8 January 1999. Thanks to Anonymous (2).
1. U.S. Says It Gave Arms Inspectors Equipment to Monitor Iraq 2. U.S. Aides Say U.N. Team Helped to Install Spy Device in Iraq 3. Reports of U.S. Spying Dim Outlook for Iraq Inspections 4. Report of Iraqi Executions 5. Time to Face the Super-Thug Alone 6. Many Flaws Blamed in Embassy Attacks 7. Panel Cites U.S. Failures On Security for Embassies 8. China Denies It Got U.S. Missile Technology 9. China Received Secret Data On U.S. Warhead - WSJ 10. China Raps U.S. on Korea Inspection 11. China To U.S.: Avoid Spratly Island Dispute 12. China Accuses U.S. Congress 13. Chinese Air Force Focuses on Attack Stance 14. Clinton Urged To Deny Spy [Pollard] Clemency 15. Laundering Network Found in Ukraine 16. FBI Trained in Anticipation of More Cults - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The Washington Post, 08 January 1999, Page A1 U.S. Says It Gave Arms Inspectors Equipment to Monitor Iraq By Thomas W. Lippman and Barton Gellman Washington Post Staff Writers The United States for nearly three years intermittently monitored the coded radio communications of President Saddam Hussein's innermost security forces using equipment secretly installed in Iraq by U.N. weapons inspectors, according to U.S. and U.N. officials. In 1996 and 1997, the Iraqi communications were captured by off-the-shelf commercial equipment carried by inspectors from the organization known as UNSCOM, then hand-delivered to analysis centers in Britain, Israel and the United States for interpretation, officials said. But early last year, when UNSCOM decided it was too dangerous for its inspectors to carry the equipment, the United States took control of the operation and replaced the store-bought scanners and digital tape recorders with more sophisticated automated monitors. The intercepted Iraqi communications were sent by satellite relay in a nearby country to the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, where they were decoded and translated into English, the officials said. Information relevant to the work of the U.N. weapons inspection force, which was searching for Iraq's prohibited weapons or the means to conceal them, was shared with UNSCOM's chairman and his deputy, officials said. Other information, including material that might be helpful to the United States in destabilizing Saddam Hussein, was retained by Washington. The U.S. officials said intelligence kept by Washington has proven to be of scant value in its campaign against the Iraqi government. U.S. officials confirmed the monitoring operation in an effort to rebut allegations that the United States had inappropriately used UNSCOM as a tool to penetrate Saddam Hussein's security and promote his downfall. Until yesterday, U.S. officials had denied using intelligence gathered in connection with UNSCOM for U.S. purposes. Elements of the operation were reported this week in The Washington Post and the Boston Globe. The Wall Street Journal added further details in a story published yesterday. The Post assembled over several months an account of the intelligence operation from U.N. and U.S. officials, but agreed last fall not to publish details about sources and methods used to gather the information after U.S. officials said the disclosure would damage national security. This week, U.S. officials have themselves disclosed many of the same details. U.S. officials have said the purpose of the radio intercepts was to help UNSCOM do the job assigned to it by the U.N. Security Council. To the extent the operation provided additional information was a bonus that did not deviate from UNSCOM's mandate, the officials said. UNSCOM has had no staff or operations in Iraq since the U.S. and British missile strikes last month, but there are indications that the monitoring has continued. White House national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger said after the airstrikes that "with or without UNSCOM, we have formidable intelligence capabilities" in Iraq. "We try to monitor as best we can the internal situation in Iraq," Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, commander of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region, said at a Washington news conference yesterday. As recounted to The Post by U.S. and U.N. officials, the UNSCOM effort to get inside Saddam Hussein's security apparatus began early in this decade, after UNSCOM concluded that Iraq did not intend to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions requiring it to destroy its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. While officials said that intelligence agents from several countries, including the United States, were assigned to work on UNSCOM inspection teams, U.S. officials insisted that no Americans report to Washington outside UNSCOM channels. Instead, U.S. officials and others said, it became apparent over time that Iraq was bent on concealing its banned weapons, and that the security forces assigned to that task were the same as those assigned to Saddam Hussein's security. Penetration of one was tantamount to penetration of the other, officials said, especially because they used the same encrypted radio frequencies. Rolf Ekeus, then UNSCOM's chairman and now Sweden's ambassador to the United States, said he briefed members of the Security Council in early 1997 on this discovery and on the possibility that tracking weapons could also end up gathering information that might be helpful in tracking Saddam Hussein. The idea of taking scanners into Iraq originated with Scott Ritter, a former U.S. Marine officer who was working as an UNSCOM inspector in 1995. On a trip to Israel, Ritter proposed that Israeli intelligence provide inspectors with commercial all-frequency scanners and recording devices that they could carry with them. Ekeus approved these so-called "special collection missions" in 1996. Inspectors were soon able to map the frequencies used by the Iraqi special security apparatus and intercept communications by the National Monitoring Directorate, the Special Security Organization, the Special Republican Guard and the Office of the Presidential Secretary. These communications included warnings to weapons facilities that UNSCOM inspectors were on their way and instructions to hide contraband material. But that information did not help the inspectors at the time, officials said, because it had to be relayed to Israel and Britain – or, at a later date, to the NSA – to be decoded and translated. The inspectors never had access to Iraqi communications in "real time," officials said, but the information was useful in understanding Iraqi concealment techniques. In March 1998, for reasons that are in dispute, the United States took over the operation and arranged for the installation of the more sophisticated, stationary equipment. The equipment was automated and could have been moved as UNSCOM inspectors left the country. Ritter has accused the United States of putting pressure on Britain and Israel to pull out in an effort to gain full control of the intelligence produced. U.S. officials said Ekeus and his successor, Richard Butler, were concerned that inspectors' lives would be endangered if the Iraqis discovered the portable equipment they were carrying. Once the NSA arranged to have the so-called "black boxes" installed, that danger was eliminated, officials said. The black boxes automatically tracked Iraqi frequencies that NSA was interested in, skipping others, and relayed the communications to a satellite uplink in a nearby country. So complete was this penetration that some UNSCOM officials believed that NSA deliberately slowed down the process of decoding and redistributing the material, for fear of showing how good the system was. But while Israel's decryption operation, called Unit 8200, had provided complete transcripts, the NSA returned "tear line" transcripts with only partial versions. The Iraqis may have suspected that their communications were being monitored, and used Arabic code words to describe individuals and equipment, officials said. A decision by the United States at the time it took over the monitoring operation sowed the seeds of later trouble. Washington specified that only Butler and his deputy, Charles Duelfer, be given access to the intercepted material. Ritter was cut out because of questions arising from his marriage to a Russian and because of Washington's fears that a Justice Department investigation into allegations that Ritter had improperly given classified information to Israel would provide anti-UNSCOM propaganda fodder for Saddam Hussein. In August, shortly after Iraq expelled the arms inspectors, Ritter resigned and made the explosive accusation that the United States had undercut UNSCOM by cutting off the flow of crucial intelligence data. U.S. officials say they did not cut off UNSCOM, only Ritter personally. Butler has categorically denied that UNSCOM was used for spying on behalf of the United States. U.S. officials said Washington relayed to UNSCOM all information from the intercepts that was relevant to its work. But because Washington now has sole control of the data flow, UNSCOM has no way of knowing if that is true. At one point, UNSCOM officials were so suspicious that Washington was withholding data that U.S. officials arranged a visit to Fort Meade to let them inspect the raw material. Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The New York Times, 08 January 1999 U.S. Aides Say U.N. Team Helped to Install Spy Device in Iraq By Tim Weiner WASHINGTON -- In March, in a last-ditch attempt to uncover Saddam Hussein's covert weapons and intelligence networks, the United States used the U.N. inspection team to send an U.S. spy into Baghdad to install a highly sophisticated electronic eavesdropping system. The spy entered Iraq in the guise of a U.N. weapons inspector and left the eavesdropping device behind. For 10 months, the device let the United States and a select elite within the U.N. inspection team monitor the cell phones, walkie-talkies and other communications instruments used by the military and intelligence officers who protect Saddam and conceal Iraq's weapons. This operation, described Thursday by U.S. officials, is at the center of the current furor over the relationship between U.S. intelligence agents and inspectors with the U.N. Special Commission, which is supposed to be independent and not pursue the policy or intelligence goals of individual members. U.S. officials explained in some detail the origins of the operation, making clear how U.S. intelligence came to dominate the inspections in the months before the United States bombed Iraq. The officials and others insisted that the eavesdropping operation was not a unilateral, covert U.S. espionage gambit, and that it had the blessing of Richard Butler, chairman of the commission, which is known as UNSCOM. "It should not shock people that U.S. intelligence did everything it could to help UNSCOM undermine" Saddam, a senior intelligence official said. Eighty-five percent of what was overheard in Baghdad was useless, another official said. But the rest led the weapons inspectors to focus intensely on Iraq's hidden weapons programs and security networks. That deep look inside Saddam's most precious military and intelligence programs ended in December, when Baghdad expelled the inspectors. Hours later, a four-day-long U.S.-led bombing campaign began. Cruise missiles hit some targets selected from data gleaned by the U.S.-led espionage, U.S. and U.N. officials said. But there is little evidence that the bombing did permanent damage to Iraq's weapons programs. All but one of the officials spoke on the condition that they would not be quoted directly. It appeared from their descriptions that they believed the inspection team would never return to Iraq in its original form. The inspectors undertook their first electronic eavesdropping three years ago. For the first two years, though it had some success, its goal was frustrated by Iraqi security. In March it was replaced by the U.S.-led effort. While some U.N. officials suspect that the effort was an U.S. covert operation, U.S. officials insisted Thursday that a handful of key UNSCOM officials approved the secret program. The origins of the operation go back to 1995, after the defection of an Iraqi general, Hussein Kamal. Kamal, a son-in-law of Saddam, inexplicably returned to Iraq, apparently gripped by remorse. He was promptly shot. But some aides who defected with him stayed out of Iraq. For the past four years, they have provided the United States and UNSCOM with a unique window into the Iraqi security apparatus, which had successfully hidden Iraq's biological and chemical weapons programs from the U.N. inspectors since 1991. For the first time, the United States and the United Nations understood the depth and the sophistication of Iraqi security, which includes thousands of officers commanded by the Special Republican Guard, the Special Security Office and Saddam's personal details. The most important target, they now understood, was a sector of Iraq's Special Republican Guard known as the National Monitoring Directorate. The problem was how to penetrate those networks. A U.N. official said it was naive to assume that his organization was innocent in espionage matters. "The U.N. has been and continues to be a focal point for espionage by everybody," he said. Intelligence officers from most of the world's nations use the organization as a base of operations, he said. But Rolf Ekeus, then the chairman of the U.N. inspections team, needed help. He asked the United States to help him create a system to listen in on the Iraqi security networks, many of which operated at frequencies that U.S. spy planes and spy satellites could not hear, U.S. officials said. Washington did help, offering technology designed by the National Security Agency and the CIA, which picked up Iraqi telecommunications, beamed them to a computer in Bahrain and filtered through the conversations for key words like "missile" or "chemical." The information was shared with U.N. inspectors and with other nations involved with the inspection effort -- though not with Russia, officials said. At the request of the CIA, several aspects of the program are being withheld from publication to avoid assisting Iraqi intelligence. Throughout 1996 and 1997, the campaign was an international effort, involving British, Israeli, Swedish, Polish and Australian officers and officials, among others. The eavesdropping equipment was brought into Iraq on each inspection mission, and used to listen in as Iraqi security officers, speaking in code and using scrambling devices, worked to conceal weapons and protect Saddam. The U.S. officials said Ekeus did not want the effort to be misread as a CIA operation, and that the United States did not take the lead role, although "we broke our backs to provide UNSCOM the support it needed -- technology, equipment, people," as one said. Nonetheless, U.S. intelligence officials read everything gleaned from the effort and distributed the intelligence to Pentagon planners. "Did we evaluate everything we got from UNSCOM? Of course," one said. U.S. spy agencies also interviewed inspectors extensively, the officials said. After two years, the commission had not succeeded in unmasking Iraq's hidden programs. It was then, last March, that the United States inserted its sophisticated device into the U.N. operation, and assumed the lead role in the espionage. It restricted the information gathered to a very small circle of senior U.N. inspection officials. They barred Scott Ritter, the U.S. military officer who had led UNSCOM's earlier effort to unmask Iraq's covert weaponry and whom they suspected as a security risk. U.S. officials insisted that the information they gathered was only what the commission needed -- insight into the ways in which Iraq concealed its weapons. But they conceded that those very same methods were used by Iraq to protect its president. It should be no surprise, they said, that U.S. cruise missiles were aimed last month at the same people and institutions that the eavesdropping campaign tried to penetrate -- including the home of the man who runs the security organizations that protect Iraq's secret weapons and Saddam Hussein. Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The New York Times, 08 January 1999 Reports of U.S. Spying Dim Outlook for Iraq Inspections By Barbara Crossette UNITED NATIONS -- Reports that the United States used the U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq as cover for spying on President Saddam Hussein are dimming any chances that the inspection system will survive and that its head, Richard Butler, will remain in his job much longer, officials and diplomats here said Thursday. Some officials expressed concern that the uproar over the spying reports could jeopardize other U.N. disarmament operations or could rekindle suspicions of some member nations about U.S. intentions within the organization. Thursday, a spokesman for Secretary-General Kofi Annan tempered the statements of Wednesday that Annan had heard nothing but "rumors" about extensive U.S. spying, including activities aimed at weakening Saddam. "If these allegations are true," the spokesman, Fred Eckhard, said, "it would be damaging to the U.N. disarmament efforts worldwide." In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, Butler, an Australian, said he was thinking of leaving the job when his contract expires in June. "I have always said I don't want this job forever," he told the paper. Since its creation, the Special Commission has been unlike any other U.N. program. It reports directly to the Security Council, not the secretary- general, who formally appoints its executive chairman but only in consultation with the council. Created in 1991, UNSCOM had no budget within the U.N. system, but existed on handouts, especially from Washington, until two years ago. When the Iraqi oil-for-food program finally began, money was set aside from oil sales for perpetual weapons monitoring. From its inception, the commission -- originally a 21-member panel of experts without a permanent staff -- has been an intelligence-gathering operation as well as a disarmament agency. Its experts are not international bureaucrats, but arms specialists and scientists on loan from dozens of countries. A very small permanent headquarters staff is augmented periodically and temporarily with inspectors recruited from more than 40 nations, which also provide the extremely sophisticated surveillance equipment and aircraft used for monitoring. Teams vary in size, depending on the job at hand. It has always been widely assumed that some of the inspectors had backgrounds in intelligence. Some were drawn from special forces units of national armies, departments of government or occasionally private contractors like ground radar experts. The commission had no means of checking the experts on loan and no special reason to do so, because its function was to ferret out information Iraq that was unwilling to give voluntarily. "We'll ask a country to provide three linguists, for example," said Charles Duelfer, an American who is deputy executive chairman of the commission. "We don't say where they should come from. We don't care. Their job is to provide good technical translation. "When we ask for nonproliferation people, where do they come from? The Red Cross doesn't have chemical weapons experts." The commission seethed with intrigue from the start, as countries that sided with Iraq expected their experts to influence the work, usually with little success. Advance warnings of inspections were initially passed on to Iraqi, apparently by Russians, before the leaks were found and procedures changed, commission officials said. Last year Russia and France added "political advisers" to the permanent staff. Citizens of other nations said they advisers had been placed there to monitor and influence activity. The most intense pressure on Butler has come from Russia, a commission official said. Many of his decisions have been criticized by the Russians and the Chinese because they were not consulted. The work of the commission, which began in 1991 with extensive destruction of ammunition and weapons, evolved, and with that evolution new problems arose. Butler, Duelfer and Rolf Ekeus, a Swedish diplomat who was the first executive chairman, agree that 1995 was a turning point. That year information that emerged after the defection to Jordan of Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamal, showed the extent to which Iraq had been lying to the inspectors about its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs, as well as missile projects. The commission responded by asking nations to upgrade surveillance equipment and by establishing a unit led by a Russian and a Briton to deal with Iraqi concealment. New inspections were created to try to outwit the concealment attempts, especially moving weapons and components around continuously. Ekeus said in an interview Wednesday that he realized that the anticoncealment effort could lead to friction because the Special Republican Guards and other elite troops in charge of moving the weapons also guarded Saddam. Spying on one activity could lead to charges of spying on Saddam, he said. Butler succeeded Ekeus in July 1997, and by that fall Butler had his first big test of Iraqi noncooperation. At that point, some Security Council members -- and for differing reasons -- began to question what more there was to learn from Iraq. Led by Russia and France, the critics began to press for an end to active disarmament and a switch to a long-term monitoring and surveillance of Iraq, with only occasional inspections. That would be accompanied by a lifting of sanctions. Last summer, Iraq demonstrated that it was unlikely to allow any intrusive inspections like those of the past. That defiance snowballed into a total break with the Special Commission in October. Inspectors were allowed back in November. But the Iraqis obstructed their work, and the confrontation ended in U.S. and British air strikes in December. After the attacks, Iraq, which has always accused the United States of spying, said it would not allow UNSCOM to return unless it had a new leader and structure. This week the Iraqis said that no inspections of any kind would be allowed again. Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The Washington Post, 08 January 1999, Page A21 Time to Face the Super-Thug Alone By Jim Hoagland Memo to the president: Forget Barzan. It is Barzani you want to enlist. And watch your back at the United Nations. Kofi Annan's staff is out to knife American policy on Iraq and "rehabilitate" Saddam Hussein. This is the way 1999 starts for Bill Clinton in his long, expensive and inconclusive battle with Saddam. But the three resolutions proposed above -- which require Clinton to force the hand of other players in this drama -- could bring a blessedly unhappy New Year for the Iraqi dictator. Barzan is Barzan al-Takriti, Saddam's half-brother. During a diplomatic posting in Geneva, Barzan conducted an elaborate covert dialogue for five years with the United States, which provided visas and medical treatment in the United States for his wife, Ahlam, and other members of his family. These blandishments were offered in a forlorn attempt to persuade Barzan to mount a palace coup against a murderous sibling he had no intention of crossing. A CIA officer using the code name Abu Eric who came to know Barzan and other Iraqi officials in Baghdad in the 1980s traveled regularly from his Middle East post to meet with Barzan in Europe. Barzan returned to Baghdad in November shortly after his wife died and was buried in Switzerland. The CIA's misguided palace coup effort produced no return on its investment and inhibited other, more promising anti-Saddam operations. It is the kind of quick-fix operation that the Clintonites will avoid if they are to get serious about the long-term campaign to overthrow Saddam they have belatedly promised. U.S. energy and funds should instead be focused on Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, whose Pesh Merga warriors and real estate are needed to mount an effective challenge to Baghdad. Barzani must be made to understand that he will get serious U.S. support and protection -- but only if he breaks out of the working alliance he has maintained with Saddam since 1996 and joins a new U.S.-supported resistance coalition. Washington needs to take the same "It is time to choose" approach with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, whose assistants this week used the media to try to decapitate the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) that runs arms inspections in Iraq and to make these inspections more Saddam-friendly. Annan's staff aired anonymous complaints in The Washington Post that UNSCOM chief inspector Richard Butler had permitted the organization to be used by U.S. intelligence for spying on Saddam. The secretary general's assistants seemed shocked -- yes, shocked -- that an anti-Saddam bias had crept into U.N. actions on Iraq. Leave aside the bum information: Out of professional rivalry, the Central Intelligence Agency has done more to hinder effective intelligence gathering by UNSCOM than to help. More shocking is the pretense by Annan's aides that they are unaware that the international community is at war with Saddam's regime. Iraq was granted a cease-fire in the Gulf War on condition that it give up its weapons of mass destruction and missiles. Iraq's refusal to let UNSCOM verify its claims puts Baghdad in active breach of the cease-fire contained in U.N. resolutions. This is not a technical matter or a legalism. Saddam forced the United States to spend billions of dollars and stretch thin its armed forces in 1998, all without seriously weakening his dictatorship or his store of terror weapons. His new burst of belligerence is intended to show that he survived December's 70-hour bombing spree conducted by the world's only remaining superpower. Super-Thug lives. Annan's people misjudge the temper of Washington on this issue. "Their undermining of UNSCOM and economic sanctions will drive people who want to clear up the problem of U.S. back dues and other problems into the confrontation camp and provoke a serious U.S.-U.N. crisis," a senior administration official said to me two weeks ago. This official accurately predicted then that Butler's head would soon be on the block. The White House, already miffed with Annan over his handling of Iraq, will fight to protect Butler, a senior official told me this week. The sneak attack on Butler and the CIA should be a wake-up call: Washington now will have to rely less on multilateral efforts to contain and combat Saddam and act unilaterally more often to protect U.S. vital interests abroad in 1999. Clinton should treat this development as a liberation from bothersome restraints on U.S. freedom of action. He is considering appointing a high-level coordinator to handle Iraq, a step in the right, unilateralist direction. The need now is to lead, not to persuade. Other nations will follow an American president who makes clear he will protect U.S. national interests in the gulf or elsewhere by any means necessary. This is what George Bush did in 1991. Kofi Annan, Kurdish guerrillas and Saddam's relatives will join in pushing the dictator out only when they are convinced that Saddam's fate is sealed and that continuing to keep a foot in his camp will do significant damage to them. They should no longer be given the choice of seeming not to choose. This does not mean the end of multilateralism or of hopes for a more effective United Nations in the future. Those goals can and should be attained. But they can be attained only under the influence of strong U.S. leadership. The place to begin is Iraq, the time is now. Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The New York Times, 08 January 1999 Report of Iraqi Executions By The Associated Press CAIRO -- Iraq has executed 81 political detainees, including army officers accused in a plot to kill Saddam Hussein, an Iraqi opposition group said today. The group, the Center for Human Rights, said the executions took place in a prison near Baghdad in mid-December. Iraq refuses to comment on such charges. The center provided a list of names of the prisoners it said were killed and said 15 bodies were returned to their families with a warning not to conduct any public mourning. Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The New York Times, 08 January 1999 Many Flaws Blamed in Embassy Attacks By Philip Shenon WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 -- A State Department investigation of last summer's bombings of two American embassies in East Africa found that a "collective failure" by senior Government officials and lawmakers over decades had left a number of American embassies vulnerable to terrorist attack, senior Clinton Administration officials said Thursday. They said two panels -- both led by Adm. William J. Crowe, the retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Ambassador to Britain -- accused the State Department and other agencies of giving a low priority to embassy security. According to the officials, the panels found that there was no intelligence warning of the attacks on the embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Aug. 7. The panels criticized the United States Government as relying too heavily on intelligence about specific terrorist threats in determining which embassies and other diplomatic installations deserved protection. A total of 258 people, including 12 Americans, died in the bombings, and more than 4,000 peoples were wounded. The panels led by Admiral Crowe were appointed in October; one investigated the bombing of the embassy in Kenya, while the other studied the bombing in neighboring Tanzania. The combined report of the panels is scheduled to be released on Friday. While the State Department declined to provide an advance copy of the full report, senior Administration officials read some of its conclusions to a reporter. "The boards did not find reasonable cause to believe that any employee of the United States Government or member of the uniformed services breached his or her duty in connection with the Aug. 7 bombings," the report said. "However, we believe there was a collective failure by several Administrations and Congresses over the past decade to invest adequate resources to reduce the vulnerability of U.S. diplomatic missions around the world to terrorist attacks." "What is most troubling," it continued, "is the failure of the U.S. Government to take the necessary steps to prevent such tragedies through an unwillingness to give sustained priority and funding to security improvements." The report found that the two embassies had not been provided with adequate security to protect them against large car bombs like those used in the attacks in August. "Both embassies were located immediately adjacent or close to the public streets and were especially vulnerable to large vehicular bombs," the panels found. "The boards found that too many of our oversees missions are similarly situated. Unless those vulnerabilities are addressed on a sustained and realistic basis, the lives and safety of U.S. Government employees and the public in many of our facilities abroad will continue to be at risk from further terrorist bombings." The State Department has acknowledged previously that the Ambassador to Kenya had repeatedly warned officials that the embassy in Nairobi was vulnerable to a terrorist attack. More than once, the Ambassador, Prudence Bushnell, requested a security overhaul at the embassy, where one of the bombings occurred, but was denied additional security for budget reasons. Ms. Bushnell, was singled out for praise in the report for "particular diligence and professionalism" in "seeking security enhancements for the embassy long before the bombing, including efforts to relocate the post away from its vulnerable location." The diplomat in the charge of the embassy in Tanzania, John Lange, the charge d'affaires, and his staff were applauded for their "remarkable personal courage" after the bombing. Administration officials said members of the two panels were startled by how little had been accomplished in improving security in American embassies since a wide-ranging investigation of the subject in 1985 by a Government panel led by Bobby R. Inman, a retired admiral and the former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. That panel was formed in response to the bombing of the American Embassy in Beirut in 1984 and the bombing the year before of the United States Marine barracks in Beirut; the two attacks killed a total of more than 250 people. Officials said Admiral Crowe's panels, whose conclusions were first reported tonight by CBS News, criticized the State Department and other agencies for basing decisions about special protection for embassies and other compounds on known threats to specific sites, since experience shows that terrorists often attack vulnerable embassies and other targets without warning. The Administration has identified Osama bin Laden, an exiled Saudi and Islamic militant living in Afghanistan, as orchestrating the attack. President Clinton ordered air strikes against targets associated with his terrorist network in Afghanistan and the Sudan. Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The Washington Post, 08 January 1999, Page A01 Panel Cites U.S. Failures On Security for Embassies By John Mintz Washington Post Staff Writer A U.S. government commission appointed to investigate why two U.S. embassies in Africa were vulnerable to terrorist bombings issued a scathing report yesterday, criticizing "the collective failure of the U.S. government over the past decade" to prepare for terrorist attacks and to adequately fund security improvements at American embassies. "Responsibility for this failure can be attributed to several administrations and their agencies, including the Department of State, National Security Council, and Office of Management and Budget, as well as the U.S. Congress," said the report of the panel, chaired by retired Adm. William J. Crowe, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The report, which is to be released today by the State Department, notes that U.S. intelligence agencies detected a number of threats of terrorist strikes against the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in the two years before the nearly simultaneous bombings last Aug. 7 that killed 224 people and wounded 5,000. But the intelligence was too vague to be very useful, the 11-member panel concluded. Instead, the commission said that U.S. officials have been too reliant on such "warning intelligence," and tended to relax their guard in the absence of intelligence reports describing specific dangers. This has left the country ill-prepared to face "transnational" terrorists such as Osama bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire who U.S. officials believe coordinated the East African attacks, the Crowe report said. Eleven people have been charged along with bin Laden in federal court in New York in the bombings. The panel reserved its harshest criticism for U.S. officials' failure to contemplate the possibility of the type of truck bombs that destroyed the two embassies, particularly in light of the 1996 truck bombing of a U.S. Air Force dormitory in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 airmen, and the destruction of the U.S. Marine barracks and the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in 1983. An official close to Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright said: "As she has said before, she takes responsibility for the failures of the department. She has said and says that terrorism has to be a higher priority, and she has talked to counterparts at other agencies in an effort to take action following this collective failure." "This is not an easy report" for the Clinton administration, said another senior U.S. official last night. "But our hope is it will help us with addressing the main problem here: an inability to get funding for these security measures." The Crowe panel, which was appointed by Albright and CIA Director George J. Tenet under a 1996 law requiring such reports after fatal terrorist attacks, recommended that the U.S. government spend $1.4 billion a year over 10 years to improve security at U.S. diplomatic missions. That is in addition to the $1.4 billion hurriedly added to the State Department's security budget by Congress and the Clinton administration after the August bombings. Among its other proposals were a recommendation to bring all overseas U.S. facilities up to the standards recommended in a similar report drawn up in 1985 by a panel headed by former CIA deputy director Bobby Ray Inman. Since then, about 15 embassies have been upgraded to Inman's standards -- including being set back from public streets and built with sturdy design techniques. But in the 1980s, Congress and the Office of Management and Budget refused to spend the billions that Inman's proposals required. Since then reductions in the State Department's budget by Congress made the improvements unfeasible, officials have said. The panel praised Prudence Bushnell, U.S. ambassador to Nairobi, for repeatedly asking superiors at the State Department to build a new embassy there that was up to Inman standards as she became increasingly concerned about the many terrorist threats the embassy was receiving. She cabled Washington in December 1997 warning of the embassy's "extreme vulnerability," especially because it abuts two of downtown Nairobi's busiest streets, the report said. But officials here replied that because it faced only a "medium" threat of terrorism according to the department's rating system, Nairobi "ranked relatively low among the chancery replacement priorities." The report concluded that "systemic and institutional failures in Washington were responsible for a flawed process for assessing threat levels worldwide which underestimated the threat of terrorism in Nairobi." "There was no credible intelligence that provided immediate or tactical warning of the Aug. 7 bombings," the panel said. "A number of earlier intelligence reports cited alleged threats against several U.S. diplomatic and other targets, including the embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam . . . but were largely discounted because of doubts about the sources. Other reporting, while taken seriously, was imprecise, changing and nonspecific as to dates, diminishing its usefulness." Moreover, the commission found that actions taken by CIA and FBI officials to put pressure on the bin Laden network in Nairobi in 1997 and early 1998, as well as on Al-Haramain, a Saudi charity with alleged terrorist links, lulled U.S. authorities into thinking the threats had dissipated. "Indeed, for eight months prior to the Aug. 7 bombings, no further intelligence was produced to warn the embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam," it said. "Intelligence and policy communities relied excessively on tactical intelligence to determine the level of potential terrorist threats to posts worldwide," the report said. "The Inman report noted and previous experience indicates that terrorist attacks are often not preceded by warning intelligence. We cannot count on having such intelligence warn us." The panel's proposals include an indication of how vulnerable top American officials believe their embassies are -- it recommends that all U.S. embassies store evacuation and digging tools, as well as next-of-kin documents about diplomats, in sites away from the embassies. In a statement attached to the report, Crowe wrote, "Unless these vulnerabilities are addressed on a sustained basis, the lives and safety of U.S. government employees and the public in many of our facilities abroad will continue to be at risk." "What is most troubling is the failure of the U.S. government to take the necessary steps to prevent such tragedies through an unwillingness to give sustained priority and fund to security improvements," he added. Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Reuters, 07 January 1999, 20:41 EST China Denies It Got U.S. Missile Technology By David Storey WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (Reuters) - China on Thursday harshly criticized a U.S. congressional report saying it had acquired U.S. high-tech missile technology, calling the report untrue and the product of a "Cold War mentality." Although the House of Representatives special report is classified, its authors said last month it had concluded that high-technology deals with China -- in military equipment, among other things -- had damaged U.S. national security. Subsequent news stories have said the report concluded that China had illegally obtained technology that helped it develop military missiles. "If there should be such conclusions in the report, they are very much absurd, irresponsible and totally unwarranted," said He Yafei, former deputy director general for arms control and disarmament in the Chinese Foreign Ministry and now a senior diplomat at the Washington embassy. The House probe was set up last year after allegations that Hughes Electronics Corp. (NYSE:GMH - news) and Loral Space & Communications Ltd. (NYSE:LOR - news) had transferred technology to China after satellites belonging to Hughes and Loral were destroyed when Chinese rockets launching them exploded. The House, as well as the FBI, has been examining whether the U.S. companies transferred sensitive information to China when probing why the rockets exploded. It also looked at other efforts by China to get U.S. technology in the last 20 years. "China has the resources and the capability to analyze the failures by itself," He said. The diplomat said China had developed sufficient capability to design and build its own launch vehicles when it started offering the service commercially in 1990 and did not need input from the United States. "We have no intention, nor do we week to get U.S. technology through the launching of satellites," he said. "Some in Congress" confuse the technology needed for satellite launch vehicles and that used for intercontinental ballistic missiles, which is more sophisticated, he said. He complained of a "blurring of the distinction between necessary and innocuous coordination and exchange of data and illegal divulgence of sensitive technology." The diplomat said the congressional report, which includes 38 recommendations for future U.S. dealings with China, was potentially damaging to growing U.S. ties with the communist state, which are being encouraged by President Bill Clinton. "Some people here still maintain vestiges of Cold War mentality," He said. "That is wrong." Rep. Chris Cox, who chaired the House committee, said on Dec. 30 it had found that "the transfer of sensitive U.S. technology to the People's Republic of China goes beyond the Hughes and Loral instances that were a significant part of the reason that the committee was formed." Cox added, "These transfers are not limited to missile-satellite technology but cover militarily significant technologies." The California Republican declined to go into details, saying unclassified parts of the report would be made public in about two months. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that China received secret design information for the most modern U.S. nuclear warhead in the mid-1980s from an American scientist working at the U.S. Department of Energy. It said the FBI was still investigating the incident, which U.S. officials described as the most significant in a 20-year espionage effort by Beijing targeting U.S. nuclear weapons technology. It said that incident and two other cases of Chinese espionage at U.S. laboratories over the last two decades had been covered by the special House committee probe. The Department of Energy issued a statement that did not refer directly to the allegation but said counterintelligence systems at the laboratories and other nuclear facilities had been revamped in the last year. "Ten to 15 years ago, specific counterintelligence problems were identified at DOE labs, but broader systems fixes were not put into place at the time," it said. Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Reuters, 07 January 1999, 11:52 AM EST China Received Secret Data On U.S. Warhead - WSJ NEW YORK (Reuters) - China received secret design information for U.S. nuclear warheads, and the top suspect is an American scientist who worked at the U.S. Department of Energy weapons laboratory, the Wall Street Journal said Thursday. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is still investigating the incident, which occurred in the mid-1980s at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and was uncovered in 1995. No arrest has been made, but officials told the Journal that the unnamed suspect has been removed from sensitive projects. U.S. officials told the paper that the loss of data on the W88 warhead was the most significant in a 20-year espionage effort by Beijing. The W88 sits atop the submarine-launched Trident II ballistic missile. China has not developed a weapons system using the W88 information, but officials believe the data could help China design smaller, more mobile nuclear weapons potentially with multiple warheads, the paper reported. The Journal said officials believe China was given general, but still highly secret, information about the warhead's weight, size and explosive power, and its state-of-art internal configuration, which allowed designers to minimize size and weight without losing power, the Journal said. "The most important thing is they learned it could be done this way," one official told the Journal. That knowledge may have saved China "between two and 10 years" of warhead design efforts. Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Associated Press, 07 January 1999, 21:29 EST China Raps U.S. on Korea Inspection By The Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- China's ambassador to South Korea said in an interview published Thursday that the United States has no right to demand an inspection of a suspected nuclear weapons site in North Korea. "No country in the international community is entitled" to demand such an inspection on the basis of mere suspicion, Wu Dawei said in an interview with the English-language Korea Herald. China is North Korea's last remaining major ally. It fought on North Korea's side during the 1950-53 Korean war. U.S. officials believe that North Korea is building an underground facility to produce nuclear weapons. North Korea has denied the allegation but rejected the U.S. demand for inspection. The Chinese envoy also criticized U.S. attempts to curb North Korean development of rockets. "It is not fair for only the United States, not other countries like North Korea, to be allowed to launch a rocket for the purpose of putting a satellite into orbit," he said in the interview. North Korea fired a multistage rocket over Japan in August, saying it launched a satellite. But U.S. and Japanese officials believe it was a test-firing of a long-range missile. The firing left Japan extremely uneasy over North Korea's nuclear and long-range missile capabilities. Japan's defense minister met with his South Korean counterpart Thursday, agreeing to strengthen military cooperation in the face of security threats from the communist North. During an 80-minute meeting, Japan's Hosei Norota and his South Korean counterpart, Chun Yong-taek, also discussed the North's suspected nuclear weapons site. Norota and Chun agreed that their countries should closely cooperate with the United States to pressure North Korea to accept the U.S. demand, Cha said. U.S. and North Korean officials are scheduled to meet again in Geneva Jan. 17-18 to address the issue. Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Associated Press, 07 January 1999, 13:48 EST China To U.S.: Avoid Island Dispute By The Associated Press MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- The territorial dispute over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea is an Asian matter in which other countries should not meddle, the Chinese ambassador to the Philippines said Thursday in remarks aimed at the United States. "I think we can solve the problem ourselves," Ambassador Guan Dengming said. "It's our problem. We don't want other countries to interfere." On Monday, the U.S. State Department renewed its appeal to China to avoid any actions that would increase tensions in the Spratlys. State Department spokesman James Rubin urged Beijing to live up to promises to seek a peaceful settlement. Other countries should show restraint as well, he said. The Spratlys, which straddle vital sea lanes, are claimed in whole or in part by the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia. Tensions between the Philippines and China heated up in October after China began enlarging structures it had built in 1995 on Mischief Reef. Philippine officials say the structures could be used for military purposes and China violated an agreement not to take unilateral actions on the reef. Guan insisted the structures were shelters for fishermen and repeated China's offer to let the Philippines use the platforms. Philippine Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon said his country agrees to bilateral arrangements with China but will continue to pursue regional or multilateral solutions to the dispute. Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Associated Press, 07 January 1999, 10:19 EST China Accuses U.S. Congress By The Associated Press BEIJING (AP) - China today denied U.S. congressional findings that Beijing used routine exchanges to acquire military secrets and accused members of Congress of using Cold War-style tactics to spoil relations. In the Chinese government's strongest comment since the committee finished its report last month, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao called the allegations "unreasonable and groundless and irresponsible." "The purpose is to attempt to damage China's image and undermine China-U.S. relations. The Chinese side hereby expresses its strong resentment and firm opposition," Zhu said at a twice-weekly media briefing. Although the special House committee report has not been published, U.S. media have reported the panel found that China obtained key military information from U.S. weapons laboratories on at least three occasions. The Wall Street Journal reported today that in the most damaging incident, an American scientist gave China crucial design information on a powerful, smaller nuclear warhead known as the W88. Other allegations include China's obtaining information about the neutron bomb and laser technology. All three incidents reportedly happened in the 1980s in laboratories supervised by the U.S. Department of Energy. U.S.-Chinese relations have been roiled periodically by suspicions China was attempting to steal sensitive technology. But the House report was one of the most systematic studies on a suspected 20-year espionage effort by China. Zhu, the Chinese spokesman, did not respond to the specific allegations. Instead he accused members of Congress of trying to "mislead public opinion." Normal trade and technological and economic exchanges had served well both countries and their people, he said. "Obsessed with a Cold War mentality, a few U.S. congressmen run counter to the historical trend and fabricate rumors out of thin air in an attempt to obstruct the improvement and development of China-U.S. relations," Zhu said. After disputes over trade, human rights and Taiwan dangerously strained relations, President Clinton and his Chinese counterpart, Jiang Zemin, have steadily improved ties over the past two years, including a June summit between the two in Beijing. Zhu said there was opportunity to build on that momentum, and called on the Clinton administration to limit the damage done by the report and for Congress to do more to promote ties. Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - South China Morning Post, 07 January 1999 Air Force Focuses on Attack Stance By Oliver Chou The PLA air force is to alter its defensive posture to one focusing mainly on attack readiness. In an unusually frank report, the Guangming Daily said the shift was one of three changes made to implement the policy of "building the armed forces through science and technology". The other two were a switch from being ready to fight regional battles under general conditions to a preparedness for modern, hi-tech warfare and a concentration on quality rather than quantity. Military analysts said the implications of the changes, particularly in relation to sensitive regions such as Taiwan and the Spratly Islands, could be momentous. While celebrating the 50th anniversary of its formation last November, the air force increased its combat capabilities for super-long-distance, high-speed and all-weather operations, the paper said. It had also applied anti-electronic-jamming and air-refuelling technologies. Its latest airborne weaponry systems include air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, high-precision guided bombs and improved firing control equipment. All were said to have greatly enhanced performance in dogfights and ground and sea assaults. Ground air defence systems were also upgraded. The paper said all leading personnel in the aviation corps at regimental level and above had mastered flying skills and meteorological knowledge, while military officers of the airborne corps were all parachuting experts. The report characterised modern air warfare as a contest of high technology and high intelligence, "a combined warfare involving intensive applications of electronics, information, joint operations, firing control and high manoeuvrability". The air force was expected to take a more active role in supporting ground and naval operations in future while defending China's air space. Meanwhile, in an exercise late last year, an air force unit in the northeast successfully flew all its fighters through unfamiliar routes over seven unidentified provinces and regions. The paper said the day-long exercise ended with safe landings on two unfamiliar airfields. Copyright 1998 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Associated Press, 07 January 1999, 18:13 EST Clinton Urged To Deny Spy Clemency By The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) -- Disturbed that President Clinton may grant clemency to Jonathan Pollard next week, the top two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are urging fellow senators to demand that the former U.S. Navy analyst be kept in prison for life. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the committee chairman, said he is encouraging Clinton "to rethink what I understand may be his expected course of action." Shelby and his vice chairman, Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., signed a letter pressing Clinton not to let Pollard go. They were circulating the document to other senators with a "Dear Colleague" form letter seeking co-signers to the Clinton letter before sending it to the president. Releasing Pollard, who was convicted as a spy for handing over thousands of top-secret documents to Israel in 1984 and 1985, "would set a dangerous and unwise precedent that crimes against the United States are not serious. It would also undermine our country's ability to act as an honest broker throughout the world," Shelby said in an accompanying statement. At the White House, press secretary Joe Lockhart denied Clinton has made a decision on Pollard. "The process is ongoing, and any suggestion that he's made a decision based on that is wrong," Lockhart said. It is "absolutely inaccurate," to say Clinton intends to commute Pollard's sentence, he added, and Clinton will receive a recommendation from White House counsel F.C. Ruff "sometime later this month." Clinton confirmed last month that he promised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at U.S.-sponsored negotiations with the Palestinians in October that he would look into Netanyahu's request for leniency for Pollard. At the talks near Wye Mills, Md., several Israeli officials were convinced Clinton had assured Netanyahu Pollard would be freed. The Clinton administration insisted the president promised only to review the case, as he has several times before. Ruff was directed to solicit views of U.S. intelligence and security agencies. Several former U.S. intelligence officials hotly opposed clemency and alleged that Pollard attempted to provide classified information to other countries before striking a deal with Israel. At FBI headquarters Thursday, spokesman Frank Scafidi said, "Justice has been done to this point. To release Pollard now would undo everything that law enforcement and prosecutors worked tirelessly to accomplish." The Justice Department's criminal division adamantly opposes clemency, senior officials said Thursday, requesting anonymity. Justice and FBI officials believe Pollard has never fully cooperated in assessing what secrets he sold the Israelis. Attorney General Janet Reno said she would send Ruff a recommendation by Monday. And at the Pentagon, spokesman Kenneth Bacon refused to say what Defense Secretary William Cohen was telling Ruff. But Bacon, asked about the Pentagon's position, said: "The Pentagon has been strongly opposed to the release of Jonathan Pollard in the past, and I don't expect any change from that position." CIA director George Tenet, who attended the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in rural Maryland, vehemently opposed Pollard's release and threatened to resign if it happened, an administration official said. Asked Thursday what was Tenet's position on clemency for Pollard, CIA spokeswoman Anya Guilsher said the agency's recommendations are for the White House, and "we are not going to state it publicly." In a letter to other senators, Shelby and Kerrey said the Wye talks almost collapsed "over an apparent misunderstanding" on Pollard between Clinton and Netanyahu. "A commutation of Mr. Pollard's life sentence would imply a condonation of spying against the United States by an ally," Shelby and Kerrey said. "It would also give credence to the claim that espionage is somewhat less serious when an American spies on behalf of a friendly nation with which he sympathizes." Some supporters of clemency for Pollard make the point that other Americans convicted of espionage have received lesser sentences, and some suspected of spying for the former Soviet Union and other adversaries where not prosecuted at all in order not to expose U.S. intelligence information. Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Associated Press, 07 January 1999, 21:49 EST Laundering Network Found in Ukraine By The Associated Press KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- Tax police have uncovered a large underground network that allegedly laundered money for almost 3,000 companies including state enterprises, officials said Thursday. The network, operated from the capital Kiev, allegedly received money from interested companies through bank transfers and then channeled it through a number of fictitious companies for conversion into cash, Kiev's tax police press service said. The aim was to avoid taxation. The fictitious firms received money as payment for various services they were allegedly providing, said the report, carried by the Interfax news agency. The network's daily turnover amounted to $292,000 and it served about 3,000 companies, banks and even state agencies throughout Ukraine, Interfax said. Ukrainian enterprises, many of them suffering losses due to the country's protracted economic decline, have long resorted to various forms of tax evasion. They complain taxes are too high. Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - SOURCE: http://cjonline.com/stories/010699/new_fbicults.shtml Topeka Capital-Journal, 06 January 1999 FBI Trained in Anticipation of More Cults Agents aren't allowed to put any religious groups under surveillance By Thomas Hargrove Scripps Howard News Service WASHINGTON -- FBI agents have received special training to prepare for an anticipated growing number of "doomsday" cults in the United States but are forbidden from any surveillance of religious groups that believe the world will end Jan. 1, 2000. "If someone wants to believe in the bizarre, well, that's not a violation of law," Special Agent Frank Scafidi said. "Absent any conspiracy to commit a crime, there is nothing we can do." State and federal authorities admit to growing anxiety about such cults following the arrest of 14 members of the Denver-based "Concerned Christians" in Israel. At least 78 members of the group have disappeared in recent months, apparently to follow leader Monte Kim Miller, who has predicted he will die Dec. 31 on the streets of Jerusalem. Relatives of cult members have said Miller may believe he will be resurrected three days later. Israeli police raided two suburban Jerusalem homes Sunday reportedly after several weeks of surveillance of members of the cult. Authorities confiscated boxes of documents and detained eight adults and six children. Officials with the U.S. Justice and State Departments say they have no plans to increase security measures against religious cults. "We are not putting our heads in the sand," Scafidi said. "We are aware of the importance of this date coming up. We have been consulting with psychologists and experts in this field so that, if the need arrives, we can deal with it." He said FBI agents trained to negotiate in hostage and armed standoff confrontations have rethought their tactics following the 1993 debacle at the Branch Davidian cult's compound near Waco, Texas. A 51-day siege of followers of David Koresh ended in the deaths of more than 80 people after cult members set fire to their fortress-like structure when federal agents tried to storm the building. Negotiators have met at the FBI training center at Quantico, Va., to review and discuss new procedures on how to deal with religious cults. "It all really was an outgrowth of Waco," Scafidi said. But the bureau is taking no other action, even so far as to track cult groups that proclaim the impending violent end of the world or that predict the violent deaths of its members. "We know there are groups that sit around in caves amongst themselves and plan the end of the world," Scafidi said. "That's fine, just as long as they don't try to do something to bring the end to fruition." He said this policy is based upon federal court orders following the FBI's 1983-1985 probe of Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvadore, which was ruled in 1991 to have amounted to official misconduct and illegal spying on domestic groups. The FBI conducted surveillance and kept records on members of the group who disagreed with President Reagan's Central America policies. "Yes, that case certainly has relevance in these matters" involving doomsday cults, Scafidi said. "So in our day-to-day dealings with local authorities, some of these issues involving the cults may come up during our discussions over coffee. We will talk about them, but that's quite different from opening up a file on groups like this. If someone is not violating the law and we don't have information that points to a potential violation, there is nothing we can or will do." Copyright 1998 The Topeka Capital-Journal - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -