------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Conference To Tackle Nuclear Trafficking Threat
Restarting the Nuclear Race
Bush's Taiwan outburst ripples across the Pacific
Climate change may brighten future for nuclear
Message from EPA / Kansas
U.S. rewriting nuclear mantra
EU Delegation Visits North Korea
Bush Calls for Missile Shield
Chinese News Agency Condemns U.S. Missile Plan
Military Analysis: Grand Plan, Few Details
In Strategy Overhaul, Bush Seeks a Missile Shield
Major Address on Missiles Buoys Republicans
Bush Defense Plan Stirs Critics
A Primer on Missile Defense
A Frame for Missile Defense
Moscow Asserts It Is Eager for Talks on Missile Shield
Bush scraps '72 treaty for a shield
Russian Reaction Mixed After Bush's Missile Speech
The History of the ABM Treaty
Nuclear Inspection Site To Close
Energy Amnesia
China reality check
Launch on Warning:

MILITARY
Pentagon Says It Suspended Military Contacts With China
In Twist, Rebels Help Drug Effort in Colombia
'Many are called'
'State of Rebellion' Declared After Siege at Manila Palace
Philippines' Arroyo Warns Against More Violence
Vieques Island: Peace vs. quiet
As Shuttle Returns to Earth, Tourist Adjusts to Space Station
Annan Calls for Cuts in Lebanon
Pentagon Panel Defends Osprey
Pentagon dumps Chinese berets
Army Recalling China-Made Black Berets
Defense Dept. Is Studying Alternatives to the Osprey
U.S. Halts China Military Contacts
U.S. Navy's Loud Ocean Sonar Draws Intense Objections

OTHER
White House Considering Plan to Void Clinton Rule on Forests
Con Ed to Use a Generator That Spews Air Pollution
International Ban on Submarine Mine Tailings Disposal Urged
Academic Team Accuses Commercial Rival of Faulty Work on Genome
Louis Freeh To Resign As Director Of the FBI
Oklahoma Inquiry Focuses on Scientist Used by Prosecutors
Freeh quits FBI post with 'praise' for Bush
F.B.I. Director to Resign in June After Eight Years
Israel Arrests Ex-General as Spy for Spilling Old Secrets
US Spy Plane Team Arrives in China
Israeli Nuclear Spy Case Imploding
U.S. team allowed aboard spy plane
U.S. Terrorism Report Released
Prosecution Details bin Laden Conspiracy

ACTIVISTS
Workers Mark May Day With Protests
Hunger Strikers Are Protesting Turkey's Jails
Berlin May Day Arrests More Than 600
MTP Healthy Communities Campaign


-------- NUCLEAR

Conference To Tackle Nuclear Trafficking Threat

May 2, 2001
ENS
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/may2001/2001L-05-02-11.html

VIENNA, Austria, The threat of illicit trafficking in nuclear materials and radioactive sources will bring more than 300 officials from over 70 countries to Stockholm next week.

The Swedish government and the Vienna based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will co-host a conference from May 7 to 11, entitled "Security of Material, Measures to Prevent, Intercept and Respond to Illicit Uses of Nuclear Material and Radioactive Sources."

Vienna International Center along the Danube River, home of the IAEA. (Photo courtesy Pavlicek/IAEA)

Among those in attendance will be representatives of the World Customs Organization, the International Criminal Police Organization - Interpol, and the European Police Office.

They will discuss ways to strengthen international security against terrorists and look at measures to prevent the unauthorized removal and movement of nuclear materials and critical equipment.

"The potential for the smuggling of large quantities of weapons usable material may be low," said IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei.

"However, even trafficking of small quantities of such material deserves full attention in the context of non-proliferation, since quantities of nuclear material of strategic value could be accumulated.

"Trafficking involving other radioactive materials does not pose a proliferation threat, but can cause, and has resulted in, serious radiation exposure to individuals."

IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei. (Photo courtesy IAEA)

Some of those cases have been documented by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California.

The Center's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Terrorism Project closely monitors the news media for reports of terrorist or criminal incidents involving the acquisition and/or use of chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear materials.

After reviewing more than 280,000 media reports during 2000, staff documented 181 "relevant" incidents. Fifty eight were hoaxes. Here is a sample of the 123 that were not:

On February 3, the head of the Moldovian Republic of Russia Federal Security Service antiterrorism department stated that a "reliable source" alleged that Chechen rebels were planning to terrorize Russian nuclear facilities.

On March 1, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Chechen rebels had threatened to use radiological agents, obtained from nuclear materials being stored at a combine 30 kilometers southeast of Grozny, against Russian troops.

A bomb exploded on March 6 at a nuclear research institute in Rostov-na-Donu, Russia. The blast from the remote controlled device, which injured two, was most likely tied to Mafia infighting, officials stated. Rumors of high casualties and radioactivity caused by the explosion turned out to be false.

On March 29, Japanese police reported the Aum Shinrikyo cult had acquired information concerning nuclear facilities including details relating to the security of the facilities as well as the transport of materials in Russia, Ukraine, Japan, and other countries. It was suggested that Aum stole the information using the cult's software companies, which had contracts with government agencies in other countries.

On March 30, Uzbek customs officials detained a vehicle on the Kazakhstan border headed for Pakistan and carrying 10 lead-lined containers emitting radiation 100 times the legally permissible level.

The cargo was destined for a Pakistani company, and a British newspaper suggested the shipment could have been intended for delivery to Al-Qaida, Usama Bin Laden's Afghanistan based organization, and that U.S. intelligence sources had identified the agent as strontium-90.

On May 10, a 9.6 kilogram object believed to be uranium was found with two former members of the Khmer Rouge and a local villager in Prek Mahatep, Cambodia. The three individuals were arrested by Cambodian military police.

On June 2, it was reported that Islamic Jihad had attempted to obtain small amounts of uranium and plutonium from Russia.

On June 6, an envelope laced with monazite, which contains the radioactive element thorium, was received by the Japanese Imperial Household Agency in Tokyo, Japan. The envelope was sent by Tsugio Uchinishi, ostensibly to warn government officials about illegal exports of uranium to North Korea. The incident was similar to nine others involving various government offices in Tokyo between June 6 and 8.

On September 22, the Ukrainian Security Services arrested a group of residents from the Chernigov, Zaporozhye and Sumy regions of Ukraine who were planning to conduct acts of sabotage on a list of Ukrainian facilities, including the nuclear power facility at Chernobyl, in an effort to overthrow the government.

In its conclusions, CNS staff said 2000 saw a slight increase over 1999 in incidents involving chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material (CBRN). Of 1999's 175 cases, 99 were hoaxes.

"This total shows a continuing steep rise in frequency of CBRN incidents since 1998, when the number of incidents rose to 153 after an average of 42 incidents from 1995 to 1997," said the center's terrorism project report.

It went on to note, "The most dramatic development in 2000 was a sharp rise in the number of incidents of actual CBRN use... The 93 cases where agents were used represent a 138 percent increase from 1999 and constitute the largest event category in 2000.

"The increase in the number of casualties was even more impressive, rising from 366 (with four fatalities) in 1999 to at least 782 casualties (and 144 fatalities) in 2000."

Flags of some of the 130 IAEA member states. (Photo courtesy Calma/IAEA)

Many countries have been trying to develop better means of combating illicit trafficking threats. The IAEA's annual conference has in yearly resolutions since 1994 underlined the need for more action in this area.

Delegates at next week's conference in the Swedish capital will focus on closer cooperation between countries and with law enforcement authorities and intelligence agencies.

Some 130 countries belong to the IAEA, which serves as the world's central inter-governmental forum for scientific and technical cooperation in the nuclear field. The agency has conducted two international conferences on the same topic.

The first was the November 1997 International Conference on Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials: Experience in Regulation, Implementation and Operations, and the other was the International Conference on the Safety of Radiation Sources and the Security of Radioactive Materials held in Dijon, France, in September 1998.

-------

Restarting the Nuclear Race

New York Times
May 2, 2001
By RICHARD BUTLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/opinion/02BUTL.html?searchpv=nytToday

President Bush said yesterday that "we must move beyond the constraints of the 30-year- old ABM treaty" and establish defenses against nuclear missiles. His proposals deserve close analysis, especially with respect to their likely effectiveness and costs. They should also be subject to public debate, of which there has been stunningly little to date.

The defensive technologies that will now be more intensively researched would be deployed in all environments - land, sea and space. It is not clear that any, all or even parts of them will be effective. Estimates of what would be invested in this system have been wildly imprecise, varying between $60 billion and $100 billion or more.

The financial costs are, however, possibly the least of those that will be incurred. The heavier costs come in international political terms and in giving a new life to precisely the weapons the defensive shield is supposed to defeat - nuclear weapons.

If the United States is to proceed with the development of a national missile defense system, it will need to amend or abandon the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty. That treaty was meant to preserve stability, based on deterrence, between the United States and the Soviet Union in the face of new nuclear weapons development.

Today's proponents of national missile defense argue that, because of the possible acquisition of long-range missiles by rogue states, it is necessary to develop new defensive measures even at the cost of scrapping the ABM treaty. But this is virtually certain to ensure new weapons development by the major nuclear weapons states, particularly Russia and China. The treatment for a small problem seems bound to make a larger problem grow by removing one of its most significant restraints.

The threat presently posed to the United States by rogue states is recognized as being remote, if it exists at all, in the field of ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads or other weapons of mass destruction. Such states are much more likely to use chemical or biological weapons, and possibly nuclear weapons, delivered on their behalf by terrorists, in a briefcase or a truck, to an American city. Iraq, for example, possesses such weapons, and now that its programs go uninspected Iraq is developing more of them. Mr. Bush specifically raised the specter of nuclear "blackmail" by Iraq. It is unclear, to say the least, how that indirect action could be deterred by missile defense.

China has certainly made clear that it does not accept the rogue state rationale and instead sees itself as the focus of a missile defense system. Russia has spoken in similar terms, although Mr. Bush held out - in his words, "perhaps one day" - the possibility of a joint American-Russian missile shield. China, at least, can be expected to respond by developing new quantities and qualities of missiles and warheads capable of compensating for the reduction in their deterrent capability that would be brought about by a defensive shield. In other words, the most likely outcome of missile defense will be a nuclear arms race.

The Bush administration's decision brings with it another cost, indeed, possibly the heaviest one. It will shake, to the foundations, the key international agreement which has supported an almost 40-year effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons - the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Thirty-eight years ago, four months after the Cuban missile crisis, President John F. Kennedy expressed grave concern about the possible emergence of some 20 or 30 countries possessing nuclear weapons. This problem was then addressed through the construction of the nonproliferation treaty, which rests on an elemental bargain: nuclear weapons states, including the United States, undertook to work toward the elimination of nuclear weapons; states without such weapons undertook never to acquire them.

In the decades that followed, this bargain has essentially held together. Mr. Bush recognized that, in the cold war world, "few other nations had nuclear weapons," though he failed to indicate why that was. He did not mention the nonproliferation treaty. The only countries that have acquired nuclear weapons have been three of the four that never signed on to the treaty: Israel, India and Pakistan. All others have kept their promise never to acquire nuclear weapons, even though roughly 30 have the ability to do so. Three parties to the treaty have cheated on it to varying degrees - Iran, Iraq and North Korea, the rogue states named in current American policy statements on national missile defense. This cheating represents a failure of the treaty and needs to be addressed.

Another important failure of the treaty has been that of the nuclear- weapon states to keep their part of the bargain by working toward eliminating nuclear weapons. This failure was highlighted in May 2000 at the Non- Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, where the five nuclear weapons states in the treaty jointly recommitted themselves to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons. That declaration staved off a breakdown of the treaty that, had it occurred, would have led several countries to consider developing nuclear weapons - the realization of President Kennedy's fear.

The proposed cuts in American nuclear weapons announced by President Bush must be welcomed in the context of the United States' undertakings under the nonproliferation treaty. But if they are made contingent on Russia agreeing to amendment or abandonment of the ABM treaty - and to American deployment of a national missile defense system - Mr. Bush's proposal would contradict the commitment made in May 2000 by the United States and the fundamental legal commitment made in the nonproliferation treaty. The president has authorized a major diplomatic effort to consult allies and, to some extent, potential adversaries. This should be welcomed, especially by Russia. But these consultations must address the fundamental challenge of strengthening the nonproliferation regime.

The administration's inclination toward unilateral action has the ring of single-minded dedication to national self-interest, muscularity and determination. That may play well in some reaches of the popular imagination, but it gravely misleads the public by implying that the United States can impose its preferences.

The Bush administration and its supporters in Congress have claimed repeatedly that international agreements and treaties like the nonproliferation treaty are unverifiable. Clearly they can be cheated on and have been, most particularly by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The obvious cure for such cheating is to deal with it directly and to remedy infractions of the nonproliferation norm when they occur, and at their root. The United States could start by giving full financial support to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons. It should also consider military action, in concert with other major countries, to destroy facilities where weapons of mass destruction are being developed clandestinely.

A more constructive plan of action by the United States would have included specific proposals for deep cuts in strategic nuclear weapons, followed by the engagement of other nuclear weapons states in further reductions; the standing down of strategic nuclear weapons from their cold war state of hair-trigger alert; the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; and the early negotiation of a treaty banning the manufacture of fissile material for weapons purposes. An overwhelming majority of countries support these steps. If they were taken, the obvious right of the United States to continue to conduct research into defensive technologies would be seen in an entirely different light.

As long as any country has nuclear weapons, others will seek to acquire them. Reduction of the nuclear threat can best be accomplished directly through arms control and disarmament. This would cost a fraction of what the administration will need for missile defense. Building a wall, rather than tackling the problem head-on, is both to retreat and, in this case, to condemn all of us to failure.

Richard Butler, diplomat in residence at the Council on Foreign Relations and former chairman of the United Nations special commission to disarm Iraq, is writing a book on nuclear arms control.

-------- asia

Bush's Taiwan outburst ripples across the Pacific

Wednesday, May 2, 2001
Chalmers Johnson
Los Angeles Times
http://www.startribune.com/viewers/qview/cgi/qview.cgi?template=opinion_a&slug=john02#top

President Bush's loose-lipped pledge to defend Taiwan has not only set back two decades of hard-earned progress in China-U.S. relations, but it also may have begun to unravel our ties with the other superpower of the Pacific, Japan. In addition to antagonizing China, the United States has frightened Japan, its main ally, and alarmed the citizens of the country it's claiming to defend, Taiwan.

Japan has just brought to power a new insurgent leadership of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in an attempt to overcome a deep popular hostility toward the LDP. The most startling and important appointment that the new prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, has made is Makiko Tanaka, probably the most popular politician in the country, as foreign minister. Tanaka is one of five women in the new reform-minded cabinet.

In her first interview with reporters, Tanaka said Friday, "On the issues between China and Taiwan, the international community should not try to stir things up maliciously but watch calmly." As if in response to Bush's statements that he would do "whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself" and that deploying the U.S. military was "certainly an option," Tanaka indicated that Japan may not be open to helping the United States. "I believe that we are in a situation where we should review Japan's security role and the status of U.S. troops in Japan," she said.

Although neither Koizumi nor Tanaka appears to have any intention of weakening Japan's alliance with the United States, Tanaka's views -- which could well be interpreted as reflecting the position being staked out by the new prime minister -- certainly are responsive to the feelings of the people of Okinawa, where the United States' 38 military bases have long been an irritant. Japan's reluctance to get between the United States and China over Taiwan is not a reflection of Japan's long-standing pacifism.

Japan's new leaders have, in fact, been expressing stronger nationalism as well as a growing irritation with Bush's unilateralism and indifference to the opinions of U.S. allies.

Koizumi, in his first major press conference, said Friday that Japan's official policy of unarmed neutrality "is an irresponsible stance to take for a nation." He called for reform of his country's constitution to make explicit that Japan is rearmed and that the so-called Self-Defense Forces are fully legal.

Tanaka, 57, is the only daughter of the late Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, the legendary builder of the country's ruling political machine. Her father's decisive recognition of China in 1972 makes him as honored in Beijing as Richard Nixon and gives Makiko Tanaka an important cachet with the Chinese leadership.

President Bush's government is conspicuous for its lack of expertise on China. In 1997, when Vice President Dick Cheney was a member of the board of directors of Morgan Stanley, he was quoted as saying, "I do not really perceive any threat from China to the world or the region."

On the other hand, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., has been doing everything in his power to exacerbate the Chinese threat to Taiwan so that the United States will sell the Taiwanese Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, which are manufactured at the Litton-Ingalls' shipyard in Lott's hometown of Pascagoula, Miss. Litton Industries, now part of Northrop-Grumman, is one of Lott's top 10 contributors.

Warming to unification

In Taiwan, there is growing resistance to Bush's brinkmanship. About 40 percent of Taipei's foreign investment is in China, and a recent poll released by the island's Unification Ministry showed that one-quarter of Taiwanese now favor unification with China, up from about one-fifth a year ago.

Former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui postponed his planned visit to the United States in order not to further aggravate Beijing. Taiwanese tourists now flood mainland China, and many graduate students from Taiwan are enrolled in Beijing's universities.

Bush is isolating the United States from its friends and giving it the reputation of a warmonger in East Asia. For example, his offer to sell Taiwan diesel-powered submarines has backfired because he can't deliver on the offer. The United States no longer makes these submarines, and Germany, Holland and Sweden -- which the United States could license to make them -- have refused to do so.

After Bush's endorsement of our use of force in the Taiwan Strait, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said, "Taiwan is a part of China, not a protectorate of any foreign country."

Bush may not know much about the world, but let's assume he knows some U.S. history.

When, in 1861, seven U.S. states seceded from the Union, Abraham Lincoln instantly called for troops to be used against them, leading to the most traumatic event in American history, the Civil War.

For 30 years U.S. diplomacy has been devoted to avoiding a similar unilateral declaration of independence by Taiwan. This is what President Bush threw away with his macho outburst.

-- Chalmers Johnson is president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, a nonprofit educational organization in Cardiff, Calif.

-------- britain

Climate change may brighten future for nuclear

UK: May 2, 2001
IEA
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10679

LONDON - Efforts to combat climate change could boost prospects for nuclear power which had looked set to decline in industrialised countries because of environmental concerns, said the West's energy watchdog the International Energy Agency.

Unlike fossil fuelled power stations, nuclear plants do not emit carbon dioxide - the main greenhouse gas seen by many scientists as a significant contributor to global warming.

Focusing on nuclear power's potential benefits in relation to climate change could put worries about plant safety and environmental protection in a new light, said the IEA, affiliated to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

"Nuclear power is a potential contributor to reducing those (carbon dioxide) emissions," it said in its recent report "Nuclear Power in the OECD".

"A strong commitment to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide could have a dramatic positive effect on the prospects for nuclear power over the coming decades."

Nuclear generates a quarter of the electricity used in the OECD. All countries in the organisation face opposition to nuclear power and almost half of them have placed legal or policy restrictions on building nuclear power plants.

Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden have made political decisions to phase out nuclear power while Italy implemented a phase-out in the 1980s.

In the immediate future, the only OECD countries where new nuclear power stations are planned are Korea, Japan and possibly Finland, said the report.

If there are no changes in nuclear policy in OECD members, then nuclear generation will remain constant until 2010 but then fall from 2010 to 2020 as older plants are closed down, the report said.

It said the other main environmental issue facing the nuclear sector is how to deal with long-lived radioactive waste from power stations.

"Nuclear waste is often seen as the weak point of nuclear power," said the report.

Anti-nuclear protestors tried last month to block railway tracks to stop Germany from taking back the first reprocessed waste from France since it lifted a ban on shipments imposed in 1998.

The report said countries have made slow progress in developing sites to store nuclear waste safely.

"The first disposal facility in the world for high-level civilian wastes is not expected to be operating before 2010, in the United States," it said.

"Other countries do not expect to put facilities into operation before 2020," it added.

-------- depleted uranium

Message from EPA / Kansas

From: Mournighan.Robert@epamail.epa.gov
Wed, 02 May 2001

The existence of U-236 and Plutonium in DU hasn't been known positively (admitted by DOE) for very long (at least to me). I wonder what ELSE is in there?? Does anyone have any information on the elemental and isotopic content of DU that is in use by the USA and UK? I think that after 1981, processed DU contains elements and isotopes from reactor reprocessing wastes and Plutonium recovery. Maybe other Actinides and Transuranics are in there, too.

I ask for two reasons: 1) DOE had a nuclear weapons facility at Burlington, IA. It was closed in 1975, and basically disappeared from DOE's collective memory. Not on any maps nor, until recently, talked about in any publications. I found that VERY unusual, since DOE has a lot of historical details (ad nauseam) about its other facilities. We (EPA) know that more than 8 tonnes of DU was used in "hydroshots" at this plant's Firing Site (the testing of high explosives on DU shapes for weapons improvement. More than four (4) tonnes of DU was oxidized and was released to the atmosphere in aerosol form and as micron-sized particles. DOE did clean up the ground area within plant boundaries, but not the surrounding countryside. We need the info to pin the existence of DU outside the plants borders on DOE alone.

2) DOE's Pantex plant, near Amarillo, TX, is a duplicate of the Burlington, IA plant and has been operated by the same contractor (Mason & Hanger-Silas Mason) since 1975. There are Firing Sites on this property, but we have little info on how much DU was used. This plant now DISASSEMBLES 2000 thermonuclear weapons a year (a really good thing, obviously). BUT, they must do it right. DOE did not do it right making the weapons, and we are concerned that they will make a mess taking them apart, it being a treaty-driven, hell-bent, gotta-do-it-at-all-costs, mission. DU is a major product of disassembly (constitutes the mass of the "secondary" part of the "device") along with Tritium, Pu, and Li.

EPA does not have much authority in this area, and its investigators have to have "Q-clearances", or what goes for one today. So, only EPA investigators "approved by DOE" can investigate. Typical. Uranium and Plutonium are not even Hazardous Wastes. Can you believe it?? They should be listed on the acute toxicity alone, never mind the cancer, immune system and pyrophoric issues.

Robert Mournighan Superfund Technical Liaison
(Hazardous Waste Site Cleanup)
U.S. EPA Region 7
901 N. 5th St.
Kansas City, KS 66101
phone 913-551-7913 fax 913-551-9913

-------- india / pakistan

U.S. rewriting nuclear mantra

By C. Raja Mohan,
The Hindu Editorial
MAY 2, 2001.
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2001/05/02/stories/02020003.htm

NEW DELHI, The United States President, Mr. George W. Bush, is all set to change the rules of the nuclear game. In a land mark speech tonight in Washington, the American leader is unveiling a package of ideas that would stand traditional nuclear thinking on its head.

Whether the world agrees with President Bush or not, there is no question that his speech will go down as an important milestone in the evolution of nuclear doctrine and military strategy.

In pressing ahead with the plans to build missile defences, rejecting arms control treaties, and calling for radical reduction of nuclear arsenals, Mr. Bush's shocking set of proposals will cut through the familiar nuclear divide among liberals and conservatives in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Liberals in the U.S. as well as nations like India have opposed space weapons but have called for abolition of nuclear weapons.

But here is Mr. Bush offering more radical cuts in American nuclear forces than any of his predecessors, and insisting on building space weapons. Should we say no to deep reductions in nuclear arsenals, because it might involve the deployment of non- nuclear weapons in outer space?

Mr. Bush and his followers are determined to overthrow conventional wisdom on nuclear weapons. One of the old nuclear mantras is that deterrence and peace will be maintained through ``balance of terror'' - with both adversaries relying on offensive nuclear weapons.

The ``principle'' that offensive weapons were ``good'' and defensive technologies ``bad'' was codified in the Anti- Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 signed by the U.S. and Russia. It was considered such an eternal truth, that Washington and Moscow agreed that the treaty would be in force for an unlimited duration.

Mr.Bush is now saying the ABM treaty is a ``relic'' of the Cold War, and it has no relevance in the changed world order. He is proposing that the old ways of maintaining peace through massive nuclear retaliation should yield to introduction of new defensive technologies.

American liberals say the defensive technologies will not work. The conservatives led by Mr. Bush want to throw some money and resources at the problem, and hope technological solutions will emerge to at least deal with limited nuclear attacks.

And if the ABM treaty comes in the way of developing new defensive technologies, the outdated agreement should be junked, Mr. Bush says. For those who believe the ABM treaty is the cornerstone of strategic arms control, the U.S. President is a heretic.

Equally heretic is Mr.Bush's notion of deep cuts in the existing nuclear arsenals. Arms controllers have long argued that smaller nuclear arsenals among great powers will generate instability.

But now, Mr. Bush might suggest the U.S. is ready to go below the level of 2,000 strategic warheads. Even more unconventional is Mr. Bush's idea of doing these cuts unilaterally, rather than through negotiations. In the past, talks on nuclear reductions took years of squabbling over numbers and verification mechanisms.

Accused of unilateralism on the American rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, the President this time has initiated wide range of consultations with his allies. Even as he delivers the speech tonight, a team of senior officials is travelling to Europe and Asia to explain the logic behind the missile defence initiative.

The key to the success of Mr. Bush's proposals may lie in his ability to convince both friends and adversaries that in promoting missile defence, the U.S. is not seeking global hegemony. If Mr. Bush signals that the U.S. wants to retain the edge in nuclear weapons as well as develop space weapons, his programme will run into great opposition.

But if he suggests a framework to eliminate nuclear weapons and promises international cooperation in developing defensive technologies, Mr. Bush may indeed succeed in selling the idea of missile defences to the rest of the world.

-------- korea

EU Delegation Visits North Korea

MAY 02, 07:36 EST
By JOHN LEICESTER Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_package.html?FRONTID=WORLD&PACKAGEID=korea&STORYID=APIS7BNV2I80&SLUG=KOREAS%2dEU

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) - North Korea's leader rolled out goose-stepping soldiers and hundreds of women waving flowers to welcome top European officials on a historic visit to his country Wednesday.

After the lavish ceremony, leader Kim Jong Il and the European Union delegation agreed to talk Thursday about the EU's main goal: restarting reconciliation efforts between the hard-line communist North and its democratic neighbor, South Korea.

Prime Minister Goeran Persson of Sweden, which holds the rotating European Union presidency, said the reclusive North Korean leader was ``open and lively'' while greeting the EU delegation.

Persson said their talks Thursday also would cover issues such as the North's notorious human rights record, its mystery-cloaked missile program, food shortages and its cautious interest in economic reform.

``We are here to express support for the (peace) process,'' the EU leader told reporters.

It was the highest-level visit to North Korea by Western officials in six months, and the first ever by the EU chief or a Western European government leader.

The meetings come at a time of setbacks in reconciliation efforts by North and South Korea.

Last year, the leaders of both countries held their first-ever summit in Pyongyang, leading to breakthroughs such as reunions of families who have been living on opposite sides of the world's most heavily armed border since the 1950-53 Korean War.

But recently, the North abruptly pulled out of three initiatives with the South: a round of Cabinet-level talks, the fielding of a joint table tennis team for the world championships in Japan, and a round of Red Cross talks. Cooperation on relinking a cross-border railway also has stalled.

In addition, new strains have developed between the North and the United States, which helps defend the South with 37,000 American soldiers.

When the EU delegation arrived in North Korea aboard a Swedish air force jet, it was welcomed in a carefully staged, colorful ceremony at Sunan airport outside Pyongyang.

Persson was greeted by country's No. 2 official, Kim Yong Nam, and the pair walked down a red carpet across the tarmac. They passed an honor guard of navy, army and air force troops, and a 9-year-old North Korean girl gave Persson a bouquet of flowers.

Hundreds of civilian well-wishers, including women wearing colorful traditional Korean dresses, waved pink flower arrangements. A military band played Beethoven's ``Ode to Joy,'' the EU anthem, followed by that of North Korea.

With Persson were EU Security Affairs Chief Javier Solana and EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten, who served as the last British governor of Hong Kong.

Persson and Kim then stood on a small platform as the military honor guard goose stepped past them, heels clicking on the tarmac and rifles extended in front of them.

From the main terminal building, a big portrait of the late founding president Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il's father, looked out over the tarmac.

On the way to Pyongyang, down a nearly deserted four-lane highway, Persson's limousine stopped so he could lay a wreath at the foot of a towering bronze statue of the elder Kim.

The delegation's first views of a country that has depended on foreign food aid since the mid-1990s were plowed farm fields and vegetable plots beside homes. EU and North Korean flags flew from lampposts.

It's doubtful that the younger Kim will use the two-day visit by a peripheral player in a Cold War-era standoff as a forum for major policy announcements. But the meeting - and the 75 foreign reporters allowed in to cover it - will give the world its first close look at Kim and the totalitarian North since former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited in October.

Since January, when President Bush took office, his administration has voiced skepticism about the North and said Bush would hold off talks pending a policy review.

Pyongyang responded by cranking up anti-U.S. rhetoric and canceling a number of high-profile contacts with Seoul.

The North has stepped up calls for the withdrawal of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea as well as criticism of Washington's plans for a missile defense system.

Still, Kim is likely to hear out his European guests with courtesy, partly because he wants more aid. Kim's government also has official ties with all but two of the 15 members of the European Union - France and Ireland.

But it is doubtful that the European Union can fill the void in the absence of dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang.

The EU has only a minor role in a U.S.-led consortium that is building two nuclear reactors in North Korea as part of a 1994 deal to end Pyongyang's suspected nuclear weapons program.

Also, the Europeans were not part of earlier U.S. efforts to curb the North's development and export of missile technology.

From Pyongyang, Persson and his entourage fly to South Korea for talks with President Kim Dae-jung, who received the Nobel peace prize last year for his efforts to reconcile with North Korea.

-------- missile defense

Bush Calls for Missile Shield
ABM Treaty No Longer Viable in Post-Cold War Era, President Says

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 2, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29775-2001May1?language=printer

President Bush withdrew the nation's support yesterday from principles that have governed the world's nuclear balance for 30 years, condemning the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty as a Cold War relic and vowing to deploy an extensive shield against missiles.

In his first presidential address on global security, Bush said he was sending administration officials around the world to urge allies to "re-think the unthinkable" because the predictable menaces of the superpower standoff have given way to a potential for random terror or blackmail by smaller nations.

"We must seek security based on more than the grim premise that we can destroy those who seek to destroy us," Bush said. "Deterrence can no longer be based solely on the threat of nuclear retaliation."

Bush's departure from the nation's past nuclear strategy, which had been foreshadowed during his campaign and in the statements of aides, now carries the imprimatur of the leader of the only remaining superpower. His vision, however, faces skepticism among Democrats in Congress and U.S. allies in Europe, as well as opposition in Russia and hostility in China. The resulting political and diplomatic challenges can be expected to occupy the president and other top officials for months.

"We fear that the president may be buying a lemon here," said Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), adding he had "very, very serious questions" about missile defense. "I don't know how you support the deployment of a program that doesn't work," he said.

Henry A. Kissinger, the former secretary of state, praised Bush for "having the courage to look at the reality of the situation." Although Bush has difficult negotiations ahead, "if he sticks to his course, I think he'll be successful," Kissinger said.

The new drive puts Bush on a path toward achieving a more modest version of the dream of President Ronald Reagan, who went on national television in 1983 to advocate a missile defense system his opponents derided as "Star Wars."

Radically scaled-back versions of Reagan's vision have remained under development by the Pentagon. Two tests of a comparatively simple, land-based missile defense system failed last year, and President Bill Clinton announced in September that he would leave the deployment decision to his successor. Bush has advocated basing missile interceptors both on land and on ships; advisers say space-based weapons remain far down the road.

Bush took care in his speech to tick off the obstacles his ideas face. He said he would dispatch emissaries next week to Europe, Asia, Australia and Canada to consult allies, and that he would "reach out to other interested states, including China and Russia."

"These will be real consultations," Bush said. "We are not presenting our friends and allies with unilateral decisions already made. We look forward to hearing their views, the views of our friends, and to take them into account."

Bush stopped short of abrogating the ABM Treaty, which was signed by the United States and Soviet Union in 1972 and helped maintain stability between the superpowers through the Soviet Union's collapse in 1989.

But he said the United States "must move beyond the constraints" of the treaty, which allows each side to build an anti-missile system at a single site but prohibits more extensive, nationwide systems.

The original rationale for the treaty was that building defenses would prompt each side to build more intercontinental missiles, creating a spiraling arms race.

"We need a new framework that allows us to build missile defenses to counter the different threats of today's world," Bush said. The president hopes that by structuring the potential agreement as a "framework," Senate approval will not be needed, an official said.

Bush added that "today's most urgent threat" stems from a small number of missiles in the hands of "states for whom terror and blackmail are a way of life."

In a formal National Intelligence Estimate two years ago, the director of central intelligence projected that during the next 15 years, the United States "most likely" will face an intercontinental missile threat from North Korea, "probably" from Iran and "possibly" from Iraq.

During his 16-minute speech on the lawn of the National Defense University, a school for future admirals and generals at Fort McNair in Southwest Washington, Bush acknowledged the "technological difficulties" the nation faces in developing a workable missile shield. The Defense Department has "more work to do" before details of its structure can be settled, he said.

A more limited system tested under Clinton, which was designed to protect the 50 states, carried an estimated cost of $30 billion to $60 billion. Some analysts have suggested that Bush's system, which he has promised will protect Israel and other U.S. allies, could cost $200 billion or more. But administration officials said it is too early to put any price tag on the system, since its architecture is uncertain.

"In some cases, we can draw on already established technologies that might involve land-based and sea-based capabilities to intercept missiles in mid-course or after they re-enter the atmosphere," Bush said. "We also recognize the substantial advantages of intercepting missiles early in their flight, especially in the boost phase."

Reaffirming a promise from his campaign, the president suggested he would unilaterally cut the U.S. missile stockpile to "change the size, the composition, the character of our nuclear forces in a way that reflects the reality that the Cold War is over."

"I am committed to achieving a credible deterrent with the lowest possible number of nuclear weapons consistent with our national security needs, including our obligations to our allies," Bush said. "My goal is to move quickly to reduce nuclear forces. The United States will lead by example to achieve our interests and the interests for peace in the world."

Bush did not hint, however, at what level he would consider reasonable.

The United States has about 7,200 strategic nuclear warheads and is committed to cutting that level to between 3,000 and 3,500 under the START II accord, which the Senate has not ratified. Clinton and Russian leaders discussed a possible START III accord that would cut U.S. stocks to between 2,000 and 2,500.

"The work on offensive forces is not completed," a senior administration official said. "The president has not wanted to put out a number. It has to relate to the new needs of deterrence. They're making progress. He will have something to say soon."

Bush noted differences with Russia but called for a new relationship premised on "openness, mutual confidence and real opportunities for cooperation, including the area of missile defense." Perhaps one day, he said, "we can even cooperate in a joint defense."

Several hours before the speech, Bush spoke by telephone with Russian President Vladimir Putin for about 10 minutes. The senior administration official described Putin as "willing to listen."

According to aides quoted by Russian news agencies, Putin responded that Russia was ready to join in dramatic reductions in nuclear arms but remained intent on preserving the arms control framework built over the last three decades.

Discussions in Moscow leading up to Bush's speech avoided the often confrontational rhetoric of recent months, although it did not go unnoticed that Putin was the last of a number of foreign leaders to be called by the U.S. president.

Some influential figures in Moscow have begun advocating that Russia abandon its all-out fight against missile defense, since the program could prove technically impossible anyway.

As part of Bush's outreach to allies, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage will lead teams to Japan, South Korea and India. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley and Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman will go to Europe. China will be consulted initially through its embassy in Washington, as will Pakistan, administration officials said.

Correspondent Peter Baker in Moscow and staff writer Steven Mufson in Washington contributed to this report.

----

Chinese News Agency Condemns U.S. Missile Plan

New York Times
May 2, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-bush-ar.html

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Xinhua state news agency said Wednesday plans by President Bush to build a national missile defense system could upset the global strategic balance and spark a new arms race.

There was no official reaction from the Chinese Foreign Ministry to Bush's call Tuesday for a change to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to allow a missile system that would protect the United States and its allies from attack.

But in a report from Washington on Bush's remarks, Xinhua restated China's long-held position that the plan violated the treaty, which was the ``cornerstone of global strategic balance and stability.''

``The U.S. missile defense plan has violated the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, will destroy the balance of international security forces and could cause a new arms race,'' Xinhua said.

``Therefore, it has been widely condemned by the international community.''

China, Russia and North Korea were strongly opposed to the missile plan, while many U.S. allies were also concerned it would undermine efforts to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons, Xinhua said.

Bush's plans for a national missile defense (NMD) threaten to further destabilize U.S.-China relations, already rocked by a collision between a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese jet fighter, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, and Bush's pledges to help the island defend itself.

Beijing fears the NMD system will negate its own modest nuclear arsenal and that a regional version, known as Theater Missile Defense (TMD), will be used to shield Taiwan and thus embolden pro-independence forces.

China regards Taiwan as a rebel province that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.

THREAT TO WORLD PEACE

Xinhua quoted unidentified analysts as saying NMD would ''not only spark a new arms race and create a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, but will also threaten world peace and security in the 21st century.''

Back in March -- before the spy plane collision sparked a sharp downturn in relations -- China adopted a more flexible stance on NMD with its top arms control diplomat saying Beijing was willing to discuss the issue with Washington.

Sha Zukang, director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Department of Arms Control, also indicated for the first time then that Beijing drew a distinction between NMD and TMD.

Washington says NMD, which would intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles, is necessary to protect the United States from attacks from hostile states such as North Korea and Iraq. TMD would be deployed to protect U.S. troops and allies in Asia.

Bush also said Tuesday he planned to make unilateral nuclear arms cuts in what amounted to a sweetener for financially-strapped Russia, which is struggling to afford the upkeep of its nuclear arms.

But that would be small comfort for China, whose modest nuclear arsenal of 284 warheads is dwarfed by the United States' 7,295 warheads and Russia's 6,094, analysts say.

-------

Military Analysis: Grand Plan, Few Details

New York Times
May 2, 2001
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/world/02MILI.html

WASHINGTON, May 1 - President Bush sketched out his vision of a brave new world today in which the United States is protected by a multifaceted antimissile shield, nuclear arsenals are slashed and Washington and Moscow work together.

What he did not explain in his speech today was how to get there. The goal of Mr. Bush's long- awaited address was to make a persuasive case for his missile-defense plan and to set the stage for high-level consultations with the United States' allies, which will get under way next week.

Mr. Bush called for a sweeping strategic realignment. And he presented an ambitious, if preliminary, blueprint for a network of sea-based, air-based and land-based defenses, some elements of which may be rushed into the field. To pave the way for his antimissile program, Mr. Bush all but declared the Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 to be dead, vowing to replace it with a new "framework."

But the central question that Mr. Bush never tackled head-on is what this framework would be and how the United States and Russia might collaborate to achieve it.

The United States' allies already know that the Bush administration has little regard for the ABM treaty. What they want to know is what sort of arms-control arrangements on defensive systems, if any, might be put in place if the 1972 accord is abandoned.

The allies also know that the Bush administration favors deeper cuts in the nuclear arms arsenal. What they want to know is whether the United States intends to negotiate new treaties with Moscow, accords that would have strict verification.

Or does the Bush administration instead favor a more informal arrangement in which each side would make reductions that would not be legally binding?

That approach appeals to many conservatives who believe that the United States should have maximum flexibility to improve or alter its nuclear arsenal.

But Mr. Bush not only failed to answer these questions in today's address. He also did not even acknowledge them.

"We need a new framework that allows us to build missile defenses to counter the different threats of today's world," he declared.

To be sure, there is a case to be made for the antimissile system. With the end of the cold war, the United States and Russia are no longer antagonists. And with the spread of missile technology, new missile threats may emerge from states like Iran, Iraq and North Korea, though the urgency of this danger is often exaggerated.

But the debate over antimissile systems is not an all-or-nothing proposition as Mr. Bush implied today.

Increasingly, for Democrats as well as for Republicans, the issue is not whether to cleave slavishly to the ABM treaty. It is whether the accord should be amended to make way for a limited program or abandoned altogether.

The Clinton administration opted for the first course. It sought to alter but not eliminate the ABM treaty, so that the United States could put in place a battle-management radar system and 100 interceptors in Alaska.

What made Mr. Bush's statements today so important - and contentious - is that he made clear he is opting for the second approach. Mr. Bush did not propose negotiations to update the ABM treaty; he advocated a "clear and clean break with the past."

The development of a missile defense would not put an end to all the nuclear risks the United States faces. The Bush administration's proposed system would not signal an end to the era of "mutual assured destruction," the situation in which Russia and the United States are vulnerable to each other's attack.

By the Bush administration's own account, its antimissile system would not be able to stop a Russian attack, so the United States would remain vulnerable to almost unthinkable destruction from a Russian nuclear attack. It was the end of the cold war, not the advent of missile defenses, that signaled an end to the Strangelovian calculations of the old Soviet-American standoff.

Nor will an antimissile program isolate the United States against threats from "suitcase bombs" and other terrorist ploys.

But antimissile systems can still play a useful role in countering lesser missile threats that the United States might face during a future conflict.

The question is whether the United States can develop such systems and put them in place without stimulating old fears in Russia or China and creating new dangers.

Even with the end of the cold war, the United States has a stake in maintaining a good working relationship with Russia to safeguard its nuclear arsenal, fight the spread of weapons of mass destruction and avoid an arms race.

Mr. Bush stressed during his speech that Russia was no longer an enemy and he talked repeatedly of his desire to cooperate with Moscow. But the broad scope of Mr. Bush's proposed system and the quick pace at which Mr. Bush wants to put some of its elements in place means it will be very difficult to ease Russia's concerns.

Mr. Bush spoke of developing "boost-phase" antimissile systems that would blow up missiles right after they were launched. And he also talked approvingly of systems that would knock out enemy missiles in mid-flight or destroy their warheads after they re-entered the atmosphere. Mr. Bush described the deployment of such systems as "near term options."

Mr. Bush offered Russia the promise of deep cuts in the American arsenal, some of which would be made unilaterally. That is a potentially important lure. But his plans for reductions are still vague. He also offered the Russians the distant possibility that the two sides might one day jointly operate a missile defense system.

To former Clinton aides, the subtext seemed to be that Washington would give consultations with Moscow no more than a college try before moving unilaterally to develop defenses.

The European allies of the United States, however, attach great importance to avoiding new tensions with Russia. The Bush administration insists that its consultations with its allies in Europe as well as in Asia are not a pro forma exercise but rather a genuine attempt to develop a new strategic arrangement for a post- cold-war world. And the challenge for Mr. Bush will be to persuade the allies, as well as Moscow, that his "framework" to replace the ABM treaty is not just a place-holder, or a prescription for a laissez-faire nuclear policy - but a plan that can guarantee continued stability.

--------

In Strategy Overhaul, Bush Seeks a Missile Shield

The New York Times
May 2, 2001
By DAVID E. SANGER and STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/world/02PREX.html

WASHINGTON, May 1 - President Bush called today for sweeping changes in security strategy, including a new relationship with Russia, that would build an expansive missile defense system and cut "to the lowest possible number" the nuclear arsenals that both sides assembled in the cold war.

In a speech at the National Defense University addressing what he hopes to make a central accomplishment of his presidency, Mr. Bush stopped just short of saying the United States would withdraw from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty.

He made clear that he intended to build a network of installations that would unquestionably violate a treaty that arms-control advocates argue has been the cornerstone of nuclear deterrence since Richard M. Nixon and Leonid I. Brezhnev signed it. That pact bans the very systems that Mr. Bush alluded to today. [Excerpt from speech, Page A10.]

At the Pentagon, officials have proposed moving ahead quickly with developing and deploying a limited system that would include interceptors launched from Alaska and from naval cruisers that could be moved into global hot spots, as well as lasers mounted on Boeing 747 jumbo jets.

Although President Bill Clinton refused to approve deploying even a limited missile system last year because the Pentagon could not overcome significant technological hurdles, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that the Bush administration was prepared to go ahead even if the technologies had not yet proven completely effective.

With accelerated financing and a speedy testing program, military officials said, the first system could be in place by 2004, just as Mr. Bush nears the end of his current term.

Mr. Bush's strategy is virtually certain to find intense resistance in Congress, among some European and Asian allies and, especially, from China. The president used his speech to reach out directly to Russia, and the Kremlin responded favorably to the pledge to open a new strategic dialogue. [Page A11.]

"We are not and must not be strategic adversaries," Mr. Bush said. He urged Russia to "work together to replace this treaty with a new framework that reflects a clear and clean break from the past."

Aides said Mr. Bush used the word "framework" with care. Rather than amending the treaty, they said, he envisions an understanding with Russia that would not require Senate approval. "This new cooperative relationship should look to the future, not to the past," he said in his 16- minute speech under a blazing sun at Fort McNair. "It should be reassuring, rather than threatening. It should be premised on openness, mutual confidence and real opportunities for cooperation, including the area of missile defense."

Starting next week, Mr. Bush will send senior deputies to visit European and Asian allies, as well as to China, India and Russia. Aides said he hoped to meet President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia soon, probably in Europe this summer.

Mr. Bush's speech was striking for what it said and what it left unsaid. This was not Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, or "Star Wars" plan. It did not promise an impenetrable shield. Mr. Bush talked about technologies that "could provide limited, but effective, defenses."

Mr. Bush suggested making huge cuts in America's nuclear arsenal that would have been unthinkable in the 80's, and perhaps unilaterally.

The arsenal now includes more than 7,000 strategic nuclear weapons, although it is supposed to drop to 3,000 to 3,500 under Start II, the 1993 strategic arms reduction treaty. Although some Bush advisers have suggested unilateral reductions to about 2,000 weapons, the president avoided mentioning any numbers.

"Nuclear weapons will still have a vital role to play in our security and that of our allies," he said. "We can and will change the size, composition, the character of our nuclear forces in a way that reflects the reality that the cold war is over."

Mr. Bush also did not discuss the possible cost of his "layered" system, which would build on existing technologies like Aegis ship-borne radar and missile-firing systems and also use untested technologies like airborne or space-based lasers.

There is little doubt that the system that Mr. Bush envisions would cost far more than the $60 billion that the Congressional Budget Office estimated for Mr. Clinton's proposed limited ground-based system.

Although Mr. Bush discussed at length a new relationship with Moscow, he made just passing reference to China, saying he would "reach out" to the Chinese and send an envoy there to describe his plans. But he omitted talk of remaking America's relations with China the way he spoke of remaking them with Russia. That is bound to reinforce Beijing's fears that Mr. Bush intends that his system could help contain China's power and, perhaps, help protect Taiwan.

A day after speaking with major allies, Mr. Bush spoke this morning with Mr. Putin for 12 minutes, the White House said, but did not call any of China's leaders.

At the core of Mr. Bush's speech was a major change in American nuclear doctrine, a move that critics say will introduce instability into the nuclear balance. Mr. Bush repeatedly called the cold war theory of mutually assured destruction a relic.

He said it was borne of an era when the Soviet Union was "a highly armed threat to freedom and democracy" and was ill suited to a world in which Russia is not a hostile power. Nor does it protect the United States and its allies from rogue states - Mr. Bush did not explicitly mention Iran, Iraq, North Korea - and terrorists with access to nuclear material. He called for a blend of traditional nuclear deterrence and nuclear defenses, aimed not at major nuclear powers but at minor ones.

The system would be highly limited. It would do nothing, for example, to protect against a small nuclear or biological device brought into the United States or Europe in a suitcase or on an airplane. And it would clearly not be 100 percent effective against missiles, meaning that the threat of massive retaliation would still be a central principle of American nuclear doctrine.

Mr. Rumsfeld dismissed such criticism, arguing that early versions could be effective even if imperfect. His remarks echoed those by Pentagon officials who have advocated building "a defense in depth," relying on overlapping systems with varying abilities to counter missile threats. "They need not be 100 percent perfect, in my opinion, and they are certainly unlikely to be in their early stages of evolution," he said.

Mr. Bush's speech offered the most detailed explanation yet of what shape his proposed system might take. He said Mr. Rumsfeld had identified "near-term options that could allow us to deploy an initial capability against limited threats." The president focused on systems that attack missiles in their so-called boost phase, the relatively slow period when a missile is launched and its blazing plume can be easily detected and tracked.

Army officials have told Mr. Rumsfeld's aides that they could accelerate development of the ground- based system, with a sophisticated radar station and at least five interceptor missiles in Alaska, and have it ready by 2004, officials said.

The Navy has indicated that it could build a limited system of 50 SM-3 interceptor missiles - their range is classified - aboard two cruisers equipped with the Aegis system, according to a briefing paper that has circulated in the Pentagon. Such a system could be ready by 2004 or 2005 at an estimated minimum cost of $1.2 billion.

Navy officials have also proposed building a sophisticated radar system, vital to any defensive system, on a cargo ship, letting it move around the globe to counter any missile threat that arises, an industry expert said.

A senior administration official said the most promising approach in the near future appeared to be the Airborne Laser Program, being developed by Boeing, Lockheed Martin and TRW and promoted as the first laser-armed combat aircraft. The contractors plan to test the system, a multimegawatt oxygen-iodine laser mounted on a retrofitted 747, in 2003.

There are no estimates on the overall cost of the system Mr. Bush discussed today, and he was so vague about its architecture that no estimate would be reliable. Although the president spoke of "promising options," there are many questions about technological feasibility.

The ground-based interceptor rocket at the heart of the Pentagon program has had test failures. Another test, copying a failed one in July, is scheduled soon. The other programs are untested.

"We fear the president may be buying a lemon here," said the Senate minority leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota. "There has not been a shred of evidence that this works."

--------

Major Address on Missiles Buoys Republicans,
but Fails to Win Over Bush's Opponents

New York Times
May 2, 2001
By MARC LACEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/world/02REAC.html

WASHINGTON, May 1 - President Bush's pledge today that he will consult with allies as he moves forward with missile defense did not quiet many detractors. They said they feared that the president had already made up his mind to scrap the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, alter the global strategic balance and develop costly and unproven military technology.

Backers of the missile system among Congressional Republicans were, as expected, buoyed today by Mr. Bush's words. And judging from the Kremlin's upbeat reaction to Mr. Bush's telephone call today with President Vladimir V. Putin, he found a number of positive points in Mr. Bush's presentation - especially the American pledge to engage Moscow in a new strategic dialogue that might lead to Russia rebuilding its own missile systems. Mr. Putin has been assiduously promoting that idea in Europe.

Speaking for Democrats who oppose the Bush approach, Representative Richard A. Gephardt, the House minority leader, said, "By announcing his intent to move forward with as yet unproven, costly and expansive national missile defense systems, the president is jeopardizing an arms control framework that has served this nation and the world well for decades."

In Canada, Foreign Minister John Manley said his government continued to fear that Mr. Bush could set off an arms race if he abandoned the 1972 ABM treaty. "We have made a number of points very clear to the United States in the various discussions we've had," Mr. Manley said today. "No. 1 is that we think a unilateral abrogation of the ABM would be very problematic for us."

In his speech, Mr. Bush announced that he would dispatch high-level officials from the State Department, the Defense Department and the National Security Council next week to Europe, Asia, Australia and Canada.

"These will be real consultations," said Mr. Bush, who earlier today and Monday called the leaders of Russia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany and the NATO secretary general to discuss the speech. "We are not presenting our friends and allies with unilateral decisions already made."

Mr. Bush's reference to the importance of "boost-phase" defenses - which would attack missiles ascending at their slowest speeds immediately after they are launched - conforms with ideas that the Russian president put forward last summer.

A number of Russian officials say that Mr. Putin, while holding firmly that the ABM treaty cannot be undermined by one side without risking an arms race, is keenly interested in missile projects of its own.

"Missile defense is going to be big business," one former high-level Russian diplomat said recently. Mr. Putin, he said, wants Russia to share in the high-technology contracts for missiles, radar systems and space sensors that must be developed to put such a system in place to protect those parts of Europe and Asia where Russia has interests.

Mr. Bush was also focused on the reaction in the House and Senate. In his speech, the president said: "When ready, and working with Congress, we will deploy missile defenses to strengthen global security and stability."

Representative Curt Weldon, Republican of Pennsylvania and a member of the Armed Services Committee, said, "It is reassuring to finally have a president who understands the threats faced by the United States." He added, "We can no longer sit on our hands while the problem of missile proliferation by terrorists and rogue states gets worse."

Other Republicans praised Mr. Bush for declaring the ABM treaty all but dead.

"I commend the president for leading the effort to craft a new national security strategy for the United States that recognizes the geopolitical and strategic realities of the post-cold-war world," said Representative Bob Stump, of Arizona, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "Such a strategy must move beyond the now-obsolete framework that was once the cornerstone of our national security."

Critics, including a small group of protesters who sounded an air siren and held banners outside the National Defense University, where the president spoke, said they feared that Mr. Bush was taking the country in a costly and dangerous direction.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that despite Mr. Bush's major speech today the administration still needs to fill in many blanks. "We still don't know very much about the details in his proposal," Mr. Biden said. "If the president wants us to continue research and development on a theater missile defense that enhances regional stability, I support him. But we should not head down the `Star Wars' road again."

-------

Bush Defense Plan Stirs Critics

May 2, 2001
New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush offered few details in committing the United States to building a defense against ballistic missile attack, but said enough to stir critics and require him to tend to unsettled allies.

``We fear the president may be buying a lemon here,'' said Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota. ``There has not been a shred of evidence that this works.''

``It's really hard to tell what he means and what his strategy really is,'' Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said. If Bush finally comes down in favor of a multiple-defense system using land, sea and space, it could cost up to $1 trillion, said Biden, who is the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Biden said he would support research and development on a theater missile defense that enhances regional stability, ``But we should not head down the Star Wars road again.''

In remarks at the Pentagon Wednesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was asked by a reporter why Bush did not mention in his speech Tuesday the possibility of basing missile defense weaponry in space -- a key element of the Star Wars approach that former President Reagan pushed.

``His remarks properly reflected the fact that the goal during this period is to explore a variety of ways that missile defense can conceivably evolve, without prejudging exactly which ones will be most fruitful,'' Rumsfeld said. ``There is no question but that the use of land and sea and air and space are all things that need to be considered if one is looking at the best way to provide the kind of security from ballistic missiles that is desirable for the United States and for our friends and allies.''

From a close ally, Germany, came a plea for care.

The 1972 treaty that Bush condemned as outdated ``worked well in the past,'' Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said Wednesday after meeting for 50 minutes with Secretary of State Colin Powell. ``We think we should continue along these successes.''

And yet, Fischer said, ``If there now are new thoughts, we should look about the consequences of these new thoughts. We should do that very carefully.''

Reagan also envisioned a missile shield and proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative, which critics derided as ``Star Wars'' because of its futuristic concept. SDI never got off the ground.

Russia has vigorously opposed a U.S. missile defense, and Bush said he would like to meet soon with President Vladimir Putin to ``look him in the eye'' and persuade him that such a system does not threaten Moscow.

Bush said more nations have nuclear weapons, as well as chemical and biological arms.

``Most troubling of all,'' he said at the National Defense University, ``the list of these countries includes some of the world's least-responsible states. Unlike the Cold War, today's most urgent threat stems not from thousands of ballistic missiles in the Soviet hands, but from a small number of missiles in the hands of these states -- states for whom terror and blackmail are a way of life.''

Bush said the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty prevents the United States from defending itself. Presumably he had such regimes as those in North Korea, Iraq and Iran in mind.

But in condemning the ABM treaty as a Cold War relic, he did not specifically say the United States would pull out of the accord reached with the Soviet Union.

Many supporters of arms control consider the ABM treaty a bedrock accord. By banning national missile defenses it is designed to make a potential attacker vulnerable to counterattack -- and therefore inhibit a first-strike attack.

But Bush said it was time to make a ``clear and clean break from the past.''

His remarks were cheered by Republicans in Congress, who had pushed former President Clinton hard to initiate a limited shield against missiles from a hostile nation or accidental launches.

``The president's statement moves our nation in the right direction by making clear that America, our allies, and our friends will be defended against ballistic missiles and the weapons of mass destruction they carry,'' said Rep. Bob Stump, R-Ariz., chairman of House Armed Services Committee.

Bush said he was sending top Pentagon and State Department officials to European and Asian capitals not to present friendly governments with a unilateral U.S. decision on missile defense, but to get their views to be taken into account.

The British government welcomed Bush's pledge to consult but stopped short of an outright endorsement of the missile plan. In Sweden, Foreign Minister Anna Lindh said America could trigger a new arms race.

There was no immediate comment from Russia or China on Bush's plan.

However, the leader of the Communist Party in Russia, Gennady Zyuganov told the Interfax news agency it was no surprise the United States would be talking about ignoring a treaty. ``The United States has long been ignoring and in fact withdrew from all international treaties and agreements a long time ago, which was shown by the bombing of Yugoslavia and the fact that the United States has classified a number of countries as rogue states,'' he said.

Bush committed himself to a missile defense during the presidential campaign and has said he favored a system that would protect not only the United States but U.S. allies in Europe and Asia as well. Senior officials at the Pentagon and other government agencies assessed potential programs during the president's first 100 days in office.

Some U.S. officials are pushing to deploy at least a minimal missile defense system by 2004, the final year of Bush's term. In his speech Tuesday, Bush said an anti-missile weapon aboard a ship or aircraft might provide a ``limited but effective'' defense that could be expanded and strengthened later.

This might, for example, be a laser mounted on a Boeing 747 that could zap a hostile missile as it rises upward in the early phase of its flight. The Air Force is working on such a system, which it calls the airborne laser. Critics call this a ``scarecrow'' approach: erecting an ineffective defense in hopes that its mere existence will dissuade potential aggressors from challenging it.

Bush gave no hint Tuesday which option he would choose.

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A Primer on Missile Defense

By Charles Babington washingtonpost.com staff writer
Wednesday, May 2, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27925-2001May1?language=printer

What, basically, is national missile defense?

It's a proposed system to detect, intercept and destroy missiles before they hit their targets. President Bush's proposed version would involve land-based, ship-based and airborne radar and missile systems designed to destroy hostile missiles.

Is this the same as Ronald Reagan's 'Star Wars' plan?

Not really. The Reagan-era proposal envisioned an elaborate array of satellite-based weapons. Bush has not specifically called for space-based anti-missile weapons, but he did allude to "airborne" defenses, along with land and sea-based systems.

How is missile defense supposed to work?

Radars are intended to detect the launch of hostile missiles. Then missiles are deployed to intercept them, either at the 'boost phase' - soon after the hostile missile is launched - or later in its flight.

What's the track record on development?

Quite mixed. Two high-profile tests of a comparatively simple, land-based missile defense system failed last year. Some have likened the challenge to "hitting a bullet with a bullet.'' But President Bush says there are ''promising options for advanced sensors and interceptors'' for a boost-phase system, at least.

How feasible is Bush's overall plan?

Experts differ substantially. Groups such as the Heritage Foundation say missile defense is workable and necessary. But the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said recently: "There is not now and never has been an effective national missile defense system. . . . It is highly unlikely that any candidate system can be shown to be militarily effective during the next eight years."

Does Bush plan a system to defend the United States only?

No. The president says the system also should protect 'our friends and allies and deployed forces overseas.' He has given few details on how this would occur.

Is a missile defense system needed?

Again, experts differ. A 1998 commission, chaired by now-secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, concluded: "Concerted efforts by a number of overtly or potentially hostile nations to acquire ballistic missiles with biological or nuclear payloads pose a growing threat to the United States, its deployed forces and its friends and allies." However, a CIA analyst recently told Congress that missiles don't pose the greatest threat: "We project that in the coming years, U.S. territory is probably more likely to be attacked with weapons of mass destruction from non-missile delivery means. . . .primarily because non-missile delivery means are less costly and more reliable and accurate."

What potential enemies make a missile defense system necessary?

Bush cites two threats: 'The world's least-responsible states," such as Iraq and North Korea; and "accidental missile launches" by nations that could include Russia and China.

What would Bush's missile defense plan cost?

No one knows for sure, but it won't be cheap. President Clinton's more limited system was predicted to cost $30 billion to $60 billion. Some analysts say Bush's plan could cost $200 billion or more.

What do our European allies think of Bush's plan?

Most European leaders are dubious about - if not outright hostile to - the U.S. missile defense proposal. They fear it could trigger a new arms race involving Russia and possibly other nations. Bush has promised to consult closely with them.

Can the U.S. build a missile defense system without abrogating major arms treaties?

No. Bush says it's time to do away with the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia, which bans national missile defense systems. Russia wants to keep the ABM treaty intact.

How soon could a missile defense system be ready?

Even a rudimentary defense would require three or four years of work, experts say. Realizing Bush's vision of a multilayered system with worldwide reach will take a decade or more, they say.

Does Bush plan to reduce the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons?

Yes. He said on May 1, 2001: "My goal is to move quickly to reduce nuclear forces."

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A Frame for Missile Defense

Wednesday, May 2, 2001
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30515-2001May1?language=printer

PRESIDENT BUSH yesterday renewed his party's longstanding commitment to missile defense in a way that recognized and cogently addressed both the changing global conditions that make a shield against missile attack more necessary and the technological and diplomatic obstacles that have hamstrung past initiatives. He made clear that his administration is committed to deploying a missile defense quickly, and to starting work on a comprehensive system outside the constraints of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. But he also pledged to seek "a new framework" for managing nuclear weapons through consultations with allies as well as Russia and China. In doing so, Mr. Bush articulated the right goal for missile defense: that its deployment serve to "strengthen global security and stability."

The U.S. missile defense program long has run the risk of making the world less rather than more secure, and of increasing rather than assuaging tension among the United States, its allies and potential adversaries such as Russia and China. Allies, particularly in Europe, suspect that the United States will use missile defense as a substitute for multilateral treaties and alliances, while China and Russia fear a U.S. effort to gain a decisive strategic advantage. Though the prospect of outlaw nations such as Iraq or North Korea acquiring long-range missiles has provided a new and more compelling rationale, these diplomatic problems have persisted. So, too, have the technological difficulties; studies by Pentagon-appointed panels have shown that a defense system that can overcome even relatively simple countermeasures has yet to be developed.

Mr. Bush's speech yesterday offered some reassurance to those who worry about a reckless or politically driven pursuit of President Reagan's "Star Wars" by another Republican administration, acknowledging the technological difficulties and pledging that his team will "evaluate what works and what does not." More broadly, he addressed the strategic concerns by locating his vision of missile defense within a multilateral strategy that would include reductions in offensive nuclear weapons and steps to curtail the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The speech contained a forceful and remarkably positive appeal to Russia: Mr. Bush asserted that he wants to "complete the work of changing" the U.S.-Russia relationship "from one based on a nuclear balance of terror to one based on common responsibilities and interests," and invited Moscow to "work together" to replace the ABM treaty "with a new framework that reflects a clear and clean break from the past, and especially from the adversarial legacy of the Cold War."

Though he made clear that the administration intends to discard the ABM treaty, Mr. Bush stopped short of announcing a unilateral U.S. withdrawal. Instead, he said that senior administration officials will visit allied capitals in the coming weeks to consult about the initiative. "These will be real consultations," he said. "We are not presenting our friends and allies with unilateral decisions already made." That is the right approach. In the end the United States cannot grant other nations veto power over its pursuit of its own defense. But Mr. Bush appears to have embraced an important principle: If missile defense is to increase the safety of the United States, it must also enhance the safety and stability of the world.

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Moscow Asserts It Is Eager for Talks on Missile Shield

May 2, 2001
New York Times
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/world/02CND-RUSS.html

MOSCOW, May 2 - Russia responded today to President Bush's call for the deployment of a missile defense shield, saying it was eager to begin a new strategic dialogue with the United States in a bid to find a common approach to new missile threats and further reduce nuclear arsenals.

But a senior official underscored Moscow's expectation that the United States not take "unilateral steps" to withdraw from an arms control accord that has helped to ensure strategic stability for three decades without first replacing it with a new understanding.

Governments across Europe and Asia reacted cautiously to President Bush's remarks Tuesday, in which he said the United States needs "a new framework that allows us to build missile defenses to counter the different threats of today's world."

The government leaders welcomed Mr. Bush's plan to begin extensive talks next week among allies and other interested parties such as Russia and China.

But none showed any enthusiasm for the fact that neither Mr. Bush nor his senior advisers had yet allayed deep suspicions that a missile shield, apart from being aimed at so-called rogue nations, could also undermine the nuclear deterrent forces of China, weaken those of Russia and set off an arms race.

"Russia is ready for consultations and we have something to say," Foreign Minister Igor D. Ivanov said at a news conference here. But he added, "It is extremely important that the U. S. administration does not intend to take unilateral steps, but intends to consult with its allies and friends, including Russia."

Mr. Ivanov also emphasized that his government "will insist on preserving and strengthening" the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which Mr. Bush said Tuesday should be replaced "with a new framework that reflects a clear and clean break from the past."

The Russians, however, are clearly intrigued by Mr. Bush's remarks about the prospect for cooperation "in a joint defense" with Moscow to cope with ballistic missile threats that might arise in the future, a possibility President Vladimir V. Putin publicly recognized last year.

Russia's concern was echoed today in Washington by Germany's foreign minister, Joschka Fischer. after meeting with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

"The ABM treaty worked well," he said. "We want control mechanisms that worked well in the past" to be replaced "only by better ones or more effective ones," he added. "We don't want there to be a new arms race."

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, under pressure by the Conservative Party to openly endorse Mr. Bush's proposal, refused to do so today. The Bush plans may need to rely in part on radar centers based in Britain, and Mr. Blair argued that "this is a highly sensitive issues and that we should handle it with care."

"I believe President Bush has set out a case that we have to listen to," Mr. Blair told the House of Commons. "We will make our deliberations once we have had a specific proposal from the American administration."

But former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, now Lady Thatcher, publicly chastised the Labor government's position.

"I strongly support President Bush's plan to protect America and her allies from attack by ballistic missiles," she said, "and I trust that the British government will stop its shilly-shallying and support them, too."

Neither China nor Japan commented officially about Mr. Bush's speech.

"We cannot say anything specific before carefully examining the details of the proposals made by President Bush," a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said in Tokyo. Japan has agreed to study the feasibility of regional missile defenses in cooperation with the United States, but has deliberately withheld its commitment to build or deploy such a system in deference to China's objections.

China's state-run New China News Agency said the American missile defense proposal "will destroy the balance of international security forces and could cause a new arms race."

Canada also warned that if American consultations, which begin next week, fail to bring the results Mr. Bush hopes for, he should not act outside the international consensus. Foreign Minister John Manley said "a unilateral abrogation of the ABM treaty would be very problematic for us."

The United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, said that instead of abandoning the ABM treaty, "there is a need to consolidate and build upon existing disarmament and nonproliferation agreements."

Through a spokesman, he called on the nuclear powers "to engage in negotiations towards legally binding" agreements that "are both verifiable and irreversible."

As other countries examined the text of Mr. Bush's speech, a European Union diplomatic mission landed in Pyongyang and met with North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, in an effort aimed in part at reactivating talks that would bring an end to North Korea's ballistic missile program.

Of the three "rogue" states whose missile programs have been cited as justification for developing the defense shield - North Korea, Iran and Iraq - North Korea's is the most advanced. Russia's president, and now European leaders, have become more active in the past year to draw Mr. Kim into negotiations that might lead to an agreement to give up his missile program.

Last year, the Clinton administration was pursuing a similar diplomatic course with North Korea, but the Bush administration has declined to follow that path. It has cited a need to review policy toward North Korea while also expressing concerns over Mr. Kim's sincerity.

After his speech Tuesday, Mr. Bush telephoned the South Korean leader, Dim Dae Jung, and told him that the American policy review "will be completed in a timely fashion," according to Mary Ellen Countryman, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council staff in Washington. Mr. Bush also expressed support for "President Kim's engagement policy with North Korea."

Though many countries have taken an interest - or expressed concern - about the deployment of a missile defense system, the reactions of Russia and China loom as the greatest challenge for the President.

Before his speech, Mr. Bush telephoned Mr. Putin and, according to Russian officials, assured him that Washington would not act unilaterally to change the strategic balance. The White House has not confirmed this version of the conversation.

By all Kremlin accounts, Mr. Putin is eager to meet with Mr. Bush so that they can hash out their concerns over the changes that have occurred in international security since the end of the cold war. Both have made upbeat and constructive comments about the prospects for cooperation, though both recognize the strong tendencies in their political establishments to view the other with suspicion.

They are scheduled to meet in Genoa, Italy, in July at a summit meeting of the largest industrial nations. But today, Mr. Ivanov repeated remarks showing that Russia preferred an earlier meeting, perhaps in June, or earlier in July, and that this was still possible.

Mr. Ivanov was also at pains today to point out that many aspects of the American missile defense system aimed at rogue nations are not dissimilar to some of the ideas Mr. Putin has been floating since last June. The difference is that under the Russian proposals, the ABM treaty would remain in force as a prohibition against building a missile shield that would cover all of the territory of the United States.

"We think the position of the U.S. administration should be carefully listened to before drawing final conclusions," Mr. Ivanov said.

He added that it now seems possible to work out an "approach that would meet the interests of the United States, Russia and the international community on the whole," while acknowledging "different points of view, including those concerning the value of the ABM treaty."

The 1972 accord, he said, cannot be separated "from the general architecture" of arms control agreements "that has been formed in the last 30 years and that has become the basis of international security."

-------- treaties

Bush scraps '72 treaty for a shield

May 2, 2001
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010502-20242538.htm

President Bush yesterday bluntly repudiated the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and called for the deployment of an ambitious missile defense system to protect the United States and its allies from rogue nuclear nations.

"We need a new framework that allows us to build missile defenses to counter the different threats of today´s world," Mr. Bush told military officers at the National Defense University in Washington.

"To do so, we must move beyond the constraints of the 30-year-old ABM Treaty," he said. "This treaty does not recognize the present or point us to the future. It enshrines the past."

The ABM Treaty, which bars the United States and the now-defunct Soviet Union from nationwide defenses against incoming nuclear warheads, was considered sacrosanct by President Clinton.

Mr. Bush´s vow to abandon the treaty and build a defense shield recalled the 1980s, when President Reagan´s push for missile defense contributed to the collapse of communism.

Russian military and diplomatic sources told Russia´s Interfax news agency that abandonment of the ABM Treaty could lead to a new round of nuclear proliferation.

"Many in Washington understand that the destruction of ABM and deploying an anti-missile shield could undermine the system of strategic stability which exists in the world today and lead to a new arms race," the Russian sources said.

House Democrats agreed, warning that the president´s aggressive call for a global missile defense would alarm China and lead to a new arms race that would further destabilize India and Pakistan.

"The diplomatic implications are just frightening to me," said Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat. "I don´t think it helps unnecessarily to roil the Chinese by talking about a missile defense which on the one hand we say isn´t aimed at them, but now appears to be."

Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, California Democrat, added: "It seems irresponsible to just unilaterally trash this 30-year agreement."

But a senior administration official told The Washington Times that China will be one of the first nations consulted as Mr. Bush moves forward with his plan.

"We haven´t been in a Cold War relationship with China and we don´t want to get out of one with Russia just to fall into one with China," said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

"The truth is, the Chinese are already modernizing their nuclear force," added the official, who dismissed "this notion that somehow China is going to build up in response to what we´re doing.

"China is building up anyway for its own purposes, consistent with its sense of itself as a global player," said the official. China is not a party to the ABM Treaty.

As for Russian concerns about a new arms race, Mr. Bush wants to dampen such talk by unilaterally cutting back the U.S. nuclear stockpile, which currently contains some 7,000 warheads.

The president hopes Russian President Vladimir Putin will view the cuts as a good-faith measure that will assuage worries about proliferation.

"We just don´t need, in this environment, the kinds of high numbers of ready, sort of day-to-day forces that we´ve had in the past," said the administration official. "The president would say: 'Mr. Putin, neither of us needs the kinds of numbers we´ve got. We´re still at 7,000 deployed strategic weapons. That´s crazy. Neither of us needs them. We should both be getting out of that business.´"

Indeed, Mr. Bush took pains to point out that the old ABM Treaty was negotiated with a nation that no longer exists the Soviet Union. He emphasized that Russia has moved from communist totalitarianism toward democratic capitalism in the post-Cold War era.

He described this as "a far different time in a far different world." He recalled how the two nations aimed their huge nuclear arsenals at each other "on hair-trigger alert."

"The security of both the United States and the Soviet Union was based on a grim premise that neither side would fire nuclear weapons at each other, because doing so would mean the end of both nations," he said.

"We even went so far as to codify this relationship in a 1972 ABM Treaty, based on the doctrine that our very survival would best be ensured by leaving both sides completely open and vulnerable to nuclear attack," he added. "Today, the sun comes up on a vastly different world."

Citing the growing number of small nations that are developing weapons of mass destruction, Mr. Bush said the threat now comes from rogue states that might try to hold the U.S. hostage. He and administration officials also warned of an accidental nuclear launch.

"In Saudi Arabia, we lost 24 Americans to a Scud ballistic missile during the Iraq invasion of Kuwait," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Brit Hume of Fox News Channel. "Ten years later, we still don´t have the ability to defend against a ballistic missile, notwithstanding the fact that these capabilities are proliferating across the globe."

The president broadly sketched a "layered" missile defense system that could destroy incoming missiles from facilities on land, on sea and in space. It was a dramatic departure from the limited plan envisioned by President Clinton, who contemplated only a land-based system in Alaska.

"We must seek security based on more than the grim premise that we can destroy those who destroy us," Mr. Bush said.

"This is an important opportunity for the world to rethink the unthinkable and find new ways to keep the peace. Today´s world requires a new policy, a broad strategy of active nonproliferation, counter-proliferation and defenses."

Mr. Bush will dispatch top members of his national security team to reassure skittish allies in Europe and elsewhere that his plan is sound. But even senior members of the Bush administration acknowledged the plan will get mixed reviews.

"I think the Europeans will be open to it," Mr. Rumsfeld told Fox News. "Certainly, the Chinese will react negatively. But I think it will work its way through. It takes time to understand it."

French President Jacques Chirac has called the plan an "invitation to proliferation." But Britain has voiced sympathy for the proposals.

NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said: "The president is right to focus on these new challenges, and I welcome his commitment to close consultation."

The administration official said Mr. Bush will reach out to Moscow.

"Ideally, he´d really like to offer Russia a different vision of the relationship," the official said.

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Russian Reaction Mixed After Bush's Missile Speech

The New York Times
May 2, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-ru.html

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian politicians gave a mixed reaction on Wednesday after President Bush proposed replacing the key Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty but stopped short of pulling out of it.

There was no immediate comment from government officials but Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov was expected to make a statement later in the day.

However, Itar-Tass news agency quoted what it called a highly-placed military-diplomatic source as reminding Washington that Russia had often called for ABM -- long seen in Moscow as a bedrock of strategic stability -- to be preserved.

``The ABM treaty is truly a hurdle to a U.S. monopoly in global politics,'' the source was quoted as saying.

``Today it is clear that the new U.S. administration has set itself on the course of destroying the whole system of strategic stability, is betting on the factor of military strength in attaining global leadership,'' the source added.

That reaction contrasted with more favorable comments by ''military-diplomatic sources'' quoted on Tuesday by Interfax news agency.

``Moscow has received signals from Washington that there are forces in the American administration which understand the negative consequences of the United States taking unilateral decisions about leaving ABM and deploying a national missile defense system,'' those sources were quoted as saying.

Bush said on Tuesday he wanted to go beyond the 1972 ABM pact, which limits U.S. and Russian anti-missile systems, as the world had changed. Washington wanted to build a missile defense shield, banned in the treaty, to face new threats, he said.

Bush also promised unilateral cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, although he gave no figures.

Russia has long said any ABM change will lead to instability and a new arms race. It says the planned U.S. national missile defense would also be aimed against Moscow's nuclear force. Washington says any defense would be to stop missiles from what it calls rogue states, such as Iraq or Libya.

POLITICIANS DIFFER

``The main thing in such a situation is that the Russian Foreign Ministry and the government do not raise their arms in defeat, but behave with dignity, actively defending the national interests of our country,'' Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov was quoted by Interfax as saying on Wednesday.

The Communists lead a left-wing bloc in parliament, which could provide the base for opposition to any government efforts to push through new arms treaties with the United States.

But some Russian politicians were more conciliatory.

``Bush's statement opens the possibility for serious talks with the Americans,'' said Vladimir Lukin, a liberal deputy who is deputy speaker of the State Duma, parliament's lower house.

He was quoted by Interfax as saying Russia had to negotiate with the United States and try to get as much as possible from the talks.

``The essence of the question is important and that is maintaining the strategic balance of forces,'' he said.

Under the START-2 treaty, which Russia ratified last year, both sides pledge to slash the number of warheads from 6,000 to no more than 3,500 each by 2007.

Russia has said it is ready to go as low as 1,500 warheads in a future START-3 pact, although it has said this must be accompanied by the preservation of ABM.

-------- treaties

The History of the ABM Treaty

Wednesday, May 2, 2001
Philladelphia Inquirer
http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2001/05/02/national/NUKE02B.htm

1969: The United States and the Soviets begin Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) on limiting both offensive nuclear weapons and defenses against missile attack.

1972: Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and President Richard Nixon sign the two SALT I documents. The first limits strategic offensive weapons; the second - the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty - limits each side to two antimissile sites of 100 interceptors each, to protect one offensive missile site and each nation's capital. The ABM Treaty enshrined the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), which held that because neither superpower could defend against a nuclear attack, neither would risk launching one.

1974: The ABM Treaty is modified by a protocol reducing the number of ABM launchers and interceptors to 100, and the deployment area to only one.

1979: Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter agree on a SALT II agreement calling for further reductions in both sides' nuclear arsenals. It was never ratified by the U.S. Senate, but President Ronald Reagan agreed to abide by it until May 26, 1986, when he said the United States would shape its nuclear forces based on the strategic threat posed by the Soviet Union.

1983: Reagan announces a program to study new defenses against ballistic missile attack. It becomes known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) - "Star Wars" to critics.

1985: Nuclear and space talks open. The United States wants to change from a MAD-based policy of deterrence to reliance on defenses against ballistic missiles. Reagan advances a new interpretation of the ABM Treaty, broadening it to allow research and testing of new defensive weapons. The Soviets oppose this.

1991: The Soviet Union having crumbled, President George Bush announces that the SDI program will be used to protect against ballistic missile strikes from any source. His plan includes space-based interceptors and sensors, long-range ground-based interceptors and theater missile defenses to protect U.S. troops and installations overseas.

1993: President Bill Clinton interprets the ABM Treaty as prohibiting development, testing and deployment of sea, air, space and mobile land-based ABM systems.

2001: President George W. Bush, following in Reagan's and his father's footsteps, says he wants to replace the MAD doctrine with a greater reliance on ballistic missile defenses.

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

Nuclear Inspection Site To Close

New York Times
May 2, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Weapons-Inspectors.html?searchpv=aponline

MAGNA, Utah (AP) -- The nation's only permanent nuclear missile inspection site will close and its 30 inspectors will head back to Russia at the end of the month.

An agreement that allowed the inspection expires May 31. It was part of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed in December 1987 by President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

While U.S. inspectors monitor weapons construction in Votkinsk, Russia, rotating teams of Russian technicians have maintained the inspection outpost in the Salt Lake City suburb of Magna for the past 13 years.

The Russian inspectors will fly out of Salt Lake City on May 30, Amy Fielding, acting public relations officer for the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency, told The Salt Lake Tribune for a story in Wednesday's editions.

The treaty was the superpowers' first successful effort to monitor each other's promise to stop producing medium-range missiles and to destroy their existing arsenals of such weapons.

The Russian inspectors' main purpose was to make sure no more Pershing 2 missile motors were produced.

U.S. inspectors were stationed in Votkinsk, 600 miles east of Moscow, to ensure the Soviets were no longer making SS-20 missiles.

While the Utah site will be closed, the Russian permanent inspection site in Votkinsk will remain open, under terms of a different accord, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). That treaty, signed in July 1991 by Gorbachev and then-President George Bush, was aimed at reduction of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals to 6,000 strategic warheads each by 2002.

Fielding said the Russians had the option to stay in Utah under terms of START, but declined.

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

-------- new mexico

Bush Weapons Plan Doesn't Worry State

Wednesday, May 2, 2001
By John J. Lumpkin
Journal Staff Writer
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/321189news05-02-01.htm

The prospect of a vastly reduced nuclear arsenal didn't faze New Mexico officials, who said New Mexico is primed to take advantage of President Bush's call for missile defenses.

Bush on Tuesday outlined his plan to reduce the nation's stockpile of nuclear weapons, forgoing some offensive capability to better develop a defensive missile shield that would intercept inbound intercontinental ballistic missiles.

While New Mexico' s defense and energy lab complex is heavily into nuclear weapons, it also has ties to some missile defense efforts, predominantly shorter-range defenses.

Even drastic cuts in the nuclear arsenal wouldn't necessarily mean a decreased workload at Los Alamos and Sandia national labs, officials said.

Only if entire classes of warheads were retired would the labs see less work in the stockpile stewardship arena.

"Sandia's size and workload is not primarily dependent on the size of the stockpile but rather on the number of systems and the needed capabilities to certify them without nuclear testing," said lab director C. Paul Robinson in a statement.

It's unclear if fewer nuclear weapons would mean less work at the Air Force nuclear-weapons storage depot at Kirtland Air Force Base. The base might have fewer weapons to store, but the Bush administration might not eliminate nuclear weapons but instead transfer active ones to "reserve" status, meaning they would be taken out of silos and moved into storage, one nuclear weapons watchdog group noted.

The missile-defense aspect of the plan also has ties throughout the state.

Many of those short- and medium-range defenses are tested at White Sands Missile Range, which is too small to test ICBM interceptors. Whether those systems would be effective as a local defense against fast-falling ICBMs is unclear; they are not tested against ICBM targets because of limitations in the 1972 Antiballistic Missile treaty.

Kirtland also is home to the missile-busting Airborne Laser and Space-Based Laser antimissile programs. Although Bush's speech alluded to the Airborne Laser, which proposes to mount a laser cannon on a 747, program officials note it is unlikely the weapon has enough range to be useful against ICBM launches.

The scientific expertise at Sandia and Los Alamos is used to advise on various missile defense programs, as well, officials said.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., a member of the Armed Services Committee, was critical of the president's plan, calling instead for increased funding to prevent rogue nations from obtaining Russian nuclear weapons. Missile defenses won't stop a terrorist with a panel truck, he noted.

"I believe we must redouble our efforts to support critical nonproliferation programs with Russia as the first line of our own defense and national security interest," he said in a statement.

Republican members of the delegation were emboldened by the president's speech.

"Regardless of the type of defensive system proposed, our state has expertise in many areas necessary to achieve an effective missile defense capability," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., in a statement.

Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., said, "It's unlikely that there will be a perfect shield to protect America, but with the proliferation of missiles and weapons of mass destruction, it would be irresponsible for us not to plan for a defense."

-------- us nuc politics

Energy Amnesia

By Marjorie Williams
Wednesday, May 2, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30499-2001May1?language=printer

"To speak exclusively of conservation," Dick Cheney said on Monday, "is to duck the tough issues" involved in addressing America's burgeoning energy crisis. "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis -- all by itself -- for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."

In previewing his energy task force's recommendations, due in a report later this month, Cheney made clear that for "years down the road" the administration's emphasis will instead be on developing new energy sources -- a strategy that will include opening protected lands to oil and gas exploration, curtailing environmental rules that limit the burning of coal and the building of new refineries and pipelines, and possibly building nuclear plants for the first time in more than 20 years.

Before we surrender to this industrialist's utopia, let's take a closer look at Cheney's words on conservation: We can't rely on conservation exclusively? All by itself? These words are sleight-of-hand, clever distractions from the truth that no one, least of all the Bush administration, is talking about conservation at all.

Thirty years ago, America began to face the troubling reality that we consume vastly more energy than we can hope to develop by environmentally responsible means. The duty to conserve became a given, part of a political landscape that acknowledged limits and openly debated means and ends. The end of Bush's first 100 days seems like a good time to stop and mark the extraordinary fact that this crucial piece of common sense has simply vanished from our vision, a cultural artifact as anachronistic as the Edsel.

The Bush administration bears an important measure of the blame: Managed by a vice president who stepped down from the helm of the oil-services firm Halliburton Co., a president who began his career in the oil business and a chief of staff who used to lobby for the auto industry, this administration has shown itself to be reflexively sympathetic to the needs of those industries. As obvious a point as this may be, it bears repeating that conservation is, among other things, antithetical to the profits of those benefactors.

But the Bush administration is as much an expression as a creator of our collective amnesia. You don't see many Democrats, outside the environmental lobby, rushing to take up such causes as higher fuel efficiency standards for cars. Despite having promised, in his first campaign, to raise corporate average fuel efficiency (CAFE) standards from the current 27.5 miles per gallon to 40 mpg by 2000 and 45 mpg by 2015, President Clinton passed up any chance to advance this goal while he presided over a Democratic Congress. Vice President Al Gore, who labored under eternal suspicion in the crucial state of Michigan for his writings on the environment, responded to last year's gas price hikes in the Midwest with consumer-pitying rhetoric that touched on everything but the suggestion that Americans might drive less or consider smaller, more efficient cars.

Meanwhile, as a wonderful article by Paul Roberts in last month's Harper's reminds us, the purest sign of our flight from reality is our love affair with behemoth sport utility vehicles, which conform to the light-truck CAFE standard of 20.7 mpg. It has been estimated that a 15 percent improvement in the fuel economy of SUVs and light trucks -- less than 3 mpg -- would save more oil every year than could be produced by drilling, as Bush proposes, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Yet when Congress voted in 1999 to kill the Transportation Department's authority to raise the fuel-efficiency standards for light trucks, Clinton signed the bill into law, despite having enough Senate votes to sustain a veto. Today, largely because of our passion for monster SUVs (a Honda now in development will advertise itself as "an apartment on wheels"), overall consumer-vehicle fuel efficiency is one of the very few environmental indexes that have gotten worse during the past 15 years.

Yet there is no part of the political spectrum that seems willing to suggest that even the smallest personal sacrifices might be in order. The Democratic Party -- which thinks it a victory to counter a $1.6 trillion Republican tax cut with a cut of merely $1.2 trillion (that'll show 'em!) -- has thrown up its hands and sworn off any acts of leadership that might return it to the days of being the take-your-medicine party of Walter Mondale. Who wants to be Jimmy Carter, smiling in his cardigans and reminding us all to turn our thermostats down to 65?

In the coming months, Democrats will make piecemeal attacks on portions of the "muscular" energy policy the Bush administration has promised us. But you probably won't see anyone of political prominence question the construction that Americans are entitled, as a birthright, to as much cheap energy as we can find a use for.

----

China reality check

May 2, 2001
Tony Blankley
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20010502-91966409.htm

Last week President Bush, when asked in an interview whether America would defend Taiwan if attacked by mainland China, responded: "Yes. Whatever it takes." He and his foreign policy staff wisely spent the next 24 hours backing away from those words, and for a very good reason.

For the last two decades America has supported Taiwan, but has refused to be an automatic military guarantor of her liberty. Maintaining ambiguity has given us useful influence on both Taiwan´s and China´s policies. We have carefully avoided the mistake made by Germany before WWI, in which powerful Germany gave weak, insecure but aggressive Austria a military "blank check" and thereby let Austria precipitate the general European war WW I that destroyed three great dynasties and ended Europe´s world leadership.

Our interest in East Asia is neither a triumphant Taiwan nor a defeated China, but equilibrium (and if possible increased freedom and prosperity). Throughout that rapid and dangerously developing continent, China´s fast growing economic, diplomatic and, military strength is engendering an arms race with its neighbors. Japan is considering going nuclear despite its experience at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Feeling itself rebuffed by the United States, Russia is finding temporary comfort in the close company of her historic enemy China. The lesser countries bordering China want our help, but fear our confrontation with China: China will always be their too-powerful neighbor, while America may come and go.

To establish and maintain peaceful equilibrium in Asia, the United States must be prepared to be friendly or threatening with each of those countries, as the situation warrants. To keep our credibility, we must always maintain potent military and economic assets in the region as a bona fide of our seriousness. In short we must practice realpolitik a foreign policy based on calculations of power and American national interest. For America, which tends to like the nations of the world labeled neatly friend or foe this will not be easy. But it is necessary.

Peace can be sustained, historically, either by a power willing and able to militarily dominate its world (Pax Romana,) or by a power that uses its relative advantage to subtly manage its world (Pax Britannica). America finds itself caught in the middle: We have neither the dominating will of Rome, nor the subtlety of mind of the British. But as we are ethically and historically unsuited to Roman-style domination, we had best cultivate the feline practices of British-style diplomacy.

China, of course, tends to drive the American mind to fits of utopic or dystopic fantasy. Whether it is Pearl Buck´s gauzy paean to the noble Chinese peasant, or Gen. Douglas MacArthur´s proposal to annihilate the Red Army during the Korean War with a hail of atomic bombs, Americans can´t seem to look at China straight-on as simply another nation to pragmatically manage to our benefit.

The latest contribution to the growing collection of China fantasists is the respected Robert Kagan of the Weekly Standard, co-author on foreign policy issues with the Standard´s editor and publisher, Bill Kristol. He has an article this week in The Washington Post that attempts to bootstrap President Bush´s casual misstatement of our China/Taiwan policy into a fait accompli. Mr. Kagan would use the inexperienced president´s misspoken words to "drag the United States across the threshold from the era of illusions into the era of reality." He would end our one-China policy and cast our fate to the new reality of two Chinas, and thus commit us to fight a possibly nuclear war on behalf of 20 million Taiwanese against the billion-strong mainland. Who is the illusionist, and who the realist?

As I understand the Kagan/Kristol thesis, the historic analog to present-day China is pre-WW I Germany a growing economic and military power that was inevitably going to force a world confrontation. But this deterministic view is wrong regarding pre-war Germany, and is not yet proved right regarding China.

For the first three decades of the 50 years preceding the first world war, Germany was expansionist but limited in its aims and diplomatically cautious. It was only on the retirement of Prime Minster Prince Otto von Bismarck in 1890 and the succession to the throne of the unstable Kaiser Wilhelm II that German diplomacy descended into rigidity, blindness, egoism and unlimited belligerence. As always in history, individual decisions of particular men caused the catastrophe. Other men and other decisions would have made a different history.

So is that true for China today. The old men who rule China will be dying soon. New men may make matters worse, or better. Our job is to intelligently and coolly manage the change, while keeping our guard up. What Henry Kissinger wrote of the pre-war Germans equally could be applied to the Kristolite war planners in our midst: "In readying themselves for the worst case scenario, they helped to make it a reality."

E-mail: tonyblankley@erols.com

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

--------

Launch on Warning:
The Secret History of a Capability and a Controversey, 1959-1979

National Security Archive Update,
May 2, 2001
<http://www.nsarchive.org/NSAEBB/NSAEBB43>

* Declassified Documents Show Development of a U.S. Nuclear Posture that President Bush Has Called An "Unnecessary Vestige of Cold War Confrontation"

WASHINGTON, D.C. ­ Last year then-presidential candidate George Bush criticized the U.S.'s capability to launch nuclear-tipped missiles on warning; according to Bush, it was dangerous to keep "so many weapons on high alert" and the launch-on-warning posture could "create unacceptable risks of accidental or unauthorized launch." The Bush administration's on-going nuclear posture review has not yet let to any announcements on the alert status of U.s. strategic forces. Today, the National Security Archive has published on its World Wide Web site previously secret U.S. government documents that show how a launch-on-warning strategic posture developed over the years and how it generated controversy inside and outside the U.S. government. The declassified record shows that:

o In the fall of 1979, a specialized launch-on-warning option became part of U.S. nuclear war plans--the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP); a Strategic Air Command document provides the first declassified confirmation that U.S. nuclear planning included such an option

o Senior officials had worried for years about a launch-on-warning capability because of the possibility that a false warning could trigger an accidental nuclear war; in 1971 arms control adviser Paul H. Nitze observed that launch-on-warning would be "inexcusably dangerous"

o White House science advisers saw the possibility of a launch-on-warning capability as early as the late 1950s when they considered the potential for infra-red based systems for detecting plumes from missile launches

o By the early 1960s, U.S. ICBMs were postured for rapid launch while the SIOP included a preemptive attack option. Ongoing deployment of high-tech warning systems and R&D work on new ones led Defense officials, including Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, to conclude that they would enable decisionmakers to launch missiles on warning

o By the early 1970s, Defense Support Program (DSP) early-warning satellites were operational, giving National Command Authorities more warning time and making launch-on-warning a more robust option

o by the mid-1970s, top officials such as Secretary of State Henry Kissinger took a launch-on-warning capability for granted but wanted it to remain ambiguous in order to complicate Soviet military planning

According to Bruce Blair, director of the Center for Defense Information and one of the foremost experts on the launch on warning problem, "these documents bring to light the longstanding practice of quietly gearing the nuclear war plan for launch on warning while keeping the public and most civilian policymakers in the dark about the risk of launching on false warning."

The documents are available at the following URL: http://www.nsarchive.org/NSAEBB/NSAEBB43


-------- MILITARY

Pentagon Says It Suspended Military Contacts With China

New York Times
May 2, 2001
By CHRISTOPHER S. WREN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/world/02CND-MILI.html

The Pentagon announced today that it was suspending military contacts and programs with China, following Beijing's failure to release a United States Navy surveillance plane that landed on Hainan island a month ago after colliding with a Chinese jet fighter.

The suspension was ordered this week by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, said a Pentagon spokesman, who gave no reason for the decision. The announcement appeared to signal Washington's unhappiness with Beijing's initial refusal to return the EP-3E turboprop aircraft. The plane's 24 crew members were detained for 11 days before being allowed to leave on April 11.

The suspension order was signed Monday by Christopher Williams, a special assistant to the secretary of defense for policy matters, Reuters reported.

A team of American technicians from Lockheed Martin, the main manufacturer of the aircraft, is now in Hainan determining whether the damaged plane could be repaired sufficiently to fly out or would have to be dismantled and loaded onto a barge or inside a larger cargo aircraft.

The Pentagon spokesman, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Terry Sutherland, said in a statement, ``The Secretary of Defense has directed the suspension of all Department of Defense programs, contacts and activities with the People's Republic of China.''

The effect of the suspension was unclear, since cooperation between the Chinese and United States military has been limited at best. Such contacts were first broken off in 1989 by Washington to protest China's crackdown on demonstrating students, in which battle tanks were deployed in Tiananmen Square. Beijing later suspended military cooperation in 1999 after United States planes bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during NATO's air war over Kosovo in 1999. Washington insisted the bombing was a mistake while Beijing insisted it was intentional.

More recently, some Chinese military officers have been invited to visit the United States and at least one United States warship called at a Chinese port. Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, the Pentagon's principal spokesman, said no military contacts with China were planned for this month.

-------- colombia

In Twist, Rebels Help Drug Effort in Colombia

New York Times
May 2, 2001
By JUAN FORERO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/world/02COLO.html

GAITANIA, Colombia - The warnings were dire as President Andrés Pastrana's government, flush with American money, began an ambitious plan late last year that called on farmers to eradicate fields of coca and heroin poppies in exchange for economic aid.

Many officials in Bogotá and Washington said the rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia might resort to threats and even violence to stop farmers from cooperating. Rebel taxes on illegal crops are a major revenue source that helps finance rebel operations.

But late in April, here in the cloud-shrouded mountains where the rebel force, known as FARC, was born in 1964, farmers agreed in principle to replace poppy fields with legal crops in exchange for subsidies and technical assistance. Rebel leaders from this region of southern Tolima Province watched closely as a letter of intent, the first step toward an agreement, was signed with officials.

"They said we would not let the farmers cultivate their own crops," said a rebel leader who is in the political wing and was involved in discussions.

"But we don't reject help just because it is from the state," said the leader, whose nom de guerre is Marta. "We just want to be able to see the state support the farmers."

Although the revolutionary armed forces have not used violence to halt voluntary eradication, the rebels are apparently deeply involved in talks between the government and farmers, said local officials and farmers.

"They seem to be getting more involved, to see if something works, if it does not," said Rubén Darío Gómez, who heads a farmers' cooperative. "They say that if something is happening in an area they control, they want to be involved. Everyone knows it."

Local officials said that in meetings rebels give opinions, offer suggestions and, in some cases, shape programs. Agreements, including the one here, are forwarded to top rebel commanders for approval.

"The FARC has its positions, its own criteria, in regard to discussions about these farmers' fields," said Gerardo Montoya, a provincial official involved in the negotiations. "In the points they made, they said that the people had been cheated before and that the state has never had a presence here."

Much of the rebels' concern, said those who attended meetings, was directed at Plante, the agency that uses money from a $42 million American grant for what are called alternative development programs. The programs are intended to give farmers a year to stop their illicit crops in exchange for $900 in seeds, pesticides and technical aid to help switch crops. The government has also promised to market products and build public works.

The rebels, however, see Plante as a tool of an American policy that counts on extensive fumigation to eradicate most of the illegal crops here. In interviews here and in the coca-growing heartland of Putumayo Province, farmers also said the agency had reneged on past agreements.

The quality control coordinator for Plante, Joaquín Gómez, disagreed, saying the agency had forged bonds with farmers. He also said the rebel force had not been an impediment. "We've been able to come in," said Mr. Gómez, who was at the meetings here. "We have had access to all the zones."

Still, among some negotiators here the sense remained that the rebels could have halted the letter of intent. That is worrisome to people like Hoover Mora, a town councilman who said the rebels' forceful comments left open the possibility that they would take punitive steps.

"They say they will not stop the program," Mr. Mora said. "But they are getting involved in the oversight, and I think that is a big contradiction."

Some experts on the rebels said they were in a difficult position because they had to choose between allowing eradication and losing financing or stopping eradication programs popular with farmers and risking alienating their base of support.

-------- nato

[The editorials of the Washington Times are sometimes included in NucNews because all too often what sounds like extremism is merely a reflection of policy. We've received occasional warnings from people who dislike the Washington Times that we shouldn't be pushing their policies. Au contraire, we are giving you an opportunity to hear what's being said so you can respond. You can write to the Washington Times Letters to the Editor at letters@washingtontimes.com. et]

'Many are called'

May 2, 2001
Helle Bering

Yesterday, President Bush outlined his vision for the future of U.S. defense. Mr. Bush´s grand plan for missile defense and unilateral missile reduction will be debated among friends and foes of the United States in the days to come.

There are, however, a great many people who would have been thrilled had the president addressed in his remarks his plan for NATO. Will there be a second round of NATO enlargement in 2002? As before, NATO enlargement could be a case of, as the Bible has it, "many are called, but few are chosen." Presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers from the nine countries hoping to join, have been arriving in Washington in a steady flow in the hope of pressing their case with the White House. Those who have been given the opportunity to do so, come away with high hopes for Mr. Bush´s commitment to enlarging NATO.

So far, however, no specifics have been forthcoming from the administration. Mr. Bush is scheduled to travel to Brussels in June, before going to the European summit in Gothenberg, Sweden. Aspirant countries hope for clearer signals to emerge before then, a deadline that is fast approaching. In Bratislava, Slovenia, in early May, the Committee to Expand NATO will hold a repeat of last year´s Vilnius summit, at which foreign ministers from the nine aspirant countries got together for the first time to make the case for a NATO "Big Bang." This near-cosmic event would bring into NATO Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Macedonia and Albania in one great swoop.

One of the first leaders to have made her case with Mr. Bush was Latvian President Vaira Viki-Freiberga, who was in Washington last week. Fresh from her meeting with Mr. Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, she told me that the president "gave strong reinforcement of the open door policy, with no artificial exceptions." He also spoke of giving no country a veto over the process, which is especially important for Latvia and the other Baltic countries, whose NATO membership application is adamantly opposed by Russia. If Mr. Bush is giving that kind of encouragement, one hopes he is not doing so lightly. For the countries seeking NATO membership, it is deadly serious business.

Back in the early days of the NATO enlargement debate, former Clinton adviser Michael Mandelbaum stated that "NATO expansion is the Titanic of American foreign policy, and the iceberg on which it will founder is Baltic membership."

Yet, exactly by what right or reason the Russians object has remained unspoken. During a recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Austria, so Mrs. Viki-Freiberga says, Mr. Putin told her that Russia will oppose Latvian NATO membership with every effort and that enlargement should not be done at Russia´s expense which is interesting given that Latvia (and the other Baltic states) of course are independent and sovereign countries, free to make their own alliances.

"If you translate their objections," she says, "it is really a matter of principles. They think we are part of their near abroad. They cannot get over the fact that they rolled over us with tanks in 1940."

Russia still has not given up laying claims to that sphere of influence, which makes it all the more understandable why no country in Central or Eastern Europe has ever said it would consider EU membership a substitute for NATO. For each and every one of them, Article Five of the North Atlantic Treaty, which commits alliance members to common the defense, is the only acceptable security guarantee.

There is little doubt, however, that the case for the second round of enlargement is more complicated to make than for the initial round in May 1999. In each their own way, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, had played an important part in the fight against communism Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Poland in 1981. Add to that sizable ethnic communities in the United States, and the political equation was not difficult. In the end, 80 U.S. senators voted to ratify their accession.

The case for a second round should be as compelling. The area of instability in Central and Eastern Europe which helped start two world wars needs to be made permanently secure. As Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi told editors at The Washington Times Monday, "I am afraid there will be instability if NATO does not expand. Otherwise the countries will be disappointed and insecure. Furthermore, other people will have the same feeling" those other people would be the Russians. "The real question is how this part of Europe will be shaped in the next 20 to 25 years." That could be a proud legacy for the new American president to build.

E-mail: hbering@washingtontimes.com.

Helle Bering is editorial page editor of The Washington Times. Her column appears on Wednesdays.

-------- phillipines

'State of Rebellion' Declared After Siege at Manila Palace

New York Times
May 2, 2001
By MARK LANDLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/world/02FILI.html

MANILA, May 1 - President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared a "state of rebellion" in the Philippine capital today and ordered the arrests of opposition leaders whom she accused of conspiring to topple her fledgling government.

Her move came hours after a mob of protesters loyal to her jailed predecessor, Joseph Estrada, stormed the gates of the presidential palace, resulting in three deaths and more than a hundred injuries.

"This was a carefully planned rebellion," Mrs. Arroyo said in a televised speech. "We have the evidence. We have the proof."

By evening, the streets near Malacanang Palace were tense but calm as thousands of troops hunkered behind barricades. Earlier in the day, they dispersed 40,000 protesters sympathetic to Mr. Estrada, who was ousted in January and arrested last week on corruption charges.

The state of rebellion, which applies only to Manila, permits the authorities to arrest without a warrant anyone suspected of trying to overthrow the government.

The Justice Department immediately issued arrest orders for at least 11 opposition leaders, including two senators and the former chief of police under Mr. Estrada. By nightfall one suspect, Juan Ponce Enrile, a senator and former defense minister, had surrendered.

"The other suspects have gone underground, so there is a possibility of more violent incidents," said Roilo Golez, Mrs. Arroyo's national security adviser. "But the biggest moment of danger is behind us."

For Mrs. Arroyo, a steely economist who ascended to the presidency after Mr. Estrada was forced out in a popular uprising, the violent unrest is the most serious crisis in her 101- day-old administration.

It underscores the depth of anger felt by many poor Filipinos, who adore Mr. Estrada despite his failings and who regarded his arrest last Wednesday by armored police officers as a gross violation of his rights.

It also underscores the combustibility of politics in this country, four months after Mr. Estrada was brought down by a movement celebrated as another manifestation of "people power," much like the popular uprising that ended the dictatorship of Ferdinand E. Marcos in 1986.

On May 14 voters will elect a new Senate - a ballot that will be the first major test of Mrs. Arroyo's mandate.

"The demonstrations were funded by people with a political agenda," said Mrs. Arroyo. "It is clear that their goal is to bring down the legitimate government."

Political analysts said Mr. Estrada's allies in the Senate were stoking an anti-government backlash among the poor to help their own re-election campaigns. In addition to Senator Enrile, those candidates include Senators Gregorio Honasan and Miriam Santiago. Mr. Honasan is one of the opposition figures whose arrest was ordered, but he has disappeared.

Analysts said the pro-Estrada contingent had support from middle- ranking military officers who remained loyal to him. The military played a decisive role in Mr. Estrada's downfall, when top generals abruptly shifted their allegiance to Mrs. Arroyo, who was vice president at the time.

"It was a win-big, lose-big gamble for Enrile and company, and it looks like they lost big," said Alexander Magno, a political commentator. "President Arroyo showed she has strong command over the military."

Senior military officers pledged their loyalty to the president today. Mr. Golez, the national security adviser, said no army units had wavered, even though Mr. Enrile and Mr. Honasan had ties to the military.

Mrs. Arroyo said in an interview with CNN this evening that she did not expect to declare martial law. But she did not say when she would lift the state of rebellion. Mrs. Arroyo's spokesman, Rigoberto Tiglao, noted in an interview that the crowd had looted stores and burned cars after being dispersed.

"These armed groups will continue to sow terror," Mr. Tiglao said. "They are trying to create an impression of instability."

Outside Malacanang Palace tonight, the mayhem had subsided. Residents picked their way past smoldering hulks of cars and overturned police barricades. A few knots of young Estrada supporters loitered on street corners, peering furtively at the troops.

Among them was Hadje Tomolin, 20, who said he had been part of the crowd that seized a dump truck this morning to roll through several police lines until they got to the palace gates. Soldiers fired warning shots over the heads of the protesters, some of whom were armed with clubs scavenged from a nearby garbage dump. The troops fired several volleys of tear gas, while two helicopter gunships hovered above.

Two police officers and one protester were killed in the clashes. The Red Cross said 138 people had been injured.

"We will fight until the fight ends," Mr. Tomolin said. "We want Arroyo to step down. She was not elected by the people."

Mr. Tomolin said he had not voted for Mr. Estrada, a former action- movie hero who was elected in 1998 largely on the strength of poor voters. But he said the president's ouster and jailing on corruption charges violated the Constitution.

"He did not get due process," Mr. Tomolin said.

Mr. Estrada, who was flown to a detention center 40 miles south of Manila this morning after the unrest began, urged his supporters to stay calm. But in a statement released from jail, he held the government responsible for the violence.

Mr. Estrada, 64, has been a stubborn presence since his departure in January after he was accused of taking more than $10 million in bribes and gambling kickbacks. Despite being charged with plunder - a crime punishable by death - Mr. Estrada continues to insist that he is the duly elected president.

--------

Philippines' Arroyo Warns Against More Violence

May 2, 2001
By REUTERS

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said on Wednesday she would not tolerate street demonstrations after declaring a state of rebellion to quash violent marches by supporters of deposed leader Joseph Estrada.

``There's no need to be afraid because there's no more danger,'' Arroyo told DZMM radio. She said she had ordered security forces to arrest demonstrators.

Arroyo, a former vice president who came to power in January after Estrada was forced from office following a ''people power'' uprising led by Manila's middle class, said she would not allow any demonstrations in central Manila.

Arroyo ordered the arrest of key Estrada allies on Tuesday after thousands of his supporters -- many them from the city's slums -- tried to storm the Malacanang presidential palace.

Three people were killed and scores wounded in battles between the protesters and security forces, and the government declared the country was in a ``state of rebellion'' -- two steps away from martial law.

Estrada and his son Jinggo were arrested on corruption charges last week. Security officials said authorities were also considering whether to arrest two of Estrada's other sons -- J.V. Ejercito, a businessman who appealed to protesters not to march on Malacanang, and Jude Estrada.

``We are evaluating the possibility because we are getting mixed reports of the kind of participation that he had prior to the march...and during the march. That includes Jude Estrada also,'' National Security Adviser Roilo Golez told local television.

Calm was restored around the capital late on Tuesday but a defiant Arroyo told a radio station that Estrada's allies should not push her further.

Arroyo said she had told the hundreds of police and soldiers on duty around the city to arrest demonstrators rather than try disperse them.

``If there will be groups rising up again, arrest them -- don't disperse,'' she said.

``DON'T TEMPT ME''

The crisis began in January when Estrada, facing allegations of corruption, was swept from office by a revolt which began at the Edsa religious shrine in central Manila -- the same place Estrada supporters had gathered since his arrest on corruption charges last week.

A state of rebellion, which allows authorities to arrest suspects without a warrant, is the first of three steps allowed under the constitution. The others are suspension of habeas corpus rights and declaration of martial law.

Arroyo hinted she would not hesitate to declare martial law if challenged again.

``They should not tempt me,'' Arroyo told a radio program.

Philippine markets were impressed by Arroyo's tough talk.

The main stock index rose more than three percent. Traders said the arrest orders had put Arroyo in a positive light.

The peso, which hit a 15-week low of 51.55 to the U.S. dollar on Monday, was up to 51 in early trade amid upbeat sentiment.

Central bank governor Rafael Buenaventura said any pressure on the peso would be temporary and the currency was likely to correct itself in coming days.

ARRESTS ORDERED

Arroyo told CNN she did not think it would be necessary to declare martial law but would not say when the state of rebellion would be lifted.

On Tuesday the government moved swiftly against those accused of inciting Estrada's supporters to storm the palace.

The government ordered the arrest of four opposition politicians including former defense secretary Juan Ponce Enrile, a key figure in the 1986 ``people power'' revolt which toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

State prosecutors said the government planned to arrest Enrile and other Estrada allies Miriam Defensor Santiago and Gregorio Honasan -- all senators seeking re-election on May 14 -- and Panfilo Lacson, police chief under Estrada.

Santiago's son said she would file a Supreme Court injunction against the arrest order later on Wednesday. He said she did not fear she would be arrested when she went to the court.

``She might be...but so be it,'' Caesar Santiago told Reuters.

The crackdown against Estrada allies widened on Wednesday. National Security Adviser Golez said more arrest orders would be issued for opposition figures accused of inciting the pro-Estrada crowd.

``They manipulated the emotions of people there who are very sympathetic to the former president into an emotion of hate that resulted in this violent march that almost toppled Malacanang palace,'' he said.

Estrada was flown from a military hospital to a maximum security detention center south of Manila when the trouble flared on Tuesday.

He faces a range of charges including economic plunder, which is punishable by death or life imprisonment.

Estrada denies any wrongdoing and maintains he is still the rightful president.

-------- puerto rico

[Someone please respond to Washington Times: <a href="mailto:letters@washingtontimes.com">letters@washingtontimes.com</a>]

Vieques Island: Peace vs. quiet

May 2, 2001
Jack Spencer
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20010502-308303.htm

It seems the government of Puerto Rico is making some noise about noise. Puerto Rican officials recently filed a lawsuit to stop the Navy from resuming bombing practices on the nearby island of Vieques. Their argument: The drills violate anti-noise laws, including the 1972 federal Noise Control Act, and a brand-new Puerto Rican law that limits noises over beaches and surrounding waters.

It´s a clever tactic by the U.S. territory, which has been trying to kick the Navy out for years. But this debate is about much more than peace and quiet on Vieques, an island 10 miles off the Puerto Rican coast. It´s about maintaining the readiness levels of U.S. forces which are already dangerously low and preserving our ability to keep peace in the world.

If this appears a bit overstated, then consider a few of the reasons the Navy has used Vieques as a training area for more than six decades.

For one, it´s crucial to U.S. military operations. It´s the only training area in the entire Atlantic Ocean where the Navy and Marines can engage in land, air and sea exercises that closely simulate combat. That makes it the "crown jewel" and the "world standard" of military training areas, according to former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jay Johnson.

In addition, Vieques´ size makes it ideal for moving Marines and firing guns from ships and planes without harming the island´s 9,300 citizens, who live more than eight miles away from the bombing area. One civilian, tragically, did die when a U.S. fighter pilot mistook a watchtower where the civilian was standing guard for a target. However, that death two years ago is the only one logged during more than 60 years of training at Vieques.

The island also is outside commercial airline routes, so fighter pilots can fly at the same altitudes they would reach in combat. And ships can sail in the deep water around Vieques to fire at targets, while avoiding commercial shipping lanes.

Yet another advantage is that Vieques is close to Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico, which employs 2,000 civilians. Roosevelt Roads is the headquarters of the U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command, a main link between the U.S. Navy and the navies of South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The base there is used for drug-fighting operations, humanitarian missions and navy-to-navy exercises, but the Navy would likely leave Roosevelt Roads if it cannot train at Vieques.

Nevertheless, the concerns of the citizens of Puerto Rico shouldn´t be ignored. There are several ways President Bush can show Puerto Rico that the Navy´s presence at Vieques benefits everyone.

He can start by assuring the island´s residents that Washington takes their concerns seriously, and that the Defense Department will continue studying the impact of training exercise on Vieques. One recent review conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University found no connection between the bombing drills and health problems that some say are caused by the staged explosions.

President Bush can also assure residents that training exercises will occur only at predictable times and that the Navy will take extra measures to protect them.

In addition, the president should insist that the Navy make greater efforts to ensure long-term economic growth on the island. While the Navy has supported more than 20 economic development programs on Vieques over the past two decades, more can be done to help residents improve manufacturing, job training and tourism.

However, the president must make clear that global security and stability requires the Navy and the Marines to continue their training exercises at Vieques.

President Bush must balance the concerns of the people of Vieques with his concerns over the readiness of the U.S. armed forces. If the Navy leaves, the people of Vieques and many other Puerto Rican citizens would lose a valuable ally in improving their economic viability. And Americans would lose a training area that assures the quality of our nation´s fighting forces. That´s a high price and it´s worth making some noise about.

Jack Spencer is a defense policy analyst in the Davis Institute for International Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

-------- space

As Shuttle Returns to Earth, Tourist Adjusts to Space Station

New York Times
May 2, 2001
By WARREN E. LEARY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/science/02NASA.html

WASHINGTON, May 1 - avoiding rain and wind in Florida, the space shuttle Endeavour landed today in the Mojave Desert of California as crews aboard the International Space Station enjoyed a relaxed workload while entertaining the first space tourist.

The Endeavour, with its crew of seven, landed at Edwards Air Force Base at 12:10 p.m. eastern time, completing a successful 12-day mission to the station. Rain and wind at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida prevented a landing there, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration opted to bring the ship down at Edwards, where skies were sunny and clear.

The shuttle delivered a $1 billion, Canadian-made 58-foot robotic arm and about 6,000 pounds of supplies to the space station. It stayed an extra day to help the station recover from severe computer problems last week that affected its main command and control system.

All three computers at the station were working today, but not at peak capacity. Astronauts aboard and technicians on the ground continued to troubleshoot problems with software and hard-disk storage devices.

Capt. Kent V. Rominger of the Navy, the Endeavour's commander, acknowledged the mission's difficulties after leading his crew home, saying, . "It's great to be back, and we want to express our gratitude to all the folks on the ground who made that mission pull off like it did."

Aboard the space station, the crew of Yury V. Usachev, the Russian commander, and two Americans, Col. Susan B. Helms of the Air Force and James S. Voss, worked a more relaxed schedule after a hectic week.

Even before the computer troubles, the crew was to have had a reduced workload this week because Dennis Tito, the American financier, is aboard, part of the three-man crew of a Soyuz spacecraft that arrived on Sunday to trade their ship for an older one that has been the station's lifeboat for six months.

Mr. Tito said today at a Russian news conference that his visit was more exciting than he had imagined. "I will do my best to communicate to people how great an experience this is," he said. "One does not have to be superhuman to adapt to space.

"It's very doable. Unfortunately, it's very expensive at this point, but there are others who can afford this, and I would like to encourage it."

Mr. Tito praised the astronauts at the station, saying he had been made to feel at home.

Mr. Tito said he had a brief bout with space sickness, the nausea and vomiting that strikes many first- time astronauts as they adjust to weightlessness, in the two days between the Soyuz liftoff and the docking with the station. He said he had felt fine since.

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

Annan Calls for Cuts in Lebanon

New York Times
May 2, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-UN-Lebanon.html

UNITED NATIONS -- Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday recommended cutting the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon by more than half by next summer, despite continued violations of the U.N.-drawn boundary between Lebanon and Israel.

The U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, was charged with three jobs: verifying an Israeli pullout, assisting Lebanon in reasserting authority in the area and helping to restore peace.

The force stood at 5,800 troops in January and is currently being reduced to 4,500 troops, the level before Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon last May.

With two of the jobs completed, Annan proposed that the force be cut to 3,600 troops in the fall, and to about 2,000 by the end of July 2002 unless there is ``a drastic change'' in the region.

The secretary-general said in a report to the U.N. Security Council that the situation in Lebanon remains ``essentially unchanged'' since late January, when he described conditions as generally ``calm and orderly.''

Still, nearly a year after Israel's pullout, there are still ``frequent minor ground violations'' of the U.N.-drawn boundary, primarily from Lebanon, and almost daily violations by Israeli aircraft that penetrate deep into Lebanese airspace, Annan said.

Hezbollah guerrillas, who fought Israel's 18-year occupation, remain the real authority in much of the border area, despite Security Council demands that Lebanese troops take control of all territory vacated by Israel.

Israel entered Lebanon in 1978 and launched a full-scale invasion in 1982. From 1985 until its withdrawal, Israel occupied part of southern Lebanon as a buffer against guerrilla attacks on northern Israel. UNIFIL was set up in 1978.

Pending a comprehensive Mideast peace settlement, the force will try to maintain the cease-fire using a combination of unarmed observers and armed infantry units, Annan said.

U.N. peacekeepers will also maintain contact with the Israelis and Lebanese ``with a view to correcting violations and preventing escalation,'' he said.

Acting U.S. Ambassador James Cunningham, the current Security Council president, said members will discuss Annan's report May 15.

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

Pentagon Panel Defends Osprey

MAY 02, 02:55 EST
By EUN-KYUNG KIM
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/main.html?FRONTID=ELECTION&STORYID=APIS7BNQUPO0

WASHINGTON (AP) - Changes to make the V-22 Osprey safe for flight could take as little as a year to put in place, but rigorous testing is needed before the troubled aircraft can begin daily use, says a Pentagon-appointed panel.

``The most important thing we could say is that there's no evidence of any fundamental flaw'' in the V-22's unique helicopter-like design, said Norman Augustine, a member of a panel assigned to review the Osprey program after 23 Marines were killed last year in two fatal crashes.

Serious concerns about the aircraft's safety and design led the panel to recommend the program continue production at a ``minimum sustaining level'' until changes can be made.

The Marines want to build more than 450, but only eight have been built and the few still capable of flying have been grounded since last December.

``This is an aircraft that in terms of reliability and maintainability is not ready for operational use or production,'' Augustine said during his testimony Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Still, he and other panel members stressed that the Osprey was the best aircraft suited for Marine missions.

The Osprey uses what is called a tilt-rotor concept. It has the unique ability to take off like a helicopter, rotate its propellers 90 degrees and fly like an airplane. The Marine Corps hopes to use the Ospreys to replace its aging fleet of helicopters, which are considerably slower and louder.

``This thing is a national asset,'' said panel member James Davis, a retired Air Force general.

Panel chairman John Dailey, a retired Marine general, called the Osprey a ``breakthrough technology that is important to this country and our future.''

Committee members generally agreed, although most expressed concern about the aircraft's safety record and questioned why certain mechanical problems discovered before the crashes were not addressed.

Among the problems cited in the panel's report were a glitch in the aircraft's computer software and a need to redesign the inside the plane's engine casing, where mechanics have found hydraulic problems. The plane also needs more rigorous testing before it can be considered for day-to-day use, the panel said.

Committee Chairman Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said the Osprey represents a unique technology.

``I must question, however, whether the increased performance is worth the additional costs, and apparently the increased risk, to those who must operate these aircraft,'' he said.

Quizzing each panel member on how long it would take before the Osprey could resume full production, Warner received nearly identical responses.

``Optimistically, I think it can be done in the neighborhood of a year. And pessimistically, I think it can be done in perhaps two years,'' said member Eugene Covert, professor emeritus of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who said the Osprey program was operating ``under a significant cloud of doubt,'' repeatedly inquired about tactics military leaders may have used to get the aircraft into use.

``You do not believe that the amount of pressure to get this program to full-scale production was unusual or inappropriate?'' he asked Gen. James L. Jones, the Marine Corps commandant.

Jones said he did not.

``We're certainly anxious to be able to provide the replacement aircraft for our aging aircraft, but I would draw the line that we would either knowingly or intentionally or recklessly accelerate the development of a program - thereby placing passengers at risk or crews at risk,'' he said.

A separate investigation is being conducted by the Defense Department's inspector general's office, which is looking into allegations that service members were instructed by their superiors to falsify Osprey maintenance records to cover up problems with the aircraft.

Levin called the investigation important because ``only an external review of the allegations about the program can re-establish confidence in the program on the part of the Congress, the public, the military and the families of lost loved ones.''

----

Pentagon dumps Chinese berets

May 2, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/world/02BERE.html
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010502-54122440.htm

Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, reversed policy last night and said his soldiers will not wear any of about 618,000 black berets being made in a low-wage factory in communist China.

Faced with mounting criticism from Congress, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said he was directing the military to reclaim issued berets from the troops.

"The Army chief of staff has determined the U.S. troops shall not wear berets made in China or berets made with Chinese content," Mr. Wolfowitz said in a statement last night. "Therefore, I direct the Army and the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to take appropriate action to recall previously distributed berets and dispose of the stock."

In another move yesterday, the Pentagon acknowledged to The Washington Times that it had canceled contracts with three other companies for more than 1.5 million foreign-made black berets due to poor workmanship and tardy deliveries.

A DLA spokeswoman said yesterday that the three contracts canceled on Monday were for berets from Romania, South Africa and India. She said the deals were terminated due to late deliveries and substandard work.

Mr. Wolfowitz´s one-sentence statement did not say why the Pentagon was rejecting the $4 million worth of Chinese-made berets after receiving about half of the order from the plant four months ago.

But the Army and Pentagon had been under intense criticism in Congress -- and faced ridicule in the media -- for having part of the Army uniform made in a country that has threatened the United States with military strikes, has held hostage the crew of a downed U.S. reconnaissance plane, and could one day be fighting with American troops over Taiwan.

The Army also released a statement last night saying Gen. Shinseki intends to continue his policy, announced in October, of issuing a black beret to virtually every soldier and will try to meet his June 14 deadline.

Mr. Wolfowitz said the soldiers would not wear berets with "Chinese content." This means the DLA may also have to dispose of all 240,000 berets made in Sri Lanka since they contain Chinese leather.

Adding to the anger over the beret buy is the fact the Pentagon waived a "buy American" law and contracted for most of 4.7 million berets with companies operating Third World factories.

The no-Chinese-beret decision came on the eve of testimony today by Gen. Shinseki and top Pentagon officials before the House Small Business Committee.

A House Armed Services Committee report obtained by The Times charged that the Pentagon sidestepped a key provision of the law it must meet before awarding clothing contracts to overseas plants.

The Army´s desire to have soldiers making the symbolic uniform change by June 14, the service´s birthday, forced the DLA to waive the "buy American" law.

In a House floor speech before Gen. Shinseki´s order last night, Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr., North Carolina Republican and House Armed Services Committee member, called on the Army to terminate the entire beret program.

"The bottom line is that we have troops without adequate ammunition and pilots who can´t fly because of a lack of funds, so why in the world would the Army spend $23 million to change the color of a hat on the whim of one general?" said Mr. Jones.

"The decision regarding the change from folding green hats to black berets appears to be dying a slow death," Mr. Jones added. "The time to bring an end to this ill-fated decision has come."

Besides the "buy American" issue, the Army caught flak from special operations soldiers for giving the Rangers´ exclusive black beret to nearly every soldier. Gen. Shinseki eventually compromised by authorizing Rangers to wear tan berets, after President Bush told Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to review the matter. Sen. Christopher S. Bond, Missouri Republican, said yesterday he has won a commitment from the Pentagon that future beret replacements will be U.S.-made.

"They have to replenish the supplies of berets repeatedly as they go forward and they´re saying they are going to establish a network of small business-based providers who will be offered opportunities to make replacements," said Craig Orfield, Mr. Bond´s spokesman.

Mr. Orfield said the agreement was reached in a meeting between staffers for the Senate Small Business Committee, which Mr. Bond heads, and two senior officials: Lt. Gen. Henry T. Glisson, the DLA´s director, and David Oliver, acting undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.

The spokesman also said the two agreed that future waivers of the federal "Berry Amendment," which requires American military uniforms to be made in the United States, will need the undersecretary´s approval.

"Waiving the Berry Amendment is a sensitive issue that is not routine," Mr. Bond said. "It is a decision to be made by senior officials who answer to the Congress. It should not be delegated to lower-level staff not fully versed in the broader implications of such a step."

----

Army Recalling China-Made Black Berets

May 2, 2001
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON, May 1 - Facing growing criticism from Congress, the Army has decided to recall and dispose of hundreds of thousands of black berets made in China, officials announced today.

Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, ordered the move after lawmakers voiced concerns that the purchase appeared to violate federal rules to buy American-made products if they are available.

"The Army chief of staff has determined that U.S. troops shall not wear berets made in China or berets made with Chinese content," the deputy secretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz, said in a statement today.

Pentagon officials said the standoff with China over the detention last month of the crew of an American surveillance plane had increased the pressure to cancel the beret deal.

The House Armed Services Committee held a briefing last week to address members' concerns that the Army was violating rules to "buy American," officials said.

The Army has countered that its decision to buy the berets from China and Sri Lanka, Romania, Canada and South Africa was in response to a tight deadline it set to acquire 1.3 million berets by June 14, the Army's birthday. One American manufacturer is furnishing some of the berets, officials said.

--------

Defense Dept. Is Studying Alternatives to the Osprey

The New York
May 2, 2001
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/national/02OSPR.html

WASHINGTON, May 1 - The Pentagon has begun studying alternatives to the Marine Corps' crash- plagued V-22 Osprey amid continuing concerns about production delays, high costs and safety issues with the innovative aircraft, officials said today.

The study comes as Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Congress weigh whether to delay, scale back or kill the $40 billion program, which experienced two crashes last year that killed a total of 23 marines.

Many Pentagon officials say they think the program will be continued, but at a slower pace to accommodate additional testing and design changes, as was recommended by a panel of experts last week.

In testimony before two Congressional committees today, the four members of the V-22 panel estimated that changes to the program could take two years to complete, which would force the Marines to operate their Vietnam War-era helicopters longer than they had planned.

But the panel's chairman, John R. Dailey, a retired Marine general, told members of both the House and Senate armed services committees that the panel had unanimously concluded that the Osprey could be made safe and that it remained the best aircraft for the Marines' mission.

"There are none that will actually do the mission" better than the V-22, General Dailey said. "There are combinations of aircraft that could do parts of it. But no single aircraft could meet the entire requirement" except the Osprey.

But some aeronautics experts and Pentagon officials continue to raise concerns about the aircraft, which can take off and land like a helicopter and cruise like an airplane.

Those critics say the Osprey has very limited ability to crash-land safely after losing power, may be difficult to maneuver while carrying heavy loads and can become dangerously unstable, particularly when it is hovering or descending at steep angles while flying at low speeds.

Mr. Rumsfeld has yet to make public his views on the Osprey. But the Pentagon study of alternatives is intended to provide him a variety of options, defense officials said. The study, which is not expected to be finished until summer, is being overseen by the Pentagon's office of program analysis and evaluation.

Among those options would be to have the Marines buy more helicopters and fewer V-22's, which at their current price of about $60 million each are more expensive than any other military helicopter. The Marines had planned to buy 360 Osprey to replace all of their CH-46E and CH-53D helicopters.

Some experts contend the V-22 should be limited to ferrying troops for long distances because it can fly faster, farther and quieter, and carry more troops, than any helicopter. Shorter-range missions involving more vertical flight could be left to less expensive helicopters, these experts argue.

"Basically, there is no other machine that can behave as efficiently in vertical flight as a helicopter," said Alfred Gessow, professor emeritus of aerospace engineering at the University of Maryland.

Among the alternatives suggested by Dr. Gessow was the EH-101, a European helicopter that is faster and larger and able to fly farther than almost any American-made helicopter. Defense officials said the Pentagon was reviewing the EH-101.

In today's hearings, members of the V-22 panel said they considered the V-22 a major advance in technology that would benefit the military. But the members also said that the Marines had rushed the program toward production and that the aircraft needed to be redesigned to reduce hydraulics problems. They urged the Pentagon to put the aircraft through much more rigorous software and aerodynamics tests.

"It's important to realize the V-22 is an entirely new kind of machine," said Eugene E. Covert, a retired professor of aeronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "There is tendency to look at this as just another airplane. I think that's a bad thing to do."

In the Senate hearing, Gen. James L. Jones, the Marines commandant, denied allegations that top Marine officials had pressured their subordinates to push the Osprey into production before it was ready. Accusations of such pressure are the subject of a criminal investigation by the Department of Defense inspector general.

"I would draw the line that we would either knowingly or intentionally or recklessly accelerate the development of a program, thereby placing passengers at risk or crews at risk," General Jones said.

----------

U.S. Halts China Military Contacts

May 2, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-China.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon has suspended all contacts with China's military, apparently in response to Chinese handling of the U.S. Navy spy plane incident. Officials said Wednesday it was not clear how the action would affect efforts to get the plane back.

The suspension had been ordered Monday by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and took effect immediately, said Army Lt. Col. Steve Campbell, a Pentagon spokesman. It affects not just the U.S. military services but also the Defense Department's senior civilian leaders, he said.

Pentagon officials said they could not immediately explain the reason for Rumsfeld's action or its timing. At the White House, several officials in President Bush's press operation said they knew nothing about it, even as the news first leaked from the Pentagon.

In a memo to the military service secretaries, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and senior civilian officials of the Pentagon, Rumsfeld directed ``the suspension of all Department of Defense programs, contacts and activities with the People's Republic of China until further notice.''

He said defense attaches abroad will be permitted to attend social functions, as part of their usual activities, in which Chinese officials may be present.

The suspension became public on the day that a team of U.S. civilian defense contractors arrived in China to assess what would be required to return the Navy surveillance plane that made an emergency landing at a military airfield on Hainan island on April 1 after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet.

The Lockheed Martin technicians spent about four hours aboard the Navy plane on Wednesday to begin their assessment. They were to return to the plane for a final day of work on Thursday.

It was not immediately clear how Rumsfeld's order affects the U.S. defense attache and other military representatives in Beijing who have been closely involved in the plane incident. It also was unclear whether the Bush administration would go ahead with a meeting of the U.S.-China Military Maritime Commission that was to discuss issues related to the surveillance plane. No date had been set for the meeting but the Pentagon had indicated it might be this month.

In a brief appearance before reporters earlier Wednesday in which he was asked about the status of the spy plane, Rumsfeld made no mention of having suspended contacts with China.

He said it wasn't clear whether the plane would be flown off the island or, alternatively, be disassembled and brought by ship or air.

``There's an assessment team on the ground at the present time,'' he said. ``We've received some reports back, but there's nothing conclusive on that point.''

Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, said there were no military-to-military contacts with China scheduled for May, and the Pentagon had said previously it was going to reconsider how to proceed after this month.

Thus, no planned contacts or activities have been canceled as a result of Rumsfeld's order, Quigley said, with the exception of U.S. attendance at a multinational military conference in Asia.

Quigley said there were no U.S. ship visits to Chinese ports scheduled for May. The last one was at Hong Kong just days before the collision between the EP-3E Aries II surveillance plane and the Chinese fighter jet.

The suspension of contacts is the latest in a series of ups and downs between the U.S. and Chinese military establishments.

The Pentagon broke off ties after the Chinese military's deadly 1989 crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square, and contacts had just begun to grow again when they were halted in 1996 after China lobbed missiles toward Taiwan.

Beijing broke off military ties in early 1999 after U.S. planes bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during NATO's campaign against Slobodan Milosevic. The Chinese never accepted the U.S. explanation that it was an accident, and didn't resume defense relations for several months.

Just last month, shortly after the collision near Hainan island, Quigley defended the military-to-military program.

Despite the diplomatic tensions of the moment, the exchange program is ``still worth pursuing'' because it fosters communication between officers from the two nations and helps each side understand how the other thinks, Quigley said April 9.

Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek contributed to this story.

--------

U.S. Navy's Loud Ocean Sonar Draws Intense Objections

May 2, 2001
ENS
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/may2001/2001L-05-02-05.html

SILVER SPRING, Maryland, Tomorrow, the last of three public hearings will be held on the U.S. Navy's application for permission to "take" marine mammals during a five year deployment of low frequency active sonar (LFAS) in 80 percent of the world's oceans.

The hearing will take place at the Silver Springs headquarters of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). The Humane Society of the U.S., Friends of the Earth, Animal Welfare Institute, Defenders of the Wildlife, and the Natural Resources Defense Council will be there to object.

U.S. Navy ship equipped with low frequency sonar (Photo courtesy Federation of American Scientists)

Low frequency active sonar is based on the fact that very low frequency sound [100-1000 Hz] can travel great distances and detect quiet submarines. The system uses intense sound. The Navy has given a figure of sounds as loud as 235 decibels generated by massive sound transmitters towed behind TAGOS-class ships. The noise level of a jet engine is about 120 decibels.

The Navy claims this technology is necessary to detect newer, more silent submarines. Yet critics say that advances in passive listening devices mean that the Navy can now rapidly deploy passive devices that can detect the same silent submarines.

A NMFS permit would allow the Navy to "take," defined as "harrass, injure or kill" marine mammals as a consequence of deploying the system.

Hearings took place in Los Angeles on April 26 and in Honolulu on April 28.

In Los Angeles, actor Pierce Brosnan joined with environmentalists, including Joel Reynolds of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Jean-Michel Cousteau of Ocean Futures, to oppose the sonar system.

Environmentalists are asking for congressonal oversight hearings into the Navy's entire antisubmarine warfare program, particularly the environmental impacts of the high intensity sonar systems. They are urging termination of all funding for low frequency active sonar.

Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, announced in Los Angeles that she expects a subcommittee on which she serves to hold oversight hearings later this year.

At an emotional hearing in Honolulu, the comments of 50 speakers ranged from technical criticisms of inadequacies in the environmental impact statement to spiritual presentations.

A representative of Congresswoman Patsy Mink, a Democrat, read a very strong statement opposing deployment, calling for further extension of the comment period, and calling for another hearing to be convened on Maui because she has been receiving hundreds of letters from her constituents there.

Hawaii attorney Lanny Sinkin opposes the sonar system and brought the lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service that resulted in this set of public hearings.

Diver's light reveals humpback whale and her calf (Photo courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA))

"The U.S. Navy's new low frequency active (LFA) sonar is a serious threat to the health of marine mammals, particularly whales, and other marine life," he wrote in an editorial in the "Honolulu Advertiser."

"A NATO LFA exercise in 1998 left numerous dead beaked whales on the coast of Greece. LFA testing off the Island of Hawaii in 1998 caused humpback whales to leave the test area, apparently resulted in separation of whale and dolphin calves from their mothers, and seriously injured a snorkeler in the water," Sinkin wrote.

Low frequency active sonar has been under development for more than a decade, and has been tested about 25 times over 7,500 hours in several oceans since 1988.

Sinkin points out that the Navy invested more than $350 million preparing to deploy low frequency active sonar before preparing the legally required environmental impact statement (EIS). "When the threat of legal action forced the Navy to prepare an EIS," Sinkin wrote, "the resulting document is, not surprisingly, designed to justify deployment rather than illuminate the truth."

But Vice Admiral James Amerault, deputy chief of naval operations, fleet readiness and logistics, testified March 20 before the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support of the Senate Armed Services Committee on military readiness, said, "The $350 million Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) Low Frequency Active Sonar Operations sonar, an anti-submarine sensor system, already in use by Russia and France, has not been deployed despite the positive results of a two year Navy funded research project demonstrating the environmental compliance of the system."

Navy personnel watch sonar screens (Photo courtesy U.S. Navy)

"There have been at least four lawsuits challenging the conduct of marine mammal research with SURTASS LFA sonar in the Hawaiian Islands," Amerault said. "To date, we have expended over $10 million in the collection of data and the preparation of a worldwide Environmental Impact Statement. We have engaged reputable marine mammal scientists nominated by the Natural Resources Defense Council to act as independent advisors and have included substantial mitigation in the deployment plan. Deployment of the system is still uncertain because of the likelihood of lawsuits, the non-concurrence of the California Coastal Commission, and NOAA Fisheries' unwillingness to provide a "take" permit for a large area of the eastern Pacific until California Coastal Commission concurrence is obtained."

In Honolulu, the hearing was conducted by Kenneth Hollingshead of the National Marine Fisheries Service who ruled that testimony on human injuries from sonar would not be relevant.

Sinkin challenged his attempt to exclude testimony on human injury on two grounds. First, if the technology is dangerous to humans, NMFS should take that into account in evaluating the Navy conclusion that the technology is harmless to cetaceans and other ocean life. Second, if the EIS contains false treatment of the evidence on human injury, as Sinkin claims it does, then the credibility of the EIS in its entirety is called into question.

The EIS excludes the statement provided in federal court during the Hawaiian litigation in which Dr. Kurt Fristrup, one of the scientists involved in the research, admitted that Chris Reid - the snorkeler traumatized by an LFA broadcast - had been exposed to a 125 decibel sound transmission. Excluding this evidence, the EIS concluded that there was no credible evidence that any human had been injured by a broadcast.

Humpback whale breaches (Photo by Commander John Bortniak courtesy NOAA)

The spiritual presentations focused on the respect that should be shown for beings here far longer than humans, with larger brains than humans, with highly complex language that humans do not understand, and with capabilities that humans have not yet developed. That these creatures live in peace and harmony with their environment should be honored and protected, not studied to determine how much they can be disturbed to pursue human war follies, Hawaiian speakers said.

Although operations are based in Norfolk Virginia, SURTASS routinely operates from ports in Glasgow, Scotland; Rota, Spain; Yokohama, Japan; Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Port Huneme, California; and many other ports of opportunity.

The deadline for filing comments with NMFS on deployment of the Navy's low frequency active sonar systems is May 18. Comments should be sent to: Donna Wieting, Chief, Marine Mammal Conservation Division, Office of Protected Resources, National Marine Fisheries Service, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910-3226. Fax: 301-713-0376. Reference Docket No. 990927266-0240-02.

For a technical discussion of SURTASS, visit the Federation of American Scientists at: http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/surtass.htm


-------- OTHER

-------- environment

White House Considering Plan to Void Clinton Rule on Forests

The New York Times
May 2, 2001
By DOUGLAS JEHL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/politics/02FORE.html

WASHINGTON, May 1 - The White House is considering a move to delay indefinitely a Clinton administration plan to put a third of national forest land off limits to new development, officials said today.

Under the new plan being considered, rules for development on that land would give more latitude to logging, oil and gas exploration, fire prevention and local decision-making. Though Bush administration officials emphasized that no decision had been made and that several options were being considered, the administration faces a Friday deadline for a statement to a federal judge in Idaho who is hearing a challenge to the Clinton rule.

The new administration has already postponed until May 12 the enactment of the Clinton plan while it conducts a full-scale review.

In appearing to lay the groundwork for a revision, officials, in discussions with environmental groups and in interviews in the last week, have called particular attention to objections raised in April by Judge Edward J. Lodge of Federal District Court in Boise, who is hearing the challenges to the Clinton rule.

Dan Bartlett, an aide to President Bush, said in an interview on Monday, "Anybody who has read the court ruling has seen that the judge is highly critical of the process."

Mr. Bartlett was referring to an April 5 order by Judge Lodge that postponed until Friday a ruling on a request by the State of Idaho and Boise Cascade, the timber giant, for an injunction that would block the Clinton rule from taking effect.

Judge Lodge said he saw no need for immediate action because the rules had not yet taken effect. But he did denounce as "grossly inadequate" the process used to develop the rules, saying they represented "an obvious violation" of the federal law that requires public participation in rule-making procedures related to environmental law.

Alaska, Colorado, Idaho and Utah have already complained in federal court that their objections to the Clinton plan were ignored. The plan would put nearly 60 million acres of national forest off limits to road- building and most logging.

But in response, Democrats and their allies among environmentalists have noted that the proposed rule prompted more than one million public comments - the vast majority of them favorable - before it became final in January.

"This is right at the top of the list of environmental issues, and the audience for this is very, very big," Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, said today in a telephone interview.

More than 100 Democratic lawmakers have signed a letter urging President Bush to uphold the Clinton policy, a spokesman for Mr. Miller said. Twenty-two Republican representatives, including Sherwood Boehlert of New York, sent Mr. Bush a letter in March that also urged him to keep the Clinton rules.

Critics of the plan have said that most of those public comments were e-mail messages generated by environmental groups, and they have complained that Western governors and other lawmakers who have a direct interest in the fate of public lands in their states were offered little voice in the decision-making.

The Clinton administration issued its decision on Jan. 5, 15 days before Mr. Clinton left office. The Bush administration, asked to defend the rule before Judge Lodge, has not taken a position.

Last week, environmental leaders were invited to meet with administration officials involved in the decision, including Dale Moore, the chief of staff to Ann M. Veneman, the new agriculture secretary, and Dale Bosworth, the new Forest Service chief.

The environmental representatives, including Bill Meadows, president of the Wilderness Society, said they were politely received but heard nothing to indicate that the administration might accede to their requests to uphold the Clinton policy.

In choosing how to address the forest-management issue, the administration has a variety of options, but in interviews this week, environmental leaders and administration officials said they believed a likely approach would be to find a middle ground. They said they believed the White House would hold out the prospect that its review might recommend even more protection for some forests than the Clinton plan did, by suggesting that Congress designate them wilderness areas.

But critics of the administration said the trade-off would be a reduction of restrictions on other forests, particularly those most prized for logging and energy development.

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Con Ed to Use a Generator That Spews Air Pollution

New York Times
May 2, 2001
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/nyregion/02POWE.html

ALBANY, May 1 - Consolidated Edison plans to restart the most polluting power plant in New York City, a small, dormant generator in Brooklyn. State regulators, eager to increase the city's power supply, have tentatively agreed to let it resume operation without an environmental review.

The plant, a part of the Hudson Avenue Generating Station, near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, was built in 1951, long before there were emissions standards. It burns oil, a much dirtier fuel than the natural gas used by newer plants.

Resuming the plant's operation reflects the delicate balance the state and utilities face in trying to find as many electricity sources as possible in case of potential power shortages this summer.

"The reason that we want to restart the plant is the power situation in the city," said Peter Lanahan, vice president for environmental health and safety at Con Edison, citing warnings of possible power shortages this summer or next. Restarting the plant would also allow the company to reap a small share of the windfall that power-plant owners have gained in the last year from high electricity prices.

But environmentalists point out that the plant, at 60 megawatts, would produce a tiny fraction of the city's peak daily power need of more than 10,000 megawatts. The plant would create more pollution, per pound of fuel consumed or per megawatt of power produced, than any other power plant in the city, according to data compiled by the federal and state governments, and an analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council. There are several much larger plants that emit more pollution, but they also produce far more electricity.

Environmentalists and some state legislators argue that reviving the plant would be illegal. They have complained to the state that the project circumvented rules on obtaining permits for sources of pollution, that it must undergo a complete environmental impact review, and that it might be subject to the same stringent emissions standards as a new plant faces. "We think the way they're going about this violates all sorts of laws," said Keri Powell, a lawyer with the New York Public Interest Research Group.

Con Edison mothballed the plant in 1997, and applied to the state for emissions credits that it earned by eliminating a source of air pollution. Under the emissions credit program, companies that violate clean air standards can use the credits to keep their plants running. But in a novel twist, Con Edison, rather than selling the credits, proposes to use them to obtain a state permit to restart the same plant.

Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, the author of the state law on pollution credits, said those credits could be earned only when a source of pollution is eliminated permanently. "So what they're doing is patently illegal," he said.

"That's not our understanding," Mr. Lenahan said, adding that the company knows of no requirement that a plant be closed forever to earn credits. He said that the plant meets "all of the applicable air standards." Plants built before 1970 do not have to meet the current standards.

The Department of Environmental Conservation, the state agency that has given tentative approval to reopening the plant, would not comment directly on Hudson Avenue or its handling of Con Edison's application. But a department spokeswoman, Jennifer Post, noted that the level of smog in New York City had declined sharply in the last decade - although it continues to violate federal clean-air standards - and that Gov. George E. Pataki has pledged that the state will demand sharp emissions cuts from older power plants, starting in 2003.

"New York has some of the strictest standards in the nation, requiring utilities to emit far less pollutants than utilities in virtually any other state outside the Northeast," she said. "We will closely monitor this plant and require it to adhere to the state's strict standards."

Ashok Gupta of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the groups opposing the project, said Hudson Avenue proves that a consensus needs to be reached on building new power plants, because the alternative is to rely more heavily on older plants that pollute more. Environmental groups have opposed construction of some of the new plants, arguing, among other thing, that increased energy conservation is needed as well.

Two weeks ago, the Department of Environmental Conservation issued a notice that it intended to grant Con Edison a permit to re-start the Hudson Avenue generator. The department determined that the company did not need to conduct an environmental impact review. Several Assembly Democrats, including Speaker Sheldon Silver, sent a letter to the department today, calling on it not to grant the permit, and to require a full environmental review.

When demand for electricity rose last summer, electric bills surged, and state regulators have warned of more price spikes and possible blackouts and brownouts. Several major new power plants have been proposed, but they remain at least three years away.

The Pataki administration has been struggling to find new sources of electricity by summer to avoid a crisis, but some of those efforts have run into opposition from environmental and community groups.

State agencies have adopted policies encouraging businesses that own diesel generators, intended as backup power in case of blackouts, to use them for limited periods this summer, to ease the demand on the power grid. Environmentalists say that such diesel generators pollute far more than power plants do, and have threatened to sue to block the plan.

The New York Power Authority is installing 10 small power plants in the city and one on Long Island to add about 400 megawatts to the power supply. Lawsuits to stop the projects have failed to stop construction so far.

Community groups and state legislators complained that the miniplants were slated for poor, mostly minority communities. Environmentalists argued that while the generators might be a good idea, the state was required to conduct an environmental impact review before installing them.

But the Power Authority's miniplants, each producing up to 44 megawatts of power, burn gas and would use some of the cleanest technology available. Department of Environmental Conservation documents show a vast disparity in the level of pollution they would produce, compared to Hudson Avenue.

For example, each Power Authority plant would emit up to 20 tons per year of nitrogen oxide, the main contributor to smog, compared to 825 tons for the Hudson Avenue plant. The Power Authority plants' output of sulfur dioxide, the main contributor to acid rain, would be close to zero, compared to 918 tons per year at Hudson Avenue. Even when compared to other oil-burning plants in the city, Hudson Avenue would pollute about twice as much for each pound of fuel used.

"This thing is an environmental disaster," said Assemblyman Joan L. Millman, whose district includes the plant. "We will go to court if we have to stop this."

Con Edison sold off its major power plants as part of a state-sponsored restructuring of the power industry, but it kept several smaller plants that are used to generate both electricity and steam, which the company sells for heating some buildings.

The Hudson Avenue plant, part of the steam system, has four separate units. Three of them have remained in operation, though they have barely been used in recent years.

-------- environment

International Ban on Submarine Mine Tailings Disposal Urged

May 2, 2001
ENS
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/may2001/2001L-05-02-03.html

MANADO, North Sulawesi, Indonesia, An international conference here on the dumping of mine waste at sea, known as submarine tailings disposal, concluded Monday with a declaration which calls for an international ban on the practice.

The mining industry is currently attempting to open dozens of mines across the Asia Pacific region that would rely on submarine tailings disposal as a method of getting rid of their waste.

Scientists, representatives of nongovernmental organizations, government officials and affected community members from the Asia-Pacific region, North America and the United Kingdom met to discuss the ocean dumping of mine waste.

They demanded that mining companies accept liability for the impacts on coastal communities of what they call an "environmentally and socially destructive technique."

The conference discussed case studies from submarine tailings disposal mines operating throughout the Asia-Pacific region - in Indonesia at Newmont Mining Corporation gold mines at Minahasa on the island of Sulawesi and Batu Hijau on the island of Sumbawa; at the Marinduque Mining Corporation mine at Marinduque in the Philippines, and at other mines across the region.

Calancan Bay in the Philippines with tailings outlet from the Marinduque Mining Corporation, one of Asia's largest mining companies (Photo courtesy Marinduque Mining)

These revealed threats to marine resources, negative health impacts, devastation of coastal economies, and scientific inaccuracies.

The participants concluded that submarine tailings disposal destroys fragile coastal ecosystems because it smothers living organisms with silt or drives them away, and degrades marine and fresh water environments. It decreases biological diversity and threatens ecological balance by allowing heavy metals and other pollutants to enter the food chain.

The effects of submarine tailings disposal (STD) are immediate, long term, and environmentally unsustainable, and restoration of areas where tailings have been dumped is impossible, participants agreed.

Submarine tailings disposal is illegal in Canada and the United States, has never been proposed in Australia.

"Companies like U.S. based Newmont are not permitted to practice STD in their home countries. Instead they cynically exploit the people and resources of countries in the Asia-Pacific region which have less rigorous environmental regulations," said Shanna Langdon of Project Underground, a mining industry watchdog based in California.

Minahasa employs Indonesia¹s first submarine tailings disposal system. Tailings are detoxified in a two-stage process to precipitate dissolved elements and destroy cyanide, the company says. The tailings are then deposited offshore, at a depth of 82 meters (266 feet).

The Minahasa gold mine is expected to cease production in 2003 after mining is completed in December of this year, Newmont says. The company's Batu Hijau mine began operation in late 1999. With reserves of 9.9 billion pounds of copper and 11.7 million ounces of gold, Batu Hijau has an expected mine life of 20 years.

The application of submarine tailings disposal has disastrous social, economic, cultural and health effects on coastal communities, conference delegates concluded. It violates the basic human right to a safe and clean environment, and adversely affects community health through contamination with heavy metals and other toxic substances. Women and children are particularly vulnerable.

The practice degrades marine and freshwater environments affecting fisheries, recreational use and livelihoods, and is done without access to adequate information and without prior community consent, the conference heard. Delegates pledged to work with affected communities to prevent further development of submarine tailings disposal.

"We strongly urge governments and the international community to ban the practice of STD throughout the world," the group declared.

-------- genetics

Academic Team Accuses Commercial Rival of Faulty Work on Genome

May 2, 2001
New York Times
By NICHOLAS WADE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/health/02GENO.html

The rivalry between the two teams that decoded the human genome has erupted again, with some academic biologists contending that Celera, their commercial rival, used a method that failed and in fact relied on the academic consortium's method to assemble its own version of the genome.

Celera officials vigorously reject the assertion and say their method worked well.

The dispute is important because it may settle whether the consortium's or Celera's method is the better way of decoding the genomes of other species. Also, if Celera's work was derivative, the consortium's scientists would gather the prizes and glory for decoding the human genome.

The two teams in the fiercely contested race agreed last year to a draw and a truce by announcing in June at a White House ceremony that each had decoded the human genome and by publishing their results at the same time, in rival scientific journals, this February.

But in a series of e-mail messages from February onward, and in a public lecture at Harvard last month, Eric Lander, one of the three principal members of the consortium, has derided the shotgun method championed by J. Craig Venter, Celera's president. Dr. Lander is director of the Whitehead Institute in Boston. The consortium's other two leaders, John E. Sulston of the Sanger Center in England and Robert Waterston of Washington University in St. Louis, pioneered the consortium's method for decoding the human genome.

Celera's whole genome shotgun method "was a flop. No ifs, ands or buts," Dr. Lander wrote in an e-mail message. "Celera did not independently produce a sequence of the genome at all. It rode piggyback" on the consortium's efforts, he said.

Dr. Venter is no less blunt. "We think there is zero legitimacy to anything Eric is saying," Dr. Venter said, "and we don't understand why he is saying it."

The dispute is the latest in a series of increasingly bitter disagreements between the university biologists who are part of the consortium and Dr. Venter, who is a player in both the academic and commercial worlds. The consortium has made its genome sequence free to everyone, denouncing Celera as a commercial operation that will not produce a perfectly finished genome. Celera says its version is better and its subscription cost affordable.

In earlier spats, consortium scientists accused Dr. Venter of a breach of scientific ethics when he announced he would make use of their publicly posted genomic data in completing his version of the human genome. They also tried to prevent Science magazine from publishing Celera's article about the human genome by objecting to Celera's requirements for protecting its data against resale by others.

Celera made no secret of the fact that, to save time and money, it downloaded the consortium's partially assembled data, which was publicly available. It then shredded the data, mixed it with its own and assembled the combined set with its own assembly method. Dr. Lander's charge is that even the shredded public data retained the positional information from the consortium's assembly, without which Celera's assembly method would have failed.

Several other university biologists agree with Dr. Lander's criticisms or believe for different reasons that Celera's method did not work.

"I agree with what Eric is saying and had independently come to the same conclusion," said Philip Green, a computational biologist who wrote two standard programs used by genome researchers. "That shredded data retains the information from the local assemblies, to the extent that you can almost perfectly reconstruct the original sequence."

But Dr. Venter said he shredded the consortium's data specifically to lose its positional information because he suspected the data had been misassembled in places.

The human genome is 3.2 billion chemical units in length, but the machines that figure out their order can handle fragments no larger than 500 units. A genome is decoded by first analyzing the sequence of DNA units in millions of these 500-unit fragments, known as reads, and then having a computer piece them together from their overlaps. In Celera's shotgun approach all the reads are assembled in a single gigantic computation. The consortium, more cautiously, breaks the genome into large chunks, known as BAC clones, whose position on the genome is known, and then assembles each clone from its individual reads.

Eugene W. Myers, a mathematician who is Celera's leading software architect, said Dr. Lander's argument that the shredded data retained the positional information of the BAC clones was disingenuous. "The difficult thing is deciding which overlaps are true and which are false. It's a ridiculous claim that completely ignores the complexity of the problem," he said. His computer program depended only on Celera's data to figure out the main structure of the genome, and used the shredded public data to fill in some gaps within this structure, Dr. Myers said, a step that relied on the coherence of the shredded data but not on its positional information.

As proof that the shotgun assembly method would have worked almost as well without the shredded public data, Dr. Myers says that he has assembled the mouse genome, which is about the same size as the human genome, using Celera-only data, with very similar results.

Gerald M. Rubin, a fruit-fly biologist and vice president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, said the only way to assess the truth of Dr. Lander's charge was to find out how the consortium's data had been used in Celera's computer. Those details are not yet available. But the shotgun approach had worked "unequivocally," Dr. Rubin said, in assembling the smaller genome of the fruit fly, a project on which he collaborated with Celera, and he said a successful shotgun assembly of the mouse genome would confirm the method worked with the human genome, too.

The dispute "is an unfortunate continuation of some of the earlier animosity," Dr. Rubin said, but "if Gene Myers is right, Celera is going to end up looking good and Lander will have to apologize."

The dispute over the shredded data is a skirmish in a larger battle, that of whose approach will deserve more credit when the human genome is finally completed. Both sides have produced interim versions of the genome and are now sniping at their rival's.

Dr. Green said of Celera's February report: "More than 20 percent of the genome was not assembled at all or is in tiny scaffolds. That is simply a failure, there is no other word you can use." The shotgun method worked for the fruit fly genome, in his view, but the human genome is much more complicated. "I think basically they could not have done the human genome using a whole genome shotgun, and I think they realized that at some point, which is why they depended so heavily on the public data," he said.

Celera has left itself open to such criticism by the way in which it chose to describe its genome results. In their Science article of February, Dr. Venter and his colleagues say they assembled the human genome in two ways, one by their whole genome shotgun method with shredded public data added, and the other by what they call a "compartmentalized shotgun assembly," a hybrid approach that explicitly drew on the method and data of both Celera and the consortium. But Dr. Venter then proceeded to base all further analysis and gene identification on the hybrid version, ignoring his shotgun version of the genome.

His critics are indignant that the Celera genome analysis rests on the hybrid assembly method instead of on Celera's own - traditionally scientists interpret their own data, not other people's - and scathing about Celera's implied position that the shotgun method worked so well there was no need to prove it.

Dr. Venter said in an interview that the two versions of the genome were very similar but that he had chosen the hybrid method genome for interpretation because it was very slightly more complete. "Our goal was to have the highest quality genome we could. We didn't want to play a silly academic game," he said.

But Celera is now playing that academic game by assembling the human genome with just its own data, Dr. Venter said. The clearest present proof of its shotgun method may lie in its mouse genome, assembled just with Celera data, which the company will offer to its subscribers.

Just how well the shotgun method works is not yet clear, but few critics think it did not work at all, and there is little doubt that Celera accelerated the consortium's timetable. "Would we have the genome sequence now if Celera hadn't been founded? I think the answer is no. I think they made a very serious contribution," Dr. Rubin said.

-------- police

Louis Freeh To Resign As Director Of the FBI

By Edward Walsh and David A. Vise
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 2, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29252-2001May1?language=printer

FBI Director Louis J. Freeh announced yesterday that he will resign in June, ending an eight-year tenure that was marked by the transformation of the FBI into a global crime-fighting agency but also by a series of embarrassments that included the recent arrest of a counterintelligence agent alleged to be a longtime spy for Moscow.

Freeh made the announcement at a meeting of top FBI personnel. He gave no reason for leaving the high-profile law enforcement post two years before the end of his 10-year term and no hint at what he plans to do next.

But in a written statement, Freeh twice noted that he and his wife, Marilyn, are the parents of six sons who range in age from 3 to 16. In the past, he has joked about the financial pressures of living on the FBI director's salary of $145,100 a year with a large mortgage and imminent college costs for his oldest son.

President Bush, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and key members of Congress issued statements praising Freeh for what Ashcroft called a "legacy of uncompromising integrity."

"Louis Freeh is a dedicated public servant who has served his country and the FBI with honor and distinction," Bush said. "I regret the director is leaving government. We are fortunate to have had a man of his caliber serve our country, and we will miss him."

Bush said Freeh informed him of his intention to resign at a White House meeting Monday afternoon. "It did catch me by surprise," Bush said. "And I'm disappointed. I was hoping that he would stay on. I think he's done a very good job."

An FBI official said that there was a widespread expectation in the bureau that Freeh would leave before the end of his term, primarily because of financial need. But when Freeh met yesterday with about 70 senior aides, he also caught them by surprise, the official said.

"Everybody in the room was absolutely stunned," he said. "Everybody knew that this moment would come, but they were in disbelief when it did come."

By law, Freeh's successor will be appointed to a new 10-year term that would extend beyond even a second Bush term in the White House. Immediate speculation about a successor included Oklahoma Gov. Frank A. Keating (R), a former FBI agent and Justice Department official, and Jack C. Lawn, another former FBI agent who has also headed the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Other names circulating as potential candidates included former Montana governor Marc Racicot (R) and Ray Kelly, a Democrat and former head of the Customs Service.

A White House official said the president will consult with Ashcroft on the naming of a successor. The official said the White House would move "as quickly as possible" but declined to offer a timetable. Bush and his advisers have not begun to deliberate on a replacement, but they "keep people's names in mind just in case," the official said.

Freeh was effusive in his praise of Bush, crediting him with bringing "great honor and integrity to the Oval Office." He also praised Vice President Cheney for his "dedication to duty in serving the nation" and Ashcroft for "the strong support he has provided to the men and women of the FBI."

In contrast, Freeh offered brief, one-sentence words of thanks to former president Bill Clinton, who appointed him in 1993, and former attorney general Janet Reno, with whom he frequently clashed.

Tension with the Clinton White House simmered throughout Freeh's term, much of it centered on allegations of campaign finance wrongdoing by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee during the 1996 election cycle.

In a confidential memo that became public more than two years after he wrote it, Freeh urged Reno to appoint an independent counsel to investigate Democratic fundraising practices in the 1996 election. But Reno, relying on the advice of career Justice Department officials, refused to do so, deepening the impression that she and the FBI director were at odds.

Last year, sources said that intermediaries were exploring higher-paying private-sector jobs for Freeh and that the FBI director had been approached by several firms with offers of jobs with seven-figure salaries.

In his statement yesterday, Freeh said, "I have neither engaged in negotiations regarding any future employment nor have I requested others do so on my behalf while serving as director. As for the future, I look forward to spending the summer with my family and engaging in new challenges."

Freeh, 51, who began his career in 1975 as an FBI agent, leaves the bureau in the wake of the worst case of espionage in the bureau's history -- though his resignation did not appear to be linked to the scandal. Senior FBI counterintelligence agent Robert P. Hanssen allegedly spied for Russia over the past 15 years, compromising countless national security secrets and helping Moscow find two moles who were executed. Hanssen was arrested in February after allegedly dropping off secret documents for Russian agents in return for $50,000 in cash.

Under pressure to tighten security, Freeh agreed to polygraph 500 people with access to intelligence information, a tactic he had long resisted.

The Hanssen case shook the FBI, but in an interview last week, Ashcroft expressed strong confidence in the bureau's director and praised his handling of the case. "When we needed to take steps toward apprehension, we were still in a system that was secure and could operate effectively," Ashcroft said.

There have been other crises on Freeh's watch, including allegations -- later proved unfounded -- of a cover-up in connection with the FBI assault on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Tex., in which 75 people died. There were massive problems with the FBI crime lab and the mishandling of the Atlanta Olympic bombing case.

The FBI was condemned for its handling of the investigation into whether former Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory scientist Wen Ho Lee mishandled nuclear secrets. Lee, indicted on 59 felony counts, ultimately pleaded guilty to a single count in a plea bargain.

Freeh, who proved to be an adroit political operative, withstood the attacks that followed each episode, maintaining strong ties to the key lawmakers who oversee his agency.

Freeh's legacy at the bureau may be his transformation of the domestic crime-fighting organization into a global entity that now has permanent offices around the world. The globe-trotting FBI director more than doubled the number of foreign countries where FBI agents are permanently based, to 44, and visited 68 countries himself.

Last week, Freeh was in Africa meeting with government leaders to establish new international partnerships, offering law enforcement training and forensic assistance.

Freeh is also credited with greatly improving the FBI's ability to counter terrorist threats.

He will be remembered in the intelligence community for altering the FBI's working relationship with the CIA, which long had been strained.

"Director Freeh's vision, leadership and commitment have been directly responsible for the unprecedented strategic partnership between the FBI and the CIA," CIA Director George J. Tenet said. "Very significant successes in the counterterrorism and counterintelligence areas . . . are evidence of the remarkable cooperation that has existed between our two agencies in recent years."

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers yesterday saluted Freeh's tenure at the FBI. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) described Freeh as "one of the best FBI directors to serve the American people." Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), ranking Democrat on the committee, said that Freeh "will leave the bureau with an updated attitude appropriate to 21st-century law enforcement."

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), a frequent critic of Freeh's, praised the director's "commitment and dedication," but said he was "less successful when he resisted constructive criticism of his own organization."

Freeh began his law enforcement career in 1975. He later joined the U.S. attorney's office in New York, winning praise for directing a complex drug trafficking investigation and prosecution. In 1991, former president George Bush appointed him a U.S. district judge.

Bush administration officials said Freeh is most likely to stay in the Washington area or move back to New Jersey, where he lived while working in New York.

Staff writer Dana Milbank and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

----

Oklahoma Inquiry Focuses on Scientist Used by Prosecutors

May 2, 2001
New York Times
By JIM YARDLEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/national/02LAB.html

OKLAHOMA CITY, May 1 - Her testimony cut through the fog of doubt with the hard clarity of science. From 1980 to 1993, Joyce Gilchrist was involved in roughly 3,000 cases as an Oklahoma City police laboratory scientist, often helping prosecutors win convictions by identifying suspects with hair, blood or carpet fibers taken from crime scenes.

But Ms. Gilchrist is now the subject of an investigation ordered this week by Gov. Frank Keating to re- examine all of her felony cases after her credibility was bluntly denounced by a Federal Bureau of Investigation report that found she had misidentified evidence or given improper courtroom testimony in at least five of eight cases the agency reviewed.

The suddenness and broad scope of the investigation has stunned many people here, but Ms. Gilchrist's work has been criticized for years by judges, lawyers, colleagues and professional organizations. Her own lawyer predicted that she would be vindicated in the current investigation.

The case that helped prompt the investigation involved a man convicted of rape 16 years ago after Ms. Gilchrist linked him to the crime through hair evidence. But recent DNA testing determined that semen taken from the crime scene did not match the man, Jeffrey Pierce. And the F.B.I. report contradicted Ms. Gilchrist's findings on the hairs, determining that they did not match Mr. Pierce. Officials say Mr. Pierce could soon be released.

The immediate focus of the state investigation centers on the 23 capital trials in which her testimony helped win convictions. Ten of those inmates have already been executed; an 11th, Marilyn Plantz, was put to death this evening for her role in the murder-for-hire killing of her husband. The other 12 inmates remain on death row.

Mr. Keating's spokesman, Dan Mahoney, said that Ms. Plantz accepted responsibility for her crime at her clemency hearing and that her execution would be carried out because the evidence against her was overwhelming. Mr. Mahoney said initial assessments of the 11 executed inmates linked to Ms. Gilchrist also suggested that the evidence against them was also overwhelming, regardless of her testimony.

"The governor remains comfortable that no innocent person has been executed," Mr. Mahoney said. "But, of course, it is worth a review."

Attorney General Drew Edmondson, whose office began reviewing the capital cases last week, echoed Mr. Mahoney's confidence, with one exception. He said he still wanted to review the case of Malcolm Rent Johnson, who was executed in January 2000 for murdering a woman. He did not offer any reason to believe that Mr. Johnson was wrongly executed but said he simply wanted to more thoroughly examine the case.

Mr. Edmondson also said he would not set an execution date for any of the 12 death row inmates against whom Ms. Gilchrist testified until her role was reviewed.

"We should all be concerned," Mr. Edmondson said. "It's obviously a serious situation." He also noted that the Oklahoma City district attorney's office, the local police department and his own office shared some responsibility for the situation. "I think there is enough blame to go around."

The state investigation, which is being conducted by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, could potentially result in criminal charges against Ms. Gilchrist. The F.B.I. is also conducting a separate investigation. Ms. Gilchrist has had a supervisory position since 1994 and has not done laboratory work since then. She was placed on administrative leave in March because of the accusations. All of the cases under review are in Oklahoma.

James Bednar, executive director of the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System, said there was no basis "at this point" to believe that anyone had been wrongfully executed because of her testimony. But he said that the investigation was long overdue and that it reflected systemic problems in the Oklahoma criminal justice system.

"For 25 years, people have been testifying with a degree of certainty that did not exist," Mr. Bednar said. "Ms. Gilchrist touched 3,000 cases. This is a mammoth deal. We may find 200 in which we feel her testing made the difference. Who knows? It's going to be very expensive, time consuming and laborious."

Ms. Gilchrist was hired by the Oklahoma City Police Department in 1980 as a crime laboratory chemist and had undergone training at the F.B.I. academy in Quantico, Va., as well as the Serological Research Institute in Emeryville, Calif.

Ms. Gilchrist's lawyer, Melvin Hall, said his client declined to comment but "stands behind her work and in the end she'll be totally vindicated."

She has faced controversy for years. In 1987, John T. Wilson, the chief forensic scientist at the regional crime laboratory in Kansas City, Mo., complained about her to a professional organization, the Southwestern Association of Forensic Scientists. Mr. Wilson had offered conflicting testimony in at least one of Mr. Gilchrist's cases.

He said that in four criminal trials, Ms. Gilchrist had given scientific opinions "not justified by the results of examination" and that her testimony "in effect, positively identifies the defendant based on the slightest bit of circumstantial evidence."

Ultimately, the association warned Ms. Gilchrist to "distinguish personal opinion from opinions based upon facts derived from scientific evidence," but declined to formally censure her or discipline her in any way.

Another professional association, the Association of Crime Scene Reconstruction, expelled her for unethical behavior, according to an internal police memorandum disclosed today to local news organizations.

Ms. Gilchrist's work has also brought criticism from state and federal judges. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the murder conviction of Curtis Edward McCarty, partly because they said Ms. Gilchrist testified beyond her expertise and delayed giving her reports to defense lawyers. Mr. McCarty, who has since been tried two more times, is on death row for the 1982 murder of Pam Willis.

In 1999, Judge Ralph G. Thompson of Federal District Court in Oklahoma City ruled that Ms. Gilchrist had given testimony about hair and fluid evidence in the case of Alfred Brian Mitchell that "was terribly misleading, if not false." While Judge Thompson upheld Mr. Mitchell's murder conviction in the death of Elaine Scott, he overturned a rape conviction.

"She has always been identified as a problem," said Barry Scheck, co- director of the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. "She had been criticized by her peers. It's a real failure of oversight by the district attorney's office."

Mr. Scheck also cited the case of Robert Miller, who was sentenced to death in 1988 for murder after Ms. Gilchrist testified that hairs found at the crime scene were consistent with hairs taken from his body. However, later DNA analysis of seminal fluid determined that Mr. Miller was the wrong man. Another suspect, Ronnie Lott, whom Ms. Gilchrist had excluded as a possible hair donor in the original case, was identified using DNA and indicted for the crime. Mr. Miller was ultimately released.

The Oklahoma County District Attorney's Office failed to return two telephone calls seeking comment. On Monday, a longtime district attorney, Bob Macy, who has put 54 inmates on death row, the most of any active prosecutor in the nation, announced that he would resign on June 30. He cited a desire to spend more time with his family and said his decision was not related to the Gilchrist investigation.

Capt. Charles Allen of the Oklahoma City police offered little comment on what he described as "a personnel matter."

Mr. Bednar, the director of the state indigent defense program, said that late last year lawyers representing Mr. Pierce, the man convicted in the rape case, requested DNA testing under the state's recently approved DNA law. The testing determined that fluids found at the crime scene matched another man.

With those results, Chief M. T. Berry of the Oklahoma City police asked the F.B.I. to review a sample of Ms. Gilchrist's work. The F.B.I. memo, which was first reported by The Daily Oklahoman, found that Ms. Gilchrist's laboratory notes "were often incomplete or inadequate to support the conclusions" that she reached. The report also studied physical evidence in five of her cases including Mr. Pierce's and found that "all five cases reviewed had either errors in identification or interpretation."

An internal police memorandum leaked to the local media this week also painted an unflattering picture of Ms. Gilchrist. The memorandum, written in January by the captain now overseeing the crime laboratory, said Ms. Gilchrist had been sloppy and wasteful in trying to establish a DNA testing center within the department. The memo also said Ms. Gilchrist had allowed evidence to be damaged or lost, even in cases in which new trials had been granted or were under review by the attorney general's office.

----

Freeh quits FBI post with 'praise' for Bush

May 2, 2001
By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010502-17858601.htm

FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, who ran the bureau during some of the most troubling times in its 69-year history and clashed repeatedly with the Clinton administration, announced yesterday he will resign next month.

Although his 10-year appointment does not end until 2003, Mr. Freeh, 51 and father of six sons ages 3 to 16, announced he would step down "by the end of the school year in June."

"I look forward to spending the summer with my family and engaging in new challenges," Mr. Freeh said.

The director feuded openly for years with President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno, recommending an independent counsel investigate Clinton-Gore campaign fund-raising activities in 1996 and chastising the White House for illegally obtaining FBI files of Republicans.

As head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he was also held responsible for a longtime cover-up of FBI tactics during the deadly raid of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and failure to detect an agent charged with giving secrets to the Russians for 15 years.

President Bush, who met with Mr. Freeh at the White House Monday afternoon, said the director's decision to resign caught him "by surprise. . . . I was hoping he would stay on."

"I regret the director is leaving government. We are fortunate to have had a man of his caliber serve our county and we will miss him," the president said. "And now we´ll begin the process of finding replacements."

Candidates for the job include Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, a former FBI agent and Justice Department veteran who was previously mentioned as a possible attorney general nominee.

In a five-page statement, Mr. Freeh effusively praised Mr. Bush and more than a dozen administration officials, but devoted just one line to Mr. Clinton, who appointed him to the post in 1993.

"I want to thank President George W. Bush for his leadership and commitment to protecting this great nation at home and abroad. . . . I am also grateful for the president´s unwavering support of me and the FBI.

"President Bush has brought great honor and integrity to the Oval Office," he wrote.

He went on to laud Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and the Joint Chiefs of Staff for their "decisiveness and leadership in quickly resolving a number of long-standing national security issues."

And the FBI director said he was "grateful to Attorney General John D. Ashcroft for the strong support he has provided to the men and women of the FBI. . . . His efforts, combined with the work of his staff, will be critical in guiding the Department of Justice in the days ahead."

Of Mr. Clinton, however, Mr. Freeh said only: "I wish to thank former President Clinton for the honor and privilege of allowing me to serve the American people as the FBI director."

Mr. Freeh called for appointment of an independent counsel in November 1997 to investigate a broad "pattern of activities by the 1996 Clinton-Gore re-election effort designed to circumvent restrictions of campaign fund raising" -- including the possible influence of foreign governments in the elections. The memo, kept secret for 2 and 1/2 years, said a task-force probe had led FBI agents "to the highest levels of the White House, including the vice president and the president."

Miss Reno, who limited a preliminary investigation to White House calls by Mr. Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, rejected the proposal, saying she found no specific and credible evidence that crimes had been committed.

Mr. Gore acknowledged making 45 telephone calls from his office during the campaign but said there was "no controlling legal authority" governing his behavior. Mr. Clinton provided perks for contributors, including overnight stays at the White House and trips on Air Force One, and also solicited donations from Chinese nationals.

Mr. Freeh was attacked for his stance by congressional Democrats, but held his ground in hearings before House and Senate panels.

"My job is not to make people happy or please them or be a loyal subordinate when that conflicts with what I think my job is," Mr. Freeh said a month after calling for the investigation, supported by federal prosecutor Charles LaBella, who headed the task-force probe into suspected campaign-finance abuses.

Mr. Freeh also weighed in heavily on Mr. Clinton´s acquisition of FBI files in 1996, accusing the White House of "egregious violations of privacy" in seeking hundreds of secret background files of Reagan and Bush administration officials. He ordered sweeping new measures to protect the bureau´s sensitive background information.

"Unfortunately, the FBI and I were victimized," Mr. Freeh said at the time. "I promise the American people that it will not happen again on my watch."

In addition, Mr. Freeh drew Mr. Clinton´s ire when he praised the "persistence and uncompromising personal and professional integrity" of former independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, whose investigation led to the impeachment of the president and 14 convictions in the Whitewater Arkansas real estate case.

A former federal judge and FBI agent who has spent 27 years in public service, Mr. Freeh gave up a lifetime appointment to the U.S. District Court in New York to accept the FBI director´s job. During his tenure, he hired several thousand new special agents, forged a relationship with the CIA, doubled the FBI´s overseas presence and won larger budgets for fighting crime.

But he was also criticized for: The admission in 1999 -- six years after the raid of the Davidian compound -- that the FBI had used incendiary devices in that raid.

The handling of the Olympic bombing investigation of Richard Jewell, who was labeled the prime suspect until the FBI announced he was no longer a probe target.

The destruction of evidence by FBI officials outlining the bureau´s involvement in shoot-on-sight orders during the August 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, that left three persons dead.

Failure to properly handle evidence that was tainted in the FBI crime laboratory, resulting in notification to prosecutors nationwide of possible problems in cases, including the bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City.

Perhaps his most embarrassing moment came in February, when he was forced to announce that one of the FBI´s own agents, Robert Hanssen, had been arrested for delivering secrets to Moscow for more than 15 years. The FBI missed telltale signs, including extravagant spending habits by Mr. Hanssen.

Mr. Freeh was the fifth man to head the federal law enforcement agency in its history. He succeeded William S. Sessions, fired by Mr. Clinton amid accusations that he had misused his office for personal financial gain.

----

F.B.I. Director to Resign in June After Eight Years

New York Times
May 2, 2001
By DAVID JOHNSTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/national/02FBI.html

WASHINGTON, May 1 - Director Louis J. Freeh of the F.B.I. said today that he would resign in June after an eight-year tenure in which he energetically expanded the bureau's reach around the world but warred almost continuously with Bill Clinton, the president who appointed him.

Mr. Freeh, who had long told aides that he planned to step down after the November elections, agreed instead to President Bush's request to stay on through the transition. But while visiting the White House on Monday, Mr. Freeh informed the president of his decision to resign, two years short of completing his 10- year term.

Earlier, some Bush administration officials had speculated that Mr. Freeh might stay on longer, and Mr. Bush said today that Mr. Freeh's decision "did catch me by surprise."

"I was hoping that he would stay on," the president added. "I think he's done a very good job."

Mr. Freeh arrived at the bureau in controversy and will leave it the same way. He took command in September 1993 in a troubled period after an F.B.I. sharpshooter killed the wife of a white separatist in an August 1992 standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and after the F.B.I.'s tear gas assault in April 1993 at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Tex., which ended in a fire and the deaths of 80 people.

He is resigning at a time when the bureau is being criticized by counterintelligence officials after the February arrest of Robert P. Hanssen, a senior F.B.I. agent, on charges that he was a spy for Moscow. Some officials have described the F.B.I.'s inaction as a serious managerial lapse that allowed Mr. Hanssen to spy undetected for 15 years.

Today, Bush aides scrambled to assemble a list of possible candidates to succeed Mr. Freeh, but their thinking about who might be appointed to one of the country's most powerful law enforcement jobs seemed unsettled. Attorney General John Ashcroft will have an important role in choosing Mr. Freeh's successor, administration officials said.

People mentioned as possible successors include Gov. Frank Keating of Oklahoma, a former F.B.I. agent and Justice Department official, and former Gov. Marc Racicot of Montana, a former chief prosecutor in the state. Both are Republicans who were considered for attorney general.

Both might have drawbacks. Mr. Keating has been criticized for gifts from a Wall Street financier, and he irritated some Bush aides by suggesting in the fall campaign - on the topic of possible cocaine use - that Mr. Bush should disclose anything "arguably criminal." As for Mr. Racicot, some Republicans have questioned whether he is conservative enough on issues like abortion.

Friends of Mr. Freeh, who is 51, said he had not decided on his next career step. Mr. Freeh and his wife, Marilyn, have six children, ages 3 to 16, and the friends said he had often talked about finding a higher paying position at a large law firm or company in Washington or New York.

In his statement, Mr. Freeh said he looked forward to spending the summer with his family and "engaging in new challenges." He said he has not been engaged in a job search.

Mr. Freeh, a former agent, mafia- busting prosecutor and federal judge, quickly took charge of the agency and led it through the aftermath of the standoffs in Idaho and Texas, overhauling its response to potentially violent crises. Senior officials rallied to him as a law enforcement professional after the unsteady stewardship of his predecessor, William S. Sessions, who was forced out by Mr. Clinton.

At first, Mr. Clinton referred to Mr. Freeh as one of his finest appointees. But over the years their relationship soured. Mr. Freeh's insistence on independent counsel inquiries of Mr. Clinton's cabinet officers and of Mr. Clinton's own activities in the Whitewater inquiry infuriated White House aides.

The breaking point came with Mr. Freeh's outspoken support for an independent counsel investigation of Clinton-Gore fund-raising in 1996 and the conspicuous leaks of private memorandums written by Mr. Freeh arguing that point.

Former Clinton aides, angered at what they viewed as Mr. Freeh's eagerness to gain favor with Republicans by criticizing Mr. Clinton, said the relationship had deteriorated so badly that by the close of Mr. Clinton's presidency the two men were barely on speaking terms. Speaking of Mr. Clinton, one veteran aide said, "He would regularly say that naming Freeh was one of the biggest mistakes that he had made."

The enmity between Mr. Freeh and the former president was evident even today in Mr. Freeh's statement announcing his resignation. Mr. Freeh lauded Mr. Bush for his "unwavering support of me and the F.B.I." and said Mr. Bush had "brought great honor and integrity to the Oval Office."

Only after praising the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Vice President Dick Cheney, Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, Attorney General John Ashcroft and others, did Mr. Freeh tepidly thank Mr. Clinton "for allowing me to serve as the F.B.I. director."

Throughout his tenure, Mr. Freeh cultivated lawmakers with control over the F.B.I.'s budget, especially Republicans. As a result, the bureau's spending grew expansively by 58 percent, to more than $3.4 billion a year. Under Mr. Freeh, more than 5,000 agents and 4,000 technical and analytical employees were hired.

Mr. Freeh was not immune to stumbles. In recent days, he has encountered the most serious criticism of his tenure over the Hanssen case and accusations that the bureau failed to investigate aggressively the possibility that Moscow had recruited a mole at the F.B.I. In recent weeks, Mr. Freeh has imposed stricter controls on classified databases and ordered wider use of polygraph exams for F.B.I. employees.

Mr. Freeh and the agency were also criticized for the F.B.I.'s role in the case of Wen Ho Lee, a nuclear scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Dr. Lee pleaded guilty last year to a single charge of mishandling classified nuclear secrets after he was initially indicted on 59 counts, including charges that were punishable by life imprisonment. The trial judge said the government had been heavy- handed in its approach to Dr. Lee.

Still, Mr. Freeh also had his share of successes. It was under his direction that the agents in 1996 followed the trail of the Unabomber to the Montana cabin of Theodore J. Kaczynski. The arrest and conviction ended a sporadic 17-year bombing campaign. A few weeks ago, Mr. Freeh announced the capture of James C. Kopp, an abortion opponent wanted in the 1998 killing of a doctor who performed abortions in Buffalo.

But Mr. Freeh's greatest achievement is likely to be his aggressive response to increased threats of terrorism. After the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building in 1995, F.B.I. agents conducted an exhaustive investigation, finding Timothy J. McVeigh, the principal bomber, in a jail in Oklahoma where he had been held since the afternoon of the bombing after a state trooper found a weapon in his getaway car.

Mr. Freeh has emphasized the bureau's role in fighting terrorism against Americans overseas. He has visited 68 countries and increased the number of overseas F.B.I. offices to 44 from about 20. He also established an international law enforcement training academy in Budapest.

-------- spying

Israel Arrests Ex-General as Spy for Spilling Old Secrets

New York Times
May 2, 2001
By DEBORAH SONTAG
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/world/02ISRA.html

JERUSALEM, May 1 - Itzhak Yaakov, 75, a retired brigadier general who once oversaw weapons development for the Israeli military, is at the center of a supposed spy story that may turn out to be more Kafka than le Carré.

For more than a month Mr. Yaakov, an Israeli-American with dual citizenship who has lived in Manhattan for the last two decades, has been in an Israeli prison on charges of "high espionage" that carry a maximum penalty of life behind bars.

Mr. Yaakov, known here as the father of the Israeli technology industry, was quietly taken into custody by a special security division of the Defense Ministry on March 28. That was four days after his 75th birthday was celebrated in the wealthy town of Savyon outside Tel Aviv by a who's who of Israeli political and economic leaders who regaled him as "Mr. Security."

Mr. Yaakov was arrested at Ben- Gurion Airport after he finished checking in for a flight to Istanbul.

His case was sealed and an order was issued barring the principals from speaking to the press, so his friends thought at first that he was simply away, enjoying himself as planned on vacation in Turkey.

Then on April 22, The Sunday Times of London reported Mr. Yaakov's detention and added that he was being questioned about his "relationship with a Russian woman who may have had access to his work" from the time when he is said to have played a role in the development of Israel's nuclear industry.

With the secrecy of his arrest broken, Israeli courts partly lifted the order withholding information from the press, and state attorneys made public some of the charges.

Mr. Yaakov is accused of passing confidential information to "unauthorized individuals" with the intention of "compromising the security of the state." The indictment says that despite warnings from security officials, he divulged classified information he had obtained during his service in the Israeli military, which ended 27 years ago.

His wife, Tatiana Mendoza, is a Russian-born American, but a "relationship with a Russian woman" does not appear to be a factor in the case, despite the initial report, which set the country buzzing about an aging Mata Hari.

Despite the accusations, Maj. Gen. Amos Yaron, director general of the Defense Ministry, said on Israel Radio on Monday, "We are not talking about a spy case." He called the incident "very unfortunate" and referred to Mr. Yaakov as a "man with a history of admirable deeds."

Nonetheless, General Yaron obliquely said that the authorities had had "no choice" but to arrest Mr. Yaakov for distributing sensitive information.

Friends, who call Mr. Yaakov by his nickname, Yatza, say they believe that his only offense was speaking to an Israeli reporter during a series of recent interviews in New York. They say that he felt compelled to tell his story, making a case for his own contributions to Israeli history, after an incident that hurt him: he was disqualified, or so he believed, as a potential nominee for the state's highest honor, the Israel Prize, because he was an expatriate.

Mr. Yaakov came from Israel's pioneer generation, and his personal history is interwoven with the state's. He was born in Tel Aviv in 1926 and attended the same elementary school as Yitzhak Rabin, several years behind the future prime minister. He served in the Palmach, a paramilitary branch of the Haganah, the Jewish underground self- defense force before independence, and commanded an important company during the 1947 war.

He graduated as an engineer from Technion in Haifa. From 1955 to 1973 he served in the Israeli military, heading a weapons development unit for a decade. During that time he is believed to have played a role in the nuclear program.

It is unclear to what extent the charges against Mr. Yaakov concern Israel's nuclear weaponry. Israel is considered by experts to have the sixth-largest nuclear arsenal in the world, but it has maintained a policy of "deliberate ambiguity" about its nuclear program for decades. Israeli military censorship, which has loosened considerably in recent years, is still almost airtight on nuclear arms.

Mr. Yaakov's information would be very dated, older than the detailed revelations of Mordechai Vanunu, a nuclear technician who blew the whistle on Israel's nuclear arsenal in 1986 and was convicted of treason in 1988.

Much is now known about Israel's nuclear capacity, and Mr. Yaakov's friends said they doubted that he had fresh or detailed inside information.

After two decades as a businessman in the United States, where nuclear arms are discussed more freely, Mr. Yaakov may have lost the keen Israeli sense of the subject as taboo, his friends said. Still, he was not supposed to talk, regardless of his motives, which the authorities acknowledge publicly do not involve sharing secrets with an enemy of Israel.

An Israeli critic of the state's opacity on nuclear policy said, "There is a state within a state" on the nuclear issue.

"The myth that this issue stands apart allows them to justify all sorts of outrageous behavior," the critic said. "It appears they are using a 75- year-old man to send a message to a generation of people that they should die with their secrets, even if they are such old secrets that they're not of much value anymore in intelligence or military terms."

Mr. Yaakov left the military a week before the Arab-Israeli war of 1973. He went to work for Israel's Trade Ministry as chief scientist, nurturing the research and development companies that blossomed into Israel's lucrative technology industry.

He emigrated to the United States in the late 1970's, largely for personal reasons. Last year he retired as chairman of Constellation 3D, a company that develops advanced data storage products, with offices in New York, Florida and California and laboratories in Israel and Russia.

The birthday extravaganza for Mr. Yaakov was given by two technology entrepreneurs. Before the party, Mr. Yaakov gave a series of interviews to Ronen Bergman of the daily Yediot Ahronot for an article that was supposed to be published in conjunction with the gala.

He asked Mr. Bergman to sign a written contract pledging that he would submit the article to the military censor first. Friends of Mr. Yaakov say he would not have insisted on that condition if his intent had been to harm state security as the indictment alleges.

Mr. Bergman complied, the friends said, and the censor killed the entire article, a magazine-length piece of some 7,500 words. Not long afterward, the arrest warrant for Mr. Yaakov was issued.

General Yaron suggested that Mr. Yaakov had done more than talk to Mr. Bergman. He referred to a "manifesto," which some officials believe to be memoirs that Mr. Yaakov was preparing for publication. Mr. Yaakov's lawyers say there is no manifesto; friends say he was working on a novel that might have been partly autobiographical.

An American official said Mr. Yaakov had declined assistance from the American authorities. Friends say he is too proud and embarrassed to turn to his second country for help in dealing with the authorities in the homeland in which he used to be an authority. The United States offered help twice, but he declined.

Mr. Yaakov, who recently recovered from two heart operations, is confined in a prison hospital in Ramle. In a hearing on Wednesday, his lawyers plan to request that he be moved to house arrest, although he does not have a home in Israel. His wife, who is staying at a Tel Aviv hotel, cried when a reporter located her and asked her about her husband.

"It would be very unwise for me at this point to say anything," she said. "I can't afford to talk now. I would love to shout, but I cannot do this now. He is not well."

Mr. Yaakov's lawyers and several legal commentators here have asked aloud why Israeli officials chose to file charges of aggravated espionage against him when they are saying publicly that his alleged offenses cannot be considered spying in the classic sense. The legal experts said lesser charges exist relating to unauthorized dissemination of confidential information.

They have also criticized the director of the internal Defense Ministry security agency for what they see as overzealousness, and lamented the secrecy around the case.

"This type of secret arrest has no place in a democracy," the newspaper Haaretz said. One columnist said, "The idea that Israel, in this day and age, can have such X-files is cause for concern."

State Attorney Edna Arbel protested the contention that Mr. Yaakov had "disappeared."

"People do not disappear in Israel," she said. "This is not Russia or Latin America. He was accompanied by four lawyers and his wife when he was arraigned."

Jack Chen, one of his lawyers, said: "We see this as a very sad story of a person who dedicates his life to the security of Israel and ends up caught in a huge story that gets blown out of proportion and jeopardizes his reputation, his career, his legacy, everything. It's a huge shock for him, but he's sure that eventually the truth will come out."

----

US Spy Plane Team Arrives in China

MAY 02, 05:19 EST
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_package.html?FRONTID=WORLD&PACKAGEID=china&STORYID=APIS7BNT2C00

HAIKOU, China (AP) - As U.S. technicians prepared to inspect a grounded Navy spy plane, an American military spokesman said Wednesday that Washington still hopes to fly home the aircraft damaged in a collision with a Chinese fighter jet.

Technicians from Lockheed Martin, the main builder of the EP-3E plane, will look at the extent of damage to its engines and body to decide whether it can fly, said Army Lt. Col. Stephen Barger, a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Command.

``That's the preferred way to get it out,'' Barger said by telephone from Hawaii. ``Otherwise, it would have to be hauled out or possibly disassembled, which would take more time on the ground and would be more cumbersome.''

The plane has been held at an air base on Hainan island in the South China Sea since making an emergency landing there after the April 1 collision over international waters.

Chinese authorities held the 24-member air crew for 11 days while demanding that Washington take the blame for the collision. The confrontation sent ties to their lowest point since U.S. warplanes bombed the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia two years ago.

The U.S. technicians arrived late Tuesday in Haikou, the capital of Hainan. Their inspection should take about two days, said Barger.

The technicians, who have refused to talk to reporters, spent Wednesday morning in the lobby coffee shop of a Haikou hotel, possibly waiting for a meeting with Chinese officials. Twenty to 30 Chinese agents in civilian clothes and military-style crewcuts sat in the lobby watching them.

On Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador Joseph Prueher said that the sooner the plane is returned to the United States, the sooner relations can mend.

``The airplane is sort of a corrosive element right now in our relationship. It's a reminder of a hard spot, and we need to clean that up and get on with things,'' said Prueher, who played a key role in winning the release of the U.S. crew.

The ambassador, who was ending his 17-month tour in Beijing, spoke to reporters at the Beijing airport before leaving for the United States.

Accounts from both sides indicate the plane lost its nose cone and damaged at least one of its four propeller engines in the collision. The impact pushed the U.S. plane into an 8,000-foot dive before the pilot regained control.

The Chinese F-8 fighter apparently broke in half, killing pilot Wang Wei. China has lionized the pilot, including this week's issuance of a commemorative envelope with a photo of Wang and his F-8 jet.

Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday the U.S. plane cannot be flown now and will probably be taken out on a barge. The U.S. military will also consider using one of its mammoth C-5 or C-17 transport aircraft to carry the plane out.

U.S. officials said earlier that the Chinese apparently had ruled out allowing the plane to be repaired and flown out on its own.

----

Israeli Nuclear Spy Case Imploding

New York Times
May 2, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Israel-Nuclear.html

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) -- A judge sent a 75-year-old ex-general back to prison for a week Wednesday, even though what was billed as a nuclear weapons-related espionage case against him was imploding.

Judge Uri Goren ruled that the charges against Yitzhak Yaakov didn't relate to the transfer of classified material to hostile elements or foreign espionage agencies.

Yaakov, a former military scientist, was believed to have been connected to Israel's nuclear weapons program and was suspected of passing information to unauthorized parties.

Israel has never admitted having nuclear weapons, preferring a policy of ambiguity about the subject.

Yaakov, considered a defense pioneer and national hero by some, is credited with building the Israeli military's technological capability. He was arrested March 28.

His arrest was kept secret by the court until London's Sunday Times printed a report about the case on April 22.

With the limits partially lifted, Israeli media reported that Yaakov, a dual citizen of the United States and Israel, was being held on suspicion of espionage.

Allegations against Yaakov began to shrink when officials said Yaakov was not involved in espionage. Some wondered what relevant information Yaakov could have, since he retired from the defense establishment in 1973.

In court Wednesday, Yaakov complained that he is in poor health and was not receiving proper treatment. He asked to be released to house arrest while the investigation continues. Goren extended his remand order for a week while experts examine Yaakov.

Goren has instructed the prosecution to draw up a new indictment. He also told the prosecution to remove elements that harm state security, so that the indictment can be published in full.

Yaakov has lived in the United States for most of the last two decades. Until last year he served as chairman of the New York-based high-tech company Constellation 3D Inc., which has branches in Russia and Israel.

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U.S. team allowed aboard spy plane

05/02/2001
usa today
http://usatoday.com/news/nlead.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. civilian technicians spent about four hours aboard the Navy surveillance plane on China's Hainan island Wednesday to begin assessing the extent of damage, Pentagon officials said. The technical experts from Lockheed Martin Corp., maker of the EP-3E Aries II aircraft, were allowed to board the plane at about 2 p.m. local time, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. They planned to return for a second day of work Thursday. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday that it was not yet clear whether the plane would be flown off the island or would be partially disassembled and returned by ship or air.



"There's an assessment team on the ground at the present time," he said. "We've received some reports back, but there's nothing conclusive on that point." He gave no other details. Pressed to say whether China had rejected the idea of allowing the plane to be repaired and flown off, Rumsfeld repeated, "There's nothing conclusive on that point."

On Tuesday, an American military spokesman in Hawaii said the United States still hopes that the aircraft damaged on April 1 in a collision with a Chinese fighter jet can be flown home. But officials at the Pentagon speaking on condition of anonymity have indicated that China had already made clear to officials at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing it would not allow the plane to be flown from the island.

The Lockheed Martin contractors are assessing the extent of damage to the plane's engines and body to decide whether it can fly, Army Lt. Col. Stephen Barger, a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Command, said Tuesday.

"That's the preferred way to get it out," Barger said by telephone from Hawaii. "Otherwise, it would have to be hauled out or possibly disassembled, which would take more time on the ground and would be more cumbersome."

The plane has been held at an air base on Hainan island in the South China Sea since making an emergency landing there after the April 1 collision over international waters.

Chinese authorities held the 24-member air crew for 11 days while demanding that Washington take the blame for the collision. The confrontation sent ties to their lowest point since U.S. warplanes bombed the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia two years ago.

The U.S. technicians arrived late Tuesday in Haikou, the capital of Hainan. Their inspection should take about two days, said Barger.

The technicians, who have refused to talk to reporters, spent Wednesday morning in the lobby coffee shop of a Haikou hotel, possibly waiting for a meeting with Chinese officials. Twenty to 30 Chinese agents in civilian clothes and military-style crewcuts sat in the lobby watching them.

On Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador Joseph Prueher said that the sooner the plane is returned to the United States, the sooner relations can mend.

"The airplane is sort of a corrosive element right now in our relationship. It's a reminder of a hard spot, and we need to clean that up and get on with things," said Prueher, who played a key role in winning the release of the U.S. crew.

The ambassador, who was ending his 17-month tour in Beijing, spoke to reporters at the Beijing airport before leaving for the United States.

Accounts from both sides indicate the plane lost its nose cone and damaged at least one of its four propeller engines in the collision. The impact pushed the U.S. plane into an 8,000-foot dive before the pilot regained control.

The Chinese F-8 fighter apparently broke in half, killing pilot Wang Wei. China has lionized the pilot, including this week's issuance of a commemorative envelope with a photo of Wang and his F-8 jet.

Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday the U.S. plane cannot be flown now and will probably be taken out on a barge. The U.S. military will also consider using one of its mammoth C-5 or C-17 transport aircraft to carry the plane out.

U.S. officials said earlier that the Chinese apparently had ruled out allowing the plane to be repaired and flown out on its own.

-------- terrorism

U.S. Terrorism Report Released

May 2, 2001
New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Terrorist-States.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress decided years ago that a good way to fight nations that sponsor terrorism is to impose mandatory sanctions against them. That may seem to be a reasonable response to terror perpetuators but advocates of the policy are becoming hard to find these days.

The issue comes to a head each spring as the State Department releases its annual report on terrorism trends worldwide and uses the occasion to highlight a problem that has given headaches to many a president.

Countries with a grievance against the United States sometimes resort to terrorism in lieu of declaring a war they could not win. Last fall, terrorists -- still unidentified -- attacked the USS Cole in Yemen, leaving 17 sailors dead. Secretary of State Colin Powell took note of that tragedy on Monday in releasing the latest terrorism report.

Seven countries have been designated by the State Department as sponsors of terrorism, meaning they are barred from receiving economic assistance, arms-related exports and U.S. support for their loan requests in the World Bank and other international lending institutions.

Privately, U.S. officials grumble about the process, complaining that politics keeps some countries on the list that should be off and vice versa.

The seven offending countries (the list has remained unchanged for years) are Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. Vince Cannistraro, former head of counterterrorism operations for the CIA, wonders why Pakistan is not on the list.

He said Pakistan supports Islamic insurgents in Indian Kashmir and also is a prime backer of the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan. The Taliban harbors Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile who is wanted for the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

``The Taliban is in power because of the Pakistanis,'' said Cannistraro.

But the designation of Pakistan as a terrorist state would rob the United States of leverage in efforts prevent a fourth Pakistani-Indian war -- probably fought with nuclear weapons. Pakistani support for terrorism, while a U.S. concern, is not the dominant issue for the United States in its ties with Pakistan.

Asked Monday why Pakistan was not on the list, the State Department's top terrorism official, Edmund Hull, acknowledged the country's misdeeds but said Pakistan has helped the United States in bringing suspects to justice in the East Africa bombings and on other terrorism cases.

The CIA's Paul Pillar, author of a new book, ``Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy,'' pointed out the difficulty in getting removed from the terrorism list. ``No state has ever come off for reasons having to do with real improvement,'' Pillar said.

He recalled that Iraq was deleted in the early 1980's, not because Saddam Hussein renounced terrorism but because of a U.S. tilt toward Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq was reinstated on the list after invading Kuwait.

North Korea remains on the list even though the most significant act by Pyongyang mentioned in the report occurred in 1970 when it provided a haven for communist airplane hijackers from Japan.

Pillar said the chief U.S. concern in ties with North Korea is not terrorism but in persuading Pyongyang to surrender its long-range missiles. He noted that North Korea complained last year that its terrorism list designation was an impediment in missile control negotiations with the Clinton administration.

Larry Johnson, a former State Department terrorism expert, said Greece backed Kurdish rebels in Turkey for years but was spared membership on the terrorism list because it was a NATO ally.

``I'd like to see politics taken out of the process,'' said Johnson. ``But this is like the quest to get money out of politics. It will never happen.''

Pillar said the executive branch ought to be able to decide on sanctions against terrorist-prone countries on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the whole range of U.S. interests.

George Gedda has covered foreign affairs for The Associated Press since 1968.

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Prosecution Details bin Laden Conspiracy

New York Times
May 2, 2001
By BENJAMIN WEISER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/world/02TERR.html

The Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, seeking "to export jihad" and "fulfill his dream, his view of how he thought the world should work," created a terrorism conspiracy that led to the bombings of the United States Embassies in East Africa in 1998, a federal prosecutor said yesterday.

As closing arguments began in the trial of four men charged in the embassy attacks, prosecutors began to paint a detailed portrait of how the defendants fit into that larger, decade-long conspiracy orchestrated by Mr. bin Laden to kill Americans anywhere they could be found.

Drawing largely from the words of the defendants themselves in phone calls, letters, and computer files, and from edicts issued by Mr. bin Laden, the government sought to tie together much of the circumstantial evidence that it has introduced, often without explanation, in the nearly three-month-long trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

"All the parts connect," said the prosecutor, Kenneth M. Karas.

The four defendants all recently waived their right to testify in their own defense. Two of the men charged in the conspiracy - Wadih El-Hage, 40, and Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, 36 - could be sentenced to life in prison if they are found guilty. The other defendants - Mohamed Rashed Daoud al- 'Owhali, 24, and Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, 27 - could be executed if they are convicted.

The nearly simultaneous embassy bombings on Aug. 7, 1998, killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and wounded thousands in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The prosecutor, Mr. Karas, said the Aug. 7 date was significant to Mr. bin Laden's group, Al Qaeda: it was the eighth anniversary of President George Bush's dispatch of the first American troops to Saudi Arabia in the Gulf war. "The American military presence in Saudi Arabia," Mr. Karas said, "becomes the cause of Al Qaeda." Much of what Mr. Karas told the jury yesterday was a historical narrative that described how Mr. bin Laden's group evolved into a global conspiracy that ultimately did not distinguish between American soldiers and civilians.

"This is explicit," Mr. Karas declared. "There's no nuance to this. In his view, there are no innocent Americans. He puts a target on the back of every American, whether the American wears a uniform, whether the American is a diplomat."

Mr. bin Laden, of course, was not on trial. He has been indicted in the case but remains a fugitive and is believed to be living in Afghanistan under the protection of the ruling Taliban. In some ways, though, Mr. Karas's closing argument sounded like the opening argument in a future trial of Mr. bin Laden, if he is ever captured.

During his summation, Mr. Karas used a large white placard to display the phone number for a satellite phone that he said Mr. bin Laden and his military commander used to communicate with their operatives in the field to conduct their Islamic holy war, or jihad.

"That phone is the jihad phone," Mr. Karas said, which he said Mr. bin Laden and others used "to carry out their conspiracy to kill Americans."

Mr. Karas, who spoke in a forceful and occasionally sarcastic voice, also did not hesitate to attack the defense. For example, he cited a contention by one defendant, Mr. Odeh, that he would not have participated in an operation that violated the tenets of Islam.

"There has been some discussion about what is Islamically correct," Mr. Karas told the jury. "You are not a court that decides that. This isn't an Islamic court."

He said Al Qaeda's aims were what mattered.

Of a defendant, Mr. Mohamed, accused of helping to bomb the embassy in Dar es Salaam, Mr. Karas said, "He prayed that the bomb would go off, and he was happy when it did."

Mr. Karas also challenged assertions by Mr. El-Hage's defense team that he worked only in Mr. bin Laden's legitimate businesses, such as selling gems. "He carries on that side of his life, while at the same time he is carrying on with the secret life, the Al Qaeda life," Mr. Karas said.

As for those businesses, Mr. Karas said, "This wasn't an attempt to get on the Fortune 500."

The prosecutor also challenged any suggestion that Mr. bin Laden's group was involved in genuine military actions. "We're not talking about armies doing battle, armed opponents battling one another," he said. "We're talking about terrorism. We're talking about preying on civilians."

Mr. Karas, whose summation is expected to continue through Thursday, focused his argument yesterday on the development of the conspiracy in advance of the bombings, and on what he called Mr. El-Hage's role "as the facilitator for Al Qaeda."

"We are not going to present any evidence that he wired any bomb, that he offered any training," Mr. Karas said.

He reiterated the government's position that Mr. El-Hage had played "an essential role for Al Qaeda," offering clandestine assistance to members in their travels and helping Mr. bin Laden establish a Kenyan cell that later was involved in the embassy attacks, he said.

In 1997 and 1998, Mr. Karas said, Mr. El-Hage, a naturalized American citizen from Lebanon, was called before federal grand juries in New York that were investigating Mr. bin Laden's activities. After swearing to tell the truth, Mr. El-Hage lied repeatedly, the prosecutor said.

"Wadih El-Hage, the American citizen, chose Al Qaeda and bin Laden over America," Mr. Karas said. He called the choice both symbolic and tragic. It was symbolic, Mr. Karas said, because it reflected his role in the conspiracy.

"It's tragic," Mr. Karas added, "because it robbed the United States of an opportunity to investigate and crack the bin Laden cell nearly 11 months before the embassies are bombed."

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Workers Mark May Day With Protests

May 2, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- Police arrested about 100 demonstrators at a May Day event after some in the crowd threw hammers, pipes and bottles filled with excrement and urine at officers.

The demonstrators were among the few who turned violent Tuesday as people across the country gathered to call for better wages and benefits for workers and more rights for immigrant laborers.

Police in riot gear fired rubber bullets and bean bags at the demonstrators after they charged a police line.

A few officers and protesters suffered minor injuries, including one officer who was hit in the head with a rock, Officer Jana Blair said.

About 150 protesters turned out, many from a group called the Southern Kalifornia Anarchist Alliance. The Long Beach protest disrupted traffic in the city that shares a harbor with Los Angeles.

In Portland, Ore., about 1,200 chanting protesters with drums, flags and banners surged through the heart of downtown during rush hour in a peaceful May Day rally that ended with no arrests. Marchers demanded worker rights, an end to corporate greed and justice for a Mexican immigrant killed last month by Portland police.

The holiday, also known as International Workers Day, is more widely celebrated in Europe than in the United States.

About 150 people were arrested in a Berlin protest Tuesday, and about 3,000 protesters were corralled at a London rally where protesters demanded that the government, as one banner put it, ``overthrow capitalism and replace it with something nice.''

A Boston rally recognized immigrant workers, calling them vital to the country's economy. Organizers said many undocumented workers are denied basic services and access to education even though their families have been in the United States for years.

``They are workers who love their families. They are workers who love their God. They are workers who love their country. And they should not have to live in fear,'' said AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, who addressed an afternoon demonstration in Boston.

In Albany, N.Y., hundreds of migrant farm workers and their advocates demonstrated at the state Capitol, calling for greater health protection and equality under state labor laws. An otherwise peaceful gathering in New York City turned briefly chaotic when police arrested a handful of performers doing street theater. Police had no information on why the performers were arrested.

About 150 May Day marchers, criticizing capitalism, caused traffic delays in downtown Pittsburgh. Police reported a few arrests and minor traffic jams during the 90-minute event.

In Chicago, activists planned a human chain to show support for a bill filed in Congress by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D.-Ill., that would grant legal status to undocumented immigrants who have been in the country for at least five years. The bill has 27 sponsors in the House, said Gutierrez's spokesman, Billy Weinberg.

A deadline for illegal immigrants to remain in the United States while pursuing legal residency expired at midnight on Monday. On Tuesday, President Bush urged Congress to extend the deadline after immigration offices were flooded with last-minute requests.

Jose Castillo, originally of Honduras, has lived in Boston for seven years and works as a chef in a Boston restaurant. The INS allowed him to remain in the United States temporarily because of Hurricane Mitch in 1998, but he said the offer expires in July.

He said he is worried that he may be forced to return.

``It is my love, Boston,'' Castillo said.

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Hunger Strikers Are Protesting Turkey's Jails

New York Times
May 2, 2001
By DOUGLAS FRANTZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/world/02TURK.html

ISTANBUL, May 1 - Inside a small concrete-block house with leftist graffiti on the walls and a nice view of the Bosporus, three women and a man are starving themselves to death.

Before long, the people here expect to join the list of victims of a seven-month hunger strike to protest the treatment of leftist inmates in Turkey's prisons and to express broader social and political concerns.

Fatma Sener, a 22-year-old university dropout, said she had not eaten for 167 days. "We have tried all other forms of protest," she said in a raspy voice that could not rise above a whisper. "We have shouted slogans and held banners. We have blocked roads. But nothing has changed."

People die at different rates when they stop eating. Doctors say the timing depends largely on metabolism, but the will to die plays a role, too.

The owner of the house, a woman who had two children, died last week. She was the third resident to die and a memorial to all three stands inside the narrow front door.

The death toll from the hunger strike nationwide stood at 20 today, with most of the deaths occurring among prisoners, according to Turkey's Human Rights Association. The group said 800 prisoners, relatives and sympathizers are taking little except sugared water, though only about 230 are classified as death fasters.

The hunger strike started last October to protest transfers of inmates from ward-style prisons, where 60 or more inmates shared a single dormitory, to new institutions with cells for one to three people. Authorities said the switch was necessary to regain control over the prisons, where criminal and political organizations often held sway. Prisoners said they would be isolated and more vulnerable to abuse by guards in the new prisons.

The strikers, mostly members of radical leftist groups, also had broader demands. They wanted an end to the state security courts where most political trials are conducted, more rights for Kurds and annulment of economic agreements with the International Monetary Fund.

The government tried to end the strike in December by storming 20 prisons across the country. Thirty inmates and two soldiers died and the strikes continued.

The starvation deaths started on March 21. At a time when the country is trying to win membership in the European Union, the deaths have focused attention on conditions in Turkey's prisons, where torture and other abuses have long been documented by international groups.

Small-cell prisons are generally accepted as the international standard. But United Nations regulations emphasize the importance of contact with other inmates and access to recreational and educational activities.

In a report last week, Amnesty International said Turkey imposed isolation regimes in the new small- cell prisons, with inmates often going days with no human contact except with guards. Prisoners are also prohibited from using common areas and exercise facilities.

Last week the Justice Ministry introduced changes that would allow prisoners to exercise and use common areas, but the strikes have continued.

As prisoners weaken, they are taken to hospitals, but physicians said they could not ethically force patients to eat or take sustenance intravenously.

Fifty-two inmates at two hospitals in Ankara are on the verge of death.

"If they do not call an end to it, we expect one or two deaths each day," said Umit Erkol, head of the Ankara Physicians Association.

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Berlin May Day Arrests More Than 600

May 2, 2001
New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BERLIN (AP) -- Berlin police said Wednesday they arrested 616 people during May Day street clashes with far-left militants who pelted them with stones and set cars ablaze -- a jump in arrests compared to last year.

Intent on cleaning up the German capital's image, city officials defended their hard-line strategy against the disturbances in the face of criticism by some local politicians that police were too heavy-handed.

The city had banned a traditional May Day anti-capitalist demonstration and deployed a massive police presence Tuesday, trying to end riots that have become a 14-year-old tradition on May 1.

City officials called the strategy a success and said the hard line would continue in the future. ``Our experience has shown that the more room we give to far-left extremists, the more violent it becomes,'' said Eckart Werthebach, the Berlin interior minister.

City police chief Hagen Saberschinsky cited 30 major incidents in Tuesday's disturbances, half the number last year. A total 400 people were arrested last year. He said 163 officers were injured, compared to 288 injured officers the previous May Day.

Some 9,000 police were in the streets Tuesday. Police and far-left protesters battled in the central Kreuzberg district, a hotbed of Berlin's alternative scene and street troubles.

Riot police backed by helicopters turned water cannons on hundreds of young militants who pelted them with bottles and cobblestones, smashed cars and shop windows and threw up flaming roadblocks.

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MTP Healthy Communities Campaign

Wed, 2 May 2001
From: "Steve Taylor" <Steve@miltoxproj.org>

MTP is kicking off a new campaign to challenge the military's environmental assault on our communities and our health, called the Healthy Communities Campaign. Below is a letter from MTP's Executive Director, Tara Thornton, describing the campaign. You can also check out the Healthy Communities Campaign section of MTP's website at www.miltoxproj.org or email me at Steve@miltoxproj.org or call (207) 783-5091. We have packets of campaign information to send out if you have not received one.

Please think about participating in our campaign kickoff on and around June 15 by organizing an event or action in your area. The more actions and events there are, the more unity and power we demonstrate to the Pentagon and state and federal officials. We are producing a report on the military's exemptions from environmental laws and impacts on communities that you can release locally if you like. The report will be available in early June in time for events happening the week of June 15th.

MTP members developed this campaign as a means to challenge the military and public officials, but also as a vehicle for MTP to support local organizations. A major part of the campaign will be to provide assistance and training to local groups, and create campaign events that can help local groups grow and prosper. If your organization needs assistance, support, training, or information, let us know and we will attemtp to provide it. Among other things, MTP can provide organizing advice and materials, scholarship assistance to travel to MTP or other military toxics events, community exchanges (sending a leader from another community to yours), and networking assistance.

Please forward this information widely to anyone you think will be interested in our effort.

In Solidarity, Steve Taylor Military Toxics Project

Tara's letter: On March 17, MTP's grassroots Board of Directors decided to launch a national campaign uniting MTP organizations and activists from all issue areas. Our Healthy Communities Campaign seeks to make our military accountable to our communities and our laws for its environmental practices that harm our families, active duty personnel, and civilian employees.

Most of the problems that our communities face stem from the fact that our military is above the law: exempt from environmental, worker, and public safety laws, or exempt from most meaningful enforcement. We have identified four key areas of focus for the campaign.

Health Effects - Military toxics have poisoned us, our families, and our communities. We must document the human cost of military toxics and make it a central part of the debate. Access to Information - We are consistently denied critical information about military toxics that affects our health. MTP will expose the military's "right to hide" and win access to the information we need to protect ourselves.

Military Environmental Responsibility Act - The military is exempted from most laws that protect communities and workers, either because it is completely exempt or because EPA has no enforcement authority. MTP is supporting Congressman Bob Filner's bill that would make the military accountable to all federal and state environmental, worker, and public safety laws.

Enforcement - Even when U.S. EPA has full authority to enforce laws against the military, the agency usually won't act. We will teach communities how to use the Safe Drinking Water Act to push for cleanup of military toxics, and challenge all EPA regions to show the same courage demonstrated by Region 1 in New England, which has used its authority to protect communities. If you want more information about the campaign, just call, email, or write the MTP office. Campaign Kick Off on June 15, 2001

We will publicly kick off our Healthy Communities Campaign on Friday, June 15 of this year. June 15 is the anniversary of the Magna Carta, signed by King John of England in 1215, which guaranteed that the kings and queens of England would be bound by the same laws as their subjects. We will use this anniversary to make our point that the military should be bound by the same laws and standards as the rest of us.

I hope your organization will organize an action or event on or about June 15 as part of our national kick off. We need to demonstrate strength and commitment across the country if we want to achieve our campaign goals. Any event you can organize - a direct action, press conference, public meeting, visit to a Congressperson, or anything else - will help build our campaign. Any focus - health effects, information, enforcement, or legislation - is welcome. Pick MTP staff can work with you to develop a plan for an action that can help build your local organization.

In Solidarity, Tara Thornton Executive Director Steve Taylor National Organizer Military Toxics Project (207) 783-5091


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