for. El-Hage says he never joined any terrorism conspiracy. Odeh says he knew nothing of the plots and is being prosecuted because of his association with other suspects.

Slater said she was attending an orientation meeting when the bomb went off, filling the room with darkness before the walls tumbled down.

She said she called out to a colleague, but ``she just kept screaming and screaming.''

Moments later, John E. Lange, who had been placed in charge of the embassy, entered the room to find Slater buried in rubble up to her neck.

Lange testified that Slater had a leg injury but insisted she was all right because she could move. He said he was at a meeting in his embassy office when he heard a deep rumble followed by a blast that shattered windows.

``I now kind of understand what it's like when the parachute doesn't open and your entire life flashes in front of your eyes because I can still see that glass coming in slow motion in a sense, even though it was in a split second landing on people,'' he said.

Lange said he went down stairwells, passing the bloody handprints on the walls of those who had escaped before him.

``We got outside and saw a man who was totally blackened, charred, probably in the last seconds of life, and he was on his back kind of groaning. He was clearly not going to be living for long,'' Lange said.

At one point, Lange decided he had to call the State Department and went back inside the embassy. He said he found a direct line to Washington amid the rubble in an office.

``The phones, kind of amazingly, were working,'' he said. ``I said, `There's been a huge explosion, a lot of damage to the building. You won't be hearing from me for a while.'''

---

Man goes on trial in terror plot

InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/14/2001
By LINDA DEUTSCH AP Special Correspondent
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406387045

LOS ANGELES (AP) - An Algerian who was arrested with a carload of explosives just before New Year's Eve 1999 went on trial Tuesday on charges of plotting to bomb Seattle and other U.S. cities during the millennium celebrations.

The arrest of Ahmed Ressam was ``a law enforcement success story, a case of a tragedy averted,'' federal prosecutor Steven Gonzalez told the jury in opening statements.

Defense attorney Jo Ann Oliver countered that Ressam was unwittingly used a courier for explosives.

``This trial is not going to be about a terrorist bomber,'' the federal public defender said. ``This is about a young man who fled war-torn Algeria ... a very quiet person, a religious person and probably a gullible person. He was used and evidently abused by his friends and left alone in the United States.''

Ressam was arrested on Dec. 14, 1999, in Port Angeles, Wash., after entering the country by ferry from Canada. Authorities said they found bomb-making materials, including explosives and timing devices, in his rental car.

Ressam, 33, could be sentenced to up to 130 years in prison if convicted of all nine counts against him.

His arrest led Seattle to cancel its millennium party at the Space Needle, and cast a pall over celebrations in other U.S. cities.

Gonzalez said he would not try to prove exactly where bombs were to be placed. But the jury was told that investigators found maps with circles around three California airports _ Los Angeles International, Long Beach and Ontario _ as well as pages of guide books depicting the Space Needle, San Francisco's Transamerica Pyramid and downtown Los Angeles. Ressam's fingerprints were on those pages, Gonzalez said.

Prosecutors have said they would link Ressam to Osama bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire accused of running a terrorist network that was responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors. But bin Laden was not mentioned in opening statements.

As Ressam listened to an Arabic translation, Oliver told the jury that he ``was sort of a lost soul'' who made his way from Algeria to France and then to Canada. In Montreal, he fell in with friends who ``were his downfall,'' helping him get false identification and credit cards, she said.

Oliver acknowledged the cards were used to buy bomb components but suggested that was done without Ressam's knowledge. She blamed a fugitive, Abdelmajid Dahoumane, for planting explosives in Ressam's rental car.

But the prosecution said Ressam clearly knew he was carrying explosives or he would not have taken off running when authorities began searching his car or ducked as materials were removed from the rental car.

Gonzalez said Ressam's fingerprints were found on timing devices and a piece of his hair was stuck to tape on the devices. He also suggested that a chemical burn on Ressam's thigh happened while he was making a bomb.

Prosecutors have said Ressam and several others implicated with him trained in Afghanistan camps where bin Laden's group develops terrorists.

After opening statements, prosecutors called 13 witnesses, including customs officials, Canadian government employees and hotel reservations clerks.

Customs inspector Diana Dean said Ressam was nervous when she stopped him after he drove off the ferry.

``He wasn't very forthcoming,'' she said. ``He gave me one-word answers ... I thought he was someone we needed to take a closer look at.''

Other witnesses described Ressam's journey through Canada's welfare system, his unsuccessful effort to gain refugee status and his seemingly easy acquistion of a passport.


-------- activists

New York Times
March 14, 2001
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/world/14BRIE.html

CHINA: PROTESTS OVER FEES Thousands of taxi drivers surrounded the Gansu provincial government building in Lanzhou to protest higher fees, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. The provincial government sent 300 police officers to stop the protest, at which 20 people were beaten and 10 were arrested, the human rights group reported. Such protests are increasingly common in China as local governments resort to fees and special taxes to supplement shrinking central government subsidies. Craig S. Smith (NYT)

---

Protesters demand Wahid's resignation in Jakarta

USA Today
03/14/2001 - Updated 07:52 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-03-14-indonesia.htm

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Supporters and opponents of Indonesia's embattled head of state pelted each other with rocks and bottles Wednesday in a third day of protests, as the administration faced new accusations of financial impropriety.

About 1,200 students opposed to President Abdurrahman Wahid marched past a downtown campus loyal to him and demanded he resign. At least three Wahid supporters were badly beaten in the subsequent clashes, witnesses said. Meanwhile, about 1,000 supporters rallied outside the presidential palace.

Legislators, who want to impeach Wahid over two corruption scandals, said Wednesday they would investigate what they claimed was the suspicious transfer of $300,000 in cash to Wahid's entourage at the start a pilgrimage this month to Islam's holy city of Mecca. The money was hastily delivered by a state-owned jetliner from Jakarta just before Wahid's arrival in Saudi Arabia on March 2.

Palace officials Thursday confirmed that the cash had been flown to aides traveling with Wahid and a group about 100 politicians and associates. They said the money was used to pay last-minute, unexpected expenses, particularly for accommodations.

Wahid has not commented on the allegations. He has already been harshly criticized for going to Mecca.

Opponents say that he should have abandoned the trip and returned to Indonesia to address gruesome ethnic violence on Borneo island that resulted in the slaughter of more than 450 people and the evacuation of tens of thousands.

Students gathered Wednesday outside the official residence of Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri, who is constitutionally the potential successor to Wahid.

"Now is the time for Wahid to resign," they chanted, urging her to convene a special session of the legislature to impeach the president.

Megawati is the daughter of Indonesia's first president and her party holds the biggest portion of seats in the parliament. Despite her popularity, she has so far remained silent about the deepening political crisis.

Protests were also reported in other parts of Indonesia. More than 1,000 anti-Wahid students rallied in downtown Makassar, capital of South Sulawesi province. Raising fears of violence, an East Java paramilitary group made up of Muslims loyal to Wahid's political party said thousands were bound for the capital to defend him.

Wahid, who came to office 17 months ago as Indonesia's first freely elected leader in four decades, has refused to quit he was implicated in two multimillion dollar corruption scandals. He has also been criticized for failing to fix the nation's economy and for not quelling outbreaks of communal violence in troublespots across the sprawling archipelago nation.

In another development, police stormed a prison in Jakarta early Wednesday after about 2,000 inmates rioted overnight. Police shot one prisoner to death and injured three, prison wardens said.

---

Zapatistas told Mexico has changed

Washington Times March 14, 2001
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-2001314214856.htm

MEXICO CITY - President Vicente Fox yesterday targeted the skepticism of Zapatista leader "Subcomandante Marcos," urging the rebel leader to recognize the democratic changes that have swept Mexico, and repeated his support for indigenous rights.

"Marcos has not seen that in Mexico the Berlin Wall fell on July 2," the conservative president said in reference to the presidential election that put an end to 71 years of often-authoritarian government by the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

"Today, there is another government, a democratic government with a different vision," he said in an interview with El Universal, one of several printed Tuesday in Mexican dailies.

--------


Indonesian police battle protesters

InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 3/14/2001
By GEOFF SPENCER Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406387350

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Supporters and opponents of Indonesia's embattled president staged rival protests for a second day Tuesday, and police fired tear gas and beat students who threw rocks and gasoline bombs in the capital.

Clashes erupted outside the office of a political party that wants to oust President Abdurrahman Wahid, who is struggling to stay in power in the face of a series of crises and scandals.

Many lawmakers want to impeach Wahid. The political turmoil has sent the stock market into sharp fall and the central bank has been forced to intervene repeatedly to prop up the battered currency.

``Our nation is falling apart economically and security-wise,'' said Amien Rais, the chairman of Indonesia's top legislative body and one of Wahid's harshest critics.

Wahid canceled all official appointments on Tuesday. Aides said he was resting, but denied that the 61-year-old leader, who is almost blind and has suffered several strokes, had been physically taxed by the ongoing threat to his 17-month-old presidency.

Violence broke out at the Jakarta headquarters of the Golkar Party, the former ruling political organization of ex-dictator Suharto, who was ousted by student protests and riots in 1998. Golkar is one of several groups campaigning for Wahid's removal.

Some police officers charged the crowd on motorcycles and ran over protesters who lit bonfires, and at least five badly beaten protesters were arrested in the melee. Police officers assaulted and threatened reporters and media crews covering the clash.

Earlier, about 1,500 demonstrators gathered outside the presidential palace carrying banners pledging their allegiance to Wahid. In Monday, about 12,000 protesters rallied at the same spot and demanded that he resign.

Pressure against Wahid has risen since he chose to remain on an overseas trip amid bloodshed late last month on the island of Borneo, where more than 450 migrant settlers were slaughtered by indigenous Dayak tribesmen.

Wahid came to power in October 1999 as Indonesia's first freely elected leader in 44 years, but high hopes that he would deliver democratic and economic reforms for the troubled nation have fizzled.

Last month, parliament took the first step a possible impeachment, censuring Wahid for alleged involvement in two multimillion-dollar corruption scandals. The president has denied any wrongdoing.

In an ominous sign, a top army general was quoted by local media on Tuesday as saying that the military might move in if the police force is overwhelmed by the growing turmoil in the country.

``Our concern is the nation's interest,'' army chief of staff Gen. Endriartono Sutarto was quoted as saying. ``The armed forces must save this nation.''

---

SIGN ON FOR WHISTLE BLOWER PROTECTION

From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>
Wed, 14 Mar 2001 16:27:44 -0500

Please Sign On whether you and/or your group do or do not live in New York State. Group Sign-Ons in particular are needed. Please E-mail your response to: krabin@envadvocates.org NOT TO ME! Thanks.

Nuclear Safety Advocates:

Last legislative session, many of you were part of a labor/environmental coalition that signed on to a letter to members of the NY Senate urging them to pass the Nuclear Whistleblower Access and Assistance Act. Once again, I'm inviting you to sign on to a coalition letter to Senate Majority Leader Bruno, Senator Wright, and Members of the Senate Energy & Telecommunications Committee.

Last session, this bill unanimously passed the Assembly, but got stuck in the Senate. A larger coalition will hopefully convey to the members of the Senate that there is a very strong need for the protections encompassed within S. 521.

For those of you who were not part of the coalition last year, I hope you will take a moment to consider signing onto this letter. And if you know of others who would be interested in signing on please forward them this message. Thank you for your time.

Kyle Rabin Nuclear Energy Policy Project Director Air & Energy Program Associate Environmental Advocates 353 Hamilton Street Albany, NY 12210 Phone: 518-462-5526 ext. 240 Fax: 518-427-0381 E-Mail: krabin@envadvocates.org Website: www.envadvocates.org

March X, 2001

Hon. Joseph Bruno Majority Leader NYS Senate Capitol Building Albany, New York 12247

Hon. James W. Wright Chair of the Energy and Telecommunications Committee New York State Senate 707 Legislative Office Building Albany, New York 1224

Re: Nuclear Whistleblower Access & Assistance Program (S. 00521)

Senate Majority Leader Bruno, Senator Wright, and Members of the Senate Energy & Telecommunications Committee:

We are writing to express our strong support for S. 00521, legislation sponsored by Senator Morahan. The bill would establish a nuclear power plant whistleblower access and assistance program. In light of energy deregulation and the economic pressures bearing down on nuclear plant operators and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and given recent concerns raised by employees at the troubled Indian Point 2 nuclear power plant, there has never been a greater need for such a program.

New York State needs to better protect workers at nuclear power plants who raise safety concerns. According to the nation's foremost experts on whistleblower law, New York State has one of the weakest provisions in the nation with respect to providing adequate protection to whistleblowers. In fact, the inadequacies of New York's "Whistleblower Statute," which was passed in 1984, have led commentators to note that whistleblower protection in New York is all but non-existent.

Unlike almost all other whistleblower laws, the New York statute requires not only a "good faith" and reasonable belief that a "law, rule or regulation" has in fact been violated, but the employee must also demonstrate an actual violation. This requirement not only inhibits the disclosure of potentially improper conduct but creates a very difficult element of proof that could require an employee to retain expensive experts and conduct a technical trial-within-a-trial in order to demonstrate the illegality of the underlying concern.

The controversy that has swarmed about the Indian Point reactors has shed light on the suppression of safety conscious employees and worker health and safety issues. According to a report filed in late 2000 by a safety-conscious employee at Con Edison's Indian Point 2 (IP-2) plant, supervisory disdain for employee concerns has created a "chilling effect" which discourages workers from reporting problems. In February of this year - according to a March 1, 2001 New York Times article - an engineer working for a contractor at the IP-2 nuclear plant quit in a dispute over a safety issue, in particular, the reliability of the system that triggers automatic shutdowns during equipment failure.

At the New York Power Authority's Indian Point 3 (IP-3) plant, it was revealed that worker health and safety had been compromised to meet a refueling deadline - over 180 workers were radioactively contaminated. In fact, in an interview with New York City TV station WABC, a plant whistleblower explained that a great deal of pressure was placed on employees to finish the refueling quickly to impress a potential buyer, Entergy Nuclear, Inc. (Entergy Nuclear ultimately purchased IP-3 and is now in the process of buying IP-1 and IP-2.) This situation may have been avoided if workers felt more comfortable about raising concerns.

Whistleblowers are free to bypass inadequate federal remedies and use state law as a source of protection. In fact, S. 521 will create an access and assistance program that provides safety-conscious employees with more protections including:

* A provision that would amend the Labor Law so that an employee can have a claim for employer retaliation, regardless of whether an employee's safety concern relates to a violation of a law or regulation.

* A twelve month statute of limitations. Experience says that this much time is necessary for many workers to "buck the establishment" - that is, to decide whether they wanted to pursue legal action, and would have additional time to learn of their rights. Employees who miss the six month federal statute of limitations can still be covered under New York's statute.

* A requirement that New York State establish a toll-free telephone and facsimile line that is available to all persons within the state's nuclear industry that offers: advice regarding the employee's rights under applicable state and federal laws and advice and options available to all persons, an opportunity to identify concerns regarding any safety issue at a nuclear reactor, and the option of contacting a neutral consultant for the purpose of seeking unbiased, non-governmental information to help resolve safety concerns.

* A requirement that a preliminary evaluation of any safety concern identified by a caller be conducted within 72 hours. The caller would have an opportunity to comment upon the preliminary evaluation. In addition, follow-up reports would be conducted every two weeks after the preliminary evaluation.

* Provisions that strengthens previous confidentiality provisions designed to shield the identity of inside whistleblowers and all persons within the state's nuclear industry who have knowledge of issues that affect public health and safety.

* Provisions that would protect independent contractors. (Under the 1984 statute, independent contractors are not protected.)

Although federal statutes provide some limited protection, states that have passed thoughtful whistleblower laws see federal protection as a mere backstop and a weak one at that. In any event, New York should not be relying on federal enforcement to protect its workers.

We commend Senator Morahan for introducing this legislation and for continuing to push its passage. We call upon the New York State Senate to pass S. 00521 this session. Protecting the public from nuclear accidents can best be accomplished by protecting those on the front lines: safety-conscious nuclear power plant workers.

Sincerely,

Cc: Members of the New York State Senate

Kyle Rabin Nuclear Energy Policy Project Director Air & Energy Program Associate Environmental Advocates 353 Hamilton Street Albany, NY 12210 Phone: 518-462-5526 ext. 240 Fax: 518-427-0381 E-Mail: krabin@envadvocates.org Website: www.envadvocates.org

--------

Granny D Launches Two-week Walk Around U.S. Capitol

From: Adam Eidinger <aeidinger@yahoo.com>
Wed, 14 Mar 2001 13:11:00 -0800 (PST)
NEWS ADVISORY

CONTACT:

Adam Eidinger or Lauri Apple March 14, 2001 202-986-6186 or 202-232-8997 National Coalition Rallies Against Weakening of McCain-Feingold Granny D Launches Two-week Walk Around U.S. Capitol

WASHINGTON, DC -- As the Senate prepares for debate and a long-awaited vote on the McCain-Feingold bill, 91-year-old activist Doris "Granny D" Haddock and leading electoral reform groups will hold a RALLY to support the bill's ban on "soft money" and to urge against potential "hard money" increases. The rally will take place on Monday, March 19, 2001, at 12 p.m. (noon) on the east side of the U.S. Capitol building, center steps.

WHO:
Granny D, 91-year-old Campaign Finance Reform Activist
John Anderson, Center for Voting and Democracy
Nick Penniman, Executive Director of the Alliance for Democracy
Julia Hutchins, U.S. PIRG
Nick Nyhart, Executive Director of Public Campaign
John Bonifaz, Director of the National Voting Rights Institute
Stephanie Wilson, Executive Director of the Fannie Lou Hamer Project
League of Women Voters
Members of Congress

WHAT: Crusade for Real Reform
WHEN: Monday, March 19, 2001 at 12 p.m. (Noon)
WHERE: East side of the U.S. Capitol, Center Steps (1st Street and East Capitol Street)

"McCain-Feingold is the bill I walked 3,200 miles across America to support. It will stop the flood of unregulated (soft) money into the political system," says Doris "Granny D" Haddock. "But if they ruin the bill with amendments that allow wealthy individuals to donate more and more money, then I will have walked in vain. The whole point is to reduce the amount of corrupting money in politics, not just shift it around.

"The Senate must pass the McCain-Feingold bill without increasing the hard money limits, and then move on to what's really needed: 'clean money' public financing," Haddock continued.

Beginning at 12 p.m. noon on March 19th on the U.S. Capitol's east side, center steps, Granny D will begin circling the U.S. Capitol on a $491 million walk; the sum signifies the amount of soft money spent in the 2000 federal elections. Walking with Granny D will be members and leaders of national citizens organizations, students and teachers, labor rank-and-file, environmentalists and others.

For more information about Granny D's walk or the Alliance for Democracy's Clean Elections Campaign, please call Nick Penniman at 1-888-466-8233 or Jim Ace at 510-772-3087 (cell)).

---

Making themselves heard
Radiation victims rally Marchers complain about IOUs, delays in payments

Organization: Environmental Information Network
From: <magnu96196@aol.com>
Wednesday, March 14, 2001 5:14 AM

People protest about the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act 2000 (RECA) at the Cibola County Court Complex in Grants on Monday.

Radiation victims rally Marchers complain about IOUs, delays in payments Tom Purdom Staff Writer

GRANTS - In an effort to pump new life into the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA,) former uranium miners and millers, people affected by cancers caused by radiation exposure, and Native American leaders met here Monday.

Meetings and protest marches are planned starting in Grants Monday and ending March 17 in Cortez, Colo. During the course of the six days, events will have been held in Prewitt, Thoreau, the Mariano Lake Chapter, Pinedale Chapter, Church Rock Chapter, Lukachukai Chapter, Shiprock and in Cortez.

The RECA movement saw passage of national legislation compensating victims of uranium mining and fallout in 1990, essentially guaranteeing up to $100,000 to miners and downwinders. The problem was that the legislation was not funded for two years. Compensation began to trickle in about 1993 and in May the program ran out of money, so the government began issuing IOUs.

In July 2000 President Bill Clinton signed an amendment to the 1990 law extending it to millers and transporters of radioactive uranium ore.

The problem was again that the money was slow to come and the government was supposed to issue the regulations on who can apply and why, but the regulations in the form of a federal register never came.

Melton Martinez, who has been instrumental in the RECA fight, said the federal government was required to issue the regulations 180 days after the amendment's passage, but Jan. 10, 2001 came and went and no regulations. Two months later and still no regulations. Martinez said uranium workers are concerned because delays only add to the physical and emotional injury done to the workers.

After the battle to get the RECA reform passed in July 2000, the movement quietly slipped into oblivion, a point brought out by McKinley County Commissioner Ben Shelly, who was acting on behalf of the Western States Coalition.

"We've put too many miles on this RECA issue to back out now," Shelly told the small group of 20 gathered in the Cibola County Complex on High Street.

A march had been planned with protesters walking from Grants to Milan, but Martinez said Grants Police would not allow the march without a parade permit, which must be secured several months in advance of the event.

"I know last year we kinda lost interest, but we need to get this moving again for ourselves and for our neighbors," Shelly said.

Shelly likened uranium workers to veterans, saying they did a job for America. "As a veteran you knew who your enemy was, but as a miner you didn't know and were never told about the dangers of uranium," Shelly said.

Martinez told the group that the government knew that uranium caused a list of diseases including cancers and organ failures, but said nothing to miners, millers and the people helping mine the yellow uranium ore to help build weapons for the Cold War efforts. Even wives of workers who washed the yellow-coated clothes of their miner husbands are experiencing cancers, Martinez said.

Both Shelly and Martinez said while the government stalls, people inflicted with cancers are dying, people such as Grants' Paul Hicks, who was memorialized several times in Monday's meeting. His wife, Delphi, carries on the fight in Grants as president of the Uranium Mine Worker's Council, Grants Chapter.

Milan Mayor Elisabeth Lopez-Rael told the gathering that she knew a man in Grants who was given an IOU by the government. "He told me he probably wouldn't live long enough to spend it and he has lost a lot of friends already," Lopez-Rael said.

The revitalized effort is trying to bring new light to four main issues:

The fact that the regulations have not been published for the RECA Amendment. The push is to get the regulations published as the law provides.

Get rid of the IOUs and start paying the claims. Funds in the RECA Trust Fund are gone for those who qualify to get paid and RECA proponents say Congress should replenish the RECA Trust Fund so all eligible uranium workers can get compensation.

Stop a proposed transfer of the RECA Program from the Department of Justice to the Department of Labor. Pueblo of Acoma Gov. Cyrus Chino said the change will only lead to more delay.

Stop the merger of the RECA Program if it is moved to the Department of Labor with the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program. Former Acoma Gov. Lloyd Tortalita alluded to the possible merger when he spoke before the group Monday.

All of the speakers said the RECA movement needs to remain united, that it crosses the lines of all races and religions. "I said it before last year and I'll say it again, we need to remain united on this," Tortalita said.

One of the issues brought up Monday was one of possible water aquifer contamination with radioactive particles. Melton Head told the group he began mining in 1958 and that the government kept the dangers of uranium secret for years. He also said underground aquifers in the area were contaminated by the mining mills.

"Supposedly there has been a cleanup, but I don't know," Head said. He pointed to an area northeast of Milan, whose residents are on the Milan water system because wells were once contaminated. The area was, and is, being monitored, Head said.

At one time he said the contamination was larger than it is today, but he said the cleanup of the area will take"hundreds of years."

Tortalita said he too fears contamination. Pointing to Mount Taylor, whose north area was the site of uranium exploration and mining, he asked the question: "Where does the contamination go?" and then answered, "into the water."

Martinez said, "We are doing this not only for ourselves and our neighbors, we are doing this for our children too."

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