------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Military study finds fouled weapons safe
India Pragmatic About Pakistani Ruler
SUNDAY Noon, Missile Defense
Powell Dismisses Putin Warning on Missiles
National Missile Defence: Shooting Stars
Just What Game Is Putin Playing?
The Threat of Annihilation Is Still Real
Faltering Bush faces defence budget revolt
Cheney hit by Iraq deal row
When Science and Politics Collide

MILITARY
Plan to End Sahara Clashes Rejected
South Korea Expels North Korea Boat
Belgrade Moves to Cooperate on War Crimes Tribunal
Milosevic to challenge decree on his extradition
Despite NATO Warning, Macedonia Shells Rebels
Myanmar Border Checkpoint Reopens
Nervous Israel vents its spleen on the BBC
Where´s the veracity on Vieques?
Taliban Ask U.N. Mission to Vacate
Mini-devices may soon replace combat scouts
Boeing Fighter Makes Progress

OTHER
Bush Supports Limits on Use of DNA Tests
Lott says stem cell research has 'great potential'
Struggling to Carve Out Common Ground, U.N. Tackles AIDS
In the Shadow of AIDS, a World of Other Problems
Fla. Cop Facing Arrest Commits Suicide
Sunday Q&A
Disco bomber used Israeli mole as driver
Peru Spymaster Captured in Venezuela
Venezuela Arrests, Will Return, Peru's Ex - Spy Chief
National Security Agency: Enemy of the state?
Afghan Taliban Dismiss Bin Laden Threat Reports
Protecting the White House

ACTIVISTS
Activists seek truth about Iraq attack
Sibling Nuns Will Go to Prison for Protesting
A Busload of Aspiring Activists Take to the Road
Vieques Protesters Mistreated, Jackson Charges


-------- NUCLEAR

-------- depleted uranium

Military study finds fouled weapons safe

By Peter Eisler,
USA TODAY,
06/24/2001
http://www.usatoday.com/news/poison/2001-06-25-hotnukes-side.htm

WASHINGTON - Since the 1980s, the Pentagon has relied increasingly on the super-hard, super-dense qualities of depleted-uranium metal, using it in tank shielding and armor-piercing munitions. And much of it is fouled with traces of plutonium and other dangerous radioisotopes.

The Army got word of the problem in August 1999, when the Department of Energy told commanders that the depleted-uranium armor in the latest Abrams tanks was made with recycled material contaminated during nuclear weapons production. The Army quietly studied 60 samples of the tainted metal before concluding early last year that "the presence of these trace radionuclides in armor is safe."

This year, amid charges that U.S. and NATO troops were sickened from exposure to depleted-uranium "tank-killer" munitions in the Persian Gulf War and the Balkans, the Pentagon revealed publicly that the bullets were made from contaminated metal. Although federal studies suggest that workers who made the recycled uranium metal may face heath risks, military officials insist that the contamination posed no threats in the finished military products.

Even so, at least two branches of the service have abandoned use of the controversial munitions.

The Pentagon's troubles with the contamination have intensified a heated global debate on the use of munitions and military hardware made with depleted uranium, so-called because much of the uranium's natural radioactivity was sapped when it was fed into nuclear reactors to make weapons fuel.

Studies to date support the contention that the levels of contaminants in depleted-uranium metal are tiny and account for little, if any, increase in the already low risks normally associated with the material. Depleted uranium produces a roughly 1% increase in the "background" radiation people normally absorb from sunlight and other natural sources.

But many veterans, environmentalists and public health officials are unconvinced. Their skepticism is heightened by the Pentagon's failure to announce the contamination of munitions and tank armor for more than a year after it learned of the problem. Some experts recommend more study of the mix of radioactive substances.

"You need to check to see if there's a cocktail that includes some of these more radioactive (contaminants)," says Malcolm Grimston, a senior fellow specializing in chemical and nuclear studies at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. "You need to redo the calculations."

Munitions appear to be the most widely used military product containing depleted uranium. U.S. forces fired more than 300 tons during the Gulf War. Iraq claims the spent rounds littering its land caused broad environmental damage and increased cancer rates. The same armor-piercing munitions were used extensively by U.S. and NATO warplanes during the 1999 bombing of Kosovo. That prompted ongoing risk studies by NATO and the World Health Organization.

The stakes are high, given depleted uranium's wide military use. A draft document prepared by the Energy Department in 1999 and obtained by USA TODAY shows that the fouled material was shipped to at least 50 U.S. military installations, foreign and domestic, for various uses, ranging from the tank armor and munitions to counterweights in military planes and ships.

Pentagon officials say substantial precautions are taken in using depleted uranium, but there have been problems. In 1999, for example, a maintenance bay at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia was contaminated with mildly radioactive dust after a technician used a hammer to break counterweights made of depleted uranium off a C-141 cargo plane. Urine and blood tests were done on the technician and other workers, but no harm was reported.

Amid all the controversy, the Navy and Marines have decided to abandon use of the depleted-uranium munitions. Both have switched to tungsten, a non-radioactive, high-density metal.

"We're not considering depleted uranium anymore because of the environmental problems associated with it, be them real or perceived," says Col. Clayton Nans, head of the Marines' Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle program and former chief of the service's firepower division. "We don't want to be in a position of having someone say, 'You can't bring your armor piercing rounds on the battlefield.' "

-------- india / pakistan

India Pragmatic About Pakistani Ruler
As Summit Nears, General Turned President Hears Warm Words From New Delhi

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, June 24, 2001; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38480-2001Jun23?language=printer

NEW DELHI, June 23 -- Until just a few weeks ago, Gen. Pervez Musharraf was the man India loved to hate. Officials here often referred to Pakistan's military ruler as a sponsor of cross-border terrorism and the nefarious "architect of Kargil," the 1999 invasion of India's Kargil mountains by Pakistan-backed fighters that came soon after India extended the hand of peace in a historic border summit. But this week, after Musharraf dismissed Pakistan's civilian president Wednesday and assumed the post himself, India's leaders quickly congratulated the general and reassured him they still look forward to his scheduled meeting with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee here next month.

Although Musharraf's move drew instant disapproval from Washington and other foreign capitals, Indian President K.R. Narayanan sent him a message extending his "best wishes on your assumption of the office of President" and expressing hope that "your visit to India . . . as president will move India-Pakistan relations in positive . . . directions."

Vajpayee was also widely reported to have addressed Musharraf as "Mr. President" in a phone call Wednesday morning, hours before the world knew of the general's intentions -- and even before Pakistan's foreign minister, then visiting Washington, was informed.

Pakistani officials say Musharraf intends to serve out a full five-year term as president. He has said he will keep his pledge to hold national elections by October 2002, but will remain as army chief and head of state to "guarantee the continuity" of economic and political reforms begun under his 20-month-old regime.

Analysts here said India's positive response was largely a pragmatic effort to maintain a cordial bilateral tone before the July 14-16 summit, in which the two leaders of South Asia's rival nuclear states will tackle the intractable issue of Kashmir. The strife-torn Himalayan region is claimed by both countries and has been divided between them for half a century.

Vajpayee set the welcoming tone last month when he invited Musharraf to join him on the "high road of peace," and India has since prepared to roll out the red carpet for the general.

But many Indians are still suspicious of Musharraf, whom they blame for deceiving India in the spring of 1999, when he was army chief. Vajpayee traveled to the border to meet with Pakistan's then-prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, in an effort to rekindle stalled talks over Kashmir. But within weeks, fighters based in Pakistan invaded Kargil, presumably with the backing of Musharraf. That fall, Musharraf ousted Sharif and seized power in a bloodless coup.

In the months since, relations between India and Pakistan have reached their most tense levels in years, with India constantly accusing Pakistan of fomenting terrorism in Kashmir and Pakistan accusing Indian security forces of abuse against Kashmiri civilians.

Now, critics here say the government's haste to accept Musharraf as president is embarrassing and misconceived, because it will enhance the legitimacy of a military ruler who cannot be trusted.

"It is unfortunate the way India has been so quick and enthusiastic in endorsing this second coup by Musharraf," said Brahma Chellany, a social scientist at the Center for Policy Research. "Power is now concentrated in the hands of someone who has a record of reckless adventurism against India. The narrow consideration of euphoria over the summit has blinded Vajpayee to this."

In Pakistan, a variety of political figures criticized Musharraf's move, calling it undemocratic and unconstitutional. On Friday, several groups filed court petitions challenging his eligibility to become president and his authority to remove Rafiq Tarar, the longtime civilian president who was dismissed Wednesday.

"As far as democracy is concerned, now that he has assumed the presidency, it has a very bleak future," said Raza Rabbani, a former senator from the liberal Pakistan People's Party. Even if Musharraf abides by his vow to hold elections next year, he said, "any new parliament will be held hostage to him and will act as a rubber stamp on his policies."

But so far, public reaction has largely been one of muted resignation, in part because Pakistanis have become accustomed to periods of military rule after numerous army interventions in politics since the country was created in 1947, and in part because there is no obvious alternative to Musharraf among the country's weak and factionalized political parties.

Moreover, despite the initial negative reaction from Washington and Western Europe, some business leaders in Pakistan have said Musharraf's permanence in power could help reassure multilateral financial institutions and foreign investors that the government's agenda of fiscal reform will not suddenly be reversed.

"In order to prove what I have been saying, that we will guarantee the continuity and sustainability of whatever reforms we are doing . . . it was essential that I undertake this change," Musharraf said Wednesday in announcing his decision. Some analysts in Pakistan suggested Musharraf chose this moment to act because there would be less domestic opposition in light of the upcoming summit with India, and that even if his decision was received poorly in other parts of the world, it would enhance his stature in negotiating with Vajpayee.

"Musharraf felt he might be dismissed as a transitory figure, that his word might not have credibility unless he wore the mantle of president," said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of strategic studies at Quaid-I-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan.

But other Pakistani analysts said the summit was merely an excuse for Musharraf to make a major power grab, and that his comment of wanting to "serve the supreme national interest" sounded suspiciously like statements from previous Pakistani dictators.

"Much of what he says . . . is just the sugarcoating to the bitter pill of his interest in power," commented the News International newspaper in Islamabad.

Unlike Pakistan's last dictator, Gen. Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, an Islamic and anticommunist zealot who enjoyed Western support in the 1980s, Musharraf is a modern-day reformist wrestling with an economically ailing, corrupt and violence-ridden nation in an era when military dictators are decidedly out of fashion in the West. But although his move has already provoked displeasure in Washington -- where officials said they will now drop plans to lift economic sanctions imposed on Pakistan in 1998 after it tested nuclear weapons -- Musharraf appears to have convinced himself he had no choice but to maintain a tutelary role in politics for the foreseeable future.

"He reached the conclusion, whether we like it or not, that he has a duty, a role to play in ensuring the continuity of the reforms he has started," Hussain said.

-------- missile defense

SUNDAY Noon, Missile Defense

by NATO Sec Gen,
One on One
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35999-2001Jun22?language=printer

John McLaughlin's One on One interviews NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson about missile defense (Channel 4 at noon; repeats at 9 on NewsChannel 8).

--------

Powell Dismisses Putin Warning on Missiles

New York Times
June 24, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/24/world/24POWE.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON, June 23 - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is dismissing a warning from President Vladimir V. Putin that Russia will eventually upgrade its strategic nuclear arsenal with multiple warheads if the United States goes ahead with its plan to build a missile shield.

"I am not in charge of Russia but I don't think that's what they would do," Secretary Powell said in an interview on Friday with The Associated Press, which released the remarks today.

Mr. Powell also said in the interview that he was confident that Mr. Putin would not try to enhance Russia's strategic force once he takes into account the cost, and that Mr. Putin would realize eventually that an American missile shield as proposed by the Bush administration would not be a threat to Russia.

Nonetheless, Mr. Putin again cautioned Washington today to pull back on its plan.

"This means that all countries, including Russia, will have the right to install multiple warheads carrying nuclear weapons on their missiles," Mr. Putin told reporters in Moscow.

The Russian leader has said that while he welcomes President Bush's offer to discuss a new security framework, Moscow is very alert to unilateral American actions.

--------

National Missile Defence: Shooting Stars

Produced by Di Martin
Sunday 24/06/01,
Australia Radio National (from Washington, D.C.)
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s317906.htm

Di Martin: The Beltway is an eight-lane ring road that completely encircles the capital of the free world, Washington DC.

The road's imagery is so strong that the term is also political. If you're 'Inside the Beltway' you're a political insider, one of the select few shaping America's future.

On the inside, the new Bush administration, the Pentagon, Treasury, Congress and Washington's swathe of think tanks, are shaping a plan for national missile defence.

Yet the impact of this plan is global, and the thinking inside the Beltway is seriously out of step with those on the Outside.

Hello, I'm Di Martin in Washington DC, bringing you a Background Briefing on why America is pursuing national missile defence, when the rest of the world is almost unanimously opposed.

Key European allies reject Washington's threat assessments, saying instead national missile defence could spark a new arms race. Russia confirmed this week it will build up its already massive nuclear arsenal in response.

Former US Defence Secretary, Robert McNamara has told Background Briefing that missile defence is a critical element that could lead to war with China.

Top scientists say the technology is unfeasible, politicians here say it could cost a trillion US dollars... and critics say there's no threat, just a Republican Party hell bent on getting the system going.

it's almost inevitable that national missile defence will go ahead. And there's little doubt that Australia's Pine Gap joint facility will be giving a helping hand.

Countdown
Fanfare

Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.

Di Martin: President George W. Bush hasn't spelled out exactly what kind of national missile defence he wants. There's a review going on at the moment, the latest in forty years of US attempts to defend itself against the threat of ballistic missile attack. National missile defence in particular is a system that would cover the fifty states of America with a kind of protective shield. The theory is, if anyone shoots a ballistic missile at a city like Los Angeles, the missile gets shot down.

What details President Bush has revealed are summed up in this rationale delivered last month at Washington's National Defence Academy.

George W. Bush: This afternoon, I want us to think back some thirty years to a far different time in a far different world. The United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a hostile rivalry. Our deep differences were expressed in a dangerous military confrontation that resulted in thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at each other on hair-trigger alert. Today the sun comes up on a vastly different world. The Wall is gone, and so is the Soviet Union. Yet this is still a dangerous world, a less certain, a less predictable one.

Di Martin: President Bush says the threat has shifted from nuclear war between the US and Russia. He says instead today's threat lies with individual countries that the US calls 'states of concern'. Until recently they were 'rogue states' - such as Iraq, Iran and North Korea, and it's well known they've all been buying or developing missile technology.

House of Representative Republican from Philadelphia, Curt Weldon, is a staunch supporter of missile defence and a member of the powerful Armed Services Committee. In his office on Capitol Hill in Washington, he showed me bits of missiles smuggled out of Russia to underline the new threat.

Curt Weldon: I'm now going to show you the proof which you can relate to everyone listening to your program. I will now show you two devices:

Di Martin: Right, what do we have here?

Curt Weldon: A Soviet accelerometer, and gyroscope, you can see where the wires were clipped, these were on SS and long-range missiles. This device, the accelerometer, controls the speed of the rocket engine, determining how fast it will go so you know how far it's going. The gyroscope operates off of a mirror that reflects off of a satellite that gives you GPS positioning.

Di Martin: Global positioning.

Curt Weldon: Yes. It's also been clipped, so it can tell the rocket where to go. When you put these two devices together, which rogue states can't build, you get the heart of a guidance system to make a missile very accurate. You can't sell these systems, it's illegal. We currently have over 100 sets of these devices, and I can't tell you what agency has them but we have them.

Di Martin: And where were they picked up?

Curt Weldon: These were picked up by friends of the US and US agencies when the Russians were transferring them to Iraq twice in the Tigris River basin.

Di Martin: Curt Weldon rejects criticisms that say America faces more threats from a biological weapon in the hull of a ship sailing into San Francisco Bay, or a nuclear bomb in a suitcase, and he has a mock-up version of that in his office as well.

Curt Weldon: When Saddam Hussein wanted to kill Americans in the barracks in Saudi Arabia, he didn't send a truck bomb into the barracks, he sent SCUD missiles. It is the weapon of choice. Seventy nations today in the world now have short, medium and long-range missiles. Twenty-two nations are building short, medium and long-range missiles, and they're selling them because it's the weapon of choice.

Di Martin: Curt Weldon agrees with his President that the key reason for a national missile defence system is that rogue states might target America, or there may be an accidental missile launch.

Up until three years ago these threats were widely dismissed as improbable. But then came two key developments that Washington believes fundamentally changed the security landscape. North Korea lobbed a missile over Japan, and a leading Commission reported the threat was on its way to America's doorstep.

John Holum was a senior Presidential security advisor at the time.

John Holum: That Commission report said that the assessments of the intelligence community on the threat had been understated and not properly focused on things like sharing technology among the so-called rogue states. And then almost within a matter of weeks after that report came out, we had the Taepo Dong launch from North Korea, that demonstrated a capability that the intelligence community hadn't detected before, hadn't predicted, and that was a third stage. Now the third state didn't succeed, but the fact that they had a third stage capability came as a shock.

Di Martin: It also vindicated long-time supporters of America's various attempts to build a defence shield. Like the plan by former President Ronald Reagan, who became infamous for pushing a futuristic space-based version of national missile defence back in the early '80s.

Ronald Reagan: We maintain that peace through our strength, weakness only invites aggression. This strategy of deterrence has not changed, it still works. But what it takes to maintain deterrence has changed. It took one kind of military force to deter an attack when we had far more nuclear weapons than any other power. It takes another kind now that the Soviets for example have enough accurate and powerful nuclear weapons to destroy virtually all of our missiles on the ground. Now this is not to say that the Soviet Union is planning to make war on us, nor do I believe a war is inevitable. Quite the contrary. But what must be recognised is that our security is based on being prepared to meet all threats.

Di Martin: Reagan's plan was so outlandish it was quickly dubbed 'Star Wars' after the George Lucas film of the time, and Congress refused to fund it. But Reagan staffers, people like Frank Gaffney, have been carrying the banner for missile defence ever since. Frank Gaffney now runs a conservative think-tank in Washington called the Centre for Security Policy, and his business card uses Reagan's phrase, 'Promoting Peace through Strength'. He explains why North Korea is the key threat facing America today.

Frank Gaffney: This is a country that is destitute, literally millions of its people are starving to death, and yet its government, a despotic communist regime, is pouring resources into building long-range ballistic missiles. There's reason to believe they can make those missiles with weapons of mass destruction. Certainly chemical and biological weapons, and possibly nuclear weapons. And that means that the United States itself, and certainly its friends in East Asia, the Pacific more generally, are in short order, if not right now, at risk of attack.

Di Martin: Frank Gaffney says that at a minimum, North Korea could also use its missile capability as a powerful bargaining chip, to extract concessions such as food aid and diplomatic recognition.

The problem for Frank Gaffney's threat assessments though is that the rogue states aren't developing in line with them. Iran has just re-elected a reformer President. Both it and Iraq don't have missiles that would go anywhere near the US, and reclusive North Korea is very keen to patch up relations with the outside world. It's held its first leadership meetings with South Korea for fifty years.

At the Social Science Research Council in New York, Lee Sigal has been watching North Korean developments for more than a decade, and says Pyongyang is not only making significant progress with South Korea.

Lee Sigal: In October of last year, Secretary of State Albright went to North Korea and negotiated with Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea. And in those negotiations Kim agreed to freeze production, deployment and development - that means testing and production of missiles for testing - of all his ballistic missiles with a range over 500 kilometres. Now 500 kilometres is pretty short range, and it covers the missiles of greatest concern to the United States. Not only that, but he agreed to forgo all exports of missiles, including those under existing contract. Now that's very important if you care about proliferation because the North Koreans had been selling missiles, missile components or missile factories to various parties in the Middle East, in the Persian Gulf, including Iran; there have been negotiations with Libya, there had been some sales to Egypt, this was one of the few things they made for a world market that anybody wanted, and so they used it to get hard currency. The important thing is they're willing to give all that up. What's the price? Well mostly the price is the end of enmity with the United States.

Di Martin: Lee Sigal says it's not a matter of trust, but of working out what's in North Korea's interest.

But Frank Gaffney remains adamant that North Korea could lob a missile at America, despite the risk of being annihilated by a retaliatory strike.

Frank Gaffney: This is particularly useful to think about at a time when here in this country, and I assume in Australia too, theatres near you, as they say, are featuring a movie about a lunatic, indeed suicidal attack against the United States, by a government that we thought would never dare strike the United States.

Di Martin: You're talking about the 'Pearl Harbor' movie and Japan's attack against Pearl Harbour at the beginning of the Second World War, which heralded the entry of America into the Second World War.

"Pearl haHbor" movie trailer

Voice over: Does anyone think that victory is possible without facing danger? At times like these we all need to be reminded who we truly are...

Actor: ...warning of Japanese aggressive movements ...

Voice over: ... that we will not give up.

Di Martin: Critics would argue that this all remains in the realms of movies that the threat from countries like North Korea can effectively be bought off. They have popped their missile development program on the table for sale. Give us $100 million a year and we will stop selling bits of missile technology to these other potential adversaries of the United States.

Frank Gaffney: Well with all due respect to a member of the media, this is not in the realm of movies, this is in the realm of history. Movies are being made about history. And the history of the Second World War was a history of a war that needn't have been fought, but had to be fought in the end because people like those who are telling us we could just buy off the North Koreans or the Chinese, people like them in the advent of World War II said, well we can buy Hitler off. We can buy Mussolini off. We can buy Tojo off. We don't need to fight these people, we can appease them.

Di Martin: Over at Capitol Hill, House Democrat Neil Abercrombie likes the movie analogy, however. He says the government's missile defence plan is so grandiose that America is closer to having a Steven Spielberg version on the big screen, rather than something that actually works. Sitting in his Washington office in a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots and jeans, member for Hawaii, Neil Abercrombie, says that Gaffney's views on missile defence are implausible.

Neil Abercrombie: I don't know what secret dreams Mr Gaffney has, what secret fantasies he enjoys, but I don't expect the reality of those fantasies is any more likely to come true than his advocacy of missile defence, and for him to cite 'Pearl Harbor', it seems to me, is a bit, well I don't want to say egregious, but I do not need lectures on Pearl Harbour thank you very much, I represent the area, which is more than Mr Gaffney can say for the best of my knowledge, Mr Gaffney's never been elected to anything or has any responsibility other than to speak about things that he apparently has very little knowledge of.

Di Martin: Neil Abercrombie may well think that Frank Gaffney's views are irrational, but Gaffney has access. The day before my interview he had breakfast with America's Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, who calls Gaffney's Centre, 'patriotic'.

Frank Gaffney on phone: I appreciate that. Tell him we're making progress on other fronts and I hope that he'll redouble his efforts next week.

Di Martin: Constantly networking with other Washington policymakers, Gaffney is determined the Bush Administration views the threats to America seriously. And he not only has North Korea in his sites, but its neighbour and growing international power, China.

Frank Gaffney: China has said in the past on at least two occasions that I'm aware of, that it is prepared to use nuclear weapons against the United States, if the United States interferes with its internal affairs vis a vis Taiwan. China is increasingly talking to its own people, most especially its party cadre and its military personnel, but also to the Chinese people as well, about the fact that war is inevitable with the United States and that the United States is considered the main enemy.

David Shambaugh: That's ridiculous, and they have not done so.

Di Martin: Professor David Shambaugh is one of Washington's most prominent Sinologists, speaking here on the phone from Virginia.

David Shambaugh: What he may be referring to is a comment that the Deputy Chief of General Staff of the Chinese military made in a very specific context in an offhanded manner at a dinner party in 1995 to an ex-American official. That has been blown way out of context and has been distorted by the right wing in the United States to say that the Chinese have threatened nuclear strikes against the United States. That is simply unfactual, incorrect and dangerous, in my view.

Di Martin: Professor Shambaugh says the Chinese have been modernising their military for a decade. That includes their nuclear missile program, updating a cache of aging and increasingly unstable liquid fuel missiles. But he says China poses no threat to the US at this time. That kind of analysis doesn't faze Frank Gaffney though, who takes the Chinese military official's comment as highly provocative.

Frank Gaffney: These are straws in the wind. There were people who said ignore what Adolf Hitler was saying in 'Mein Kampf' and we did so, to some extent to our peril. I think we can't afford to ignore these kinds of remarks, and neither can our friends and allies who are in range of the vast preponderance of what China currently has in its arsenal, the shorter-range ballistic missiles, the weapons of mass destruction that they might carry, whether it's subversion and sabotage, making use of the very large and apparently quite disciplined overseas Chines community to perform some of those tasks.

Di Martin: It's reminiscent of classic war propaganda, and is certainly not something that impresses the Chinese Embassy in Washington. This is the Embassy's Zhang Yuan Yuan.

Zhang Yuan Yuan: It is quite bizarre theory you know. About the defence modernisation, we have never denied that we wanted to build a better, more modern armed forces. But economic development always enjoys the top priority. We still have millions of people living below the poverty line; we still have many problems, social problems, economic problems, so if China is so busy working on these problems, why should China be so interested in expanding overseas? So-called offensive ability against the United States. I find those arguments are just laughable. They fail to grasp the reality of China. I hesitate to say but this is a fact, they want to create something to justify their political agenda, to justify an increased defence budget.

Di Martin: The Rand Corporation is a contractor to the Department of Defense, and it's also been noting a disturbing trend in Washington. Rand's Dr James Mulvenon is a China specialist who's been working with the State Department and Chinese officials on national missile defence issues.

James Mulvenon: There is a growing tide of opinion, particularly amongst some of the senior policymakers in the Bush Administration that China is in fact the adversary of the 21st century and that we need to stop mollycoddling them and just get down to the serious business of building an alliance structure in Asia that will allow us to better deal with them, and to build a national missile defence which for some of these people is explicitly directed at denying China a strategic nuclear deterrent.

Di Martin: Are these China threat people in the political realm or in the defence realm ?

James Mulvenon: There's some in the political realm, there's a lot of pressure from the legislative branch, a lot of the Congressional staffers are among the most hawkish on China. And the Pentagon clearly is taking a lead position on pushing the idea that China is a potential military adversary.

Di Martin: James Mulvenon.

Recently returned from Beijing, Professor David Shambaugh has this rather pessimistic view of current US-Sino relations.

David Shambaugh: I would characterise them as deeply suspicious, tense and fragile.

Di Martin: China-US relations have been on a rollercoaster in the past twelve years, hit first by China's Tiananmen Square massacre, China firing missiles near Taiwan in the mid '90s - the so-called Taiwan Strait Crisis - the US accidental bombing of China's Embassy in Belgrade, and just a couple of months ago, the infamous EP3 surveillance plane incident.

Reporter: As the damaged US spy plane and its twenty four crew prepare to spend a fifth night on Chinese soil, Beijing rejected this message of regret from the US Secretary of State.

Man: We regret that the Chinese plane did not get down safely without the loss of the life of the Chinese pilot.

Reporter: But still the US must take full responsibility for Sunday's mid-air incident ...

Di Martin: The surveillance plane incident has left relations extremely tender, which Professor David Shambaugh says will be further strained by the introduction of a multi-layered national missile defence system.

China has about twenty intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs that are capable of reaching the US. Yet the missiles are in their dotage, and they don't even have their nuclear warheads attached to them.

What angers Beijing is that their small number of missiles will be overwhelmed by even the most minimal American system. That means deploying about 100 interceptor missiles, the rockets used to knock out an incoming enemy missile. And President Bush is not talking about a minimal system, he's talking about a large-scale multi-layered one.

David Shambaugh: If you're sitting in China and you look at a multi-layered national missile defence system being deployed, you look at increased arms sales to Taiwan, indeed the Bush Administration in April sold the largest arms package to Taiwan ever, you look at the Bush Administration strengthening alliances in East Asia, all around China's periphery; if you're a Chinese leader or a Chinese strategist or a Chinese military official, you can quickly come to the conclusion that the United States is trying to contain China and sees China as an adversary whose rising power must be contained.

Di Martin: David Shambaugh says the new Administration is playing with diplomatic fire, if not nuclear fire.

It's not known how many of America's seven and a half thousand nuclear missiles are aimed at China, that's classified. But leaked media reports say that the Bush Administration is thinking about doubling that number.

Shambaugh says missile defence will spark a nuclear arms race, as China increases its number of nuclear missiles to whatever it takes to get beyond an American defence shield, He says China has enough fissile material to get their arsenal of 20 up to 300 within just three years. He also says the missile plan will play into the hands of China's hardliners in the coming Communist leadership succession.

David Shambaugh: Right now there's a lot of jockeying going on in that succession but all of China's senior leaders are expected to retire from office at that meeting. So the hardline Bush Administration policy only plays into the hardliners in Beijing who wish to see the United States as their principal adversary. And it forces any kind of moderates in China to adopt more hardline positions themselves.

Di Martin: Professor David Shambaugh from George Washington University.

China is not only worried about national missile defence. It's also closely following the progress of a smaller, more advanced version of US missile defence, which would intercept short range missiles, just like the ones Beijing has got pointed at Taiwan.

China is terrified that America will be able to cover Taiwan in some kind of protective shield, and it's well aware those systems are only a couple of years away from deployment.

Such is the mutual suspicion between Beijing and Washington at the moment that a former US Secretary of Defense says that these defence systems could be a key, and very dangerous irritant.

Robert McNamara was a Secretary of Defense when the US went to war with Vietnam, and when Washington and Moscow narrowly averted nuclear conflict during the Cuban missile crisis. He says that while China and the US have no intention of declaring war on each other, without serious dialogue between the two, there's a chance of sliding into conflict.

Robert McNamara: The inadvertent conflict is a very, very serious risk. There's absolutely no question in my mind that China will go to war with Taiwan if Taiwan appears to be moving towards independence. And if China were to go to war with Taiwan, I'm equally certain that the US would provide military assistance to Taiwan, and you'd have a US-China war, and it would be a totally inadvertent war: neither nation would have planned it, neither nation would have wished it, neither nation, nor would the world, benefit from it.

Di Martin: So, like a sliding into conflict like we saw in Vietnam?

Robert McNamara: Yes, I think that's exactly what is possible.

Di Martin: Do you think the national missile defence and also the theatre missile defence, do you think that actually feeds in as a critical element to this possibility of inadvertent conflict, especially considering the dearth of discussion between Washington and Beijing?

Robert McNamara: Well I think it does, because I think it leads Beijing to feel again that we are intentionally trying to contain them, constrain them.

Di Martin: Former US Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara.

Radio Operators: missile launch talk

The National Missile Defence System

Di Martin: There are three options for intercepting an incoming enemy missile. When it's launched, when it's in mid-course, and when it's about to hit. America has been concentrating on the mid-course system, and has conducted three flight tests. They've all involved a mock enemy missile being fired from California's Vandenburg Air Base, and the defending interceptor fired from Kwajelin Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

Former Test Director Phil Coyle describes Kwajelin Atoll.

Phil Coyle: I think it's quite a beautiful place. There are palm trees and the weather is gorgeous all the time and it's really quite an idyllic spot.

Radio Operators: missile launch talk

Di Martin: Each test costs about ninety million dollars US. The first one was a significant fillip for the developers of national missile defence. The interceptor hit its target.

Radio Operators: Cheers on successful launch.

Di Martin: But the other two tests have had a few more problems. The last attempt was about a year ago, and Phil Coyle travelled to Kwajelin Atoll to watch the interceptor do its work.

Phil Coyle: Well everybody had been working very hard. The contractors had been working hard, the Ballistic Missile Defence Office, everybody had been working very hard. And I believe everyone was hopeful. Everybody thought that the test might succeed. Back here in Washington, CBS newsman Dan Rather was in the information centre in the basement of the Pentagon with General Kadish, just permitting that access I think indicates there was a degree of optimism. So everybody was stunned when it didn't. Everybody was absolutely stunned when it didn't.

Di Martin: On Kwajelin when this happened, what was the response in the control rooms?

Phil Coyle: There was total silence.

Di Martin: Like the second test, the defending intercept missile went nowhere near its Californian target. The problem was not one of the major difficulties of ballistic science that the testers had expected - it was a valve problem.

Phil Coyle says a valve can be fixed, but that doesn't deal with the biggest problem in mid-course intercept when an enemy missile sends out decoys to confuse a defending interceptor rocket.

Phil Coyle: One way to think about it is it's sort of like shooting down a handful of rocks that's thrown in your face. It will probably be one of many objects coming your way, some of which will be dangerous and some not. But what you're trying to defend against is a handful of rocks that's been thrown, and you may be able to shoot down one of those rocks, but you may not be able to get them all. It's the most difficult thing the United States has ever tried to do in the way of a defence development. The technology is improving, but it's still very far off I believe.

Di Martin: The former Test Director is optimistic that national missile defence will eventually work, and says a simple system could be running in about six years. But Phil Coyle has his sceptics. Like Joe Cirincione from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Joe Cirincione: I think of missile defence as a con game, that this is basically a fraud, that they don't have something here, they don't own the bridge they're trying to sell you. They're selling you a promise, and it's a very appealing promise. I mean who wouldn't want a defence against a ballistic missile if you could have one? I would like it. If there really was a system that would effectively intercept any ballistic missile aimed at me, or my country, I'd want to buy it. I'd also like a cure for cancer; I'd like a really good light beer, but some things are beyond our technological capability. I worked on the staff of the House Armed Service Committee for six years and then the Government Operations Committee for three years. I investigated and tracked ballistic missile defence programs for over nine years for Congress. I heard officials come up and swear that their program was ready to go. That it had been proved in concept, it had been technologically demonstrated they just needed a little more money and a little more time. None of the dozens of systems proposed over those nine years ever worked. None of them. Ground-based lasers, free electron lasers, space-based lasers, chemical lasers, ground-based interceptors, space-based kinetic kill vehicles, these were all multi-billion dollar programs.

Di Martin: Yet technical issues are not deterring the Bush Administration. Speaking outside the Pentagon, US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, says the tests have to start somewhere.

Donald Rumsfeld: They need not be 100 per cent perfect, in my opinion, and they are certainly unlikely to be in their early stages of evolution. And anyone who believes that you can have a full blown perfect system from the beginning I think is underestimating the difficulties of doing that in anything that's technologically complex.

Di Martin: Donald Rumsfeld also brushes aside deep concerns about funding a multi-layered system in the wake of a Republican initiated 1.3 trillion dollar tax cut.

A senior Democratic Senator says a full-scale space, air, sea and land-based national missile defence system could cost almost as much as the tax cut.

Just a few blocks away from the White House is the office of Dr Gordon Adams, a security specialist and a former Director of the Congress Office of Management and Budget.

Gordon Adams: I think the Administration is going to announce a humungous ballistic missile defence program, and as we say in America, bet on the come; hope that somewhere downstream these numbers will work themselves out so that you can afford to pay for it.

Di Martin: Gordon Adams says the costs could range from around sixty billion dollars for a simple system, to two hundred billion dollars. Regardless, he says the costs will be massive, and the rest of the armed forces is quite nervous.

Gordon Adams: I think it has to eat into the defence budget and I think that's a subject of great concern to the services because in the end it's their budgets. And it's particularly their hardware budgets. The army, the navy, the air force, they're looking at a ballistic missile defence program that could eat their procurement budgets alive.

Di Martin: In addition, Gordon Adams doesn't think that America's defence contractors are lobbying hard for a huge national missile defence system. He says that the big contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin are earning ten times the amount from other contracts, like aircraft and shipbuilding.

Yet despite the widespread opposition, there's hardly a person of the 535 Members of Congress who will say that national missile defence should be scrapped altogether. The Democrats have recently got control of the Senate, the Upper House of Congress. If they voted en masse, they could block any Bill they wanted. But that doesn't mean they'll vote down national missile defence.

A long-time opponent of the plan is Bill Hartung, a security specialist at the New York based World Policy Institute. He says the idea of national missile defence has been around for so long that politicians think it's a question not of if, but when, and how.

Bill Hartung: I think missile defence is provocative, dangerous and a waste of money; I think it should be relegated to the dustbin of history and we should get on with the business of nuclear disarmament. But unfortunately that's a hard position to promote in official Washington, because a lot of the Members of Congress are still sort of stuck in the Cold War, and the Democrats in particularly came to a position where they felt like they didn't want to be out-flanked by the Republicans; they don't want to be viewed as soft on defence.

Di Martin: Dr Carol Cohn, who specialises in national defence and security issues, is a feminist scholar and sociologist who has seen the political potency of being associated with softness. She's speaking here on the phone from her home in Maine.

Carol Cohn: Being accused of being soft on defence is an absolute killer in American politics. The actual content of what you are saying you are opposed to, and why you are opposed to it, becomes irrelevant. It could be as rational as anything, it could be a weapon system that the Pentagon says it doesn't need or want, it doesn't matter. If you vote against a defence Bill, you can be accused of being soft on defence and is considered the kiss of death in American politics.

Di Martin: Carol Cohn, from Bowdoin College.

There's been just one public rally against national missile defence in Washington since the Bush Administration took office. Bill Hartung was one of the speakers, and sets the scene.

Bill Hartung: We're in Lafayette Park, right across from the White House, which is sort of a traditional place for protest against US government policy, which came to a peak during the anti-Vietnam period in the '70s, but it's a good place to bring a good cross-section of people from around the country to voice opposition to dangerous policies like the Bush Star Wars and nuclear plans; and as we're speaking, they're inflating some mock nuclear missiles which are going to serve as the backdrop for today's speaking and activities.

Di Martin: So what are your placards saying?

Protestor: Some placards saying 'Stop the New Arms Race', really big, beautiful, bold red colours with a large nuclear missile in the background, representing the Star Wars missile defence system. And also, yes, indicating this is nothing new, this is something that we were hearing twenty years ago with Reagan, and it's back again, and we're just as mad about it now, and we intend to stop it.

Speaker: If you're fed up with lunatics and greed-heads hellbent on spreading their insane world vision to the heavens beyond the world they've already so fruitfully laced with violence and despair, yet you are outraged with a military machine that knows no boundaries, even though it has already frittered away resources so desperately needed to make the world truly safer and saner then we have got a rally for you today.

Cheering

Di Martin: But for all the organisers' efforts to bring people from around the country to make a decisive stand on missile defence, there were only about 150 protesters. The reasons for lukewarm domestic opposition vary. In the public, it's generally because of fatigue; this issue has been around for more than 40 years.

But Dr Carol Cohn from Bowdoin College says it's also to do with the nature and identity of American patriotism.

Carol Cohn: American political discourse has embedded in it the idea that America should be and can be invulnerable, and that there's indeed a kind of moral imperative to be as invulnerable as you can. I think that that's a very important part of the appeal of missile defence; I think that that's the only way that you can say we should spend $60-billion on something that might protect from one missile that might by accident fly out from some country somewhere, sometime.

Di Martin: The idea that America can go it alone is certainly not new. Unilateralist behaviour is part of the American political landscape, and it's become more prominent since the fall of the Soviet Union.

America's rejection of the rest of the rest of the world's views on global warming is a classic example. Bush says he will not sign the Kyoto treaty on greenhouse gases because it constrains American business. And that's not the only international treaty to go by Washington's wayside. So the world recently flexed back, in perhaps the only forum it could, the United Nations. In a move that shocked the US, the United Nations voted Washington off a key UN Human Rights Committee.

Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld is not impressed with the UN.

Donald Rumsfeld: They obviously did something that was notably unwise. Sudan on the Human Rights Commission and the US off, tells more about the people who cast the votes and the judgement that was used than it does about the United States. With the end of the Soviet Union, the United States is the power in the world. There was a great deal of gratitude in the world when the United States was the national principally a system with our allies in preventing the spread of Communism and the containment of the Soviet Union. With the Soviet Union gone, that gratitude is gone, that appreciation is gone.

Di Martin: America's unilateralist actions could have dire consequences, and Joe Cirincione from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says one of those could be decreasing America's security. He forecasts the consequences of America abandoning treaties and multilateral action.

Joe Cirincione: If you allow that system to die, to wither, then what you can imagine in the next few years is that countries actually leaving some of these joint arrangements. For example, Russia deciding it's no longer going to participate in the missile technology control regime, which has been around for about 15 years now. And then you could see a program like Iran's benefit from the direct sale of missiles, direct sale of engines, direct aid from underemployed Russian scientists. This would be in Russia's business interests, and it might decide it's in its diplomatic interest as well. That's what you have to be worried about.

Di Martin: Joe Cirincione. He says that Bush's unilateral offer to cut America's arsenal of nuclear weapons is also a dangerous move. Without reciprocal arrangements to organise inspections and verifications, countries like Russia may not believe the Americans, and so will have little incentive to reduce their massive stockpile.

President Bush has strongly signalled he's going to unilaterally withdraw from the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty, or ABM Treaty. It was signed between the US and the old Soviet Union back in 1972. Essentially it bans both countries from deploying a multi-layered missile defence system. No defences means both countries would be vulnerable to attack, so neither would dare fire off the first round.

John Rhinelander was a legal advisor to the Treaty, and says if Bush does bail out of the ABM Treaty, it will give the US the dubious distinction of being the first country to ever withdraw from an arms control treaty.

John Rhinelander: No other country has withdrawn, so if Bush goes this way he will bring a house down on top of him, and I think it will cause commotion. And then the only question is that nobody has the answer: what follows? What will Russia do, what will China do? Russia will probably withdraw from several treaties at a minimum; I think the NPT which in many ways is the...

Di Martin: That's the Non-Proliferation Treaty ...

John Rhinelander: ...could not survive a unilateral US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. So in fact the whole post world war treaty regime dealing with the weapons, would I think collapse if we go forward and withdraw from the ABM Treaty.

Di Martin: Yet Bush may withdraw from the ABM Treaty within four years, because he wants some sort of national missile defence system up and running by the end of his first term.

Russia says it will build up its nuclear arsenal in response, and European allies are furious. In fact the only Western ally to support Bush's plan is Australia. Despite concerns about the ABM Treaty and China, Canberra is backing the Bush approach. Here's Defence Minister, Peter Reith speaking to reporters outside the Pentagon.

Peter Reith: The Australian government has made it quite clear that we understand the right of the US government proceed to a system which it thinks is necessary for the defence of its territories.

Di Martin: When Bush first announced his plan, the international chorus of opposition was overwhelming. So when Australia spoke early and eagerly for the Americans, the Coalition government gave Washington a vital diplomatic fillip.

Dr James Mulvenon from Rand Corporation.

James Mulvenon: It was extremely important for the United States, and to the extent to which the United States will continue to view Australia as our anchor in the Asia Pacific region, the hope will be that those statements of support for national missile defence will be translated into real operational implications for the use of Australian facilities in that early warning infrastructure.

Di Martin: And Australia's facilities will almost certainly be used if an American national missile defence system ever gets off the ground.

Speaking by phone from Kuala Lumpur, this is Ron Huisken, former Head of the Pine Gap joint defence facility outside Alice Springs.

Ron Huisken: I think the answer would be yes, as long as we continue to host the relay ground station. We will have, I would term, an association with ballistic missile defence, to the extent that early warning data is relayed through the facility at Pine Gap, that is incontrovertible it seems to me.

Di Martin: Ron Huisken says Pine Gap has already been used in missile defence under the Hawke Labor government. That was during the Gulf War, when the US deployed the smaller theatre missile defence against Iraq's SCUD missiles.

Today the Labor Party says that joint facilities shouldn't be used for any testing, research or development for a defence shield to cover America. They say it's much more dangerous than the theatre system, and it could spark an arms race, or threaten the international treaty system.

Frank Gaffney, from the Centre for Security Policy warns that if Australia follows the Labor Party approach, American may not protect it from missile attack.

Frank Gaffney: Well I think it would be regrettable and short-sighted, but I certainly would be prepared, if the government of Australia insisted, that we also don't provide any protection to Australia against missile attack. I find it unlikely that the people of Australia will think that's a very good arrangement, but if in their wisdom they choose a government that holds that policy, we would certainly respect it.

Di Martin: And Frank Gaffney's view is shared by key Bush officials.

But long-time Australian security specialist, Des Ball, says this misunderstands how Australia will be involved. He says Australia's role will be insignificant, and America could get its information elsewhere.

Pine Gap reads information from satellites. Professor Ball says the facility's major function by far is about international eavesdropping, and as long as that continues, the US-Australian alliance is fine. Des Ball says the dish that picks up information about ballistic missile launches is a tiny affair, tacked onto the side of the main facility.

Des Ball: Those guys aren't even allowed to visit the CIA's canteen in the Pine Gap station, you know. It really is quite incidental. There's only four people there, and basically what they do is carry oil cans around and make sure that the wheels of the dish allow it to point in the right azimuth and things like that. The real jewel in the alliance relationship is what goes on at that main place at Pine Gap, which is one of the largest satellite ground stations in the world, probably the second largest in the world in terms of importance of using space for intelligence collection.

Di Martin: While Australia may have a choice on whether or not to be involved in researching, testing or developing a national missile defence system, it's highly unlikely either the Coalition or Labor will go down that path.

Australia is small fry when it comes to influencing America, especially if even the major league nations like France and Germany aren't getting anywhere.

Joe Cirincione says the revived unilateralist America will forge ahead with national missile defence, despite domestic and international opposition.

Joe Cirincione: The people who believe in this, believe in it with the fervour of religious believers. But the technology makes it impossible for it to advance. So unfortunately this is a debate we're going to have over and over again, it's like a bad dream, it just won't go away.

Di Martin: Joe Cirincione from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace finishing this week's Background Briefing on Radio National.

The program's Co-ordinating Producer is Linda McGinnis; Technical Producer, Mark Don; Research from Paul Bolger; and Executive Producer, Kirsten Garrett. I'm Di Martin reporting from Washington, DC.

Further information:

The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization "Responsible for managing, directing, and executing the Ballistic Missile Defense Program." http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/html/nmd.html

-------- russia

Just What Game Is Putin Playing?

New York Times
June 24, 2001
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/24/weekinreview/24TYLE.html?searchpv=nytToday

MOSCOW -- To earn his black belt in judo, President Vladimir V. Putin spent years sizing up opponents before trying a throw. So it shouldn't be surprising that soon after that soul-gazing summit with President Bush, the Russian leader delivered an unexpected blow to his new partner - and radically shifted the terms of the debate about missile defense.

Mr. Bush had seemed exuberant that he had created some momentum in Europe for his proposals when Mr. Putin shifted the ground under him. The Russian leader said if the United States acted unilaterally by withdrawing from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty to build the missile shield, Russia would pull out of all arms control treaties of the last 30 years. Then it would increase the power of its nuclear arsenal manyfold by abandoning its commitment to phase out multiple warheads on its ICBM's, one of arms control's signal achievements under the second strategic arms reduction treaty.

The Russian leader insisted he was not trying to threaten anyone. But with disarming candor he demonstrated that though Russia has a relatively weak hand to play in international affairs, he intends to play it as best he can to undermine American unilateralism where it threatens - at least in his view - Russian national interests.

Russia has inherited much of the bargaining power of the Soviet state as the only country with the capability to destroy the United States with nuclear weapons. It maintains a huge, if aging, nuclear arsenal that includes strategic rockets that have multiple warheads, but are due to be dismantled or replaced with single warhead missiles.

Because Europe is watching, Mr. Bush, for now, needs Russia's assent to modify the ABM treaty. Mr. Putin explained how he and Mr. Bush should proceed: first, examining the missile capabilities of so-called rogue states, then determining the best way to counter those threats with missile defense technologies and then discussing where such defenses conflict with the treaty.

And Mr. Putin laid down the markers of how Russia might respond if it turns out that Mr. Bush had feigned cooperation. Russia possesses an enormous potential to play the spoiler by spreading its most sophisticated weapons technologies to unstable places around the world - something Mr. Putin now says he has no intention of doing. But there have been rumors in Russia's defense establishment for a year that Moscow might sell an Oscar II class nuclear submarine to China. Like the ill-fated Kursk that sank last summer, the Oscars carry a complement of superfast torpedoes and cruise missiles designed in Soviet times to destroy American aircraft carriers. And China has been looking for weapons to keep the American fleet at bay in the event of a showdown over Taiwan. The list could go on: Syria, Libya, Iran and Iraq are hungry for the advanced missiles that Moscow produces, but Mr. Putin has withheld them while working with Europe and the United States to stem the flow of dangerous technology.

It seems Mr. Putin has found an excellent position. As long as he sticks to fundamentals - the long record of arms control that has created the only existing security guarantees in the nuclear age - Mr. Bush will carry the responsibility for any consequences of a decision to withdraw from the ABM treaty. The cost of a withdrawal, Mr. Putin said, will be Start I and Start II - not to mention the likely abandonment of Start III negotiations, which hold the promise to cut in half again the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States.

In addition, Mr. Putin knows he could put pressure on the United States from a series of other positions.

One involves China. Moscow and Beijing are moving closer together as their conflicts with Washington grow. Next month, the two countries are slated to sign a friendship and cooperation treaty and also initiate stronger defense cooperation. Mr. Putin has resuscitated the triangular diplomacy of the cold war.

China has a small missile force, but Mr. Putin's warning that more warheads could be put on Russian missiles quietly raises the specter of Russia helping China develop multiple warhead technology and expand its nuclear potential. This would only incite India, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea to new levels of alarm.

IF the proliferation dominoes start falling - with India, Pakistan and other aspiring nuclear states making ready to build out their nuclear forces - Mr. Putin will be there to remind President Bush where it all started.

But these are not the only possibilities.

The Russian leader said that an American missile shield would not pose a threat to Russia for up to 25 years. Was he suggesting that Russia might do nothing in response now? If so, what would be the price? Could it be the cancellation of Russia's Soviet-era debt, as some Bush administration advisers advocate?

Mr. Putin seems willing to undertake a significant collaboration with the Bush administration on everything from controlling the flow of narcotics to taking stronger measures to undermine the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan. And there have been hints that Russia's policy of selling nuclear reactors and battlefield weapons to Iran might be up for negotiation.

And what of North Korea? The Bush administration position is not yet clear, but Russia, China and Europe have been working to reconcile the divided peninsula, giving North Korea's unpredictable leader, Kim Jong Il, enough face and financial incentive to forswear his ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.

And finally, just as the United States is spending millions to send home 46 American diplomats from Moscow, kicked out by Mr. Putin in retaliation for Mr. Bush's decision to expel as many Russian diplomats accused of spying, Mr. Putin said it was time for both presidents to reform their intelligence agencies. Both were doing a lousy job, Mr. Putin said, in the era of new security threats. He suggested they could build an effective collaboration, one that ended the practice of leaks and disinformation - the cold war game.

In all these areas, there is as much room for cooperation as for opposition. It is too early to say whether the game might really end, but Mr. Putin is working to keep the United States off balance.

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

The Threat of Annihilation Is Still Real

By ROBERT S. MCNAMARA, JAMES G. BLIGHT,
Sunday, June 24, 2001
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/20010624/t000052181.html

For 40 years, we have lived with a situation so bizarre it is almost beyond belief. U.S. nuclear forces have been controlled by a "launch on warning" strategy. In order to reduce the number of our weapons that would be destroyed by a Russian first strike, our warheads stand ready to be launched while Russian warheads are in flight.

No more than 15 minutes can elapse, under the policy, from the time of first warning of a Russian attack and the launching of our missiles, which means the president must evaluate the danger and decide whether or not to push the button with no time to study the situation. To make that possible, the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Strategic Air Command carries with him a secure telephone, no matter where he goes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. This telephone is linked to the underground nuclear command post of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, deep inside Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, and to the president.

The president, wherever he happens to be, always has at hand nuclear release codes in the "football," a briefcase carried for him by a U.S. military officer. The standing orders of the commander of the strategic forces are that he must be able to answer the telephone by the end of the third ring. If it rings, and if he is informed that a nuclear attack of enemy ballistic missiles appears to be underway, he is allowed two to three minutes to decide whether the warning is valid (over the years, we have received many false warnings) and, if it is, to formulate his recommendation to the president. In the next 10 minutes, the president must be located and advised. He must discuss the situation with two or three of his closest advisors (presumably the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and transmit his decision, along with the codes, to the launch sites.

The president's options would essentially be these: He could decide to ride out the attack and defer until later any decision to launch a retaliatory strike. Or he could order an immediate strike, thereby launching U.S. weapons that were targeted on military-industrial assets in Russia. The Russians presumably have analogous facilities and arrangements. The possibility of nuclear extinction is real. It exists today, this minute, despite the fact that the Cold War ended more than a decade ago. It is true that the U.S. and Russia have made substantial reductions in their arsenals since the late 1980s--between 1987 and 1998, the U.S. reduced its nuclear force from 13,600 strategic warheads to approximately 7,500, with the Soviet Union and Russia moving from 8,600 strategic warheads to about 6,450. Yet in terms of the security of the human race from nuclear holocaust, these reductions still leave the U.S. with the capacity to kill approximately 67 million Russians using only one-third of its forces, while the Russians can kill 75 million Americans, using 40% of their weapons. This assumes that each side's weapons are directed at military targets: Many more people could be killed, with far fewer weapons, if population centers were made the principal objective of an attack.

Nuclear weapons blast, burn and irradiate with a speed and finality that is almost incomprehensible. This is exactly what the U.S. and Russia continue to threaten to do to one another with their nuclear weapons. It is useful to recall what happened when the U.S. dropped one atomic bomb each on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. These bombs had roughly one-twentieth of the destructive power of the average bomb in our arsenal today. In Hiroshima, approximately 200,000 died--men, women, and children. In Nagasaki, an estimated 100,000 died. On November 7, 1995, Itcho Ito, the mayor of Nagasaki, recalled in testimony to the International Court of Justice his memory of the attack: "Nagasaki became a city of death where not even the sound of insects could be heard. After a while, countless men, women and children began to gather for a drink of water at the banks of the nearby Urakami River. Their hair and clothing scorched and their burnt skin hanging off in sheets like rags." Begging for help, they died one after another in the water or in heaps on the banks. The radiation began to take its toll, killing people like the scourge of death expanding in concentric circles from the hypocenter.

Four months after the atomic bombing, 75,000 had suffered injuries, that is, two-thirds of the city's population had fallen victim to this calamity that came upon Nagasaki like a preview of the Apocalypse. Why did so many civilians have to die? The U.S. was seeking to end the war without having to fight its way to Tokyo, island by island, and the civilians, who made up nearly all of the victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were unfortunately living and working near military targets. While their annihilation was not precisely the objective of those targeting the bombs, it was an inevitable result of the choice of those targets. It is worth noting that at one point during the Cold War, the U.S. had more than 200 nuclear warheads targeted on Moscow, because it contained so many military targets and so much "industrial capacity." Presumably, the Russians similarly targeted many U.S. cities, because of the connection to its "military industrial capacity."

The statement that our nuclear weapons do not target populations is totally misleading in the sense that the so-called "collateral damage" of our strikes would include tens of millions of Russians dead. The U.S. and Russia no longer target specific missiles or other specific sites (although retargeting can be done in less than five minutes). But in other respects, very little has changed. Therein lies a great danger, one exacerbated by the lack of public awareness of it. Bruce G. Blair, a former U.S. Air Force nuclear-missile-launch officer who is now president of the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C., conducted in-depth interviews last year with officials at all levels of the U.S. nuclear command structure. From these interviews, Blair concluded that "The United States has about 2,200 strategic warheads on hair-trigger alert, according to Strategic Command officers.

Virtually all missiles on land are ready for launch in two minutes, and those on four submarines--two in the Atlantic and two in the Pacific--are ready to launch on 15 minutes' notice, officers say." Prior to the Soviet Union's dismantling, the threat to use nuclear weapons was conditionally justified, from a moral point of view, by the existence of a bitter Cold War between East and West. But that condition no longer exists. As Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir V. Putin recently proclaimed at their meeting in Slovenia, the U.S. and Russia are no longer enemies. Yet we continue to threaten one another, and the entire human race, with nuclear extinction. Since the threat to annihilate one another can no longer be morally justified, it is time--past time--to move safely, steadily and verifiably to reduce the risk of nuclear catastrophe. Failure to do so is morally unacceptable, militarily unnecessary and extremely dangerous. Will we continue to sleepwalk into a potential nuclear catastrophe? We hope not. Instead, it is our hope that nuclear catastrophe can be kept at bay until the work is accomplished--until nuclear weapons no longer exist. As a first step, but only a first step, we strongly endorse Bush's proposed unilateral reduction from the current level of 7,500 strategic nuclear warheads to approximately 1,500-2,500, and to remove the remaining weapons from hair-trigger alert. - - -

Robert S. Mcnamara Was Secretary of Defense to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson; James G. Blight Is a Professor of International Relations at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. Their Recent Book Is "Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing and Catastrophe in the 21st Century."

-------- us nuc politics

Faltering Bush faces defence budget revolt

By David Wastell in Washington -
UK Telegraph,
June 24, 2001
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=005337600229959&rtmo=QeQ3mHpR&atmo=rrrrrrrq&pg=/et/01/6/24/wbush24.html

PRESIDENT George W Bush must dramatically raise the Pentagon's budget or face a revolt over defence spending, Conservative Republicans have warned.

Their move reflects growing confusion in Republican ranks over the direction being taken by Mr Bush after a series of White House flip-flops in recent weeks on foreign policy and unexpected concessions on the domestic front.

"There's a lot of frustration," said a Republican official in the Senate. "Republicans want to support their President but they know he's not doing all the things he should be doing."

Senior members of Congress are determined to hold Mr Bush to his election campaign promise that "help is on the way" to the armed forces, after lean years under the Clinton administration. But there are signs that Mr Bush will refuse a request by Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, for an extra $30 billion (£21 billion) next year.

Mr Bush is expected to approve a budget rise of $18 billion (£12.8 billion) - an increase of slightly less than six per cent. Conservative critics regard this as dangerously low, given the Pentagon's need to improve conditions for American servicemen and to take on new roles, including developing a missile shield and protecting satellites from attack in space.

A move to force higher defence spending is being planned in the Senate by John McCain, the Arizona Republican senator who was defeated for the presidential nomination by Mr Bush last year.

Although Mr McCain, a Vietnam veteran, is a maverick on many issues, he is a staunch supporter of the armed forces. As one Senate insider said: "Some of us think we need to be more concerned about national security than about President Bush."

Pressure on Mr Bush has been mounting as some of the political realities of the close election result begin to bite. To avert defeats in Congress, he abandoned plans for a voucher scheme to help children at inner city schools and backed limits on foreign steel despite his campaign support for free trade.

Only last week, he supported a plan to impose price controls on electricity in California, after arguing for months that they would only worsen the state's energy crisis.

In a piece of spin that Downing Street would relish, Mr Bush's official spokesman defended the President's change of heart as support, not for price controls, but for a "market-based mitigation plan".

All three decisions worried conservative supporters, but none so much as Mr Bush's decision to order the US Navy to stop using the Puerto Rican island of Vieques as a live bombing range. Pro-defence Republicans were stunned that the President was willing to abandon use of the island, which the navy had previously insisted was essential to its combat training, in an apparent attempt to build support among Hispanic voters.

"It was one of the worst decisions I have seen any president make," said one Republican official. A group of 24 Republicans from the House of Representatives led by James Hanson, a member of the armed services committee, sent a letter to Mr Bush last week saying they were "gravely disappointed" with the decision, which sent "exactly the wrong message".

The President's change of mind on some issues contrasts with his firm stance on others, especially tax cuts and reform of the state pension system. Paul Gigot, a conservative commentator, wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Friday that unlike Bill Clinton who was "a consistent trimmer, always looking to hedge his bets and cut deals", Mr Bush is "a conviction politician until he isn't, whereupon he surrenders with brutal, almost jarring dispatch".

Last week, Mr Bush, who won widespread plaudits for the way he handled his five-day trip to Europe, came under unexpected fire from a senior Republican leader for his warm praise of President Putin of Russia.

Jesse Helms, the conservative-leaning senator who until recently chaired the Senate foreign relations committee, said Mr Bush had been "premature" in his declaration that Mr Putin was "very straightforward and trustworthy". The Russian leader did not deserve Mr Bush's "excessively personal endorsement", Mr Helms said.

Foreign policy issues on which Mr Bush appears to have departed from his pre-election rhetoric include his suspension of talks with North Korea, since reversed, and his attempt to remain at arm's length from events in the Middle East.

Earlier this month Mr Bush sent George Tenet, head of the CIA, to negotiate a ceasefire between Israelis and Palestinians, and last week he decided to send Colin Powell, Secretary of State, to the region to kick-start peace talks.

White House officials deny Mr Bush is moving closer to the foreign policy positions of Mr Clinton but many Republicans are alarmed that he seems to be moderating his campaign rhetoric.

In another move that puzzled some Bush allies on Capitol Hill, Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, is said to have told Senate Democrats at a private lunch last week that the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty may not need to be scrapped or amended for at least a year.

Other officials have begun arguing that the Pentagon can continue development of the missile shield for two years or longer without falling foul of the treaty, which Mr Bush has been attacking as a redundant Cold War relic.

Conservative Republicans would object to any delay in scrapping the ABM Treaty, however. "It's antithetical to the very idea of testing," said Senator Jon Kyl, former chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, in an interview last week.

The flurry of Republican concern coincides with three opinion polls all showing Mr Bush's approval rating in the 50 to 55 per cent range. Although far from the disaster claimed by the liberal-leaning New York Times last week, Mr Bush's rating has fallen around seven points from when he became President.

23 June 2001: US navy red alert over 'terror threat' 18 June 2001: American backlash over Europe's harsh treatment of Bush 17 June 2001: I can work with Putin declares upbeat Bush 11 June 2001: Bush may dispatch envoy to chair talks 30 May 2001: Bush's visit fails to solve row over Californian power crisis

----

Cheney hit by Iraq deal row

June 24 2001
Tony Allen-Mills, Washington -
UK Sunday Times
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/06/24/stifgnusa02001.html?

PRESIDENT George W Bush will face further questions this week about his administration's ties to big business following fresh disclosures about Vice-President Dick Cheney's term as chief executive of Halliburton Co, a Texas oil conglomerate whose subsidiaries signed contracts to sell equipment to Iraq.

Cheney became chairman of Halliburton after serving as defence secretary during the Gulf war against Saddam Hussein. At the time he backed a hard line on economic sanctions against Baghdad.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that two of his Dallas-based company's foreign subsidiaries, Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co, signed deals worth more than $73m to supply pumps, pipeline equipment and spare parts to Iraq through French affiliates between 1997 and last summer.

There was nothing illegal about the contracts, the Post emphasised, but United Nations records were said to show that the Iraq dealings "were more extensive than Vice-President Cheney has acknowledged".

Scrutiny of the administration's links to business has intensified in recent weeks. Bush's senior domestic adviser, Karl Rove, was criticised for meeting senior executives of Intel Corp, the computer chip manufacturer, which is seeking government approval for a merger. At the time, Rove held shares in the company worth more than $100,000.

The Treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, sold millions of dollars worth of shares in Alcoa, the aluminium company he formerly headed, after complaints that he stood to benefit personally from any government measures that helped the industry.

In an interview last year, Cheney denied that Halliburton or its subsidiaries had traded with Iraq. He corrected himself after a company spokesman acknowledged that two foreign subsidiaries had signed contracts to sell to Baghdad.

Yesterday the Post quoted former executives of the subsidiaries as saying that Cheney would "definitely" have been aware of the contracts.

A Cheney spokeswoman said the vice-president had not been involved in meetings or conversations about Iraq and had "no control" over the subsidiaries' joint ventures.

----

When Science and Politics Collide

New York Times
June 24, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/24/opinion/L24SCIE.html?searchpv=nytToday

To the Editor:

Re "Sure, It's Rocket Science, but Who Needs Scientists?" (Week in Review, June 17):

You suggest that one reason for the neglect of scientific advice by the Bush White House is that "there is no grand, moral figure" among the ranks of scientists. But to explain the current administration's reckless disregard of science, we need no recourse to broad trends.

If things had worked out differently in Florida, and the popular national vote had been mirrored in the electoral vote, the man in the White House would have been one who reveres science and would not need instruction on climate change, notwithstanding the lack of Einsteins, Sakharovs and Feynmans in the world. TODD GITLIN

New York, June 19, 2001

The writer is professor of culture, journalism and sociology at New York University.

• To the Editor:

It is clear why the White House has not filled many of its scientific leadership positions (Week in Review, June 17). The Bush administration supports a conservative agenda dictated in large part by the energy and weapons industries. Much of the available science contradicts the objectives of these interest groups and the conservative agenda.

This is best exemplified by the plethora of science doubting the wisdom of the White House's deliberations and actions regarding global climate change and the missile shield. Consequently, the administration avoids appointing advisers and leaders who, if performing their jobs correctly, would find serious scientific fault with these policies.

This approach to governing could be very bad for the country, because it replaces intelligence and sound guidance in the decision-making process with bias and irrationality.

ROBERT BURGESS Jamestown, R.I., June 20, 2001

• To the Editor:

"Sure, It's Rocket Science, but Who Needs Scientists?" (Week in Review, June 17) notes that some scientists attribute the lack of scientist-popularizers to the arrogance of the scientific community.

While there may be considerable truth in that, equal if not greater blame should go to university and college administrators who prize indirect cost returns from grants and contracts above all else.

Writing for the public creates no revenue for the university and is therefore not considered a proper intellectual exercise. Until the administrations see that this shortsighted viewpoint hinders the long- term financing by granting agencies, don't expect too many more "grand, moral figures." JAMES B. KALER

Urbana, Ill., June 17, 2001

The writer is a professor of astronomy at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

• To the Editor:

Another example of the Bush administration's indifference to scientific research as a basis for public policy ("Sure, It's Rocket Science, but Who Needs Scientists?," Week in Review, June 17) is in the field of criminology.

President Bush has justified his support of the death penalty on the basis that it serves as a deterrent to crime. Yet the majority of criminologists conclude that research does not support the deterrent effect of capital punishment. DANIEL S. CLASTER

Woodmere, N.Y., June 19, 2001

The writer is professor emeritus of sociology at Brooklyn College, CUNY.

-------- MILITARY

-------- africa

Plan to End Sahara Clashes Rejected

New York Times
June 24, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Western-Sahara.html

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) -- Guerrillas fighting for Western Sahara independence have rejected a U.N. proposal to end the decades-long conflict over who should control the tiny but phosphate-rich stretch of desert in North Africa.

The Polisario Front said a proposal presented Friday by U.N. chief Kofi Annan ignores the rights of the Saharan people to decide their destiny freely, according to Algeria's El Watan newspaper on Sunday.

In a report to the U.N. Security Council on Friday, Annan advised Morocco and the Polisario Front to negotiate the terms of an autonomy plan or risk an end to U.N. involvement in the largely forgotten conflict. Annan called on the parties to agree to wide-ranging autonomy and a referendum on its future in five years.

But the Front said it would not accept a compromise that offered anything other than an immediate referendum and accused Morocco of pressuring the United Nations into pursuing a course that would ``legitimize its occupation'' of the territory.

War broke out in Western Sahara in 1976 after Morocco annexed the 110,000-square-mile territory along the Atlantic coast at the end of Spanish colonial rule.

Fighting between Polisario guerrillas and Morocco's U.S.-equipped army ended in 1991 with a U.N.-negotiated cease-fire. Morocco still insists it is the rightful ruler of the territory, which is rich in phosphates.

-------- asia

South Korea Expels North Korea Boat

New York Times
June 24, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-korea-n.html

SEOUL (Reuters) - The South Korean navy fired warning shots to expel a North Korean fishing boat from its territorial waters in the Yellow Sea on Sunday, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

It was the first time Seoul had fired shots against a North Korean ship since 1999, when the South sunk a North Korean boat.

The fishing vessel had strayed into southern waters 2.5 miles off the Northern Limit Line (NLL) for less than three hours and returned after the South's warning shots, the JCS said in a statement.

There was no military move by the North and no crash was reported in the incident.

``We had made efforts for 40 minutes to warn off the ship by sounding sirens and sending radio signals,'' Hwang Ui-don, the Defense Ministry's spokesman, told reporters at a briefing.

``But the North's ship hurled flares at our vessel --although most fell into the sea. We took it as a strong sign that they would not accept our order.''

More than 10 North Korean vessels have violated the de facto maritime border between the two countries so far this year.

In June alone, seven patrol ships from the North crossed into the territorial water, sparking South Korean opposition lawmakers' criticism over the government's soft handling of the incidents.

After the last incursion by a North Korean commercial ship on June 15, South Korea called for a shipping pact with the North as a series of violations of the demarcation line by North Korean vessels raised fears of a clash and touched off heated political debate in the South.

North Korea has not accepted the maritime border, claiming it was drawn unilaterally by Seoul and the United States.

-------- balkans

Belgrade Moves to Cooperate on War Crimes Tribunal

New York Times
June 24, 2001
By CARLOTTA GALL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/24/world/24YUGO.html

BELGRADE, Serbia, June 23 - The Yugoslav cabinet adopted a decree today committing itself to sending the former president, Slobodan Milosevic, to the United Nations tribunal in The Hague to face trial on war crimes charges.

The extradition of Mr. Milosevic could set the stage for a remarkable international trial, in which a one- time national leader who defied the West stood at the dock accused of a campaign of terror that killed thousands of people in the Balkans.

Mr. Milosevic, who was indicted by the tribunal in May 1999 along with four of his top officials for war crimes in the Serbian province of Kosovo, is first on the list for transfer to The Hague, government officials here have suggested.

The decree takes effect Sunday, and some officials suggested that the former president, already in detention in Belgrade central jail, could be extradited "very soon."

Other officials suggested, however, that it could take until the end of the month, as lawyers and supporters of Mr. Milosevic have promised to challenge the legality of the decree, which conflicts with national laws that forbid the extradition of Yugoslav citizens.

Still, Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus made clear at a news conference today after the cabinet meeting that the government intended to carry out the measure.

"There are, I think, 16 indictments, and there will be no bargaining," he said. "The Hague will ask for the transfer and we will respond."

The action today was taken after the government failed this week to garner enough votes to pass a law that would have allowed the extraditions in the Yugoslav parliament, and it was precipitated by pressure from Western nations to demonstrate that the government was sincere in its cooperation with the tribunal before an international donor's conference next week in Brussels.

The United States has indicated that it will not take part in the conference unless it is satisfied that the Yugoslav government has taken concrete action to cooperate with the tribunal. Without American participation, the Yugoslav government would have difficulty raising the $1 billion it needs to overhaul an economy that is in ruinous shape after 10 years of international sanctions, corrupt rule and regional conflicts.

American officials are to decide by Wednesday whether they will participate in the conference and have indicated that concrete action, namely the transfer of indictees to The Hague, or at least a timetable of planned transfers, would be necessary for them to take part.

The decree adopted today was a last-ditch attempt to show that the government was committed to cooperating with the tribunal.

"We want to be part of the international community," Mr. Labus said.

The strongly worded measure, which will go into effect on Sunday once it appears in the official gazette, orders all courts, prosecutors and other state bodies to act urgently on Hague tribunal requests for the handover of those indicted on war crimes charges, and to inform the government of their action within at least three days.

It also outlines cooperation with Hague tribunal prosecutors, investigators and forensic experts.

Mr. Milosevic is wanted for crimes against humanity for the campaign unleashed against the ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo in the spring of 1999, during NATO's air war against Yugoslavia, when thousands of ethnic Albanians were killed and hundreds of thousands were expelled from their homes.

The Hague tribunal issued an indictment against Mr. Milosevic and four of his close officials in May 1999 while the war was still going on. Since October, when a popular uprising forced Mr. Milosevic out of power and a anti-Milosevic alliance took over, his fate has been in question.

Yugoslavia's new reformist leaders were nevertheless divided on the issue, and public opinion was firmly against sending him to The Hague. President Vojislav Kostunica was opposed to extraditing Mr. Milosevic and others to the tribunal, which he said was a political court and biased against Serbs. Playing for time, he insisted on drafting a law to regulate cooperation. But his deputy prime minister, Mr. Labus, an economist who has masterminded a plan of economic reform for the country, threatened to resign if failure to cooperate with The Hague jeopardized Yugoslavia's international standing with donors and economic institutions. Other ministers criticized the delay, saying a law on cooperation was not necessary.

It was international pressure, namely the risk of losing United States economic assistance, that pushed the authorities to arrest Mr. Milosevic on April 1. Since then, he has been in detention in Belgrade, under investigation for corruption and abuse of power. Another case, meanwhile, has been opened linking him to war crimes committed in Kosovo and to ordering a cover-up of killings of ethnic Albanians.

Faced with another economic deadline of the donors conference next week, the government has finally taken the legal measures it promised to confirm its intention to cooperate with The Hague. Mr. Kostunica appears to have accepted the necessity to cooperate after his visit to the United States last month and his meeting with President Bush and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

Government officials, meanwhile, have started revealing details of several mass graves in Serbia of ethnic Albanian victims from Kosovo in an clear attempt to prepare public opinion for the extradition of Mr. Milosevic.

Still, the government was forced to resort to issuing a federal decree after losing its battle with parliament this week. Mr. Kostunica and his reformists have a majority of nine ministers in the cabinet and were able to pass the decree, but the issue has raised questions about the survival of his Yugoslav government.

Its partners in the government, former allies of Mr. Milosevic from Serbia's sister republic, Montenegro, refused to support the draft bill. Today the Montenegrins announced that their seven ministers would not attend the cabinet meeting and that the party executive committee was considering whether to pull out of the government altogether.

Mr. Milosevic's lawyers and supporters have argued that a decree on cooperation with The Hague is unconstitutional and extradition of Yugoslav citizens remains illegal under current Yugoslav laws.

"A coalition partnership is supposed to mean that decisions are taken by mutual consent and not like this," said Predrag Bulatovic, leader of the Montenegrin Socialists, who refused to back both the law and decree on cooperation with The Hague.

One of Mr. Milosevic's lawyers, Veselin Cerovic, quoted today by the daily Glas Javnosti, also questioned the constitutionality of the decree, raising the prospect of a legal fight ahead over Mr. Milosevic's transfer.

"With or without a law on the International Criminal Court, there is no clause in the constitution allowing for the extradition of one of our citizens, regardless of whether it is requested by a state or an international organization," Mr. Cerovic said.

--------

Milosevic to challenge decree on his extradition

USA Today
06/24/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/world/june01/2001-06-24-milosevic.htm

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - Slobodan Milosevic huddled in jail with his lawyer Sunday, plotting a challenge to a decree that allows Yugoslav authorities to extradite the former president to face trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal.

Top Milosevic attorney Toma Fila derided the government decree - pushed through a day earlier by pro-democracy leaders eager for Western approval and aid money - as "legal piracy." He said he would ask Yugoslavia's constitutional court to throw it out.

Fila called the decree a "political decision" and said Yugoslavia's laws were "helpless against such bullying methods." The decree overrides existing law and allows district courts to order the extradition of suspects indicted by the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

The decree took effect Sunday. Fila, who heads Milosevic's 10-member defense team, said the former president gave him instructions for subsequent moves, but declined to divulge any details.

Mirjana Markovic, Milosevic's wife and head of the communist Yugoslav Left party, was also seen entering Belgrade's Central Prison, accompanied by their daughter-in-law. Her party condemned the decree as "amoral, anti-constitutional, illegal and anti-Serb" and said it makes the country into a "NATO colony."

Although some Yugoslav officials said Milosevic could be sent to The Hague in days, the text of the decree allows for an appeal process that could take about three weeks once his extradition is ordered by the court handling his case. That had not yet happened.

Long awaited by the United States and other nations, the decree came two years after the U.N. tribunal indicted Milosevic for crimes against humanity during his crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. The crackdown ended after a NATO bombing campaign in 1999.

The West says disbursement of billions of dollars of aid for Yugoslavia, impoverished during Milosevic's 13-year rule, is contingent on cooperation by its new, pro-democratic leaders with the war crimes court. The country now consists of two republics, Serbia and much smaller Montenegro.

The Yugoslav government's efforts to create a legal framework for the extradition of Milosevic and other indicted suspects gathered steam with the approach of an international donors conference scheduled for Friday in Brussels, Belgium.

The court, established in 1993, has tried dozens of suspects for alleged crimes during the wars that accompanied the breakup of the larger, six-republic Yugoslavia during the 1990s. But major suspects - including Milosevic, wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his top general, Ratko Mladic - have so far escaped its grasp.

Ousted in October, Milosevic has been in jail since April 1 while an investigation is under way into allegations of corruption and abuse of power during his tenure. The probes have recently widened to encompass allegations that he covered up Kosovo atrocities.

Pro-democracy Cabinet ministers from Serbia used their dominant position in the government to adopt the decree after abandoning plans to push a law allowing for the extradition of Yugoslav citizens through parliament, where they lacked sufficient support.

After the decree was adopted, Montenegrin ministers who opposed it offered to resign their Cabinet posts, a move that may ultimately lead to a government collapse and call for new federal elections.

--------

Despite NATO Warning, Macedonia Shells Rebels

New York Times
June 24, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/24/world/24MACE.html

ILINDEN, Macedonia, June 23 - Macedonian government forces resumed their assault on a village held by ethnic Albanian guerrillas today despite a blunt NATO warning to stop and the arrival of a top Western envoy hoping to revive peace talks.

Ignoring NATO pleas to stop the "madness," Mi-24 helicopter gunships swooped in on Aracinovo, six miles from Skopje, the capital, for a second day. Tanks slammed shells into the village, which the Macedonian government had vowed to recapture in a risky bid to seize the upper hand.

Government troops and ethnic Albanian rebels exchanged machine-gun fire inside Aracinovo, and plumes of smoke rose from its battered rooftops as the artillery bombardment continued.

An army spokesman said Macedonia had retaken one-third of Aracinovo, but did not expect to conquer it fully today.

Western diplomats doubt the army has enough effective troops to pull it off. They suggest that the main objective may be a show of strength to put pressure on Albanian parties to drop demands for wholesale constitutional changes as part of a peace accord.

"They want to be seen to be doing something while they reinvent the plan," one envoy said. "It achieves nothing unless it's for the Macedonian media."

An Su-25 warplane roared over downtown Skopje and the area around Aracinovo four times today, as Javier Solana, the European Union foreign affairs chief, arrived on his latest mission to coax both sides of the ethnic divide into a deal.

Western diplomats, anxious to broker a deal before the four- month-old conflict spirals into civil war, met Albanian leaders on Friday night in a bid to salvage peace talks, which have effectively stopped, though informal negotiations continued. Macedonian officials want Mr. Solana to convince the Albanians to drop demands for concessions that the government and diplomats say go too far.

But the Albanian parties, whom diplomats suspect of wanting to draw in NATO to police a partition of the tiny country, are refusing to resume formal dialogue unless the attack is called off. They appear to have taken heart from NATO's condemnation.

"We expect a strong reaction by the international community, primarily NATO, to prevent the obvious danger of civil war," said Zamir Dika, a top Albanian politician.

The guerrillas responded to the Macedonian offensive with an attack on a police checkpoint in the village of Vorce, wounding five members of the security forces, officials said.

-------- burma/mynamar

Myanmar Border Checkpoint Reopens

New York Times
June 24, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Myanmar-Thailand.html

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- A key border checkpoint linking eastern Myanmar and northern Thailand reopened Sunday, more than four months after it was closed due to border tension, a Myanmar military official said.

The crossing was opened between the town of Tachilek and the northern Thai town of Mae Sai, and border trade has resumed, the official said on customary condition of anonymity.

The crossing is one of the three main checkpoints along the 1,250-mile Thai-Myanmar border. Tachilek is 310 miles northeast of Yangon, the capital of Myanmar, also known as Burma.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra visited Myanmar last week seeking to improve relations, which had reached their lowest point in years after clashes between the two countries' armies in February.

Several civilians in both towns were killed by shelling.

Thaksin agreed to a Myanmar request that Thailand lift a ban on exports through Mae Sai, including fuel, rice and construction material through Mae Sai. The ban was enacted in February to restrict the flow of supplies to the Myanmar military and ethnic Wa rebels accused of smuggling illegal drugs into Thailand.

-------- israel

Nervous Israel vents its spleen on the BBC

Sunday 24 June 2001,
By John Simpson,
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=005337688829971&rtmo=3H3uKw3M&atmo=rrrrrrrq&pg=/et/01/6/24/wsimp24.html

THERE is nervousness, anger and a deep sense of bafflement here in Israel. Neither violence nor peace-making seems to work.

The Israeli leadership cannot summon up the extreme ferocity that would be required to destroy Palestinian resistance, and the Palestinian leadership is certainly not strong enough to risk unpopularity by accepting the ungenerous deal that is currently being offered: a Palestinian state on only 42 per cent of West Bank territory.

That is less than half of what was on offer only a matter of months ago, when Ehud Barak was still prime minister. Yasser Arafat must wish he had been able to accept that particular deal. Mr Barak, whose career was destroyed by the failure, must wish it even more.

And so there is political gridlock, while the Americans, the European Union, the Russians and anyone else who feels like it try their hand at being traffic policemen. They bounce in with a professional sense of optimism, only to sink into their official limos afterwards, despairing that anything is achievable here.

The only good thing is the sense of edgy calm. Palestinian cars no longer wait for hours at West Bank roadblocks. The ritual afternoon confrontations between demonstrators and the Israeli Army have died away; Mr Arafat has imposed his control over the set-piece violence. It gives the foreign statesmen in their limos something to work on.

Back in February, when Ariel Sharon won his landslide election and became prime minister, there was utter despair on the Israeli left - the peacemaking faction, that is - and a near-certainty that Mr Sharon would lead the country back to war. The would-be peace-makers on the Palestinian side felt much the same, while among the fiercer, more radical elements on both sides there was something like elation that a showdown was finally coming. This was the man the Palestinians called the butcher of Beirut, the architect of the massacre at Sabra and Chatila in 1982.

When, for the first time in the history of the conflict, Mr Sharon sent in his F-16s to bomb Palestinian targets, the showdown seemed to be on its way. Yet since then Mr Sharon has shown remarkable restraint. Settlers have been shot as they drive on the open roads, soldiers have been blown up by booby-traps, but there has been no retaliation.

Groups of settlers have taken to besieging Mr Sharon's official residence in shifts, chanting and shouting their anger at what seems to them to be his passivity. They have become sitting ducks, they say; and they put yellow toy ducks out on the approach roads to their settlements to emphasise the point.

Even so, Mr Sharon has maintained a surprising degree of popularity for an Israeli prime minister just completing his first 100 days in office: nearly two-thirds of the electorate still supports him. But, as in an electrical storm, the stored-up lightning has to find an outlet, no matter how unlikely; and last week it found it in a BBC documentary made by a colleague of mine, Fergal Keane, for Panorama about Mr Sharon's involvement in the events of 1982 in Sabra and Chatila.

There has been something akin to a media frenzy about it here, and (as usually happens when people are nervous and angry) this has tipped over into personal hostility. The complaint is not so much with the subject-matter as with the timing: many Israelis see it as a deliberate attempt by the BBC to destabilise Mr Sharon at an important moment.

It is no use whatever to recall that a hard-hitting documentary by another colleague of mine, Jeremy Bowen, about the bad human rights record and corruption of Mr Arafat's administration produced exactly the same response from the Palestinian side not long ago.

Emails of complaint have come into the BBC bureau by the hundred; most of them repeat a key phrase or two, suggesting that they are part of an organised campaign. Government officials have mostly been pretty relaxed about it, but The Jerusalem Post, which is owned by the proprietor of this newspaper, has been unusually provocative. It printed an advertisement from a small group of activists which attributed "the almost daily Jewish deaths . . . to . . . the unfair, uncritical, slanted and prejudicial news reporting of the BBC and CNN".

The argument blaming the media for the violence is as circular as it would be if I accused Conrad Black of supporting such a view because he owns the newspaper in which it appeared.

This is scarcely the first time or the first country where such claims have been made; I can think of at least a dozen others. But the one thing that links them all is a real sense of anxiety. A key moment in Israel's history seems to be approaching, and everyone can sense it. Hence the nervousness. Hence the extreme sensitivity.

John Simpson is the BBC's World Affairs editor

-------- puerto rico

Where´s the veracity on Vieques?

EDITORIAL •
June 24, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20010624-90488868.htm

There are only about 9,400 people living on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. Yet the military exercises held there resonate politically with the fastest-growing minority in America or at least that´s what President George W. Bush appears to have bet on.

During his recent speech in Goteborg, Sweden, Mr. Bush said the Navy would halt its military training on Vieques by 2003. "My attitude is that the Navy ought to find somewhere else to conduct its exercises, for a lot of reasons," said Mr. Bush. "One, there´s been harm done to people in the past. Secondly, these are our friends and neighbors and they don´t want us there."

Surely, Mr. Bush has a point. Overbearing government is, after all, so unseemly. And ever since the accidental bombing of an observation tower that killed a Puerto Rican security guard in 1999, the people of Vieques have made it clear they want the Navy´s live-bombing exercises to stop. Furthermore, America ought to share in the burden of maintaining military readiness, so alternating sites for military exercises makes sense.

But a rotation system must have clear, previously set guidelines. If the president and military are seen bowing to political pressures, then U.S. populations living near other military-training sites would be tempted to launch their own protest campaigns. After all, no one much likes bombing in their own backyards. But a well-prepared U.S. military is an overriding priority, so these exercises must take place somewhere. Jails, waste sites, juvenile detention and drug rehabilitation centers are similarly undesirable neighborhood landmarks, but necessary nevertheless.

So Mr. Bush´s key mistake was to have made a decision regarding exercises in Vieques when the issue was so politically charged. The Rev. Jesse Jackson´s wife, Jacqueline, was photographed as she was handcuffed by a Navy security officer Monday for protesting in Vieques. The Rev. Al Sharpton was arrested in May for trespassing on government property during a Vieques demonstration, and the president´s decision to halt the Vieques bombing before having found an alternate site was very telling. Had Mr. Bush not been influenced by the ongoing uproar, he would have secured another site for the Navy before hastily abandoning Vieques.

Navy officials also appear to be behaving disingenuously. The Navy had originally maintained that Vieques was a crucial site for executing amphibious military maneuvers, such exercises involving ships´ attack formations, submarine evasion and torpedo and plane tracking. But now, the Navy maintains it first proposed closing down its Vieques operations. "In my view, the downside risk to the Navy is much greater than the upside potential," Navy Secretary Gordon England said recently. "The downside risk in this highly emotionally charged environment is that we would not have time to find alternative training for our naval forces . . . But I am firmly convinced that in this time period we can find an alternative for effective training for our naval forces."

This type of flip-flop injures the Navy´s credibility. But perhaps the most damning reflection on the president´s decision to close Vieques by 2003 is the fact Sen. Hillary Clinton, New York Democrat, has championed that very cause. It´s a shame Mr. Bush has made any decision which associates him with such company even if Hispanics are a key and growing voting bloc.

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

Taliban Ask U.N. Mission to Vacate

New York Times
June 24, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Afghanistan-UN.html

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have ordered the U.N. mission in the crisis-ridden country out of its Kabul offices, saying the world body failed to renew its contract and has not paid rent.

A Taliban foreign ministry official said Sunday that the ruling militia gave notice to the U.N. Special Mission to Afghanistan six months ago that it needed to sign a new agreement.

``But they did not respond to it, forcing us to order them to vacate the premises by Monday,'' the official, Usman Shaharyar, told The Associated Press.

The mission issued no official comment Sunday. An Afghan staff member, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the mission was paying $500 a month for electricity charges and a municipal tax, but no rent.

The U.N. mission is trying to broker a peace deal between Afghanistan's warring factions and encourage the formation of a broad-based government. The Taliban now control about 95 percent of the country, including the capital.

In May, the Taliban closed the U.N. mission's offices in the cities of Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif and Jalalabad to protest the world body's sanctions against the hardline militia.

However, Shaharyar said the eviction is not linked with any political issue.

``The UNSMA can continue operations in Kabul from a new premises,'' he said. He did not say what the Taliban would do if the U.N. mission doesn't vacate the building by Monday.

The eviction notice comes amid increasingly strained relations between the Taliban and the United Nations, which has repeatedly accused the Taliban of harassing aid workers.

The Taliban, who enforce a strict version of Islam, are facing U.N. sanctions for giving shelter to Saudi billionaire Osama bin Laden, accused by Washington accuses of running a global terrorist network.

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

Mini-devices may soon replace combat scouts

06/24/2001
By Andrea Stone,
USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-06-25-device-usat.htm

The military is close to fielding miniature unmanned aerial vehicles that could eventually render the combat scout as obsolete as the horse cavalry. Pentagon engineers are working on a range of micro aircraft and backpack-sized vehicles for short-range surveillance now conducted by U.S. ground troops. These UAVs, some as tiny as 6 inches in diameter, would let small units look over the next hill or around a city block without putting advance troops in harm's way.

The military has made development of unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles a top priority.

It used surveillance UAVs during the Kosovo war in 1999, but they were much larger. The problem with using human scouts is that "people get killed or fall asleep or can be taken hostage," says Sam Wilson, project manager for a micro air vehicle (MAV) developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Mini-UAVs "will save lives," says Maj. John Cane, who is overseeing the development of the portable Dragon Eye at the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab in Quantico, Va. "This is an expendable asset."

The new generation of UAVs can be launched by one person and are controlled by satellite guidance systems.

By contrast, the Air Force's Predator UAV used during the Kosovo war has a ground control station the size of a tractor-trailer and takes 55 airmen to operate.

Small UAVs coming :

Dragon Eye. Marines at Camp Pendleton, Calif., begin testing the 5-pound remote scout this week. It has a 45-inch wingspan and breaks into five pieces that can be stowed in a backpack. Launched by hand or slingshot-style, using a bungee cord, it is controlled by a unit worn on a Marine's vest. It will have video and infrared sensors to spy on enemy positions up to three miles away.

Micro air vehicle. The Army's tiny MAV is a mechanical eye that can fly to a spot up to six miles away and "perch and stare" for weeks. Shaped like a coffee can, it comes in several sizes-the smallest weighs one pound and measures 6 inches in diameter. It flies up to 100 mph and carries video, infrared, acoustic and metal-detecting sensors that can alert soldiers to enemy movements.

----

Boeing Fighter Makes Progress

By Peggy Andersen
Associated Press Writer
Sunday, June 24, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010624/aponline200619_000.htm

SEATTLE -- Boeing Co.'s Joint Strike Fighter X-32B on Sunday successfully made the transition from normal flight to a jetborne hover. The company called the development "a major aerospace milestone and a JSF program first."

Lockheed Martin Corp., which is competing with Boeing for the JSF contract, announced meanwhile that its X-35B had made two vertical takeoffs and landings, with 35-second hovers, on Sunday, too.

Boeing spokesman Chick Ramey demurred from comparing the programs directly.

"The most challenging part of the X-32B is the transition between conventional and STOVL - short takeoff and vertical landing - flight," said Ramey with Boeing's Aircraft and Missiles Group.

"I think each team is coming at it from the opposite direction," said Lockheed spokesman John Kent in Palmdale, Calif., where both companies have plants that assembled their demonstrators. "But we're both bound by the same program requirements, so we're obviously working to that."

The Defense Department is expected to make a decision in October. The JSF contract will be worth more than $200 billion, with production of an anticipated 3,000 fighters to begin in 2007.

The JSF - an all-in-one fighter for use by the U.S. Navy, Air Force and Marines, as well as Britain's Royal Navy - will replace a range of U.S. and British warplanes including the Harrier, A-10 Wart Hog, F-14 Tomcat, F-16 Fighting Falcon and F/A-18 Hornet.

The Harrier warplane can hover and land vertically, but the JSF successor will be supersonic with radar-baffling stealth technology - next-generation capabilities, Ramey said.

Boeing's concept demonstrator "B plane" made the shift from conventional to hover flight in four flights Sunday at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland. It hovered for a total of about eight minutes - the longest two minutes and 42 seconds, Ramey said. The plane made five flights Sunday, bringing its total to 47.

Boeing test pilot Dennis O'Donoghue successfully moved the X32-B from a flying position to a steady hover 200 feet above the ground on the plane's 44th flight, Ramey said. He then put it through three more hovers.

On its 45th flight, the plane hovered at 200 feet, descended to 150 feet and then pressed back up to 200 feet. On its 47th flight, it made a 360-degree turn, among other maneuvers. The plane is expected to try its first vertical landing within days, Ramey said in Seattle.

Last fall, both companies tested another version of the JSF, with conventional takeoff-and-landing capabilities.

Boeing's X-32A - with both conventional and aircraft-carrier takeoff-and-landing capabilities - made its first flight in September and completed its flight test program Feb. 3.

Lockheed's X-35A made its first flight in October and completed testing Nov. 22, and was then modified into its X-35B phase, which uses a unique shaft-driven lift fan, Kent said.

The Lockheed B plane began testing this weekend in Palmdale. The plane made two brief hovers Saturday and on Sunday made two vertical takeoffs and landings as well as "sustained altitude" flying, or hovering for about 35 seconds, said company spokesman John Kent in Palmdale.

Lockheed's X-35C, designed specifically for aircraft-carrier operations, made its first flight in December and completed testing March 10 at Patuxent River.

-------- OTHER

-------- genetics

Bush Supports Limits on Use of DNA Tests

June 24, 2001
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/24/politics/24RADI.html

WACO, Tex., June 23 - President Bush, in a surprise to many on Capitol Hill, said today that he would support the passage of a law preventing insurance companies and employers from using newly developed tests of people's genetic makeup to deny them medical coverage or turn them down for jobs.

Mr. Bush declared his support for such restrictions on the use of information gleaned from a person's DNA in his weekly radio address, broadcast as he spent a long weekend at his ranch near here in Crawford.

His comments are bound to cause concern among medical and life insurance companies, and among House Republicans, who for five years have declined to hold hearings on a bill that would outlaw so-called genetic discrimination.

More than half the states have passed similar laws. Mr. Bush may have acted now because two senators who have long pressed for federal restrictions on the commercial uses of genetic indicators - Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the majority leader, and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts - said when the Senate switched to Democratic control that they would push the legislation through in a few months.

In his radio address Mr. Bush noted that the same breakthroughs that have allowed scientists to map the human genome could be used by insurers to deny medical coverage or life insurance to people who have no history of disease, but whose genetic makeup makes them susceptible.

"It is unjustified, among other reasons, because it involves little more than medical speculation," Mr. Bush said. "A genetic predisposition toward cancer or heart disease does not mean the condition will develop."

The president added, "Just as we have addressed discrimination based on race, gender and age, we must now prevent discrimination based on genetic information."

Mr. Bush was vague about the specifics of the legislation he supports, and those details are critical, particularly for health insurers who view genetic mapping technology as a potentially valuable way to predict medical risk. But because the technology is so new, there have been few cases that raise the kinds of problems Mr. Bush discussed today.

One such case was settled earlier this year when the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company was ordered by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to end a nationwide policy of requiring union members who claimed they suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome to provide blood samples. Using the blood, a DNA test was conducted to determine whether the workers were genetically predisposed to the condition. At least one worker claimed he was threatened with discharge for refusing to provide a blood sample.

Because no federal law existed, the commission used an expansive reading of the Americans With Disabilities Act to reach its decision.

President Bill Clinton signed an executive order last year prohibiting the federal government from using genetic information in its employment decisions. But federal legislation, proposed by Representative Louise M. Slaughter, a Democrat from upstate New York, has never reached the floor, even though it now has 250 sponsors from both parties.

"I'm very pleased that the president understood the nature of the problem, since we have had so much trouble getting hearings on this," Representative Slaughter said in a telephone interview on Friday. "But we don't know yet what he has in mind. Is he ready to protect the privacy of patients, so no health organizations can get this information? Is he willing to impose penalties on those who violate the law?"

Mr. Bush's action will probably start a scramble among lobbyists for insurance groups, employers and others to influence the wording of the law. Herb Perone, a spokesman for the American Council of Life Insurers, said that in principle life insurance companies had little problem with restricting the use of predictive gene tests.

"Our position is simple," Mr. Pe rone said. "We have one opportunity to evaluate an applicant for life insurance and put him in the proper risk category. So we want as much information about the applicant's history as is known to the applicant himself" and his doctor.

Phil Reilly, a physician and lawyer who is the chief executive of Inter leukin Genetics, a small Massachusetts company that is developing tests to help doctors predict susceptibility to disease, called Mr. Bush's position "remarkably similar to the position that President Clinton took."

"The issue is how to craft the law so that we don't forbid genetic testing in the workplace, but we regulate its use," Dr. Reilly said.

--------

Lott says stem cell research has 'great potential'

06/24/2001
The Associated Press.
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-06-24-lott-stemcells.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate's top Republican, Trent Lott, said Sunday that he sees "great potential" for controversial research that uses stem cells from human embryos.

President Bush is now weighing whether to allow federal funding for the research, which scientists say holds tremendous promise but which is contentious because the cells are derived from embryos leftover from fertility treatments.

Lott stopped short of endorsing federal funding, declining to state his position. But he said he told Bush that "this is an important issue that has potentially significant health benefits."

"There are some delicate questions here, but the benefits are substantial, as we understand it, and they should be carefully considered," Lott, R-Miss., said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." "Obviously, there is some great potential there."

Some abortion opponents, including the Catholic Church, say the research amounts to unethical experimentation on an early life. Others, including several high-profile Republicans, say the benefits outweigh the harm, particularly because the embryos are going to be destroyed anyway.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson - another anti-abortion Republican who has voiced support for the research - has promised a decision by mid-July.

Stem cells, the building blocks for all human tissue, are present in adults as well. But the cells derived from embryos are the most versatile because they are the least developed. Researchers say using them could lead to revolutionary treatments for Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, spinal cord injuries and other ailments.

But federal law bans the use of tax dollars on any research that destroys embryos. The Clinton administration got around that by ruling it's OK to use the stem cells in federally funded research, as long as private dollars paid for them to be extracted from the embryos.

It's now up to the Bush administration whether to maintain that interpretation or change the policy.

Several high-profile Republicans are urging Bush to allow the research to move forward.

"I think it is probably something that is good for America, good for medical research, and could save lives," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition."

Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine each wrote Bush in recent days supporting funding for the research. Other GOP supporters include Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Gordon Smith of Oregon and former Sen. Connie Mack of Florida.

"I have rarely, if ever, observed such genuine excitement for the prospects of future progress than is presented by embryonic stem cell research," Hatch wrote in a letter to Bush.

Many Catholics say the research is unethical because the embryos that are used are the start of human life.

"The end doesn't justify the means," Richard Doerflinger of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops said on "Fox News Sunday." "We don't use the fruits of unethical research."

-------- health

Struggling to Carve Out Common Ground, U.N. Tackles AIDS

New York Times
June 24, 2001
By CHRISTOPHER S. WREN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/24/world/24NATI.html

UNITED NATIONS, June 22 - The devastation is not in dispute. Worldwide, 36 million people are estimated to have AIDS or be carrying the virus that causes it. Nearly 22 million have died, many of them children. And new infections gallop on, at the rate of 5 million last year.

But trying to forge a consensus for action has exposed fault lines at the United Nations. Starting Monday, 3,000 diplomats, government officials, health experts and members of advocacy groups will gather for three days in the General Assembly to discuss how to cope with a medical catastrophe that has accumulated political baggage since the virus was identified two decades ago.

The scheduled speakers at the United Nations Special Session on H.I.V./AIDS include two dozen heads of state or government, many from Africa, where the disease has taken its highest toll. The United States will be represented by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and a delegation of more than 40 officials.

"We know what works, we know what to do and the biggest job now is to get resources to get the job done," said Dr. Peter Piot, the executive director of the Joint United Nations Program on H.I.V./AIDS.

Agreeing on a common strategy is another matter, however. While delegates have struggled over the wording of a formal declaration outlining goals and targets to be issued at the end of the conference, debate continues over whether the resources should be concentrated more on prevention or treatment, on where the money should come from and on how plain-spoken the United Nations message about AIDS should be.

Some Muslim countries have objected to language in the draft declaration specifying that efforts must be made to help "men who have sex with men, sex workers, injecting drug users and their sexual partners," along with other groups like prisoners, refugees and migrants. "If they cannot even be named in a U.N. document, it's such a reflection of the way they must be treated in the everyday circumstances in their countries," said Joanne Csete, a public health expert at Human Rights Watch. "It's telling that 20 years into this epidemic, we can't even name the vulnerable groups and do something for them."

The United States deputy assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, E. Michael Southwick, said the draft declaration already included strong language about a commitment to respect human rights and to be mindful of issues affecting the vulnerable. "Considering where the world had been in the last 15 or 20 years, this has been a big advance," he said. Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said, "Countries are bringing an extraneous moral agenda in a way that is detrimental to efforts to combat AIDS. This is not the time or place to allow moral squeamishness to dilute a clear and effective message."

Mr. Roth and other critics argue that AIDS must be addressed in the context of human rights. The United Nations Development Fund for Women said nearly half of new H.I.V. infections now occur in women; in sub-Saharan Africa, teenage girls are five times more likely than boys to become infected, with most of the girls contracting AIDS from older men. The fund also wants female and male condoms made more accessible and affordable.

"As long as we do not address the power relationship, we are not going to address H.I.V./AIDS," said Noeleen Heyzer, executive director of the fund. "Too often, women and girls do not have the power to say no to unwanted and unprotected sex."

Deputy Secretary General Louise Frechette acknowledged that sticking points exist. "They'll have to find the right words that deal with the realities but do not offend the sensibilities of some cultures," she said.

"The issues that remain on the table are sensitive issues," Ms. Frechette said. "They relate to cultural issues that are not always easy to handle."

Secretary General Kofi Annan, who will open the conference on Monday, announced in April the creation of a global fund to finance the fight against AIDS at a cost of $7 billion to $10 billion annually. The United States has pledged $200 million, France $127 million, Britain $100 million and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation $100 million. But this is far too little, say some groups that insist the debt of poor countries be forgiven so those countries can use that money to save lives.

Advocacy groups also want the United Nations conference to press drug companies to slash the prices of anti-retroviral medications.

--------

In the Shadow of AIDS, a World of Other Problems

New York Times
June 24, 2001
By STEPHANIE FLANDERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/24/weekinreview/24FLAN.html

Seventeen million Africans dead and 25 million infected with H.I.V. have made their point. At this week's Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly, ministers and experts will agree that a multibillion dollar war on AIDS is global priority No. 1. They will say that, and they will mean it. But when talking about aid for the poorest countries, things are seldom that simple.

"AIDS is a catastrophe," said Dr. Lant Pritchett, a former economist at the World Bank who teaches development economics at Harvard. "And it's not fair, if treatments exist, not to give them to all these people who are dying. But it's also not fair that more than a third of children in Africa are malnourished. It's not fair that maybe 140 babies in every 1,000 will die before the age of 1, and more than a third will never learn to read. All of it is unfair. Unfairness is not the test for action."

It is this kind of bleak calculation that gives economics a bad name, but that is what aid choices are made of. Tugging at the sleeve of discussions about a $7 billion to $10 billion global effort for AIDS is the worry that even here, tradeoffs apply. Although the new money being pledged for AIDS is supposed to be in addition to current aid flows, many observers fear that donors will simply divert cash from other lifesaving programs. Others worry that funds in any amount will be misallocated on the ground. And even in the worst affected countries, many wonder whether a dollar spent treating AIDS might be better spent preventing its spread.

Experts say that the greatest successes in eradicating a single disease - the big example is smallpox - have come from single-issue campaigns to protect people against just that disease. But the same experts also say that experience with malaria and tuberculosis shows the risks of a narrow approach to AIDS.

In the case of malaria, there was a cheap and effective treatment - the drug chloroquine - that was easy for doctors to hand out and for people to take. Making the drug more available in developing countries in the 1960's and 1970's, in addition to extensive prevention efforts, greatly reduced the human cost of the disease. Indeed, in a number of countries, like Pakistan, it seemed all but defeated. But complacency and widespread noncompliance (people taking the drug without finishing the course) led to drug-resistant strains. Now malaria is back among the top three global killers.

The story with TB, which has also grown dramatically in recent years, partly because of the rise of AIDS, is more complex. But there too, drug resistance is a growing problem, in part because patients are getting their TB treatments in places that do not have well- staffed clinics and monitoring systems.

According to one health economist at an international institution, who, like many, did not want publicly to state views that seemed callous, these kinds of problems ought to give pause to those congregating at the United Nations. "I'd rather we focused on all those other things that we know how to fix," he said.

There is no shortage of contenders. Immunization rates for measles have been falling again, yet the disease kills nearly one million children a year in the developing world. Or there is rotavirus, which causes severe diarrhea in 125 million children a year and kills 600,000 of them, the vast majority in the developing world. Or hepatitis B, which kills more than a million adults every year because they did not get vaccinated when they were young.

Michael Kremer, an economist at the Brookings Institution, has argued that heavy investment in new vaccines for AIDS and other diseases is the only plausible long-term solution. But studying the effects of a deworming project in schools in rural Kenya recently reminded Mr. Kremer of all the nasty little diseases that rarely get a second's thought in the developed world.

"AIDS grabs people emotionally in the West because they know people who have AIDS," he said. "But in the developing world, literally hundreds of millions of children have to live with things like schistosomiasis, even though the medicines to treat them have been there for ages and are simple to administer."

Worms like hookworm and schistosomiasis infect 1.3 billion people a year, the vast majority in very poor countries where children play in fields that double as latrines and swim in infected streams and lakes. Less than 1 percent of these infections will lead to death. But constant infection and re-infection can translate into years of discomfort and stunted growth - and prolonged periods out of school. Each worm can be easily treated with one or two pills that cost about a $1.

In fact, to combat diseases in the poorest countries, many would say that medicine may not even be the right place to start. Dr. Philippe Maughan, who has worked for nearly 10 years as a doctor and aid coordinator in Africa and Asia, said: "When I arrive in a new place, my first reaction is always, `I'm wasting my time doing health. I should be doing education.' Mass education is the backbone of everything."

When teaching rural health workers, Dr. Maughan always begins the first class by writing the word "disease" on the blackboard and asking what the causes are. "The bright ones pipe up with things like bacteria," he said, "but by the end of the session the blackboard is chock-a-block: war, poverty, lack of schools, bad water, all of them feed into disease. Focusing on any one thing is reasonably pointless."

For Dr. Jody Heymann, policy director for the Harvard Center for Society and Health, that is the argument for something comprehensive. "The call to action on AIDS needs to be read as a call for more resources to go to Africa for what are truly global health priorities, not a diversion of money from other humanitarian priorities," she said.

Or, as the World Bank's president, James D. Wolfensohn, said recently, getting AIDS treatments to victims in Africa is "Act V of a five-act play."

To be sure, the moral arguments for treating people who are dying of AIDS are compelling. They are also practical at a time when countries' very capacity to tackle disease may depend on doctors and nurses who are themselves stricken with the disease. But the bleak tradeoffs remain.

"If there's a fixed budget, it could be that many more lives would be saved by delivering vaccinations for childhood diseases than by treating AIDS victims with antiretrovirals," Dr. Kremer said. "Providing anti retroviral treatments in sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to cost $1,100 per patient per year. It would be a real tragedy if that kind of money were diverted from measles vaccinations, for example."

Childhood vaccinations cost just a few cents and save an estimated three million lives a year.

If the poorest countries were less poor, or the industrial countries really opted to inject a large dose of new funds, the choices might be less stark. For now, however, the giant specter of one crisis - AIDS - may well be forcing the world to look away from myriad others.

"Anyone who isn't worried about this isn't paying attention," said one official. "It is anything but self- evident that it would avoid diverting energy and attention from broader development efforts. All of history tells us that it would."

-------- police

Fla. Cop Facing Arrest Commits Suicide

The New York Times
June 24, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-BRF-Officer-Suicide.html

MELBOURNE, Fla. (AP) -- A city police officer facing charges of misconduct and battery fatally shot himself in the chest as fellow officers tried to arrest him.

Larry Simpson, 47, shot himself in his car Saturday near an intersection lined with officers waiting to catch him. Deputies who went to Simpson's home that morning to arrest him found him at a nearby residence, prompting him to flee in the car, Melbourne Police Deputy Chief Jim Reynolds said.

Simpson was pronounced dead at Holmes Regional Medical Center, officials said.

The 14-year veteran was accused of attacking a man he arrested in April during a criminal traffic offense. Simpson was suspended with pay during the investigation.

Simpson, who denied using excessive force, was charged with official misconduct for filing a false report on the traffic incident, Reynolds said.

Simpson had agreed to turn himself in earlier this week but missed several appointments to do so, Brevard County Sheriff Phil Williams said.

-------- spying

Sunday Q&A

New York Times
June 24, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/24/national/24SUNQ.html?searchpv=nytToday

What C.I.A. Officers Tell Families

Q. Do C.I.A. officers tell their families about their work?

A. James Risen, a Washington correspondent who writes about the C.I.A., responds:

At the Central Intelligence Agency, officials say it is expected that the spouse of an employee knows where the employee works.

In fact, the C.I.A. has in the past trained spouses to help participate in operations.

Historically, some of the most sensitive meetings and operational clandestine acts were handled by the spouses of C.I.A. officers, at least in part because they were often not suspected of involvement and so did not attract as much attention.

It is more of a personal issue whether C.I.A. officers, especially those working overseas, tell their children where they work. They may wait until the children are old enough to understand how to keep secrets.

Things are more complicated if a C.I.A. officer marries a foreign national. The spouse has to be cleared and commit to becoming a United States citizen for the marriage not to have an impact on the officer's career or status at the agency.

In fact, the foreign national is supposed to undergo a background investigation before the marriage so that it does not impinge on the officer's career.

----

Disco bomber used Israeli mole as driver

Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv,
June 24 2001
UK Sunday Times
MIDDLE EAST
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/06/24/stifgnmid02001.html

A PALESTINIAN with links to Israeli intelligence unwittingly acted as a driver for the suicide bomber responsible for the devastating explosion that killed 22 people outside a Tel Aviv discotheque, it was claimed last week.

A senior Palestinian intelligence official told The Sunday Times that the driver, Mahmoud Dahshat Rashid Al-Nadi, who made his living ferrying Palestinians from the West Bank to Israel, was an informant for Israeli police intelligence.

Al-Nadi, who is in his twenties, was arrested on June 2, the day after he allegedly dropped off the bomber in front of the entrance of the Dolphi disco on the city's seafront.

Brigadier-General Tawfik Tirawi, the head of the Palestinian General Intelligence in the West Bank, said Al-Nadi did not appear to have been aware of his passenger's deadly mission until it was too late.

Israeli authorities have not announced Al-Nadi's arrest - apparently out of embarrassment at the close links they enjoyed with a man who allegedly facilitated the worst suicide bombing in five years.

Al-Nadi was believed still to be in custody last week, although it was not clear if he had been charged. The militant Islamic group Hamas claimed responsibility for the blast.

"The man is under arrest," said Brigadier-General Ron Kitri, the chief Israeli army spokesman, "but he is not a Shin Bet [Israeli secret service] agent."

Tirawi claimed that Al-Nadi, who lives in the West Bank town of Qalqilia, had been working with Israeli police intelligence since 1999, giving them information about Palestinian activities in the area. In so doing, he said, he was following the example of several other members of his family suspected for decades of links with the Israeli security services.

In return, he had been given a special pass enabling him to travel back and forth between the West Bank and Israel. He also possessed an Israeli identity card.

(c) Disco carnage: the bomber may have been driven to the scene by a Palestinian who acted as an Israeli informant Photograph: Havakuk Levison

Tirawi said that on the day of the explosion, Al-Nadi picked up the bomber, Saeed Hotary, 22, who also lived in Qalqilia, in a Subaru car, which had Israeli numberplates. They then crossed into Israel, making use of Al-Nadi's local knowledge to bypass some checkpoints.

When they arrived in Tel Aviv, Hotary, who had explosives strapped to his body, asked to be dropped next to the Dolphi disco, a popular nightspot.

Tirawi claimed that, before getting out, Hotary urged Al-Nadi to move away from the area - which, he said, made him suspect his passenger was a suicide bomber. Al-Nadi, he said, then telephoned his brother Mahdi, an agent of Shin Bet, and told him of his fears.

He was unable to prevent Hotary from blowing himself up and killing 21 people, almost all of them teenage girls of Russian origin, and injuring more than 100 others. Thousands of ball bearings had been mixed into the bomb, causing horrific injuries.

Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, called the next day for an "immediate and unconditional ceasefire" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Hotary's father, Hassan, described the bomber as a devout Muslim, saying: "I am very happy and proud of what my son did and I hope all the men of Palestine and Jordan would do the same."

Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, will meet Tony Blair in London today on his way to a meeting in Washington on Tuesday with President George W Bush. Israeli sources said he would present video and audio evidence that Arafat had ordered attacks on Israeli settlers. Colin Powell, the American secretary of state, is due to set off on a three-day trip to the Middle East to try to halt the violence.

Thirteen people have been killed since the announcement of the ceasefire, including a Palestinian shot dead in the Gaza Strip yesterday.

----

Peru Spymaster Captured in Venezuela

New York Times
June 24, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Montesinos-Capture.html

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Fugitive Peruvian spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos, accused of amassing a fortune from arms dealing and drug trafficking, has been captured in Caracas, President Hugo Chavez said Sunday.

``We got Montesinos last night,'' Chavez said, speaking to reporters during the Andean Summit in the central Venezuelan city of Valencia. He said Venezuela would return Montesinos to Peruvian authorities ``faster than a rooster crows.''

Montesinos reportedly was being held at a military police station in the Venezuelan capital.

Montesinos, who faces charges at home ranging from money laundering to corruption, has been the target of a manhunt across South America since he fled Peru in October in a corruption scandal that led to the downfall of then-President Alberto Fujimori.

``We knew as of yesterday at 11 in the morning that there was an operation to capture Montesinos and we are anxiously awaiting news,'' Peruvian President Valentin Paniagua said from the southern city of Arequipa, where he was surveying damage from a devastating earthquake.

As head of Peru's powerful spy agency, Montesinos had been the power broker behind the government during Fujimori's 10-year rule.

Peruvian investigators say Montesinos and his cronies in the military amassed a fortune from arms dealing and drug trafficking. Investigators have detailed what they say is a huge criminal network run by Montesinos by which he controlled politicians, courts, military officials and businessmen through bribery and blackmail.

But Montesinos' fall began in September when videotapes were broadcast on television appearing to show him bribing an opposition congressman to support the government.

As allegations built against him, Montesinos fled first to Panama. But when he was refused asylum, he returned to Peru and immediately went into hiding. Fujimori personally led a futile hunt for his former right-hand man, but Montesinos slipped out of the country.

Amid the scandal, Fujimori fled to Japan in November and was ousted.

Meanwhile, the hunt went on for Montesinos. Speculation that he was hiding in Venezuela reached fever pitch after reports that he underwent plastic surgery in Caracas in December to alter his hawklike features.

According to statements by three Peruvian army officers and Costa Rican officials, Montesinos sailed from Peru to Costa Rica, then flew to Aruba, about 20 miles off northwestern Venezuela. He allegedly used a false Venezuelan passport bearing the name Manuel Antonio Rodriguez Perez.

A man using the name Manuel Rodriguez was treated for an irregular heartbeat and had plastic surgery at a Caracas clinic in December, according to Carlos Mora, a cardiologist at the clinic. He said the patient came from Aruba.

With rumors putting Montesinos in Colombia, in Ecuador and even in Cuba, Venezuelan Defense Minister Jose Vicente Rangel once described the manhunt as passing from the realm of ``magical realism'' to a popular ``serial novel.''

--------

Venezuela Arrests, Will Return, Peru's Ex - Spy Chief

New York Times
June 24, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-venezue.html

VALENCIA, Venezuela (Reuters) - Fugitive Peruvian spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos, Latin America's most wanted man, has been captured in Venezuela and will be sent back to Peru, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday.

``We captured Montesinos last night in Caracas,'' Chavez told reporters during a summit of Andean leaders in Valencia, 100 miles west of Caracas.

He said the ex-aide of disgraced former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was being held at military intelligence headquarters in the Venezuelan capital.

``He is detained and I've given instructions to (Interior Minister Luis) Miquilena to start proceedings and return him (to Peru),'' Chavez added.

Peruvian officials said they would coordinate with authorities in Venezuela to bring Montesinos to Peru to stand trial.

``Vladimiro Montesinos has to face justice. Now we need to take the legal steps to be able to bring him physically here,'' Interior Minister Antonio Ketin Vidal told Panamerica television.

``This is a job that's taken a long time and has been successful,'' Ketin Vidal said. He did not say when he would be brought to Peru.

Peru's public prosecutor last week charged Montesinos with amassing a fortune of some $264 million as Fujimori's chief advisor in this ten-year rule.

Montesinos, who since fleeing Peru last October had become Latin America's most wanted man, triggered a political crisis last year that toppled Fujimori.

The intelligence adviser allegedly bankrolled Peru's Congress, courts, military and media in exchange for favors during Fujimori's decade-long rule. He was last heard of in Venezuela and there was a $5 million price on his head.

Chavez recalled that during a stopover meeting on Thursday in Lima with Peruvian president-elect Alejandro Toledo he had promised that if Montesinos were captured in Venezuela he would be sent home ``in the blink of an eye.''

He had also denied then that his government was sheltering the former spy chief as some opponents had alleged.

Senior Venezuelan officials had previously admitted there was evidence that Montesinos had been in Caracas for plastic surgery in December.

This was an embarrassing about-turn after months of earlier denying reports he had ever been in the country. A doctor in Caracas had said he performed the surgery on Montesinos' face to change his appearance.

----

National Security Agency: Enemy of the state?

SUNDAY Q&A
June 24, 2001
WorldNetDaily
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=23342

Geoff Metcalf interviews author James Bamford about super-secret spy group

Editor's note: Most people are familiar to varying degrees with the FBI, CIA, ATF, IRS and other assorted federal police agencies. However, unless they have seen the movie with Will Smith and Gene Hackman, "Enemy of the State," they may not even be aware that the National Security Agency exists.

A few have heard of NSA programs like "Tempest" and "Echelon" and wondered what new mischief the U.S. government was involved in. But, until now, almost nobody knew that the NSA is the largest, most secretive and most powerful intelligence agency in the world. With a staff of 38,000 people, it dwarfs the CIA in budget, manpower and influence.

Today, WorldNetDaily staff writer and talk-show host Geoff Metcalf talks with author James Bamford about his new book, "Body of Secrets," a profound and unique look into the inner workings of the NSA.

Metcalf's daily streaming radio show can be heard on TalkNetDaily weekdays from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern time.

By Geoff Metcalf
WorldNetDaily.com

Question: It's been 20 years since you first wrote "The Puzzle Palace." Why revisit the same turf - and why now?

Answer: You have to understand that the NSA is the largest intelligence agency in the world. It's twice the size of the CIA and, in its 50-year history, it has only had one book written about it - which was my earlier book, "The Puzzle Palace" - and I thought it would be a useful effort to take another look at the NSA. There were a lot of things I missed when I was writing "The Puzzle Palace" and there are a lot of things that have happened.

Q: Well technology has certainly exploded. Listen, when you wrote your first book, you were pretty much treated like a hooker in church when you started asking questions. Did you get the same kind of cold reception this time around?

A: Initially I did - when I first approached NSA back in 1998, when I was first starting work on the book, they gave me the same approach - we're not going to help, we're not going to give you any documents, interviews or whatever. Then the attitude changed about a year later as I was still working on the book.

Q: Why?

A: A new director came on, General Michael Hayden, and I think he understood the need for at least some public understanding of what the agency did. One of the reasons was because the movie "Enemy of the State" portrayed NSA as a very frightening agency. I think General Hayden thought it might be useful to have a book that was not fictional, was accurate, and that gives ...

Q: Were they hoping you would do a puff piece as a counter public relations tool?

A: I think they wanted to have some say in the book, basically - although I made no deals with them, just like I made no deals with them in the first book. They never had any opportunity to look at the book. They didn't see it until the public saw the book. They had no editorial control - absolutely no quid pro quo. But they ended up giving me a number of tours through the Agency - interviews with the director and a number of other senior officials. And through the Freedom Of Information Act, I got a great many documents. I think I was able to paint a pretty accurate picture of the way the NSA is today and some of the problems facing us.

Q: Three years ago, I wrote a piece for WorldNetDaily on "Echelon" and, kind of by accident, I hit a chord. I got over 500 e-mails in one night from people wanting more information. On page 110 in your book, you make reference to "Tempest" radiation coming from some Soviet crypto equipment. As I understand it, "Tempest" is a code word for radiation emitted by electronic equipment. Right?

A: That's right. Tempest is applied to things that contain classified information. In other words, a crypto machine, a receiver and a transmitter - whatever contains classified information. But it's the same principle as, for example, if you are working on your computer in your office and you are typing out an e-mail or whatever, somebody could be outside directing an antenna - like a parabolic antenna - at your computer and basically be reading the same screen you are reading, picking up the signals as they are being transmitted from the computer. That's what Tempest is and NSA is very worried about Tempest emissions because somebody could be on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway with a very sensitive receiver in the back of a van and pick up sensitive signals from NSA. So it goes to a great many efforts to try to prevent those signals from leaving NSA.

Q: Conversely, if or when voting is all done on video screens - and that's being proposed - pollsters would be able to read exact voting totals off the screens from the street?

A: That's right. If the communications are not protected, and the screens are not protected, it is possible to do that.

Q: What does NSA do to protect themselves from Tempest poaching?

A: What NSA does to protect themselves is - at first this was very expensive, because their old headquarters building was not Tempest protected. So, all the equipment NSA bought - every single computer, every single piece of electronic equipment - had to be shielded in copper, and that tripled the cost of the equipment. Then, when they built their new office headquarters, they basically lined the entire building in copper. Even the windows - from the outside, it looks like they have these big windows, and they really are not so big. The windows are very unique.

Q: How so?

A: They have these very thin copper screens in them - again to prevent any signals from leaving NSA.

Q: I was going through the litany, going back to 1920 and the "Black Chamber" stuff and how it has progressed - but before we even get to that: You wrote "Puzzle Palace" in 1982. What was the most significant change /difference /enhancement that you noticed when you worked on "Body of Secrets"?

A: Well the biggest change was the change in telecommunications. When I wrote "The Puzzle Palace" back in '82, if you or I or anybody were to send any written communications - whether it was a love letter, a contract proposal, a confidential bid on a contract or whatever, it would almost certainly go through the mail - it would be put in an envelope and be put through the mail. And NSA would have absolutely no access to that information.

Q: Stuff happens. Things change. In fact, there is nothing as permanent as change.

A: Yeah, today probably a large percentage - if not the majority - of written communications goes through the air. Faxes, e-mail, computer transfers, the Internet - all of that. It's going through the air. So NSA has access to all this additional information they didn't have 20 years ago.

Q: One item that came up in our discussions about "Echelon" was that the government can reach up into the ether and grab all this stuff. But, especially when people start intentionally adding code words to attract attention, it reaches a point of diminishing return. I once had a call from a guy who claimed he used to work for some initialed agency who said he saw trainloads - fields of train cars full of data that had been collected - but nobody was ever going to even look at that stuff because they didn't have sufficient resources or capabilities to ever do the triage on it.

A: That's true and it's the opposite side of the coin from what I just talked about. You get all this information going through the air that was never there before - on one side of the coin, NSA has access to all this information they didn't have before, on the other side of the coin, they are swamped with far more information than they could ever handle. It is far more complex because the airway, the ether, cyberspace is filled with information and NSA has reduced - by about a quarter to almost 30 percent - their manpower since the end of the Cold War. So it has fewer people with far more information to sort through. That's one of the major problems facing NSA.

Q: Obviously, we can't cover everything - and besides we want folks to buy the book - but I would like you to explain what happened with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the 1960s regarding the Cuban situation?

A: That was a very interesting series of documents I found at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What they indicated was during the early '60s - before the Cuban missile crisis, and just after the Bay of Pigs, where the CIA tried to overthrow the Cuban government - the Joint Chiefs had their own plan for taking over Cuba. What they wanted to do was invade Cuba - the Army, Navy and Air Force - just go in there and invade the country and take it over.

They knew that the American public probably wouldn't put up with that because it would just be a blatant exercise of aggression and the rest of the world would be against it - especially the other countries in the Americas, Central America, South America and so forth. So what they needed to do was create a pretext. They had to pretend that Cuba was attacking the United States. And if Cuba was attacking the United States violently, that would give the Joint Chiefs the excuse to launch this war against Cuba. What they did was create a plan that would create terrorism in the United States.

Q: Kind of like a prelude-practice to the Tonkin Gulf finesse?

A: Exactly. It was a prelude to the Tonkin Gulf situation. What the Joint Chiefs indicated in their plan was they would have people shot on American streets, bombs blown up, refugee boats sunk on the high seas - and all this would be blamed on the Cuban government. They even had a plan that if the rocket carrying John Glenn into space on his very first space mission happened to blow up accidentally, killing Glenn, they were going to plant evidence proving that it was Cuba that deliberately sabotaged the rocket and blew it up. All this was to justify their war in Cuba and that was very frightening because here you had the senior U.S. military people planning a war that nobody wants and creating phony evidence indicating another country was attacking the U.S.

Q: Was this outside the policy chain? I mean, was this a military vs. civilian leadership thing?

A: This was 100 percent military. It was always in the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And it was approved by the chairman and all the members of the Joint Chiefs. Once they approved it, it was taken up to the civilian branch - they took it up to Secretary of Defense McNamara and he rejected it and that was the end of it. Leominster was out of the Joint Chiefs office in about a month and sent to Europe to visit NATO.

Q: Inevitably, when we discuss the Mideast, someone will bring up that the Israelis intentionally attacked the USS Liberty. You have some new information in your book I was not aware of previously?

A: There's quite a bit of new information in there.

Q: Tell us about the USS Liberty?

A: The USS Liberty is an incident very few people know about because it was kept so secret at the time. What happened was, in 1967, Israel and Egypt went to war - it was called "The Six-Day War" - and the U.S. was very interested in what was going on because it was a very dangerous situation. At the time, the U.S. was an ally of Israel. Egypt was an ally of Russia and the U.S. was worried that Russia might get involved.

Q: So what did we do?

A: Well, they sent this eavesdropping ship, working for NSA - NSA being the eavesdropping agency - and this ship was over there to collect intelligence, to eavesdrop on both Israeli and Egyptian communications. And then, to pass the information back to Washington, so they knew what was going on. The ship sailed over on June 8th. It was about the second or third day into the war. The ship was in international waters off the Sinai coast - about 13 to 14 miles off the coast of the Egyptian /Sinai desert. What happened was, in broad daylight, about two in the afternoon, the ship was attacked relentlessly by Israeli aircraft. They fired cannon fire.

Q: Now the Israelis always said they didn't know it was a U.S. ship. That was their story and they were sticking to it.

A: That's right. After they raked the ship with cannon fire and rockets - and even dropping napalm on it - they fired torpedoes into the ship. Three Israeli torpedo boats came up and took basically a firing squad stance and fired five torpedoes - which would have been enough to sink an aircraft carrier. Luckily, four of those missed, but one of them hit dead center and killed 25 American sailors instantly. All together, there were 34 Americans killed on the ship and 171 wounded - which was an enormous amount because that was a 70 percent casualty rate. As the ship was taking on water, and the captain gave the order to prepare for abandoning ship, the Israelis began shooting at the life rafts as they began putting them into the water - and shooting the people trying to get into the life rafts.

Q: How long did the attack last?

A: This went on for about an hour.

Q: So it was not an "aw whoops!" but an intentional assault?

A: Exactly. The Israelis claim it was a mistake. However, they did hours worth of surveillance over the ship before the attack. According to the documents I got, the Israelis knew it was the USS Liberty. They had been flying over it all morning. Then the Israelis said they had mistaken it for an Egyptian ship - yet it bore no resemblance to an Egyptian ship. The Liberty was flying the U.S. flag before, during and after the attack. It had USS Liberty on the back in U.S. letters - not Egyptian characters. And they said they thought the ship was going 30 knots which was absolutely ridiculous. The ship was going between three to five knots. Their explanation never made any sense.

The documents I've come across indicate NSA never believed the Israeli excuse. They always thought it was deliberate. Part of that reason - and something nobody knew about until I just finished this book - was the fact that at the time of the attack, there was an NSA eavesdropping plane flying directly above the attack. I talked to two of the Hebrew linguists - the intercept operators on the plane that were eavesdropping on the Israeli ships and planes below - and both of those people said they heard the Israeli pilots and Israeli crewmembers talk about the American flag.

Q: Probably the most crucial element you discovered, however, was the motive?

A: Exactly. Nobody knew this at the time - in fact nobody knew this until just a few years ago - but a few years ago, the details of what was taking place in the Sinai began coming out in Israel and it was reported in Israel and in the New York Times and Washington Post.

Q: So what was reportedly happening?

A: What was happening just on the shore, only about 12 or 13 miles away from the Liberty, was that the Israelis were committing enormous numbers of war crimes. They were killing Egyptian soldiers - some with their hands tied behind their backs, and some after making them dig their own graves. There were several hundred of them - there may have been a thousand all together in the Sinai.

Q: So you think they sank the Liberty to kill the crew, to keep the action secret?

A: The Israelis had an awful lot of secrets to keep - and the main thrust of this chapter was to say for once there should be a full U.S. investigation of what really happened.

Q: I received an e-mail from a listener who doesn't like your conclusions about the USS Liberty incident. He can't really refute it, but seems to fall into the category of one of those who doesn't like facts that contradict his preconceived opinion of what happened. How would you respond?

A: I'd suggest he do what I'm doing and call on the U.S. government to do an investigation - which is what they have never done in the past. These 34 people who were killed - and 171 wounded - were twice as many as were killed on the USS Cole. And when that took place, the U.S. sent planeloads of FBI agents into Yemen to begin an investigation. Just like they did when the Kobar Towers were blown up in Saudi Arabia and just like they did when the embassies were blown up in East Africa - they never did an investigation on the Liberty. I've interviewed many of the Liberty survivors and there are a great many Israeli apologists out there who would just as soon bury this incident. I would like to see - just like the survivors would like to see - a real investigation.

Q: James, I'd like to revisit something we just touched on briefly. I told you about three years ago I wrote that piece about "Echelon." How concerned should we be about Echelon? How big a deal is Echelon? And even if they can collect all this stuff out of the ether, has the NSA exceeded their capacity to analyze it?

A: That's a good question. The problem with Echelon is, it's a massive worldwide eavesdropping system that many people in Europe and some people in the U.S. are worried about.

Q: It's been around for a long time.

A: Oh sure. Basically what it is, the NSA doesn't operate alone. It operates in conjunction with the major English-speaking countries of the world - the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Each of these countries has a certain part of the world that they specialize eavesdropping on. The British specialize in eavesdropping on Europe because they are very close to Europe. Australia eavesdrops a great deal on South East Asia. NSA, through this system known as Echelon, is able to sift through all that information and pick out what it wants - and the same thing with the Australians and the British, they can sift through what they want. It is a worldwide eavesdropping system and these countries are basically able to pick out whatever they want to listen to.

Q: One of the cool and kind of sleazy things about it is, allegedly, it is illegal for the U.S. to spy on its citizens. Likewise with the Brits and others. So in the wake of the UK-USA treaty, they basically said, "Nigel you spy on our guys, we'll spy on your people, and then we can swap information." That's pretty much what happens isn't it?

A: Well that is what happened in the past - the U.S. spied illegally on millions of U.S. communications. That ended in 1975, when new laws were created. However, there are some loopholes and that is one area that worries a lot of people.

Q: Is there some exchange where the British or the Canadians or someone else can eavesdrop on U.S. communications and vice versa? I know the Brits are particularly upset because of the prospect of industrial espionage.

A: No so much the Brits, but the Europeans. The Europeans are very worried about that - in fact they even have a committee of the European Parliament that is currently looking into that right now. What they are worried about is U.S. eavesdropping on European businesses and then taking that information - it could be contract information or sales or what their new plans are for like the Airbus in France - and passing it on to American competitors, such as Boeing or Lockheed. Britain is in a very difficult position because Britain is both part of the European Union and, at the same time, they are an NSA partner to do eavesdropping.

Q: I've heard that Britain has even tried to deny that Menwith Hill exists? That's like denying there's an elephant in your living room.

A: Oh sure. For many years, the U.S. denied that NSA even existed. But Menwith Hill is a huge - massive - eavesdropping station with over 20 satellite dishes. It looks like something built on Mars or the Moon. But its key job is to eavesdrop on satellite communications - and it does a very good job of it.

Q: Let me return to that previous question - have they reached the point of diminishing return where they have such a flood of information coming in that they can no longer sift the wheat from the chaff?

A: I think that is one of the key problems, Geoff - it is one of the worst problems facing NSA today. There is a lot of discussion within the intelligence community - and within the national security part of government - that NSA is going deaf or is deaf. And that's one of the reasons.

At one point, NSA used to be able to eavesdrop on tremendous amounts of communications by intercepting the satellite signals and microwave signals. But, today, a lot of those communications are encrypted that weren't encrypted before. And also, a lot of those same signals are no longer going by satellite or microwave. They are going by fiber optic communications. These are very thin glass, hair-like lines that are buried under the ground or under the ocean. Much more difficult to eavesdrop on.

Q: Was the NSA involved in that assault on Phil Zimmerman at PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)? The technical stuff is over my head but, basically, they didn't want him to be able to export the whiz-bang version as opposed to a watered-down version of PGP.

A: Sure. NSA was the primary agency involved in that. It wasn't just Phil Zimmerman but it was a number of other people and companies. Beginning in the late '70s - and especially in the mid 1990s - NSA was very aggressive in trying to prevent both companies and people from developing very powerful encryption. They were very opposed to it because they were worried it would get into the hands of terrorists, or mobsters or criminals and that would help keep their communications secret - prevent them from being eavesdropped on by NSA or the FBI. That was fought very aggressively by the communications and encryption industry and NSA lost. That effort to restrict making powerful encryption was not very successful.

Q: You go into very, very precise detail about how the NSA is set up - organization, structure, capabilities et al. I know you've heard from critics who say, "Hey, Jim? What are you giving all this stuff up to the bad guys for? You're doing damage to our national security."

A: Sure - I hear that all the time. The only problem with that is all that information I got is from the NSA. I got it through interviews with current officials, interviews with former officials, documents that are in the public domain or documents that I obtained through the Freedom Of Information Act from NSA itself. Ironically, even though people would have that assumption that I'm giving all this information away, NSA when the book came out, had a book signing for me up there. It went on for four hours. People lined up at the NSA doors all the way into the parking lot to have their book signed by me. So NSA is not unhappy about the book. They helped me write it, in a sense, but they had no editorial control over it. I think the feeling is that two books in 50 years - on this most secret agency - is not an awful lot to ask.

Q: You note that back in the '20s the "Black Chamber" was crawling into this arena - that it was sort of the forerunner to the NSA. Transitionally, at what point did it kick into high gear and start to mushroom into this Goliath?

A: That's a very good question. You look at it now - twice the size of the CIA and 38,000 people - back around 1938, the total population of the "Black Chamber" (actually it was the successor to the "Black Chamber") was about eight.

Q: Eight?

A: Yeah, about eight people. Then, all of a sudden, WWII came and that's when the big influx occurred. The United States and the British both realized that in order to win the war, they were going to have to be successful in breaking the codes of Germany and Japan. And that's what they did. The British and the United States broke the German "Enigma" code, and the Japanese "Purple" code, and that shortened the war by at least a year or more and saved thousands of lives.

Q: And the structure of "Echelon" was really that UK-USA agreement from '46, right?

A: That's right. The countries all came together to fight WWII and realized that it made more sense to stay together. Even though WWII was over and we were entering the Cold War, it made much more sense to be prepared during the Cold War in case we got into another hot war. That's why, in 1946, the UK-USA agreement brought together the NSA and its counterparts in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Britain.

Q: We touched on the growth of the NSA. WWII was obviously a catalyst for NSA, but did Eisenhower in the late '50s - 59ish - did he give NSA a kick-start?

A: Yes he did. The problem was after WWII, the United States was able to break the Russian code very successfully. But then, in 1948, because of a spy in the predecessor to the NSA, NSA basically went deaf in terms of Russian communications. Eisenhower, realizing how desperately we needed to break the Russian code, decided in the late 1950s to sort of jump-start NSA's code-breaking power and put enormous amounts of money into computers and personnel and machines at NSA. People don't realize this, but that move helped break the Russian code and helped jump-start the American computer industry. As a result of that, NSA became enormously more powerful and American industry began to make leaps and bounds in terms of computer performance.

Q: So how in the world did they soil the sheets so badly at the Bay of Pigs?

A: Well NSA really didn't have much to do with the Bay of Pigs. The NSA was sort of a bystander through the whole thing. Believe it or not, the government didn't trust the NSA to tell them about the Bay of Pigs before it took place. NSA was in the position of eavesdropping on the communications coming out of Cuba, but all they were doing was picking up signals of the defeated CIA infiltrators. And it was really a tragic situation - they heard their pleas for help and their cries as they were being shot and pushed into the ocean.

Q: So in another 20 years, do we get another book?

A: Yeah, the third in my trilogy in 20 years - if I can still read and write at that point. Terrific questions - thanks.

Be sure to get your copy of James Bamford's no-holds-barred examination of the National Security Agency, "Body of Secrets," from WorldNetDaily's online store while it is still available!

Geoff Metcalf is a talk-show host for TalkNetDaily.

-------- terrorism

Afghan Taliban Dismiss Bin Laden Threat Reports

New York Times
June 24, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-afghan-.html?searchpv=reuters

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's Taliban movement on Sunday dismissed media reports that exiled Saudi Arabian dissident Osama bin Laden was planning attacks on U.S. and Israeli interests, saying his activities were ``under control.''

A statement by a Taliban Foreign Ministry spokesman came a day after the Arabic satellite television channel MBC reported that followers of bin Laden, who is based in Afghanistan, were planning a major attack on U.S. and Israeli interests in the next two weeks.

``All of Osama's activities are under control in Afghanistan and he has no possibilty to intensify his activities against any other country,'' Taliban spokesman Mohammad Osman Sheryar told reporters at a news briefing.

``The reports by the mass media which broadcast increase of Osama's activities are propaganda and far from reality.''

The MBC station, monitored by the BBC, broadcast a report from a correspondent in the Pakistani town of Quetta who said he had met bin Laden two days ago in Afghanistan.

``There is a major state of mobilization among the Osama bin Laden forces. It seems that there is a race for who will strike first. Will it be the United States or Osama bin Laden?'' the correspondent said.

He said he had met bin Laden at an unspecified site some three hours' drive from the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and also talked with some of his followers.

``All of them affirm that the next two weeks will witness a big surprise. A severe blow is expected against U.S. and Israeli interests worldwide,'' the reporter said.

TV FOOTAGE ``FAKED''

Sheryar rejected the report. ``The TV footage was a faked one. Now Osama has no possibility to give interviews,'' he said.

The Taliban is under U.N. sanctions, including an arms embargo, for refusing to hand over bin Laden for a U.S. trial on terrorism charges.

Sheryar said bin Laden was a ``guest'' and would never be allowed to use Afghan soil against any country.

Asked about the possibility of a U.S. attack against Taliban-held areas similar to 1998 missile strikes against suspected bin Laden bases in eastern Afghanistan, Sheryar said: ''Afghanistan has no worry and never had one as God helps Afghanistan.

``Osama's activities are under control...therefore I don't think America will repeat its previous mistake.''

U.S. officials said on Friday forces in the Gulf had been put on alert based on a non-specific but credible threat linked to bin Laden.

U.S. embassies in the Gulf were open for business as usual on Sunday, although witnesses said security was tight after Washington's warning of an increased threat of ``terrorist'' action by Islamic militant groups.

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Protecting the White House

New York Times
June 24, 2001
Sunday Q&A
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/24/national/24SUNQ.html?searchpv=nytToday

Q. How tough is security at the White House?

A. David E. Sanger, a White House correspondent, responds:

The White House is better protected than it looks, in ways the Secret Service, sensibly enough, will not talk about. While there is always some reason to fear shoulder-fired missiles or similar types of attacks, clearly the first worry - especially after Oklahoma City - is a car or truck bomb.

That is why the Clinton administration closed off Pennsylvania Avenue for a three-block stretch, running from the Treasury Department, across the north front of the White House, and extending to the end of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and Blair House, where foreign dignitaries stay. (Pedestrians still walk freely in front of the White House, and teenagers have turned that stretch of the avenue into an in-line skating track.)

But quietly, bit by bit, the protections have tightened. Over the last year, new barriers have appeared on all the roads leading toward the north side of the White House, and Lafayette Park, on the opposite side of Pennsylvania Avenue, has been surrounded by decorative posts that act as truck barriers.

There are other protections. Drive a panel truck anywhere in the vicinity of the White House and expect to get pulled over by the Secret Service, which has grown more aggressive about inspecting loads.

Other agents cruise the streets on bicycles, and there are always surveillance teams on the White House roof. There is unconfirmed talk of a sophisticated radar system, but it is unclear what it provides beyond early warning: maybe when the Pentagon builds a prototype for its missile shield, it will start at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I discovered one more layer of protection quite by accident last year. One morning I was given a sophisticated medical test that involved an injection of radioactive gallium. That afternoon I had an appointment to see President Bill Clinton's national security adviser, Samuel R. Berger. Walking through the entrance hall of the West Wing of the White House, I heard a few beeps.

It turns out that there are radioactivity detectors buried in the walls of all approaches to the Oval Office - presumably to warn of small nuclear devices - and the Secret Service was all over me.

We got it sorted out, but Mr. Berger joked later that when White House officials treated reporters as if they were radioactive, it was not just a metaphor.

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Activists seek truth about Iraq attack

Sunday, 24 June, 2001,
BBC World Service
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1404000/1404901.stm

A group of American and British activists opposed to the international sanctions on Iraq say they have visited the site of a reported US-British air strike in northern Iraq.

Philip Steger, a US member of the group Voices in the Wilderness, said they had collected missile fragments from the site.

He said serial numbers on the fragments would be given to the US authorities to determine if US or British planes were involved.

Iraq alleges that 23 people were killed on Tuesday at a football ground near the northern city of Mosul during an air attack.

Washington and London reject the charge, saying any deaths must have been caused by misdirected Iraqi fire against allied aircraft.

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Sibling Nuns Will Go to Prison for Protesting at U.S. Military School

New York Times
June 24, 2001
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/24/national/24NUNS.html

DUBUQUE, Iowa, June 20 - In all their years as Franciscan nuns, the Hennessey sisters have led lives of intentional simplicity: simple food, simple dress, simple quarters.

Now they are about to abandon the simple life in a convent for the austere life in a prison. Sister Dorothy Marie Hennessey, who is 88, and Sister Gwen L. Hennessey, who is 68, have been sentenced to six months each in a federal prison - the maximum penalty - for trespassing at a United States military school that trains Latin American soldiers.

The judge, federal Magistrate G. Mallon Faircloth, offered Sister Dorothy Marie six months' house arrest in the convent instead of a prison term, but she refused. "I'm not an invalid," she said. "I'd like to have the same sentence as the rest."

Tiny and stooped as Mother Teresa, Sister Dorothy Marie sports a button saying, "Stand Up for Peace in Central America." The button is a keepsake from the 1980's, when devastating wars stoked by United States money and weapons embroiled El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras.

The 15 Hennessey siblings - Sister Dorothy Marie is the oldest - grew up on an Iowa farm. Sister Gwen said she did not know where Central America was until their brother Ron, a Maryknoll priest, was assigned to Guatemala as a missionary in the 1960's. Father Ron Hennessey wrote letters to his family. In the 1980's his letters described Mayan Indians in his parish being terrorized and killed by Guatemalan military squads. "Help stop this madness," he wrote. By then, Father Ron had befriended Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero of El Salvador, and when the Archbishop was assassinated, Father Ron was at the funeral in the cathedral when the Salvadoran military fired into the mourners.

The Central American wars smoldered to an end by 1990, just about the time that another Maryknoll priest, the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, started leading small groups of protesters to the gates of the School of the Americas at Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga. They demanded that the Army close the school.

The protesters point to trials and investigations that concluded that the school's graduates participated in atrocities, including the assassination of Archbishop Romero and the massacre of an estimated 800 Salvadorans in and around the village of El Mozote, El Salvador. Among the school's graduates are Gen. Manuel Noriega of Panama, Raoul Cedras of Haiti and the late Roberto d'Aubuisson of El Salvador, all connected to human rights abuses in their countries.

Maj. Milton F. Mariani, an Army public affairs officer at the school, said: "Over the 54 years that the School of the Americas was open, 61,000 students came through its classrooms. There are some unfortunately that came through here for what could have been a two-week or yearlong course, that went on years later to commit crimes against the societies of their countries.

"That is a fact," Major Mariani said. "But it is not because of the training they received at the School of the Americas, but in spite of the training they received here."

The protests grew until last Nov. 19, when more than 8,000 people massed in a cold rain outside Fort Benning. The Hennessey sisters were among about 3,500 people who trespassed onto the base in a mock funeral procession, carrying crosses. Sister Gwen's cross bore the name of a 4-year-old said to have been killed in El Mozote. They recited the names of the dead, planted the crosses in the grass and were herded into buses to be fingerprinted and processed.

They expected to be released, as in previous years, with a "ban and bar" letter warning them to stay off the base. But the protesters were surprised when 26 among them who already had "ban and bar" letters were charged and prosecuted, most for "illegal re-entry onto a United States military reservation."

In December, a month after the protest, the Army did close the school. In January, the Department of Defense reopened it under another name: the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. A bipartisan group of members of Congress has proposed House Resolution 1810, which calls for closing the school for good.

Together, the Hennessey sisters have logged decades as peace campaigners. Sister Dorothy Marie walked across the United States to protest against the cold war with Russia. Sister Gwen carried picket signs against nuclear weapons. But the only time they have been incarcerated was when Sister Gwen did a few hours in a county jail for a sit-in at Senator Charles E. Grassley's office to protest American aid to the Nicaraguan contras.

The sisters have not been told where or when to report, but they expect it to be soon, in Pekin, Ill., the closest federal penitentiary to their convent in Iowa. Of the 26 other protesters - including two other nuns, both in their 70's, a Baptist, a Mormon and two Jews - three are serving sentences in Georgia.

As the Hennesseys walk through their convent now, other nuns in their order, the Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Family of Dubuque, offer prayers and blessings.

"Aren't you a little bit worried?" said 103-year-old Sister DeVota Rensch, reclining in her room, her knotted fingers entwined in a rosary.

"We have to take it all in stride," Sister Gwen said. "Pray for us." In her narrow room, under an icon of Archbishop Romero, Sister Gwen was reading a book sent by a well- wisher, "How to Survive a Federal Prison Camp: A Guidebook for Those Caught Up in the System."

Sister Gwen will leave her job caring for nuns with Alzheimer's disease at the convent. Sister Dorothy Marie will not finish assembling the letters of her brother Ron, who died of a heart attack in 1999 after 34 years in Central America.

She cannot bring the papers to prison. "They said the only thing you can take into prison with you is your glasses," Sister Dorothy Marie said, "but I hope they let me keep my hearing aids."

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A Busload of Aspiring Activists Take to the Road

New York Times
June 24, 2001
By JODI WILGOREN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/24/national/24TOUR.html

NEW MARKET, Tenn., June 19 - Not long after midnight, Brandeis University's Sociology 156a rolled off Interstate 40 at Exit 68 into the TA Truck Stop. Young women toted toiletries into the restroom, young men folded themselves into phone booths to dial mothers and girlfriends. David Cunningham, assistant professor of sociology, popped in two quarters for a video game of Galaga.

Lee Tusman, 19, whose research project is on the politics of fast food, eyed the two-for-$8.99 Heater Meals, cardboard-clad chicken with the unlikely boast "There's a Stove Inside!" (Just add water, and a mix of salt, iron and magnesium warm the food right up.)

"If you don't buy this," Professor Cunningham warned Mr. Tusman, "your grade is going down."

The moments for teaching arrive serendipitously in Professor Cunningham's "Possibilities for Change in American Communities," a yearlong course that includes this 30-day odyssey through 17 states aboard a 40-foot sleeper bus. Having spent the spring reading treatises on social movements, the 11 undergraduates and 2 teaching assistants this month are meeting with real-live activists, visiting historic sites like the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., and muddying their fingernails with envelope-stuffing and sign-carrying.

Fired up, they plan to return to their campus, in Waltham, Mass., with an activist agenda this fall. They just have not picked an issue yet.

Equal parts Ken Kesey and MTV's "Road Rules," the Brandeis bus trip reflects an explosion of American college courses in which students learn through hands-on experience rather just text and lectures. Brandeis's program is modeled on one begun in 1992 by Douglas Brinkley, a historian now at the University of New Orleans, who has led eight cross-country journeys focused on American literature and history and who plans a trek down the Mississippi River next year.

Professor Cunningham, 30 years old, says he chose activism as the theme because of a recent surge of student protest. With radicalism percolating among young people who have grown up in prosperity, he said, the atmosphere is reminiscent of the early 1960's.

"Everybody has a sense of what an activist is, this person who spends 24 hours a day in this very visible cause," he said. "I really wanted to broaden the sense of what an activist is. Anyone who's working to change a system for the better is an activist."

So, along with visiting the traditional set of civil rights heroes and monuments, the students have stopped at Rural Studio, where Alabama architecture majors build houses out of cardboard and cans. They have cooked pots of bruised vegetables for Food Not Bombs, a collective in North Carolina. They have rallied against police brutality in Greensboro, N.C., marched for gay pride in Birmingham, Ala., and met Jesus People Against Pollution in Mississippi. Before heading home on June 27, they plan to spend an afternoon lobbying on Capitol Hill.

"It's this idea of people that are socially conscious connecting to other people who have been socially conscious," said Andrew Slack, a sociology and theater major. "We've been seeing so much over the past two weeks. I've just become very motivated to do something."

During one of many late-night bus discussions, the idea emerged that the students become activists themselves. But it seems to matter more that they get involved than what they get involved with, and they have settled on tactics before goals. Keeping the structure of whatever they do nonhierarchical and building consensus are crucial. They are interested in race and class, but beyond that the contours of the project remain sketchy.

And if the trip has radicalized them, it has also taught some more practical lessons.

Like how to wander casually into the fitness room at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis for a free shower. Or remembering to take the extra roll of toilet paper from the bus driver's motel room. Or mediating between the slobs and the clean freaks on how often to break out the Windex.

"I wasn't particularly interested in the themes of the class, or social activism, or even sociology," Aaron Kagan of Boca Raton, Fla., said as he wandered through the civil rights museum at the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis. "I just wanted in. I knew it was going to be something."

Monday afternoon in Memphis, it was inviting a homeless man named Mark to lunch. That night it was two African-American women who came to Brandeis from tough New York neighborhoods teaching Mr. Kagan and Mr. Slack, Jews from the suburbs, the hand jive to "Rockin' Robin." Outside a Memphis restaurant, it was Suzy Stone, a thoughtful woman from Minneapolis, talking to three local black teenagers with baseball caps turned sideways. "What are y'all, Jehovah's Witnesses?" wondered a passer-by with a gold tooth and a 40-ounce Budweiser dangling from his hand.

A few hours later, as Beale Street came alive with blues emanating from outdoor bars and tourists shopping for blue-suede-shoes salt and pepper shakers, class began inside the bus, parked on a corner. Cramped in the 40-foot Eagle, vintage 1983, which was once home to the Who and Three Dog Night, the students talked about the differences between the Ku Klux Klan and the gangs that dominate many of today's ghettos. They discussed conspiracy and coalition-building, picking apart Dr. King's strategies and mapping their own.

The rolling classroom left town about 11 p.m., heading east. By 3 a.m., nearly everyone was asleep at the "double-fisted resort," so called because of the amount of space between one's forehead and the ceiling in the coffinlike triple-decker bunks. The students awoke slowly this morning as the bus wandered for hours around the back roads here in New Market, struggling to find the Highlander Research and Education Center.

At Highlander, a retreat in the Smoky Mountains where poor teenagers and new immigrants from the Deep South come for workshops on how to fight the power structure, the Brandeis students asked questions about how they might get involved. They also had lunch - breakfast, really - digging into a buffet of spaghetti and fresh melon.

Mr. Tusman topped his plate with meat sauce, having abandoned his vegetarianism for the trip so he could embrace regional foods fully. For his fast-food research project, he has shellacked a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich from Waffle House and saved a pickle from an Alabama truck stop.

"Food is about nourishment, but it's also recreation," said the young sociologist in training, sharing stories of lunch counters and truck stops across the South. "If I want to check the pulse of a place, I go eat there."

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Vieques Protesters Mistreated, Jackson Charges

New York Times
June 24, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/24/national/24JACK.html

SAN JUAN, P.R., June 23 (AP) - The Rev. Jesse Jackson accused the government of trying to intimidate his wife and other protesters on Vieques with excessive jail terms, fines and mistreatment.

Mr. Jackson, with his daughter and two sons, met with his wife, Jacqueline Jackson, for more than an hour on Friday in a federal jail. He said she was "in a very good mood" but would probably be returned to solitude because she would not let guards search her.

"Because she refused cavity body searches of her private parts, she is now in a hole in solitary confinement," Mr. Jackson said after arriving in San Juan. "That is cruel and unnecessary punishment."

Navy and police officials have detained at least 47 protesters, including Mrs. Jackson, on trespassing charges since the latest exercises on the Puerto Rican island began on Monday. Mrs. Jackson was jailed because she refused to pay $3,000 bail. Her husband said the bail, poor treatment and long sentences were designed to scare people into halting the protests.

Mr. Jackson accused the United States authorities of colluding to hand out lengthy sentences, like the 90 days given the Rev. Al Sharpton, who was jailed for a second civil disobedience offense during May exercises and has been on a hunger strike in a New York jail since May 29.

A spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons in Washington, Traci Billingsley, said she was not allowed to address individual cases but that all inmates had to strip for a visual search after they received visitors.

"There is no contact," Ms. Billingsley said. The bureau does not have incarceration called solitary confinement, she said, but inmates who refuse the search "may be placed in the special housing unit and face possible disciplinary action."

Ms. Billingsley described the jail as new, well lighted and well ventilated, but Mr. Jackson said his wife was held in a "dingy hole that is damp."

Also on Friday, Gov. Sila M. Calderón of Puerto Rico and Navy Secretary Gordon England held an unannounced meeting at which Governor Calderón said "dialogue was re- established."

This weekend, the Navy is giving its pilots a break, and will resume bombing the disputed training ground on Monday and continue through Friday.


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