------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Today In History
Civil servants told: Treat sick soldiers as 'political' cases
THE GULF WAR'S TROUBLING LEGACY
India to fine-tune n-delivery systems
From Douglas MacArthur's 1964 autobiography, "Reminiscences"
Missile fizzle
Review Says New Patriot Has Glitches
The Airborne Missile Swindle
A Wary Atlantic Alliance
Getting the Point -- Up to a Point
Robert Oppenheimer
DEIS SUPPLEMENT FOR YUCCA MOUNTAIN-- TALKING POINTS
Senator pledges to blunt Bush's plans

MILITARY
Libyan Troops Bolster Leader In Bangui
China suspected in port deal
Serbian Town's Deadly Secret Points the Finger at Milosevic
A Colombian Human Rights Figure Is the New Defense Minister
Dutch Approve Coffee And Pot for German Tourists
Iran Says It Tested Missile
Iran Test - Fires New Home - Made Guided Missile
U.S. Won't Push New Iraq Sanctions
Deal on Iraq Sanctions Eludes U.S.
Iraq Oil - For - Food Extended 1 Month
British-U.S. Plan to Ease Curb on Iraq Seems Stalled for Now
IRA, Disarmament Commission Meet
NATO chief urges lawmakers to cough up more cash for defence alliance
Navy to Resume Bombing Vieques
Court Rejects Sharpton Motions
Jailed Vieques Protesters Remain Unbowed
US military readies to meet threat of war in space
UNITED STATES PLANNING TO DEPLOY DEFENSE SYSTEMS
Study: Clearances granted to troubled workers
Bush Eyes Additional $5.6 Billion For Military
US forces in Bahrain, Qatar placed on heightened alert: official
Bush to Ask for Increased Military Funding

OTHER
US Energy Dept reviewing renewable fuels programs
Bush energy plan faulted for ignoring human rights
Ill Winds Carry Toxic Dust
Chemical factory blast kills 11 in India
Pesticide waste disposal too slow
Pesticide firms seek Ethiopia toxic dumps audit
AIDS Crusader's International Award Wins Scowls in China
Report Finds Young Black Men at Higher Risk for H.I.V.
Experts: Trafficking of people soars
Amnesty Criticizes U.S. Record On Rights
China Police Visit Tiananmen Activist
Russia MP Sees Soviet - Style Muzzling of Scientists
Idaho Deputies in Standoff With 6 Children
Panel Seeks Better Training of Detroit Police
Police Commander Is Indicted in Thefts From Drug Dealers
Scientists in Russia told to report all foreign links
Lawyers: Agents Didn't Take Secrets
Alleged Spy Pleads Innocent
Taliban vows not to hand over Bin Laden
Trial Poked Holes in Image of bin Laden's Terrorist Group
Threat Puts U.S. Force in Bahrain on Alert

ACTIVISTS
California: Meeting about Diablo with NRC June 14, 2001
INTERNATIONAL ACTION CAMP AUGUST 2001
Three More Falun Gong Members Die


-------- NUCLEAR

Today In History - May 31

The Associated Press
Wednesday, May 31, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010530/aponline200011_000.htm

In 1994, the United States announced it was no longer aiming long-range nuclear missiles at targets in the former Soviet Union....

One year ago: President Clinton, visiting Portugal, tried to calm fears of a nuclear arms race that would leave Europe vulnerable by promising to share any new missile defense technology with U.S. allies.

-------- depleted uranium

Civil servants told: Treat sick soldiers as 'political' cases

THE INDEPENDENT LONDON UK
Thu, 31 May 2001
From: DSNurse@aol.com
By Steve Boggan

Veterans react with anger after documents reveal claims cases can be dropped or sidelined to avoid embarrassing ministers

Civil servants are being instructed to treat victims of Gulf War Syndrome, depleted uranium poisoning and nuclear testing as "political" when assessing applications for war pensions.

Internal War Pensions Agency documents passed to The Independent suggest that applicants are not being treated on their merits, but on how politically sensitive their illnesses are to the Government. Their applications could thus be stalled or sidelined at the whim of ministers.

War veterans reacted with fury yesterday at seeing in print what they had long suspected. Ray Bristow, a former deputy chairman of the National Gulf Veterans and Families' Association, described the evidence ­ sent to him secretly ­ as "despicable".

Mr Bristow, 43, who has a catalogue of debilitating illnesses he believes were caused by exposure to depleted uranium and to vaccines and tablets he was given during the Gulf War, has been diagnosed recently with a lymphoma cancer.

He said: "This means that no matter how ill you are and no matter how much evidence and medical back-up you have, your case can be halted once it looks as if it could embarrass ministers. It's outrageous."

The evidence comes from Part Five of a procedures manual used for guidance by war pensions assessors. Under the title "Entitlement Considerations", paragraph 50054 advises: "For the most part, the compulsions [causes of injuries or illnesses] contended are fairly standard, eg stress and strain, adverse weather conditions, exposure to military noise etc.

"Sometimes the contentions may have political overtones. Some examples are exposure to chemicals at Porton Down, radiation in nuclear tests, organophosphates, depleted uranium, Nerve Agent Pre-treatment Set (NAPS) tablets and vaccinations in the Gulf War etc. If you are at all concerned that there may be political sensitivities, please discuss the case with your executive case worker.

"If necessary, the case may be referred for policy advice." Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrats' social security spokesman, described the practice as "scandalous". He said: "Once you enter into the benefits system, there are key sets of regulations set down that should ensure you are treated on your merits. The idea that there could be political interference in those processes is a disgrace.

"This is improper interference in the cases of people who have fought for their country and are entitled to fair treatment. As soon as [Parliament] gets back, this is an issue we will be raising on the floor of the House [of Commons]."

Mr Bristow, like thousands of other veterans, suffers from a mixture of illnesses not recognised collectively as a syndrome by the MoD. They include impaired memory, speech, vision and hearing, high blood pressure, fits, chronic fatigue syndrome, involuntary muscle spasms, post traumatic stress disorder, cerebral hyper profusion, irritable bowel syndrome and fibromyalgia (a musculoskeletal pain and fatigue disorder).

Three American specialists have diagnosed Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) in him, a Canadian specialist found 100 times the normal amount of uranium in his urine, and NHS practitioners have acknowledged he has GWS. But the Ministry of Defence will not.

Mr Bristow said: "I was an operating theatre technician and in the Territorial Army so I decided to volunteer for the Gulf War with the Royal Army Medical Corps. I knew I might become a casualty, but not from my own side. I don't want compensation. I simply want the war pension I'm entitled to, and an apology wouldn't go amiss." The Department of Social Security, which administers the War Pensions Agency, said it was unable to comment "because there is an election on".

About 5,000 shells containing about 50,000lb of depleted uranium were fired by the United States alone in the Gulf, according to an Atomic Energy Authority assessment leaked to the Gulf Veterans Association this year. Mark McGhee, a partner with Linder Myers solicitors in Manchester, is representing up to 300 of 2,000 possible Gulf War claimants. He said he was "astonished" by the agency's guidance. "I have never, ever come across a document like this, giving such unusual advice on policy, and I do not understand what it can mean when it says claims can be 'political'," he said. "It certainly causes me grave concern. It would be something I would like to have in my possession when representing individuals at pension tribunals. I would want to get to the bottom of what this policy is and what is behind it."

Mr McGhee said that, as far as he knew, not one soldier returning from the Gulf with the reported panoply of illnesses had been granted a 100 per cent war pension on the basis of what, in America, was recognised as Gulf War Syndrome.

--------

THE GULF WAR'S TROUBLING LEGACY

By Gary Null
http://www.garynull.com/Documents/GulfWarLegacy2.htm

What made our Gulf War veterans sick? There were several factors--including unprecedented environmental hazards, chemical and biological warfare agents, pesticides, experimental vaccines, and weapons made from depleted uranium--and it's getting harder for the government to pretend they didn't exist.

Note: The information on this website is not a substitute for diagnosis and treatment by a qualified, licensed professional.

Introduction

With only 148 Americans officially killed in action and only 467 wounded, ours seemed to be a shining victory in the Gulf. But this victory has lost its glow somewhat, now that we know that tens of thousands of our Gulf service people have become sick from a debilitating and sometimes deadly syndrome. The Department of Veterans Affairs has reported that approximately 6000 soldiers have died since the war's conclusion, including 1300 18- to 24-year-olds who were in perfect health prior to the war, but who mysteriously contracted various forms of cancer after their involvement with the military. According to H. Lindsey Arison, III, aide to the undersecretary of the U.S. Air Force, there are now over 50,000 veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome, including about 11,000 still on active duty. [1]

Arison outlines the causes of Gulf vets' health problems. First, they were exposed to nonlethal levels of chemical and biological agents released primarily by direct Iraqi attack via missiles, rockets, artillery, or aircraft munitions and by fallout from allied bombings of Iraqi chemical warfare munitions facilities during the 38-day 1991 air war.

Exposure to chemical and biological agents alone is one thing. But the effects of these were exacerbated by a whole gamut of other factors to which vets were exposed. Arison enumerates them: nerve agent pretreatment pills, called pyridostigmine bromide, that our service people were ordered to take; investigational botulinum toxoid vaccines; anthrax vaccines; and depleted uranium, used in armor-piercing munitions. Other factors entering into the synergistic mix included oil fire contamination and pesticides, and some people believe that an artificially engineered bacterium/virus cross called a mycoplasma, and, separately, that a vaccine ingredient, the adjuvant squalene, were significant factors too.

Arison emphasizes the point that since different people were exposed to different hazards at different levels, a whole variety of symptomatologies have arisen in Gulf War vets. This variability of symptoms is sometimes taken to mean that Gulf War syndrome is a "mystery illness" or that people are imagining things, when it fact it just shows that the syndrome is a multifactorial problem.

Dr. Garth Nicolson is a specialist in cell biology and biochemistry and a professor of internal medicine and pathology at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston. After extensive study of Gulf veterans' ailments, he estimates that 100,000 Americans have become sick from Gulf War syndrome (this number includes both soldiers and members of their immediate families), and says that over 7000 soldiers may have died. He points out that although Gulf War syndrome is not a universal disease that everyone who served in the Persian Gulf region has acquired, there are entire units that have become sick, which suggests some variance dependent on exact locations within the region.

Nicolson stresses that in addition to affecting Americans, Gulf War syndrome has taken its toll on others who participated in the coalition forces. Currently 27 of the 28 coalition nations have claimed that they have numerous sick veterans--and sick members of veterans' families--and this is especially true in England, where, depending on whose estimates you use, between 1200 and over 3500 Gulf War vets are afflicted with the syndrome, referred to as desert fever in that country. Many Gulf vet families in Britain are suing their government after having had deformed children, and it was reported that at least one ex-soldier has requested a vasectomy because he is terrified of having any more children with problems. [2].

It should be noted that there is a coalition nation not reporting Gulf War illnesses--France. That country has not observed any sick soldiers or affected children, possibly because they did not immunize their troops with experimental vaccines, or because they treated them with the antibiotic doxycycline prior to active service.

An important dimension of the Gulf's health legacy is that families of Gulf War veterans have not been spared from the suffering. Unfortunately, many of them haven't been properly diagnosed, due to the lack of objective clinical findings associated with the syndrome. A survey of 1000 servicemen and women conducted by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs revealed that an assortment of illnesses associated with Gulf War syndrome are, in fact, contagious. According to Senator Donald Riegle (D.--Michigan), who headed the committee's two-year investigation of Gulf War veterans' health problems, the survey was designed for maximum reliability by inserting a few "ringer" questions to identify false responses, and the replies were indeed consistent with the pool of common symptoms. In most cases, responses to the poll indicated that spouses and children of Gulf War veterans are experiencing only a few of the indications, whereas the veterans themselves are suffering from up to 20 symptoms. [3]

But both the families and the veterans have suffered because of the government's lack of curiosity about their service people's post-war ailments. Since, until recently, the Department of Defense did not acknowledge the existence of any war-caused illnesses, soldiers who claim that they have the syndrome have been denied proper medical attention and have in some cases been instructed to leave the military. In pain, neglected by their country, and mistakenly diagnosed with psychiatric ailments, many veterans have tragically turned to suicide to cope with a problem that no one seemed to understand or care about.

Symptoms

Gulf War syndrome is manifested in many ways. Chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome affects over half of syndrome victims, according to Dr. Garth Nicolson, who, with his wife, molecular biophysicist and University of Texas professor Dr. Nancy Nicolson, has examined and evaluated many syndrome patients. Other symptoms include lymphoma, cardiac ailments, memory loss, leukoencephalopathy, and neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Public health expert Dr. Leonard Horowitz estimates that 80 to 90 percent of syndrome patients are plagued with severe aches and pains in their joints. Others commonly experience dizziness, nausea, stomach pains, light sensitivity, intense anxiety, breathing difficulty, muscle spasms, diarrhea, blurred vision, inexplicable skin rashes, hives, bleeding gums, eye redness, night sweats, and acute migraine-like headaches. Sexual and urination disorders plague numerous victims, while up to 25 percent of syndrome patients have experienced hair loss, and 25 percent have acquired multiple chemical sensitivities, which means they have become allergic to a wide variety of chemical substances and can consequently have severe reactions to even the most common household items. [4]

According to Drs. Garth and Nancy Nicolson, the chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS) characteristic of sick Gulf vets is induced by an unusual microorganism that seems to be the product of weaponization, that is, human manipulation of germs for the purposes of warfare. The Nicolsons report that the organism present in each of the CFIDS patients is an odd variant of a typical mycoplasma. Ordinarily, mycoplasma is a cross between a bacterium and a virus, and can be effectively combated with antibiotics. But in this case, the organism contains human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) and anthrax genes. Since it is not possible for the typical mycoplasma to naturally mutate into a modified form of anthrax and the alleged AIDS virus, this seems to be an engineered organism. [5] The Nicolsons contend that the U.S. military created this mycoplasma and sold it to Iraq, which subsequently used it against U.S. troops.

The Drs. Nicolson go on to explain that since the mycoplasma sequence associated with the various Gulf syndrome symptoms is quite infectious, prolonged contact, or even casual contact, with an infected person can facilitate its dissemination. In one instance, the wife and children of a soldier serving in Operation Desert Storm became seriously ill after being exposed to clothing sent back from the Gulf region. Within weeks, the soldier's wife and two sons were diagnosed with asthma, while the 22-month-old daughter nearly died from gangrenous lesions. In another case recounted before the Riegle Committee, a nurse whose brother had returned from the Gulf with the disease had had to rush him to the hospital with an abnormally high fever. His sweat, she reported, had actually left reddish burn marks on her skin. Shortly after this incident, the nurse mysteriously contracted several health conditions that could not be explained by doctors. [6]

A New Generation Affected

Reed West, daughter of Gulf veteran Dennis West from Waynesboro, Mississippi, was born prematurely with collapsed lungs and a faulty immune system. Joshua Miller, the son of veteran Aimee Miller, constantly suffers from strange colds, pneumonia, and high fevers. These are just a couple of the Gulf War's second-generation casualties; there are many others, including children who are dying of heart defects, liver diseases, and other rare disorders. [7] It's been estimated that 30 percent of Gulf War veterans' babies are born with deformities; this is ten times higher than the number of birth defects one would expect to find in the general population.

In Waynesboro, Mississippi, the site of the National Guard quartermasters corps, 13 out of 15 children born to Gulf veterans suffer from serious disorders. Infant mortality rates have dramatically escalated in four counties in Kentucky and Tennessee, where the Army's 101st Airborne Division is based, in three counties in Georgia, where the Army's 197th Infantry Division is located, and at Ft. Hood, in Texas.

At a Congressional hearing, Dr. Ellen Silbergeld, a molecular toxicologist at the University of Maryland, reported that men can pass toxic chemicals on to their unborn children through their semen. Indeed, many wives of ill veterans report urinary tract and vaginal infections after sex, and say that their husband's semen burns their skin. And Akron, Ohio, environmental pediatrician Dr. Francis J. Waickman reports a 30-percent rate of abnormalities among Gulf vets' children, which is about 10 times the expected incidence. Waickman reminds us that toxic chemicals can lower immunity and increase susceptibility to infections in newborns, and he speculates that severe chemical exposure can alter genes as well. He offers this advice about our Gulf experience: "To my knowledge, this is the first time we've ever had such a large group exposed to a possible large degree of chemicals, so we better learn from this whole series of events." [7]

One organization attempting to learn more about birth defects in Gulf vets' families is the Orlando, Florida-based Association of Birth Defect Children. They maintain a registry for Persian Gulf War families, and are keeping track of babies with Goldenhar syndrome, missing limbs, chronic infections, failure to thrive, cancer, heart problems, and immune problems.

Steve Miller is a Persian Gulf vet who can explain what the rare condition called Goldenhar syndrome involves because his son, conceived soon after Miller's return from the Gulf, was born with it: "He had hydrocephalus, spinal scoliosis, spina bifida, was missing his left eye and left ear, the heart was on the right side of the body...For a child to be born completely missing an eye, according to the National Institute of Health, is either hereditary or caused by teratogenic exposure [fetal exposure to a substance blocking normal growth]. In our case we both tested negative in genetic testing. The normal occurrence for this type of birth defect is one in 26,500. And I believe as of right now [August '97] we have located 17 children of Gulf War vets with the same birth defect. And there were only 75,000 born after the Persian Gulf War." [8].

Betty Mekdeci, founder of the Association of Birth Defect Children, confirms that Goldenhar syndrome is now occurring disproportionately in Gulf veterans' offspring. And she cites chronic, serious immune problems as the type of problem most frequently reported to the organization in connection with veterans' offspring. [9]

A Multiplicity of Poisons

As we've mentioned, the term Gulf War syndrome is not one, easily defined problem, but rather encompasses a wide variety of ailments. Congressman Steven Buyer from Indiana, whose Army reserve unit was stationed at a prisoner of war camp in the region, feels that Gulf War syndrome is really a misnomer, explaining that he and other afflicted servicemen have been plagued with a broad spectrum of chronic disorders. Having experienced some of the symptoms firsthand, Representative Buyer attributes the heightened frequency of illnesses among veterans to the wide variety of hazardous substances that they encountered in the Gulf, including poison gases, diesel fumes, petroleum-related pollution, parasites, experimental medications, and biological warfare agents. [10]

Dr. Boaz Milner, of the VA hospital in Allen Park, Michigan, has treated over 300 patients claiming to have become ill as a result of their Gulf War experience. Milner agrees with Buyer that the collection of symptoms that have manifested can be attributed to a variety of factors, which he has categorized into five syndromes. Milner's first category of Gulf War syndrome sufferers consists of soldiers who were exposed to excessive quantities of radiation, possibly from the uranium used in munitions. The second form of the syndrome was induced by the widespread use of experimental vaccines that were designed to protect the troops from the harmful elements they might encounter, while another category encompasses veterans exposed to various environmental pollutants, including the more than 700 burning oil wells that contaminated the region's air and water. Milner believes that other soldiers may have contracted illnesses due to the presence of toxic chemical compounds such as pesticides, while the fifth form of the syndrome was brought on by the release of biological warfare agents. [6]

Germs from the Gulf are good travelers, according to members of the medical community who have expressed concern regarding the possibility of infectious microorganisms becoming fastened to equipment and other materials. They cite incidences of Navy personnel on aircraft carriers who never set foot on land, but who mysteriously acquired the syndrome subsequent to active duty in the Gulf region. When aircraft returning from overseas service were unloaded in domestic Air Force bases at the conclusion of the war, the contaminated equipment aboard the returning planes may have facilitated the disease's dissemination into the general population. This hypothesis is strengthened by reports of illness in stevedores assigned to unload repatriated transport planes. It is estimated that clothing brought back by soldiers may contain infectious microorganisms that can survive for up to seven years.

Unproven Vaccines, Unmonitored Medicine

The widespread use of experimental vaccines during Desert Storm has often been cited as a possible cause of Gulf War syndrome. Dr. Garth Nicolson elaborates: "I'm not a big fan of experimental vaccines. There have been too many mistakes. Usually you find these things out years later. Often agents that we think innocuous turn out to be harmful." He explains that during the Gulf War, the established procedures of vaccination were ignored. Normally, only one inoculation should be given at a time, but the military insisted on giving multiple shots at once, which, according to Nicolson, is the worst thing you can do because it suppresses the immune system. [5]

The troops immunized for the Gulf have been called guinea pigs, and for good reason. They received experimental vaccines, e.g., those for anthrax and botulinum that were not approved for use by the FDA and have since proven to cause potentially dangerous side effects. Soldiers who were given these experimental vaccines, without informed consent, have reported suffering from a variety of neurological problems and aberrant bleeding from all parts of their body. Because of these vaccines' experimental nature, many questions have arisen as to why our government dispensed them. Not the least of these questions is, what about the Nuremberg Code? Developed by the Allies after World War II in response to inhumane Nazi experimentation, the Nuremberg code says that voluntary and informed consent is absolutely essential from all human subjects who participate in research, whether during peace or war. [11]

Nerve-gas-countering pills were a big problem for many Desert Storm participants. Documents released by the Pentagon in 1995 revealed that high-ranking military officials had pressured the Food and Drug Administration into authorizing experimentation with pyridostigmine bromide (PB) tablets for protection against Iraqi chemical or biological attacks. PB tablets are usually only used for the treatment of the chronic muscle weakness disorder myasthenia gravis, but the military and the FDA waived the traditional informed consent procedures during the early stages of the conflict. Many soldiers did inquire about the classified nature of the pills, but, nevertheless, they were forced to consume them in excessive quantities by their commanding officers. Others, fearing for their safety, ignored the orders of their superiors after witnessing the pills' highly unpleasant gastric effects upon their fellow servicemen.

Where Was the FDA?

Isn't the FDA responsible for making sure that Americans aren't given unsafe drugs? Shouldn't they at least warn people of possible dangers? They claim they tried. They blame the Pentagon for PB. In May '97, it was reported that a top FDA official told Congress the Pentagon did not keep a promise to fully inform soldiers before giving them the experimental nerve-gas antidotes during the war. [12] The promise to warn soldiers about the drugs had been a condition of the FDA's agreeing, in 1991, to waive standard consent requirements. A Pentagon spokesperson said that information sheets had been sent to the Gulf, but sent late. Some members of Congress were outraged upon hearing this. For instance, Christopher Shays (R.--Connecticut), chairman of the Congressional investigating committee, said that the FDA's failure to compel the military to keep its word "blows my mind."

Evidence has indicated that the procedure for administering the pills placed the recipients at risk. Records of who received the pills were not kept, and a standard dosage was distributed, regardless of sex, age, weight, or medical history. What's more, the toxicity of this experimental drug was actually heightened by issuing it along with common household insecticides, a potentially lethal combination.

Nurse Carol Picou, who served in the Gulf, elaborates on the problems with pyridostigmine bromide: [13] "This has been used since 1955 on patients with myasthenia gravis. This drug has never been tested on healthy human beings. Yet I have a report where they show they did do testing on 10 soldiers--men. Two couldn't even finish the program. Two got severely sick....Even when you give it to myasthenia gravis patients you monitor for levels of toxicity. You give it to them according to their height, weight, bone structures. Yet they gave us pyridostigmine--everybody--the same pack--30 mg pills--take them three times a day. And when people had problems with them they didn't take us off. Right away, I looked it up--in 1955, if you have problems with this drug, they should take you off of it, and the antidote is atropine. Well, we received atropine during the war. We didn't know why we had to carry atropine and Valium. Well, it's because of the fact of the chemical warfare threat, and the fact that if something would happen to us from the pyridostigmine, that would be our antidote."

Carol Picou has been experiencing a variety of serious health problems, not the least of which is head-to-toe neurological damage, since her Gulf service. [13]

James Moss, a former researcher for the Department of Agriculture, has criticized the military's experimentation with PB tablets and has correlated their use with the manifestation of birth defects. At a Congressional Veterans Affairs Committee hearing, committee chairman Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D.--West Virginia) censured the Pentagon for its disregard for human rights and its utter lack of responsibility. Rockefeller believes that the Pentagon had no proof that the drugs or vaccines were safe or effective, yet proceeded to dispense them without first evaluating female recipients or apprising troops of possible side effects. [14]

At that same hearing, Gulf veteran Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Neil Tetzlaff explained to the committee how he and fellow servicemen experienced severe vomiting and other acute conditions after taking PB tablets during the journey to Saudi Arabia. According to Tetzlaff, officials from the Department of Veterans Affairs were reluctant to cooperate with the afflicted soldiers upon their arrival in the Gulf region because they were unable to corroborate that the medication was the cause of their problems. In defense of the Pentagon, Assistant Secretary of Defense Dr. Edward Martin asserted that the military was only trying to fulfill its obligations to its troops by offering protection from an enemy who had previously engaged in chemical and biological warfare. Regardless of these good intentions, babies with serious abnormalities continue to be born to demoralized veterans. As Senator Tom Daschle (D.--South Dakota) said at the hearing, "How many more lessons do we have to learn?" He was referring to the military's past experience with Agent Orange during the 1970s.

Adjuvant Antibodies Found

Recently, new information has been brought to light about squalene, an adjuvant (or compound that boosts the effectiveness of a vaccine) that is not supposed to be used in humans except in research on illnesses such as HIV and herpes. However, unusually high antibody levels for squalene have been showing up in the blood of Gulf War vets. This was the gist of an investigation by Insight magazine, [15] which reports that VA spokespeople have no explanation for these findings. The mystery is compounded by the disappearance of up to 70,000 service-related immunization records.

One of the scientists hired by Insight to investigate the presence of squalene in veterans' blood elaborates on the study's findings: "We found soldiers who are not sick that do not have the antibodies....We found soldiers who never left the U.S. but who got shots who are sick, and they have squalene in their systems. We found people who served overseas in various parts of the desert that are sick who have squalene. And we found people who served in the desert but were civilians who never got these shots...who are not sick and do not have squalene."

According to one government official familiar with the blood test results, increased levels of sickness in veterans were indeed correlated with increased levels of antibodies for squalene. Another official explained, "I'm not telling you that squalene is making these people sick, but I am telling you that the sick ones have it in them. It's probably whatever was used [mixed] with the squalene that's doing it, or in combination with the squalene. You find that, and you may be on to something."

Research immunologist Pam Asa has worked with about 150 individuals with Gulf War syndrome. Asa is one of the investigators looking into squalene, and she stresses that this is not a substance approved for use in humans, as it hasn't been through rigorous safety testing. She reports that the autoimmune manifestations of squalene vary from person to person, depending on the patient's genetic make-up. "In other words, patient A will have a certain spectrum of symptoms, and patient B will have another. But it's still the same disease process, basically. It does also involve neurological disease." [16]

Mark Zeller is one of the service people affected by this issue: "I sent my blood and got a notice back that I'm positive for this stuff called squalene, which is an adjuvant, which goes into a vaccine. This adjuvant is still not for human use. I'm here to tell you, I've got squalene in my body. And I said, 'It's not supposed to be in humans. To this date, it's still not used in humans except for research. I never sought to be a guinea pig out in the desert. I signed on to protect my country. At least that's what I thought." [17]

Iraq's Deadly Arsenal

Another possible cause of Gulf War syndrome was the presence of biological and chemical additives present in the Scud B and Frog missiles. On May 1, 1996, senior physician at Walter Reed Army Hospital Major General Ronald Blanck admitted to the President's Panel on Gulf War Illnesses that chemical and biological weapons had been used during Operation Desert Storm, and that low-level exposures to these agents probably occurred. Studies had confirmed that hundreds of Iraqi missiles had been loaded with biological warfare agents, but until Major General Blanck's report--five years after the war--the evidence had been completely disavowed by official sources.

Disclosures by high-ranking Iraqi officials have in fact confirmed that Iraq possessed an extensive chemical and biological arsenal during the Gulf War. After the August 1995 defection of Lieutenant General Hussein Kamel Majid, Saddam Hussein's top biological weapons adviser, the Iraqi government, in an attempt to lessen the impact of Majid's revelations, unveiled an abundance of classified information to United Nations investigators documenting the development of biological and chemical warfare arsenals. The Iraqis revealed that prior to the Gulf War their nation engaged in a top-secret program to develop biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons that could be used against any of their foes, including the U.S., Israel, and Saudi Arabia. Prior to the disclosures, Iraq had claimed that it had only ten people employed by its biological programs, but it has since admitted that 150 scientists and an extensive support staff were involved in the mass-development of biological warfare agents in the 1980s. According to U.N. officials, Iraq possessed at least 50 bombs loaded with anthrax, 100 bombs containing botulinum, and 25 missile warheads carrying other germ agents.

The Iraqi government's goal was to create a diversified arsenal that went way beyond conventional weapons. For instance, one viral agent manufactured by the Iraqis was capable of generating hemorrhagic conjunctivitis, which commonly results in temporary blindness or bleeding eyes, while another agent developed by the Iraqis could be used to induce chronic diarrhea, a condition quite effective in immobilizing troops. Secret Iraqi biological warfare programs were also responsible for the production of at least 78 gallons of gangrene-inducing chemicals that were capable of penetrating the body and infecting wounds. Other agents included "yellow rain," a lethal fungi responsible for bleeding lungs, and ricin, a deadly toxin derived from castor oil plants.

Was Iraq ready to use its poisons on the battlefield? Jonathan Tucker, in an article in The Nonproliferation Review[18] documents that they were, and that they in fact did use them, in 76 incidents. And Tucker mentions that, during the conflict, London's Sunday Times reported that intercepted Iraqi military communications indicated that Saddam Hussein had authorized front-line commanders to use chemical weapons as soon as coalition forces began their ground offensive. [19] The American Newsweek, as well, reported this fact. [20]

We do have military documentation to support assertions of biological and chemical weapons presence. For instance, battlefield reports of the 513th Military Intelligence Brigade confirmed the release of anthrax on Feb. 24, 1991, at King Khalid Military City, while documentation from the following day reveals the presence of Lewicite, a nerve gas that could have been released either by an Iraqi assault or as a result of secondary explosions.

The U.S. as Supplier

A sad irony of the Gulf War involves the origin of Iraq's biological and chemical weapons. At least some of them came from the United States. By sharing weapons and intelligence throughout Iraq's long war with Iran in the 1980s, the U.S. helped create the largest stockpile of chemical weapons in history. That these were later used to our detriment is an example of the phenomenon known as "blow-back," i.e., what happens when we don't look at the long-term consequences of our foreign policy actions.

According to the Riegle report, during the 1980s the U.S. government supplied the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission with at least 28 biological weapons to use in its bitter war with neighboring Iran. In 1987, then Vice President Bush met with Iraqi officials to ensure that technological equipment used to produce chemical and biological warfare agents would continue to be exported to the Iraqis. When he assumed the presidency, Bush maintained this policy, despite Congressional dissension. Corporations involved in transactions with the Iraqi government, including Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, Rockwell, and Tektronix, were licensed to export more than $1.5 million of highly sophisticated equipment in the five years preceding the Gulf War, and these companies frequently delivered their products directly to Iraqi chemical and nuclear plants. [21]

On June 6, 1994, 26 Gulf veterans filed a $1 billion class action lawsuit in Angleton, Texas, naming 11 firms involved in biological and chemical warfare production as defendants. The attorney for the plaintiffs cited the defendants' cognizant participation in the manufacture of unreasonably dangerous biological compounds as the basis for the suit. In addition, the defendants have also been accused of allowing their business practices to enable an outlaw country like Iraq to obtain and use biological and chemical weapons. [22]

In his report to Congress, Senator Riegle was quite explicit, being able to name the biologicals involved, the batch numbers sent to Iraq, and their dates. For instance, among the agents delivered to various agencies of the Iraqi government were Clostridium perfringens, a gaseous gangrene causing agent, Brucella melitenis, Clostridium botulinum, salmonella, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, and Staphylococcus epidermis.

The U.S. was a participant in the Geneva Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, and we (as well as Iraq!) signed the resultant agreement that prohibited both experimentation with and the sale of biologicals or weapons of mass destruction. Now, obviously, our government has a considerable interest in keeping the U.S. breach of this agreement covered up. Plus there's the inconvenient fact of our history of cooperation with Saddam Hussein, a tyrant who was denounced by the global community and likened to Adolf Hitler. Embarrassment about revealing our past dealings with our current enemy has hampered our government's readiness to deal fairly with veterans.

The Corporate Connection

The January 1996 issue of Media Bypass magazine [23] carries a hard-hitting article by Sarah McClendon that exposes U.S. corporations' production and sale of chemical and biological weapons to Iraq. McClendon writes that "Proof is building upwards, stronger than ever, that big U.S. corporations made the weapons that Iraq's Saddam Hussein used to kill American soldiers in the Persian Gulf war. These corporations also provided the chemical and biological weapons that the Iraqis used to make thousands of surviving soldiers chronically ill."

The article goes on to condemn both the Bush and Clinton administrations' Justice Departments for agreeing not to prosecute the big-name American corporations for trading with the enemy: "The building up of Iraq's weapons, paid for by U.S. taxpayers, was conducted for years before the Persian Gulf war and after it started...But at this very moment, the Clinton Justice Department turned this question over to the Treasurey Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control where, at first, officials were pondering whether this should be treated as a criminal or civil offense."

Even after being warned, the Clinton administration assigned the same FBI men, the same prosecutors who had ruled that the corporations during the Bush administration should not be prosecuted, to investigate the case to see if charges should be filed against the corporations and their officers. In 1995 the Justice Department said it did not prosecute the corporations because they did not have the proof to win the case.

Not to be overlooked is the matter of the $5 billion loan to Iraq from the BNL Italian bank of Rome which was guaranteed by U.S. taxpayers through the Department of Agriculture's Commodity Credit Corporation. Iraq turned this loan into letters of credit with which it bought $5 billion in weapons (including biologicals and Scuds from the U.S.), and when Iraq later defaulted on the loan, the U.S. taxpayer essentially paid the bill for weapons that were later shot back at U.S. soldiers.

Why was there no investigation? When Sarah McClendon asked George Bush to give the public a list of the corporations in the Pittsburgh area that were making weapons for Saddam Hussein, he refused. Perhaps it was no coincidence that these corporations were tied to the Brown Brothers Harriman Bank, which had been managed by President Bush's father, the late Senator Prescott Bush.

Says McClendon: "How was this cover-up of the manufacture of weapons for Iraq arranged in the U.S.? Bush arranged for 70 percent of the policy-makers in the Justice Department to remain in their jobs when the transition from Bush to Clinton took place. They took a lower pay scale, but stayed in control. These holdovers are running the Justice Department today. Clinton has been told about this, but somehow he does not seem to act on the information."

Unheeded Alarms

Many Gulf War veterans have testified that chemical warfare detector alarms at bases across the region were frequently triggered, yet troops were ordered to ignore the alarms. According to General Colin Powell, who had been chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the war, American commanders had believed the frequent alarms to be false, because nobody seemed to be getting sick immediately. It was believed by those involved that you had to become obviously ill at the time of exposure to chemical or biological agents for exposure to mean anything. [24]

One veteran who did get immediately ill, Petty Officer Sterling Symms of the Naval Reserve Construction Battalion, was stationed in Saudi Arabia when one morning he was awakened by an extremely loud explosion overhead. Right after the detonation, chemical alarms were sounded, and a strong ammonia-like aroma permeated the air. Before he could rush to get his protective gear on, Symms's face and eyes began to burn; several months later, he began to suffer from typical Gulf vet symptoms, including chronic fatigue, open sores, and rashes. Symms and several of his comrades, who had contracted similar symptoms, described to Congress how they were issued orders by their commanding officers to avoid any further discussion of the incident.

Another veteran who testified before the Riegle Committee, Army Sergeant Randall L. Vallee, explained how orders to ignore chemical-detector alarms were rationalized by a variety of absurd scenarios, such as the idea that supersonic aircraft or sand-infested equipment had triggered the alarms. Vallee, like Symms, testified that the alarms frequently sounded throughout the conflict, especially after Iraqi Scud attacks. In Senator Riegle's report, it was confirmed that 14,000 chemical alarm monitoring units were installed by the military throughout the region to provide an early warning of imminent gas attacks, but many of them were disarmed after they began to sound too frequently. Members of the Riegle Committee chastised the Department of Defense for its apathetic disregard for the safety of our service people, concluding that the Department's insistence that all of the alarms had been false was a little hard to believe.

Interestingly, after his testimony before Congress, Sergeant Vallee received a phone call from Lieutenant Colonel Vicki Merriman, an aide to the deputy assistant secretary of defense for chemical and biological matters, who, after initially seeming sympathetic, interrogated the veteran and attempted to alter his recollections. [25]

Depleted Uranium

There's an aspect of our participation in the Gulf that hasn't gotten wide publicity, but should: our use of depleted uranium. Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process. [26, 27] Its name implies that this is a harmless material, but, in actuality, it is still a highly poisonous, radioactive, heavy metal. The term "depleted" comes from the fact that natural uranium is made from a fissionable isotope, U-235, while depleted uranium is made from a relatively stable isotope, U-238. After U-235 is extracted from U-238 for use in nuclear weapons and breeder reactors, only U-238 remains. While it is now depleted because it no longer contains U-235, due to its density the uranium still emits one-third of its original level of radioactivity.

The military uses depleted uranium to tip bullets and tank shells, praising the material's ability to make metals super-hard so that they can penetrate steel as easily as butter. But what the military neglects to consider in its enthusiasm for depleted uranium is that the downside to this technology far outweighs its benefits. Once bullets reach their destination, they explode upon impact, releasing a fine, radioactive, aerosol mist. These toxic particles travel in the wind, mix with water and soil, and are inhaled and ingested by anyone in their path.

U.S. and British forces used Operation Desert Storm as a testing ground for the widespread employment of depleted uranium. It is estimated that over 940,000 30-mm uranium-tipped bullets and 14,000 large-caliber depleted rounds were used. Between 350 and 800 tons of depleted uranium residue, with a half-life of 4.4 billion years, permeate the ground and water of Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

In light of such immense pollution, it is easy to see that many people have come into contact with depleted uranium. Inhalation and ingestion of the substance were unavoidable for troops in close proximity to exploding shells. In addition, soldiers spent long hours sitting in tanks, handling uranium-laced shells and casings. Weapons were also taken home as souvenirs. Families of veterans came in contact with the substance after handling clothing laced with it.

The insidious action of depleted uranium in the body was illustrated by scientists at the Defense Department Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Maryland, in research presented to the American Association for Cancer Research and the Society of Toxicology. They tested the effects of embedded DU by inserting shrapnel-like pellets into the legs of rats, and they were surprised at how quickly they discovered oncogenes--genes believed to be precursors to cancer. Another finding was that depleted uranium kills suppressor, or health-maintaining, genes. The experiments also demonstrated that DU spreads throughout the body, depositing itself in the brain and spleen, among other organs, and that it can be passed by a pregnant rat to a developing fetus. [28]

Many of the symptoms experienced by Gulf War veterans and their families are indicative of radiation poisoning. Some of these are nausea, vomiting, wasting, memory loss, and raised rates of cancer. As has been mentioned, vets' children are manifesting an alarming rate of birth defects, lowered immunity, and childhood cancers, some of which may be due to radiation-affected sperm.

Dr. Jay Gould, author of The Enemy Within: The High Cost of Living Near Nuclear Reactors, has long been an outspoken critic of low-level radiation. Gould says that exposure to depleted uranium released into the atmosphere poses the same grave dangers as does any other exposure to uranium. [29] "There is nothing new about it," Gould says, stressing that a biochemical impact of low-level radiation is that it immediately attacks the immune response. Since the immune response is a key factor in maintaining good health, this means that people are then vulnerable to any kind of infection or allergic response. So, everything from cancer to allergies to multiple chemical sensitivities can be activated by the uranium dust.

Gould adds that one of the reasons people generally ignore the problem is that low-level radiation is often confused with background radiation: "Background radiation is something that humans have lived with for hundreds of thousands of years. Over that long period, our immune response has developed a capacity to resist natural forms of radiation from cosmic rays and radiation in the soil. But ever since the nuclear age began, we have introduced new fission products, like radioactive iodine and radioactive strontium, that are released in the operation of a nuclear reactor or an explosion of a bomb. These have the ability to impact the immune response. This is what we mean by low-level radiation. It's an internal radiation. In other words, if you ingest a fission product or a piece of uranium dust, it is like having a tiny x-ray go off for a tiny fraction of a second for the rest of your life. The effects of low-level radiation are quite awful, depending on which organ is affected."

There have been several army reports on the dangers of depleted uranium, which have been released by the Depleted Uranium Citizens' Network. [27] Sara Flounders, coordinator of the International Action Center, a network of organizations and activists initiated by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, points out that one of these reports, which was put out by the Army Environmental Policy Institute, discusses the negative health and environmental consequences of depleted uranium use in the army. [30] According to the report, the financial implications of long-term disability payments and other health care costs would be excessive if depleted uranium was indicted as a causative agent for Desert Storm illnesses. This may be why depleted uranium is not being discussed as a cause of Gulf War syndrome, Flounders feels.

The Downsized Doctors

Dr. Asaf Durakovic was a chief of nuclear medicine at the VA Medical Center in Wilmington, Delaware. After the war, Dr. Durakovic tried to test members of the 144th Service and Supply Company for depleted-uranium contamination. This was a unit that had been salvaging equipment that had been hit by depleted-uranium rounds. Durakovic first tested the vets and concluded that 14 out of 24 were contaminated. But since his testing equipment was outdated, Durakovic proceeded to send urine samples from the vets to be tested at the U.S. Army Radiochemistry Laboratory in Aberdeen, Maryland.

This proved impossible. A number of the samples apparently never made it to the lab, and the ones that did were lost. What's more, the VA decided against further testing. Dr. Durakovic was told by both the VA and the Department of Defense to stop his depleted uranium investigation. Then, after eight years of outstanding performance at his VA position, he ended up losing his job "because of cutbacks." Meanwhile two of the vets exposed to uranium died. The Pentagon released a paper stating that uranium had not been proven to cause health problems, but Durakovic points out that they were looking for short-term, not long-term hazards. [31] He also has stated that he feels certain that he was terminated from his job as a direct result of his involvement in the management of Gulf War veterans and his raising of nuclear safety issues.

Dr. Durakovic testified before a House of Representatives subcommittee in June 1997, estimating that 123,000 troops had been exposed to depleted uranium through contact with captured Iraqi tanks. "Those that were required to receive the vehicles actually lived very near them, ate lunch on top of them, and cooled themselves inside of them," he reported. "On Mar. 10, 1991, a Battle Damage Assessment Team dressed in full radioprotective clothing arrived, stating that they were from Washington to assess the radioactivity of specific tanks. They reviewed the tanks for four days, fully dressed in 90 degree temperatures. At the conclusion of the assessment the soldier in charge of the crew, required to move the equipment, was told that the tanks were 'hot,' to mark them with the atomic symbol, and not to let people go near them. The assessment team had detected 0.26 to 1.0 rad inside the tanks....The team stated that the tanks were not dangerous to those required to work in their environment. One soldier was given an outdated dosimeter which began to detect radiation right away despite the fact that it was long past its expiration date....All work that was conducted on behalf of DU contamination was coordinated through the Persian Gulf Registry of the Wilmington VA hospital. All records were subsequently lost." [32]

The Radiochemistry Lab in Aberdeen, Maryland, does admit to losing Dr. Durakovic's medical tests. What's more, Durakovic had also sought help from the Boston VA Medical Clinic. Two physicians from the Boston VA, Dr. Burroughs and Dr. Slingerland, asked for more sensitive equipment to better diagnose the 24 soldiers of the 144th Service and Supply Company who had been referred to them by Dr. Durakovic. The two lost their jobs.

Concerning testing for exposure to depleted uranium, Dan Fahey, legal assistant and outreach worker at Swords to Plowshares, a San Francisco veterans service organization, brings up the point the urinalysis tests will give accurate results only if they're used within a year of exposure. That's because, for a year, the body naturally purges most of the uranium that's been inhaled or ingested, and after a year, although the substance remains in the bones, kidneys, and lungs, it's not being excreted in the urine. Thus, today, this type of test is useless. [33]

Fahey also describes a 1991 incident in Kuwait during which troops were unknowingly exposed to depleted uranium:

"There was a fire in July 1991 in Doha, Kuwait, in which there were several thousand DU rounds that burned up in this very large fire. There were severe explosions for six hours. The fire raged until the following day. And through the Freedom of Information Act we learned that while this fire was going on there was an explosive ordnance disposal team that was rushed to the scene of the fire, but before they arrived they warned the commanders at the Doha base...that DU rounds were burning, that they should keep the people out of the downwind area, and that they should issue respiratory protection. And we also know that that message was never passed down to the troops. And as a result some people were exposed during the fire." [33]

Fahey goes on to explain that troops were exposed after the fire as well. Given no information about the presence of depleted uranium contamination, they were assigned to clean up the compound with brooms, shovels, and their hands, and were given no protection.

According to the Depleted Uranium Education Project, [34] "the fire at the U.S. Army Black Base in Doha, Kuwait, destroyed more than 660 large-caliber DU tank rounds, 9720 small-caliber DU rounds, and four M1A1 tanks with DU armor. Over 9000 pounds of DU penetrators were lost in the fire, exposing thousands of vets to airborne uranium oxides. Despite the known health problems of vets, the U.S. Army's report on exposures to depleted uranium at Doha has not even been released to the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Illnesses, and U.S. troops continue to be stationed at Doha."

A Half-Decade of Cover-Up

From 1991 to 1996, the Pentagon basically took a see-no-evil approach regarding the causes of Gulf War syndrome. In a document entitled "Memorandum for Persian Gulf Veterans," released on May 25, 1994, Defense Secretary William Perry and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General John Shalikashvili assured veterans that there was no evidence, classified or unclassified, suggesting that chemical or biological weapons were used in the Gulf, while a June 23, 1994, report by the Pentagon's science board attempted to reinforce that argument, asserting that servicemen were not exposed to chemical or biological elements at any level. During the initial stages of the Reigle investigation, Senator Riegle inquired as to the possibility that allied exposure to chemical and biological agents was responsible for the manifestation of post-war illnesses. Walter Reed's Major General Blanck responded that the issue had not been addressed because military intelligence maintained that such exposures never occurred.

But consider this: Official documents at Defense Department headquarters reveal that several American soldiers participating in Desert Storm were commended for their role in ascertaining the presence of hazardous chemical agents. For example, Army Private Allen Fisher was awarded the bronze star for the first confirmed detection of chemical-agent contamination in the theater of operations, while Captain Michael Johnson of the Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Branch of the Army was given the Meritorious Service Medal for a similar action. A question naturally arises as to why these men were commended for pointing out chemical-agent threats, if the powers that be really thought there weren't any!

On Oct. 8, 1994, after reviewing the Pentagon's service records and considering the accounts of soldiers who had witnessed the events in the Gulf firsthand and had received official commendations for their heroic actions, Senator Riegle berated the Defense Department for its inconsistency.

Other Countries' Experience

Lieutenant Louise Richard of the Canadian Navy served as an operating room nurse in the Gulf, where she treated numerous American and British servicemen, as well as Iraqi prisoners of war. In September 1995 Richard was discharged after eight years of lauded service because her health had deteriorated significantly subsequent to her overseas service. Richard's symptoms mimicked those of many other combat veterans, but when she complained to her superiors regarding the lack of acknowledgment of her combat-related illness and threatened to seek redress in the media, she was warned that she would be jeopardizing her career and her pension. "We were valued individuals when we were sent there," she says, but "now we're back, and we're not valued individuals at all."

It's important to remember that United States troops have not been the only victims of governmental callousness. Other allied governments, including those of Canada, Great Britain, and Kuwait, also disavowed evidence of chemical and biological warfare for a long period. According to an Oct. 10, 1995, article in the British newspaper Today, the British Ministry of Defense instituted a policy of denying the existence of what is known in that country as desert fever, for fear of big compensation claims. In an interview with the paper, a British Defense spokesperson alleged, "We have no evidence that this illness exists." This was an odd declaration when you considered that over 1000 of the 43,000 British veterans deployed to the Gulf reported that they were suffering from the syndrome.

Corporal Richard Turnball, an 18-year member of the Royal Air Force who participated in the Gulf conflict, asserts that a multitude of British veterans returned home suffering from various acute symptoms. Turnball, who was stationed in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, during the war, aided in the construction of nuclear, biological, and chemical shelters, and educated British troops as to the correct use of chemical monitors and protective gear. According to Corporal Turnball, the use of chemical and biological weapons by the Iraqis was deemed inevitable by British intelligence reports prior to the war. During the conflict, Turnball claims that the inevitable came to pass many times; he personally witnessed casualties suffering from chest and eye ailments, infections, and skin irritations. But despite a multitude of warnings and reliable documentation by highly advanced equipment, the British Ministry of Defense denied the incidences, asserting that the alarms were activated by aircraft fuel.

Another British veteran, Corporal Terry Walker, recalled the sounding of chemical monitoring devices at approximately 2:30 a.m. on Jan. 20, 1991, after several Scud missiles exploded overhead. Military officials attempted to attribute the alarms and the explosions to supersonic aircraft, but Walker explains that their justification seemed ridiculous for two reasons: First, alarms within a 15-mile radius had been activated almost simultaneously, and second, the alarms had never been triggered by aircraft in the past. Corporal Walker, who had difficulty donning his gas mask during the attack, recalls experiencing an ammonia-like smell and a burning sensation on his body. Since his return from active service he has been plagued by a multitude of ailments, including chest infections, rashes, and headaches, and his wife and daughter have been afflicted as well.

The British medical establishment has begun, recently, to look into the Gulf War's repercussions for their veterans. According to the British Medical Association, a pilot study was conducted on 14 veterans, 12 men and two women, with an average age of 34. These veterans, who were randomly selected from a long list of many with unexplained illnesses, underwent a variety of tests, and the results were compared with those of a group of 13 healthy civilians. The tests included established techniques assessing the function of nerve function in the limbs, transmission of impulses between nerves and muscles, and movement of nerve signals through pathways in the brain and spinal chord. The researchers concluded that the tests revealed evidence of problems in the nervous systems of the veterans, particularly in the nerves of the arms and legs. [35]

Kuwaiti sources have also reported new health problems since the war. At the Kuwaiti Ministry of Public Health, Dr. Saleh Al-Harbi has verified that a significant number of Kuwaiti citizens are suffering from a variety of chronic illnesses evidently induced by exposure to either chemical or biological agents. Since the war's conclusion a variety of inexplicable diseases, such as rare blood disorders, have surfaced, and the rate of birth defects has increased dramatically. Dr. Al-Harbi, like many of his American peers, believes that the syndrome is a form of multiple chemical sensitivity. The Kuwaiti government, however, continues to emulate the official policies of their Western saviors by downplaying the problem. [25]

A Cover-Up Condemned

The Riegle report essentially accuses the Department of Defense of lying to the American public, and condemns it for abandoning the servicemen who were willing to die for their country. Senator Riegle referred to the heartlessness and irresponsibility of the military bureaucracy, concluding that there is no more serious crime than a cover-up of facts that could facilitate the diagnosis and treatment of sick U.S. veterans. [25] The military establishment was fully aware that Sadaam possessed biological weapons, was willing to use them, and, in fact, did use them; but despite concrete evidence, John Deutch, director of the CIA, and General John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, continued to deny the use of biological or chemical weapons by either side.

Proof contradicting the official government position exists in the Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical (NBC) logs maintained by General Schwartzkopf at Central Command. These records indicate that U.S. forces were able to confiscate chemical and biological weapons, and cite the specific days on which the acquisition of weapons took place. In addition, the NBC logs detail plans for the destruction of the confiscated materials, and reveal that the military did not want to destroy the weapons in bulk, as such an action may have precipitated an international incident. Many of the NBC logs for the Gulf War have been smuggled out of the Department of Defense by veterans, who were able to circulate them and prove to the public that the U.S. government had full knowledge of the presence of biological warfare agents in Iraq.

Unfortunately, assessment of the magnitude of Gulf War syndrome has been made more difficult by the military's unbelievable ability to misplace essential information. While some of the documents may have been legitimately lost or misplaced, others seem to have been intentionally destroyed in an attempt to conceal information from the public. For instance, a request to view documents by the Gulf War Veterans of Georgia was rejected by Lieutenant Richard I. Neal, deputy commander of the U.S. Central Command, who justified his response by referring to national security interests. Two months after the initial request was filed, additional inquiries to view the documents were also declined, but this time, veterans groups were informed that the documentation no longer existed.

All branches of the armed forces have been implicated in the destruction of vital records. Corporal Patrick Weissenfluh and Sergeant Todd See, two Marines who were stationed at Camp Pendleton, San Diego, witnessed the burning of hundreds of medical records, while Navy Captain Julia Dyckman experienced a similar situation, in which records sent overseas were mysteriously lost. Despite the excuses of faulty record keeping that were given, Senator Riegle's investigative committee found the pattern of misplaced files and service records within the Department of Defense to be highly irregular. [21]

In addition to exposing governmental negligence and illegal business activities, Senator Riegle's two-year study disclosed information pertaining to the 12 biological, 18 chemical, and four nuclear facilities within Iraq that were destroyed by coalition forces. After the attacks, atmospheric currents transported malignant airborne debris to the vicinity of Allied troops; this is documented in U.S. satellite photos. Prior to the destruction of Iraqi facilities, former Soviet chemical-biological warfare expert Ivan Yevstafyev, as well as scientists from several prominent laboratories, including Sandia, Los Alamos, and Livermore National Laboratories, warned of the danger of chemical fallout, but their advice was ignored. General Raymond Germanos of the French Ministry of Defense prepared a report that in February 1991 confirmed the presence of chemical fallout in the region, while in July 1993 a report by the Czech Ministry of Defense revealed traces of dangerous nerve gases, including sarin and Yperite. [21] In a classified briefing on Oct. 28, 1993, the Pentagon acknowledged the Czech report, but refused to comment. After a few weeks of silence, Defense Secretary Les Aspin did finally accept the possibility of low-level exposure to mustard gas and sarin, but nevertheless maintained that a correlation still could not be established between chemical agent exposure and any of the ailments that had arisen in the approximately 9000 vets that had already registered with the VA for examination of their symptoms.

At a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing shortly thereafter, Aspin's see-no-evil attitude was challenged by Chief Warrant Officer Joseph P. Cottrell of the Marine Corps. According to Cottrell, his unit, while in Kuwait, had employed a highly sophisticated German chemical detection vehicle known as the Fox, which had detected the release of a chemical agent capable of inducing severe blistering. The Department of Defense attempted to counter Cottrell by attributing the detection to the presence of airborne oil debris, but further investigation by Congressman Joseph Kennedy discredited the Pentagon's rebuttal by disproving the possibility of system malfunction.

A similar scenario was documented by Gulf veterans William Hicks and Sterling Sims of the Alabama National Guard in testimony before the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on military health care. Hicks attested to the release of chemical weapons by the Iraqis on the first day of the war, January 17, 1991. He recalled experiencing a burning sensation as he and other members of his unit rushed to don protective suits after emergency alarms went off. Sims showed those at the hearing the red welts with which he'd been afflicted since returning from active service. He then explained to the committee how the VA medical center in Birmingham, Alabama, had attempted to recommend a psychiatrist to help him cope with his problem. [36]

The Pentagon Begins to Come Clean

It was at a Washington press conference on June 21, 1996, that the Pentagon finally began to drop its know-nothing stance. They admitted that the demolition of an Iraqi ammunition depot, just after the war's end, may have released chemical agents, including mustard gas and sarin. [37] According to Defense Department officials, United Nations inspectors who had visited the site at the Kamisiyah ammunition depot in southern Iraq in May 1996 had verified traces of these deadly gases at the ruins of a bunker destroyed in March 1991. At the press conference, Pentagon spokesperson Kenneth Bacon also admitted that documentation of this incident had existed as early as 1991, but that it had been temporarily misplaced in the abundance of Pentagon paperwork. The lost-paperwork excuse, though, was too familiar. Commented Senator John D. Rockefeller of West Virginia, "The guy [Bacon] was incoherent because he was faced with having to tell the truth. He was distinctly uncomfortable...They've known all along. How could they possibly not have known all along?" [4]

In that June '96 press conference, the Pentagon did admit that some illnesses may have resulted from the Kamisiyah incident. At that time they spoke of, at most, a couple of hundred soldiers being exposed to chemical weapons gases. From there, though, the numbers of exposed troops changed and the story seemed to worsen practically every day. During the second half of '96, and beyond, there was a cascade of revelations about our Gulf experience and today, you didn't have to be a conspiracy theorist--simply a reader of the mainstream media--to understand that our government has been trying to hide important facts from us for most of this decade.

You can't get more mainstream than The New York Times. From page 1 of the Aug. 28, 1996 issue [38] we learned that top echelons of government, i.e., the Pentagon, the White House, the CIA, and the State Department, had been informed in 1991 that chemical weapons were in fact stored at the Kamisiyah site. Yet an official line of no use, exposure, or presence of chemical weapons in the Gulf War had been upheld until '95. [39] During the next few months, the number of exposed troops kept rising. On Sept. 7, '96, the Associated Press reported that a presidential panel was upping the number of troops exposed to toxic gas at the Kamisiyah demolition from a few hundred to 1100. [40] September 19 saw that number rise dramatically, to 5000, raising with it, as even The Times admitted, new questions about the Pentagon's credibility. [41]

In October, the military's medical records were assailed as being of poor quality by a National Academy of Sciences panel. This obviously hampers our understanding of Gulf veterans' health problems, as the group's chairman noted. The number of troops that might have been exposed to chemical weapons gases at Kamisiyah had been raised to 15,000 by this time. [42] Also in October '96 came news that the White House panel studying Gulf veterans' illnesses found the Defense Department's attitude toward veterans "patronizing or dismissive." [43] Plus it was widely reported that the Czechs, participants with us in Operation Desert Storm and world-recognized chemical detection experts, had warned American commanders about low levels of nerve and mustard gas during the war, but had been ignored. Many Czech veterans have also become sick, it was reported. [44] And in a lengthy Oct. 30, 1996 Times story, [25] two ex-CIA employees asserted that that agency had evidence of up to 60 Gulf War incidents of American troop exposure to chemical weapons. Tens of thousands of our people in the Gulf may have been exposed, said Patrick Eddington, who had specialized, before resigning from the CIA, in analyzing aerial photographs from that region. His wife, Robin Eddington, who has also resigned, reported having seen, during her CIA tenure, classified information to the effect that trace exposure to chemical weapons, over an extended period, can cause illness. The Defense Department has officially denied this possibility. [45]

In November '96, the Pentagon figure for soldiers who might have been at risk in the Kamisiyah demolition was reported at 20,000. [46] And the White House panel was calling for the independent investigation of more than 15 additional Gulf War incidents of chemical weapons detection, and accusing the Pentagon of poor medical record-keeping. [47]

Are Gulf Vets Really Sicker?

For years now, there has long been the idea that while Gulf War syndrome illnesses may exist, they're really an old problem--a response to stress--with a new name, and that Gulf veterans are in reality no sicker than other vets. But in November '96, the chairwoman of a federal panel investigating the issue contended that Gulf conflict participants are in fact sicker than other soldiers. [48] Prominent toxicologist Eula Bingham concluded that, clearly, Gulf vets were suffering from a disproportionate level of ailments. One of the reasons this had been unclear probably had to do with what investigators were looking at. While government reports had shown that our Gulf troops were not dying or falling seriously ill at disproportionate rates, many of the vets' ailments--such as gastrointestinal symptoms, chronic fatigue, and aching joints--do not usually result in what researchers had been looking for--hospitalization or early death. Thus, the vets' symptoms were not taken into proper account.

Dr. Bingham and other members of the Persian Gulf Expert Scientific Committee of the Department of Veterans Affairs, feel that chemical exposure has to be looked into, both from weapons and from other sources, such as the Kuwaiti oil-well fires. A point that panel members emphasized was that battlefield stress has been overrated as a causative agent of the symptomatology.

Two government reports substantiated Dr. Bingham's conclusion that Gulf vets are sicker than others. Both the Centers for Disease Control and the Navy, it was reported in November '96, [49] had the same finding, citing significantly raised rates of chronic diarrhea, joint pain, skin rashes, fatigue, depression, headaches, and memory loss for Gulf vets, compared to troops who had served elsewhere. And memory loss was the subject of research made public in spring '97. Rats injected with the family of chemicals that includes the nerve gas sarin and pesticides exhibited brain damage similar to that in people with memory loss. The Pentagon described these finding as important but, typically, said it was too early to draw firm conclusions. [50]

Underscoring the complexity of the problems that vets are experiencing was the January 1997 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. It featured four studies on Gulf War syndrome, one of which concluded that the syndrome is actually six syndromes, the most serious of which is characterized by problems in thinking and reasoning, confusion, and dizziness. Another syndrome is marked by joint pain, muscle fatigue, tingling, and numbness. Another study of sick Gulf War vets found evidence of subtle neurological damage compatible with exposure to combinations of cholinesterase-inhibiting chemicals. [51].

Missing Log Pages...and Credibility

Echoes of Watergate seemed to resound in December '96, when it was revealed that military records from a 7-day period right after the Gulf War (Mar. 4-10, 1991) were reported lost by the Pentagon. It was within this time frame that the Kamisiyah arms depot was blown up. [52] Former Senate investigator James Tuite voiced the skepticism of many when he said, "This was the historical record of what was supposedly the brightest moment in the last 50 years of American military history, and now they say they've misplaced part of the historical record?" [52] Subsequent information (from March '97) provided by the Pentagon estimates that 80 percent of the logs are missing. According to the Department of Defense, they had managed to track down only 36 pages of the known 200 pages of log material. The 36 pages show repeated warnings that Iraqi chemical weapons were detected, but these were all called false at the time by commanders. The logs for the destruction of Kamisiyah were still unfound. [53]

Tuite did get some information recently, through the Freedom of Information Act, that shed light on Kamisiyah. He obtained a report given to the Air Force by the Livermore National Laboratory three months before the war, the essence of which was that bombing Iraq's arsenals would release deadly nerve agents that could endanger our troops, given the direction of prevailing winds. [54] The Livermore predictions had been kept under wraps for seven years.

"This latest bombshell is no surprise," commented Representative Christopher Shays (R.--Connecticut), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Human Resources. In other words, cover-up is par for the governmental course.

So are outspoken doctors who end up losing their jobs. This is an issue that keeps surfacing. Indeed, in December '96, the leader of a Congressional investigation into Gulf vets' illnesses accused the Department of Veterans Affairs of trying to rid that agency of doctors who questioned official government positions. [55] According to Representative Shays, the veterans' agency threatened to fire doctors who gave voice to the ideas that exposure to chemical agents in the Gulf made Americans sick, or that there was an infectious agent endemic to the region responsible for our soldiers' illnesses. For instance, one of the first doctors to notice a pattern of health problems among Gulf vets, Dr. Katherine Murray Leisure, was informed that she was to lose her job. It took protests from veterans' groups and members of Congress to rescind her firing--temporarily. A half year later she did lose her job.

"This is a very dark era for federal medicine," Dr. Leisure feels. "It's a new disease with new problems combined with chemical warfare, biological warfare, and unknown agents in the desert. But federal officials think the enemy is the veterans and the people who are trying to help them."

Dr. William Baumzweiger, who has testified in Congress that low doses of Iraqi nerve gas probably led to veterans' ailments, was another physician slated for dismissal and then saved, through protests by Congress people who had heard his testimony. Said Representative Shays: "If you have a contrary view that maybe the Congress or the public needs to hear, you are silenced." [55]

The truth will out, though. Recent evidence of American troops' exposure to nerve gas has led Nobel-prize-winning scientist Dr. Joshua Lederberg to call for a new study to determine if low-level nerve gas exposure can lead to long-term disease. [56] This was the same Dr. Lederberg who headed a 1994 Pentagon study that said there was no chemical weapons link with Gulf War syndrome, but the new information coming out on Kamisiyah has made him an advocate of a second look. Lederberg is also paying attention to recent reports by Israeli scientists that anti-nerve-gas agents given to allied troops during the Gulf conflict may be having physical repercussions today.

Issues of credibility came to the fore in illuminating December '96 Congressional testimony from two American soldiers who had served in the Gulf War. [57] Major Michael F. Johnson and Gunnery Sergeant George J. Grass, of the Army and the Marines, respectively, had worked in a Fox--the kind of vehicle that functions as a chemical-detector lab--during the war. They reported that chemical weapons were found in Kuwait, both during and after the war. This contradicted the Pentagon's previous line about false alarms and no chemical weapons presence in Kuwait. The soldiers' chemical detections were ignored at the time, and Sergeant Grass noted that many of the chemical-agent shells spotted appeared to be American-made.

Also providing riveting testimony at that hearing was Major Randy Hebert, a Marine suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), a condition he suspects is linked to low-level chemical exposure during his Gulf service. Hebert's words, which, because of his condition, had to be translated by family members, were to the effect that the Pentagon did not want to accept its responsibility for sick veterans. [57]

Other news from the end of '96: Britain joined the U.S., the Czech Republic, and Slovakia in expanding its inquiry into the conditions plaguing coalition forces. [58] Our Department of Veterans Affairs said it was slow in investigating vets' health complaints because of previous false assurances by the Pentagon that no chemical weapons exposure had occurred. [59] And an ex-investigator--he was fired--working with the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses said he'd been told to limit his investigation to government agencies. Dr. Jonathan B. Tucker had been instructed that actual Gulf War veterans were off-limits as information sources in the committee's investigation of veterans' illnesses! [60] Also off-limits were government whistle-blowers.

Regarding the number of Americans exposed to gas at the Kamisiyah demolition, the Pentagon estimate seems to have topped off at 100,000, up from the few hundred of mid-'96! In December '96, when the number had reached 20,000 [61] a panel reported that we will probably never know how many Americans were exposed, due to uncertainty about weather conditions at the time, as well as other factors. Noted The New York Times about this bit of news: "The news release was made available at the Pentagon late on Friday afternoon, too late for television networks to include it in their evening broadcast, and without any notification to news organization that routinely cover the department. It is the latest in a series of incidents in which the Pentagon has released bad news about this and other issues late on a Friday afternoon or in the evening." [61]

Preliminary Panel Report

By January '97, about 80,000 of our 700,000 Gulf veterans had requested special medical examinations keyed to Gulf-related illness. [62] At that point, governmental response to this large segment of our Gulf service population was a White House panel report saying that the group could find no evidence that exposure to chemical weapons hurt soldiers' health. But that's like saying--as was said for years--that there's no evidence cigarette smoke causes cancer. You have to know how to find such evidence, because it's going to involve statistical correlation over long periods of time, rather than easy, short-term experimentation.

The panel mentioned stress as a contributing factor to veterans' ailments. But as John D. Rockefeller IV put it, "it's not just a stress syndrome." Rockefeller underscored the fact that there are 50,000 or more people who went over to the Gulf completely healthy and came back "very, very sick," and he complained of the "massive indifference of the whole military establishment." [62]

On the plus side--for veterans--of the panel's report was that it did also say that the Pentagon's long-standing reluctance to research the health effects of low-level chemical agent exposure had done the country a disservice. And it called for more investigation of other possible Gulf syndrome factors, such as oil-well fires and pesticides. [62] Other early 1997 news came from Senator Tom Harkin (D.--Iowa) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They reported that Iowa's Gulf veterans were indeed sicker than that state's other veterans. [62]

The Power of Synergy

More and more truths are being acknowledged about the Gulf War syndrome picture, and one of the most important is that our troops were exposed not just to a single toxin, but to a whole variety. So we can't lose sight of the power of synergy. That is, when two or more relatively weak illness-causing factors are combined, they can be quite harmful. This was underscored by a January '97 paper by researchers who had studied both experimental animals and Gulf War vets at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Their findings: Harmless levels of two or more chemicals can combine to cause precisely the symptoms reported by Gulf War syndrome sufferers. These symptoms appear to be a type of organophosphate poisoning, report the researchers. What's more, they note that the subtle nerve damage caused by organophosphate poisoning can be missed by physicians unfamiliar with the phenomenon. [63]

Dr. Robert W. Haley, head of epidemiology at Southwestern Medical Center and leader of the research team, spoke of the severe symptoms being experienced by a group of vets who had been at Khafji, near the Saudi-Kuwait border, on Jan. 20, 1991, during the air war. This was a day when Czech chemical experts had detected sarin and mustard gas. The hard-hit vets seem to have taken pyridostigmine nerve gas antidote tablets after, rather than before, chemical exposure, which can be particularly damaging.

Additional work done at the Southwestern Medical Center shows stronger evidence that chemical synergy--not stress--is what's making vets sick. Professor of clinical neurology Jim Hom was a principal investigator on this study. He explained that the researchers compared a broad range of brain-related psychological functions of ill and well veterans from the 24th Naval Mobile Construction Battalion. The scientists were blinded as to which group was which until the end of the work. [64]

"The ill veterans performed worse on 59 of the 71 brain-related measures," Hom reported, adding that the affected vets' psychological profile was similar to that of individuals with general medical problems and did not include psychopathology. "Clearly, the ill veterans demonstrated a neuropsychological pattern of impairment that is indicative of generalized brain damage, not psychological reactions." [65]

What was particularly noteworthy about Hom's study was that it refuted the results of an earlier study done at the Birmingham VA Medical Center by researchers who used many, but not all, of the same neuropsychological tests. In that study, 55 Gulf vets with cognitive difficulties were tested, and the VA researchers concluded that exposure to neurotoxins did not come into play, attributing the vets' symptoms to "intentional exaggeration of problems" or "emotional distress," and going as far as to say that some of the vets were faking.

But there was a problem with the Birmingham study, Hom explained: It had no control group. The Dallas study, by contrast, had a control group of veterans from the same unit who were not reporting any problems. "When you stack all the results of our tests together it is clear that something is wrong. The brain is an organ that integrates all types of functions. You can't isolate and test just one thing. The tests have to be complementary. Our tests were designed to be a package--they complemented each other. This is what makes our study different than others."

Thus, Hom discounts psychological disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder, as being responsible for the veterans' symptoms. He says, rather, that affected vets suffer from one of three syndromes: The first is characterized by thought, memory, and sleep difficulties; the second by more significant thought problems, as well as by confusion and imbalance; and the third by joint and muscle soreness and by tingling and numbness in the hands and feet. And these three syndromes are variations of organophosphate-induced delayed polyneuropathy, which results from exposure to certain chemicals that inhibit cholinesterase, an enzyme necessary for proper nervous system functioning.

Commented Hom's co-researcher Dr. Robert Haley, "This study supports our overall theory that the syndrome we identified represents neurological damage from combinations of chemicals."

And Hom said, when asked about the psychological aspects of Gulf War syndrome, "Psychological issues are important--but they don't cause brain damage."

Strong Insecticides Used

Hom and Haley's studies, as well as others done recently with Duke University scientists, are finally demonstrating that chemical synergy, rather than combat stress, is the underlying factor in Gulf War syndrome. Because of all the toxins to which troops were exposed--including pesticides; insect repellent, sometimes used in the form of flea collars worn by soldiers, and including DEET; nerve gas; anti-nerve-gas medication; experimental vaccines; burning-oil-well fumes; and depleted uranium--the potential for synergistic damage is extensive, and hard to fully comprehend.

Use of insect repellent is a mundane factor that nevertheless ought not to be overlooked when considering synergistic damage. Stars and Stripes reports [64] that while the insecticide DEET was deemed safe in concentrations of less than 31 percent, Desert Storm participants received DEET in strengths between 33 and 75 percent. The combination of DEET and PB--those pyridostigmine bromide anti-nerve gas pills that servicemen and women were ordered to take--is being studied at the University of Florida at Gainesville for their combined effects. Also, the insecticide permethrin, sprayed on soldiers' uniforms, was used in strengths exceeding safe levels, and may have exacerbated the effects of other substances.

In Dr. Garth Nicolson's view, some Gulf War illness patients are sick due to chemical exposure, others are sick due to biologic exposure, and some are sick due to both types of exposure. [66] "This last group are often the sickest," he says. "In fact, many of these people have probably died, although it's very difficult to get the true numbers. The estimates are somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000, but we don't have accurate figures on this because they're not being released."

Nicolson points out that new information reveals that soldiers may have been subjected to far more of these toxins than is publicly admitted. One of the most interesting revelations comes from a group of former CIA employees who stumbled on aerosol generators that were probably used as sprayer units to spread biologic agents. These were designed to fit onto any vehicle--from jeeps to trucks to helicopters to small aircraft--and used to contaminate large areas. In fact, some generators were found with their contents still intact. A further source of pollution may come from Scud weapons that were equipped with chemical and biological warheads. Iraqis were operating under a Soviet war doctrine that suggests mixing together chemical and biological agents. One CIA report indicates that 40 or more of these Scuds were loaded with both chemical and biological weapons. Reports circulating on the Internet site known as Gulflink said these weapons were ready to use, although whether or not they were actually used remains in question. Nicholson believes these weapons probably were used and that they were low-explosive warheads that blew up at 2000 to 5000 feet in the air. Reserve units observed warheads that exploded, dispersing a purplish blue vapor. During this time, chemical alarms sounded. People exposed to these vapors subsequently become very sick, and many have died.

Nicolson summarizes the various modes of toxin transmission: "In our testimony to Congress, we indicated that there were several possible ways in which soldiers could have been exposed to chemical and biologic agents in the Gulf War. Number one among those was contaminated vaccines. The second was the sky-burst warheads used on some of the Scuds that could have delivered biological and chemical weapons. The third was the presence of exclusionary zones in southern Iraq in which...the sprayers were found. These are the principle ways, we feel, that soldiers could have been exposed during their service in the Persian Gulf theater of operations."

As mentioned previously, Nicolson has spoken of a genetically altered version of a mycoplasma as a disease-causing factor for Gulf War veterans. He says that antibiotics have been effective in treating this problem, which is, he says, highly contagious. Being airborne, Nicolson explains, this microorganism can be picked up without intimate contact. [67] It should be noted that some Desert Storm veterans' groups dispute Nicolson's claims, terming them alarmist. They point out that if the public perceives Gulf vets as carriers of a contagious disease, they could be discriminated against. [68]

Uncompassionate Care

Our servicemen and women work hard for their country and take tremendous risks. This is all part of being in the military. But what happens when they suffer physically in the process and subsequently need medical care? Shouldn't they receive the very best care possible?

In June 1997, the Department of Veterans Affairs admitted that its doctors had given less than adequate attention and care to many of the men and women who have become ill after serving in the Gulf. The department's undersecretary for health, Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer, told a Congressional committee that "While we believe that our programs have been well designed, we also know that they are neither uniformly delivered nor perfect. [69]

"We also recognize that some veterans have not received the kind of reception or care at VA medical facilities that we can be proud of," Kizer added. He was referring to the many reports that veterans complaining of fatigue, muscle and joint pain, memory loss, shortness of breath, and other common Gulf War syndrome symptoms are treated with little sympathy, cursory examinations, and little or no follow-up, the idea being that their problems exist "only in their head." Said Stephen P. Backhus, of the General Accounting Office, Congress's investigative branch, "Veterans who expect treatment designed for those suffering from Gulf War illnesses appeared more likely to express frustration and disappointment with the care they receive."

Kizer expressed the intention of improving VA service to Gulf vets.

Will vets in fact receive the kind of care and compensation that they need? In September 1997, the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, which had studied vets' health problems for two years, made its final recommendations, which held out some hope for affected veterans. The most important recommendation was a call for a permanent statutory program of benefits and health care for service people experiencing post-Gulf problems. The organization of such a plan, and financial arrangements, would be matters for the Department of Veterans Affairs and Congress to work out. Congressional representatives involved in implementing such benefits, and in pushing for further research, include Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D.--W. Virginia), Representative Bernard Sanders (I.--Vermont), and Representative Cliff Sterns (R.--Florida), among others. [70]

In a previous report (the preliminary one of January '97), the presidential committee had said it could not find a causal link between the symptoms referred to as Gulf War syndrome and the suspected causes. That report had mentioned stress as a probable factor, a finding that was left intact in the panel's final report, to the dismay of many veterans' groups. On the positive side, the advisory committee expressed the opinion that free care for veterans should not be linked to whether or not we understand the cause of their illnesses. Also, the panel called for more research into chemical causation and felt that the Pentagon had lost credibility with the public by denying that there were chemicals on the battlefield. While the Pentagon had been doing research into the effects of low-level exposure to chemical and biological warfare agents, the committee called for independent review of the research in light of the Pentagon's seeming lack of objectivity.

Arthur Caplan, noted bioethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the advisory committee, described his distrust of Pentagon research this way, "The Pentagon is not credible to continue inquiries that veterans and the public do not find persuasive....Pentagon officials are inclined to see things from the point of view at which they started: Deny that there were chemicals on the battlefield. The Pentagon sees the burden of evidence as falling on those who argue otherwise. I find that not a credible stance. I find it distasteful. I find it unpersuasive. I find it, in fact, unbelievable." [71]

What Clinton Says

In November 1997, President Clinton issued a statement on Gulf War Veterans' illnesses. [72] Reiterating his panel's call for compensation and care for all affected veterans, whether or not the cause of illness is fully understood, he said he is asking the National Academy of Sciences to review the ongoing research on the connections between all the reported illnesses and Gulf War service. He also plans to help Congress pass laws guaranteeing that veterans' benefits will continue during future administrations.

Additionally, Clinton spoke of dedicating $13.2 million for research on how low-level exposure to chemical agents can cause illness, and on other possible causes. He said that former Senator Warren Rudman will be leading an oversight board to ensure that the Defense Department's research meets high standards.

Also, "to apply the lessons we have learned for the future," Clinton said, "I am directing the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs to create a new Force Health Protection Program. Every soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine will have a comprehensive, life-long medical record of all illnesses and injuries they suffer, the care and inoculations they receive, and their exposure to different hazards. These records will help us prevent illness and identify and cure those that occur."

What Clinton says sounds good. But we should keep in mind that the panel he appointed was the one that dragged its feet on getting rid of the stress explanation for Gulf War syndrome. In fact, it still hasn't, although it's call for research into physical causes was a step in the right direction.

We Need to Learn More

There is still a lot to understand about our Gulf experience and its aftermath. One field of inquiry involves Garth Nicolson's contention that a genetically altered mycoplasma is responsible for some Gulf War illness. Another centers on the role of depleted uranium. And an emerging question involves the Kamisiyah arms depot demolition. Was this action carried out recklessly? Pentagon officials have asserted that the obliteration of the Iraqi bunker was supervised by experts trained in chemical warfare, but according to several U.S. servicemen who were present at the scene, this was not the case. According to Corporals Brian Martin and Chris Tullius, whose recollections of the Kamisiyah incident have been corroborated by their executive officer, Major Randy Riggins, chemical specialists were never present and testing that was supposedly conducted prior to and after the demolition of the bunker did not occur. Martin, who had videotaped the entire proceedings at the bunker, revealed that chemical detection devices were not even taken out at the site, while Riggins indicated that his troops did not examine the inside of the bunkers because the entrances had been mined by the recently departed Iraqis.

According to Riggins, the enormous explosion of the demolition caused a downpour of debris to fall upon himself and his troops. Riggins recalled that the immensity of the blast had triggered chemical detector alarms at the engineers' camp ten miles away. Unfortunately, the servicemen present at the Kamisiyah depot were not provided with ample warning, and consequently, their exposure to noxious fallout has since resulted in numerous reports of chronic disorders within the unit. [10]

One of the most important questions that will be researched is the extent to which low-level chemical exposure affects people over the long term. That there is an effect has in fact been documented years ago, i.e., in a 1974 study entitled Delayed Toxic Effects of Chemical Warfare Agents. This study, conducted by the director of the Institute of Chemical Toxicology of the East German Academy of Sciences, Dr. Karlbeinz Lohs, describes how workers at chemical-weapons plants were diagnosed with chronic disorders that were the same as symptoms currently being exhibited by Gulf War veterans. The whole gamut of problems--from neurological to gastrointestinal and cardiac problems, to memory loss, increased cancer incidence, and a higher birth defect rate--is the same. And further research has shown that exposure to organophosphate insecticides, which in essence are diluted forms of chemical warfare agents, can promote the onset of chronic health disorders. [10]

In short, the evidence is there. Gulf veterans are suffering from more than stress. And as the body of current research expands upon that of the past, no one will be able to deny that truth.

ENDNOTES

1. Arison, H. Lindsey III, personal communication, July 14, 1995.

2. The Guardian, Feb. 1, 1997.

3. Cimons, Marlene, "Gulf War Syndrome May Be Contagious, Survey Shows," Los Angeles Times, Oct. 21, 1994, p. A-4.

4. Gary Null interview with Dr. Leonard Horowitz.

5. Gary Null interview with Drs. Garth and Nancy Nicolson, May 7, 1996.

6. France, David, "The Families Who Are Dying for Our Country," Redbook, Sept. 1994, p. 114.

7. Serrano, Richard A., "Birth Defects in Gulf Vets' Babies Stir Fear, Debate," Los Angeles Times, Nov. 14, 1994.

8. Gary Null interview with Steve Miller, Aug. 9, 1997.

9. ABC TV News Nightline interview with Betty Mekdeci, Dec. 27, 1995.

10. Cary, Peter, and Mike Tharp, "The Gulf War's Grave Aura," U.S. News and World Report, July 8, 1996, pp. 33-34.

11. The Nuremberg Code, from Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1948.

12. Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 9, 1997.

13. Gary Null interview with Carol Picou, Aug. 8, 1997.

14. Flanders, Laura, "Gulf War Syndrome: A Lingering Sickness," The Nation, Jan. 23, 1995, p. 94.

15. Rodriguez, Paul M., "Anti-AIDS Mix Found in Gulf Vets," The Washington Times, Aug. 11, 1997.

16. Gary Null interview with Pam Asa, Aug. 9, 1997.

17. Gary Null interview with Mark Zeller, July 29, 1997.

18. Tucker, Jonathan, The Nonproliferation Review, Spring/Summer 1997.

19. Swain, Jon, and James Adams, "Saddam Gives Local Commanders Go-Ahead for Chemical Attacks," Sunday Times (London), Feb. 3, 1991, p. 1.

20. Masland, Tom, and Douglas Waller, "Are We Ready for Chemical War?" Newsweek, Mar. 4, 1991, p. 29.

21. Bernstein, Dennis, "Gulf War Syndrome Covered Up," Covert Action Quarterly, No. 53.

22. Associated Press, "Veterans Sue 11 U.S. Firms, Blame Them for Desert Storm Disabilities," Los Angeles Times, June 8, 1994.

23. Mc Clendon, Sarah, "Corporate Foreign Policy Treachery Pointed Weapons Back at Americans," Media Bypass Magazine, January 1996.

24. Shenon, Philip, "Powell Says He Had No Evidence Of Toxic Chemicals in Gulf War," The New York Times, Dec. 3, 1996, pp. 1, 16.

25. Bernstein, Dennis, and Thea Kelley, "The Gulf War Comes Home; Sickness Spreads, But the Pentagon Denies All," The Progressive, Mar. 1995, pp. 30-34.

26. Dietz, Leonard A., "Contamination of Persian Gulf War Veterans and Others by Depleted Uranium"; available at WISE Uranium Project home page on World Wide Web at address http://antenna.nl/-wise/wuphome.html.

27. The Military Toxics Project's Depleted Uranium Citizens' Network, "Radioactive Battlefields of the 1990s: The United States Army's Use of Depleted Uranium and its Consequences for Human Health and the Environment," Jan. 16, 1996; available from Military Toxics Project, P.O. Box 246, Norway, ME 04268; (207) 743-2541.

28. Mesler, Bill, The Nation, May 26, 1997.

29. Gary Null interview with Dr. Jay Gould, Oct. 28, 1996.

30. Gary Null interview with Sara Flounders, Nov. 1996.

31. Parks, Dave, "VA Looking Into Concerns of Depleted Uranium Ammo," The Birmingham News, Sept. 17, 1997.

32. Prepared statement of Dr. Asaf Durakovic before the Subcommittee on Human Resources Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, U.S. House of Representatives, June 26, 1997.

33. Gary Null interview with Dan Fahey, July 23, 1997.

34. Depleted Uranium Education Project, "Depleted Uranium Weapons Ignored in Gulf Report: Groups Demand Independent Investigation," Website http://www.iacenter.org, June 24, 1997.

35. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, BMJ Publishing Group, Great Britain, April 1996.

36. Jaynes, Gregory, "Walking Wounded," Esquire, May 1994, p. 70.

37. Shenon, Philip, "Gulf War Illness May Be Linked to Gas Exposure, Pentagon Says," The New York Times, June 22, 1996, pp. 1, 20.

38. Shenon, Philip, "Report Shows U.S. Was Told in 1991 of Chemical Arms," The New York Times, Aug. 28, 1996, pp. 1, B8.

39. Shenon, Philip, "Chemical Arms in Gulf War: Medical Mystery and Credibility Crisis," The New York Times, Jan. 2, 1997, p. 14.

40. The Associated Press, "Panel: More G.I.s at nerve gas risk," New York Daily News, Sept. 7, 1996.

41. Shenon, Philip, "1991 Blast in Iraq May Have Exposed 5,000 G.I.'s to Gas; A Sharp Rise in Numbers," The New York Times, Sept. 19, 1996, pp. 1, 11.

42. Leary, Warren, "Panel on Gulf War Ills Says Poor Records Hampered Its Inquiry," The New York Times, Oct. 10, 1996, p. 27.

43. Shenon, Philip, "Pentagon Accused of 'Dismissive' Attitude on Gulf War Veterans," The New York Times, Oct. 10, 1996, p. 26.

44. Shenon, Philip, "Czechs Say They Warned U.S. Of Chemical Weapons in Gulf," The New York Times, Oct. 19, 1996.

45. Shenon, Philip, "Ex-C.I.A. Analysts Assert Cover-Up; Contend Agency Knew of Risk From Chemicals in Gulf War," The New York Times, Oct. 30, 1996.

46. Sciolino, Elaine, "Pentagon Health Chief Fights Claims of a Gulf War Cover-Up," The New York Times, Nov. 3, 1996, p. 30.

47. Shenon, Philip, "Panel Condemns Pentagon Review of Gulf Ailments; Cites Lack of Credibility," The New York Times, Nov. 8, 1996, pp. 1, B6.

48. Shenon, Philip, "Panel Disputes Studies on Gulf War Illness," The New York Times, Nov. 21, 1996.

49. Shenon, Philip, "2 Studies Seem to Back Veterans Who Trace Illnesses to Gulf War," The New York Times, Nov. 26, 1996, pp. 1, 16.

50. Times Papers, May 15, 1997.

51. Newsday, Apr. 13, 1997.

52. Shenon, Philip, "Pentagon Says Gulf War Data Seem to Be Lost," The New York Times, Dec. 5, 1996, pp. 1, B18.

53. The New York Times, Mar. 4, 1997.

54. Maggrett, Dick, "Advisors Suggest Gulf Illness Report Be Revised To Not Rule Out Chemicals," Stars and Stripes, Aug. 25, 1997.

55. Shenon, Philip, "Lawmaker Says V.A. Threatened Doctors for Statements on Gulf War Illness," The New York Times, Dec. 7, 1996.

56. Shenon, Philip, "New Look Urged on Gulf Syndrome; Important Evidence Withheld by Pentagon, Scientist Says," The New York Times, Dec. 10, 1996, pp. 1, 24.

57. Shenon, Philip, "Soldiers Say They Detected Chemical Use In Kuwait," The New York Times, Dec. 11, 1996, p. B10.

58. Hoge, Warren, "Britain to Check Veterans for Illnesses Linked to Duty in Gulf," The New York Times, Dec. 11, 1996, p. B10.

59. Shenon, Philip, "Veterans Dept. Blames Pentagon For Delay in Gulf Health Studies," The New York Times, Dec. 12, 1996, pp. 1, B23.

60. Shenon, Philip, "Gulf War Panel Reviews Researcher's Ouster," The New York Times, Dec. 24, 1996.

61. Shenon, Philip, "Exact Count Called Unlikely on Chemical Exposure in Gulf War," The New York Times, Dec. 22, 1996, p. 32.

62. Schmitt, Eric, "No Proof is Found for Chemical Role in Gulf Illnesses; Pentagon is Criticized," The New York Times, Jan. 8, 1996, pp. 1, B7.

63. Leary, Warren E., "Gulf Illness May Reflect Multiple Exposures, Report Says," The New York Times, Jan. 9, 1997, p. 18.

64. Fillmore, Randolph, "Gulf Brain Damage Report Conflicts with Earlier 'Faking' Conclusion," Stars and Stripes, Aug. 25, 1997.

65. Reuters, Dallas, Aug. 1, 1997.

66. Gary Null interview with Dr. Garth Nicolson, Nov. 1996.

67. Gary Null interview with Dr. Garth Nicolson, Aug. 8, 1997.

68. Parks, Dave, "Veterans Blast Claim that Gulf War Ills Contagious," Birmingham News, Mar. 11, 1997.

69. Associated Press, June 24, 1997.

70. McAllister, Bill, "Benefits, Care Urged for Ailing Gulf War Veterans: 'Permanent, Statutory' Program Necessary to Protect Government's Credibility, Panel Says," Washington Post, Sept. 6, 1997, p. A04.

71. Shenon, Philip, "Panel Wants Pentagon to Lose Gulf-Inquiry Authority," Sept. 6, 1997.

72. The White House, Washington, D.C., Nov. 8, 1997.

-------- india / pakistan

India to fine-tune n-delivery systems

By Our Special Correspondent
The Hindu
May 31, 2001
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2001/06/01/stories/01010005.htm

NEW DELHI, MAY 31. India today said it would fine-tune its nuclear delivery systems and cited China's larger arsenal as well as its help to Pakistan for developing atomic weapons.

The annual Defence Ministry report released today said India was committed to a minimum nuclear deterrent which would include accurate and refined nuclear delivery systems. According to the draft nuclear doctrine, India had declared it was developing a small but credible deterrent which would include the positioning of its nuclear weaponry on land, sea and air.

In a related development, the Defence Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, said the Agni-II missile was likely to be inducted into the armed forces ``during 2001-2002''. Addressing MPs of the consultative committee of his Ministry, Mr. Singh said ``limited'' production of the ``operational missile system'', had commenced. With a range beyond 2,000 km., the missile is the bedrock of the Indian minimum deterrent.

The report pointed out that Beijing was modernising its defence forces and that its missiles could reach every major Indian city. Besides, China was acquiring the flexibility of delivering nuclear weapons by positioning ballistic missiles on its submarines.

Pakistan had escalated cross-border terrorism in the last one year and had upgraded the weaponry, communication equipment and training of key insurgent groups based on its soil. Militancy in Jammu and Kashmir had acquired a new dimension with the marginalisation of the Kashmiri insurgent groups by Pakistan.

The 128-page report referred to the rapid increase in militancy in Kupwara, Poonch and Rajouri districts of the State in the last one year. These areas were now witnessing ``intense counter proxy war operations''.

It, however, acknowledged the decline in firing across the Line of Control, but was dismissive of Pakistan's declaration of ``maximum restraint''. This assertion was ``self-serving in nature and did not address New Delhi's concerns of Pakistan's continued sponsorship of cross-border terrorism''.

It also expressed concern at Nepal and Bangladesh being used by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence for launching subversive activity, especially in the North-East.

-------- japan

From Douglas MacArthur's 1964 autobiography, "Reminiscences"

The following observations are from Mr. Toshikazu Kase, the member of the Japanese surrender party who reported his impressions of the surrender ceremony to the Emperor.

"When the Supreme Commander finished, I wrote in my report the impression his words had made on me. He is a man of peace. Never has the truth of the line 'peace has her victories no less renowned than war' been more eloquently demonstrated. He is a man of light. Radiantly, the gathering rays of his magnanimous soul embrace the earth, his footsteps paving the world with light.

"Is it not a piece of rare good fortune, I asked myself, that a man of such caliber and character should have been designated as the Supreme Commander who will shape the destiny of Japan? In the dark hour of our despair and distress, a bright light is ushered in, in the very person of General MacArthur.

"While the destroyer sped home, I wrote down hurriedly the impressions of the surrender ceremony which Shigemitsu took to the Throne immediately after our return to the Capitol, as the Emperor was anxiously waiting for his report. At the end of this report, in which I dwelt at length upon the superb address of the Supreme Commander, I raised a question whether it would have been possible for us, had we been victorious, to embrace the vanquished with a similar magnanimity. Clearly it would have been different. Returning from the audience, Shigemitsu told me that the Emperor nodded with a sigh in agreement. 'Indeed, a distance inexpressible by numbers separates us - America from Japan.

"'After all, we were not beaten on the battlefield by dint of superior arms. We were defeated in the spiritual contest by virtue of a nobler idea. The real issue was moral - beyond all the powers of algebra to compute. "The day will come when recorded time, age on age, will seem but a point in retrospect. However, happen what may in the future, this Big Day on the Missouri will stand out as one of the brightest dates in history, with General MacArthur as a shining obelisk in the desert of human endeavor that marks a timeless march onward toward an enduring peace.'"

-------- missile defense

Missile fizzle

USA Today
Editorial,
May 31, 2001
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20010531/3361447s.htm

Along with his luggage, Secretary of State Colin Powell brought home from this week's NATO summit a stinging diplomatic lesson: The administration is far from convincing Europe that missile defense is in its interest, and is left with a dilemma on how hard to push its threat to pursue the shield alone.

At the summit that ended Wednesday in Hungary, Europeans balked at a U.S. demand for a joint NATO communiqué describing missiles as a ''common threat.'' On many levels, the resistance was no surprise: Chafing publicly at U.S. initiatives is as European as the word pique. Besides, NATO's European members have been squirming at missile defense for years, first chiding the Clinton administration that ''national missile defense'' implied protection for Americans only, and now arguing that they're not convinced of the missile threat.

Downplaying such Euro-complaints, the Bush team has steadfastly presented missile defense as inevitable, suggesting the U.S. would go it alone if necessary. That approach has nudged Europe and the Russians, at least privately, toward the idea that they'll eventually have to accept something, but at a cost. Europe's concerns that missile defenses could set off a new arms race are valid, as are its worries that repudiation of the treaty that bans such defenses would threaten decades of successful arms control. What's more, the U.S. has a duty to negotiate missile-defense details with its NATO partners, which it has pledged to defend.

The Bush team is poised to tackle the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty at a mid-June summit with Russia. It hopes to trade many remaining nuclear missiles for Russian agreement on the treaty. Such a deal certainly would help mollify the Europeans. But other obstacles would remain, including:

* Europe's naïve denial that it's threatened by rogue-state missiles, even though some have ranges exceeding 2,000 km.

* Europe's political climate in which many leaders, most notably Germany's, are leftist politicians who resist U.S.-led defense.

History suggests a need for patience. It took the Carter and Reagan administrations four years to get the skittish Europeans to agree in 1983 to deploy Pershing II missiles. The weapons spooked the Soviets into signing the significant Intermediate Nuclear Forces arms-control treaty.

There's little to gain from haste. The missile technology has yet to prove itself, the administration has yet to choose how it wants defenses built, and Democrats now controlling the Senate aren't convinced of the shield's value. Meanwhile, the rogue missile threat, while nearly certain to arise, remains years off. That leaves plenty of time for the important task of bringing NATO along.

----

Review Says New Patriot Has Glitches

Thursday, May 31, 2001
By John J. Lumpkin
Journal Staff Writer
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/347881news05-31-01.htm

The new Patriot, hailed by the military as proof that a new generation of missile defenses will work, has some reliability problems, a military review has found.

The problems can be solved, the Army says, but the military's former top quality-control official said Wednesday that they highlight the complexity of those defenses, including the continental "homeland" defenses being pushed by the Bush administration.

"They need to demonstrate they have gotten past these difficulties," said Philip E. Coyle, former director of Operational Test and Evaluation at the Pentagon. "All of these missile defense systems will be complex by definition. It's unavoidable, and getting the hardware and the electronics and the software all to work is not going to be easy."

Coyle's agency conducted the review while he still ran it. It was released in March but has not been widely circulated. In April, Coyle joined the Center for Defense Information, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group.

The new Patriot missile system, called "Patriot Advanced Capability-3," is being tested at White Sands Missile Range, and it has destroyed target missiles with remarkable regularity.

But the review found problems in the computer software that runs the missile's ground-based radar and command systems. In essence, the various systems were not ready for action when they needed to be, according to the review.

PAC-3 is the first of a new breed of "hit-to-kill" interceptor missiles that the military plans to field. Current interceptors, like the vaunted Patriot from the Gulf War, fly near their targets and blow up, trying to catch the inbound missile in the explosion.

The new missiles are so fast and accurate they actually strike their target at closing speeds of thousands of miles an hour. The military says such missiles have a much better chance of destroying a chemical, biological, or nuclear warhead in flight.

PAC-3's successes have been held up by missile defense advocates as proof that the "hit-to-kill" concept works. While PAC-3 is a short-range interceptor designed to protect nearby troops, longer-range versions also are in development.

Most notable among those are the Army's medium-range Theater High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, and the continental-range National Missile Defense. Naval "hit-to-kill" missiles also are in development.

President Bush recently said he intends to pursue "homeland" defenses to protect against intercontinental ballistic missiles, but he has not detailed how they will work. Current research is focused on "hit-to-kill" missiles.

Neither THAAD nor National Missile Defense have been as successful as PAC-3 - both have missed more targets than they have hit during flight tests. In 1999, Coyle criticized the Pentagon's decision to go ahead with THAAD's development after it went 2-for-8 in interception tests.

At White Sands, the Army has fired PAC-3s at target missiles seven times and scored seven kills in controlled tests.

But according to the PAC-3 review, the missile's radars and command computers have had "serious reliability shortfalls" during other tests at White Sands.

The problems cropped up during simulations and live-fire tests using older versions of the Patriot missile with the PAC-3 software.

"Most notable were instances where the system dropped target tracks, misidentified objects, engaged debris, or did not engage threatening (missiles)," the report says. The problems are largely "software" errors, said Pam Rogers, an Army spokeswoman for the PAC-3 program.

"They are fixable," she said. "The fixes are almost complete."

Coyle said the fixes are absolutely necessary as the PAC-3 moves toward deployment.

"As a personal view, the priority ought to be going to systems like PAC-3 and THAAD as opposed to National Missile Defense," he said. "The threat is much more urgent for the shorter-range systems. That is one reason ... they need to demonstrate in the (upcoming) tests they have gotten past those difficulties."

PAC-3 has also been plagued with cost overruns - another testament to how difficult "hit-to-kill" missile defenses are to develop, analysts say. Each missile is estimated to cost $3.1 million. The projected cost of the entire program, which should last beyond 2020, has increased from $3.9 billion to $6.9 billion.

-----

The Airborne Missile Swindle

May 31, 2001
http://www.g2mil.com/ABL.htm

The U.S. military is spending billions of dollars on laser research in hopes of developing a Star Trek like "phaser". This is an important area deserving research, however, billions will be wasted by deploying bogus systems. The biggest challenge is overcoming the limited range of modern lasers, which can only destroy unarmored targets less than 10 miles away on a clear day. This was proven with a September 22, 2000 test of the U.S. Army's Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) at White Sands missile range.

The THEL is revolutionary, although major problems remain. The system is huge and not really mobile. In addition, laser beam power is greatly reduced by clouds and rain. Although these weapons have been sold as missile defense, they are truly the next generation in air defense. Even if they fail to burn up an aircraft, they can easily destroy sensors and blind pilots at great distances. More details about this ground based laser program is available at the TRW-THEL Website.

Unfortunately, TRW is not content with a few billion dollars for THEL, it has teamed up with Boeing to swindle taxpayers out of several billion dollars for an Airborne Laser (ABL) anti-missile system. Over one billion dollars has been devoted to the bogus idea that an ABL can shoot down missiles in the boost phase hundreds of miles away from a 747 flying at 40,000 feet. The Air Force has already built two ABLs in Boeing 747F airframes, and plans to purchase five more 747/ABLs after "successful" tests in 2003. More information can be found at the Boeing ABL Website .

The only way the ABL will past testing is by cheating. It cannot fire a stable laser beam strong enough to burn through a missile casing more than a few miles a way. With such limited range, the Air Force would have to maintain dozens of ABLs circling 20 miles apart over enemy territory 24 hours a day to provide missile defense over a small nation. This would require over 100 ABLs, 100 tankers, and total air superiority just to attempt to shoot down a missile.

The major problem with range is that the Earth's atmosphere contains particles and moisture which reflect light, which is why the sky is blue, so laser beams quickly lose strength. Although the air is thin at 40,000 feet, an aircraft is not a stable platform which can focus the beam on a rising missile flying at MACH 4. Even at short ranges, the beam must focus on the same spot for several seconds to crack the casing; note the diagram above for a stable ground based laser. This is impossible since larger missiles often spin slowly, and missile makers may use stainless steel to reflect most of the laser beam. An AWACs airborne radar aircraft would prove far more effective firing longer range AMRAAM air-to-air missiles at rising ballistic missiles.

These are huge obstacles which may never be overcome. The ABL scientists know this, but they enjoy their work and will be fired to telling the truth to the public. However, an Air Force Colonel, Neil McCasland, has admitted that a way must be found to "clean" the wavefront to avoid defraction of laser energy in the atmosphere. No serious proposals have emerged to overcome this reality. The ABL may be successful at shooting down incoming surface-to-air, air-to-air, and cruise missiles a few miles away. Therefore, the two ABLs already purchased should conduct testing as bomber escorts, but the idea of using the ABL for ballistic missile defense should be scrapped and no more 747-ABLs purchased.

Orbiting satellites have the stability to accurately fire lasers, but no one knows how to generate the necessary power for multiple shots. On the other hand, the U.S. Navy could greatly benefit from deploying defensive lasers to shoot down incoming missiles and aircraft. Ships can carry far more weight than aircraft and don't need to stay airborne to function. More importantly, ships are much more stable platforms because their movements are usually slow and predictable. There is no way to predict minor air turbulence which affects aircraft stability. Moving a laser beam just one millimeter causes the laser spot to move dozens of meters a hundred miles downrange. Laser research is important and will yield many new weapons, so long as funds are not squandered on more 747s for the Airborne Laser program.

Carlton Meyer editor@G2mil.com

----

A Wary Atlantic Alliance

May 31, 2001
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/31/opinion/31THU1.html?searchpv=nytToday

Secretary of State Colin Powell assured America's European allies this week that the Bush administration was not engaging in a "phony consultation" with them about missile defenses. We hope he means it, because Washington's closest global partners have grave misgivings about the administration's plans. Unless Secretary Powell and his colleagues take these concerns seriously, the United States could needlessly strain the Atlantic alliance.

At Tuesday's NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Budapest, Secretary Powell found his fellow ministers unpersuaded that their countries faced an imminent missile threat. Europe is more worried that precipitous American action could unravel arms-control treaties and inject dangerous new tensions into relations with Moscow. Many Democratic senators share those fears and may well use their enhanced power to force the administration to proceed more slowly than it would like.

The rationale for missile defense is to ensure that America does not become vulnerable to nuclear blackmail from unpredictable nations like North Korea, Iraq or Iran. The impulse to develop a defense against such threats is reasonable. But no reliable system yet exists and much more diplomatic groundwork needs to be done before Washington settles on a plan. To risk the unity of America's most important security alliance by rushing ahead with an unproven system would be irresponsible.

Wisely, the Bush administration has stepped back from early rhetoric that suggested its missile defense plans were set and the world would simply have to adapt to them. But consultation must involve more than showcasing American proposals. It must also include listening to the legitimate concerns of other governments and taking them into account.

Nuclear arms control has long been a central part of NATO doctrine. Europe now wants to be sure that Washington will not abrogate the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty but will instead negotiate patiently with the Russians to see if the accord can be revised or set aside by mutual agreement. The Europeans rightly worry that abrupt abandonment of the treaty by the United States might ignite a dangerous new arms race.

In recent weeks Washington has been seeking to deflate Russian opposition through proposals for increased defense cooperation, including joint exercises of tactical antimissile systems and American assistance to upgrade Moscow's early warning system to detect foreign missile launchings. But so far these ideas fall short of the kind of incentives that might reverse Moscow's opposition.

Washington needs to continue consulting with NATO and Russia and then refine its proposals accordingly. Next week Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld meets with NATO defense ministers, and later in June President Bush will attend a NATO summit meeting. As Mr. Bush and President Vladimir Putin of Russia get to know one another in the months ahead they can explore possible compromises that could preserve the ABM treaty.

During the cold war, Washington could simply impose its will on NATO when it came to missiles and nuclear weapons policies. Those days are over. Germany, in particular, has become far more assertive on security issues than it used to be, and Europe as a whole has become a more united force. Missile defense will not add to American security if it undermines the cohesion of the Atlantic alliance.

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

Getting the Point -- Up to a Point

By Jim Hoagland
Thursday, May 31, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A359-2001May31?language=printer

Dear Mr. President,

Way to go, sir. That is, up to a point, sir.

You have dropped a few hints in public about your unorthodox thinking on nuclear weapons and the elaborate Cold War theology that still surrounds them. That has helped ignite a new strategic debate here and abroad about nuclear deterrence. As I say, way to go.

Now is the time to have such a discussion. The world's great powers are at peace. American citizens feel little immediate anxiety about a Kremlin-launched bolt from the blue. In times of true crisis or high political anxiety, politicians and generals would never cut the public in on a real discussion.

And you have a clear field for innovation. Your predecessor, yeah, that guy, never seriously touched the subject of nuclear weapons and deterrence. His programs and passions were elsewhere, and neither the Republicans in Congress nor the Joint Chiefs of Staff were going to let him get very far with an arms control agenda anyway.

But the state of the debate you have ignited is becoming highly charged and highly confused very quickly. That's my up-to-a-point point. You need to outline soon and clearly to the public your intention to replace Cold War arms control treaties and traditional notions of deterrence with . . . what?

The far-off prospect of missile defense is not a sufficient answer to that question, as you yourself have indicated. Your generalized comments about modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal by unilaterally reducing its unwieldy and overly expensive current size show that you see a continuing role for offensive weapons. What role, though?

The scare rhetoric your administration is putting out about North Korea and other "lunatic" regimes to justify a big missile defense system is not helping clarify things either. It needs to be moderated and folded into a more reasoned, broader discussion of nonproliferation efforts.

Deterrence is a creature of psychology and is therefore fragile. Strategic dissonance is breaking out across the intellectual landscape.

In Congress, at think tanks, on op-ed pages and talk shows, liberals who never met a nuclear freeze they didn't like suddenly cling to the doctrine of mutually assured destruction as an ideological life raft. Arms control treaties that lock a rough parity in destructiveness must not be tampered with, they argue.

That charming Scot you met a few months ago, George Robertson, yeah, the NATO secretary-general guy, jokes to friends in Brussels that just when he and others had succeeded in convincing the British Labor Party, Germany's Greens and other European unilateral disarmers that nuclear deterrence works, conservative Republicans have come along in Washington to bury deterrence as a Cold War relic.

I sympathize with Robertson. It is confusing to see conservatives who backed any new weapon that would make the rubble bounce a little higher in Moscow suddenly arguing that the balance of terror was always overrated or was even immoral. Such talk horrifies countries that still take deterrence seriously as a matter of national survival, such as France and Britain.

Your starting point, as I understand it, is this: The Red Army's retreat from Central Europe a decade ago means there is almost zero probability today that Washington and Moscow could be involved in a war leading to a nuclear exchange. Traditional views of deterrence and the balance of terror are in your view obsolete. So is arms control, as a way to regulate the relationship between Moscow and Washington.

I think you can take the American public with you into a new doctrinal world based on minimal deterrence and a program of considered, slow and steady research on missile defense. The trick will be to keep ideology and party politics out of that changeover.

Significant unilateral cuts in the oversized and expensive nuclear arsenal the Pentagon maintains -- say, moving from the current 7,000 strategic warheads to one-fifth that number -- would enhance U.S. credibility, not detract from it.

Americans have at least subconsciously become comfortable with the idea that nuclear weapons have helped prevent a global war since 1945 and still have a role to play in strategic stability. In any event, few Americans expect to see them abolished.

But these weapons still strike awe, mystery and horror into the minds and souls of the most rational of citizens. The belief systems around how atomic bombs would be used, as threats or as weapons, have to be developed and handled with great care.

So congratulations, Mr. President. So far.

----

Robert Oppenheimer(1904-1967): Developer of the atom bomb

R.Parthasarathy -
The Hindu,
May 31, 2001
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2001/05/31/stories/08310004.htm

ROBERT OPPENHEIMER was born on April 22, 1904 at New York. His father, a successful businessman, had migrated from Germany. As a boy, Oppenheimer displayed ability to learn quickly: he attended Ethical Cultural School, a school with high academic standards. He joined in 1922 the Harvard University and graduated `Summa cum laude' in 1925, completing the four year course in three years.

He then went to Europe and spent four years doing research in centres of excellence - Cambridge, Goettingen, Leiden and Zurich. He obtained the doctorate from University of Goettingen (1927) Robert Oppenheimer achieved distinction in four very different activities: research in quantum mechanics, an outstanding teacher of theoretical physics, director of a military laboratory and director of the Princeton Institute.

Research in quantum mechanics

During 1925 Heisenberg's paper in the new quantum mechanics appeared. Diract started to develop his own version of Heisenberg's theory. His research work included the recognition that the vacancies in electronic states of negative energy which appeared necessary to make Dirac's wave equation consistent, could not be identified with protons as Dirac had first thought.

He practically predicted the existence of `position' (having the same mass as electrons), which was discovered later by Carl Anderson. He also developed the theory of electron showers observed in cosmic radiation.

Teacher of theoretical physics

Between 1929 and 1942, he held jointly academic posts at the University of California and Californis Institute of Technology. Survey of his publications during this period might almost serve as a guide to what was important in physics at that time. He struggled with key problems which were not yet ripe for solution.

Oppenheimer proved to be an outstanding teacher and interpreter of modern physics. He had an unusual ability for formulating the results and their significance, discussing the nature of unsolved problems and commenting on the ideas of others before they were ready to explain. So he attracted first-rate theoretical physicists who later occupied leading positions in the US. He added Sanskrit to the languages he could read and quote.

At first his interests were exclusively academic. But in the mid- thirties he became actually aware of the disturbing state of the world - unemployment at home, rise of Hitler and Mussolini. So he became interested in politics, too.

At Los Alamos lab

In 1942, Oppenheimer was asked to set up the laboratory at Los Alamos which was entrusted with the task of developing the atomic bomb. General Leslie Groves was put in charge of the project under the code name ``Manhattan''. Oppenheimer suggested to Groves that the weapon development be concentrated in a single laboratory, which was accepted by Groves.

The General not only followed Oppenheimer's advice in the location of the laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, in spite of the remoteness of the site but appointed Oppenheimer its director. This was a bold decision, since Oppenheimer was a theoretication with no experience in administration or in organising experimental work.

He was able to build a team of first-rate scientists to whom work in a military environment did not come naturally. He delegated responsibility and made them feel they were being trusted. Events proved that Groves was right and the success of the laboratory owed much to Oppenheimer's leadership.

It seemed that the laboratory was set up just in time, because when the design of the plutonium bomb was ready, enough plutonium was available for the first bomb. The plutonium bomb required a greater design and development effort than the uranium bomb.

When the test of the first bomb at Alamogordo was demonstrated the power of the new weapon, all spectators were transfixed with fright at the power of the explosion.

Oppenheimer was clinging to one of the uprights in the control room. At the time of detonating the bomb, a passage from the Bhagavad-Gita flashed into his mind:If the radiance of a thousand sans were to burst into the sky, That would be like the splendour of the Mighty One --The Cosmic Form, XI-12

When the cloud rose up in the far distance over Point Zero (where the high scaffolding with the untested weapon stood), he was reminded of another line I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds.' (``Brighter Than A Thousand Suns'' by Robert Jungk, Victor Gollanz Ltd., London 1958).

None of this was public knowledge until 6 August 1945, when the first uranium bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

Oppenheimer was one of a panel of four scientists (the others being A.H. Compton, E.Fermi and E.O.Lawrence) who were asked in May 1945 to advise on the case for the military use of the bomb on Japan.

Oppenheimer remained for the rest of his life acutely conscious of his responsibility in developing the weapon and in the decision to use it.

The aftermath of the bomb: Princeton

In 1946 the Atomic Energy Commission was set up for civilian control of atomic energy. Oppenheimer was appointed chairman of the General Advisory Committee of AEC. He served in that capacity until 1952.

In October 1947, Oppenheimer moved to Princeton to become director of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS). Under his influence the physics group became one of the centres at which the current problems of modern physics were debated with the buoyant optimism. Oppenheimer also took interest in pure mathematics and history, where the breadth of his knowledge stood unique. He was at first concerned with atomic energy and the scheme for its international control. Later he became more involved with the task of conveying an adequate understanding of science to the layman. The language he employed had a poetic quality which brought the subject closer to many nonscientists.

In December 1953, the security clearance that Oppenheimer had enjoyed was withdrawn. The charges were in part his opposition in 1949 to a crash programme for developing the hydrogen bomb and in part his association with communists in the early 1940s. Eventually, the Atomic Energy Commission absolved him from censure for his views on the hydrogen bomb but confirmed the withdrawal of his security clearance.

Oppenheimer suffered for almost a year from throat cancer: he could contemplate this fact and talk it as lucidly as about a conclusion in physics. He continued with lecturing till the very end of his life (February 18, 1967). On many occasions audiences gave him standing ovation, to express their indignation at the treatment meted out to him.

The Enrico Fermi Award for 1963, awarded by the AEC and usually conferred by the President, made some amends. The award, originally intended to be conferred by John F.Kennedy, was actually received from the hands of Lyndon Johnson: Oppenheimer acknowledged it with the same words he had intended to say to President Kennedy ``I think it is just possible...... that it has taken some charity and some courage for you to make this award today.''(The Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. X, New York .)

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

-------- nevada

DEIS SUPPLEMENT FOR YUCCA MOUNTAIN-- TALKING POINTS

Date: Thu, 31 May 2001
From: Shundahai Network <shundahai@shundahai.org>

Hearings will be held on the Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Yucca Mountain, 5pm- 9pm on three dates, May 31st at the Longstreet in Amargosa Valley, June 5th, at the Suncoast in Las Vegas, and June 7th, at the Bob Ruud Community Center in Pahrump. Comments will be accepted in writing until June 25th.

You can mail your comments to:

Jane Summerson, EIS Document Manager Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management U.S. Department of Energy P.O. Box 30307, M/S 010 North Las Vegas, NV 89036-0307

Phone: 1.800.967.3477 (you can also request a copy of the SDEIS through this number) Fax: 1.800.967.0739

TALKING POINTS FOR DEIS SUPPLEMENT FOR YUCCA MOUNTAIN

1. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) DOE must have final site design for the license application. The site recommendation is more important than the license application, because it is what the President will make his determination on whether or not to recommend Yucca Mountain to Congress. The Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) must be as clear as the NRC license application, and must indicate a final design choice. This supplement does nothing to achieve that.

2. This Supplement is insufficient because it does not provide specific design alternatives for the Proposed Action - "to construct, operate and monitor, and eventually close a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste." Instead, it describes a range of design features and operational parameters that could be combined to arrive at two alternative designs - above boiling drift wall temperature or below boiling waste container surface temperature. These identified features and parameters (see Table 2-1) are said to bound the design so the range of potential impacts could be analyzed. It does not identify specific alternatives for which the impacts could be compared. There is no reason to accept this bounding approach, since the 1999 DEIS made the same claim, and the Supplement has impacts that are outside those bounds. What will happen with the Final EIS as the design continues to "evolve"? The Final EIS is supposed to reflect whatever design the Secretary describes as a comprehensive basis for Site Recommendation. This assumes to use an area which hasn't even been investigated yet (2-20). Surface facilities as presented could not get a license to operate if this were at a reactor site.

3. Scope of this supplement is not broad enough to address all of the comments made on DEIS, the scope should have been broader in order to sufficiently update information that was already commented on in DEIS. The scope of this supplement should have been broader so that it addressed insufficiencies such as employment figures in Nye county, transportation of High Level Waste and comments which were made, but never responded to on the DEIS. The public needs responses to all it's comments before the Final EIS can be released. This Supplemental DEIS intensifies the fact that the entire DEIS needs to be redone.

4. All of this additional design work is based on the presumption that the proposed regulations will be adopted (thereby disregarding hundreds if not thousands of comments to the contrary). In this supplemental DEIS the assertions by the Department of Energy (DOE) of safety, etc., are based on guidelines that the public has never seen. New guidelines and regulations were proposed, a great number of critical comments were received and nothing has been finalized, yet this supplemental DEIS asserts that the proposal is safe by these new, less rigorous guidelines. This entire process is premature, how can we move forward without final, safe, publicly acceptable guidelines in place

5. The Supplemental DEIS does not acknowledge any uncertainties now on record regarding repository performance. These include uncertainties of alloy 22, (the metal which is supposed to keep the waste isolated from the environment), titanium drip shields, and uncertainties in subsurface performance of these metals. This Supplement does not acknowledge the orders of magnitude of uncertainty that the DOE waste package peer review is now questioning. (Alloy-22 initial peer review report is due in September, final report in February 2002.)

6. The Supplement says DOE is considering aging (cooling) up to 40,000 MTHM (up to 4,500 dry storage casks) of spent commercial fuel for up to 50 years on 200 acres of cement pad near the North Portal (page 2-8; 3-7; figure 2-4). The Supplement does not consider the seismic risk for this facility, which would probably prohibit it if it had to be licensed under NRC rules for Independent Spent Fuel Storage Facility Installation (ISFSI) - 10 CFR Part 72. This is equivalent to the temporary storage site proposed for Skull Valley, but the pad at Skull Valley would only be 100 acres. Interestingly, Skull Valley has the same, but not so severe problem with seismicity. The applicant (PFS) has requested an exemption from the seismic regulation that would disqualify it. If the coolest design is the selected design, why not age the fuel at the reactor sites for 50 years? This would be a modification (realistic) for the No-Action Alternative in the DEIS.

7. Fuel Blending- the process of mixing fuel assemblies of different temperatures to lower a waste package temperature has never been done before. To do this safely, the exact history of each fuel assembly must be known. This must be very precise. Any mistakes in record-keeping could lead to mistakes in packaging, and more uncertainties in the repository performance. The Supplemental DEIS fails to talk about any specific plans or mechanics for fuel blending, which if gotten wrong, adds more uncertainty to whatever thermal level design. SDEIS also makes no mention of what the possible impacts of incorrect record keeping, and unknown waste package temperatures from blending will be. Mistakes have been made in the past.

8. The Waste Handling Building would have a large storage pool, holding 5,000 MTHM (12,000 fuel assemblies), as an inventory for fuel blending. This is the mixing of assemblies with different heat output in disposal containers so they all put out the same amount of heat in the repository. The design basis accident is the seismic collapse of the Waste Handling Building (page 3-11). But the dose is said to be less than that presented in the original DEIS, without this big pool in the design. This is because the accident scenario includes damage to all the spent fuel in dry containers in the building in both cases. The pool is ignored as a risk. But, if the building collapses, the pool will too, because it is built to the same design basis accident specifications as the building. You could lose the pumps, water and even go critical. Therefore the accident should include the consequences of damage to all the fuel in the pool as well.

9. The waste water from the fuel pools, and from washing down the transportation casks would go through an ion exchange, which would supposedly trap all the radionucleides in a filter, and the water would then go to the evaporation pools, while the filters would be disposed of as low-level radioactive waste. The Supplement should not assume the repository water supply will come from appropriated water from the State (page 2-19 and 3-6), since its application was denied because a repository is not in the public interest. Water will not be available unless the State Engineer is overturned on appeal. The Supplement should look at alternative water sources and evaluate the impacts of these alternatives. (This proposed use of water is what the State Engineer opposed when he denied the water-use permit for the project. The current permit expires next spring.)

10. Radon releases for the low temperature scenario are very large (page 3-4), but the doses and latent cancer deaths are low. This is because they are using the 20 km boundary, with all air dilution, to cut the doses. The 20 km boundary proposal is for regulating doses from released waste during operation, not radon from construction. Radon doses should be counted near the sources, outside of the restricted operations area, because that's where people will get their doses. (Especially if the repository is the tourist attraction DOE thinks it will be) :)

11. Section 3.1.1 talks about how DOE would obtain permanent control of the land surrounding the repository site, yet makes no mention of how it plans to own that area. The area in question (in fact all of Yucca Mountain) is currently owned by the Western Shoshone Nation under the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley, who oppose this project. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires DOE to prove ownership of the lands it plans to use, yet DOE does not have ownership. Permanent control cannot be proved without legal title to these lands.

12. This is a national program, and we have seen a great deal of national interest already, therefore this supplemental DEIS should be presented in national public hearings. Also, hearings should be held in every town in Nevada. Why are they limited to Amargosa Valley, Pahrump and Las Vegas? Nevada has two major population centers, and the people in rural areas, being no less worthy than those in urban areas, have just as much right to express their opinions on these documents, on the record in a local public hearing. Also, some information available at hearings (such as the poster session) is not available to anyone other than at the hearings. While the DOE is questionably upholding its legal responsibilities according to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, this is another example of the DOE failing to uphold it's moral and ethical responsibility to the public. (This point should be reiterated over and over again. It can not be said too much.)

13. Request an extension of the comment period for the SDEIS, there is no reason not to grant this request since the date for the Final EIS is not firm. (This request must be voiced repeatedly as well.)

notes:::: The actual size of the repository is still unknown, it could be anywhere from 4.3 square km, to 8.1 square km. Human intrusion table 3-1 on page 3-2, is the only place that the possibility of human intrusion is addressed. Out of scope comments will go on record, they are just not responded to.

-------- us nuc politics

Senator pledges to blunt Bush's plans

FROM MARTIN FLETCHER IN WASHINGTON,
THURSDAY MAY 31 2001,
The Times of London
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-2001182104,00.html

THE Senate's new Democratic foreign policy chief has served notice of his determination to blunt President Bush's drive to build a nuclear missile shield and to moderate his unilateralist approach to international affairs.

Confirming that he would chair the Senate's powerful Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Joe Biden, of Delaware, expressed concern about the new President's performance to date, noting that "the Europeans are uneasy about this Administration, the Chinese are perplexed, the Russians aren't quite sure and the Middle East is not quite sure what we're doing".

Speaking shortly after America's Nato allies refused to endorse the Administration's missile defence plans in Budapest on Tuesday, Mr Biden also described the President's plans to build a missile shield and possibly scrap the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty as "the most important national security debate and decision in our lifetime".

Mr Biden is deeply sceptical about what he calls the "shield of dreams" - as is Carl Levin, the new Armed Services Committee chairman. He strongly supports the ABM treaty and believes that the United States must do much more research and negotiation before a missile defence system could be deployed.

"If we make a mistake and weaponise space, or abandon the ABM treaty without amending it, and China goes from 18 to 800 inter-continental ballistic missiles, we cannot say a couple of days, weeks or years later: 'Whoops, we made a mistake. Let's go back to where we were before,' " he said. "The genie will be out of the bottle."

Mr Biden takes over from the arch-conservative Jesse Helms and supports almost everything North Carolina's 79-year-old "Senator No" opposed - international engagement, arms control treaties, the United Nations and foreign aid programmes.

He is best remembered in Britain for plagiarising Neil Kinnock during his abortive 1988 presidential bid. He said he was the first Biden in a thousand generations to attend university, a line lifted directly from one of Mr Kinnock's party political broadcasts.

Mr Biden said he looked forward to supporting Colin Powell, the relatively centrist Secretary of State, against hardline conservatives in the White House, Pentagon and Congress. "I'd like to weigh in with him and see to it that his points of view . . . on these major international matters are able to prevail," he said.

His chairmanship gives him considerable power to frustrate Administration initiatives he does not like. He can order extensive hearings, block appointments and withhold funds as his committee largely controls the $15 billion (£10.5 billion) foreign aid and diplomacy budget. "We can stop (President Bush) getting things done," he said.

Missile defence apart, Mr Biden, 58, opposes any hasty withdrawal of US peacekeeping troops from the Balkans (another source of concern in Europe), the Administration's rejection of North Korea's overtures to the West and its reluctance to become more directly engaged in the disintegrating Middle East peace process. He favours continued engagement with Russia and China.

The Republicans' loss of the Senate last week ends Mr Helms's six-year stewardship of the Foreign Relations Committee - a period marked by opposition to foreign entanglements and hostility to the UN.

-------- MILITARY

-------- africa

Libyan Troops Bolster Leader In Bangui

Reuters
Thursday, May 31, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A430-2001May31?language=printer

BANGUI, Central African Republic, May 30 -- Libyan troops flew into the Central African Republic today to help President Ange-Felix Patasse and his loyalists try to regain control after a failed coup, diplomats said.

Residents said the government's foes appeared to gain ground during the day and had retaken the main barracks in the capital, three days after launching their attack on Patasse's residence.

"There has been a buildup on both sides," a Western diplomat said. "Patasse has made it clear there will be no forgiveness or pardon. It looks like they are both digging their heels in."

Diplomats said planes ferrying and undetermined number of troops had arrived in Bangui.

"We've been able to confirm that two Libyan planes landed with equipment and soldiers at Bangui airport this morning," a diplomat said.

The country's former military ruler, Andre Kolingba, has confirmed his involvement with the attackers. The government says 300 African mercenaries led by two Rwandan generals are fighting along with Kolingba.

At least 20 people are known to have died since the fighting erupted Monday and the death toll is likely to rise as fighting spreads throughout the city.

-------- asia

China suspected in port deal

May 31, 2001
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010531-50444965.htm

China has clinched a deal to develop a major deep-sea commercial port in western Pakistan, giving Beijing a potential staging ground to exert influence along some of the world´s busiest shipping lanes flowing into and out of the Persian Gulf.

The long-discussed project to create a major shipping station in the Pakistani coastal town of Gwadar opens a new front in the simmering rivalry between India and Pakistan and is the latest move by Beijing to project power throughout South Asia through a greatly expanded naval presence.

Islamabad and Beijing have both denied Pakistani press reports that a secret understanding has been reached to allow Chinese naval vessels to dock at the port, which is expected to be completed in about six years. But both sides have talked openly of increasing "economic strategic ties" and the heavy Chinese involvement in the $1 billion deal is a prime example.

"Beijing has a history of piggybacking military cooperation onto commercial ventures," said Richard Fisher, an Asian specialist at the Jamestown Foundation. "From what we know now, this is a commercial deal, but it can easily set the stage for military cooperation in the future."

China, which lacks a blue water port in the region, is also continuing its extensive aid to improve Pakistan´s road networks. Indian military analysts fear that the combination of the vastly improved Gwadar site and reliable overland links could give China a well-equipped staging ground on India´s western flank.

China´s role at Gwadar echoes similar concerns voiced when a Hong Kong firm with close ties to China´s communist leadership won the leases to two ports near both ends of the Panama Canal in 1997. Clinton and Bush administration officials have said they have seen no interference by China in the operation of the canal, but a U.S. intelligence report in October 1999 called the leases "a potential threat" to U.S. interests.

The Gwadar site also heightens the intense jockeying already under way among India, China and Pakistan for influence in the region.

Pakistan staged naval exercises with Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal on India´s east coast last month, followed almost immediately by a precedent-setting port call by three Pakistani naval vessels to the secretive military regime in Burma.

The Texas-based private intelligence service Stratfor recently noted that Islamabad "is looking toward naval cooperation with India´s eastern neighbors to gain something it has not had since East Pakistan became Bangladesh -- the ability to flank India."

A Pakistan Ministry of Defense source said of Gwadar: "The decision is a landmark as a tactical deterrent to the mighty Indian naval establishment in the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean."

New Delhi has begun its own "Look to the East" campaign, cultivating better ties with Vietnam and Burma, while seeking its own flanking maneuver against Pakistan with improved relations with Iran and Israel.

The United States has also made a pronounced shift toward India, even as Pakistan´s military and commercial ties to China have strengthened.

The Washington Times in February reported that a CIA analysis has concluded Beijing continues to send "substantial" assistance to Pakistan for its ballistic missile program, and U.S. experts say they cannot rule out Chinese aid for Pakistan´s nuclear missile program as well.

China has clashed repeatedly with the United States over Taiwan and with Southeast Asian nations over territorial claims in the South China Sea.

In addition, Beijing has recently been courting dissident elements in Indonesia and island governments throughout the South Pacific, a direct challenge to the long-standing U.S. and Australian naval presence in the area.

The Gwadar deal was formally announced during an extremely cordial four-day visit earlier this month by Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji to Pakistan, a visit that produced a number of bilateral deals to increase cooperation in trade, rail transport and tourism.

Pakistani Chief Executive Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in an October 1999 coup condemned by the United States, said: "I am confident that [the Zhu visit] will send out a strong signal to everyone of the continuing strength and durability of the multifaceted relationship between Pakistan and China."

Just days after Mr. Zhu left, two Chinese naval vessels were received with high honors in Karachi, Pakistan, to celebrate 50 years of friendly relations between the two nations. Rear Adm. Zhang Yan, deputy commander of the North Sea China Fleet, met with top officers of the Pakistan navy and attended a dinner at the Pakistan Maritime Museum.

A backwater fishing village with an airport but primitive road connections, Gwadar barely rates a mention in Pakistani tour guides. Plans to build a deep-sea port in the excellent and well-guarded harbor have foundered a number of times, most recently when an accord between Pakistan and Singapore announced in 1995 fell through.

According to Pakistani press reports and the official Chinese Xinhua news agency, the Gwadar "megaproject" includes a deep-sea port and land connections to Karachi to the east and Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, to the northwest.

In addition, a new dam will be built to ensure adequate water supplies to support an increased population and industrial activity.

Pakistani military planners have long recognized the commercial and military significance of the site, which is near the mouth of the Gulf of Oman about 50 miles from Pakistan´s border with Iran. The port of Karachi currently handles about 98 percent of the country´s shipping and Pakistani military planners were stunned by the ease with which Indian forces bottled up the Pakistan navy in Karachi during a 1999 standoff over Kashmir.

Bhashyam Kasturi, writing in the September 1999 issue of the journal Strategic Affairs, noted that the commercial and military development of Gwadar would give the Pakistan navy the "capability to potentially choke the movement of oil and other trade" and move Pakistani naval assets farther away from Indian attack.

"A single Agost 90B submarine operating out of Gwadar, armed with Exocet anti-ship missiles, could be an effective sea-denial platform in the Straits of Hormuz," Mr. Kasturi wrote.

Indian officials privately say they are very aware of the Chinese activity both in Gwadar and on India´s eastern flank in the Bay of Bengal, both of which give Beijing the potential to influence and even choke off maritime trading routes critical to India and to the flow of oil and other goods throughout the Pacific Rim.

The Gwadar project has remained a commercial venture, at least on paper, so the Indian government has not publicly aired its concerns about last month´s accords.

But "India needs to carefully analyze whether China´s action of increasing its presence in the Bay of Bengal through close links with [Burma] and its decision to help Pakistan with [Gwadar] are merely defensive or whether they are designed to assert a military presence encircling India," according to a recent analysis in the trade publication Alexander´s Oil and Gas Connections.

-------- balkans

Serbian Town's Deadly Secret Points the Finger at Milosevic

New York Times
May 31, 2001
By CARLOTTA GALL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/31/world/31CND-YUGO.html

KLADOVO, Serbia, May 29 - For two years the people of this Danube River town kept the dark secret that has now led - after a decade of Balkan death and destruction largely attributed to Slobodan Milosevic - to the first move by Serbia's new democratic authorities to charge him with war crimes.

It was April 6, 1999, and Yugoslavia was at war with NATO, which was bombing the country to stop Mr. Milosevic and his security forces from killing, torturing and expelling the Albanians of Kosovo.

The police asked Zivadin Djordjevic, 56, a professional diver with the local power station, to check out a truck submerged in the Danube. He thought it was just another traffic accident.

Nothing prepared him for the shock when they winched the truck ashore, and he and a police technician opened the rear doors, to find dozens of half-naked corpses tumbling on top of them.

"We barely opened the doors, maybe a foot or two, so it's hard to describe," he said. "Arms and legs almost fell out, because they were leaning against the door. In that split second I noticed a half-naked woman, a child of 7 or 8 years old behind and an old man," he added in an interview. "It was a mess of mangled bodies, clothing, mud and water."

"We stared at each other and then quickly shut the doors," he said, describing a macabre struggle to push the limbs back inside.

The police took the bodies away and blew up the truck, and told Mr. Djordjevic and others to keep quiet. Word had already spread around town, but under wartime constraints the subject rapidly became taboo. The wartime lack of electricity and phone services meant that the secret remained within the town, and did not reach the ears of Mr. Milosevic's opponents in Belgrade or other parts of Serbia.

"I knew about it and the public knew about it, but no one dared to talk," said Mica Aleksic, a journalist and political activist in Kladovo for what was then the opposition to Mr. Milosevic.

Residents suspected that the bodies were those of civilians killed in Kosovo, but a veil of secrecy fell over the case, he said. "We talked about it in private, but no one could say anything publicly because everyone was afraid of the Milosevic regime."

With Mr. Milosevic in jail in Belgrade since April 1, the story finally came out in the Serbian newspapers this month. It has quickly acquired enormous significance here because it has provided both the Serbian public and the authorities with the most convincing evidence to date of war crimes committed in Kosovo, and of Mr. Milosevic's personal involvement in covering them up.

The police officials heading the inquiry said last week that they were preparing charges against Mr. Milosevic for ordering officials to "clean up" in Kosovo and remove evidence of civilian casualties that might be of interest to the war crimes tribunal at The Hague.

This marked the first time that the authorities in Serbia, who arrested Mr. Milosevic on charges of embezzlement and abuse of power, had linked him to war crimes. The Hague tribunal indicted the former Yugoslav leader during the Kosovo war, in May 1999, for atrocities in Kosovo; a long-mooted indictment for crimes said to have been committed during the earlier wars in Croatia and Bosnia has yet to materialize.

Police officials and Serbia's new interior minister, Dusan Mihajlovic, said at a news conference last week that at a meeting in late March 1999 Mr. Milosevic ordered his interior minister, Vlajko Stojiljkovic (who was also later indicted by The Hague tribunal), to remove civilian casualties in Kosovo that could be the source for investigations by the tribunal.

Toma Fila, Mr. Milosevic's lawyer, has dismissed the allegations as ridiculous. Mr. Stojiljkovic has denied the incident but the information appears to have come from Vlastimir Djordjevic, the former head of Police Public Security, who was at the meeting. Also present was Rade Markovic, the former head of state security, who is in jail under investigation for murder and attempted murder of Mr. Milosevic's opponents.

The information has emerged just as the government is debating a law on cooperation with The Hague that would establish the procedure for Yugoslavia to transfer war crimes suspects to the court. The bill is encountering opposition in the federal Parliament from former allies of Mr. Milosevic, whose support is crucial to its passage. But the government needs to pass the law ahead of an important aid conference on June 29 if it wants to ensure American participation in the conference and raise its target of $1 billion.

[On Wednesday Mr. Mihajlovic, the Serbian interior minister, told a session of the Serbian parliament that the truck had contained 86 bodies and said he would soon make public where the bodies had come from, and what had been done with them. He gave no details, but hinted strongly that more evidence would turn up against Mr. Milosevic and his security chiefs. "I would wish that this is the only such case we are facing now, but there are a lot of indications that there are more similar cases," Mr. Mihajlovic told parliament.]

For the people of Kladovo, there is little doubt that the bodies, clearly civilians, were the result of terrible deeds controlled or committed by members of the Milosevic regime.

Nikola Dajic, 58, one of four graveyard workers ordered by the police to load the bodies on to another truck under cover of darkness after their discovery, said there were small children among them.

"There were children from the ages of 2 to 14," he said. "There were two or three small ones, and more aged around 13 to 14 years. There were women, and children and old people."

He said he presumed they were from Kosovo because injuries they had sustained appeared to be from grenade explosions.

"They were in pieces, destroyed," he said. "They were covered in mud and smelled very badly. They came from a battlefield." Asked why he thought they came from Kosovo, he said, "Where else do we have a war?"

The diver, Mr. Djordjevic, said the truck had no number plates but had carried a sticker indicating it belonged to a Kosovo company named Progress, based in the town of Prizren.

The truck was discovered on April 6, 1999, but Mr. Djordjevic and Mr. Dajic said the bodies were badly decomposed and could have been in the water some 20 days. Local journalists have found a witness who claims to have seen someone sinking a truck in the Danube farther upstream on the night of March 20.

That would mean that the bodies were dumped before NATO began its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999, at a time when Yugoslav forces were increasing their offensive against Albanian villages in Kosovo. Local journalists have also quoted a policeman who was at the scene as saying that some of the clothing indicated the people were Kosovars.

People interviewed in Kladovo said it was good that the case is finally out in the open and being investigated, but some have called Mr. Djordjevic a traitor, and even blamed him for laying Serbia open to accusations of genocide.

A confident, barrel-chested man, he showed some lingering fear, but said he felt relief that the crime was finally being investigated.

"It is not easy to carry something inside for two years," he said.

-------- colombia

A Colombian Human Rights Figure Is the New Defense Minister

New York Times
May 31, 2001
By JUAN FORERO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/31/world/31COLO.html

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, May 30 - Gustavo Bell, who as Colombia's vice president directed the government's human rights efforts, has been chosen to replace Luis Fernando Ramírez as minister of defense. Mr. Ramírez, who resigned on Friday and may run for president in next year's election, is credited with overseeing the modernization of the Colombian Army, which had suffered a string of battlefield defeats.

Mr. Bell's appointment, announced without fanfare on Tuesday, came as a surprise. Press and pundits here had speculated for weeks that Mr. Ramírez would be replaced by Eduardo Pizano, chief of staff for President Andrés Pastrana, or Romulo González, the justice minister.

But on Tuesday the government announced that Mr. Bell, 44, a lawyer and former governor, would head the government's public security forces. Mr. Bell was traveling in Indonesia today and was not available for comment. As defense minister, he will manage the 150,000-strong armed forces and the 100,000-member national police.

He will also also continue administering $900 million in American aid for the army and police, much of it in the form of helicopters and military equipment used by a 3,000-man antinarcotics brigade.

Today, much speculation centered on whether Mr. Bell's appointment was a signal to military officials about the need to cut links that human rights groups say the army has with right-wing paramilitary forces.

But several human rights officials here and in the United States said that Mr. Bell, while ostensibly committed to improving human rights conditions, had little to show for his efforts. And military officials, in fact, welcomed the appointment, Mr. Ramírez said.

"He shares democratic values, and he's generally concerned on human rights, but he's extremely weak," said José Miguel Vivanco, director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch. "His performance as vice president of Colombia in charge of human rights issues has been extremely ineffective."

The military has, over the years, been criticized for collaborating with paramilitary gunmen, who even the Defense Ministry holds responsible for 70 percent of the massacres in Colombia's 37-year-old conflict.

Under Mr. Ramírez, the American government says, the military has purged some human rights abusers and begun efforts to track paramilitaries and their supporters, though officials say more needs to be done.

"There have been some efforts made on issues related to human rights abuses, which were positive," said Peter Romero, assistant secretary of state, by phone from Washington. "It has taken a while to gear up, but we're finally seeing the fruits of those labors."

-------- drug war

Dutch Approve Coffee And Pot for German Tourists

New York Times
May 31, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-dutch-m.html

VENLO, Netherlands (Reuters) - The Dutch border town of Venlo has approved plans to open out-of-town coffee shops not far from Germany in a bid to keep thousands of German drug tourists out of its center, local officials said on Thursday.

Dubbed as ``drug drive-throughs'' by the locals, the new coffee shops will cater to the growing army of German tourists who flock across the border.

Soft drugs can be bought legally and used in small quantities in Dutch coffee shops, which frequently offer numerous varieties of cannabis.

Elke Haanraadts, a Venlo town planner and spokeswoman for the project, admitted the measure aimed at keeping foreign drug tourists out.

``I think that the German people coming especially for their five grams of soft drugs will benefit. It's easier for them to buy it near the road and then go back again to Germany.

Venlo city officials estimate that some five million German people are within striking distance of the town, which is just over a mile from the border.

In recent years, thousands have crossed the border daily to take advantage of the liberal Dutch drugs regime.

Germany has substantially tougher laws and has in the past blamed the Netherlands for an increase in its own drugs problems.

Plans for the new out-of-town coffee shops were approved at a council meeting late on Wednesday. The new establishments are expected to open at the start of next year.

Haanraadts told Reuters Television that in excess of 60 illegal coffee shops had sprung up to cater for the tourists. Local residents have complained that a climate of fear is being cultivated by drug-pushers.

``We get a lot of letters from people who are really sick of the feeling of fear and people hanging around their houses and making a lot of noise,'' she said.

-------- iran

Iran Says It Tested Missile

New York Times
May 31, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-Missile.html?searchpv=aponline

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran successfully tested its first solid-fueled surface-to-surface missile, state-run Tehran radio reported Thursday.

The guided Fateh-110 missile was developed at the government-owned Aerospace Industries, the radio said.

``Fateh-110, a super-modern surface-to-surface missile, functions with combined solid-fuel, is able to cause great damage and finds targets with accuracy. The missile is classified among Iran's most efficient missiles,'' the radio report said.

The broadcast did not give the missile's range, say when the test took place or provide further details. Defense Ministry officials were not available Thursday for comment.

Iran has built and tested several missiles, including the Shahab-3, which has a range of 810 miles and, unlike the Fateh-110, uses a mixture of liquid and solid fuel.

Washington has said the Shahab-3 enables Iran to hit Israel and U.S. troops stationed in the Gulf.

U.S. State Department officials have said that Iran is a major recipient of missile technology from Russia, North Korea and China.

Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani has said his country has a domestic missile industry and needs no foreign technology.

Washington criticized Russia's decision last December to ignore its 1995 pledge not to sell tanks and conventional weapons to Iran.

Russia has said it is not violating any nonproliferation agreements, arguing the weapons serve only defensive needs and cannot be used to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Iran had virtually no arms industry before the 1979 Islamic revolution, when Iran, under the U.S.-backed shah, bought virtually all of its weapons from Washington.

Iran began an ambitious arms development program during the Iraq-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988 to compensate for weapons shortages caused by a post-revolution U.S. embargo.

Since 1992, Iran has unveiled its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and a fighter plane.

--------

Iran Test - Fires New Home - Made Guided Missile

New York Times
May 31, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iran-mi.html?searchpv=reuters

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran announced on Thursday it had successfully test-fired a new class of home-made surface-to-surface guided missile, in the latest step in a weapons program that has alarmed the United States and Israel.

State television broadcast pictures of the ballistic missile taking off from a simple launcher at a desert site to cries of ``Allahu Akbar'' (God is Great), and helicopter film of the impact crater.

It said the Fateh (Victorious) 110, which uses ``composite solid'' fuel, had been built entirely by Iran's arms industry.

``This very modern missile...is classified as Iran's most effective because of its high precision in destroying targets,'' the television said. It gave no range for the rocket.

Iran last year test-fired a new version of its Shahab-3 ballistic missile, believed to be based on a North Korean design and said to have a range of 1,300 km (800 miles), making it capable of striking Israel.

The Fateh 110 appeared far smaller -- about twice the height of a standard army truck.

U.S. AND ISRAEL CONCERNED

The United States and Israel have expressed concern over Iran's development of missile technology, with alleged help from Russia, China and North Korea, which they believe could one day be used to deliver weapons of mass destruction.

Iran insists its program is strictly conventional and meant for deterrence, not offensive operations.

Defense analyst Andrew Brooks of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said the Fateh 110 was likely to be a domestically modified replica of a Chinese missile.

It was probably part of an Iranian effort to develop home-made shore-to-ship missiles capable of interdicting traffic in the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, through which more than one-third of the world's oil supplies transits, he said.

``The impressive thing is the demonstration of self-sufficiency despite American embargoes. It implies they have a technical capability and are a force to be reckoned with in the region,'' Brooks said.

Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani, a candidate in next week's presidential election, told Reuters in an interview: ``All our cities are within range of missiles of neighboring countries. You will agree there is no other option to prevent them.''

MUJAHIDEEN TARGETED

Iraq fired hundreds of Soviet-designed Scud missiles at Iranian cities during the 1980-88 war with Iran.

More recently, Iran fired several dozen missiles at suspected bases of the Iraqi-backed People's Mujahideen armed opposition group in Iraq in April in retaliation for a spate of cross-border raids and guerrilla attacks inside Iran.

Shamkhani denied Western allegations that Iran was seeking to develop a nuclear capability.

``Don't worry, we are reasonable people,'' he said. ``We have signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and we will not try at all to subvert them.''

But he said the official nuclear powers should not discriminate against Iran but allow it the benefits of sharing peaceful nuclear energy technology accorded to other signatories of the NPT.

``Unfortunately, they are denying us the natural minimum that this protocol sets out. They are making propaganda about our efforts to provide our nuclear energy,'' Shamkhani said.

Iran is trying to complete, with Russian help, a nuclear reactor in the southern city of Bushehr started by German firms under the late shah before the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The United States has put pressure on Moscow not to help Iran's nuclear and missile programs.

-------- iraq

U.S. Won't Push New Iraq Sanctions

MAY 31, 11:18 EST
By TOM RAUM
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=MIDEAST&STORYID=APIS7CB61H80

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States, abandoning its attempt to win restructuring of U.N. sanctions against Iraq by a Monday deadline, pressed Thursday for a one-month extension of the current oil-for-food program rather than the full six months sought by Moscow and China.

U.N. Security Council members are in ``general agreement'' that sanctions ``have lost some of their effectiveness,'' Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters as he flew home late Wednesday from a NATO meeting in Budapest.

``It is wise to move forward,'' he said, expressing optimism that agreement on a new sanctions package could be reached soon.

Powell conferred with the foreign ministers of Russia, Britain and France during meetings on the sidelines the NATO gathering.

As a result of those sessions, the United States decided to give up trying to win support for a U.S.-British plan for new sanctions before the current program expires Monday, said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Ambassadors from the Security Council's five permanent members, each of which has veto power - the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China - were meeting Thursday at U.N. headquarters to discuss a timeframe for the extension. A British diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were seeking a short-term extension of several weeks while Russia and China want a full six-month roll-over.

The full Security Council was expected to meet later Thursday to take up the Iraq sanctions issue.

``The action is (now) back in New York,'' Powell said, referring to the Security Council talks.

Under a deal agreed to by Powell, the current humanitarian oil-for-food program will be temporarily extended, primarily to give Russia a chance to scrutinize a proposed new list of banned items, said the senior administration official.

The extension may nominally be for six months. But the U.S. official said the United States hoped the review could be completed in a month. The agreement to ``roll over'' the current program was an attempt to overcome a serious impasse on the Security Council, with the Monday deadline fast approaching.

The United States and Britain want to restructure the sanctions to allow free trade on most civilian goods while tightening them on military imports.

Russia has been the main obstacle to putting such a plan in place, although France and China have also urged against haste.

Final details of the proposed agreement came together during a Wednesday meeting between Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

Under the current deadline, the Security Council must extend - or revamp - the program that allows Iraq to sell unlimited quantities of oil to pay for the needs of its civilian population.

Iraq remains under sanctions imposed after it invaded Kuwait in 1990.

The restructuring of sanctions is one of the Bush administration's first foreign policy initiatives.

The U.S.-British plan would remove most restrictions on trade in consumer goods and materials for rebuilding public services. It would retain control of Iraqi oil profits through U.N.-administered escrow accounts.

The United States wants to see controls tightened on items it considers as dangerous, particularly those which could be used to manufacture weapons of mass destruction.

The proposal would keep in place the United Nations resolution that states sanctions cannot be removed until Iraq allows arms inspectors to return.

Other issues still remain to be decided, including how the embargo is to be enforced at border points and how to control smuggling.

``There are lots of variants,'' Powell said.

The United States is compiling a list of items it wants banned, including certain technologies and communications equipment.

Many items now banned, such as small diesel generators and refrigerator pumps, would be removed from the list.

Powell said the sanctions were originally intended as ``an arms control program,'' not an attempt to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

On another subject, Powell took issue with those who saw NATO's reluctance to be more supportive of the U.S. missile defense plan as a setback for the Bush administration.

``Everybody was keeping a scorecard on who won and who lost in Budapest. We weren't playing a game in Budapest,'' he said.

``I didn't come with a proposal to lay before them,'' he said.

Administration officials worked unsuccessfully behind the scenes to get NATO to adopt language recognizing a ``common threat'' from missile attack from terrorists or hostile nations.

Instead, NATO leaders only agreed to continue consultations with Washington on the subject.

----

Deal on Iraq Sanctions Eludes U.S.

By Steven Mufson and Alan Sipress
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 31, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A295-2001May31?language=printer

The United States and Britain have conceded that they will be unable to obtain U.N. Security Council agreement on an overhaul of the Iraq sanctions this week and instead will probably propose a short extension of the oil-for-food program, which is scheduled to expire Sunday.

Diplomatic sources at the United Nations said the five permanent members of the council still need to negotiate items that could be prohibited for sale to Baghdad. A senior State Department official in Washington added, "It's quite possible it could take some time to work this all out. . . . There's a realization that it can't all be done with the broad support we want."

A U.N. source said that Britain suggested yesterday a "technical rollover" to allow more time for negotiations, and a Security Council official said that the extension would probably last about a month.

Russia has been the main obstacle to the U.S.-British proposal and has proposed a six-month extension of the program. China, also a permanent member of the council, has also questioned the proposal, while France has been supportive.

A Security Council official said there were signs yesterday that Russia was finally ready to negotiate a new sanctions regime after refusing earlier to deal with specifics. "For the past week Russia has been coming up with excuses not to engage," the official said.

A U.S. official said that one example of the differences over the list was whether certain trailers designed for heavy transport could be used to move a battle tank as opposed to a load of wheat.

Resolution of the differences in the Security Council over a new sanctions list is unlikely to be achieved by Sunday. Bangladesh takes over the chairmanship of the council next month, and tomorrow will be consumed by talks on the agenda for the month. Saturday night, ambassadors from the council are scheduled to attend a New York Yankees game.

The United States and its allies are seeking to simplify procedures for trade with Iraq, while focusing sanctions and interdiction efforts on a smaller list of goods with military applications, especially for the possible development of missiles or weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. and British proposal would retain an escrow account to ensure that oil payments were used only to pay for approved goods.

Iraq wants the sanctions lifted entirely and threatened to halt oil exports if they were extended. "We will stop the flow of oil from Iraq to outside if the American draft resolution would be accepted," Baghdad's U.N. ambassador, Mohammed Aldouri, told reporters yesterday.

A decade after allied forces defeated Iraq and expelled its forces from Kuwait, U.S. officials continue to view the Iraqi regime as a potential threat to the United States and to its interests.

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein "has forgone a tremendous amount of revenue to keep [weapons] inspectors out," said a senior Bush administration official. "We have to assume it's for a reason and that he's continuing to develop weapons of mass destruction."

--------

Iraq Oil - For - Food Extended 1 Month

New York Times
May 31, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-UN-Iraq.html

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The major powers on the Security Council avoided a stand-off over Iraq by agreeing Thursday to extend a U.N. humanitarian program for one month -- time that can now be used to restructure sanctions there.

Iraqi Ambassador Mohammed al-Douri rejected the new proposal, which is expected to be adopted Friday. He said Iraq would not sign any new oil contracts during the one-month extension period.

Al-Douri reiterated Iraqi threats to cut the production of oil should the Security Council eventually approve a U.S.-British sanctions proposal.

The short-term extension of the oil-for-food program marked the first time in more than two years that the five veto-wielding nations -- Britain, the United States, China, Russia and France -- reached agreement on Iraq.

A joint U.S.-British proposal aimed at allowing the free flow of civilian goods into Iraq while tightening a decade-old arms embargo failed to win the quick support necessary for approval by June 3, when the current oil-for-food program is up for renewal.

A counterproposal by Russia for a six-month extension, which included several additions designed to please Baghdad, was not welcome by the two English-speaking allies.

Iraq remains under sanctions imposed after it invaded Kuwait in 1990 but under the oil-for-food program, it can sell oil to buy approved humanitarian goods.

Under the new proposal, the current regime will continue until July 3, and during that time, the council will discuss the major elements outlined in the U.S.-British draft, including improving the flow of civilian goods to Iraq, tightening controls on prohibited items from entering the country and preventing illegal oil sales.

The restructuring of sanctions is one of the Bush administration's first foreign policy initiatives.

--------

British-U.S. Plan to Ease Curb on Iraq Seems Stalled for Now

New York Times
May 31, 2001
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/31/world/31IRAQ.html

UNITED NATIONS, May 30 - A proposal by the United States and Britain to loosen restrictions on trade with Iraq while tightening controls against oil smuggling and illegal arms sales is meeting strong opposition in the Security Council and is unlikely to be adopted soon.

In fact, the United States has agreed to extend the current system by at least a month, while Russian and other experts examine a revised list of goods which Iraq may not import, a high-level American official told the news agency Reuters tonight.

The decision to wait another month is a major setback for Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who made revising the sanctions a top priority when he took office in January. The Anglo-American plan, which amounts to a rethinking of the "oil for food" program under which Iraq may sell oil to buy civilian goods for a population living under stringent economic sanctions, was also the first major proposal in the Council by the Bush administration.

American officials predicted two weeks ago, when Britain presented the plan, that it would be accepted by the Council before the next six-month renewal of the oil-for-food program, which is due by midnight Sunday.

French, Chinese and Russian diplomats now say that deadline cannot be met because of problems caused by a lengthy list of items the United States wants to bar Iraq from buying without approval. They say banning purchases of some of the items, especially in telecommunications and other technologies, could hinder any revival of Iraq's economy.

The French predict a delay of several months; Russia is seeking to put off a decision for six months. American officials reply that the outlines of the list were known for some time and that for countries accustomed to dealing with arms control, the list should be readily comprehensible.

Talks yesterday and today in Budapest between Secretary Powell and his counterparts from Britain, France and Russia apparently did not narrow gaps among them. China, the fifth Council member with veto power, was briefed on the Budapest talks today, diplomats said.

Judging from comments from a range of diplomats, Washington may have caused new problems for itself in dealing with the Iraqi impasse by trying to rush a resolution through the Security Council against predictably strong opposition from Russia and China, and reservations from the French.

Once the debate opened, countries close to Iraq introduced other proposals that they may now try to attach to an extension of the current oil-sales program - to Iraq's advantage. One would allow Iraq to recover its civilian aircraft from several nations where they were stranded when sanctions were imposed in 1990, after Iraq occupied Kuwait.

Moreover, in discussing how to stop the illegal export of Iraqi oil and Iraq's imposition of illegal surcharges on controlled imports, council members are also being forced to acknowledge how lax enforcement of sanctions has been.

If smuggling is to stop, Council members agree, neighboring countries whose purchases were tolerated - Jordan, Syria and Turkey - will have to be compensated if Iraq cuts off oil sales rather than legitimize them, as the new proposal would permit. In recent weeks the Iraqis have vowed to punish neighbors who cooperate with the Council.

Iraq, which demands that all sanctions be lifted without conditions, has refused since December 1999 to cooperate with a new arms-inspection system, the only route now to a suspension and ultimately the end of the embargo. All five leading Security Council members say, at least for the record, that the requirement to reintroduce inspectors must remain in place.

The Iraqis have dismissed American and British assertions that the new proposal on oil sales is intended to meet Iraq's accusations that trade curbs cause undue suffering to the people. The government has focused on the new proposal's intention to continue supervision of profits on oil sales, and other measures that Iraq regards as infringements of sovereignty.

-------- ireland

IRA, Disarmament Commission Meet

MAY 31, 07:12 EST
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS7CB2E1O0

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) - The Irish Republican Army and a disarmament commission confirmed Thursday that they have met four times since March, but both sides declined to say whether their talks were making progress.

The outlawed IRA publicly pledged in May 2000 to work with the commission to put its stockpiled weapons ``completely and verifiably beyond use,'' a euphemism for their destruction or removal to monitored sites.

That commitment persuaded Protestant politicians to resume governing Northern Ireland alongside the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party, a key goal of the province's 1998 peace accord, but their unlikely coalition is fraying once again over the unresolved disarmament issue.

In Thursday's statement, the IRA said its negotiator had met four times with the commission's leader, retired Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain, or his aides since their discussions began March 8. The commission's Belfast office confirmed this in a statement, but declined further comment.

On Wednesday, foreign diplomats announced that the IRA had allowed them to revisit a few of its weapons bunkers in secret. The dumps, located in remote parts of the Republic of Ireland, have been inspected three times since June 2000. The inspections - another part of the IRA's May 2000 pledge - are designed to show that the weapons are not being used, while remaining IRA property.

``This continuing dialogue and the inspections represent clear and irrefutable evidence of the IRA's commitment to a just and equitable peace settlement,'' the IRA said in a statement Thursday.

``The IRA leadership has honored every commitment we have made and will continue to do so. Others should do likewise,'' it said, referring to its demands for moves from the British government on police reform and military cutbacks in Northern Ireland.

The IRA called a cease-fire in 1997 after killing about 1,800 people in a 27-year campaign to abolish Northern Ireland as a British-linked state. The Good Friday accord of 1998, which Sinn Fein accepted, proposed a joint Catholic-Protestant government for Northern Ireland, which would remain part of the United Kingdom while pursuing political cooperation with the rest of Ireland.

The British government has withdrawn a few thousand troops from Northern Ireland and closed more than 30 military installations since 1998, and has enacted legislation that would reform Northern Ireland's predominantly Protestant police force. Catholic politicians say the planned changes to the Royal Ulster Constabulary don't go far enough.

Protestants, many of whom despise Sinn Fein's involvement in the new Northern Ireland government, said Thursday that the IRA's latest moves demonstrated they weren't willing to scrap their weapons as the Good Friday pact envisaged.

``We have had these so-called meetings. Out of these so-called meetings have come absolutely nothing,'' said the Rev. Ian Paisley, whose hard-line Democratic Unionist Party wants to force an end to power-sharing with Sinn Fein.

Referring to IRA demands, Paisley added: ``They are putting on the table what the government should do, what everybody else should do, while they do nothing.''

Paisley is campaigning to outpoll the traditional No. 1 Protestant party, the Ulster Unionists, in the British general election June 7. A bad result for Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, who holds the top post in the power-sharing government, could force his resignation or ouster.

-------- nato

NATO chief urges lawmakers to cough up more cash for defence alliance

Thursday May 31,
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010531/1/qo3o.html

VILNIUS, NATO Secretary General George Robertson urged lawmakers from NATO member and candidate countries Thursday to provide more funding for the defence alliance.

The need to improve NATO defence capabilities is "very clear," Robertson told the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and said investment will be "key to the success" of the development of European security capacities.

"Our Parliamentarians have to remind governments they can't have security on the cheap, and that promises must be kept, if Europe is to have any credibility as a security actor," Robertson told the lawmakers.

"But the success of this endeavour will be judged on whether or not Europe can deliver improved capability at the sharp end -- in operations. This means, first and foremost, that European countries must make the necessary investments in defence," he said.

The European Union is developing its own security capacities to deal with humanitarian crises and peacekeeping operations in Europe, and is close to reaching a deal with NATO on sharing NATO resources.

Robertson expressed confidence that an agreement would soon be reached on the participation of non-EU NATO members in operations of the organization.

The secretary general recognized there was some "heartburn" among NATO supporters about the EU initiative, fearing it will become a "European mini-NATO" and divide the Alliance.

But he argued that close cooperation could ensure that no divisions or duplication emerged.

NATO remains the "ultimate guarantor of our collective defence," said Robertson, a former British defence secretary. "No one wants that to change."

Roberston told the lawmakers they had a "crucial role" to play in convincing colleagues and the public to support increased defence funding.

"Once again, I encourage you to greater efforts in supporting investment in defence," he said, and expressed hope NATO leaders would review the issue at a summit in Prague next year.

There is "a degree of underfunding" in NATO central operations, he said.

Robertson recognized the issue is not only about finding new money for defence, but about "getting a good return on investment," which is the aim of a new Defence Capabilities Initiative.

NATO's forces must be "mobile, flexible, effective at engagement, and sustainable in threatre" given the new range of threats and tasks NATO must be ready to respond to in the post-Cold War world, he said.

Lawmakers from 19 NATO members and 16 other countries, including 10 NATO hopefuls, were finishing a five-day meeting Thursday, that was debating the question of enlargement of the Alliance among other issues.

-------- puerto rico

Navy to Resume Bombing Vieques

Reuters
Thursday, May 31, 2001; Page A07
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A312-2001May31?language=printer

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, May 30 -- The U.S. Navy plans to begin its latest round of war games on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques around June 13, the commonwealth's governor said today.

In response, Gov. Sila Maria Calderon (D) will call for an advisory vote by Vieques residents within 90 days on whether they want the island used by the U.S. military as a bombing range, she said.

The Navy's use of the 33,000-acre island off Puerto Rico's east coast for target practice has sparked widespread protests in the U.S. territory since a civilian security guard was killed in a botched bombing run more than two years ago.

Vieques has served as a bombing range for 60 years. The Navy says it is critical to U.S. battle readiness, but residents say the bombing has damaged their health and the island's air and water quality.

Citing a letter from the Navy, Calderon said today that up to 18 days of training on Vieques would begin on or shortly after June 13.

"The notice by the Navy wounds and offends the sensibility of our people," she said. "This struggle is testing our collective spirit of resistance, and now more than ever we have to remain firm in our position."

In a letter to the commonwealth State Department, the Navy said it would undertake aerial bombing practice and marine war games but not ship-to-shore shelling in the latest exercise.

A key element of its Vieques training, ship-to-shore shelling is at the heart of a commonwealth lawsuit against the Navy because it allegedly violates a new law toughening restrictions on noise along Puerto Rico's coast.

Presidential directives and congressional legislation call for a Nov. 6 referendum in which Vieques residents will decide whether they want the Navy to leave by May 1, 2003, or remain indefinitely in return for $50 million in economic aid.

Calderon said she would call a local referendum for Vieques' 9,600 people with those two options plus a third one, the immediate halt of war games.

While the result of the local referendum, which is expected to be held within 90 days, will not be binding on the federal government, Calderon said it was time for the world to hear the opinion of Vieques residents.

Hundreds of Puerto Ricans have been arrested for infiltrating the bombing range during increasingly angry protests against the bombing practice since the death of security guard David Sanes Rodriguez in April 1999.

--------

Court Rejects Sharpton Motions

New York Times
May 31, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/nyregion/AP-Sharpton-Arrest.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- A federal appeals court Thursday rejected motions to stay the sentences or set bail for the Rev. Al Sharpton and three other men convicted of federal trespass for protesting U.S. Navy bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

The 1st District Court of Appeals did, however, set Tuesday for an expedited hearing on the men's appeals of their convictions.

In a decision handed down in Boston, the court said Sharpton and the other three failed to proved to the court that they might not flee or pose a danger to the community if freed on bail pending appeal.

``It is clear we are up against the United States Navy and the military,'' Sharpton said in a statement. ``The harder they fight, the more they energize the movement and the more determined we are to win the war even if we have to lose some battles along the way.''

The U.S. attorney in Puerto Rico had argued that by promising to continue to trespass on Vieques, the four had proven they remained a ``danger'' to the community.

The court decided to speed up the appeal hearing because, in the normal legal time frame, there was a risk the sentences would be over before the appeal was heard.

Sharpton, City Councilman Adolfo Carrion, state Assemblyman Jose Rivera and Bronx County Democratic Party chairman Roberto Ramirez were arrested in Puerto Rico for taking part in protests May 1. Sharpton, who has other civil disobedience arrests, was sentenced to 90 days in jail; the other men were sentenced to 40 days.

The men are in custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. All four men claim they are in the 3rd day of a hunger strike and are consuming only liquids.

--------

Jailed Vieques Protesters Remain Unbowed

New York Times
May 31, 2001
By JONATHAN P. HICKS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/31/nyregion/31PUER.html

After a week in jails, first in San Juan and then in Brooklyn, the three Bronx Democratic officials who were imprisoned for participating in a protest in Puerto Rico seem a little worn and slightly haggard. But despite daily strip searches and other hardships, they described their experience behind bars as necessary to call attention to the Navy bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

The three men - Assemblyman José Rivera, City Councilman Adolfo Carrión Jr. and Roberto Ramirez, the Bronx Democratic Party chairman - sat for separate interviews yesterday in a small office in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. They each discussed the difficulty of being away from their families, the awkwardness of adjusting to prison life and the camaraderie they have developed among themselves and with the Rev. Al Sharpton, who was jailed along with them.

Each has found a way to keep immersed in his political life. Through telephone calls and visits, Mr. Ramirez, for example, remains actively involved in the various races in the Bronx as well as the mayoral campaign of his close political confidant, Fernando Ferrer, the Bronx borough president.

"I am blessed because my lawyers are visiting continuously and I have had opportunities to have had a number of phone calls," said Mr. Ramirez, who now wears an olive jumpsuit and sneakers instead of his trademark tailored suits. "We have put together an infrastructure that is not dependent on anyone. And that infrastructure has proven to be more solid than I expected. "All this represents a small period of absence. It's a small price to pay for the message that needs to come out: that the situation in Vieques is wrong."

The four were arrested on May 1 for trespassing at a military camp where they were protesting a bombing practice. They were convicted after a brief trial last week and immediately sentenced and imprisoned. The three men were given 40 days in jail for their role in the protest. Mr. Sharpton was given 90 days in jail because of an earlier conviction for his role in a protest.

They spend their days talking with one another, reading, watching television - especially news programs - and walking around a small courtyard ("It's 140 paces one way and 80 paces the other," Mr. Ramirez said). Now that they are participating in a hunger strike with Mr. Sharpton, they no longer eat the morning cornflakes and evening chicken and vegetables that they had been served.

Through their incarceration, they have managed to remain the centerpiece in a political pilgrimage that has brought all manner of public figures to the doors of the detention center. Yesterday, the list grew to include the Rev. Jesse Jackson, although H. Carl McCall, the state comptroller, and Mr. Ferrer came to the prison but were denied permission to visit the four men.

Mr. Carrión, who is a candidate for Bronx borough president, said that the prospect of going without food was not particularly worrisome to him. "I feel strong, I feel good in my spirit and I feel we are doing the right thing," he said.

The son of a Pentecostal preacher who has at times been a minister himself, Mr. Carrión said he had fasted many times before. "I've done spiritual fasts before and fasts to support causes," he said. "This is just a way of demonstrating how important something is. We will be all right."

One of the most difficult aspects of being in jail, Mr. Carrión said, has been interacting with his four children, who were at first stunned and distraught to see him in jail. "Seeing the look on their faces when they came to visit and to see Daddy in a jailhouse jumpsuit was very difficult for them," said Mr. Carrión, who, like the others, is now growing a beard.

"But then I had to explain to them that what we're doing is for children, just like them, in Vieques. They are awakened at night because of the sounds of bombs and they suffer from asthma. And eventually, my kids got past their tears and they began to understand."

-------- space

US military readies to meet threat of war in space

David Montgomery Science Correspondent (dmontgomery@scotsman.com)
Thursday, 31st May 2001
The Scotsman
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/text_only.cfm?id=76769

THE United States fears it has the potential to suffer another Pearl Harbor scenario, with rogue dictators posing as much of a threat as the world's most powerful nations.

Only this time the target will not be some unsuspecting military base in the Pacific, but valuable technology floating around in the limitless battleground of outer space.

James Oberg, a space writer and former space flight engineer based in Houston, Texas, said yesterday there was a growing belief that war in space was a virtual certainty.

He said that as the commercial and strategic value of space quite literally rocketed, so too did the potential for causing offence.

Many nations relied on space for intelligence and it was teeming with privately owned communications satellites.

The threat led the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to announce plans last month for upgrading its military presence in space, and Russia and China are also preparing for combat.

In a report in yesterday's New Scientist, Mr Oberg said all this made it inevitable that before long someone would be "tempted to have a pop".

"It all sounds depressingly familiar.

"Humans have only been using space for the past 50 years, yet we're already preparing to fight over it," he said.

"And having concluded that our present weapons are too messy, we're building better ones.

"There's even the spectre of nuclear arms in space. For rogue states, the threat of a nuclear detonation in orbit would be a powerful bargaining chip."

Independent experts believe there are no weapons in space at the moment, apart from a gun in the Russian emergency kit on the International Space Station.

However, Mr Oberg, whose book, Space Power Theory, has just been published, said the technologies to make highly destructive weapons already existed or were in development.

He said the potential for conflict was not confined to powerful nations - some space weapons were so simple that dozens of nations were already capable of building them.

But in the next couple of decades, these were likely to be replaced by electromagnetic cannons, lasers and particle beams - high-tech weaponry capable of inflicting damage without creating debris in space.

"Analysts agree that the first move will probably be a ground-based electronic assault on a satellite," Mr Oberg said.

"Some say this kind of attack has already happened.

"A British military communications satellite was reportedly kidnapped and driven off course by hackers, though officials denied it."

However, Mr Oberg said it might not all be bad news.

"Way above your head, right now, two nations could be settling their differences in space. You'd never even need to know," he said.

-------- turkey

UNITED STATES PLANNING TO DEPLOY DEFENSE SYSTEMS AGAINST IRAN'S AND IRAQ'S MISSILES IN SOUTH EAST TURKEY

Anadolu Agency: News in English,
01-05-31
http://www.hri.org/news/turkey/anadolu/2001/01-05-31.anadolu.html#03

WASHINGTON, D.C.- The United States is preparing to give Turkey an important role in its missile defense system which it is planning to set up to protect itself and other NATO countries against the threat of ballistic missiles.

Diplomatic sources in Washington, D.C. told the A.A that the United States is planning to deploy defense missile ramps in South East Turkey to destroy Iran's or Iraq's ballistic missiles in the air.

The same sources said U.S. and Turkish officials debated the outline of this subject and it is not yet certain whether Turkey will be given such a role in the project or not. The matter will be discussed more in depth during U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's visit to Ankara on June 4.

Defense experts in Washington, D.C. said Turkey is given special importance in the project because of its geographical closeness to Iran and Iraq which are regarded as the source of missile threat. Besides, Turkey has a more positive approach to the project than other NATO allies.

If an agreement is made on the missile defense system, the United States will deploy special defense missiles which are called interceptors in South East Anatolia. Any ballistic missiles which would be launched from Iran or Iraq targetting the United States or Europe will be destroyed in the air by defense missiles in Turkey. Even if the interceptors are not deployed in Turkey, an early warning sytem will be placed in the Turkish land.

Another project envisages providing an air defense system for Turkey against any possible missile attacks targetting Turkey. There is no direct link between the two systems. Experts are saying that U.S. patriot or U.S.- Israel joint production Arrow systems are likely to be used in the project that aims to protect Turkey against the missiles.

Russia, China and many NATO countries are still opposing the U.S. President George W. Bush's plan. Diplomatic sources said the plans regarding Turkey are only in the developing stage.

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

Study: Clearances granted to troubled workers

05/31/2001 - Updated 10:18 PM ET
By Edward T. Pound,
USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-06-01-security.htm

WASHINGTON - The Defense Department has issued many top secret security clearances to people with histories of drug, alcohol and financial problems and to others who have accumulated "unexplained" wealth, according to the General Accounting Office.

Government security officials worry that serious financial debt and other personal problems could lead some personnel to spy for other countries. Top secret clearances give employees of the Defense Department and military contractors access to classified information. More than 500,000 people hold such clearances.

Most espionage cases have involved Defense Department employees. In its new report, the GAO said 68 of the 80 people convicted of espionage from 1982 through 1999 were Defense employees. The GAO said that in granting clearances, Defense agencies must employ "scrupulous decision-making" to safeguard the nation's secrets.

But Pentagon agencies often failed to do the job, the congressional watchdog said. Some security applicants had serious problems, or "adverse conditions," in their backgrounds, the GAO said. However, they got clearances anyway, even though there was nothing in their case files indicating they had changed their ways.

Before issuing a clearance, Defense agencies should document in an applicant's case file "mitigating factors" that would allay security concerns, the GAO said. But it estimated that of 3,800 applicants included in its study, 16% had been recommended for clearances despite the lack of mitigating information in their files. A senior GAO official said that without such information in the files, there was no way of knowing whether applicants had corrected their problems.

Defense officials vowed to improve training for evaluators of security applications. In a response included in the GAO report, they said evaluators will be required to document their decisions more thoroughly, "especially for cases containing adverse information."

The study was the GAO's second critical review. Earlier, it studied how the Defense Security Service did background investigations on applicants. The checks serve as the basis for issuing or rejecting a clearance.

The GAO found that nine of every 10 investigations were incomplete and posed "a risk to national security" by making the Pentagon "vulnerable to espionage." The study said the security service had failed to follow leads on potentially serious issues involving criminal histories, alcohol and drug use and financial problems.

The GAO's new study, issued last week, focused on the adjudication process, in which Defense personnel review background checks and decide whether to issue a clearance. Several adjudication agencies were reviewed, including those at the Army, Navy, Air Force and the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA).

In 1999, USA TODAY revealed that DOHA regularly granted clearances to employees of military contractors with histories of financial problems, drug use, alcoholism, sexual misconduct or criminal activity. Last year, President Clinton signed a measure denying clearances for felons and users of illegal drugs.

The new GAO study found that other Defense agencies also had issued questionable clearances. The study, the GAO said, "suggests that the adjudicators may not be consistently applying" government guidelines when issuing clearances.

If applicants fail to live up to one of more of the 13 guidelines, they can be denied a clearance. The guidelines cover issues such as allegiance to the United States, foreign influence, financial matters, alcohol and drug use, security violations and criminal conduct.

The GAO said it found that Defense agencies "have not consistently documented" in applicants' files "all significant adverse security conditions." Thus, the GAO said, the Pentagon "has been unable to demonstrate that it fully considered all significant adverse conditions that might call into question an individual's ability to adequately safeguard classified information."

The GAO found instances in which personnel failed to disclose foreign ties or their arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol. Investigators also said some applicants had been involved in criminal conduct, including drug use and possession.

The GAO expressed concern about applicants who exhibited "unexplained affluence." It cited an employee who had $31,000 in credit card debt and $1.2 million in mortgages. The monthly debt payments totaled nearly $12,000 and the employee's take-home pay was far less than needed, the GAO said. Yet, it said, "the case file contained no information about income from other" sources that might cover the payments.

----

Bush Eyes Additional $5.6 Billion For Military
Increase Is Far Less Than Services Expected

By Roberto Suro and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 31, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A98651-2001May30?language=printer

President Bush will ask Congress for extra defense spending of $5.6 billion in the current fiscal year, administration officials said yesterday, which is far less than the armed services expected from a new president who campaigned on a promise to substantially increase the Pentagon budget.

The supplemental budget request, as it nears completion, does not include any new money for ballistic missile defense, which Bush has depicted as a top priority, or for the weapons systems and operating costs that he said the Clinton administration had grossly underfunded. Some senior military officers and defense experts said yesterday the president's request is so small that it will not fully cover the Pentagon's current expenses.

The largest single item in the Bush request is $1.9 billion for improved salaries, health insurance, housing and other personnel benefits that were authorized but not funded in the federal budget for fiscal 2001, which ends Sept. 30. Nearly $1 billion more will provide full funding for previously authorized flying hours by military aviators.

The armed services developed the request under a $5.6 billion limit set by the administration. It was sent to the White House on May 21, and the Office of Management and Budget is still fine-tuning some of the details, administration officials said. The proposed additions to the $310 billion defense budget could be sent to Congress by the end of the week.

"This request is the bare bones, just the items that are absolutely necessary to get by, and no one has any illusions that it is anything more than that," said a senior military officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

In the early days of the new administration, top military officials said they hoped to get much more, at least $8 billion to $10 billion, in a supplemental that would, in effect, be the first installment of a Bush defense buildup. But the White House and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld decided they would take care of only immediate needs in modifying this year's defense budget. The first reflection of their new defense policies will come in amendments to the 2002 budget, which are scheduled to be sent to Congress this summer. The new priorities will not be fully felt until the 2003 budget is unveiled next winter, senior administration officials said.

This budget plan results from a need to spend more time developing national security policies, as well as from a desire to impose fiscal discipline on the armed services, the officials said. Bush can seek no more than $6.5 billion in supplemental money -- not just for the Pentagon, but for the whole government -- without asking Congress to break the spending cap for 2001. While the administration was willing to give the Pentagon the lion's share of that sum, the White House insisted the military stay under the limit, officials said.

Bush also decided to hold off sending the supplemental request to Congress until after it finished work on a tax cut. Since the tax legislation passed Saturday, word of his plans has circulated through the defense establishment.

Although relatively small sums are at play, compared to the size of the defense budget, some senior military officers have complained. "On the campaign trail he said over and over, 'Help is on the way,' " said a flag officer, referring to the refrain Bush used in promising to boost defense spending. "Well, we are going to need help when the fourth quarter of this budget year rolls around, and it is not going to be there."

The military is not alone in this reaction. Congress, which repeatedly boosted the Clinton administration's defense requests, might decide that Bush has been too miserly, according to a key budget-maker.

"That's not going to cover the waterfront," said Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), the ranking minority member of the House Armed Services Committee, arguing that a $5.6 billion supplemental will leave the Pentagon short of funds by the end of the fiscal year.

"It's disappointing," added Thomas Donnelly, a defense expert at the Project for the New American Century, a conservative think tank. "It calls into question the administration's seriousness about rebuilding defense."

In principle, supplemental spending requests are meant to provide relatively small amounts for contingencies that arise after the federal budget is enacted. But the Pentagon, unlike other federal agencies, has regularly used supplementals to fill out funds for basic operations, maintenance and supplies. Rumsfeld has warned that he intends to put an end to this practice, beginning with a crackdown this year.

The 2001 supplemental includes $44 million for repairs to the USS Cole, the destroyer damaged in a terrorist bombing, and $36 million to recover the bodies of nine Japanese civilians who died when a trawler was rammed by a U.S. submarine.

Also, the military is seeking $734 million to meet unexpected increases in the cost of natural gas and electricity.

Only a modest $143 million is earmarked for programs that advance the administration's goal of modernizing the military to counter new threats developing in the post-Cold War era. The largest of these expenditures is $50 million for a classified program to develop information warfare capabilities, such as computer programs that can disrupt a foe's financial system or protect U.S. banks from the same kind of cyber intrusions.

The Pentagon's plan for the supplemental saves $475 million by cutting back production of the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, in accordance with the recommendations of a blue-ribbon panel.

----

US forces in Bahrain, Qatar placed on heightened alert: official

Thursday May 31, 3:30 AM
May 30
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010530/1/qjj4.html

WASHINGTON, US forces in Bahrain and Qatar were put on a heightened state of alert Wednesday after the conviction of four members of an Islamic militant group in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies, a US defense official said.

The official said US forces in Saudi Arabia already were on a higher alert before a jury in New York convicted the men Tuesday.

The decision to increase alert status for forces in Bahrain and Qatar was in response to "general intelligence plus the verdict," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"With those two things combined, they said, 'Hey, let's be prudent,' " the official said.

--------

Bush to Ask for Increased Military Funding

New York Times
May 31, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Military.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In addition to asking $5.6 billion more for the current Pentagon budget, President Bush intends to seek larger increases for 2002, including far more for missile defense, officials said Thursday.

Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon's budget chief, said that while the $5.6 billion will be enough to carry the military through September, the budget request for 2002 will be bigger and begin to ``point us in the direction we wish to go'' in modernizing the military and meeting the needs of troops.

He refused to say how much Bush might add to his originally proposed $310 billion budget for the coming budget year, starting Oct. 1. Many have speculated that Bush would seek an additional $20 billion or more.

Zakheim said the president probably would submit his proposed add-ons to the 2002 budget in a few weeks.

Spending on missile defense in 2002 should be ``considerably more'' than the Clinton administration had planned, he said. In the current budget there is about $3.8 billion for various missile defense projects.

Other officials said Bush was preparing to ask Congress in the next day or two to increase the current budget of $296 billion by $5.6 billion to meet urgent needs such as health care costs.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the bulk of the extra money is directed to ease shortfalls in such areas as paying for Air Force and Navy flying hours and higher-than-expected energy bills.

The 2001 supplemental request is sure to disappoint those looking to the new president for a steep increase in Pentagon spending. However, Zakheim said Bush is not interested in continuing a longtime Washington budget maneuver whereby supplementals have been used for ongoing expenses rather than true emergencies.

``This money is not going to begin major spending initiatives,'' said Zakheim, when asked about Bush's campaign pledge that ``help is on the way'' to the military.

Zakheim declined to give exact figures on either the supplemental or the president's next budget, promising only that the 2002 request will be larger than the current spending plan.

Even more changes are expected to be added when the 2003 budget is unveiled in the coming year, but neither Zakheim nor the Pentagon officials would put any figures on that plan.

Other items included in the 2001 supplemental, Defense Department officials said, include about $230 million for several programs such as the Air Force's Global Hawk unmanned surveillance plane, the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle -- a modernization program for launchers to replace the current Delta II, Atlas II, Titan II and Titan IV space launchers --and development of a precision-guided munition.

The Navy has also sought $36 million to pay for recovering the bodies of the Japanese killed in the collision of the fishing-training ship Ehime Maru and the submarine USS Greeneville off the coast of Hawaii.

-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

US Energy Dept reviewing renewable fuels programs

USA: May 31, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11018

WASHINGTON - U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham yesterday ordered a review of Energy Department research programs that promote renewable fuels to find out which ones are most effective.

The review was called for under the Bush administration's new national energy plan, and will be conducted concurrently with a review announced last week of the department's energy efficiency programs.

Abraham said the move will help determine funding for research programs that have a record of good results and are modeled as public-private partnerships.

Environmental and consumer groups, along with many members of Congress, have criticized the Bush administration for proposing budget cuts of more than 50 percent for some of the Energy Department's research programs for energy efficiency and renewable fuels like wind, solar, hydropower and geothermal.

A July 10 deadline has been set for the initial phase of the review, with the final phase to be completed by Sept. 1.

In a related matter, Abraham announced that the Energy Department will combine resources with states to provide $40 million for 164 energy efficiency and energy renewable energy projects.

The funds will improve the energy efficiency of schools, homes and other buildings and support electricity generation at or near the point of use.

-------- energy

Bush energy plan faulted for ignoring human rights

USA: May 31, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11012

WASHINGTON - A leading advocacy group has taken the Bush administration to task for failing to include human rights considerations in its new national energy plan, according to a letter obtained by Reuters yesterday.

The letter, from Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth to Vice President Dick Cheney, expresses serious concern that the plan "proposes no strategy to keep necessary oil investment from perpetuating dictatorships or fueling conflicts" as he said it has in Angola, Nigeria, Sudan and Iraq.

"The world needs to hear that when it comes to advancing human rights, the United States will not give oil and gas producing countries a pass," it said.

Cheney chaired the task force which developed the national energy plan, a major initiative of President George W. Bush's five-month-old administration. Bush's plan is aimed at raising the output of coal, oil and nuclear power.

"Remarkably, the report's 170 pages and 105 recommendations do not once acknowledge the impact energy development may have on human rights," Roth said in his letter.

"On the contrary, the report suggests making energy security an even greater priority in U.S. relations with some of the worst violators of human rights around the world," Roth said.

"The misuse of energy revenues by abusive governments is a problem that plagues this industry globally," he added.

Specifically, the letter notes that the central Asian country of Azerbaijan was "positively featured" in Cheney's energy report yet it is an "autocracy (that is) among the five most corrupt nations in the world."

Similarly, the report also highlighted Kazakhstan, another central Asian country ruled by an authoritarian leader that is "a prime example of the connections between energy development, corruption and political repression," Roth said.

He said the question is "not whether energy companies should do business in these countries but whether their engagement yields repression or progress for ordinary citizens."

Roth said at the least basic standards of transparency and respect for human rights should be a condition for any financing for energy development that the U.S. government approves of or supports through the U.S. Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the World Bank or regional development banks.

Also, he insisted corporations must be encouraged to adhere to the highest human rights standards when doing business in these countries, including the Voluntary Standards on Security and Human Rights which the United States and Britain developed last year along with several multinational energy and mining companies.

-------- environment

Ill Winds Carry Toxic Dust

By Cat Lazaroff
May 31, 2001
ENS
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/may2001/2001L-05-31-07.html

PHOENIX, Arizona, Most residents of the parched southwestern United States accept dust as an unavoidable fact of desert life. The silty powder that settles from the air on to desktops, beneath beds, and into noses is viewed by many as nothing worse than a common annoyance. But, in recent years, dust has gone from being a benign nuisance to major health hazard, as scientists have discovered harmful chemicals and microorganisms hitching a ride on the airborne particles.

Storms in places as distant as China and Africa have generated public attention with dust clouds that travel across oceans to North America, bringing with them living bacteria, fungi, heavy metals and other pollutants.

Not all dust storms are as bad as this one, approaching Stratford, Texas during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s - but even a little dust can carry health hazards (Photo courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Researchers at Arizona State University (ASU) now say that dust generated much closer to home could be equally dangerous. Dust blowing from local industries and agricultural fields has the potential to carry cancer causing pesticides and toxic heavy metals, said ASU geologist William Stefanov.

Though the fine dirt that settles into homes across the Phoenix area may look harmless, chronic inhalation of contaminated dust could lead to increased risk for cancer or heavy metal poisoning, leaving Arizona residents to wonder: Do you know where your dust has been?

In collaboration with ASU geology Professor Philip Christensen and University of Pittsburgh geologist Mike Ramsey, Stefanov is using images taken from space to map the movement of dust in Arizona. The maps can then be used to determine areas where health risks are most likely, and where scientists should do additional monitoring.

Stefanov will present the first results of this project at the spring meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Boston on May 30, 2001. Stefanov uses images taken by Landsat 7, a satellite operated jointly by NASA and the United States Geological Survey, to identify the areas where winds are most likely to pick up dust, carry it through the air, and eventually drop it off.

From the Landsat 7 pictures, Stefanov can differentiate native soil from urban areas, concrete, agriculture and grass. After using remote sensing to categorize the land use types, Stefanov double checks them from the ground or by using aerial photographs.

Areas with dry, exposed soil, such as industrial and agricultural areas, are the land use types most likely to produce dust. Cities, with their smooth, paved surfaces, are areas where dust gets blown through without settling. Vegetated, grassy areas, such as golf courses, cause the wind to slow down and deposit its dusty load.

"The biggest problem comes when there's a large scale disruption of the surface, like a construction project," said Stefanov. "When the soil has been broken up, the fine material, where a lot of these pesticides and heavy metals might be, are free to be picked up by the wind."

Frequent watering of the ground surface during construction helps to minimize transport of this dust. But agriculture and industry may contribute to the health dangers of dust by introducing toxic substances into the soil.

The dust mite is common on plant leaves and in stored grain and animal feed. Magnified about 100x (Photo by Eric Erbe, courtesy Agricultural Research Service)

"Pesticides and herbicides can be applied for years in some areas, and that material doesn't just disappear in the soil. It has a very long residence time," Stefanov explained. "Pesticides that were applied 20 years ago can still be there."

The toxins adhere to the soil particles and are carried on the wind along with the dust. When the dust is inhaled, the pesticides and heavy metals are taken in as well.

Microorganisms such as fungi and bacteria also often take up residence in the soil and, when the earth is disturbed, get carried on the wind. Valley fever, an infection caused by a soil borne fungus, is particularly common in the southwestern United States, especially during late summer, when soils are driest.

In a presentation at the American Geophysical Union conference this week, Stefanov presented data on the sources and sinks for dust in the Nogales, Arizona area, where he conducted the first tests of the use of remote sensing to map dust transport. Stefanov plans to apply the same techniques to mapping dust sources in the Phoenix area.

Stefanov started mapping in Nogales because the region is growing quickly and, because construction generates lots of dust, he anticipated that dust transport could be a problem there. The Landsat 7 maps showed that construction sites are actually fairly minor contributors to dust in the region's air, whereas industrial sites are the most productive dust sources.

In the rapidly expanding Phoenix area, growth is most rapid at the urban fringe, where agricultural fields are being replaced with residential and industrial developments. These are likely to be prime areas for the release of pesticides on airborne dust.

Most of the dust traveling through the city of Phoenix comes from the surrounding mountain ranges. During summer, air currents coming from the Gulf of Mexico blow in from the south, passing Tucson en route.

During winter, winds originate over the Pacific Ocean, traveling over the Sierra and Cascade Mountain ranges before reaching Phoenix. The particles carried on these winds are believed to be the source of most of the region's soil.

This satellite image, taken in February 2000, shows one of the largest Saharan dust storms ever observed (Photo courtesy U.S. Geological Survey)

"Dust has been known as a health hazard for at least 20 years," said Stefanov. "In the Valley, there's certainly a potential health risk."

Because the damaging health effects of breathing dust depend on the amount of exposure, those most at risk are people living or working near a major dust source.

"If you drive through a dust cloud and breathe some dust, it's probably not going to hurt you," Stefanov said. "But if you live down range of an industrial site or some area where dust is always being generated and you're always breathing this stuff, then you might have something to worry about."

Recently, public concern about dust-borne pathogens grew when marine biologists blamed the rapid demise of Caribbean corals on attacks by a fungus carried in Saharan dust. Droughts in Africa are causing larger, more frequent dust storms, some of which produce clouds of fine dust covering thousands of square miles. Trans-Atlantic winds can carry the dust to North America and the Caribbean.

According to another recent study, the sandy particles kicked up in the dust storms may actually further reduce rainfall, exacerbating the drought conditions that caused the storms and fueling a vicious cycle.

Corals may not be the only victims of exposure to toxic dust. Last fall, samples of dust carried from the Sahara to the U.S. Virgin Islands were shown to harbor heavy metals, bacteria, fungi, and what appeared to be viruses. Some researchers suspect that pathogens in the dust clouds are responsible for the high rates of asthma in the United States and the Caribbean.

Major storms in the Gobi desert of Mongolia and China have also thrown dust and other pollutants, including arsenic and toxins from burning fossil fuel, into air currents headed across the Pacific Ocean. This year, one massive cloud reached the western United States before dispersing.

----

Chemical factory blast kills 11 in India

http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm

NEW DELHI, India - A powerful explosion ripped through a chemical factory in western India on Thursday, killing at least 11 workers and injuring 10 others, a news report said. Police believe the blast was caused by a buildup of pressure in the factory's main boiler, the Press Trust of India news agency said.

----

Pesticide waste disposal too slow - UN's Diouf

ITALY: May 31, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11023

ROME - Disposal of obsolete pesticide waste in the developing world is proceeding too slowly, the chief of the United Nations world food body said yesterday.

"It is happening too slowly to our liking," Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"It should be a joint effort by governments and the private sector, including industry which produced the pesticides," he added.

"What is important is that we bring this issue to the attention of the public and policy-makers."

FAO has said more than 500,000 tonnes of ageing pesticide waste are seriously threatening the health of millions of people and the environment in nearly all developing nations.

The pesticide waste has accumulated over more than 30 years and products are being added continuously, FAO said.

The waste sites contain some of the most dangerous insecticides like the persistent organic pollutants (POPs) aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin and heptachlor that have been banned in most countries, and organophosphates.

In Stockholm earlier this month, almost 130 nations formally agreed a U.N. treaty to ban or minimise use of the 12 POPs, a "dirty dozen" toxic chemicals blamed for causing cancers and birth defects in people and animals.

---

Pesticide firms seek Ethiopia toxic dumps audit

ITALY: May 31, 2001
Story by David Brough
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11010

ROME - An international pesticides industry group has asked Ethiopia for permission to audit obsolete pesticide dumps in the country to assess its share of the cost of disposing of thousands of tonnes of toxic waste.

The Global Crop Protection Federation (GCPF), which represents about 90 percent of the industry, has written to Ethiopian Deputy Agriculture Minister Belay Ejigu, seeking permission to help check labels and markings on containers.

The U.N. estimates that more than 2,800 tonnes of obsolete pesticides have accumulated at 949 sites across Ethiopia, threatening the health of thousands of people and contaminating the environment. Belay has called the dumps "a time bomb".

"GCPF member companies are committed to contributing financially to the disposal of those products that they originally manufactured or supplied," said the letter, made available to Reuters and dated May 11, 2001.

"The process of verification is required in order to confirm that the products...were indeed supplied by GCPF companies and are not of other sources," added the letter from Christian Verschueren, director-general of the Brussels-based body.

"Once our member companies are given the opportunity for verification, they will be in a position to make a formal offer for their voluntary financial contribution."

GCPF's members include Aventis CropScience, BASF, Bayer, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, Monsanto, Sumitomo and Syngenta.

GCPF and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which is supervising removal of the waste, are struggling to coordinate their efforts, the letter said.

"In early April we proposed that advantage should be taken of a FAO-organised donor meeting on obsolete pesticides in Rome to bring together the key players to discuss how to proceed," it said.

"Unfortunately FAO were unable to accommodate this proposal and we have therefore asked the (FAO) project manager what opportunities industry will have to carry out this verification. The response to date is not encouraging."

Asked to comment on the letter, FAO said that GCPF had received the data required to trace back obsolete pesticide products and identify their producers.

"FAO urges GCPF to appoint a focal point for the Ethiopian project in order to liaise with the government and FAO and facilitate communication," FAO said in a statement to Reuters.

"Furthermore, what is urgently needed, is a clear commitment from GCPF that for every kilo of waste originating from one of its members, a contribution of one U.S. dollar will be made."

GCPF WANTS WASTE REMOVED

The GCPF, which has so far made no financial contribution to dispose of the toxic waste from Ethiopia, said it wanted to see the material removed safely as quickly as possible and to work with Ethiopia to ensure that obsolete stocks do not occur again.

A pesticide industry source said that the GCPF had a working assumption that its member companies had supplied some 600 tonnes of the pesticide waste in Ethiopia.

A clean-up operation by a Finnish hazardous waste treatment company Ekokem began last month in Ethiopia.

Donations by the U.S., Dutch and Swedish governments are enough to dispose of 1,500 tonnes, but there have been no pledges so far to cover the removal of the remainder.

Pesticides usually have an expiry date of two years after manufacture. Yet waste has accumulated in Ethiopia over more than 30 years, Ethiopian and FAO officials said.

Last month FAO officials joined by a Reuters correspondent visited Ethiopia, where they found metal drums leaking toxic waste at obsolete pesticide dumps in residential areas.

Ethiopian and FAO officials say the build-up is due to bad management of pesticide deliveries by the government and donors, and unscrupulous marketing by the chemicals industry of pesticides that were in many cases not needed.

The problem of obsolete pesticide waste is not restricted to Ethiopia. FAO estimates that more than 500,000 tonnes of ageing pesticide waste are seriously threatening the health of millions of people and the environment in nearly all developing nations.

-------- health

AIDS Crusader's International Award Wins Scowls in China

New York Times
May 31, 2001
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/31/world/31CHIN.html

BEIJING, May 30 - A prominent retired gynecologist who has become one of China's foremost AIDS fighters has been denied permission to attend an awards ceremony in the United States, where she is being honored for her work.

The physician, Dr. Gao Yaojie, 74, is the third winner of the Jonathan Mann Award for Health and Human Rights from the Global Health Council, a nonprofit organization based in the United States. She was to have received the award on Thursday in Washington at a ceremony with Secretary General Kofi Annan of the United Nations as host. For two years, Dr. Gao has organized a one- woman crusade to help poor farmers in Henan Province who became infected with H.I.V. in the 1990's through selling their blood at collection stations whose unsanitary practices fostered the spread of diseases.

The H.I.V. infections are a highly sensitive topic, because health officials in Henan often ran the collection stations and profited from them. For the most part, local officials have sought to quash discussion, prohibiting local journalists from covering it and warning Dr. Gao not to speak out. But the H.I.V.-infected farmers have themselves become more vocal. This week, a group of seven patients, including three children, traveled from Wenlou Village to Beijing, hoping for treatment and publicity about their plight.

Using her pension and small donations, she has traveled to remote villages to lecture, distribute educational materials and dispense simple medical care. In some villages she visits, more than 50 percent of the people have the virus, and she is the sole source of information for uneducated farmers. A serious woman who generally shuns the limelight, Dr. Gao has also on occasion spoken out about the problem in the international media and at academic meetings in China. Her admonitions have earned her the enmity of provincial health officials, who said she was being "used by anti-Chinese forces."

In a telephone interview, Dr. Gao said she could not attend the ceremony because of the allegations. "I'm convinced that what I'm doing is right," she said, "and people will see it that way. The problem can no longer be concealed and must be dealt with."

Chinese and foreign health experts who work here have said that in recent months the central government and Health Ministry have increasingly become concerned about the problem in Henan, increasing pressure on officials there to act to stem the pain and death that is rampant in some villages.

For nine months, reports in the international press, as well as in smaller Chinese newspapers, have focused attention on the problem. Inspection teams from the Health Ministry have made at least one visit to rural Henan, and the province has appointed a new high-level health official, in part to address the AIDS problem. In private, high Health Ministry officials have expressed support for Dr. Gao's work. But in public she stands very much alone.

Because Henan has allowed almost no research on the epidemic, the magnitude is unclear. Based on observations and a few small, often clandestine, surveys, experts estimate that from hundreds of thousands to more than a million farmers have been infected.

The Mann Award is given yearly in memory of Dr. Jonathan Mann, an epidemiologist who organized the World Health Organization's first AIDS program. He died in 1998.

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Report Finds Young Black Men at Higher Risk for H.I.V.

New York Times
May 31, 2001
By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/31/health/31CND-IMMU.html

Young gay men, particularly black men, are becoming infected with the AIDS virus at "alarming" rates in this country, and expanded prevention efforts are needed to stop the resurgence, federal health officials said in releasing findings from a new study today.

The rate of new infections with H.I.V., the AIDS virus, among black gay men 23 to 29 years was six times that of a comparable group of young white gay men and three times that of all young gay men in the study.

The study found that young black gay men had a 14.7 percent annual rate of new infection compared to 2.5 percent among young white gay men, 3.5 percent among Hispanic gay men, and 4.4 percent for all gay men 23 to 29 years old.

The findings add to a number of earlier reports of increasing rates of sexually transmitted diseases, which increase the risk of becoming H.I.V.-infected, among gay men.

At a news conference, Dr. Helene D. Gayle, who directs the H.I.V. program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Dr. Linda Valleroy, who led the study, described the situation using the same terms: the "explosive H.I.V. incidence rates" are "alarming" and "of critical public health importance."

C.D.C., the federal agency in Atlanta that is responsible for tracking H.I.V. and AIDS in the United States, conducted the study from 1998 through 2000 in six cities: Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and Seattle. Many of the gay men said they were bisexual.

In February, the disease centers reported that among young gay black men the prevalence, or the total number of H.I.V. infections and AIDS cases, was 30 percent. The new evidence shows that such infections occurred from 1998 to 2000. Although the number of infections could continue to rise, the findings do not necessarily mean that all would become infected in time because many of the uninfected are using recommended prevention measures.

The preliminary information on the incidence, or number of new infections each year, comes from a different phase of the same study reported in February. The earlier portion of the study involved a seventh city, San Francisco. But at that time the incidence information was not available.

To measure incidence, epidemiologists tested volunteers recruited at 194 urban areas, dance clubs, bars and other public venues frequented by gays. Prisoners were not included in the study. Of 224 found infected, C.D.C. used a blood test that its scientists recently developed to determine that 29 were infected within months of when the blood sample was taken.

Because the test is new, the epidemiologists lacked a basis for comparison. The 2,942 participants were chosen at random. Because the sample was small, there was a wide statistical range in calculating the percentage of newly infected people among the different ethnic and minority groups. The range, known as the confidence interval, is a standard part of reporting findings. In the study, the lowest limit was 7.9 percent.

Even the lower figure suggests a resurgence of H.I.V. among young gay men, C.D.C. officials said.

"The important thing about this is there is a significant and continuing H.I.V. epidemic among men having sex with men in these cities right now," Dr. Valleroy said.

And Phill Wilson, executive director of the African American AIDS Policy and Training Institute in Los Angeles, said: "As a black gay man who has been living with H.I.V. for 20 years now, a prevalence in this population of 30 percent and an annual incidence of 14 percent is reason to be alarmed no matter if the number is stable, rising or falling."

C.D.C. released the findings on the 20th anniversary of the federal agency's first report on AIDS, a then unknown disease. Since then, more than 1 million Americans have been infected, of whom 450,000 have died. In Africa and elsewhere, H.I.V. has caused about 20 million deaths and has infected an estimated additional 36 million.

"We tend to think about our rates in the United States as being so much less than what we are seeing in other countries, and that is true if we look at it overall," Dr. Gayle said. She added that the findings "show that there may be populations in this country that have rates and potential for explosion analogous to what we have seen in other parts of the world."

While cautioning against extrapolating the findings from the six cities, Dr. Gayle said that "it gives us a very good picture of what is happening, at least in those young gay men and potentially what could be happening in other parts of the country."

The gay men in the study were toddlers in the 1980s when health officials issued the early information that helped reduce infection rates among gay men. Now, health officials say they must renew and sustain such messages to a new generation of gay men.

For a decade, the estimated number of people newly infected with H.I.V. in this country each year has been a stable 40,000. Gay men account for about 42 percent of new infections, Dr. Gayle said.

In part because about 300,000 Americans do not know they are infected and not all states report new H.I.V. infections, health officials do not have "a good sense of the populations newly affected by the epidemic," Dr. Gayle said.

In January, C.D.C. announced a new strategy that aims in part to encourage people at high risk to get a H.I.V. test and characterize those who are newly infected. C.D.C. intends to use the information to tailor prevention and treatment efforts to the needs of infected gay men as part of the $400 million that the agency provides to state and local prevention programs. One aim will be to determine how such men can best be referred to health care and prevention services to reduce the risk of transmission. Because about half of those in the study said they engaged in unprotected anal sex, another goal will be to develop new and more effective prevention messages.

Dr. Gayle said that programs for black men "must address the stigma of homosexuality which prevents many of these men from identifying themselves as gay and bisexual and may keep them from accessing needed prevention and treatment services."

A chief goal of the strategy is to reduce by half the number of newly infected individuals in five years. Even then, 20,000 new infections will occur each year.

The new test will be used to get a better handle on hot spots of infection so health officials can garner the resources needed for testing and prevention efforts in communities across the country. But Dr. Gayle said "We are not going to be able to do door to door surveys looking at who are the most recently infected people."

-------- human rights

Experts: Trafficking of people soars

06/01/2001
By Mark Memmott,
USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-06-01-traffic.htm

WASHINGTON - Trafficking of people has become one of the world's most serious human rights abuses, the State Department is expected to report Friday in the U.S. government's first comprehensive look at the problem.

The report is the first of what will be annual examinations of a problem that experts say is exploding around the world.

Experts say that there are now 2 million to 3 million women and girls who have been snared by traffickers, or sold to them, and forced into prostitution. Their number has soared since the collapse of the Soviet Union a decade ago, which opened borders across Eastern Europe. An estimated 40,000-50,000 women and girls, many from the former Soviet Union, are brought to the USA each year.

Also fueling sexual trafficking: economic growth across much of Asia in the 1990s, which boosted income for many men and spurred demand for prostitutes. Booming global travel also makes it easier and cheaper for traffickers to move victims across borders.

The yearly reports are required by the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000.

"I'm very optimistic that this is going to be a strong report" that thoroughly examines trafficking, its causes and the countries involved, says Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., one of the law's authors. The report could lead to economic or other sanctions against countries that ignore or encourage trafficking.

The victims of traffickers are not desperate individuals or families who pay smugglers to get them across borders. Instead, they are forced or tricked into leaving their homes. When they get to new countries, they are forced to work under threat of injury or death.

Among the victims, according to human rights activists:

Thousands of men and boys in West Africa who are forced to work on cocoa and coffee plantations.

Thousands of Asian boys sold by their families to be camel jockeys in the Middle East.

Thousands of women from Africa and Asia who are sold to wealthy families to be domestic servants.

----

Amnesty Criticizes U.S. Record On Rights

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 31, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A402-2001May31?language=printer

The head of the U.S. chapter of Amnesty International said yesterday that Washington had "abdicated its duty" to lead the world in promoting human rights, and that it was "no wonder the United States was ousted from the U.N. Human Rights Commission."

William F. Schultz spoke as the organization released its annual report on human rights around the world. The 302-page document reports a dramatic increase in the number of political killings, including the deaths of thousands of civilians in Colombia, Sierra Leone and Chechnya last year. It notes reports of torture, apparently officially sanctioned, in at least 125 countries, but says that the number of countries where people have been imprisoned for their political beliefs or "disappeared" for political reasons has decreased somewhat.

As in previous years, the Amnesty report is scathingly critical of the use of the death penalty in the United States, where 85 prisoners were executed in 2000. It describes the Board of Pardons and Parole in Texas, where a record 40 people were executed last year, as a human rights "scoundrel" and lists Illinois Gov. George Ryan as a hero for declaring a death penalty moratorium in that state and provoking a "national debate on capital punishment."

The report also criticizes what it describes as torture and ill-treatment in U.S. prisons, including "beatings and excessive force, sexual misconduct, the misuse of electroshock weapons and chemical sprays and the cruel use of mechanical restraints." Amnesty says its requests to tour a number of U.S. prisons were declined.

In an interview Tuesday, Schulz said that, with the exception of the Carter administration, U.S. leadership on human rights had declined ever since Eleanor Roosevelt helped found the U.N. rights commission after World War II. The United States lost its elected seat on the panel last month.

The London-based human rights organization marks its 40th anniversary this year, and the report reflects on how the world has changed since Amnesty launched its first international "prisoners of conscience" appeal -- on behalf of two Portuguese students imprisoned for drinking a public toast to freedom -- in 1961.

Most of the changes the report cites have occurred over the past decade, including the rise of globalization and the negative impact it has had on many countries. "More than 80 countries had a lower per capita income in 2000 than they had in 1990," said Amnesty Secretary General Pierre Sane in a foreword to the report.

In Tuesday's interview, Schulz said that globalization has "cut both ways," and that global communications, particularly the Internet, had made it harder for oppressive governments to hide abuses.

In addition to increases in executions, political killings and religious persecution in China, the report alleges severe human rights abuses in Burma, Indonesia and Afghanistan in Asia.

In Africa, the report attributes most of the more than 2 million civilian deaths over the past 18 years of civil war in Sudan to "factional fighting" within the camps of the two major combatants -- the Khartoum government and the rebel Sudanese People's Liberation Army -- rather than to direct conflict between the two.

In Europe, it describes torture, rape and sexual assault by Turkish security forces and "serious and widespread human rights violations" in Russia, "including grave crimes against civilians on a massive scale during the renewed armed conflict in the Chechen Republic."

Amnesty criticizes both Israel and the Palestinian Authority for "widespread" torture and ill-treatment of prisoners.

--------

China Police Visit Tiananmen Activist

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
Associated Press Writer
MAY 31, 13:04 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=ASIA&STORYID=APIS7CB7JCG0

BEIJING (AP) - An advocate for victims of China's 1989 crackdown on democracy protesters was visited by police and questioned about her efforts to force an official investigation, the woman said Thursday.

Retired university professor Ding Zilin said two police officers came to her home after 10 p.m. Wednesday and questioned her for a half-hour. She said they wanted to know about her recent activities and plans for the June 4 anniversary of the army assault on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

She said she was not warned or threatened.

``I told them I'd already gone to bed, but they insisted on coming in. Overall, though, their attitude was pretty OK,'' said Ding, a retired university professor.

Ding, whose 17-year-old son was killed in the crackdown, said police were interested in her efforts to petition the government for an official inquiry. She said they asked for - and received - a copy of a letter she mailed earlier in the day urging China's top prosecutor to act a petition she filed in 1999.

The letter, signed by 111 relatives of crackdown victims, complains of prosecutor's inaction on the 1999 petition, according to a copy distributed by New York-based Human Right in China.

``Evidence shows that the accusations we delivered to your esteemed offices two years ago are solidly truthful and appropriate,'' the letter said.

``And that also shows your esteemed offices' attitude of turning a deaf ear to us is entirely without justification under the law,'' it said.

The government has never allowed an investigation or full accounting of those killed in the 1989 crackdown, which ended seven weeks of turbulent demonstrations demanding fuller democracy and an end to official corruption. Hundreds and possibly thousands are believed to have been killed by the army.

Despite the total lack of a response from authorities, Ding said she still hopes an investigation will be done.

``If they refuse to accept the petition, then they have to at least tell us that much and why. When they do that, it will be progress and then we'll continue with appropriate action,'' Ding said.

---------

Russia MP Sees Soviet - Style Muzzling of Scientists

New York Times
May 31, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/science/science-russia-spies-.html?searchpv=reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A top parliamentarian said on Thursday Russia's main scientific body had told its members to report all dealings with foreigners in a return of Soviet-style control, but a government official denied such an order existed.

Sergei Kovalyov, a veteran human rights activist and a Duma member, said the existence of an order from the Russian Academy of Sciences to its members corresponded with a new suspicion of the West fostered by the FSB domestic security service.

``Such directives are in line with current Kremlin policy, and this creates great worry,'' Kovalyov told Ekho Moskvy radio, which earlier published a copy of what it said was the document.

Millionaire philanthropist George Soros said during a visit to Moscow that if the directive existed it was ``shocking.''

Kovalyov said the order, which he insisted the Academy of Science did not want published, also contained a clause which could be used to limit scientists' access to the Internet.

``Trials linked to the so-called excessive freedom of scientific research are not so rare for us now,'' Kovalyov said.

The FSB has also already launched several high-profile spying cases: two against naval officers who worked with foreign environmental agencies and one against a researcher for the respected USA and Canada Institute.

Ekho Moskvy published what it said were key parts of the document, which told scientists to detail foreign grants, results of trips abroad, copies of articles for publication outside Russia and details of visits by foreign scientists.

Full details of international contracts or agreements must be supplied by June 1, Ekho Moskvy said.

Deputy Prime Minister Valentina Matviyenko was quoted by RIA news agency as denying the existence of such an edict. ``I respect the human rights work of Sergei Kovalyov but sometimes he uses unverified information,'' she said.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS, SCIENTISTS TARGETED BY FSB

However, fears of the rise of the FSB have grown under President Vladimir Putin, a former head of the organization and a one-time KGB spy in former East Germany. Putin has also named several ex-security service men to high-profile positions.

The FSB has said its case against researcher Igor Sutyagin from the USA and Canada Institute was a warning to other scientists not to leak confidential information.

Arms expert Sutyagin has been in jail since October 1999, accused of passing nuclear submarine secrets to the U.S. and Britain. He denies the charges and his lawyers say he only compiled his reports from open sources.

Human rights groups have said Sutyagin's fate mirrors that of environmental whistle-blowers Alexander Nikitin and Grigory Pasko, naval officers who were taken to court after exposing Russia's dumping of nuclear waste.

Last year, the FSB arrested U.S. businessman Edmond Pope for trying to buy Russian secrets. He was convicted to 20 years in a penal colony in December, but Putin pardoned him soon after.

-------- police

Idaho Deputies in Standoff With 6 Children

New York Times
May 31, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Children-Standoff.html

SANDPOINT, Idaho -- Armed with rifles and a pack of wild dogs, a family of six children hunkered down in their ramshackle home for a third day Thursday, refusing to accept help from government officials they feared and distrusted.

Bonner County sheriff's deputies blocked off a rural dirt road and waited patiently, not wanting to provoke further paranoia from a family that had worked hard to cut itself off from the outside world. It was not clear whether the children were talking with them.

Alice Wallace, director of a community food center, characterized the family of JoAnn and Michael McGuckin as ``a normal family that has fallen on hard times.'' The children are ``great kids. They're well-mannered, they're polite, they're respectful.''

Now, she said, ``They're scared, I'm sure. Your dad dies a couple of weeks ago, and then your mother's taken away from you -- that would be a little unnerving, don't you think?''

McGuckin was buried last Friday and his wife was arrested Tuesday on charges of injuring a child. After her arrest, deputies went to the house for the children, who were to be placed in state custody. But one of the boys spotted them, yelled, ``Get the guns!'' and set the dogs loose.

``I think they have been raised to be leery of government officials and maybe some law,'' Wallace said Thursday.

The children -- ages 8 to 16 -- have each other, rifles they know how to use and 27 half-wild dogs in a run-down home without water or electricity.They also have enough food to hold out for a while. A family friend picked up a 200-pound box of staples for them at the food center last Friday, Wallace said.

The specter of Ruby Ridge is inescapable here. Three people died in that 1992 northern Idaho standoff -- anti-government isolationist Randy Weaver's wife and son, and a federal deputy, one of several sent to arrest Weaver on a weapons charge.

Local authorities here say they will simply wait and not rush the situation here.

According to the Rev. Dennis Day of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Sandpoint, the family's eldest daughter, is 19-year-old Erina. She is cooperating with authorities.

Still in the home are Kathryn, 16; Benjamin, 15; and four younger children -- Mary, James, Frederick and Jane -- whose ages Day did not know.

A longtime friend, Mary Peters, offered a 10-year-old photo of the McGuckins in happier times, smiling with five of their eight children. She said she was met with snarling dogs and a shotgun-toting family member the last time she stopped in to offer help.

``They were thinking we were all their enemies,'' Peters said.

The hard times began when Michael McGuckin, who had worked at a lumber mill, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis several years ago. The Bonner County coroner attributed his May 12 death at age 61 to malnutrition and dehydration.

Acquaintances say his wife believed chemicals sprayed on area roads had caused her husband's illness.

``She was quite paranoid about the government, and I don't know what led to that,'' Wallace said, adding it prevented JoAnn McGuckin from signing up for state aid.

The family refused help from neighbors and their former church, but did routinely receive food from the center, Wallace said, downplaying reports that the children had been subsisting on lily-pad soup and lake water.

The younger children were kept home from school. With no money for utilities, they did without heat, electricity, telephone and running water. They dipped water from the nearby lake.

The children were occasionally seen swimming or on errands by neighbors who live around Garfield Bay, 10 miles south of Sandpoint. Still, residents say the family avoided contact.

The situation reached a crisis Tuesday, when JoAnn McGuckin was offered cash and a trip to the store by deputies. She was subsequently arrested on a warrant charging felony injury of a child -- a charge authorities have refused to elaborate on.

In court Wednesday, her long red hair loose about her shoulders, she asked that the court appoint an attorney and was ordered held on $100,000 bail. Prosecutors said she had been spending the family's meager financial resources on alcohol.

Bonner County Sheriff Phil Jarvis accused a television station of spoiling the negotiations between a Catholic priest and a relative of the six children Wednesday when its news helicopter appeared overhead.

KREM-TV news director Rich Lebenson said Thursday the station did not know that talks were going on and would review its policies.

--------

Panel Seeks Better Training of Detroit Police

New York Times
May 31, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/31/national/31DETR.html

DETROIT, May 30 - A civilian panel appointed by the police chief has concluded that the Detroit Police Department is "broken and needs to be fixed" with higher pay and better training concerning the use of lethal force.

In a report released today, the panel blamed "inadequate training of officers, a lack of material resources, lack of accountability and a shortage of personnel."

The panel was appointed last fall by Police Chief Benny Napoleon after several fatal shootings of civilians by officers. The Justice Department is investigating those shootings.

Chief Napoleon announced his retirement last week.

The panel's chairman, the Rev. Wendell Anthony, chief of the Detroit N.A.A.C.P., said, "We have now come to a fork in the road to either take the path that leads to healing, or the path that leads to the further deterioration of an effective department."

Mr. Anthony did not estimate how much it would cost to enact the recommendations, which include hiring more city residents and minorities with military backgrounds, and using more nondeadly weapons.

--------

Police Commander Is Indicted in Thefts From Drug Dealers

New York Times
May 31, 2001
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/31/nyregion/31OFFI.html

A federal grand jury indicted a senior police commander yesterday in connection with accusations that he stole money from drug dealers about six years ago, a senior law enforcement official said.

The commander, Dennis M. Sindone, is the highest-ranking police official in New York to come under scrutiny in a drug-related corruption inquiry, officials said.

The investigation into Mr. Sindone's conduct has short-circuited what had been his quick ascent within the department. He held the rank of deputy inspector when he came under scrutiny last month but was placed on modified assignment May 1 and demoted to captain May 5, after the accusations surfaced.

The federal grand jury in Manhattan that has heard evidence in the case handed up a sealed indictment yesterday charging Captain Sindone, 39, in connection with the thefts, which occurred when he was off duty, the senior official said.

The precise charges could not be learned last night. Spokesmen for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Mary Jo White, the United States attorney in Manhattan, whose office will prosecute the case, declined comment.

Captain Sindone, the son of a retired police detective, was expected to surrender to the F.B.I. this morning with his lawyer, the official said. The lawyer, James Culleton, reached last night, would not comment. In the past, through his lawyer, Captain Sindone has vigorously denied wrongdoing.

A senior police official said Captain Sindone came under scrutiny after a suspect arrested by the F.B.I. squad that investigates Jamaican and Dominican drug traffickers implicated another member of the Police Department, who in turn implicated Captain Sindone.

At about the time of the drug thefts, he was a sergeant in the Bronx narcotics drug homicide task force, an elite unit that investigated drug-related killings, one official said.

When the accusations surfaced, they stunned many colleagues of the well-regarded police commander, who had just been promoted to the rank of deputy inspector by Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik, making him one of just 125 men and women in the department to hold that rank.

Mr. Kerik promoted him April 12 because he had been impressed by the 40 percent cut in crime in the 60th Precinct in Coney Island. Just 13 months earlier, Mr. Sindone was promoted from the rank of lieutenant to captain.

Mr. Kerik was not the only person to take note of Captain Sindone's achievements. In April 1996, he was among several supervisors and detectives from the homicide task force who were honored for their work investigating two murderous drug gangs that the authorities said killed 48 rivals and bystanders in the course of their narcotics trade.

His first assignment as a police officer was patrolling the streets of the 46th Precinct in the University Heights section of the Bronx. As a police officer, he earned 18 citations for his conduct and made 150 arrests, most for serious crimes.

-------- spying

Scientists in Russia told to report all foreign links

Chris Stephen In Moscow
Friday, 1st June 2001
The Scotsman
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/text_only.cfm?id=77270

RUSSIA'S scientists have been ordered to report all contacts with foreigners amid a resurgence of the power of the security services.

In a return to a practice last seen during Soviet times, the Russian Academy, the country's top scientific body, has ordered a register for the thousands of contacts scientists keep with foreigners.

These include not just meetings but foreign trips as well as contact made through the internet in a move that is likely to hamper scientific links. Names of the foreigners must listed and all discussions reported.

The academy says the directive, which comes into effect today, is designed "to prevent the transmission abroad of information concerning national security".

But the move has been attacked by liberals who say it marks a move towards authoritarianism. A prominent human rights activist and MP, Sergei Kovalov, claimed the order shows Russia is "becoming a country where the KGB has taken power".

The visiting financier George Soros said: "I was shocked. When I heard about the order I remembered Soviet times."

The academy is adamant that, even as the rest of the world is opening up to cross-border contacts, Russia must bring in tight controls. It says it wants "measures to ensure the security of limited access information when Russian scientists link up with the international computer networks".

The deputy prime minister, Valentina Matveinko, defended the move, saying she had no information that the FSB would see the scientists' reports. "Such an instruction has no background. It is a very ordinary document."

How the system of reporting will work is unclear. Russian scientists are involved in a huge number of collaborative projects. Its computer programming industry is just beginning to make an impact, much of it through collaboration with Western companies. All such activity must now be registered and monitored by the authorities.

The move comes amid a general tightening of controls by President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer and FSB director. Under him, security officers have been brought into the Kremlin. A former KGB general, Sergei Ivanov, is the new defence minister and the security service has been given overall control of the Chechnya war. Former KGB officers have been appointed as "super governors" to watch over Russia's regions.

The FSB has opened an information technology division to monitor e-mails and the country has seen a series of high-profile spy trials, including the conviction of a US businessman, Edmond Pope, last year, the first such trial of a US citizen since the Cold War ended.

More trials are under way, including that of a scientist and academy member Igor Sutyagin, whose closed-door trial has heard accusations he has passed military intelligence overseas. His lawyers claim the material was all gleaned from public journals but that might be no defence under Russia's tough secrecy laws.

Even some former KGB agents have begun to worry about where this is leading. "Russia is once again on the path toward establishing a totalitarian state," wrote a former KGB lieutenant colonel, Konstantin Preobrazhensky, in the Moscow Times. "Instead of Communism, a sort of nationalism is fast becoming the ideology of this new structure which is waging war against civil society."

The tightening of controls takes place amid a worsening of relations between Russia and the West, with Moscow and Washington recently expelling several dozen diplomats accused of spying plus arguments over a ballistic missile defence.

----

Lawyers: Agents Didn't Take Secrets

By Catherine Wilson
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, May 31, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010531/aponline174502_001.htm

MIAMI -- Defense attorneys for Cuban secret agents said in closing arguments Thursday their clients were never ordered to collect U.S. secrets and were only trying to protect their country from violent extremists.

Attorney Philip Horowitz, whose client infiltrated a group of Cuban exiles, said the agents were "Cuba's early warning system of insurrection from the north." Horowitz represents Rene Gonzalez, one of two men accused of acting as unregistered foreign agents.

Another man, Gerardo Hernandez, is accused of murder conspiracy for helping plan an encounter between a Cuban MiG and two U.S. civilian planes that killed four Miami fliers in 1996. Hernandez was also charged with espionage conspiracy, along with two men accused of infiltrating military bases.

None of the agents is charged with espionage because prosecutors agree they never got any U.S. secrets. To win conviction on espionage conspiracy charges prosecutors must prove only that the defendants agreed to break the law, not that they gathered secret information.

Jack Blumenfeld, whose client Antonio Guerrero worked at the Boca Chica Naval Air Station in Key West, said his client was monitoring aircraft but not seeking any secret information.

"Tony was doing what he was supposed to do," Blumenfeld said. "The entire time, he was never transmitting secrets of the United States."

Defense attorneys have said a string of eight bombings in Cuba over a four-month period in 1997 was only part of a 40-year history of raids, bombings and arms smuggling missions that justified the agents' undercover work in South Florida.

Prosecutors said Hernandez received instructions from Havana to keep agents off planes flown by exile groups for a four-day period in 1996 while the Cuban military and intelligence coordinated the missile attack on two Cessnas flying for Brothers to the Rescue.

Hernandez faces a possible life sentence on murder conspiracy and espionage conspiracy charges. Guerrero and Ramon Labanino, who was also assigned to study military bases, could also receive a life sentence if convicted of espionage conspiracy.

Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez, who are not related, could receive up to 10 years in prison if convicted of acting as unregistered foreign agents.

Closing arguments for Hernandez and for the government's rebuttal are expected Friday. The jury is expected to get the case Monday.

The men are among 14 members of a group called the Wasp Network that was broken up in 1998. Five others pleaded guilty in exchange for their cooperation and reduced sentences, and four are fugitives believed to be in Cuba.

----

Alleged Spy Pleads Innocent

New York Times
May 31, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Spy-Case.html

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- Veteran FBI agent Robert Hanssen pleaded innocent Thursday to charges of spying for Moscow, setting the stage for a fall trial that could deal with some of the nation's most closely guarded intelligence secrets.

Looking haggard in a green jumpsuit with the word ``prisoner'' on the back, Hanssen stood next to his lawyer in the federal courtroom here, just across the Potomac River from Washington. He said ``not guilty'' when asked how he pleaded to the charges, and plans were set for an Oct. 29 trial.

Thursday's arraignment followed futile plea discussions between Hanssen's lawyers and prosecutors. The long lead time for a trial could permit a new round of plea bargaining.

The federal indictment accuses Hanssen of 21 counts of espionage.

``We will be filing motions in federal court attacking this indictment,'' his attorney, Plato Cacheris, told reporters on the courthouse steps after what he estimated was a two-minute court session. ``We've just set a new modern record for arraignments.''

``That not-guilty plea entitles him to a presumption of innocence,'' Cacheris said of Hanssen.

He declined comment on the possibility of further plea discussions.

The government alleged that Hanssen passed U.S. secrets to Moscow for 15 years in exchange for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds. The FBI said it obtained original Russian documents that detailed Hanssen's alleged activities, including letters he allegedly wrote to his Russian handlers and secret codes he allegedly used to signal when and where he would drop documents.

The FBI has not disclosed the source of the documents. Asked whether the Justice Department would bring in Russians as witnesses, Cacheris said, ``We look forward to any Russians that want to come over and testify.''

Hanssen has been detained at an undisclosed location since his arrest Feb. at a Virginia park as he allegedly delivered a package for pickup by his Russian handlers.

As he waited for the arraignment to begin, he chatted with his attorneys, smiling broadly on occasion and nodding.

Apparently no family members were present in the courtroom. Asked why, Cacheris said, ``They're here in spirit.'' Hanssen has a wife and six children.

Hanssen could face the death penalty on charges that he identified Soviet agents secretly working for the United States who were subsequently executed. He also is accused of passing secrets about satellites, early warning systems, plans for retaliation against large-scale attacks and communications intelligence. Those charges also carry potential death sentences.

Cacheris has said the plea discussions stalled because the government refused to waive the death penalty in exchange for Hanssen's cooperation in providing to authorities a full accounting of his activities.

Asked about this Thursday, Cacheris said he doubted the death penalty would be constitutional in any event.

Going to trial raises the prospect of prosecutors having to reveal in open court sensitive information about U.S. counterintelligence activities. For instance, Hanssen allegedly disclosed how the United States was intercepting Soviet satellite transmissions and the means by which the United States would retaliate against a nuclear attack.

``If they insist on the death penalty, they will have to make their case in open court and disclose more evidence than they would ordinarily,'' said John Martin, a former Justice Department official who supervised espionage cases.

Randy Bellows, assistant U.S. attorney and a lead prosecutor in the case, told U.S. District Court Judge Claud Hilton that both sides would submit motions for dealing with classified information under the Classified Information Procedures Act, a law which provides a mechanism for courts to determine what classified information can be used as evidence.

The judge could allow the classified information, but require that the government to come up with substitute language so that information sensitive to national security isn't revealed.

The government and Hanssen's attorneys found some common ground -- they agreed to the Oct. 29 date for a jury trial and planned to submit a joint request for a proposed schedule of pretrial filings and discovery.

Cacheris told Judge Hilton, ``Mr. Hanssen has been advised of his rights and has signed a document waiving the Speedy Trial Act.''

Under that act, the trial would have been set in 70 days. To get the October date, Hanssen had to sign a waiver.

-------- terrorism

Taliban vows not to hand over Bin Laden

AP May 31, 2001
http://www.timesofindia.com/310501/31nbrs4.htm

KABUL, Afghanistan: Afghanistan's ruling Taliban on Wednesday said the New York convictions of four men in the bombing of US embassies in Africa were "unfair" and vowed never to hand over Osama Bin Laden, accused by the United States of masterminding the attacks.

"He is a great holy warrior of Islam and a great benefactor of the Afghan people," Abdul Anan Himat, a senior official at the Taliban information ministry, said of Bin Laden, who remains in hiding in Afghanistan.

"We won't hand him over to America under any circumstances. It is our stated policy," Himat told The Associated Press in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

A New York jury on Tuesday convicted four of Bin Laden's followers of a global conspiracy to murder Americans, including the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa that killed 224 people and injured thousands of others.

The United Nations has imposed stiff sanctions on the Taliban - a fundamentalist Islamic militia that controls 95 percent of Afghanistan - for their refusal to hand over Bin Laden either to the United States or a third country for trial.

The United States accuses the Saudi dissident of running a global terrorist network that includes military training camps from his safe haven in Afghanistan - a charge both the Taliban and Bin Laden deny.

The Taliban say they won't hand Bin Laden over because the United States has no evidence proving his links to terrorism and that giving him to a non-Muslim country for trial would violate the tenets of Islam.

"America is using the issues of terrorism, drugs and human rights as an excuse against Afghanistan," Himat said.

It wasn't immediately clear if the Taliban's reaction Wednesday represented a hardening of their stance.

There has been considerable speculation in recent months that the Taliban may be willing to hand over Bin Laden to a third country if he could be guaranteed a trial under Islamic law.

Mohammed Suhail Shaheen, second in command at the Taliban's embassy in Pakistan, told the AP last week that "we want a solution to the Osama issue, but the dignity of both Afghanistan and America must be taken into account." (AP)

--------

Trial Poked Holes in Image of bin Laden's Terrorist Group

New York Times
May 31, 2001
THE ORGANIZATION
By BENJAMIN WEISER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/31/world/31TERR.html?searchpv=nytToday&pagewanted=all

Before the embassy bombings trial, Osama bin Laden loomed large in the American psyche, a villain of unimaginable evil and sophisticated reach. It was an image fed by destruction done and by American law enforcement eager to drive home the reality of his threat. In some ways, though, it was an image created because so little was known about how he worked.

But the trial, which left many of the details of the bombings uncontested, made clear that while Mr. bin Laden may be a global menace, his group, Al Qaeda, was at times slipshod, torn by inner strife, betrayal, greed and the banalities of life that one might find in any office.

"To listen to some of the news reports a year or two ago, you would think bin Laden was running a top Fortune 500 multinational company - people everywhere, links everywhere," said Larry C. Johnson, a former deputy director of the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. "What the evidence at trial has correctly portrayed, is that it's really a loose amalgam of people with a shared ideology, but a very limited direction."

The trial also revealed evidence that tended to counter long-held assumptions about Mr. bin Laden's followers, who have long been portrayed as marching in ideological lock step, ready to pay any price, including death, for his cause.

One former Al Qaeda member, Jamal Ahmed Al-Fadl, a Sudanese man, said he had complained about his $500 monthly salary, which was lower than others', particularly Mr. bin Laden's Egyptian followers, who, he said, always seemed to receive preferential treatment. Another former accomplice, L'Houssaine Kherchtou, a Moroccan, testified that he grew disenchanted with Mr. bin Laden after he was refused $500 to cover the cost of an emergency operation for his wife.

While no one was saying that Mr. bin Laden's ardent followers were concerned only with money, the disgruntlement felt by the two witnesses, and the feeling that they were being treated as "second class," as Mr. Al-Fadl put it, ultimately led them to defect from Al Qaeda and into the hands of the American authorities.

Jessica E. Stern, a former member of the National Security Council in the Clinton administration and a terrorism expert at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, said, "I think it has extremely important policy implications for how we understand terrorism."

"What we're learning through this trial," Ms. Stern added, "is that it's sometimes more about greed than about grievance."

Still, testimony showed that Mr. bin Laden had enough followers willing to die for his cause that he remained as big a threat as ever.

The two former aides to Mr. bin Laden said Al Qaeda was also fractured over strategies and operations.

Mr. Kherchtou said that once, while Mr. bin Laden was based in Khartoum, he told his Libyan followers that they had to leave the country because Libya was pressuring the Sudanese government to expel all Libyans.

Mr. bin Laden offered each of the Libyan members of Al Qaeda $2,400 and plane tickets for themselves and their wives to leave, Mr. Kherchtou said. But the Libyans were so insulted, he said, that they refused Mr. bin Laden's offer. "They were very upset and angry" that Mr. bin Laden "couldn't protect them," Mr. Kherchtou said.

Another time, Mr. Al-Fadl said, Egyptian members of Al Qaeda broke with Mr. bin Laden after Al Qaeda refused to mount an attack in retaliation for the 1993 arrest and imprisonment of an Egyptian sheik in New York who was convicted of conspiring to blow up the United Nations and other city landmarks.

"I remember some of the members in Al Qaeda, they left," Mr. Al- Fadl said. "They say, `No, we not going to stay in group' " because Al Qaeda would not `do anything to help Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman.' "

Defense lawyers tried to use traditional trial tactics to undermine the credibility of the two former bin Laden aides, and suggested that both men were motivated by greed in their decision to cooperate with the government, which had spent more than $1 million to provide them with new identities and lives through the witness protection program, testimony showed.

If the testimony at the bombings trial demystified Mr. bin Laden, it also filled in some of the blanks in the government's case. For example, the prosecution offered its most detailed account of the allegation that Mr. bin Laden sought to buy nuclear weapons, through Mr. Al-Fadl's testimony about an attempt to buy uranium. But even Mr. Al-Fadl conceded that he did not know whether the uranium was genuine or if the deal went through.

There was enough circumstantial evidence, with hints of more in the pipeline, to prove the guilt of the four men on trial, and possibly also of Mr. bin Laden himself.

"The case is there against him as well," said John F. Lewis Jr., a former assistant director of the F.B.I.'s national security division in Washington. "It's exceedingly important because there are a lot of officials around the world who are not quite ready to accept that."

Mr. Lewis added: "We can link him to these things specifically. He's not necessarily choosing the targets, but he's approving them. And that's tantamount to being involved."

Still, prosecutors never introduced evidence directly showing that Mr. bin Laden ordered the embassy attacks.

Last year, Ali A. Mohamed, a former adviser to Mr. bin Laden, pleaded guilty to terrorism conspiracy charges in New York, and told the judge that in 1994, he had been sent to scout out the American Embassy in Nairobi. He said he then showed his scouting file to Mr. bin Laden, who "looked at the picture of the American Embassy and pointed to where a truck could go as a suicide bomber."

Mr. bin Laden is believed to be in hiding in Afghanistan, under the protection of the ruling Taliban.

American law enforcement was trailing many of the top people in Mr. bin Laden's organization for years, and, as the trial showed, made real inroads into the operation.

The 1998 embassy bombings, carried out by a tight cell of operatives based in Kenya, killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and wounded thousands.

On Tuesday, a jury in Federal District Court in Manhattan convicted four of Mr. bin Laden's followers on all 302 counts they faced. Two of the men, Wadih El-Hage, a former personal secretary to Mr. bin Laden, and Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, a sworn member of his group, face life imprisonment, while two others who helped carry out the attacks, Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-'Owhali and Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, could be sentenced to death.

If there was one area in which prosecutors backed off in their public case against Mr. bin Laden, it was the decision to drop charges that Al Qaeda was responsible for the October 1993 killings of 18 American soldiers stationed in Somalia as part of a United Nations operation, as the original indictment charged.

Prosecutors had not argued that Al Qaeda members fired the weapons that shot down American Black Hawk helicopters and killed other soldiers on the ground, but the government had accused Al Qaeda of training the Somali fighters who had carried out the attacks.

Near the conclusion of the trial, the judge, Leonard B. Sand of Federal District Court in Manhattan, ordered the entire testimony of a pilot who described the ambush attack and the killings of the 18 American soldiers deleted from the record.

Prosecutors also edited the indictment before it was given to the jury to charge only that Mr. bin Laden had called for attacks on American soldiers in Somalia, and that Al Qaeda had trained Somali tribes opposed to United Nations intervention in that country.

Robert B. Oakley, the government's special envoy to Somalia both before and after the attacks, has long been skeptical of allegations of Mr. bin Laden's involvement in the attacks by the Somalis, who he said were already fiercely anti-American.

Mr. Oakley, also a former State Department counterterrorism coordinator, said there was nothing about the trial that changed his mind, and that he would have been willing to testify to that belief for the defense if he had been called as a witness, which he was not.

"In this thing, he didn't have a role," Mr. Oakley said of Mr. bin Laden about the Somali attacks. "There was nothing he needed to add."

He said, though, that he could understand why Mr. bin Laden might want to take credit for the attacks: "because he wants to further enhance his image as the guy who's causing everything to happen against the United States around the world."

Prosecutors said during the trial that Al Qaeda's role in Somalia was important to an understanding of the mind-set of the group, and helped explain the evolution of the conspiracy to bomb the embassies. The government maintained that the Al Qaeda members who trained the fighters in Somalia came from the same Kenya cell that later carried out the attacks in Nairobi and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Aug. 7, 1998.

And prosecutors made clear in court, out of the presence of the jury, that they still believed that Al Qaeda, including at least one of those on trial, was responsible for the killings of the soldiers.

In shedding light on Mr. bin Laden's more private side, Mr. Al-Fadl described bucolic days at Mr. bin Laden's farm near the Blue Nile in Sudan, where Mr. bin Laden liked to relax and where he and his followers, including a terrorist who had bombed the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, rode horses, played soccer and swam.

But if the trial served to humanize Mr. bin Laden, it also showed that his far-flung organization, with all of its cells, rules and secret codes, was - at least this time - not beyond the reach of American law.

"For so long he'd been seen as this sort of untouchable, fearful, scary guy that we couldn't get our hands on," said Juliette N. Kayyem, executive director of the program on domestic preparedness at Harvard's Kennedy School and a former member of the National Commission on Terrorism.

She added: "It's also a good reminder that trials and investigations and all those things that we sort of view as so slow and cumbersome can actually work."

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Threat Puts U.S. Force in Bahrain on Alert

New York Times
May 31, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/31/world/31GULF.html

WASHINGTON, May 30 - American military forces in Bahrain have been placed on a heightened state of alert after a threat of a terrorist attack, a Defense Department official said today.

About 1,400 American troops and their families stationed in Bahrain, where the Navy's Fifth Fleet is headquartered, were told to step up precautions because of a threat that officials described as credible and specific. The Americans in the Persian Gulf emirate are now operating under a threat condition known as Charlie, one level below Delta, the highest state of alert.

An American official emphasized that the information about a possible attack had reached American authorities before a jury in New York found four men guilty on Tuesday in connection with the bombing of two American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998.

He declined to provide details.

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California: Meeting about Diablo with NRC June 14, 2001

Date: Thu, 31 May 2001
From: Molly Johnson <mollypj@yahoo.com>
http://www.grandmothersforpeace.org

We have a situation here in San Luis County that deserves the attention of all anti-nuclear activists. Diablo Canyon has decided to store their high-level waste on-site. While this is good news for the most part there is still work to be done. The casks they plan to use are of the same design that is being planning for Goshute High-level storage (coincidence? not likely). The pads the casks will sit upon are directly under the high-power electric lines that run out of Diablo. What happens at Diablo could very well set a precendence for Humboldt and San Onofre. Green Party and others have been meeting regarding this and Mothers for Peace is planning a lawsuit. We need help from you all out there. Please give us some of your ideas and thoughts and possibly bodies later this summer when hearings are to be held. We can't let them do whatever they want, there has got to be public input and watchful eyes!!!

Molly

from Rochelle Becker:
Greg Pick (GAP@nrc.gov) wrote:

Good afternoon,

I am a project engineer in RIV - NRC. We are planning a meeting with Diablo Canyon for June 14. The meeting will be at the PG&E community center to allow for public observation. The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. - meeting notice forthcoming. NRC will be discussing the plant performance with PG&E. The meeting will be open for public observation.

If you would like to discuss this my phone # is 817 860-8270 (CDT) or you can provide me with a phone # at your convenience.

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INTERNATIONAL ACTION CAMP AUGUST 2001 - MAKE YOUR PLANS NOW!

From: michael mariotte <nirsnet@nirs.org>

Be there: The Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) and Nuclear Free Great Lakes Campaign are holding an international anti-nuclear/sustainable energy conference/action camp during the summer of 2001. In conjunction with the camp, NIRS and WISE-Amsterdam will be holding its first joint general meeting of all affiliated offices. The event will begin with two days of seminars at DePaul University in Chicago (August 18-19) and then move to a campsite in Yorkville, Illinois, about 13 miles from the Dresden nuclear power complex. The location is convenient to O'Hare International Airport.

Learn, Teach: The camp will combine issues seminars, strategy sessions, organizational and tools development workshops, non-violence training, and actions. Key focus areas will be on radioactive waste transportation, globalization of the nuclear power industry, global climate change and nuclear power, "harmonization" of the international nuclear regulatory scheme, sustainable energy, and the resurgence of the atomic industry. We believe we need to strategize and cooperate internationally if we are to stop new nuclear reactors and move toward a sustainable energy future.

Gather, Grow: We plan to bring the best and most active minds from across the U.S. and throughout the world to gather, plan, strategize, grow stronger. We hope to teach, we need to learn. We invite activists and researchers from everywhere to join us.

Act! Actions will target the Exelon-owned Dresden nuclear complex. Exelon is a multi-national conglomerate owned by Unicom (formerly Commonwealth Edison), PECO Energy and British Energy and is the largest nuclear utility in the United States. Note: due to U.S. immigration and deportation laws, non-U.S. citizens are discouraged (but not prohibited) from taking part in civil disobedience in the U.S.; however, there will be plenty of other activity available.

This will be the third annual action camp in the Great Lakes area of the United States, and the sixth U.S. action camp since 1998. We hope you'll join us there.

More details will be made available as soon as they are confirmed. For more information, contact NIRS at 202-328-0002; nirsnet@nirs.org

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Three More Falun Gong Members Die

MAY 31, 09:26 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_package.html?FRONTID=WORLD&PACKAGEID=china&STORYID=APIS7CB4D480

BEIJING (AP) - Two more members of the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement have died in Chinese labor camps, and another follower committed suicide, police and government officials said Thursday.

Gao Xiufeng died in a labor camp in the northern province of Heilongjiang after going on a hunger strike, a police officer said. Camp medical staff tried to force feed her intravenously, but failed to prevent her death, said the officer reached by telephone in Xingsheng, Gao's home village.

The officer, who declined to give his name, didn't say when she died. In a statement, U.S.-based Falun Gong practitioners said Gao died May 12.

Lai Zhijun, arrested last year for protesting in Beijing against the government's ban on Falun Gong, died last year in a labor camp in Sanshui, in the southern province of Guangdong, a government official said.

Lai was a government office manager in the Guangdong town of Fenggang, said the official, who also works in Fenggang. He said he did not know the cause of Lai's death. Falun Gong said Lai died four days after being put in the camp on March 29, 2000.

Another Falun Gong practitioner, Zhao Xinnian, committed suicide by throwing himself before a train, said a government official in Ershilipu, Zhao's hometown in the northern province of Hebei.

The official, who declined to give his name, didn't say if Zhao had ever been sent to a labor camp. Falun Gong said Zhao went missing on May 5 but didn't say when he died.

Falun Gong says more than 200 followers have died in custody or from official persecution since the government banned the spiritual movement in July 1999 as a threat to Communist Party rule and social order. Amnesty International, a London-based human rights group, has counted at least 93 deaths.

Amnesty said most deaths came from beatings, torture or suicides. Chinese government officials say practitioners have committed suicide or died of natural causes in custody but maintain that no one has been killed.

China has sent thousands of practitioners to labor camps - a punishment imposed without trial - in the course of the crackdown.


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