------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
UK warned of nuclear terror threat at new plant
Pentagon lines up industry chiefs for top jobs
Nuclear Energy: Look at the Costs
China Plans War Games Off Taiwan
China's Army Said in Large Exercise
Inside the Ring: China sub untracked
Radioactive water leaks in Czech n-plant
Persian Gulf War Illness Compensation Act of 2001
'My hair fell out and my teeth began to rot'
NATO Rebuff
NATO expansion still a guessing game
Mishaps involving n-arms can kill thousands
Plan to Recycle Plutonium Delayed
Tanaka may raise issue of marine drill relocation
Optimism Over Defense Spending
Faith-Based Reasoning
Missile Defenses Need More Tests, Key Senator Says
Russia Space Forces Get New Status
Russia Hails Missile Elimination
Modernizing U.S. nuclear weapons to cost millions
Duke Calif. rates spike in emergency
White Sands Tour Finds Relics, Tiny Survivor
DOE plans to store stockpile of recycled nickel 'indefinitely'
Budget Chief Optimistic on Defense
The Promise of China Trade
Nuclear Power: Worth the Risk?
Daschle: Nuclear Waste Plan 'Dead'

MILITARY
NATO exercise spurs fear disease
A field trip in the name of peace
China Targets Poor Countries on FC-1
A Dark Secret Comes to Light in Serbia
Colombia Debates New Terrorism Laws
Indonesian Military Warns President
Editorial: Iraqis still suffering
U.S. Clerics: End Iraq Sanctions
Security Council Agrees on Iraq Sanctions
Iraqis get little help from new sanctions plan
U.S. To Allow Sale of Goods to Iraq
Israeli president warns Arafat
IDF sending crack units into W. Bank
Sharon considers plan for 48-hour knockout punch
CITY POWER: U.S. Bombs Explode Hope in Vieques
Militarizing Space "to protect U.S. interests
Bush to seek 6.1 billion for the military now, more later
CHEMICAL EXPOSURE CALLED UNLIKELY CAUSE FOR MARINES' BLISTERS
Strategies clouded by excess policy reviews
Dredging Pearl Harbor
Inside the Ring: Hamel on hold

OTHER
French minister proposes EU - wide "eco-tax"
Judge dismisses Indians suits against Texaco
Swift Rise Seen in H.I.V. Cases for Gay Blacks
Taliban Diplomat Defends Decrees on Hindus, Women
Waco simulation didn't test gun FBI agents carried
Prying eyes: A report on the global spy network
U.S. to Shut Spy Station in Germany
Judge to Appoint Master in Lee Case
ACTIVISTS
Windpower 2001 in DC June 3-7
2 Questions For People Traveling to Washington for June 10-12 Anti-Star Wars Events to Consider


-------- NUCLEAR


-------- britain

UK warned of nuclear terror threat at new plant

UK: June 1, 2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11039

LONDON - A nuclear weapons expert warned yesterday that output from a new fuel plant in northwest England could easily be used by terrorists to make nuclear bombs.

Frank Barnaby's report to the government comes as ministers consider whether to allow the plant to start up at all amid questions over its economic viability.

But state-run British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), owner of the station, dismissed the concerns saying the risk of nuclear material being used in the manufacture of weapons was "minimal."

Barnaby's report spells out how easy it is to make the mixed oxide fuel (MOX) into a bomb.

MOX is a mixture of plutonium and uranium oxide made for reactor operators in Europe and Japan.

"It would be sheer irresponsibility for the government to allow the new plant to open as the theft of MOX fuel pellets would then become a terrifying possibility," Barnaby said.

"The government, if it takes its policy of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons seriously, should take this into account," he told Reuters.

The MOX plant at Sellafield was completed in 1997 but lies idle as the government decides whether to allow output to begin.

"Once you have got the MOX then the steps to a nuclear explosion are not complex," Barnaby said.

His report, commissioned by the Oxford Research Group, describes three ways of chemically separating the plutonium dioxide from uranium dioxide in MOX fuel.

New Scientist, the magazine where the report appeared, said the chemistry required to extract plutonium from MOX is less sophisticated than that required for the illegal manufacture of designer drugs.

It adds that only 13 kg (29 lbs) of pure metal would be needed to create an explosion 50 times more powerful than the fertilizer bomb that killed 168 people in Oklahoma City in the United States six years ago.

BNFL played down the concerns, part of wider fears that poor security arrangements for radioactive material worldwide could play into the hands of terrorist organisations.

"I would describe the existing safeguards we have got as mature, comprehensive and robust," a company spokesman said.

"It is also worth noting that safeguarded nuclear material has never been illegally diverted into use for the manufacture of weapons."

The report comes hard on the heels of a court action launched last week by the Friends of the Earth environmental group against the government over plans for the station.

The group says the government acted unlawfully in not allowing the 482 million pound ($675 million) construction cost to be taken into account when economic viability was assessed.

Before starting up, the plant must pass a test required by European law proving that the benefits of a practice involving ionising radiation outweighs any adverse environmental impact.

Story by Mike Collett-White

REUTERS

-------- business

Pentagon lines up industry chiefs for top jobs

June 1, 2001, Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0106/01/world/world15.html

Washington: Executives from some of the nation's largest defence contractors have been tapped by the Bush Administration for Pentagon jobs overseeing a defence budget that now gives the lion's share of $US94 billion ($180 billion) in taxpayer money to their former employers.

Those with the inside track for top-level Pentagon posts come from Lockheed-Martin, General Dynamics and Northrop-Grumman, companies that get a combined $US27.6 billion a year from the Pentagon.

These are the very same companies that sell more than a third of the aircraft, ships, electronics and high-dollar weapons that account for most of the $US60 billion a year now spent on Pentagon procurement. They also get the biggest chunk of the additional $US34 billion earmarked for research and development, including a hefty rise in such spending for President George Bush's controversial defence against ballistic missiles.

The selections by Mr Bush and the Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, illustrate another trend emerging with the top-level Pentagon nominations: while the Constitution calls for civilian control of the military, the Administration has picked a retired navy captain to head the air force and a former general to oversee the army.

While Rumsfeld aides defended the selections, some Pentagon officials bridled because of their daily battles with poor contractor performance and cost overruns. "They are bringing in the sharks," said Mr Chuck Spinney, an air force system analyst. But he conceded that Mr Rumsfeld was caught in the predictable bind of finding experts for a new administration.

Mr Bush plans to nominate Mr Albert Smith, a Lockheed-Martin vice-president, for the newly elevated position of undersecretary of the air force, according to Defence Department officials.

Already selected were Mr Gordon England, vice-president of General Dynamics, for navy secretary and Mr James Roche, a former navy man and an executive with Northrop-Grumman, for the new post of air force secretary.

In addition to Mr Roche, a retired brigadier-general, Mr Thomas White, has been named army secretary. The service secretaries would serve as Mr Rumsfeld's executive committee, with new stature and powers.

Mr William Hartung, of the World Policy Institute, said Mr Bush and Mr Rumsfeld were trying to establish a corporate-style structure in Washington.

"They probably could find some very qualified executives who are not in the defence industry. After all, the defence firms don't have the best reputations for controlling costs."

Mr Smith, as No 2 at the air force, would assume a crucial position in charge of overseeing which companies would get hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming decade if Congress approves Mr Bush's ambitious missile defence program. Lockheed-Martin is to get $US15 billion this year in defence contracts for aircraft, naval systems, space boosters and an array of other programs.

Purchases of ships, aircraft and other weapons have more than doubled in the past decade, resulting in record profits for companies such as General Dynamics, which makes ships and submarines for the navy. In turn, defence industry executives have made millions.

Newsday

----

Nuclear Energy: Look at the Costs

Friday, June 1, 2001; Page A30

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5223-2001May31?language=printer

At least two issues associated with the economics of nuclear power generation were left out of May 15 news stories on energy development.

The first is the issue of liability. In the infancy of nuclear power, the electricity-generating industry refused to build nuclear plants without assurances that it would never have to bear the full cost of any catastrophic accident. It got -- and still has -- the Price-Anderson Act, which limits the liability of the nuclear industry. In effect, the taxpayer is the insurer of last resort of the nuclear power industry.

The second is the issue of decommissioning costs. The question of how best to dispose of nuclear fuel wastes is trivial compared with the question of how to dispose of outmoded nuclear plants. Studies estimate that it will cost more to decommission a nuclear plant than it cost to build it.

Any comparison of the costs of producing electricity in nuclear power plants and fossil-fuel plants needs to take into consideration these issues.

MARCIA RUCKER Bethesda

-------- china

China Plans War Games Off Taiwan

By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, June 1, 2001; Page A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3389-2001May31?language=printer

BEIJING, May 31 -- Thousands of Chinese soldiers are massing opposite Taiwan for their biggest military exercises in several years, coordinated with amphibious tanks, fighter aircraft, submarines and missile batteries, an official Chinese Web site reported today.

The report by BeijingNews.com, a site run by leading state-owned newspapers in the Chinese capital, said the main goals of the exercises are to practice "attacking and occupying an outlying Taiwanese island and fighting off an aircraft carrier." The mention of an aircraft carrier was seen as a reference to the U.S. Navy; Taiwan has no carriers.

The United States has long been committed to helping Taiwan defend itself, although the commitment is deliberately vague. While declaring there was no change in policy, President Bush said April 25 that he would do "whatever it took" to defend the island from any Chinese attack.

At the Pentagon, officials expressed no concern today, saying the planned exercises appear no larger and no more significant militarily than similar efforts by the Chinese military in previous years.

"Just about every spring you can count on them to mass their amphibious units on their coast facing Taiwan," said a senior defense official. "Sure it looks like a lot, but it is everything they've got and it still, in our view, does not add up to a credible capability to invade Taiwan. . . . Does it signify some change in policy? Is it meant as a threatening gesture? Those are different questions."

The Beijing Web site, whose content is monitored and approved by government censors, said the exercises will center on and around Dongshan Island in the Taiwan Strait, about 98 nautical miles west of Taiwan's Penghu Island and 166 nautical miles west of Kaohsiung, Taiwan's main southern port. It said the railways and highways of Fujian province already are full of military vehicles and rail cars carrying amphibious tanks and other equipment in preparation for the exercises, dubbed "Liberation No. 1."

The report said the exercises, expected to begin in June, underscore China's "strong opposition" to the Taiwanese government of President Chen Shui-bian and what it claimed was Chen's failure to improve ties since he became president in May of last year. China's government is particularly incensed that Chen has so far refused to accept the "one-China principle," which holds that Taiwan is part of China and has served as the foundation for Beijing's troubled relations with Taipei for years.

It was unclear whether the upcoming exercises, which follow drills this month in the South China Sea of Chinese naval and air forces, mark a shift in China's recent tactics toward Taiwan.

China conducts amphibious exercises and attempts joint military exercises on a yearly basis. However, the pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po newspaper in Hong Kong said Tuesday the exercises will be the biggest since 1996, when China fired unarmed missiles near Taiwan's two ports in exercises that prompted the Clinton administration to dispatch two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region.

When asked about the exercises by reporters on Wednesday, Zhang Mingqing, a spokesman for China's Office of Taiwan Affairs, replied: "Undoubtedly, these exercises have a definite purpose."

The military maneuvers come during a period of tension between the United States and China. The April 1 collision of a Chinese fighter jet and a U.S. Navy surveillance plane off China's southern coast, the decision in April by the Bush administration to sell Taiwan a multibillion-dollar weapons package and visits to the United States by Chen and the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, have soured relations considerably.

Douglas Paal, an expert on U.S.-China relations, said Beijing so far has responded in a "measured" manner to what it sees as provocations from the new U.S. administration.

However, the People's Liberation Army Daily on Wednesday attacked Bush's recent statements about his goals for the U.S. military, especially his support of a national missile defense system. The newspaper called Bush's statements about peace "nice packaging" but predicted that the policies behind them will "only pull the United States and the rest of the world into the nightmare of war."

The exercises are important for the PLA, which is the largest standing military force in the world but is still evolving from a peasant army to a modern fighting force.

James Mulvenon, an expert on China's military at the Rand Corp., said that in the past China's amphibious exercises were mostly show, designed to "rattle Taiwan." But lately, military analysts have noted that the PLA has begun to wrestle with real problems, "logistical problems, timing problems, command and control problems," he said.

In the past, for example, China's idea of joint exercises involved the four main constituent parts of its military -- infantry, navy, air force and rocket forces -- showing up at the same place and training separately. "Now we are looking for them to integrate their operations," Mulvenon said.

To that end, today's report said the Su-27, China's most advanced fighter planes, purchased from Russia, will participate in the drills. So far, military experts say, China has had difficulty integrating the aircraft into its arsenal.

China has vowed to attack Taiwan if it declares independence. Barring that, however, the prospect of a full-scale invasion is slim. However, China's military analysts in recent years have bruited the possibility that China would seize one of the dozens of islands that belong to Taiwan but lie near China's coast.

Since the Persian Gulf War and especially since the 1996 face-off between the two U.S. carrier groups and the Chinese navy, China also has devoted many resources to countering a U.S. response to any military moves against Taiwan. Its purchases of Russian-built destroyers, submarines and state-of-the-art anti-ship missiles are designed to give U.S. commanders pause before they enter a battle on Taiwan's side, Western and Chinese military analysts say.

Staff writer Roberto Suro in Washington contributed to this report.

----

China's Army Said in Large Exercise

JUNE 01, 00:00 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_package.html?FRONTID=WORLD&PACKAGEID=china

BEIJING (AP) - In one of its largest military exercises ever, China's army will practice capturing an outlying Taiwanese island and attacking an aircraft carrier, a state-run newspaper said Friday.

The exercises, involving land, sea and air forces, begin this month on and around Dongshan Island, off China's southeastern coast in the straits that separate China and Taiwan, the Beijing Morning Post said.

The maneuvers will be China's first large-scale war games since the election of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian last May, the newspaper said. It said the combined exercises are one of the largest ever conducted by China's 2.5-million member People's Liberation Army, the world's biggest fighting force.

``The main military targets of these exercises will be attacking and occupying an outlying Taiwanese island and attacking an aircraft carrier,'' the newspaper said.

The exercises ``demonstrate the Chinese government's determination to protect sovereignty and territorial integrity,'' it said.

Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949, but Beijing still regards the island as part of its territory. China has repeatedly threatened to attack Taiwan if its government indefinitely rebuffs Beijing's demands for talks on unification or if it declares outright independence.

The Beijing Morning Post said forces taking part in the exercises will include missile units, amphibious tanks, submarines, warships, marine soldiers and Russian-made Su-27 aircraft - among the most modern and potent weapons in China's growing arsenal.

Nearly 10,000 troops have been taking up position on Dongshan Island since mid-May, the newspaper said, quoting a report in a pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper.

``Dongshan Island is now full of all types of Liberation Army units. Troops that have reached the site of the exercises are intensifying training in order to prepare for the big maneuvers,'' the newspaper said.

----

Inside the Ring: China sub untracked

June 1, 2001, by Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010601-21312290.htm

Notes from the Pentagon.

A Chinese submarine conducted secret underwater operations for more than a month without being detected by U.S. intelligence agencies, according to defense sources.

The Ming-class attack submarine snuck out of its port at Qingdao, on the Yellow Sea coast opposite Korea, and returned 31 days later.

Intelligence officials said the "undetected SSN deployment" is an indication that China´s Navy is improving its underwater-warfare skills. China´s military has harassed the Navy surveillance ship USS Bowditch, sailing in international waters in the Yellow Sea, on two occasions in the past three months. Intelligence officials told us the submarine could have been operating in the region to support Chinese countersurveillance of the U.S. ship.

China has 20 of the Ming-class diesel-electric-powered boats. The submarines are equipped with anti-ship cruise missiles.

Intelligence officials said the Mings will be replaced in the next decade by a new generation of nuclear attack submarines called the Type O93, now under construction.

China also is building a new class of ballistic-missile submarine known as the Type 094. It will carried a variant of the DF-31 ICBM, a road-mobile missile that was flight tested twice last year.

-------- czech republic

Radioactive water leaks in Czech n-plant

CZECH REPUBLIC: June 1, 2001

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11032

PRAGUE - Several cubic metres of radioactive water leaked on Wednesday during reactor tests in the controversial Czech nuclear power plant at Temelin near the Austrian border, a spokesman said yesterday.

Temelin spokesman Milan Nebesar told Reuters all the water remained within the reactor's safety shell. He said radiation levels were very low and there was no danger either to staff of the plant, run by CEZ, or to the environment.

"The water was slightly radioactive. The levels of radiation did not reach even the lowest classification of a radiation event," Nebesar said, adding that cleaning works were finished yesterday morning.

"It was rather a mistake of operating staff (than a system fault)," Nebesar said.

Temelin has been the source of bitter dispute with strongly anti-nuclear Austria, which says its design combining Russian VVER reactors with a U.S. safety system may be dangerous. It has been off-line since early May due to turbine problems.

REUTERS


-------- depleted uranium

Persian Gulf War Illness Compensation Act of 2001 (Introduced in the House)

From: DSNurse@aol.com

We need you to call each rep and senator Not signed on to HR612/S409 in DC to get them to cosponsor HR612/S409. Request you get family, friends, and other vets also to repeat the calls until they cosponor! Here are talking points:

TALKING POINTS

In 1994, Congress passed legislation (Public Law 103-446; 38 USC 1117) to provide compensation to Gulf War veterans with undiagnosed illnesses. Since then, the V.A. has narrowly interpreted the law so as to limit compensation to Persian Gulf veterans with illnesses that cannot be attributed to any known clinical diagnosis.

To date, the V.A. has denied 75% of the claims for undiagnosed illness compensation (approx. 12,000 applied: 3,000 compensated and 9,000 denied).

H.R. 612 seeks to clarify the definition of "undiagnosed illness" so that Gulf War veterans suffering from chronic undiagnosed or poorly defined illnesses are properly compensated. Undiagnosed or poorly defined illnesses are illnesses without known causes, such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, autoimmune disorder and multiple chemical sensitivity. H.R. 612 will, by definition, include ALS ("Lou Gherig's disease") as a poorly defined illness.

H.R. 612 also extends the timeline for when these symptoms may manifest themselves from 2001 to 2011.

House sponsor contact person is Congressmanman Manzullo (R) - Reps contact him to sign on as official cosponsor

Senate Sponsors Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R) and Senator Durbin (D)

Cost factors rough estimate $80 million for each of first two years and then $30 million per year thereafter.....enough money in Presidents budget for this - line item.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHICH STATE YOU ARE WILLING TO HELP WITH! HERE ARE THE TALKING POINTS FOR THE BILL

Bill has been endorsed by VFW, DAV, Legion, VVA, National Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans Coalition

Text of bill below:

--

Persian Gulf War Illness Compensation Act of 2001 (Introduced in the House)

HR 612 IH

107th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 612 To amend title 38, United States Code, to clarify the standards for compensation for Persian Gulf veterans suffering from certain undiagnosed illnesses, and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

February 14, 2001 Mr. MANZULLO (for himself, Mr. GALLEGLY, and Mr. SHOWS) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Veterans Affairs

A BILL To amend title 38, United States Code, to clarify the standards for compensation for Persian Gulf veterans suffering from certain undiagnosed illnesses, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Persian Gulf War Illness Compensation Act of 2001'.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

Congress makes the following findings:

(1) Although the majority of veterans of the Armed Forces who served in the Persian Gulf War returned from the Southwest Asia theater of operations to normal activities, many of those veterans have experienced a range of unexplained illnesses, including chronic fatigue, muscle and joint pain, loss of concentration, forgetfulness, headache, and rash.

(2) Those veterans were potentially exposed to a wide range of biological and chemical agents including sand, smoke from oil-well fires, paints, solvents, insecticides, petroleum fuels and their combustion products, organophosphate nerve agents, pyridostigmine bromide, depleted uranium, anthrax and botulinum toxoid vaccinations, and infectious diseases, in addition to other psychological and physiological stresses.

(3) Section 1117 of title 38, United States Code, enacted on November 2, 1994, by the Persian Gulf War Veterans' Benefits Act (title I of Public Law 103-446), provides for the payment of compensation to Persian Gulf veterans suffering from a chronic disability resulting from an undiagnosed illness (or combination of undiagnosed illnesses) that became manifest to a compensable degree within a period prescribed by regulation.

(4) The Secretary of Veterans Affairs prescribed regulations under section 1117 of title 38, United States Code, that interpreted that section so as to limit compensation to Persian Gulf veterans with illnesses that `cannot be attributed to any known clinical diagnosis'.

(5) In a report dated September 7, 2000, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences indicated that it was not asked to determine whether an identifiable medical syndrome referred to as `Gulf War Syndrome' exists and suggested that the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, in developing a compensation program for Persian Gulf veterans, consider the health effects that may be associated with exposures to specific agents that were present in the Southwest Asia theater of operations during the Persian Gulf War.

SEC. 3. COMPENSATION OF VETERANS OF PERSIAN GULF WAR WHO HAVE CERTAIN ILLNESSES.

(a) PRESUMPTIVE PERIOD FOR UNDIAGNOSED ILLNESSES PROGRAM- Section 1117 of title 38, United States Code, is amended--

(1) in subsection (a)(2), by striking `within the presumptive period prescribed under subsection (b)' and inserting `before December 31, 2011, or such later date as the Secretary may prescribe by regulation'; and

(2) by striking subsection (b).

(b) UNDIAGNOSED ILLNESSES- Such section, as amended by subsection (a), is further amended by inserting after subsection (a) the following new subsection (b):

`(b)(1) For purposes of this section, the term `undiagnosed illness' means illness manifested by symptoms or signs the cause, etiology, or origin of which cannot be specifically and definitely identified, including poorly defined illnesses such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, autoimmune disorder, and multiple chemical sensitivity. The attribution of one or more of the symptoms to a disability that is not an undiagnosed illness shall not preclude other symptoms from being considered a manifestation of an undiagnosed illness.

`(2) For purposes of paragraph (1), signs or symptoms that may be a manifestation of an undiagnosed illness include the following:

`(A) Fatigue.

`(B) Unexplained rashes or other dermatological signs or symptoms.

`(C) Headache.

`(D) Muscle pain.

`(E) Joint pain.

`(F) Neurologic signs or symptoms.

`(G) Neuropsychological signs or symptoms.

`(H) Signs or symptoms involving the respiratory system (upper or lower).

`(I) Sleep disturbances.

`(J) Gastrointestinal signs or symptoms.

`(K) Cardiovascular signs or symptoms.

`(L) Abnormal weight loss.

`(M) Menstrual disorders.'.

(c) PRESUMPTION OF SERVICE CONNECTION PROGRAM- Section 1118(a) of such title is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:

`(4) For purposes of this section, the term `undiagnosed illness' has the meaning given that term in section 1117(b) of this title.'.

(d) EFFECTIVE DATE- (1) For purposes of section 5110(g) of title 38, United States Code--

(A) the amendments to section 1117 of title 38, United States Code, made by subsections (a) and (b) shall take effect as of November 2, 1994; and

(B) the amendment to section 1118 of title 38, United States Code, made by subsection (c) shall take effect as of October 21, 1998.

(2) The second sentence of section 5110(g) of title 38, United States Code, shall not apply in the case of an award, or increased award, of compensation pursuant to the amendments made by this section if the date of application therefor is not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this Act.

For up-to-date list of co-sponsors, contact DSNurse@aol.com

--------

'My hair fell out and my teeth began to rot'

06/01/2001
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/01/06/nuran506.xml

KEVIN RUTLAND, a 41-year-old father of three from Hull, served in Bosnia in 1995 and 1996 as a Royal Engineer before leaving the Army. But within a few months of returning home his hair fell out, he began to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, his teeth started to rot and he suffered from osteoarthritis.

His symptoms have not improved and he now sees a psychiatrist for psychological problems caused by his illness. "It was only within the last year that it has come to my attention that it might be linked to the depleted uranium.

"I've been to see more doctors than I've had hot dinners but it's not the sort of thing they are briefed about as the MoD and the Government are not telling them about it. I may be the first in this country but I believe there are more that have not come forward or do not know yet. I think I'm owed an explanation for my benefit and that of other servicemen."


-------- europe

NATO Rebuff

It's the latest symptom of wrongheaded U.S. policy

June 1, 2001 Detroit Free Press
http://www.freep.com/voices/editorials/enato1_20010601.htm

The United States is getting awfully frigid shoulders from formerly friendly international bodies. President George W. Bush had best start building bridges, lest this country find itself uncomfortably alone at the top of the world. No amount of money or military hardware can compensate for alienating allies.

The latest rebuff -- only weeks after the United States was thrown off two United Nations committees -- came from NATO's top policy-making body. The North Atlantic Council refused to endorse the Bush administration's plan for a national missile defense system, even after Bush sent Secretary of State Colin Powell as pitchman.

Although Powell urged foreign ministers to denounce the "common threat" of a missile attack, they issued only a vague statement saying missiles "can pose" a threat and welcoming a review of strategies to combat them. Clearly the gap is wide between the Bush administration's perception of global threats and the view of the rest of the world.

Indeed, opponents of the U.S. plan -- which includes most NATO members and U.S. citizens -- say that missile defenses would provoke a nuclear arms race because it is premised upon scrapping the ABM Treaty with Russia, which will inevitably lead to arms buildups around the world. The system will cost untold billions with no assurances of being effective.

But this is about more than the demerits of one plan. It's about a resurging worldwide perception that the United States is an arrogant, self-serving nation that isn't willing to look at the big picture.

Bush can't lead the world by bullying it into submission -- nor can he even expect the world to submit. International relationships are built through diplomacy. Sadly, that's in far too short supply.

----

NATO expansion still a guessing game

World Scene June 1, 2001 • Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010601-98918590.htm

VILNIUS, Lithuania -- NATO Secretary-General George Robertson yesterday said discussions on enlarging the alliance were likely to remain a "guessing game" as all elements of a decision won´t be in place until a summit in 2002.

Lawmakers from 10 NATO hopefuls had wanted to hear something more specific about their chances for membership, but Mr. Robertson said informed decisions on further enlargement could not be made until candidate countries implement a third year of their membership action plans -- a program designed to help prepare NATO hopefuls for entry into the alliance.

-------- india / pakistan

Mishaps involving n-arms can kill thousands

By N. Gopal Raj - The Hindu, June 1, 2001
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2001/06/01/stories/0201000j.htm

BANGALORE, MAY 31. If nuclear weapons were to be deployed in South Asia and there was to be an accident involving one of them on the outskirts of a large metropolis, for instance, New Delhi or Lahore, several thousands could die of plutonium inhalation, according to a paper in the latest issue of the journal, Current Science.

The paper authored by Dr. Zia Mian and Dr. M.V. Ramana of Princeton University and Dr. R. Rajaraman of the School of Physical Sciences at the Jawaharlal Nehru University points out that nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles contained highly combustible, explosive and hazardous components. At least 230 accidents involving the nuclear weapons of the U.S., the erstwhile U.S.S.R. and the U.K. were believed to have occurred between 1950 and 1980.

The study examines the consequences to a civilian population of an accident resulting in the detonation of the conventional high- explosive in the nuclear weapon, which is used to compress the core of nuclear material (without, however, triggering a nuclear explosion). In such accidents, all the plutonium would be oxidised into plutonium oxide and converted into fine particles which could be breathed in. The explosion would send these plutonium oxide aerosols high into the atmosphere, where they would mix and be carried further by prevailing winds.

According to the paper, such accidents had indeed happened, such as at Palomares in Spain in 1966 and Thule in Greenland in 1968. In both cases, aircraft carrying nuclear weapons had crashed, detonating the high-explosive in the weapons.

The paper models the spread of plutonium in the event of such an accident, its carriage by the winds, the possible extent of inhalation by people and the resulting fatalities through cancer. The authors conclude that if such an accident were to happen at some air force base or cantonment at the edge of a major city, such as Delhi, Karachi or Lahore, 5,000 people or more could die of cancer from inhaling plutonium.

The authors agree that these 5,000 deaths would occur over a few decades and that these deaths would form only a small fraction of all cancer fatalities during that period due to other causes. ``But 5,000 deaths are still 5,000 deaths. That they happen quietly over decades among a largely unsuspecting public does not mitigate the tragedy. If it can be avoided, it must be,'' they point out.

Apart from the deaths, such an accident would cause panic and flight, creating an unprecedented disaster in its own right. Further, it was simply not feasible to decontaminate or evacuate a major South Asian city. Even limited decontamination in the immediate neighbourhood of the accident would cost at least hundreds of crores of rupees. This would clearly be a major catastrophe.

In addition, if such an explosion were to happen at a time of crisis, it might well be assumed to be a nuclear attack and lead to a nuclear response.

The authors believe that India and Pakistan should not deploy nuclear weapons. They should also store such nuclear weapons far away from missiles and aircraft carrying potentially explosive fuel. A further level of safety would be to keep the nuclear weapons disassembled so that the high-explosive was not close to the fissile material. All these steps would not only reduce the danger of accidental explosions, but also reduce the risk of a nuclear weapon being launched through error, panic or miscalculation, the authors say.

-------- japan

Plan to Recycle Plutonium Delayed

New York Times By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, June 1, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Japan-Nuclear.html?searchpv=aponline

TOKYO (AP) -- A nuclear power plant operator said Friday it will postpone a plan to use recycled plutonium at a reactor in northern Japan after local residents rejected the idea in a vote.

The Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it will comply with local government leaders' request to delay the use of plutonium-based mixed oxide, or MOX, fuel at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant.

``Our company decided to hold off on the use of MOX at this time,'' the company said in a statement, without specifying how long it will freeze the plan.

In the first-ever referendum on Japan's aggressive nuclear power program, residents in Kariwa voted against TEPCO's plan to introduce MOX at the nuclear plant -- the world's largest -- by mid-June.

Sunday's plebiscite in Kariwa, a village of 5,000 residents, 160 miles northwest of Tokyo, was held in the wake of a series of accidents and cover-ups that have made many Japanese uneasy about nuclear power.

Japan's worst-ever nuclear accident killed two workers and exposed hundreds of others to radiation at Tokaimura, 70 miles northeast of Tokyo, in September 1999.

The vote on the referendum, which isn't legally binding, reflected concerns about the safety of MOX, which critics say is a dangerously volatile form of nuclear fuel. It is made by mixing uranium with plutonium extracted from spent fuel.

Despite the postponement, TEPCO said on Friday the company will continue efforts to gain public understanding so their plan ``can be resumed as soon as possible.''

Welcoming the decision, Kariwa Mayor Horoo Shinada told national television network NHK: ``I think TEPCO made an appropriate decision that shows understanding to the residents' feelings.''

TEPCO had planned to start using the MOX fuel at the No. 3 reactor of its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, said TEPCO spokesman Takashi Nakayama.

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa's seven reactors have a combined capacity of 8.2 million kilowatts, making it the world's largest nuclear facility in terms of power generated.

Japan depends on nuclear power for about 30 percent of its electricity needs, and planners see the use of recycled fuel as one solution to the long-term problem of disposing of nuclear waste.

----

Tanaka may raise issue of marine drill relocation

The Japan Times: June 1, 2001
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20010601a2.htm

Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka said Thursday she is prepared to consider Okinawa Prefecture's demand that some U.S. Marine drills on the islands be moved overseas.

She added that she will raise the issue when she makes a planned visit to the United States later this month.

Speaking at the Lower House Committee on Security, Tanaka said, "There is room to discuss and study (Okinawa's demand).

"When I visit the United States, I will propose the idea and hear their opinions."

Tanaka also said that, during her visit, she will point out that some experts in the U.S. have also suggested shifting some of the marines' drills from Okinawa.

The relocation demand was initially made by former Okinawa Gov. Masahide Ota.

Keiichi Inamine, the prefecture's current governor, also said in February that he will seek to have at least some of the drills conducted in Okinawa relocated to Guam.

Tanaka is the first member of the Japanese government to comment on the matter.

Previously, Tokyo has merely repeated its commitment to reducing the burden shouldered by Okinawa.

The prefecture, which accounts for only 0.6 percent of the country's territory, provides 75 percent of the land occupied by U.S. forces in Japan.

It hosts 25,000 members of the U.S. military and more than half the 47,000 marines stationed in Japan.

Joseph Nye, former U.S. assistant secretary of defense, said in an interview with Kyodo News in March that Japan and the U.S. should start examining the possibility of relocating some marine officers to Guam, depending on the state of affairs on the Korean Peninsula.

Tanaka also emphasized her policy of exchanging views with Washington regarding the countries' policies toward North Korea, saying that coordination between Japan, U.S. and South Korea is a vital part of settling North Korea-related issues.

She made the remarks in response to questions by Eisei Ito and Shu Watanabe, Lower House members of the Democratic Party of Japan, the nations largest opposition party.

-------- missile defense

Optimism Over Defense Spending

By Robert Burns AP Military Writer Friday, June 1, 2001; 3:21 a.m. EDT

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010601/aponline032140_000.htm

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon's budget chief says he is optimistic that Congress, even with Democrats controlling the Senate, will approve big spending increases for missile defense for 2002 and beyond.

Dov Zakheim, the comptroller of the Defense Department, told reporters Thursday that the first significant increases for missile defense will be seen in President Bush's amended 2002 budget request for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. He said it will be presented to Congress in a few weeks.

Missile defense is not among programs named for spending boosts in Bush's request for an extra $5.6 billion to the current $296 billion defense budget. The president is expected to submit that request to Congress any day now, Zakheim said. The request actually is for $6.1 billion for the Pentagon, but it would be offset partially by proposed cuts of $505 million, resulting in a net increase of $5.6 billion.

Zakheim refused to discuss any budget figures for missile defense or other defense programs. Nor would he comment on suggestions that Bush would ask Congress to add $20 billion to $30 billion to the 2002 budget, which was pegged at $310 billion when it was submitted with the expectation of add-ons.

Bush has taken this long to propose increases in the 2002 budget because he has been waiting for preliminary results of a series of policy reviews overseen by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Zakheim said that while the 2002 budget "starts to point in the direction we wish to go" with military modernization, the first budget plan to incorporate Bush's defense priorities fully will be the 2003 budget, to be put together in the second half of this year and presented to Congress early next year.

The budget chief said he sees little reason to expect a partisan battle over missile defense spending.

"I'm reasonably sanguine, and I'll tell you why," he said. "I don't think it's as partisan an issue as you might, perhaps. And that is because ... it was a very different world" when former President Reagan first proposed a space-based missile defense aimed at stopping an all-out Soviet missile attack.

"We're not out there to zap the Russians; we're not out there to zap the Chinese," Zakheim said. "The context has changed completely. And I believe that there are a lot of Democrats who see this."

Congress has supported building a defense against ballistic missile attack when the technology is ready. The power shift in the Senate means, however, that Sen. Carl Levin, as the new chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, will have a greater voice in this and other defense programs. And Levin, a Michigan Democrat, has been skeptical of the technical feasibility of missile defense.

Zakheim refused to say how much Bush might propose adding to the budget for missile defense.

"I believe that the current level, as has been budgeted up to now, is seriously inadequate," he said. "We will have to add more" for research and testing various technologies. "That's going to mean - if you're serious about it - it's going to mean considerably more money."

Bush has said he wants the Pentagon to look beyond the approaches to missile defense taken during the Clinton administration, which were focused mainly on proving the feasibility of using land-based missiles to intercept ballistic missiles during the midcourse of their flight.

Bush is expected to instruct the Pentagon to examine the feasibility of sea-based and possibly space-based missile defenses, which would be used to protect not only the United States but many of its allies.

--

On the Net: Ballistic Missile Defense Organization: http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/

----

Faith-Based Reasoning

FROM THE EDITORS
Scientific American, June, 2001
http://www.sciam.com/2001/0601issue/0601rennie.html

Scientists are often lampooned as living in an ivory tower, but lately it seems that it is the scientists who are grounded in reality and the U.S. political establishment that is floating among the clouds. In March the Bush administration gave up a campaign promise to control emissions of carbon dioxide and withdrew U.S. support for the Kyoto Protocol. "We must be very careful not to take actions that could harm consumers," President George W. Bush wrote in a letter to four Republican senators. "This is especially true given the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change."

Yet incomplete knowledge doesn't seem to be a concern when it comes to strategic missile defense. After another failed test last summer, candidate Bush issued a statement: "While last night's test is a disappointment, I remain confident that, given the right leadership, America can develop an effective missile defense system....The United States must press forward to develop and deploy a missile defense system." And press forward he has. The U.S. is reportedly on the verge of withdrawing unilaterally from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. In one case, the president invokes uncertainty; in the other, he ignores it. In both, he has come down against the scientific consensus.

Presidents, needless to say, must protect the country's economic interests and shield the nation from nuclear death. That is precisely why the administration's inconsistency is so worrisome. Ample research indicates that human activity is the main cause of global warming. Estimates of the economic damage by mid-century range in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year-uncertain, to be sure, but if you've been smoking in bed, it makes sense to take out some fire insurance. Kyoto is far from perfect; its emissions targets represent a diplomatic agreement rather than any careful weighing of cost and benefit. But it is a start.

Regarding strategic missile defense, researchers' best guess is that a reliable system is infeasible. The burden of proof is now on the proponents of missile defense. Until they can provide solid evidence that a system would work against plausible countermeasures, any discussion of committing to building one-let alone meeting a detailed timeline-is premature. It is one thing for a software company to hype a product and then fail to deliver; it is another when the failure concerns nuclear weapons, for which "vaporware" takes on a whole new, literal meaning.

Perhaps the most exasperating thing about missile defense is how the Bush administration has so quickly changed the terms of the debate. Journalists and world leaders hardly ever comment anymore on the fundamental unworkability of the system or the many ways it would fail to enhance security. Now the talk is of sharing the technology so that other countries, too, could "protect" themselves.

It would be nice not to have to shell out money for emissions controls. It would be nice to have a magic shield against all nuclear threats. It would be nice to be perfectly sure about everything, to get 365 vacation days a year and to spend some of that time on Mars. But we can't confuse wants with facts. As Richard Feynman said, "Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself." The dangers of ignoring its messages are greater than merely making politicians look foolish.

Roger Ressmeyer / Corbis

THE EDITORS editors@sciam.com

--------

Missile Defenses Need More Tests, Key Senator Says

By THOM SHANKER, New York Times June 1, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/01/politics/01MILI.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON, May 31 - The next chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said today that it was highly unlikely that missile defenses would be fielded in President Bush's current term, and should not be deployed at all until repeated tests proved their effectiveness.

The senator, Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said he was confident that the nation had both the treasury and technology for missile defenses. But he predicted that diplomatic battles over the Antiballistic Missile Treaty and the scientific hurdles meant "the odds are against" deployment by the end of 2004.

"I don't think the technology is likely to develop fast enough, even if he decided to violate the treaty," Mr. Levin said, referring to Mr. Bush, in an interview. "And I think our European allies have responded with caution and concern to such a degree that the president is going to have to look again at the complexities of the issue."

In the interview, Mr. Levin laid out his agenda - and therefore that of the Senate's new leadership - on military affairs. He emphasized that he would not occupy himself solely with the high-profile issues of strategic nuclear posture and billion-dollar weapons systems, but would focus on improving pay, health care and housing for those in uniform. He also said he would try to modernize the Pentagon's purchasing practices and push for another round of base closings to save money.

Mr. Levin also energetically endorsed the role played by American troops in peacekeeping operations in the Balkans and in Sinai. Mr. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have questioned the peacekeeping missions, saying they divert money and troops from more important assignments.

As head of a committee widely recognized for striving to maintain a calm, nonpartisan approach to national security, Senator Levin said that he planned to "make sure that we look at the realities of a national missile defense, not just look at that one threat that has been focused on, the North Korea threat, or just the threat from ballistic missiles."

Proponents of Mr. Bush's still- evolving plan to rapidly deploy missile defenses - unilaterally if need be, and even before they are proven effective - see Mr. Levin's comments not as cautionary speed bumps, but as barriers consciously set too high.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr., a missile defense advocate who served in the Pentagon in the Reagan administration, said: "To the extent that he decides to make stopping missile defense one of his principal priorities, it will greatly compound the challenge the president has in doing what he said - in the course of the campaign and more recently - he is determined to do."

Mr. Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, a conservative defense analysis group, described Mr. Levin's technical requirements for deploying missile defense as "a delaying action."

On May 11, before Senator James M. Jeffords of Vermont defected from the Republican Party - giving Democrats control of the Senate as of next week - Mr. Levin spoke on missile defense at the National Defense University. Initially, his comments garnered little attention. Today, the speech is becoming required reading in Pentagon circles as the most detailed agenda of the man who is to become the most powerful Senate voice on military affairs.

"There is a serious possibility that if we take the wrong approach, it would decrease our security and increase the risk of nuclear proliferation," Mr. Levin said of unilateral deployment of missile defenses. "I think we could even start a second cold war, Cold War II."

In the speech, Mr. Levin repeated the core Democratic view that the 1972 A.B.M. treaty brought stability and predictability between the United States and the Soviet Union, and continues to establish "agreed rules of the road" with Russia today. He said he was open to amending the treaty to allow limited missile defenses against a few missiles.

He urged proceeding with "robust research and development" of national missile defense technology, but said today that he did not yet have a firm budget figure in mind.

Using the initials for national missile defense, he said, "We should not rush an N.M.D. system to deployment before it is ready and has demonstrated through repeated and realistic testing that it is reliable and operationally effective."

The Pentagon has conducted three intercept tests of its missile defense system. The first was initially called a success, but was later characterized as an accidental hit. In the other two, the interceptor failed to strike its target.

Mr. Rumsfeld has said that even if missile defenses envisioned by Mr. Bush do not work perfectly, they are worth deploying. "They need not be 100 percent perfect," Mr. Rumsfeld said, because a potential adversary would still be deterred by the uncertainty of whether its missile could slip past the shield.

This rationale has been dubbed the "scarecrow" defense. "But I don't think a system that doesn't work scares anybody," Mr. Levin said.

A Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. Craig R. Quigley, said today that "there is not a weapons system out there that is 100 percent effective."

Describing Mr. Rumsfeld's approach to missile defense, he said, "We're going to conduct the research and development in a very unfettered way, and try to ascertain which systems would be most effective."

President Bush and his national security team have not described the ultimate architecture of their missile defense system, nor is there any official timetable for deployment.

Senator Levin complimented the Bush administration for an apparent softening of its approach on possible unilateral action, and said he was seeing growing evidence that the president and his national security team were consulting more seriously with allies and were attempting to bring Russia into discussions about the future of the A.B.M. treaty.

"I don't think anybody wants to give Russia a veto, nor should we," Mr. Levin said. "But their response is relevant. If the Russians respond by not decreasing their nuclear arsenal, if China's response is to vastly increase its missile production, it seems to me that is quite relevant."

Mr. Levin said the Senate Armed Services Committee would shift its emphasis to a broader view of emerging threats. "The terrorist threats to us, which are reflected in World Trade Center-type attacks," he said. "Attacks on our embassies, on the Cole. Perhaps using weapons of mass destruction. These are the most likely threats we face."

Mr. Levin predicted that he and Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, who will give up the chairman's seat to become ranking minority member of the committee, would continue to find bipartisan support for a number of personnel, readiness and training issues.

Mr. Levin declined to say whether he would advocate canceling or curtailing any specific weapons system.

White House and Pentagon officials said today that President Bush planned to ask Congress to increase military spending for this year by $5.6 billion. The bulk of the additional money would be to pay for unexpected increases in health care and fuel costs, as well as for improved pay and benefits enacted last year.

The spending proposal, which could be sent to Congress any day, will also include a request for $153 million for research and development on an airborne laser, a potential component of a ballistic missile shield, a Congressional official said.

Mr. Bush has said he disapproves of the annual midyear "emergency" requests that the Pentagon has used for years to augment its spending.

-------- russia

Russia Space Forces Get New Status

JUNE 01, 09:33 EST

http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS7CBPJ600

MOSCOW (AP) - The Russian Space Forces were officially reborn Friday as an independent section of the military - part of President Vladimir Putin's plan to streamline and modernize the nation's armed forces.

The Space Forces were established as a separate branch in 1982, but incorporated into the Strategic Rocket Forces in 1997. They regained independence under a military reform plan drafted by Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov.

Col. Gen. Anatoly Perminov, appointed to lead the Space Forces, said they became fully operational in their new status Friday, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

The Space Forces are in charge of rocket launchpads and a fleet of military satellites, which serve spy and communication purposes and track the launches of ballistic missiles.

Russia has about 110 military and civilian satellites, but about 80 percent have already served their designated lifetime, and the cash-strapped government lacks money to quickly build replacements. Russian Aerospace Agency chief Yuri Koptev has described building new navigation satellites for the military as his top priority.

----

Russia Hails Missile Elimination

The Associated Press Friday, June 1, 2001; 8:01 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010601/aponline080157_000.htm

MOSCOW -- Russia's Foreign Ministry on Friday hailed the successful elimination of nearly 2,700 Russian and American nuclear missiles and the end of 13 years of inspections under a landmark U.S.-Soviet disarmament treaty.

Then-President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty in December 1987, ordering the destruction of an entire class of missiles and an unprecedented monitoring program.

The inspection regime ended Thursday, though the treaty has unlimited duration. U.S. and Russian officials carried out the final checks last month.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said Russia had dismantled 1,846 missiles around the former Soviet Union and the United States had dismantled 846, in addition to missile silos and training equipment. The rockets destroyed had ranges of 300 miles to 3,000 miles.

The ministry also used the statement to indirectly criticize U.S. plans for a missile defense system, which would require amending or scrapping the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.

"The work on the INF treaty and its successful implementation has served as unprecedented, valuable experience, which is widely used in preparing many other international agreements," the statement said.

"From the very beginning, this treaty was agreed upon and carried out as an integral, fundamental part of the 'architecture of strategic stability,' based on cornerstone agreements on nuclear arms and anti-missile defenses," it said.

Russia says the U.S. plans could prompt a new arms race. Washington insists the defense system is not aimed at Russia's large arsenal, but at threats from smaller states such as North Korea and Iran.

In West Jordan, Utah, where Russian inspectors had monitored a missile plant under the treaty to make sure banned weapons weren't built, Russian dignitaries presented books and flowers Thursday to mark their departure.

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

Modernizing U.S. nuclear weapons to cost millions

By Jonathan S. Landay Knight Ridder Newspapers, Friday, June 01, 2001
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=nukes01&date=20010601

WASHINGTON - Although President Bush is promising deep cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, his administration also is considering a six-year plan that could exceed $2 billion to renovate and improve the nation's aging nuclear-weapons laboratories, assembly plants and testing facilities.

Officials who manage the Department of Energy's (DOE) Stockpile Stewardship Program, which maintains the country's estimated 10,500 nuclear weapons, say they need the money to fix crumbling buildings, install modern equipment and attract a new generation of nuclear scientists.

Critics oppose the new spending, charging the program is bloated by mismanagement and cost overruns and is really intended to design new nuclear weapons. DOE and laboratory officials deny those allegations.

Stockpile Stewardship uses computer simulation and other experimental methods to monitor nuclear weapons to make sure they remain safe and will still work as designed as they age.

Warheads periodically are taken apart and checked for corrosion and other problems, and defective parts are replaced. U.S. nuclear warheads usually last about 18 years. The oldest is 30.

Instead of underground testing

The program is used in place of underground nuclear testing. The United States declared a moratorium on nuclear-test explosions in 1992. Every year since then, the DOE has certified the nuclear arsenal as reliable, but its managers say unless they get more money for renovations, they may not be able to continue certifying the arsenal without resuming underground tests.

"My confidence in our ability to maintain the reliability of the weapons in our stockpile without nuclear testing is being impacted by several trends that we see," John Browne, the director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, told Congress in April.

The weapons are "not aging gracefully," and the government doesn't have the modern facilities and equipment it needs to renovate them and make replacement parts, he said.

DOE officials who oversee Stockpile Stewardship refused to reveal the overall cost of their six-year plan to renovate the nuclear-weapons complex, but they said it would cost $300 million the first year and $500 million a year for the last several years.

It's costing $5 billion to maintain U.S. nuclear weapons this year, $1 billion more than originally estimated because of cost overruns and delays. The administration is seeking $5.3 billion for 2002.

Mounting problems

In congressional testimony and in interviews, DOE and laboratory officials said the stockpile program is threatened by mounting problems at three national laboratories, Los Alamos and Sandia in New Mexico and Lawrence Livermore in California.

They also said the nation's underground nuclear-test site in Nevada and the four plants where U.S. nuclear warheads are assembled and serviced or components are made - Pantex near Amarillo, Texas; the Savannah River Site near Augusta, Ga.; the Kansas City Plant in Kansas City, Mo.; and the Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge, Tenn. - need to replace old buildings, unsafe work spaces and obsolete or inoperative equipment.

For example:

• At the Pantex Plant, where nuclear warheads are assembled and disassembled, leaks in roofs sometimes have forced technicians to stop work and cover some warheads with plastic bags, said Dennis Ruddy, president of BWXT Pantex, the contractor that runs the plant.

• At the Y-12 plant, built during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project, which produced the world's first atomic bomb, chunks of roof fall out so often that workers wear hard hats, said John Mitchell of BWXT, which also runs the Tennessee plant.

• At Los Alamos, the birthplace of the world's first nuclear weapons, radioactive waste pipes leak and must be wrapped in plastic to prevent spills and contamination, said Gen. John Gordon, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the DOE agency that oversees U.S. nuclear-weapons programs.

The United States already is spending more every year on average to maintain its nuclear arsenal than it did during the Cold War, according to a study by the Brookings Institution, an independent Washington think tank.

The United States spent an average of $4 billion a year in 2001 dollars throughout the 50-year Cold War to build and maintain a much larger nuclear arsenal, according to the Brookings study, "Atomic Audit."

Warheads contain as many as 6,000 parts - made of metal, plastic and other materials - and must be monitored for corrosion, decay and problems caused by age and exposure to radioactivity.

Moreover, plutonium, the warheads' explosive fuel, grows brittle with age, raising concerns that aging explosive assemblies may not perform as expected.

Some experts, such as Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Project, a private group that monitors the nuclear-weapons programs, say plutonium remains effective for more than 100 years. Others say the DOE's own studies suggest it lasts for 60 to 100 years.

The annual cost of the Stockpile Stewardship Program is probably twice what's needed, said Robert Civiak, a physicist who worked in the White House budget office for 10 years monitoring nuclear-weapons spending.

"If you want to maintain existing weapons, then all you need to do is focus on the existing stockpile program, in which they take apart 10 to 12 weapons a year and fix problems that they find," Civiak said. "They are not focusing on their program. They are focusing on pushing the envelope on the development of nuclear weapons."

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

Duke Calif. rates spike in emergency
Last-minute sale pushed charges to nearly 30 times average, firm says

By STELLA M. HOPKINS PETER WALLSTEN, Charlotte Observer Staff Writers, Published Friday, June 1, 2001
http://www.charlotte.com/partners/news/full/news_full_1_Jun01.htm

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- As Duke Energy faces accusations of price gouging in California's escalating energy crisis, the Charlotte company acknowledges it has sold power to one wholesale customer for more than twice the highest previously reported price.

For several days in January, Duke Energy charged the California Independent System Operator $3,880 per megawatt hour. That's about as much electricity as the average Duke Power residential customer in the Carolinas uses in one month. That average Duke Power customer pays about $73 a month.

Duke's $3,880 charge is twice the $1,900 rate that brought another power generator harsh criticism in May from California Gov. Gray Davis, who is battling President Bush to impose caps on the state's skyrocketing wholesale energy prices.

The ISO sale came to light during an Observer analysis of federal documents that provide a rare public look at closely guarded pricing in California's convoluted energy market. After that analysis, Duke also gave The Observer pricing data it has previously refused to release.

Duke says its average wholesale price in California last year was $76 per megawatt hour.

For the first three months this year, which includes the high ISO sale, Duke said its average sales price was $136 a megawatt hour.

"On average, Duke's prices are not `gouging prices,'" said Nancy DeSchane, a vice president with Duke Energy's trading arm in Salt Lake City.

Wildly gyrating energy prices are the product of California's effort to deregulate its electric industry. Legislators intended the move to foster competition and lower prices. Instead, prices soared - sometimes to unheard-of extremes. Duke Energy, whose Duke Power unit is the largest Carolinas utility, is a key player in California, where it is one of five generators accounting for 30 percent of power production.

In the past year, Duke's highest-priced sales seesawed, then rose sharply. Last spring, Duke's top charge was $1,100 per megawatt hour.

During the summer, the high dropped to $554, then rose to $1,021 last winter and topped out at $3,880 during the first three months of this year.

Duke said its rate for the ISO sale reflected higher fuel costs, the cost of running an extremely inefficient unit of one plant and a poor-credit surcharge representing up to 80 percent of the total charge to a buyer that hadn't paid its bills. The sales came during times of extreme power shortages, including two days when the ISO called blackouts, Duke said.

Duke's total sale to the ISO at $3,880 was 5,000 megawatt hours - $19.4 million. The sale represented less than 1 percent of the 10 million megawatt hours Duke sold in California during the first three months of the year.

Most wholesale rate increases hadn't been passed on to Californians, but starting today, residential consumers begin receiving bills reflecting the largest rate increase in California history. Depending on use levels, consumers will pay two to three times the rate Duke Power charges its Carolinas customers.

The reported figures The Observer's analysis of Duke's quarterly reports filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission led the company to identify significant errors in reports. The reports, for example, listed one sale late last year for $4,845. Duke said the actual charge was $758. The company volunteered the $3,880 transaction, which had been reported as $250. Duke will file amended reports.

"We have a number of erroneous items," DeSchane said. "It was not intentional."

The commission is required by federal law to assure "just and reasonable" prices, and the reports are one mechanism for monitoring prices.

Despite errors, the reports remain the best publicly available source of pricing information that Duke and other generators have fought to keep confidential.

The demands for pricing data come as the generators face lawsuits and state and federal investigations into claims of profiteering and price manipulation. The companies are resisting subpoenas from a state Senate committee investigating their business practices. The companies say price disclosure hurts their ability to compete.

"The fact that they are so insistent on confidentiality is very disturbing to me," said state Sen. Joe Dunn, the Orange County Democrat chairing the committee. "If (the allegation of market manipulation) isn't true, then why are they insisting on secrecy?"

In its quarterly federal reports, Duke lists the total power sold and the lowest and highest price for each customer. But Duke doesn't have to say how much power was sold at what price, so there's no way to calculate Duke's total California sales from the report.

The documents also show about 10 percent of Duke's sales volume came in what's called the spot market, a highly volatile, daily trading market.

The ISO sale at $3,880 was a last-minute sale, similar to those on the spot market, driven by heavy demand. The $1,900 charge that angered the California governor was a last-minute sale by Houston generator Reliant to avert blackouts.

In releasing the confidential pricing, Davis called Reliant's price "obscene."

He has called generators "the biggest snakes" and warned plant seizures could be the ultimate penalty.

For January and February trades - which includes Duke's $3,880 sale to the ISO - the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has ordered generators to refund $124 million in overcharges, including $20 million from Duke. The company has said it will gladly refund those fees - if it ever gets paid.

Duke stands by the credit surcharge policy it developed as cash-strapped utilities stopped paying mounting bills. When the utilities stopped paying the ISO, that agency couldn't pay traders such as Duke.

The ISO, created under deregulation, oversees the state's electrical transmission system and is charged with ensuring the system has enough power to meet demand.

When the system runs short, the ISO buys power at what are typically high, last-minute prices. If there is no power to buy, the ISO calls for blackouts. Generators must sell available power to the ISO.

"We were forced to sell (to the ISO) and had an obligation to our shareholders to assess the risks," Duke's DeSchane said of the decision to levy a credit surcharge. "Nobody has paid bills yet."

The company has set aside $110 million to cover anticipated refunds and unpaid bills.

The federal reports also show Duke sold 90 percent of its power this year and 70 percent last year on contracts ranging from a few days to more than a month.

Duke says most of these contracts actually range from one to four years.

Pre-selling power means Duke forgoes the chance to make potentially larger profits selling that power on the spot market. If a plant shutdown or other problem prevented the company from producing power, Duke could be forced to buy on the spot market to fulfill the contract.

Duke says it wants the stability of long-term contracts. When Duke agrees to sell power, it also buys fuel to produce that energy. That means Duke locks in sales and its largest cost.

Return on investment Duke entered the California market in 1998 by buying three power plants for $501 million. In 1999, the company signed a 10-year lease on a fourth plant. The company expected tight supplies, which likely meant strong prices, because California hadn't seen a major power plant built in 10 years. But, like much of California's leadership, Duke didn't forecast the severe shortages that have led to blackouts.

The result is a market in which sellers can charge prices far higher than elsewhere in the country.

Duke readily admits California profits have exceeded its expectations, although the company won't say how much money it has made in California.

This year, profits quadrupled in the unit that includes Duke's California plants as well as plants outside its regulated Duke Power territory in the Carolinas.

Duke calls the unit's earnings rise to $348 million from $82 million "stellar."

The unit accounted for 27 percent of the Fortune 100 company's pre-tax earnings, compared with 10 percent a year ago. Duke stock closed at Thursday at $45.72, 62 percent above its 52-week low.

Critics say generators' profits come on the backs of Californians.

Some economists and California politicians say generators' prices violate federal requirements that electricity prices be "just and reasonable."

"The generators are charging whatever they can get in the market," said Frank Wolak, a Stanford University economist with access to confidential pricing data.

"In economics, when there is a financial incentive for something to happen, it usually does."

The criticism haunts Duke veterans, sent from the Carolinas to make a go of the company's California gamble.

"We're out here on the new frontier, where they don't know Duke from Adam," said Randy Vigor, who helped build Duke's nuclear plants on Lake Wylie and Lake Norman and now heads a $500 million expansion at one of Duke's California plants. "We're getting blamed for a lot of things that aren't Duke's fault."

In July - before the big run-up in prices - Duke offered Davis the chance to buy enough electricity to power 2 million homes at $50 a megawatt hour. Davis did not act on the offer.

"At that point, prices were still lower than that," said Steve Maviglio, Davis' press secretary. "No one in a million years expected prices to rise as much as they have since then.

"Where is that offer today is the better question."

The answer, Duke says, is that the power has been sold.

"We feverishly attempted to provide a set of solutions to all the California folks," said Duke Chief Executive Rick Priory.

He includes in those attempts the offer Duke lawyers sent this spring to Davis, saying it would forgive millions in utility debts in exchange for an end to investigations. The move backfired when the offer became public May 2, dragging Duke into a harsh spotlight.

"They were clearly trying to call off the dogs," Maviglio said. "They realize this a public relations nightmare."

In similar past exchanges, Duke has said the "dogs won't find anything."

Priory says he doesn't regret making the offer, that it was an attempt to settle disputes and get on with building desperately needed power plants.

He says California remains important - and welcome - in Duke's portfolio.

"Our experiences in California have generally been positive. The one negative is the political rhetoric, but we know this problem will be solved, and that will be toned down," Priory said.

Meanwhile, he added: "We're just focused on producing every kilowatt of electricity we can." "We're out here on the new frontier, where they don't know Duke from Adam. We're getting blamed for a lot of things that aren't Duke's fault."

-------- new mexico

White Sands Tour Finds Relics, Tiny Survivor

Tuesday, May 29, 2001 By Fritz Thompson Of the Journal
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/346114news05-29-01.htm

All over the West there are graves of once-famous men poorly remembered in death, the record of their last resting place often erased by time or, worse, not written down at all.

Eugene Manlove Rhodes, said to be the first working cowboy author to make the cowboy famous, is buried in a well-marked New Mexico grave that is nevertheless obscure because it remains off limits to random visits.

A native red sandstone boulder marks his last resting place on the semi-secret White Sands Missile Range.

You can't go there without an escort.

About 25 outdoor writers and photographers did go there recently, traveling in convoy on the range's back roads and marveling at the rugged beauty that encompasses two mountain ranges and more than 2.5 percent of the geography of New Mexico. At 2 million acres it's the biggest military installation in the country.

The group visited historic Trinity Site, where the world's first atomic bomb lit up the predawn sky one spring morning in 1945, toured the onetime ranch house where the plutonium core for the bomb was assembled, found surprising oases in the desert where a unique pupfish thrives, encountered wary but curious spear-horned oryx, saw giant prickly pear and ocotillo in bloom and splashes of greenery in the canyons, on the crags and across the sand.

And they traveled up a rain-muddied road to Rhodes' grave, high in a crease of the San Andres Mountains. The boulder tombstone, dug from the horse corral at Rhodes' nearby ranch, is veiled behind post-burial cedars at the end of a dim trail.

A metal plate embedded in the boulder gives his name, the inscription "Pasó por Aquí" ("He Came This Way"), and the dates Jan. 19, 1869-June 7, 1934.

Between 1902 and 1930, Rhodes wrote widely acclaimed books and magazine stories, almost all of them set in southern New Mexico, where he had been a bronc-buster and a rancher.

Elsewhere on the tour, the iridescent, inch-long pupfish became the conversation piece. The strain, known as the White Sands pupfish, is found nowhere else in the world. It inhabits several desert ponds. Craig Springer of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and executive director of the Rocky Mountain Outdoor Writers and Photographers, pointed out the flitting little fish in a marsh fed by water gushing from beneath an ancient lava flow, or malpais.

Range public affairs officer Jim Eckels led the daylong tour. He said school groups and organizations can find further information or arrange tours by calling (505) 678-1134.

-------- tennessee

DOE plans to store stockpile of recycled nickel 'indefinitely'

June 1, 2001 by Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer
http://www.knoxnews.com/business/30473.shtml

OAK RIDGE -- Given the collapse of the nuclear recycling program in Oak Ridge, the U.S. Department of Energy has no immediate plans to do anything with its big stockpile of contaminated nickel. "Right now we are treating the 5,900 tons of nickel as asset material and plan to store it indefinitely,'" DOE spokesman Walter Perry said.

The nickel stripped from old facilities at DOE's K-25 Plant at one time was supposed to help defray the cost of the nuclear cleanup in Oak Ridge.

But that was before former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson halted the commercial sale of recycled metals from Oak Ridge and other DOE nuclear sites. BNFL, the government's cleanup contractor at K-25, subsequently announced that it was disbanding recycling operations at its Oak Ridge subsidiary, Manufacturing Sciences Corp.

To uphold its contract with BNFL, which was negotiated on the basis that the company could sell the nickel after recycling, DOE has to pay BNFL market price for the nickel removed from the federal facilities.

Instead of processing the material, BNFL simply loads the nickel into containers.

"We have it in classified storage," said Jim McAnally, BNFL's Oak Ridge chief. "It is DOE's property."

The nickel is classified material because it's taken from the barrier systems once used to separate isotopes of uranium in K-25's uranium-enrichment operation. The barrier technology remains classified and must be protected by law.

BNFL, the American subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels, originally planned to eliminate the classification problem by melting the nickel as a precursor to the recycling effort. That was supposed to remove most -- but not all -- of the radioactivity.

Although Manufacturing Sciences earlier received a permit from the state to process the nickel for commercial release, the recycling effort was the subject of strong criticism, locally and nationally. There were concerns that small amounts of radioactive material would be contained in a wide range of products, potentially exposing consumers to radiation without warning.

Supporters of the recycling program said those were scare tactics, but the critics -- including trade groups in the metals industry -- won.

Still, the question remains about what to do with the nickel. Even some of those who objected to commercial sales of the recycled material would hate to see it treated as waste.

Glenn Bell, an Oak Ridge nuclear worker, said supporting a commercial recycling program is difficult because DOE's contractors have a history of mistakes that unwittingly exposed people to hazardous materials.

"There are plenty of examples of what can go wrong," he said. "Let's not unleash this on the public."

Bell said a reasonable compromise would be to decontaminate the inventory of nickel and use it to fabricate containers, which then could be used for disposal of nuclear waste.

Although DOE has no immediate plans for the nickel, Perry said the agency will consider various options -- including use of material for waste containers or other products at DOE sites. Or the nickel could be disposed as waste, he said.

"We're keeping our options open,"' Perry said. "The nickel issue does not impact our ability to finish the BNFL project on schedule, which is anticipated to be in the summer of 2004."

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

-------- us nuc politics

The Promise of China Trade

By Colin L. Powell
Friday, June 1, 2001; Page A31
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5237-2001May31?language=printer

Today President Bush will submit to Congress a determination extending normal trade relations status to China for another year. I believe this is good for America and good for the forces of change and reform in China. Moreover, it is good for the entire region, especially our friends in Hong Kong and Taiwan, who have the most to gain or lose as China seeks to define a new role for itself in a global civil society.

The president's action is necessary despite passage of legislation last October to give permanent normal trade relations status to China, because China must accede to the World Trade Organization before permanent status takes effect. That accession has not yet happened, though negotiators from many countries are hard at work on it right now.

The president's decision is not an endorsement of China's policies, some of which clearly conflict with America's views and values. Rather, we believe that extension of normal trade relations with China again this year is clearly in America's interest.

Continuation provides America an opportunity to promote rule of law, transparency and accountability in China -- essential elements of our policy designed to promote China's integration into the world trade system and thus promote change in China. As the president said at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on May 29, "Free trade supports and sustains freedom in all its forms. . . . When we open trade, we open minds." Trade with China is not only good economic policy; it is good human rights policy and good national security policy.

Meanwhile, Congress should keep in mind that U.S. exports to China last year grew 24 percent from 1999 -- to $16 billion -- and provided jobs or other direct benefits to 350,000 to 400,000 U.S. workers. American consumers benefit as well; reasonably priced household goods and clothes from China have helped hold down U.S. inflation in the past few years, and they improve the quality of life for Americans.

This trade also benefits the Chinese people and promotes American values. American firms trading with or operating in China bring American management, American standards of worker safety and worker health, and American concerns about the environment to their business dealings with China. Chinese businesses and workers have a clear preference for dealing with U.S. companies, a preference that translates into adopting American habits in business operations. As China's economy opens, Chinese consumers are making more demands not only for international brands on the shelves but also for international standards in their quality of life.

Not only American business, agriculture, workers and consumers would suffer if Congress were to disapprove normal trade relations this year. Taiwan and Hong Kong -- two important U.S. trading partners and friends with substantial interest in a stable, prosperous mainland China -- would also suffer. Hong Kong economists estimate that China's loss of normal trade relations would cut Hong Kong's economic growth rate by more than half and eliminate 72,000 to 102,000 jobs, dealing a severe blow to its autonomy and self-confidence. Taiwan, our seventh-largest trading partner, has huge investment exposure in the People's Republic of China and benefits greatly from U.S.-China trade. Taiwan could lose $15 billion in overall exports and as many as 50,000 jobs, should China lose normal trade relations with the United States. Most important, we would be undermining the basis for economic relations between the People's Republic of China and Taiwan, a key factor in building mutual trust and confidence between the two. That is one reason Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian has expressed support for our extension of normal trade relations status to China this year.

We do not expect trade relations to define fully the U.S.-China relationship. We will continue to expect China to live up to its international obligations, whether to advance religious freedom or promote stricter export controls on dual-use items related to missiles or weapons of mass destruction. But trade and exposure to the rules-based international marketplace are changing China for the better. And China's increasing engagement with the outside world makes it easier to work with that country on maintaining peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region and combating alien smuggling, HIV/AIDS, narcotics trafficking, financial crimes, terrorism and environmental degradation.

Continuation of normal trade relations this year -- and, we would hope, WTO accession soon after -- will confirm for China the need to adapt to the rest of the world, especially in terms of reforming state-owned enterprises and the banking system, increasing the role of private enterprise and creating a safety net that ensures the welfare of the Chinese people. Moreover, it will provide a foundation for China to work with regional players on important trade liberalization objectives at this October's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders' Meeting in Shanghai.

We are mindful of the challenges we have in working with China. Sometimes it's not easy. But if we believe that free markets promote freer societies, if we want China to live up to international standards, if we want to take every step possible to promote American interests in Asia, then it is fundamentally in our national interest to extend normal trade relations.

The writer is secretary of state.

--------

Budget Chief Optimistic on Defense

New York Times, June 1, 2001 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Defense-Spending.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon's budget chief says he is optimistic that Congress, even with Democrats controlling the Senate, will approve big spending increases for missile defense for 2002 and beyond.

Dov Zakheim, the comptroller of the Defense Department, told reporters Thursday that the first significant increases for missile defense will be seen in President Bush's amended 2002 budget request for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. He said it will be presented to Congress in a few weeks.

Missile defense is not among programs named for spending boosts in Bush's request for an extra $5.6 billion to the current $296 billion defense budget. The president submitted that request to Congress Friday, adding to it an additional $400 million request for spending on energy, health, housing, transportation and other areas.

In his letter to Congress, Bush said the request ``is primarily for defense activities related to pay, support, training and quality of life for military personnel, as well as regular operations costs.''

``It is imperative to reverse the pattern of underfunding these costs,'' Bush said.

The request for the Pentagon actually is for $6.1 billion, but it would be offset partially by proposed cuts of $505 million, resulting in a net increase of $5.6 billion.

Zakheim refused to discuss any budget figures for missile defense or other defense programs. Nor would he comment on suggestions that Bush would ask Congress to add $20 billion to $30 billion to the 2002 budget, which was pegged at $310 billion when it was submitted with the expectation of add-ons.

Bush has taken this long to propose increases in the 2002 budget because he has been waiting for preliminary results of a series of policy reviews overseen by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Zakheim said that while the 2002 budget ``starts to point in the direction we wish to go'' with military modernization, the first budget plan to incorporate Bush's defense priorities fully will be the 2003 budget, to be put together in the second half of this year and presented to Congress early next year.

The budget chief said he sees little reason to expect a partisan battle over missile defense spending.

``I'm reasonably sanguine, and I'll tell you why,'' he said. ``I don't think it's as partisan an issue as you might, perhaps. And that is because ... it was a very different world'' when former President Reagan first proposed a space-based missile defense aimed at stopping an all-out Soviet missile attack.

``We're not out there to zap the Russians; we're not out there to zap the Chinese,'' Zakheim said. ``The context has changed completely. And I believe that there are a lot of Democrats who see this.''

Congress has supported building a defense against ballistic missile attack when the technology is ready. The power shift in the Senate means, however, that Sen. Carl Levin, as the new chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, will have a greater voice in this and other defense programs. And Levin, a Michigan Democrat, has been skeptical of the technical feasibility of missile defense.

Zakheim refused to say how much Bush might propose adding to the budget for missile defense.

``I believe that the current level, as has been budgeted up to now, is seriously inadequate,'' he said. ``We will have to add more'' for research and testing various technologies. ``That's going to mean -- if you're serious about it -- it's going to mean considerably more money.''

Bush has said he wants the Pentagon to look beyond the approaches to missile defense taken during the Clinton administration, which were focused mainly on proving the feasibility of using land-based missiles to intercept ballistic missiles during the midcourse of their flight.

Bush is expected to instruct the Pentagon to examine the feasibility of sea-based and possibly space-based missile defenses, which would be used to protect not only the United States but many of its allies.

--

On the Net: Ballistic Missile Defense Organization: http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/

-------- us nuc power

Nuclear Power: Worth the Risk?

New York Times June 1, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/01/opinion/L01NUCL.html?searchpv=nytToday

To the Editor:

"Hard Questions on Nuclear Power" (editorial, May 29) concludes that the case has not yet been made for large-scale expansion of this power source, citing the "risks" associated with it. But there are risks associated with every human endeavor and with every fuel source for generating electricity: coal mines collapse, valleys flood, oil spills and gas pipelines rupture. Fifty years of safe power production from commercial plants proves that nuclear energy is no riskier than the alternatives. And waste disposal is primarily a political, not a scientific, issue.

Nuclear power can help diversify our energy sources and reduce our dependence on imported oil and increasingly expensive natural gas.

BERNARD L. WEINSTEIN Denton, Tex., May 29, 2001

The writer is director of the Center for Economic Development and Research, University of North Texas.

•

To the Editor:

A May 29 editorial about nuclear power moves too quickly through the problem of storing waste for thousands of years.

We marvel at the sketchy knowledge developed by archaeologists of the Egyptian civilization of 5,000 years ago. Our knowledge of human existence 10,000 years ago is artful conjecture. In what language must the "Danger - Keep Out" signs be written to be understood 10,000 years from now?

SIDNEY L. DELSON East Hampton, N.Y., May 30, 2001

•

To the Editor:

Imagine how different the electricity situation in California would be if the state had not forced the closing of the Rancho Seco nuclear plant ("Hard Questions on Nuclear Power," editorial, May 29). Nuclear power has already proved its worth to this country through the 20 percent share of electricity it supplies. The question of whether to build new plants is not if, but when.

A role for nuclear power is inevitable given the inherent problems of fossil fuels and the inability of alternatives to come close to being economical. We need a diversity of power sources, including nuclear power, which is domestically produced and nonpolluting.

WILLIAM H. MILLER Columbia, Mo., May 29, 2001

The writer is a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Missouri at Columbia.

•

To the Editor:

Re "Hard Questions on Nuclear Power" (editorial, May 29): The least polluting, most efficient energy policy would vigorously pursue wind power, solar energy and hydrogen fuel cells.

Our current energy policies, however, are being shaped by those beholden to dirty energy. Their ideological and economic blinders even lead them to promote a revival of Frankenstein-like nuclear power. They ignore or deny the dangers of nuclear energy, the highly polluting uranium mining industry and the radioactive waste that must be isolated for thousands of years.

TOM FERGUSON Atlanta, May 30, 2001

To the Editor:

According to a May 29 editorial, "nuclear power is used almost exclusively to generate electricity, thus it cannot reduce the nation's reliance on imported oil to power transportation systems." In France, where most electricity is nuclear-generated, the train systems run on nuclear power, reducing oil imports. We can do the same.

ROBERT W. ALBRECHT Seattle, May 29, 2001

The writer is a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington.

•

To the Editor:

"Hard Questions on Nuclear Power" (editorial, May 29) speaks of reactor safety. While accidents in conventional power plants can be serious, we can live with the risks. But an accident in a nuclear plant can have consequences so severe that it may be nearly impossible to recover.

As long as power plants are operated as private investments dedicated to making profits, there is an incentive for cutting corners on safety. If we expand our reliance on nuclear power, we will need management that is loyal to safety rather than profit.

JOHN R. BLIZARD Yarmouth Port, Mass., May 29, 2001

-------- us nuc waste

Daschle: Nuclear Waste Plan 'Dead'

New York Times June 1, 2001 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS By Angie Wagner
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Daschle-Yucca-Mountain.html?searchpv=aponline

http://www.rgj.com/cgi-bin/printstory.cgi?publish_date=20010601&story=991452114

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Nevada got a boost in its fight to keep nuclear waste from being stored at Yucca Mountain when the incoming Senate majority leader put up a formidable partisan roadblock.

``I think the Yucca Mountain issue is dead,'' Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Thursday after arriving in Las Vegas. ``As long as we're in the majority, it's dead.''

Since 1987, Yucca Mountain has been the only site studied to become the graveyard for 77,000 tons of the nation's spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive research waste.

The Energy Department is scheduled to forward its recommendation next year to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who will make a recommendation to President Bush. The earliest it could open is 2010.

The state's bipartisan congressional delegation, Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn, state and city leaders and the gambling industry are opposed to the dump site, 90 miles from Las Vegas. The state Senate on Wednesday passed a bill to put up $4 million for a legal and public relations fight against the proposed dump.

Daschle, in town for a fund-raiser for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., spoke with reporters when he arrived at the Las Vegas Executive Air Terminal.

Daschle's trip to Las Vegas was his first outside of South Dakota since Vermont Sen. James Jeffords left the Republican Party last week to become an independent, giving Democrats control of the Senate with a 50-49 majority.

Daschle will become the Senate's new majority leader next week and Reid the majority whip, the No. 2 man in the Senate.

Daschle said the new positions he and Reid will have ``will allow us to put Nevada's agenda on the national agenda.''

He then spoke briefly about Yucca Mountain and predicted a proposed ban on college sports betting won't pass the Senate either.

``Because it passed on a committee 10-10, it's very likely it's in for a rough road,'' he said. ``I think we can convince the majority of senators to be opposed to it as well.''

Earlier this month, the Senate Commerce Committee split 10-10 over whether to gut a bill outlawing betting on college sports, which is legal only in Nevada. The tie vote meant the bill survived and now goes to the full Senate.

The $1,000-a-head fund-raiser at the Bali Hai Golf Club was expected to bring in $500,000 for Reid's 2004 re-election campaign.

-------- MILITARY

NATO exercise spurs fear disease

'If it were anyone else besides a NATO outfit, it would have already been shut down or postponed.' -Local Bob Jones.

By: Michael Shinabery, Staff Writer June 03, 2001, Alamogordo Daily News 2001
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=1902262&BRD=1619&PAG=461&dept_id=105196&rfi=6

They come to New Mexico every year to play war.

This year, however, local ranchers fear that along with troops and equipment (called materiel) at Roving Sands 2001, they could bring the bug other countries are already at war with: the virus that causes Hoof and Mouth disease.

"If it were anyone else besides a NATO outfit, it would have already been shut down or postponed," said rancher Bob Jones. "Every country but Germany has (the disease) that is coming for Roving Sands."

New Mexico Secretary of Agriculture Frank Dubois' concerns are similar.

"I wonder what would have occurred if the circumstances had been reversed," Dubois said. "If we had had Foot and Mouth disease in the United States and they wanted to do a NATO exercise in Europe, how would they have treated our troops?"

Up to 20,000 soldiers - the majority U.S. Air Force, Army, Marines and Navy forces - will participate in the 10th annual Roving Sands, from June 15-24. The Texas and New Mexico operations are under the purview of Fort Bliss in El Paso, with major command centers in Louisiana, Florida and Virginia. Much of the desert territory where ground maneuvers take place, however, is in Otero County.

The concern is in how the virus is transported in dirt, which can be attached to equipment and even shoes. Cleaning and sanitizing is required. According to Fort Bliss public affairs official Jean Offutt, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials "cleared 16 rail cars carrying German equipment for transport from Beaumont, Texas, to El Paso." She said the equipment was reinspected in El Paso by USDA, and released more than a week ago.

"All of the equipment here was cleared," said Offutt, then "downloaded" beginning May 29. "The German commander ... told me the equipment they did bring in will not be going into the field. All of the equipment they need in the field to do their firing mission will come from Fort Bliss assets, or the German school here."

A recent regional story, however, reported German equipment in questionable condition was brought through Canada.

"German equipment is not coming from Canada," Offutt said. "Whatever was reported, or whatever was seen, I have no idea what it was or is."

She suggested those concerned should "check with the railroad."

Whatever that equipment was, Dubois said there have been eyewitnesses to its being transported.

"I talked to a guy in Colorado," he said. "He watched 10 different train loads go right by his place."

Dubois called such problems "frustrating to deal with." He felt the federal government, "given all of the controversy over this would at least (have) had the courtesy to notify the state animal health officials" where materiel was transported.

"I think that this whole thing has been mishandled by the federal government and by the NATO countries," Dubois said. "They first tried to bring equipment and materiel from England and from other countries where Hoof and Mouth was prevalent."

According to Dubois, questionable materiel was rejected at a Texas port-of-call after allegedly being found clean overseas.

"USDA Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) put out a release that all of this equipment has been pre-cleared in Germany, and then it gets to the port in Beaumont and one half of the equipment is rejected there - by APHIS," Dubois said.

He said rumors had the rejected equipment being rerouted through Canada, but he confirmed that particular shipment went back overseas.

"Bob Accord of APHIS told me (on Thursday) that all of the equipment was off-loaded in Cruxhaven, Germany, on May 30," Dubois said.

While the German air force (GAF) at Holloman Air Force Base will fly eight Tornado fighters, those jets pose "no threat," said Holloman Chief of Media Relations Robert Pepper. Those aircraft, he said, are already on base as part of the Flying Training Center.

"Every precaution is being exercised," Pepper said.

Other than the German equipment, Offutt said "no other equipment (was) coming in from any other foreign country."

In troop count, she said 40 soldiers would arrive from the United Kingdom. She also listed four-five Canadian observers, as well as "visitors" from 18 other countries including Australia, Chile, Egypt, Denmark, Italy, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Norway, Saudia Arabia and Qatar. The exact number of participants will not be firmed up, however, until the exercise begins.

If Hoof and Mouth were found in Otero County, it could end the century-old beef industry. If spread outside the county's boundaries, Jones said eventually "it would wipe out the entire U.S. beef industry."

Government officials in other countries have killed their livestock to slow the spread, resulting in losses of millions of dollars.

Jones termed America's beef industry as the "only clean beef producer in the world."

Otero County producers are already under attack from activists such as the Forest Guardians in Santa Fe. The group has at least half-a-dozen pending lawsuits against the U.S. Forest Service to reduce public lands' cattle grazing.

A Hoof and Mouth outbreak, Jones said, would make animal rights groups happy. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' Ingrid Newkirk is on record as saying she would welcome the disease as a means to shutting off meat to meat eaters.

-------- africa

A field trip in the name of peace
Twelve ambassadors take cause of Congo peace on the road, a sign of new UN Security Council focus.

By Danna Harman Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/05/29/p6s1.htm

The main cinema in downtown Lusaka has been transformed into a church, with the billboard atop the entrance announcing the daily prayer themes. Monday is billed as "prayers for financial help" day.Tuesday, the congregation gathers for prayers of healing and on Wednesday the focus is on family. The largest crowd shows up, says church volunteer Mary Bwalya, on Thursday. That is when they pray for peace.

Whether last week's tour of the region by 12 of the 15 United Nations Security Council ambassadors is an answer to Ms. Bwalya's prayers remains to be seen. But the 11-day, eight-country tour is significant in two respects: It set out to give the complex peace process in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) a needed push, and marks a new level of personal involvement by the members of the UN body.

The Security Council, once considered a slave to and paralyzed by cold-war conflict, has been trying to reinvent itself this past decade. More debates are held, more equal attention is paid to the different regions in the world, and more follow-up mechanisms are being put in place.

Armed with malaria medicines, maps, translators, wrinkle-resistant suits, and heaps of enthusiasm, the ambassadors left behind their office work in New York and boarded a swank charter airplane for an African field trip. They met with 10 presidents, dozens of foreign and defense ministers, and countless rebels this past week.

"The war is over here," says Irish ambassador David Cooney, 30,000 feet above the DRC-Rwandan border. "We are in the conflict-resolution stage. And what we can do is help the sides sharpen their definitions and reach a shared understanding of the terms of the Lusaka accords," he says, referring to the 1999 cease-fire agreement reached in the Zambian capital between the six countries and three rebel groups fighting in the DRC.

While some of the first steps have been taken to fulfill these accords,much of the hard work - including the withdrawal of foreign armies and the beginning of political dialogue among the Congolese - is still ahead.

"The UN is not an organization that goes in and breaks up wars," says British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock, as he waits for his entry visa in a Tanzanian airport VIP room. "We are here as a symbol of hope to those who want peace here, as well as a warning to those who are not complying with the peace agreements signed. We look the players in the eye and let them know that we will not hesitate to use the means at our hands, including sanctions, to raise the cost of continuing warfare."

"We have taken a decision to have more direct political impact," continues Greenstock, detailing how, besides supporting the new travel missions, the Security Council has also begun setting up special panels to study problems related to conflicts - such as the recent panel that investigated the exploitation of resources in the mineral-rich DRC by almost all sides involved - and bring their conclusions to international attention.

Nicknamed the "name and shame" panels because of their intent to identifythe perpetrators of wrongful acts, even when they are high-ranking members of government or society, these groups seem to have had some impact. Both Uganda and Rwanda - tacitly implicated in exploitation of the DRC by the recent report - have denied the allegations, but have set up their own panels to look into the findings.

"We are like lawyers. We are not shy," says Mauritius Ambassador Anun Priyay Neewoor, waiting for a broken elevator in his Zambian hotel. "We ask these leaders straight out about the reported pillaging and exploitation and tell them if they don't stop, it could lead to sanctions. They deny of course, but they know we are onto them."

Success, however, when it comes to resolving the conflict in the DRC, is measured in the tiniest of incremental steps. And so it was during the 11-day Security Council trip. Many hands were shaken, many positions were laid out, deadlines were adjusted, frameworks were discussed, future plans set and promises made. Concrete forward movement, however, was hard to find.

Mission leader French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte, for example, declared the Congo River - closed these past three years of war to all commercial traffic - officially open. However, whether the rebels will actually allow a barge to pass through is another matter. In like manner, rebel leader Jean Pierre Bemba, who until now has failed to comply with the call to withdraw troops 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from the cease fire lines - finally agreed to disengage on the first of June. Whether the disengagement will take place, however, remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, future dates were sketched out, giving peace a possible framework. On June 15, the mandate for the small UN observer force in Congo (MONUC) is expected to be extended. A month later a preparatory meeting for the Congolese dialogue is set to open, and work, said Levitte, is to start "immediately" on drafting arrangements for what is called the DDRR phase (disarmament, demobilization, reintegration and repatriation), as well as for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the DRC. "Acts must follow words, but we are confident," says Levitte.

The council was asked time and again during the course of the trip to do more - send in more UN observers, give more money, take stronger stands and make bolder moves. But the ambassadors consistently reminded the various sides that they were not there to do the heavy lifting, rather simply to assist. "An outsider can never compensate for what the parties themselves can do,"says US ambassador Cameron Hume.

Off the record, a few of the ambassadors admit that, despite the good will, and despite the possibility to threaten with sanctions, the fact that the council was neither willing nor able at this point to take a more active role on the ground limited its effectiveness.

"We should always try to push for peace, but meeting someone for an hour does not change their world view," says one ambassador.

Another says that since the council would not force the sides to move forward, the outlook is bleak: "I do not feel that the regional leaders have the strength of will it takes right now."

-------- arms sales

China Targets Poor Countries on FC-1

JUNE 01, 11:25 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=ASIA&STORYID=APIS7CBR7K00

BEIJING (AP) - China is targeting poor countries for sales of a new advanced but inexpensive fighter jet, an official newspaper said Friday.

The FC-1, developed with Pakistan, aims to replace outdated warplanes in Asia, Africa and South America, the Guangzhou Daily reported.

The FC-1, or Fighter China 1, will offer performance comparable to France's Mirage III or Russia's MiG-27, the newspaper reported. It said China's military has ordered 100 planes and Iran is considered a likely customer.

The report didn't give the price of the aircraft or say when it would be delivered. But the Web site of the Washington-based Federation of American Scientists, which monitors weapons development worldwide, said each FC-1 plane could cost $10 million to $15 million.

U.S. F-16 fighters cost about $20 million each.

China's weapons industry sells widely in developing countries, which often cannot afford weapons from the United States, Europe or Russia.

The FC-1 project began after a program to upgrade China's F-7 fighters by the United States was canceled in 1990 due to cooling relations and rising costs.

Work has been carried out by the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Company, based in Sichuan province, in cooperation with Pakistan's Aviation Integrated Company and Russia's Mikoyan Aero-Science Production Group, according to the Federation of American Scientists Web site.

The plane is powered by a Russian Klimov RD-93 engine which can take it to 1.8 times the speed of sound, the Guangzhou Daily said. It said the plane has a range of 739 miles, and can carry up to 7,920 pounds of weapons, including short- and medium-range missiles.

--

On the Net:
Web site of the Federation of American Scientists, http://www.fas.org

-------- balkans

A Dark Secret Comes to Light in Serbia

By CARLOTTA GALL, New York Times, June 1, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/01/world/01YUGO.html

KLADOVO, Serbia, May 29 - For two years, the people of this Danube River town kept the dark secret that has now led to the first move by Serbia's new democratic authorities to charge Slobodan Milosevic with war crimes.

It was April 6, 1999, and Yugoslavia was at war with NATO, which was bombing the country to stop Mr. Milosevic, who was then president of Yugoslavia, 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 on a truck submerged in the Danube. He thought it was just another traffic accident.

Nothing prepared him for the shock when they hoisted the truck ashore with a winch, and he and a police technician opened the rear doors to find dozens of bodies tumbling out 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. It was a mess of mangled bodies, clothing, mud and water."

The police took the bodies away, blew up the truck and told Mr. Djordjevic and others to keep quiet. Though word had already spread around town wartime constraints caused the subject to become taboo rapidly. Anti-NATO propaganda was at a height and a draconian information law was in force so that journalists lived in fear of their livelihoods and even their lives if they reported something deemed even remotely unpatriotic.

"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 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 people and the authorities with the most convincing evidence to date of war crimes committed in Kosovo, and of Mr. Milosevic's involvement in covering them up.

Police officials directing the investigation said last week that they were bringing 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 international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

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

Police officials and Serbia's new interior minister, Dusan Mihajlovic, told a news conference last week that in 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 called the allegations 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 now 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 tribunal 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 before an aid conference on June 29 if it wants to ensure American participation in the conference and raise its goal 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," Mr. Mihajlovic told Parliament, "but there are a lot of indications that there are more similar cases."]

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

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

He said he presumed they were from Kosovo because their injuries appeared to be from grenade explosions. "They were in pieces, destroyed. They were covered in mud and smelled very badly," he said. "They came from a battlefield," he added. When asked why he thought they came from Kosovo, he replied: "Where else do we have a war?"

Mr. Djordjevic, the diver, said the truck had no license plates but carried a sticker on the cab doors 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 nearly 20 days. Local journalists have found one person who claims to have seen someone sinking a truck into 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 escalating their offensive against Albanian villages in Kosovo. Local journalists have also said a police officer at the scene told them that some of the clothing indicated the people were Kosovars.

People in Kladovo said it was good that the case was 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 he 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

Colombia Debates New Terrorism Laws

By KEVIN GRAY Associated Press Writer, JUNE 01, 16:30 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=CSA&STORYID=APIS7CBVML80

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - Proposed anti-terrorism legislation would give Colombian security forces greater powers to detain suspects and could shield soldiers from inquiries, but drew criticism this week from human rights activists.

The legislation, which has also been criticized by two U.S. congressmen, appears to be gaining momentum after three bombings last month prompted fears of a return to urban terrorism in the South American country.

``We need to do something to gain an edge in this battle,'' said Sen. German Vargas, who introduced the bill in the Senate, where it was quickly approved. The bill, which has the government's support, is now under debate in the lower house, where hearings were held this week. No vote has been scheduled.

Troubled by surging violence, the bill's supporters say the military needs expanded powers in the fight against left-wing guerrillas, drug traffickers and right-wing paramilitary forces that dominate large swaths of the countryside.

Opponents are worried the increased powers - including giving the army authority to detain suspects without charges for up to seven days - would be yielding too much authority to Colombia's armed forces, which have been frequently criticized for human rights abuses.

Drug trafficking and a 37-year conflict pitting guerrillas against the government and paramilitaries have made Colombia one of the hemisphere's most violent nations. The bloodshed escalated last month with a spate of car bombings in Bogota, Medellin and Cali, Colombia's three largest cities, leaving 12 people dead and hundreds injured.

With peace talks faltering, many Colombians support a get-tough approach.

In addition to expanded powers to detain suspects, the version of the anti-terrorism legislation passed in the Senate would exempt soldiers from human rights violations if they are involved in operations against unspecified ``criminal organizations.''

Security forces could also press civilians into quasi-military service, and the military would have a larger role in criminal investigations of suspected guerrillas.

Proponents say advanced democracies such as England, Spain and Italy have passed tough anti-terrorism legislation without weakening civil rights.

But human rights activist Gustavo Gallon, of the Colombian Commission of Jurists, said the bill ``promotes a totalitarian state that would weaken democratic institutions, (and) generate more insecurity among Colombians ... making the possibilities for peace more remote.''

In a letter to Colombian legislators last month, two U.S. congressmen also criticized the bill. ``As we interpret it, the legislation would turn back the clock on the significant progress that Colombia has made in strengthening human rights safeguards,'' wrote Reps. Sam Farr, R-Cal., and Bill Delahunt, D-Mass.

``In the process, it could unnecessarily complicate ongoing reviews in Washington of proposals for renewed aid in Colombia,'' the congressmen added.

Washington is providing Colombia's military with hundreds of millions of dollars for an offensive to eradicate coca crops in the world's leading cocaine producing nation. The aid carries with it conditions requiring progress on human rights

-------- indonesia

Indonesian Military Warns President
In the Street, Wahid Supporters Urge Him to Dissolve Parliament, Avert Downfall

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, June 1, 2001; Page A26
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3261-2001May31?language=printer

JAKARTA, Indonesia, June 1 (Friday) -- A day after Indonesian lawmakers voted to begin proceedings to remove President Abdurrahman Wahid from office, throngs of his supporters converged on the presidential palace Thursday to urge him to dissolve parliament as a way to prevent his downfall.

But military leaders and some of Wahid's own cabinet members bluntly warned him against taking such desperate measures, fearing street violence and an erosion of Indonesia's recently installed democratic system.

The president's backers, who stormed the gates of the parliament complex on Wednesday, denounced the legislature's efforts to eject him as unconstitutional. Although many of the protesters, who hail from Wahid's home province on the eastern half of Java Island, had threatened to defend the president with force, the demonstration was peaceful.

"The parliament has evil intentions," said Kholilil Amri, a farmer from East Java who protested in front of the palace. "They are leading this nation on a path to chaos."

Wahid, a nearly blind Muslim cleric whom lawmakers have criticized as an incompetent leader, said this morning that he would not quit, adding that he would "continue to make efforts to find a compromise" with lawmakers. The president, who has said that several provinces would attempt to secede if he is removed, also warned that he would take "stern action" to maintain national unity.

Sources said he has threatened in private to declare a state of emergency, which would allow him to disband parliament, impose martial law and call snap elections.

But even if he takes such a step, political and military officials said it would be largely meaningless. Military commanders have said they would be unwilling to deploy soldiers and tanks on the streets if there is no real unrest and legislative leaders have vowed to continue with their business even if the politically isolated president tries to shut them down.

"We have told the president that issuing an emergency decree would make things worse," the military spokesman, Air Marshal Graito Usodo, said in an interview. "We strongly believe it is wrong."

After meeting military chiefs, the country's top security minister added his opposition to a state of emergency. "Issuing a decree in a situation like this is not appropriate and we hope this decision will not be taken," said the minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Wahid's advisers denied that an emergency would be declared. "I think this is something which is out of the question right now," said Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab, one of the president's confidants. "I think the priority is to try to forge and initiate a compromise."

Shihab predicted the president still might be able to strike a deal with political opponents before the country's top legislative body, the People's Consultative Assembly, meets to begin the proceedings aimed at ousting him. The assembly chairman said Thursday that he will convene the session Aug. 1.

At the session, Wahid will be asked to deliver a speech accounting for his actions in office. If the 700 members reject his defense, they can dismiss him and replace him with the country's popular vice president, Megawati Sukarnoputri.

"We still have two months," Shihab said. "A compromise can be reached within only one hour."

But political analysts and officials with the political party headed by Megawati -- which commands the largest number of seats in parliament and whose support is crucial to Wahid's survival -- dismissed prospects that Wahid would be able to reach a power-sharing arrangement with Megawati to prevent his removal. Megawati recently rejected such an offer from Wahid.

"The chances are very slim," said Subagio Anam, a senior member of Megawati's party. "The bottom line is that we don't trust him anymore."

-------- iraq

Editorial: Iraqis still suffering

An editorial June 1, 2001 Madison.com
http://captimes.com/opinion/editorial/1608.php

More than a decade after their implementation, economic sanctions by the United States and United Nations against Iraq can be said to have been a total failure. Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, whom the sanctions were intended to undermine, remains in complete charge of the country. And the Iraqi people, especially children and the elderly, continue to suffer and die as a result of the denial of basic health care and nutrition.

The United Nations is currently considering whether and how to maintain those sanctions. But as that lofty debate continues, innocent human beings continue to die at alarming rates. It is time for the United States, which from the start has been the primary proponent of the sanctions, to take the lead in ending this macabre exercise.

Major religious groups - Pax Christi (USA), Baptist Peace Fellowship, American Muslim Council, Methodist Federation for Social Action, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Episcopal Peace Fellowship, Sisters of Charity, and nine Catholic bishops - have asked President Bush to lift U.S. sanctions and support a shift in U.N. policies. They are joined by Pope John Paul II, who says, "As the embargo (on Iraq) continues to claim victims, I renew my appeal to the international community that innocent people should not be made to pay the consequences of a destructive war whose effects are still being felt by those who are weakest and most vulnerable."

Bush, who rarely fails to mention his commitment to faith-based initiatives, should heed the call of this faith-based initiative and lift the sanctions. Now.

Published: 7:05 AM 6/01/01

----

U.S. Clerics: End Iraq Sanctions

JUNE 01, 22:20 EST, By CHERYL WITTENAUER Associated Press Writer

http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=MIDEAST&STORYID=APIS7CC4QT80

NEW YORK (AP) - A group of American religious leaders called this week for an end to U.N. sanctions against Iraq and said a U.S.-British plan to amend them would do little to alleviate the Iraqi people's suffering.

A letter to President Bush signed by 10 religious groups and 30 leaders, including nine Roman Catholic bishops, said the plan falls painfully short. What's needed, and what the plan forbids, the group said, is foreign investment to address Iraq's massive unemployment, hyperinflation, widespread poverty and failing infrastructure.

The U.S.-British proposal aims to permit a greater flow of civilian goods into Iraq, while tightening an arms embargo imposed by the United Nations after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The U.N. Security Council agreed Friday to extend a humanitarian program in Iraq for 30 days, giving Washington and London more time to sell their plan to other council members.

Iraq also has criticized the proposal saying it wouldn't help the Iraqi people.

In a report to the Security Council last week, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Iraq in recent months has not used all the money available to it under the oil-for-food program - established in 1996 to allow Iraq to sell oil for humanitarian goods.

The religious leaders, who include Christians, Jews and Muslims, urged Bush to consider instead a policy of encouraging large-scale capital investment to ``rehabilitate Iraq's shattered economy.''

The U.S.-British plan ``doesn't do anything to allow Iraq to rebuild its infrastructure,'' said Thomas Gumbleton, a Catholic bishop who signed the letter. ``If you can imagine, what would Germany have been like without the Marshall Plan?''

The coalition further recommends an embargo on weapon sales to Iraq and to its neighbors to meet a U.N. goal of ``establishing in the Middle East a zone free of all weapons of mass destruction.''

Another signer, Rabbi Douglas E. Krantz, said the sanctions are ``immoral, impractical and ineffective.'' The more difficult, but moral path is constructive engagement, he said.

``When you see the faces of Iraqi children, you realize (the sanctions are) not in anybody's best interest,'' said Krantz, who has traveled to Iraq. ``How has a rise in child poverty and illiteracy made the world safer from (Iraqi leader) Saddam Hussein?''

Among the signers to the letter are the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Baptist Peace Fellowship, the American Muslim Council, the Methodist Federation for Social Action and the Episcopal Peace Fellowship.

----

Security Council Agrees on Iraq Sanctions

By Alan Sipress and Steven Mufson Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, June 1, 2001; Page A22

http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3848-2001May31?language=printer

The U.N. Security Council reached agreement yesterday on the broad outlines of a new set of sanctions on Iraq while giving itself another month to build a so-far elusive consensus on the technical details.

The council is scheduled to give final approval today to a resolution that would extend the current oil-for-food program, due to expire June 4, through early July so members can hash out their differences over a U.S.-British proposal to overhaul the Iraq sanctions.

Under that proposal, the United Nations would ease restrictions on most of Iraq's civilian imports while continuing to screen goods that could be used by President Saddam Hussein's military, in particular weapons of mass destruction.

Though the resolution marks a formal acknowledgment that the 15-member Security Council will not close a deal before the June 4 deadline, as the Bush administration had hoped, it also represents progress toward building a consensus among the five permanent members with veto power -- Russia, China, France, Britain and the United States.

The resolution was introduced by Russia, which until this week had refused to participate in negotiations over a new sanctions program and insisted until two days ago on a standard, six-month renewal of the current sanctions.

"It's really quite an achievement. It's a basic agreement on the new framework," a U.S. official said.

What remains lacking, however, is an agreement over the list of items that will continue to be restricted. The United States has sought to add a range of "dual use" goods, which have both civilian and military applications, to existing lists of banned items that have previously been accepted by the international community.

France has balked at what it sees as an overly restrictive list, while Russia had demanded more time for its experts to conduct a highly technical review. China had also objected.

"We need to do a lot of hard work still to fill in the details, and that is what we will do over the next 30 days," said U.S. ambassador to the U.N. James B. Cunningham.

An agreement over the outlines of a new program was obtained by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in talks this week with his British, French and Russian counterparts in Budapest, where they were attending a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, according to senior State Department officials.

By agreeing to a relatively short, 30-day extension, U.S. and European officials said they would maintain momentum toward a radical restructuring of the sanctions, which were imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The resolution also embodies the existing Security Council requirement that Iraq cannot be entirely free of sanctions until it is cleared by U.N. weapons inspectors. France, Russia and China had abstained when this requirement last came up for a vote in 1999, but all five permanent members indicated yesterday that they would support the new resolution.

The measure faces opposition from Iraq, which threatened yesterday not to sign any more contracts for the sale of its oil if the resolution is adopted. Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Mohammed Aldouri, however, said his country would "honor all contracts" already signed. Baghdad also has warned neighboring countries of retaliation if they complied with new U.N. controls.

----

Iraqis get little help from new sanctions plan
U.S.-British proposal fails to tackle problems

Reuters ANALYSIS By Sara El-Gammal June 1, 2001
http://www.msnbc.com/news/388707.asp?cp1=1

Ordinary Iraqis are unlikely to feel much benefit from British-American plans to overhaul the 11-year-old sanctions against Baghdad, humanitarian and aid agencies say. Cash and a robust internal economy are what civilians need to rebuild a tattered social and economic fabric, rather than the freedom to import more consumer goods, as the British-U.S. proposal under debate at the United Nations would allow.

THE WESTERN ALLIES say they are seeking to improve life for Iraqis by relinquishing control over the flow of civilian goods. But they want to strengthen control over oil revenues and limit Baghdad's ability to develop weapons of mass destruction.

"It won't improve life for the ordinary Iraqi. It will be a dole, a handout to Iraq as a whole," said an officer with a high-profile aid agency, who requested anonymity. "It will do nothing to tackle the real issue - how to stimulate the internal economy and allow civil society to come back.

"By reducing the middle classes, the intelligentsia to the point of desperation, the plans are not going to serve any internal mechanism for change."

Sanctions imposed by the United Nations in August 1990 after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait are blamed by aid agencies for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children in the past decade.

OIL-FOR-FOOD PROGRAM

An oil-for-food program was implemented nearly five years ago allowing Iraq to sell oil to buy some civilian goods, under strict U.N. controls.

The revised sanctions would allow Iraq to buy any goods other than specific disallowed dual-use and military items on a list being drawn up at the United Nations.

Oil revenues would still be channeled through a U.N. escrow account, in the same way that oil-for-food operates now. The program has been extended until early July to allow further talks at the United Nations.

"This is the 11th year of sanctions and it is clear from U.N. reports that the humanitarian program has failed to provide the essentials of life: clean water, sanitation, balanced diet, education," said Save the Children.

"When politicians discuss humanitarian impact, they emphasize the practicalities of the oil-for-food humanitarian program such as calories in the ration, supplies of medicine, price of oil - and ignore how dramatically family life, social patterns and schooling have been affected."

The Washington-based Human Rights Watch said sanctions had done little to weaken President Saddam Hussein's regime, and more consumer goods would not solve the root of the problem.

"The current sanctions plan offers a temporary solution and doesn't tackle the real issue...cash injection into the economy," said Hania Mufti of Human Rights Watch.

CASH INJECTION NEEDED

"Iraq had a sizeable middle class and a highly skilled labor force in the Middle East. We need to restore the human and physical infrastructure, and you need cash injection for that...

"The economy has to be revived to a certain extent to make it self-sufficient."

Aid workers say conditions in northern Iraq, populated by Iraqi Kurds and outside Saddam's control, are considerably better than elsewhere because the population is largely autonomous, allowing investment in the region.

"Household incomes are going up. We have better health. Mortality rates and malnutrition are non-existent," said an aid worker in the north.

Western government officials insist revamped sanctions will improve life for Iraqis.

"At the moment, everything is prohibited unless permitted by the U.N., and it is changing everything round so that everything will be permitted unless prohibited," a British Foreign Office spokesman said.

Iraq, which wants sanctions lifted altogether, has threatened to stop oil sales if the new plan interferes with the oil-for-food program.

Baghdad has managed to regain a measure of direct access to oil revenues by increased smuggling at discounted prices to its neighbors Syria, Turkey and Jordan.

It also has successfully installed an under-the-counter surcharge to buyers under the U.N. program.

----

U.S. To Allow Sale of Goods to Iraq

JUNE 01, 18:08 EST, By BARRY SCHWEID AP Diplomatic Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=MIDEAST&STORYID=APIS7CC14L00

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration removed curbs Friday on the sale of $800 million in goods to Iraq, following through on its abandonment of an 11-year campaign.

The so-called dual use items had been on hold out of concern they might help Iraq's weapons programs.

Now the items can be sold to Iraq for the benefit of the Iraqi people.

Oil-drilling machines, water pumps, welding equipment, steel-reinforced aluminum conductors, earth-moving equipment and heating and cooling systems for housing construction are among the dual-use items that have been held back for more than a decade and now can be sold to Iraq.

Unless withheld goods have a ``clear application'' to military programs, they will be available for sale to Iraq in what a senior U.S. official said was a show of good faith to other nations on the U.N. Security Council.

The United Nations extended for 30 days its oil-for-food program Friday in a humanitarian move that stops short of a joint effort by the United States and Britain simultaneously to tighten curbs on arms and weapons technology while permitting free flow of civilian goods.

Proceeds from oil sales are to be used strictly for consumer purposes.

It was a compromise that followed hard lobbying by all sides.

Here to report to Secretary of State Colin Powell, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he hoped the Security Council would come up with a plan soon.

``The council is working as a team,'' Annan told reporters.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, ``There is a lot of detail work that needs to be done, but the direction is set clearly by this (oil-for-food) resolution that was passed this morning.''

As a result, Boucher said, ``A broader range of civilian goods will be approved, and restrictions will focus more tightly on items that the Iraqi regime might find necessary to develop its military capabilities.''

Reviewing contracts that had been placed on hold, Boucher said $800 million worth would be released, on top of almost $400 million worth already approved.

The senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the United States has been applying U.N. sanctions against Iraq far more strictly than any other nation. In some cases, he said, 10 times as many items were on U.S. hold than on any other country's list.

Powell, who spearheaded the policy change within the administration, congratulated American diplomats in New York and at the State Department for shaping a resolution.

Whether the road ahead will be all that smooth remains unclear.

Historically, only Britain stood with the United States on tough sanctions. Russia, China and France, all of whom can kill by veto any council resolution, took a softer line.

The U.S. policy shift took four months to crystallize as Powell vied with the Pentagon and other sectors of the administration over items with potential application to Iraq's military.

The debate continued within the administration even as it did in the halls of the United Nations.

Powell is inclined to take a lenient view of such items as water pumps and refrigerated trucks, which theoretically could be used for military purposes but are much more likely to lessen the pain of everyday Iraqis.

``This is a good move,'' said Lee Feinstein, former deputy director of policy planning at the State Department. ``The idea is to keep our eye on the ball, which is to deny the most sensitive items to Iraq and keep controls on the way oil proceeds are used.''

A list is being compiled of items that will remain off-limits to Iraq, their value and their use. At the same time, American diplomats resisted efforts by other governments to go further in the direction of leniency.

The U.N. sanctions on weapons and consumer goods were imposed as part of a U.S.-led drive to reverse Iraq's annexation of Kuwait in 1990. Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Persian Gulf War, which liberated Kuwait but left President Saddam Hussein in power.

--

On the Net: U.S. statement on U.N. resolution: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2001/index.cfm?docid3217

U.S. Mission to the United Nations: http://www.un.int/usa/index.htm

-------- israel

Israeli president warns Arafat

By David R. Sands THE WASHINGTON TIMES, June 1, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010601-13020556.htm

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has "a few days, no more" to end the violence among his supporters or face a sharply escalated Israeli military response, Israel´s president said yesterday.

"People are fed up. Our patience is not unlimited," Moshe Katsav said in an interview with editors and reporters of The Washington Times at Blair House, the United States´ official executive guest residence.

Mr. Katsav said he conveyed his concerns to President Bush, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and other top administration officials in meetings yesterday. Mr. Bush also hosted a working dinner last night for the Israeli president, who is on his first official trip to Washington since his surprise election last summer.

Eight months of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces have intensified in recent days, despite the release last month of a report by a commission headed by former Sen. George Mitchell calling for an immediate cease-fire and steps to rebuild the shattered peace process.

Four Israeli settlers have been killed in the past three days, prompting intense political pressure on the government for a crackdown.

"It is a question of a few days, not more, for Yasser Arafat to decide" whether to halt the violence, Mr. Katsav said in the interview.

Should Israel respond militarily, the president said, it would not be by reoccupying territory now administered by the Palestinians, but by "an attack on the centers and sources of the terrorism," which he said included Mr. Arafat´s leadership group.

Mr. Katsav also said he had told Mr. Bush he was convinced that Mr. Arafat has concluded that street violence and terrorism are effective ways to achieve his political ends.

Mr. Katsav said Mr. Bush replied, "I hope you are wrong." But, the Israeli added, Mr. Bush "is not sure."

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that, at their morning meeting, Mr. Bush had "reaffirmed America´s support for Israel and . . . discussed the United States´ engagement to be a facilitator in the region."

A U.S. diplomatic team headed by Ambassador William Burns, Mr. Powell´s newly designated point man for the region, has made little progress in arranging meetings to get the two sides to discuss new security arrangements to halt the fighting.

Palestinian officials contend Israel hopes to use the truce to entrench itself in disputed territories. They point to passages in the Mitchell report that call for an eventual total freeze on Israeli settlements in occupied territory, which Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has yet to accept.

In Jerusalem yesterday, Mr. Sharon echoed Mr. Katsav´s warnings that Israel´s self-imposed cease-fire will end soon if Mr. Arafat does not move to curb the violence.

"My blood is boiling," Mr. Sharon said during a visit to the family of a Jewish settler on the West Bank killed in a roadside ambush this week. "I will have to decide when to do what I think has to be done."

Israeli press outlets reported that Mr. Sharon had phoned Mr. Powell Wednesday after a car bombing in the coastal city of Netanya to say the current situation was intolerable and could not continue much longer.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday that Mr. Powell had talked to both Mr. Sharon and Mr. Arafat by phone Wednesday evening, imploring both to stop the fighting.

Mr. Powell urged Mr. Sharon to "continue his policy of restraint and de-escalation," Mr. Boucher said yesterday.

But the Israeli prime minister is also under pressure from domestic critics to strike hard in the wake of the most recent violence.

Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a rival in Mr. Sharon´s own Likud Party, urged a direct attack on the Palestinian Authority´s infrastructure.

"We must go from reaction to decisive action," Mr. Netanyahu said. "We must make it clear to Arafat that if he continues his policy of terror, we will cause this corrupt terrorist regime to collapse and we have the power to do this."

Mr. Katsav, 56, shot to international prominence last July when he upset former prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres in a secret ballot of Israel´s parliament, the Knesset, for the largely ceremonial but high-profile president´s post.

Mr. Katsav, who was born in Iran and moved to Israel as a boy, has been seen as a symbol of the political emergence of the "second Israel" -- the wave of Sephardic Jews from Arab and Islamic countries who moved to the new Jewish state in its early years and still form the bulk of the country´s lower classes.

A Knesset member for the conservative Likud Party since 1977, Mr. Katsav denied during last year´s voting that he was running an "ethnic" campaign, but many saw his victory as a challenge to the European-oriented Ashkenazi Jews who have traditionally dominated the country´s politics.

In yesterday´s interview, Mr. Katsav said: • Israel was convinced, based on its own intelligence sources, that Mr. Arafat had the power to bring the violence to a halt, even with loosely affiliated groups, such as Hamas.

• A combined appeal from Europe and the United States for an end to Palestinian violence would force Mr. Arafat to back down.

• Ordinary Palestinians have suffered even more than Israelis from Mr. Arafat´s record of broken promises and by the violence that has claimed more than 500 lives since the collapse of the Camp David summit last summer.

The Israeli president said that, while it was "very difficult" for him to trust the Palestinian leader, he would continue to negotiate with him.

"He´s my partner. He´s popular with his people. What can I do?" Mr. Katsav asked.

"I want peace. Do I have any choice?"

•Abraham Rabinovich in Je-rusalem contributed to this report.

----

IDF sending crack units into W. Bank

By Amir Oren Ha'aretz Correspondent
http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=14&datee=6/1/01&id=120516

The IDF's presence in the West Bank will be beefed up by several special forces units in order to improve security on the roads, the general staff decided yesterday.

Some of the teams will operate undercover, lying in ambush for Palestinian attacks, while others will be high-profile, demonstrating a presence on the roads. The decision was approved by Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer.

The IDF is also preparing for a possible decision by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to launch a new offensive in the territories if the Palestinians do not respond soon to his unilateral cease-fire.

Yesterday, Sharon spoke with students at the army training college for staff officers. The speech dealt primarily with his experiences in the Six-Day War and Yom Kippur War, but he also offered a few comments on the current situation. And though he reiterated his reasons for declaring the unilateral cease-fire, many of his listeners got the impression that the cease-fire's end was near.

Senior army officers said this week that the cease-fire was merely an "operational halt" in an ongoing war - essentially a breathing space designed to let both sides regroup before the next battle. They also expressed fear that following the deaths of four settlers this week, the danger of a revenge attack by settlers had grown. The IDF, they said, has not succeeded in protecting the settlers from armed Palestinians, and this failure has led to an erosion of the restraint that characterized the settlers during the first eight months of the conflict.

The IDF is worried about increased friction with the Palestinians as a result of Faisal Husseini's funeral today.

In a report to Ben-Eliezer yesterday, the IDF noted that 18 Israelis were killed in the territories this month. Since the conflict began, only November has registered a worse toll, with 32 Israelis killed.

Since the outbreak of the Intifada on September 29, 2000, 94 Israelis (including two foreign workers from Romania) have been killed: 61 civilians and 33 soldiers. In the last two months, however, almost all the deaths have been civilian. Even the two soldiers who died were killed in drive-by shootings rather than in the course of army operations.

In addition to the deaths, 696 Israelis have been wounded since the start of the Intifada.

There is disagreement within the security services regarding the number of Palestinian deaths: The Shin Bet security service and the government coordinator in the territories say 484, while the IDF's operations directorate says 438. An estimated 8,500 to 10,000 Palestinians have been injured.

----

Sharon considers plan for 48-hour knockout punch

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM Friday, June 1, 2001
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/Archive-2001/me-israel-06-01b.html

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been presented with a plan calling for the destruction of the Palestinian Authority in two days.

"It's clear that the continuation of the terrorism and the restraint cannot continue for much longer, not more than a few days," Israeli President Moshe Katsav told state-owned Israel Radio on Friday.

The plan presented by National Infrastructure Minister Avigdor Lieberman would launch an Israeli military invasion of at least six major cities in the West Bank and another four in the Gaza Strip, Middle East Newsline reported. Israeli troops would be given at least two days to destroy Palestinian military installations, weapons factories and arresting leaders of the Palestinian insurgency.

The Israeli capture of these cities would be brief, according to the plan. The West Bank would then be divided into a series of provinces administered separately by Palestinians. Israel would then discuss with new Palestinians leaders such issues as self-rule.

"We have to go into Area A [PA territory] and destroy the entire military infrastructure," Lieberman said.

Israeli officials said the military has drawn up similar plans and they are now being reviewed by Sharon. The officials said Sharon is expected to delay any Israeli attack until after he returns from his European tour, which begins on Sunday. The prime minister is scheduled to fly to Berlin, Brussels and Paris.

Katsav was speaking in Washington where he met his U.S. counterpart, George Bush. Israeli sources said Katsav submitted to Bush a request from Sharon for an additional $800 million in U.S. military aid pledged by the previous Clinton administration.

Sharon is under increasing pressure from some of his Likud Party and right-wing ministers as well as Jewish settlers to launch an offensive against the PA. On Thursday, several Israelis were arrested during a demonstration in Jerusalem against the government's policy of restraint. "We need Winston Churchill and not Chamberlain," Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, spiritual leader of the Jewish settlement of Efrat, said.

PA officials said they are preparing for an Israeli onslaught. They said Israel has waged a psychological warfare that seeks to sow strife within the Palestinian leadership.

PA gunners fired mortars early Friday toward Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military, as part of its unilateral ceasefire, did not respond.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned PA Chairman Yasser Arafat and reiterated the U.S. demand to end the eight-month-old war against Israel.

-------- puerto rico

CITY POWER: U.S. Bombs Explode Hope in Vieques

By Johanna Bermudez, Newsday, June 1, 2001
http://www.newsday.com/coverage/current/editorial/friday/nd4342.htm

THROUGHOUT my childhood, I wondered why my family, who was originally from Vieques, was living on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. No one talked about it. It was as if there was a phantom lurking over us.

Later, as I was researching my documentary about the use of Vieques as a bombing range, I learned that the U.S. Navy had forcibly removed my father's family from their land one morning at the crack of dawn in 1941. They were totally uprooted along with thousands of other people and transplanted to St.

Croix.

After spending seven months on my project, I now understand the systematic military roles these U.S. colonies-Vieques, Puerto Rico and St. Croix-play in America's imperial rule over the world and how it's affected my destiny. St.

Croix is where Navy ships go to refuel after they bomb Vieques. St. Thomas is where sailors go to party after their practice runs.

On April 19, 1999, a Navy jet missed its target and killed a security guard working at the site. Puerto Ricans on Vieques and in New York were outraged.

That was the last straw. For 60 years, Vieques had been used as a bombing-practice zone by NATO and other countries, for the rental price of $80 million a year. The accidental killing of David Sanes Rodriguez was not the first mistake in the lives of the Viequense people, but it sparked demands to evict the U.S. Navy from Vieques. And it hit me that I had to document this struggle.

After a month of intense preparation and a one-way ticket, I arrived in a virtual war last year. The atmosphere on Vieques was tense. About 9,400 people inhabit the remaining middle of the island. The Navy, which has 75 percent of the island, is under pressure to keep the population below 10,000, because otherwise it would have to cease operations there. To give birth, pregnant women have to go to hospitals in Puerto Rico. The local people want the Navy to leave. I saw graffiti on businesses, schools and pavements that read: "U.S.

Navy out of Vieques!" By a small fishing boat, I reached the bombing zone, where protesters had struck up camp. The once lush hills were decapitated. The land was destroyed with deep craters. Bomb casings protruded from the sea like dead bodies. The beaches were contaminated with mercury and uranium, spent bullets, ruined tanks, and other metallic debris. It was totally forbidding.

Meanwhile, old people and children had been congregating in front of the gate, blocking the main entrance to the base. Between the road and the gate, protesters' tents were stretched under a blazing hot sun. Three times a day, helicopters flew over the camps taking pictures. Every day, radio stations in San Juan falsely announced that U.S. authorities were coming to arrest the protesters camping in the zone and the blockaders at the gate. Finally, a year and two weeks after the death of David Sanes Rodriguez, major American media arrived on the island to cover the arrests. After a few sleepless days, the authorities invaded the camps and arrested more than 200 people including elderly, politicians, lawyers, mothers and everyday Americans.

Two weeks later, on May 13, 2000, the Navy began bombing again. President Bill Clinton claimed that the Navy was using inert bombs. That same day I interviewed one of nine people hiding in the bombing zone who witnessed live bombs exploding 200 feet away from her. That night I joined 56 people who entered the bombing zone to protest the use of live bombs and were later arrested. One journalist was badly beaten up. I escaped with video footage of the demonstration.

There is no doubt in my mind that the U.S. Navy is executing an environmental genocide on my people, forcing them off Vieques by the lack of health care and jobs; killing their fishery, which is their livelihood; and bombing the island three times a year. Sometimes bombs fall in people's backyards. The ecology is being contaminated by bombing debris and nuclear waste reportedly held in underwater tanks between Vieques and St. Thomas. It is no shock that civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton and other Bronx political leaders have joined forces with demonstrators to stop the human rights violation of my Viequense people.

The issue is not to win the Puerto Rican votes in New York City. The issue is to get the Navy out of Vieques by any means necessary. Americans must take action-not just give lip service to the issue as does Gov. George Pataki, who is seeking a piece of the Puerto Rican pie. This is more than just politics; this is about people's future.

(Johanna Bermudez is a documentary filmmaker in Brooklyn. She won an award for her documentary, "Vieques: An Island Forging Futures," part of which will be shown next week on "Hispanic Horizons" on Channel 9.)


-------- space

Militarizing Space "to protect U.S. interests and investment"

By Noam Chomsky,
speech delivered at the Z Media Institute in Woods Hole, Massachusetts,
June 2001
http://www.isreview.org/issues/19/NoamChomsky.shtml

Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the author of numerous books on U.S. foreign policy and human rights, including Fateful Triangle, Rogue States, and The New Military Humanism.

ABOUT 20 years ago, Michael Albert at Z magazine asked me to write a book with the title Turning the Tide.1 It was about how the tide was flowing the wrong way, and at the end, to make Michael feel happy, there are a couple of upbeat paragraphs.

Actually, I didn't know at the time that there were quite a lot of very substantial popular movements developing in the South, the so-called Third World-Brazil, India, and other places-which I did learn a little about later on, sometimes with personal experience, including things like popular media and self-governing villages. But they are very substantial, very encouraging. The last couple of years there have been important linkages between movements in the South and grassroots movements up here. That's a very encouraging development. Occasionally it breaks through to such visibility that even the mainstream has to pay attention.

But you can be pretty confident that the power centers are paying very close attention. They're concerned. They're worried that there are lots and lots of people swimming against the tide, very vigorously, and it's in danger of turning. I think now it would be possible to write a much more optimistic book with that title, even including content that would fit the title.

A symbolic example, which you all know about, is the decision of the World Trade Organization to put their next meeting in so remote a location that they hope nobody will get there-namely, in Qatar. If you take a look at the serious business press, there is deep concern about popular movements. About ten years ago it began to affect at least the rhetoric, and to a certain extent even the planning, at the international financial institutions like the World Bank and lately the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and other policymaking organizations, which realize they've got to respond somehow to the growing, massive opposition.

One of the most interesting kinds of reaction is silence. Major issues, the really important issues, are simply suppressed. Because they know that if they come out in public, there's going to be tremendous opposition. The so-called Free Trade Area of the Americas is a striking example right now. So there's plenty to be encouraged about, I think.

What I want to talk about are things that if you looked at them alone would be very discouraging. But against the background of the reactions that have been growing and developing, it suggests things that can be done. I want to talk about things that range from really ominous to threatening-by that I mean potentially threatening even to the survival of the species. This is not an exaggeration. But I hope you'll keep in the back of your minds the fact that there are very encouraging developments in opposition to this, and they provide a basis for extending a groundswell which is very substantial.

Let's start with some of the most ominous. Let's start, for example, with the 1998 Rumsfeld Commission report on the ballistic missile threat to the United States, which is being presented mainly as being about national missile defense programs.

It's arousing enormous opposition around the world, and properly. But we have to be clear about what it is. Missile defenses are a small piece of it. The real issue is the militarization of space.

This is not a Bush program. It's a bipartisan program. Some of the major and most interesting planning documents related to these issues are from the Clinton period. The United States Space Command recently put out a glossy booklet. It's worth looking at. It's called Vision for 2020.2 It's a vision of the space command, of where they're going. Missile defense fits in as a small footnote.

It starts on the front page with the wording, with nice graphics, that the vision is militarization of space in order "to protect U.S. interests and investment." That requires several things. For one thing, it requires the militarization of space. It requires anti-satellite weapons to be able to destroy any communication or surveillance of any potential adversary. It requires means to protect U.S. satellites, because missile defense doesn't work unless these satellites are operative. And remember, the technical problem of shooting down a satellite is a lot simpler than shooting down a missile. A satellite is fixed, either stable or in a fixed orbit. You can predict where it's going to be. An anti-satellite weapon is kind of like a poor country's option. Attacking missiles is much harder. So it requires anti-satellite weapons, protection against anti-satellite weapons of some adversary. It requires what's called "full-spectrum dominance," where you've got to control everything because it's too dangerous. First-strike weapons from space are required. When the American EP-3 spy plane was over China in April, it was clearly trying to obtain information that would be useful for a potential first nuclear strike. And the Chinese knew that, certainly. First strike is U.S. policy, even against non-nuclear states.

It's been pointed out by critics in the mainstream, in Foreign Affairs, for example, that there's an inherent contradiction in the current plans that the strategic analysts are worried about, namely that you can't both have missile defense and anti-satellite weapons, because a missile defense system requires satellites to coordinate and control it. So if there are going to be anti-satellite weapons, they're going to destroy a missile defense system. Vision for 2020 and the Rumsfeld Commission report have an answer for that.

The answer is, as I said, full-spectrum dominance, such total dominance of space that no adversary will even come close. Nobody really seriously thinks they can achieve that. But it doesn't matter. It sets in motion a new age of warfare in which the U.S. happens to be technologically so far in the lead that no potential adversary is going to say, Fine, have a nuclear first strike if you like. They're going to proceed, and they will proceed in predictable ways, namely by developing anti-satellite weapons, to which the U.S. will have to respond with even more massive militarization.

Furthermore, it is pretty well understood that it's going to lead to proliferation. China is going to respond. Russia is going to respond. If China develops its at the moment very minimal deterrent into one that's capable of responding to this extended system, India is going to respond out of concern over China. Pakistan will react to India developments.

Israel will react to Pakistan developments. Other countries will get into the game. It will pretty clearly have the effect of proliferating weapons of mass destruction. Nobody seriously believes that any potential adversary of the U.S. is going to be nutty enough to try to send a missile. So the missile defense system isn't intended to do anything defensive.

What it's intended to be is a protection for U.S. forces on the ground or in the air. It's supposed to give room for a first strike with relative confidence that there can't be a reaction.

This is known. The Canadian military advised the government of Canada in papers that were leaked that the purpose of the missile defense is not any kind of defense. It's to create a cover for offensive military actions, including possibly a first strike. The Star Wars program, SDI, was understood in the same way. So it's basically an offensive weapon.

A lot of debate now is whether national missile defense is technically possible. Is it going to work? That's kind of missing the point. If it looks like it's not going to work, then it's not a big problem. If there's any hint that it might work, potential adversaries have to take that seriously. When you're talking about weapons of total destruction-the likelihood and confidence of total destruction-minimal probability has to be assumed to be reality. You can't take chances.

The Space Command isn't really concerned about the danger that we might blow up the world. That's a small problem. What they're interested in is something different. They're interested in providing a basis for U.S. military action, including first strike if needed. But more important, they're protecting U.S.-based investments and commercial interests. And they give an analogy. They say that the militarization of space is very much like the development of navies. The British navy ruled the seas in order to protect British investments and commercial interests. And then, of course, other navies responded, like the German navy. You go on and get into the First World War.

They also compare the militarization of space to the U.S. army in the nineteenth century. As they put it, the U.S. army in the nineteenth century had the responsibility for protecting the U.S. wagon trains and settlements. That's a way of looking at it. To translate that into reality, they had the responsibility for massive ethnic cleansing and conquering half of Mexico and going on to the Caribbean and the Philippines, and then defending what was there, "defending" what they had established.

Once you carry out the ethnic cleansing and wipe out the population, you still need to protect it from others who might still resist. So you needed the army. And it was indeed in that sense that they were protecting investments and commercial interests. They point out that space is just the next frontier.

There are other things they could have pointed out but didn't, but they're worth thinking about. Armies and navies had other functions. For example, they provided the basis for the developing industrial economy. The U.S. army, for example, in the nineteenth century developed the basis for what became the mass production system. That was much too expensive and complicated for individual entrepreneurs to put money into, so what became the American system of mass production, which amazed the world when it finally started to be used commercially, was preceded by about 40 years of work in army ordnance. That meant creating the technique of using interchangeable parts, mass production, and so on. It was developed in the Springfield armory and places like that for weapons production.

It's been pointed out that the technical problems of militarizing space, which are the cutting edge of technology and industrial development today, are in a way rather similar to naval armament about a century ago. That was the basis for development of what became the automobile industry and others. That's where the experience and the technology were developed.

The first billion-dollar corporation in the U.S. was Andrew Carnegie's U.S. Steel Corporation. Carnegie was a well-known pacifist, but he made his money, a lot of it, by producing steel for battleships. It was very profitable, and it laid the basis for the steel industry and later other industries, including the automotive industry, which totally changed U.S. industrial development and, in fact, social and economic life.

To innovate and carry out development in the military system is essentially cost-free. They don't have to worry about profits because the public's paying for it. And there's the cover story: defense.

After the Second World War, investment exploded. What's called the modern new economy is based very heavily on that. Computers, electronics generally, automation, containerization, aircraft, the Internet, and telecommunications all grow out of extensive public spending under the cover of military industry, which then gets handed over to private pockets.

That's a long pattern. So, it's quite correct to think of militarization of space as serving the kinds of functions that navies, and to some extent armies, served a century ago: for protecting commercial interests and investment, for serving as a cover for socialization of the next phase of technological development, and for providing the means for a first strike if necessary or the use of force without concern for deterrence.

Europe has been critical of the national missile defense, which everybody understands to be just a piece of the militarization of space. On the other hand, it's beginning to shift. Chancellor Schröder of Germany recently pointed out that the European Union had better get involved in these programs. If not, they'll be left behind in technological development for the next phase of economic progress. They want to make sure they won't be left out of this aspect of it. They're concerned about the dangers, which are quite real. Militarization of space could lead to blowing up the world. But it's not all that important. Other things are far more significant to them.

The danger of real total destruction has been around since the weapons of mass destruction took off in the Second World War. But it's interesting to see the reaction to it. The U.S. has a position of security that's beyond any historical parallel. It controls the whole hemisphere, both oceans, the opposite sides of both oceans. Nobody's ever done that. The U.S. hasn't even been under a threat since the War of 1812. Its position of power is enormous, and after the Second World War was phenomenal. However, there was one potential threat, namely intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. That could have posed a threat to U.S. security.

By now there are pretty good histories of the whole arms race since the Second World War. A number of major commentators, like McGeorge Bundy, who did a major history of this, have pointed out that they cannot find any evidence that anybody ever cared, that is, there was no effort around the early 1950s to try to prevent ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] development by some treaty arrangement or other negotiations, which probably could have been done. The U.S. was very far ahead. The Russians were very far behind. And they were, in fact, trying to press for some kind of disarmament, not because they're nice guys, but because they knew how far behind they were and how dangerous it was. So it's quite possible that ICBM development could have been prevented by treaty. There was never any move to try to do so. It just wasn't of any concern.

After Stalin's death, when Khrushchev took over after a little space in the mid-1950s, he began to make significant efforts toward reducing the level of military confrontation. There were reports about this at the time. We know now that it was actually happening and that the U.S. knew about it and was rejecting it. The Eisenhower administration refused to respond to Khrushchev's offers of reduction of offensive military forces, including jet planes, troops, and so on. The Kennedy administration just killed it.

By that time, the Russians had in fact significantly disarmed. Khrushchev had reduced offensive air forces by around 30 percent. They had almost no missiles. They were very far from developing them. We have enough internal documentation to know that the Eisenhower administration and later the Kennedy administration were perfectly aware of this but chose instead to escalate the arms race, posing a very significant threat to the U.S. and in fact to the world. The reason is, there were just more important considerations, like ensuring domination of much of the world, protecting U.S. investments and commercial interests, and providing an enormous shot in the arm to the economy under the cover of military production. When MIRVs [multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles] came along about a decade later, the story was the same.

Could it be stopped now? Could we stop the militarization of space? It certainly looks like we could. The reason is that the U.S. is alone, literally alone, in pressing for it. The entire world is opposed, because they're scared, mainly. The U.S. is way ahead. If other countries are not willing to even dream of full-spectrum dominance and world control, they're way too far behind; they will react, undoubtedly. But they'd like to cut it off. And there are several treaties, which are in fact already in place, that are supported literally by the entire world and that the U.S. is trying to overturn. One is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which bans placing weapons in outer space. Everyone signed it, including the United States. Nobody has tried to put weapons in outer space. It has been observed and would be easily detected if anyone broke it.

In 1999, the treaty came up at the UN General Assembly, and the vote was around 163 to 0 with 2 abstentions, the U.S. and Israel, which votes automatically with the U.S. In 2000, last November, it came up again, and the vote was around 160 to 0 with 3 abstentions. For some reason, Micronesia voted with the U.S.

Since January, there have been ongoing meetings of the UN disarmament commissions trying to press for reaffirmation of the principle of no militarization of space, and the U.S. is blocking it, alone. Not because other countries are nice guys. It's just that's the way the balance of power is. They know better than to try to get into this game.

This treaty is rarely mentioned, for some reason. The other one which is mentioned is the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, which the Bush administration is committed to dismantling. Remember that that treaty bars anti-satellite weapons, a crucial part of it. It bars any interference with satellites. That's something they want to get rid of, because they want to be able to destroy satellites, communication, and surveillance by anybody else. The rest of the world is supporting the ABM Treaty, hoping to prevent the development of anti-satellite weapons.

So there are already at least two major treaties to which there is almost, at least on paper, total adherence and which have been observed for a long time that the U.S. is attempting to dismantle. This is proceeding full speed ahead, and it's bipartisan. The Bush administration is expanding Clinton's programs, but not fundamentally changing them.

In addition to this, it's well recognized, and again, you can read this all over the mainstream, that probably the major threat to anybody's security right now is the collapsing Soviet economy. Since the West took over the Soviet Union, ten years ago, the Russian economy has totally collapsed. It's a huge demographic catastrophe. Millions of people have died. There's enormous poverty. The place is falling apart. But the Soviet Union is not a typical Third World country. It happens to have had a very advanced military system. It's supposed to have about 40,000 nuclear weapons. Its command and control systems are deteriorating, as is everything else in the country. Furthermore, there are a lot of highly trained nuclear scientists who have nothing to do except drive taxicabs. There's a very high likelihood that these weapons will get out somewhere else or that they'll just go off. The control systems are not functioning.

The Clinton administration actually urged the Russians to shift to a launch-on-warning strategy, meaning an automated system of shooting off nuclear weapons without nuclear intervention. That's what the U.S. has. The reason was to try to convince the Russians to accept the U.S. missile defense militarization of space programs. The idea was, Look, if they shift to launch-on-warning, they'll feel safer. So they won't worry so much about our militarization of space.

This is total madness from the point of view of survival. To try to get a country to try to shift to automated launching of missiles when you know its command and control systems are deteriorating is asking for an accidental nuclear war. Some accident will take place, the systems will malfunction, and there'll be no human intervention, and the missiles will go off. Then of course it's finished, because the U.S. will respond.

A bipartisan congressional panel recently recommended that the U.S. spend billions of dollars to try to assist the Russians in dismantling their nuclear weapons system and also to provide opportunities for nuclear scientists in Russia to move to some less destructive field. The Clinton administration did have a small $800 million program to try to do that. The Bush administration has cut it back. It doesn't take a genius to realize that this is extremely dangerous. But it just doesn't matter. The question of whether you'll survive in another 10 or 20 years just doesn't arise, as it hasn't in the past.

There's one other part of the Vision for 2020 that is worth paying attention to. In looking to the future, they say they expect what's called globalization to continue. This, they say, will lead to a sharper divide between the haves and the have-nots, and therefore it will lead to potential efforts to harm U.S. interests. In other words, we have to control the have-nots who want to do something about the fact that they're have-nots. That's not their own conception. That's standard. The U.S. intelligence community, including the CIA and the National Intelligence Council, just put out a study of projections for the next 15 years, to the year 2015, called Global Trends 2015, with the collaboration of academic specialists and people from the business community.3 They gave various possible scenarios. They say the most optimistic scenario is that globalization will proceed on course, but its evolution will be rocky, leading to "chronic financial volatility and a widening economic divide."

That's the most optimistic scenario.

Increased financial volatility means slower growth. In fact, the so-called globalization period, the last 20 or 25 years, has seen a pretty notable deterioration in virtually all standard measures: rate of growth, rate of productivity growth, rate of capital investment, and so on. They've all declined. That's true in the U.S. and in other countries. But they're predicting more of it, so the most optimistic scenario is still slower growth because of financial volatility and greater inequality, what the Space Command calls a growing gap between the haves and the have-nots.

It shows you what the conception of globalization is: Officials expect globalization to expand and inequality to increase. That means globalization in the technical sense, integration of markets, will decline. Globalization in the preferred sense-meaning investor rights, basically-will increase. That's in fact what's been happening. Inequality has been growing very rapidly, while economic growth has also slowed during the so-called globalization period, the last 20 years or so.

If that takes place, the Space Command's projection is plausible. There will be more threats to U.S. interests in other countries, the have-nots. The intelligence community projection for the Western Hemisphere is that the oil producers ought to do pretty well-Venezuela, Brazil, and Mexico-but that the rest of the hemisphere is going to be in bad trouble, and the Andean region may be a total disaster, which means more and more threats to U.S. interests, meaning threats to U.S. investments and commercial interests in countries that are collapsing. So you need more militarization. In fact, the number of U.S. forces in Latin America has increased substantially.

These are the most optimistic projections. They make some sense. You can understand them. It gives you a picture of what's planned for the world.

There's nothing irreversible about this. There is strong opposition around the world. But it's going to take a fair amount of popular mobilization in the U.S. to reverse these directions.

This article is adapted from a speech delivered at the Z Media Institute in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in June 2001.

1 Noam Chomsky, Turning the Tide: U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace (Boston: South End Press, 1985).

2 Vision for 2020 is available online at www.spacecom.af.mil/usspace/visbook.pdf.

3 Global Trends 2015 is available online at www.cia.gov/cia/publications/globaltrends2015.

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

Bush to seek 6.1 billion for the military now, more later

Friday June 1, 5:30 AM (AFP)
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010531/1/qqch.html

President George W. Bush will ask Congress for 6.1 billion dollars to cover shortfalls in the current defense budget but is expected to seek a larger increase in next year's budget for missile defense and military modernization, US officials said Thursday.

A senior Pentagon official said the supplement to the 2001 budget will cover only urgent needs like paying for skyrocketing health care costs, unfunded flying time for aviators and the recovery of the Japanese fishinging vessel Ehime Maru.

But the administration will start setting new directions for the US military later this summer when it presents an amendment to the proposed 310.5 billion dollar 2002 budget now before Congress, said Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon's top financial officer.

That budget, he said, "is the first real opportunity for this administration to show that it is putting real dollars next to its principles."

He would not say how much money the Pentagon wants to add to the 2002 budget proposal but said it would be larger than the supplemental.

The current funding for missile defense -- 3.8 billion dollars this year -- is "seriously inadequate," he said.

"If you look at what the president has said about it, what the secretary has said about it, obviously you are going to have to put more money into this program," he said. "If you're serious about them, you're going to have to put up considerably more money."

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer put the total for the 2001 defense supplemental request at 6.1 billion dollars, much less than the eight to 10 billion dollars the US service chiefs had said they would need.

The smaller-than-expected supplemental raised eyebrows because Bush had made the supposedly neglected state of the US military a campaign issue and promised that "help is on the way."

Zakheim, however, said the relatively modest supplemental request was "not meant to be a pathbreaker."

The 2002 budget proposal "is the one that starts to point in the directions in which we wish to go, and will do so in a very unequivocal way," he said.

The 2003 budget proposal, which is supposed to be ready by the end of the year, "obviously will reflect in a full blown form what we are trying to accomplish with respect to national security and defense," he said.

----

CHEMICAL EXPOSURE CALLED UNLIKELY CAUSE FOR MARINES' BLISTERS

WASHINGTON, DC, June 1, 2001 (ENS)
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-01-09.html

The Department of Defense (DoD) said Thursday that symptoms in Gulf War veterans were probably not caused by exposure to chemical warfare agents.

The DoD released the results of its latest investigation of events during the Gulf War. The case narrative, "Reported Chemical Warfare Agent Exposure in the 2d Reconnaissance Battalion," focuses on a group of Marines who reported experiencing injuries that appeared symptomatic of chemical warfare agent exposure.

Investigators from the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, Medical Readiness and Military Deployments concluded the Marines involved were unlikely to have been exposed to chemical warfare agents. This assessment is based on interviews of the Marines who sought treatment and the medical personnel who treated them and the opinion from a medical expert who specializes in identifying chemical warfare casualties.

Armed Forces personnel who served in the Gulf War in 1990 and 1991 have been complaining of health problems ever since. Gulf War veterans have died, been paralyzed, had children with birth defects, have emitted semen which burns their wives, and have been disabled with nausea and chronic fatigue.

Some Gulf war veterans suspect that exposure to chemical or biological warfare agents may have led to these debilitating conditions.

Between February 4 and 14, 1991, six marines from 2d Reconnaissance Battalion, Company B, reported developing blisters, bumps or sores on their hands, ears and necks. Due to the expectation of Iraq using chemical and biological warfare munitions, the company commander instructed the Marines to seek medical attention.

Medical personnel who treated the Marines in the field could not diagnose probable causes for these blisters. Some speculated that the blisters might have resulted from a possible exposure to a blister agent or a leishmaniasis infection, but these were discounted because no other symptoms of these conditions were present.

Although medical personnel could not make a definitive diagnosis, the Army says the symptoms were neither severe nor debilitating and the Marines were declared fit for duty and returned to their unit. The blisters healed within a few weeks, and the Marines participated in ground war operations without further symptoms.

This is an interim report. Veterans who may have additional information and want to share that information, should call the special assistant's office at 800-497-6261. More information is available at: http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/2d_recon

----

Strategies clouded by excess policy reviews

William Taylor, June 1, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20010601-868561.htm

There is great uncertainty both at home and abroad about America´s foreign policy strategy and our foreign relations have become tenuous with "strategic competitors," friends and allies alike.

Major cases in point are the burgeoning Arab- Israeli conflict that could easily result in a major war and the worsening situation on the Korean Peninsula.

What´s the problem? If the Bush administration has a strategy for pursuing U.S. interests in either case, it has not told anyone what it is via policy statements. In fact, when asked, administration spokesmen reply "Under review." Indeed, there are so many major policy review studies under way in the State Department, Defense Department and other executive agencies that a sort of "operational paralysis" appears to have taken hold in policy execution as we study foreign policy to death. One is reminded of Nero fiddling while Rome burns. The situation is dangerous.

The basic military strategy of the United States since the last Quadrennial Defense Review of 1997 has been to maintain a capability to fight two nearly simultaneous "major regional contingencies" (read wars), for example, in the Middle East and on the Korean Peninsula. Few military analysts believe we have that capability, given years of cuts in defense spending, force downsizing and expansion of military humanitarian missions worldwide.

As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton, stated at a press conference last December, "Our forces are frayed." The irony is that we just may have to face a two-war situation if the Bush administration does not act now in regard to the situations in the Middle East and on the Korean Peninsula.

Hesitant to emulate the failure of the Clinton administration´s Israeli-Palestinian peace initiatives, the Bush administration nevertheless must get directly involved now at the highest levels with all major actors in the Middle East region to head off another major Arab-Israeli war. Despite our present disenchantment with the U.N., this effort needs to be made in the Security Council, in bilateral or multilateral agreements or even in unilateral U.S. declarations. There should be no higher priority for Secretary of State Colin Powell. Why? What´s at stake? The survival of Israel, countless fatalities among Arabs and U.N. peacekeepers, the free flow of energy supplies at reasonable prices, and the future U.S. role in the entire region.

The basic defense posture of Israel has long been the capability to defeat any likely combination of Arab states arrayed against it. Israel has proven that capability in conventional wars in 1967 and 1973. However, the "likely combination" has grown. We should not want to put the combination to a test in conventional ground combat because Israel possesses a formidable arsenal of deliverable nuclear weapons. America simply could not afford to stand back and let another Arab-Israeli war play itself out.

The situation on the Korean Peninsula is also vexing. Despite recent encouraging statements from the Bush administration to the effect that we support South Korea´s "Sunshine Policy" of engagement with North Korea, and plan to get back into dialogue with the North "when our policy review is finished," the Bush administration already has set back relations with both North and South Korea over the past several months and caused near paralysis in a widely heralded movement toward North-South peaceful coexistence.

The one major foreign policy strategy that the Clinton administration got right was our approach toward the two Koreas. Following the "nuclear crisis" with North Korea in spring/summer 1994, we negotiated the nuclear Agreed Framework under which Pyongyang consented to shut down its nuclear facilities capable of producing weapons-grade nuclear material in exchange for a U.S. pledge to lead an international consortium to construct two light-water reactors in the North and to provide annually 500,000 metric tons of heavy oil until the reactors are completed. Seven years later, North Korea´s nuclear facilities capable of producing weapons-grade material remain shut down and inspections have revealed no new facilities.

Unfortunately, Pyongyang continued to move on other threatening fronts by testing and selling to the likes of Iran and Syria long-range missiles and related technology. The greatest threat emerged when North Korea tested a Taepo-dong missile that flew over Japan in August 1998, a missile which, if further tested, would be able to reach all 50 continental United States within five years according to the Rumsfeld Commission. Subsequently, the Clinton administration got Pyongyang´s agreement to enter missile negotiations and to declare a moratorium on missile tests while negotiations continue. North Korea has not tested long-range missiles for the past 21/2 years.

In the meantime, newly elected South Korean President Kim Dae-jung announced in February 1998 his new "Sunshine Policy" toward North Korea reaffirming the necessity of maintaining a strong defense against the North´s formidable military capabilities, while launching separate political and economic initiatives whose objective is "peaceful coexistence" between the Koreas. The Clinton administration wisely embraced the Sunshine Policy with its own policy of "constructive engagement." Pyongyang came a long way in warming up to the rays of sunshine from Seoul supported by Washington and Tokyo as evidenced by an historic North-South summit and rapid movement in high-level government, military and social exchanges and agreements that equated to "rapprochement."

So what´s the problem? Almost all progress stopped shortly after President Bush announced at the March summit with President Kim Dae-jung that he does not trust the North Koreans and would stop missile talks with them. Pyongyang has reacted by stalling progress in North-South relations and resorting to its traditional inflammatory rhetoric. That is dangerous. Why? The Sunshine policy and constructive engagement had bought us a relaxation of tensions along the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone. Historically, wars often have started by accident or miscalculation at times of high tension. Those who now wish to push Pyongyang harder and faster toward greater reciprocity, i.e. "get tough," invite a return of tensions. A war would be won quickly by the U.S.-South Korean Combined Forces Command, but it would be a "Pyrrhic" victory.

Hundreds of thousands of American military and civilian personnel and our allies in South Korea and Japan would become casualties in the first few days under a heavy rain of short- and long-range surface-to-surface missiles, long-range artillery and multiple rocket launchers armed with chemical, biological and high-explosive warheads. The CIA estimates North Korea may have one or two nuclear weapons.

We are not prepared in the short term to fight two nearly simultaneous wars. The only safe and sane alternative on the Korean Peninsula as well as in the Middle East is a quick return to intense and sustained high-level diplomacy. We do not have time in these two regions to wait for the final results of long-term policy reviews.

William Taylor, a retired Army colonel and former professor at West Point and the National War College, is a distinguished alumnus of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an adjunct professor with the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.

----

Dredging Pearl Harbor

Inside the Beltway, June 1, 2001, by John McCaslin
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010601-9814176.htm

Exactly two years ago, Sen. John W. Warner, Virginia Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, joined the debate on whether to posthumously promote Army Maj. Gen. Walter Short and Navy Rear Adm. Husband Kimmel, both commanders of Pearl Harbor at the time of the Japanese attack.

A series of official inquiries between 1941 to 1946 blamed both officers for lack of readiness, and though neither was ever officially charged with wrongdoing, both were relieved of their commands and ultimately retired at the lower ranks of major general and rear admiral.

The question now is whether government and military leaders were too quick to render judgment. Were the two officers made scapegoats? Were there failures at higher levels of the chain of command in Washington?

Mr. Warner told colleagues: "There´s no new evidence. . . . Why should we now at this late date in history make a different finding?"

Well, contemporary researchers who accepted Mr. Warner´s challenge now answer his question. Not only has new evidence surrounding the attack on Pearl Harbor been uncovered, but historian and author Daryl S. Borgquist, a Justice Department official in Washington, believes the U.S. Navy and others are keeping crucial documents "under wraps."

Inside the Beltway has learned that, in a lengthy paper being presented today at a World War II conference at New York´s Siena College, Mr. Borgquist will offer new findings about Pearl Harbor. He´ll say the verdict on Pearl Harbor was reached too soon (upon conclusion of the 1940s investigations), well before crucial documents were declassified and other materials uncovered.

Of note, Mr. Borgquist draws attention to a "major historical error" based on the typed text of the first draft of President Franklin D. Roosevelt´s "Day of Infamy" speech.

Mr. Borgquist says the text was drafted by a State Department team led by former Assistant Secretary of State Adolph Berle between 8:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. -- after the first 13 parts of the 14-part Japanese reply to the American ultimatum had been intercepted, decoded, and delivered on Saturday night, Dec. 6, 1941.

The attack came on Dec. 7.

That supports Mr. Borgquist´s earlier argument, published in 1999 by Naval History Magazine, that the attack on Pearl Harbor was no surprise at all. He wrote that Helen E. Hamman, the daughter of Don C. Smith, who directed the War Service for the Red Cross before World War II, wrote a letter to President Clinton revealing a conversation she had with her dad:

"Shortly before the attack in 1941, President Roosevelt called him to the White House for a meeting concerning a top-secret matter. At this meeting, the president advised my father that his intelligence staff had informed him of a pending attack on Pearl Harbor, by the Japanese.

"He anticipated many casualties and much loss; he instructed my father to send workers and supplies to a holding area. When he protested to the president, President Roosevelt told him that the American people would never agree to enter the war in Europe unless they were attack[ed] within their own borders. . . . "He followed the orders of his president and spent many years contemplating this action, which he considered ethically and morally wrong."

We´ll wait and see if the Bush White House talks to Mr. Borgquist and fellow Pearl Harbor presenters at today´s conference before making the decision on whether to elevate Gen. Short and Adm. Kimmel, as their families have requested and Congress proposed in the fiscal year 2001 defense authorization bill.

----

Inside the Ring: Hamel on hold

June 1, 2001, by Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010601-21312290.htm

Notes from the Pentagon.

Sen. Robert C. Smith, New Hampshire Republican, is holding up the promotion of Air Force Brig. Gen. Michael Hamel, the service´s chief space planner. Mr. Smith is looking into charges by Bush administration critics, who say Gen. Hamel helped scuttle key defense-related space initiatives when he was a military aide to Vice President Al Gore. The charges first appeared in this space two weeks ago. Mr. Smith has placed a formal Senate "hold" on Gen. Hamel´s nomination to two-star rank.

The senator also is investigating Gen. Hamel´s role in using his Air Force office to fund a project by George Washington University professor John M. Logsdon, an opponent of using space for military power.

The Air Force brass is closing ranks in an effort to push Gen. Hamel´s promotion through, claiming the general is being unfairly targeted. Gen. Michael Ryan, the Air Force chief of staff, is said to be lobbying hard for Gen. Hamel´s promotion. "Anyone who believes Gen. Hamel is somehow politically tainted as a result of his tour as a military adviser to Vice President Gore is terribly mistaken," Gen. Ryan told us through a spokesman.

Steve Cambone, a key aide to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, also is looking into the matter, we are told.

-------- OTHER


-------- environment

French minister proposes EU - wide "eco-tax"

FRANCE: June 1, 2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11038

PARIS - French Finance Minister Laurent Fabius has proposed a European Union-wide tax on energy use aimed at reducing household and industrial pollution.

"At the European level, the implementation of an eco-tax, probably linked to an emissions trading system, can limit household and industrial pollution," he wrote in an article for Friday's Le Monde newspaper.

He gave no further details of what has often been a controversial measure in individual EU countries that have launched such a scheme.

The centre-left government in neighbouring Germany two years ago launched a system of levies on polluting fuels, including petrol, which has raised billions of euros of revenues and appears to have had some effect in checking energy use.

Critics of the scheme say it puts German business at a disadvantage and have insisted such taxes would only make sense if applied across the EU.

Fabius said environment policy was one area where Europe would benefit from a coordinated approach and suggested eco-taxes could be the "first step in the approach of a future European environment authority."

REUTERS

----

Judge dismisses Indians suits against Texaco

USA: June 1, 2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11029

NEW YORK - A federal judge this week dismissed lawsuits against Texaco brought by rainforest Indians of Ecuador and Peru who alleged the oil company contaminated their water and land.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said that the cases should be brought in Ecuador instead of the United States. Texaco, which has denied allegations in the suits, sought to have the cases dismissed on grounds they should be tried in courts where the plaintiffs are located.

"The record establishes overwhelmingly that these cases have everything to do with Ecuador and nothing to do with the United States," Rakoff said.

The litigation stems from two suits filed in 1993 and 1994 by residents of the Oriente region of Ecuador and residents of Peru who live downstream from Ecuador's Oriente region. The plaintiffs alleged that a Texaco subsidiary dumped an estimated 30 billion gallons of toxic waste into their environment while extracting oil from the Ecuadorean Amazon between 1964 and 1992.

The plaintiffs alleged that instead of pumping the substances back into emptied wells, Texaco dumped them in local rivers, directly into landfills or spread them on the local dirt roads.

They also alleged that the Ecuadorean Pipeline, constructed by Texaco, leaked large amounts of petroleum into the environment. The Indians alleged that they and their families suffered various injuries, including poisoning and development of precancerous growths.

The district court had originally dismissed the suits in 1996 and 1997 on grounds that New York was not the proper place for the litigation and that Ecuador would be a more convenient location.

However, in 1998, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling and sent it back to the trial court for reconsideration. Texaco is headquartered in White Plains, New York, which is within the Second Circuit's venue.

Last year Rakoff had given the litigation new life in Manhattan federal court saying that while he had tentatively been leaning toward dismissing the suits so they could proceed in a foreign court, he said he would consider arguments about whether an Ecuadorean court could be impartial after a military coup in which President Jamil Mahuad was deposed.

Rakoff had said that Mahuad had appeared to be taking significant steps toward improving the independence of the judiciary. He said that while Mahuad was eventually replaced by the elected vice-president, Gustavo Noboa, the events of the coup were reported as evidence of a resurgent military involvement in civilian affairs.

However, in his ruling Rakoff said he was now satisfied that the courts of Ecuador can exercise "that modicum of independence and impartiality necessary to an adequate alternative forum."

REUTERS

-------- health

Swift Rise Seen in H.I.V. Cases for Gay Blacks

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN, New York Times June 1, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/01/health/01IMMU.html

Young gay black men in six cities are becoming infected with the AIDS virus at the rate of almost 15 percent a year, according to a new study by federal researchers, who found the rate "alarming" and called for expanded prevention efforts.

The same researchers reported in February that H.I.V., the AIDS virus, infects 30 percent of young, gay black men.

The new research, released yesterday, relies on a newer blood test to identify people who have been infected only recently. The researchers found that in the six cities, black gay men ages 23 to 29 had a 14.7 percent annual rate of new infection compared with 2.5 percent among white gay men and 3.5 percent among Hispanic gay men of the same age. For the age group overall, the new infection rate was 4.4 percent.

The findings mean that for every 100 young black gay men who were not infected at the beginning of the year, nearly 15 would be infected by the end of the year.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted the study from 1998 through 2000 in six cities: Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Seattle. While health officials cautioned that rates of new infections might not necessarily hold true elsewhere, they said the rates nevertheless painted an alarming picture of the spread of a potentially lethal disease.

At a news conference, Dr. Helene D. Gayle, who directs the H.I.V. program at the Centers for Disease Control, and Dr. Linda Valleroy, who led the study, described the situation using similar terms, saying the "explosive H.I.V. incidence rates" were "alarming" and "of critical public health importance."

The findings were reported in the agency's weekly report. They add to a number of reports of increasing rates of sexually transmitted diseases, which increase the risk of becoming H.I.V.-infected, among gay men.

The new findings do not necessarily suggest that the proportion of men infected will continue to rise by almost 15 percentage points year after year. Many of the uninfected are using prevention measures. But the results do suggest, the researchers said, that without vigorous public health efforts, the prevalence of infection is likely to rise.

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.

The preliminary information on the incidence, or number of new infections each year, comes from a different analysis of the results of the study reported in February, which also involved men in San Francisco.

To measure incidence, epidemiologists tested 2,942 volunteers, chosen at random in 194 urban neighborhoods, at dance clubs, bars and other public venues frequented by by young gay men. (Prisoners were not included in the study.) The participants answered questions related to their sexual history and drug use and were counseled about H.I.V.

Because the sample was small, it is possible that actual rates of new infection among young gay men in the study might be lower or higher than the 14.7 percent figure for young, gay black men. The researchers said the range of possible rates of new infection was from 7.9 percent to 27.1 percent for the black group.

Also, the study involved men who went to gay bars and similar venues, whose sexual practices and drug use may not mirror those of other gay men. On the other hand, the reluctance of many gay black men to acknowledge their homosexuality means their rate of H.I.V. infection would not have been detected.

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."

In any event, the health officials said, even the lowest incidence figure - 7.9 percent - suggested a resurgence of H.I.V. among young gay men.

"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.

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."

The Centers for Disease Control released the findings on the 20th anniversary of the federal agency's first report on a mysterious ailment that would eventually become known as AIDS. Since then, more than one 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 additional 36 million people.

"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."

The gay men in the study were small children in the 1980's 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, in part because young gay men have not seen many friends die of AIDS and may not take prevention as seriously as older gays.

"A new generation of young men is at great risk of H.I.V. and in need of the education and support of community leaders at all levels," said Dr. Mark Loveless, chairman of the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors in Washington, D.C., and AIDS director in Oregon.

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, the Centers for Disease Control announced a new strategy that aims in part to encourage people at high risk to get an H.I.V. test and form a profile of those who are newly infected. The agency intends to use the information to tailor prevention and treatment efforts to the needs of infected gay men as part of the $400 million this year 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.

A chief goal of the strategy is to reduce by half the number of newly infected people in five years. Even then, 20,000 new infections will occur each year.

The new blood test will be used to get a better handle on areas of high incidence so health officials can garner the resources needed for testing and prevention efforts in communities across the country.

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

Taliban Diplomat Defends Decrees on Hindus, Women

By Pamela Constable Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, June 1, 2001; Page A27

http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3228-2001May31?language=printer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 31 -- A diplomat from Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement today defended its controversial orders requiring Afghan Hindus to carry badges identifying themselves as non-Muslims when they are in public and banning Afghan women from working in a U.N. aid program.

Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the Afghan Embassy here, denied recent reports that the Taliban had ordered Hindus to wear pieces of yellow cloth or identifying emblems. He said they would be asked only to carry identification cards to protect them from being bothered by the Taliban's religious police.

"The Hindus asked us to do this," he said, explaining that Afghan Hindus are often stopped by the religious police and asked why they are not wearing beards or attending mosque, as required of Muslims by the Taliban's strict Islamic code. "They asked us to give them some identification so the police will not question them. They don't have to wear it outside; it can be hidden."

The Taliban order, issued last week, aroused international condemnation from human rights groups and governments that compared it to the Nazis' treatment of Jews in Europe a half-century ago. Shaheen and other Taliban officials said this week that officials in Afghanistan knew nothing about how the Nazis required Jews to wear yellow Stars of David and that they had no intent to discriminate against religious minorities.

"People link this to the Star of David in order to give a bad image to the Taliban, but those who took this decision did not know about the Star of David and the Jews," Shaheen said. "There is no hostility to Hindus. We are all Afghans and we all must obey the same Islamic rules. If a Muslim robs a Hindu, he will have his hand cut off. If he kills a Hindu, he will be executed. The same laws apply to both."

The Taliban is a religious movement headed by conservative Islamic clerics, most of whom have little formal or secular education and little contact with the outside world. Their primary goal is to create a pure Islamic society, and they generally ignore foreign condemnation of their actions, such as the destruction of two historic carvings of Buddha in March.

Rahimullah Yusufzai, a Pakistani journalist who is an expert on the Taliban, wrote this week in the News International newspaper that its leaders are "naive and inexperienced" and that they had not known the details of Nazi discrimination. He also wrote that the Taliban had ordered religious minorities in one city to wear identifying stickers three years ago but that "no protest was heard from anywhere" at the time.

Responding to complaints this week from U.N. officials about Afghan women being banned from working for a bread distribution program operated by the World Food Program, a U.N. agency, Shaheen said the order was given because the regime suspected some women were being "used for political goals." Shaheen added that the United Nations had failed to comply with an agreement to identify any women being hired to the Afghan authorities.

The United Nations has warned it will have to suspend a program that provides cheap bread to 300,000 needy Afghans unless it can resolve the dispute with the Taliban, which prohibits women from all work except in the health field.

Although the United Nations and other foreign charities provide large amounts of assistance to the Afghan populace, the authorities there have become increasingly suspicious of their motives, partly because they disapprove of Western values and partly because the United Nations has imposed financial and economic sanctions on the Taliban for its alleged links to international terrorism.

News services reported today from Kabul, the Afghan capital, that the Taliban's Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice had banned women working with aid agencies from driving because it "is against Afghan tradition and has a negative impact on the society."

Shaheen also addressed recent U.N. complaints of foreign Muslims harassing Western aid workers, saying officials had not received any complaints of specific incidents, but that they would investigate any alleged wrongdoing if provided with details.

U.N. officials here protested this week that some foreign Muslims in Kabul had intimidated aid workers and threatened them with violence. Hundreds of such foreigners, largely Arabs who receive military training from the Taliban, live for extended periods in Kabul and enjoy considerable status and freedom.

-------- police

Waco simulation didn't test gun FBI agents carried

06/01/2001 - Updated 04:57 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-06-01-waco-fbi.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - The simulation that concluded government agents did not fire their guns during the Waco siege did not test the type of assault rifle the FBI had at the scene, according to an official who helped run the test.

The simulation last year used a standard M-16 military rifle with a 20-inch barrel, said Robert Stewart, a U.S. Postal Service inspector who helped coordinate the simulation.

The FBI does not use standard M-16s, and members of its Hostage Rescue Team who were at Waco, Texas, in 1993 carried a version with just a 14-inch barrel, an FBI spokeswoman said.

Firearms experts say the longer gun has less muzzle flash.

Lawyers for the Branch Davidians who survived the fiery end of the siege in April 1993 are now questioning whether the test really proved that FBI agents never fired their guns at the Davidian compound. The government has maintained that the Davidians, led by David Koresh, died by their own hand, shooting themselves and setting fire to their compound.

"I think it completely undermines the test results," attorney Michael Caddell said. Caddell said he plans to use the test as evidence if the lawsuit his clients filed against the government is restored on appeal.

Former Sen. John Danforth, who led the independent Waco review, said he did not know specifics about the test gun. He said it would not change his conclusion that the FBI did not fire upon the Davidians at the end of the siege. Eighty Davidians died.

"I don't know what weapons were tested myself," Danforth said Friday. "But all of this was part of the agreement, and all of it was pronounced fair at the end of the test."

An FBI official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the agency provided one of the shorter rifles to Danforth's office and that the ground rules for the test called for the smaller rifle to be used.

Danforth said Friday he thought he received "something less than total cooperation" from the FBI, although he said that did not change his findings that absolved the FBI of blame for the Davidians' deaths.

"Do I think there's anything out there hidden in some drawer that would affect the outcome? I don't think there's any chance of that," Danforth said.

Stewart said the military's M-16 rifle that testers used had a 20-inch barrel, not the 14-inch carbine that the FBI had at Waco. He provided documentary filmmaker Mike McNulty with a photograph of the gun tested.

"We tested a standard military issue M-16, not a carbine," Stewart said.

The Davidian lawyers sought the simulation on March 19, 2000, because they believed flashes of light that appeared on infrared video from the final moments of the siege could be muzzle flashes from FBI guns.

Experts from British contractor Vector Data Systems concluded the flashes on the April 19, 1993, tape were glint from the sun, not gunfire.

Danforth and U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. relied in part on that information to conclude that FBI agents did not fire their guns at the Davidian compound.

Firearms experts say the difference in barrel lengths could have affected the test. Guns with longer barrels produce smaller muzzle flashes than those with shorter barrels because the hot gases released by firing have longer to dissipate and cool, they said.

"From my experience, it's intuitive that with a shorter barrel, you're going to get a longer muzzle flash," said Don Bassett, a retired FBI agent who helped create the Hostage Rescue Team.

Caddell said he repeatedly insisted that the test include the smaller M-16, and said that Danforth's office kept him from inspecting the weapons used in the simulation. Caddell said the test protocol called for using the shorter assault rifle.

"We were either suckered by the Office of Special Counsel or we were suckered by the FBI, or both," Caddell said.

Danforth denied any wrongdoing.

"The weapons that were used and the way the test was conducted was something that was agreed on by everyone," Danforth said.

Ten days before the test, Brad Swenson of Danforth's office wrote Caddell to say that on the FBI's recommendation, testers would only use one type of M-16.

Swenson said the FBI would provide a gun "which is representative of all the M-16 style weapons the HRT had at Waco." Swenson referred to that gun as an M-16A2, the standard rifle with a 20-inch barrel. Swenson also wrote that the test gun would have a 14-inch barrel.

Caddell learned of the weapons discrepancy from McNulty, a filmmaker who has made several documentaries about Waco that accuse the government of a cover-up.

-------- spying

Prying eyes: A report on the global spy network
Echelon recommends all Europeans use encryption and open source software

New Scientist, May 24, 2001
http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999789

A new European Parliament document confirms the existence of a secretive US-led communications surveillance network, known as Echelon.

The working document describes the way that the network's intelligence agencies tap into satellite transmissions and undersea communications cables to spy on Europe.

Past evidence of Echelon is limited to media investigations and individual studies commissioned by the European Parliament. Its existence has never been officially acknowledged.

Although it is not finalised, the document indicates that the report committee is moving towards heavy criticism of the surveillance system.

Open and closed

The document recommends that all European citizens should encrypt their email and steer clear of closed software. It recommends using open source software that can be checked for hidden backdoors - the source code behind most commercial software is kept a closely guarded secret.

The final report could therefore increase pressure on governments to encourage the use of encryption in Europe. The UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act currently gives law enforcers permission to seize the keys used to lock encrypted messages under special circumstances.

Neil MacCormick, vice chairman of the European Parliament's Temporary Committee on the Echelon Interception System, told New Scientist: "Member states have recently been more anxious that they can crack codes than protect their citizens."

Data on tap

The document is clear about the status of Echelon: "That a system for intercepting communications exists, operating by means of co-operation proportionate to their capabilities among the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is no longer in doubt."

It says the cheapest method for wire-tapping communications is via undersea cables, which means mainly listening in via communications that pass through the UK.

The working document also suggests that the Echelon network could be in breach of European human rights law and calls for the UK to be more accountable for use of the system. The UK is the key European nation among the suspected partners.

Simon Davies, director of Privacy International and an Information Systems research fellow at the London School of Economics, says that the finished report promises to be a balanced assessment of modern intelligence gathering. "These are not a bunch of radicals," he says. "Originally they were very sceptical about Echelon."

Correspondence about this story should be directed to latestnews@newscientist.com
1824 GMT, 24 May 2001
Will Knight New Scientist Online News

----

U.S. to Shut Spy Station in Germany

By TONY CZUCZKA Associated Press Writer, JUNE 01, 14:20 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS7CBTPUO0

BERLIN (AP) - For years, European critics have suspected that a U.S. Army listening post set against the snow-peaked Bavarian Alps does more than just spy for the military.

Allegedly part of a super-secret global eavesdropping network the United States has never confirmed, the Bad Aibling station now is set for closure next year because it's no longer needed, U.S. officials said Friday.

About all the Pentagon says about the Bad Aibling Station, located some 35 miles southeast of Munich, is that it helps U.S. forces keep tabs on the Balkans.

But in Germany, media reports and politicians persistently linked the spy post in recent years to alleged attempts by the U.S. National Security Agency to spy for economic advantage after the end of the Cold War. The NSA denies it conducts industrial espionage.

Just this week, a European Parliament report cited Bad Aibling among some 20 stations worldwide believed to play a role in the U.S.-led spy network.

The report, prepared after seven months of testimony by communications and security experts, concluded that the network - dubbed Echelon - exists despite U.S. denials.

It was allegedly set up at the start of the Cold War for intelligence gathering and has grown into a girdle of stations mainly meant to intercept private and commercial communications, not military intelligence.

However, the parliament's vice president, Gerhard Schmid, conceded the group could not prove that Americans were passing on European trade secrets to give U.S. business an advantage.

The report also backed off an earlier study by the European Parliament that claimed the spy network listens in on ``billions of messages per hour,'' including telephone calls, fax transmissions and private e-mails.

Still, German officials are unlikely to miss the station, which is scheduled to close Sept. 30, 2002. The base will be handed back to Germany - minus the snooping equipment, said Shirley Startzman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command.

``Nearly 12 years after the end of the Cold War, this is an overdue step,'' said Wolfgang Gerhardt, leader of a small pro-business party in the German parliament.

``The Americans have never been able to banish rumors that it was also used for economic espionage against German companies,'' he said.

The German magazine Der Spiegel reported last June that German lawmakers were invited inside the Bad Aibling station in an unusually open attempt by U.S. officials to dispel rumors of economic espionage.

The lawmakers were told that the U.S. listeners tune in only to Russian satellites and telephone conversations in Yugoslavia as well as African crisis regions, the report said.

An NSA spokeswoman at the secretive agency's headquarters in Fort Meade, Md., on Friday declined to comment on that report. The spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said only that Bad Aibling's tasks would be performed by ``other technologies'' once it shuts down.

----

Judge to Appoint Master in Lee Case

New York Times By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, June 1, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Scientist-Lawsuit.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An outsider with a high-level security clearance should decide what classified documents can be given attorneys for Wen Ho Lee in a defamation suit the former nuclear scientist filed against the government, a federal judge said Friday.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson said he wants to appoint a special master by July to supervise handling of documents requested by Lee's attorneys. Many of the documents probably will contain sensitive information about U.S. nuclear weapons programs.

``I think it's a virtual certainty that some of (the documents) are going to be classified or highly classified,'' Jackson said.

Lee sued the Justice and Energy departments for allegedly leaking information to the media to portray the Taiwan-born scientist as a Chinese spy. The leaks, some of which were inaccurate, violated Lee's privacy and that of his family, his attorneys claim.

Lee was investigated on accusations he used his job at the national weapons laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M., to give nuclear secrets to China. Lee was charged with 59 felonies for downloading classified information to portable data tapes, but the indictment did not allege he gave information to China.

He eventually pleaded guilty to one felony count of downloading sensitive material. The judge in that case said he was misled by prosecutors and apologized to Lee for nine months he spent in solitary confinement.

On Friday, Jackson denied the government's request to dismiss Lee's claims of inaccuracy. Justice Department attorney Anthony Coppolino argued Lee had not identified specific documents that contained inaccuracies but was basing the claim on newspaper reports and statements by then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson in a television interview.

The judge said Lee's attorneys made a valid case that inaccurate, private information was leaked.

``This is their only avenue to get back at the government for, in their judgment, making disclosures that should not have been disclosed,'' he said.

On Monday, government attorneys will ask a judge to postpone a deposition of Lee in a defamation case filed against him by former Energy Department chief intelligence officer Notra Trulock.

Trulock said he was defamed on a pro-Lee Web site that alleged Trulock targeted Lee in the investigation because Lee is ethnic Chinese.

Government attorneys say Lee's deposition could reveal classified information.

--

On the Net: Los Alamos National Laboratory: http://www.lanl.gov

-------- activists

Windpower 2001 in DC June 3-7

Environmental News Network 6/1/01
http://enn.com/news/enn-stories/2001/06/06012001/newsbytes0601_43787.asp

The American Wind Energy Association will hold it's annual conference from June 3-7, 2001. (Audio Version: 3-1/2 min.) Windpower 2001 will take place this year in Washington, D.C. The event traditionally visits the capitol every five years. This year's meeting is expected to be especially noteworthy in light of the Administration's recently unveiled and hotly debated energy policy. The association expects about 800 participants, many of whom will be making visits to representatives on Capitol Hill and the White House to discuss energy policy and advances in wind power technology. "The big advantage of windpower is it doesn't cause environmental damage from mining or extraction of any kind of fuel and it comes with no emissions of greenhouse gases or pollutants," says Christine Real De Azua, communications director for the Association. She says that currently the largest wind farm in the world is located on Buffalo Ridge in Minnesota. Wind farms are also in operation in Pennsylvania, California, Texas, Wyoming, Colorado, and throughout the Midwest. She says many more will be coming online within the next couple of years. A major project is already under way at the Washington/Oregon border.

----

2 Questions For People Traveling to Washington for June 10- 12 Anti-Star Wars Events to Consider

From: Joseph Gerson <JGerson@afsc.org> June 1, 2001

Friends,

While I have your attention, let me start with my conclusion, which I should be clear simply reflects my thinking and that of several fellow/sister organizers. Then I'll share the thinking that got me there.

I want to encourage people who will be traveling to Washington, D.C. for the June 10-12 demonstration and lobby days to take two questions with you: one for legislators and official "policy makers", and the other for ourselves. (Of course, these are not the only two questions we should be asking!)

1. What is the Democratic leadership's and the party's approach to "Theater" missile defenses? (This is the technology Rumsfeld wants to concentrate on for early deployment of "missile defenses" and which is the most immediate fear for the Chinese.)

2. What strategy can we develop to STOP funding "missile defense" research and development, in addition to preventing deployment?

Then the background: Today's New York Times reports that Senator Carl Levin, who will soon be heading the Senate Armed Service Committee, wants to prevent early deployment of "missile defenses" in part because he doesn't want to ignite a second Cold War with the Russians and Chinese. BUT, he is clear in supporting "robust" funding of research & development for "missile defenses." And, while there is clarity about his opposition to "National" missile defenses, the report is silent about his approach to "Theater" missile defenses. I'm not rushing to judgment on this. We simply need to know.

Then we come to the more fundamental question: how do we defeat, stop, end, continued "missile defense"/Star Wars research and development?. Remember, more than Republicans are to blame for getting us to this very dangerous point. A "Democratic" Administration and Congresses funded "missile defense" R & D for eight years, in part because of their fear that this would cost them votes. And, as we saw with Bush's "tax" bill which will severely truncate governmental services for education and health care to housing and environmental protection, there is always the danger of some "Democrats" joining "Republicans" in a voting for a deployment amendment from the Senate floor. And, if "Democrats" "simply" keep "missile defenses"/star wars alive through R & D funding, in 2002 or 2004 or as a result of U.S.-Russian triangulation against China (analogous to Bush senior using the U.N. to win the Senate vote authorizing the 1991 war against Iraq) , we could find ourselves in a situation where the Republicans have the votes to begin deployments.

We need to begin thinking, strategically and among ourselves, about how we can transform the discourse, de-legitimate "missile defense" Research and Development as well as deployment, and lead this or future Congresses or Administrations, to relegate the "missile defense"/star wars program to the dust bin of a nightmarish history.

If we don't begin seriously asking this question of ourselves and "movement" leaders, we'll never get there.

Three final notes: In addition to firmly believing that we won't be able to reduce, let along end, "missile defense"/star wars funding unless we build an educated and committed grassroots movement, I also believe that such a movement must be linked to people's felt needs - what we/they feel in our guts. In this regard Bush may have tactically, though not materially, helped us with his $1.35 trillion tax refund coup. As Republican strategist Grover Norquist has said, the tax cut ties the hands of the Democratic Senate and of future U.S. governments many years to come. "Nothing", he said, "that Daschle wants or Ted Kennedy wants is for free...We're going to spend the next two years talking about how the Democrats...want to spend your money." With a smaller government pie for guns and butter, star wars or housing, "missile defenses" or health care (or the environment, or...) the choices become more immediate, stark, compelling, and individually "felt.". Arm the heavens, seas and continents or care for the people.

As we did in the 1980s, we're going to have to confront "the deadly connection" between U.S. nuclear warfighting policy and U.S. foreign military intervention, if we are to drive a legislative stake through the Star Wars Vampire's heart.

The military's strongest rationale for TMD deployments is to protect our forward deployed troops and bases from enemy missiles, for example U.S. troops in Okinawa. (Remember that TMD technology apparently works far better than NMD technology, and - as the Chinese know - TMD are much closer to being credibly deployed) In addition to serving as a shield to reinforce U.S. nuclear swords, "missile defenses" are also designed to facilitate "conventional" U.S. foreign military interventions, and to reduce U.S. military death tolls in the midst of U.S. military aggressions. We do well to remember, as the Okinawans, so many others, and our own Declaration of Independence tell us, that these forward deployments are intolerable neo-colonial "abuses and usurpations" that must be ended. We don't need "missile defenses" to "save our soldiers." Bring them home.

Finally, the "rogue" state rationales we can handle, but we should also prepare ourselves for arguments that TMD are necessary for Israel's security. The answer to which is: "End the occupation."

With friendship and humility,

Joseph Gerson

Director of Programs American Friends Service Committee New England Regional Office


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