Did President Clinton allow China and Russia to buy U.S. supercomputers, knowing they would be used for military purposes? According to the General Accounting Office, the answer is yes.

The GAO recently released a scathing report critical of President Clinton's high-tech export policy. According to the GAO, "the President's July 1999 report to Congress did not fully satisfy the reporting requirements of the Defense Authorization act."

Overall, only 3 percent of all computer licenses were for "sensitive" end-users such as foreign military units. The GAO noted that the Clinton administration issued over 1,900 licenses for high-speed computers to communist China between November 1997 and August 1999. Of the 1,924 computers licensed for China, 48 computers were to "sensitive end-users or uses," or nearly 2.5 percent of all sales to China.

In contrast, India, which recently surprised the world with a series of secret nuclear tests, received only 113 computers. However, 79 of the 113 computers sent to India were to "sensitive end-users" -- nearly 70 percent of all high-speed computer sales to the nation.

High-speed computer exports are under the control of the U.S. Commerce Department, which claims that it is engaged in only "civilian" and commercial operations. This claim is false. U.S. Commerce documents provided by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) show that Commerce officials hosted Chinese Army officers for the sole purpose of providing military training and exports, including high-speed computers that could be used for air defenses.

President Clinton's report on computer exports acknowledged there are direct military applications, including nuclear weapons development. However, Clinton dodged the export issue by simply not commenting on the national security impact of his decision to allow such sales to military end-users. According to President Clinton, the money from foreign military users is more important than if foreign militaries use the American computers to wage war.

"The (president's) report did address two of the three requirements to determine the availability of high performance computers in foreign countries and the potential use of the newly decontrolled computers for significant military use," wrote the GAO. "These applications include advanced aircraft design, anti-submarine warfare sensor development, and radar applications."

"(The president's report) did not, however, assess the impact of such military use on the national security interests of the United States," wrote the GAO. "Instead, the report discussed the economic importance of a strong U.S. computer industry to U.S. national security. The President's report concluded that failure to adjust U.S. export requirements for computers and processors would have a significant negative effect on the U.S. computer industry."

"The (president's) report implied that high performance computers are readily available for foreign sources," states the GAO. "A 1998 study sponsored by DOD (Department of Defense) and Commerce found that the United States dominates the international computer market."

There is ample evidence to support the GAO, proving that Russia and China prefer U.S. super-computers. For example, the following items were documented in the U.S. House Select Committee Report (Cox report) issued Jan. 3, 1999:

• On July 31, 1998, the Department of Commerce announced that IBM entered a guilty plea for the illegal export of a supercomputer to Russia. IBM received the maximum allowable fine of $8.5 million for 17 counts of violating U.S. export laws through the sale of a supercomputer to a Russian nuclear weapons laboratory known as Arzamas-16. The Clinton administration has decided to allow Arzamas-16 to keep the IBM computer.

• On April 18, 1997, the Commerce Department imposed a $55,000 civil penalty on Compaq Computer Corporation of Houston, Texas, for alleged violations of the Export Administration Regulations. The Commerce Department alleged that, on three separate occasions between Sept. 17, 1992, and June 11, 1993, Compaq exported computer equipment from the United States to several countries, including China, without obtaining required export licenses. Compaq agreed to pay the civil penalty to settle the allegations.

Another prime example occurred on Dec. 26, 1996, when a Hong Kong reseller for Sun Microsystems, Automated Systems Ltd., sold a supercomputer to the Chinese Scientific Institute, a technical institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences -- a State laboratory specializing in parallel and distributed processing. At some point after the sale -- but before delivery -- the computer was sold to the Yuanwang Corporation.

Yuanwang is an entity of the Chinese army unit COSTIND (Commission on Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense). According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Sun Microsystems had been aware of this corporation's Chinese military ties. The supercomputer sale came to the attention of the Commerce Department's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement Frank Deliberti. Deliberti gave the information he obtained to Sun Microsystems, which then initiated efforts to have its computer returned. The computer was returned to the United States on Nov. 6, 1997.

Yet, according to the Commerce Department's own documents the meetings with Chinese army-owned companies took place prior to documented transfer to Yuanwang Corp. The documents include a list of Chinese military officials compiled by Commerce including People's Liberation Army (PLA) Gens. Ding and Huai.

On April 6, 1994, an unclassified memo was sent from Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) official Col. Blasko to Commerce officials Deliberti, Albanse and Isbell. The memo states that "Yuanwang" Corporation and "Great Wall Industries" are "significant to the Defense conversion" along with other known PLA owned firms such as "China National Nuclear" and "China North" Norinco.

In 1995, Commerce official Barry Carter sent a letter with attachments to Eden Woon "Executive Director" of the Washington State China Relations Council. Carter included with his letter a Feb. 25, 1995, letter from Chinese Gen. Ding, complete with military contacts for business. Included in the list given to Eden Woon was "Yuanwang Corp" -- the PLA owned company responsible for the illegal Sun computer transfer in 1996.

However, the GAO report is minor in comparison to another upcoming event facing the Clinton administration. In 1998, this reporter filed suit to force the Clinton administration to release the true documents showing how the supercomputers were exported to Russian and Chinese weapons labs. In December 1999, Commerce will go to court and face a federal judge in reference to the U.S. companies involved in the illegal computer transfers to China and Russia.

The evidence is stacked against the Commerce Department. One document previously forced from the agency by legal action is from the largest U.S. computer lobby group, the Computer Systems Policy Project (CSPP). The document shows that CSPP members such as IBM, Sun, and Compaq, sought Commerce officials to approve transfers of computers to military end-users in Russia and China in 1995.

In response to the lawsuit, on Nov. 15, 1999, Commerce provided an index of all documents withheld for the CSPP members as part of the upcoming trial. Commerce claims to have completed a full search for all responsive CSPP documents and has accounted for all materials that cannot be made public in the "Vaughn" index. In fact, Commerce officials also submitted under oath that they could find no more documents and that all materials have been accounted for the federal court.

This too is false. This reporter has acquired two CSPP documents that were not accounted for by the Commerce Department. The first document is a July 14, 1998, letter to Mr. Christopher Kearns at Bankers Trust from Commerce Department FOIA officer Bobbie Parson in reference to a FOIA "request from Softwar for documents relating to Computer Systems Policy Project."

The letter includes an attachment from Bankers Trust that concerns export policy of encryption technology, noting that the huge banking corporation had already "accommodated" the Clinton administration's demands. The requirements, according to government documents, were to have a secret "back-door" installed in all bank computers, allowing the federal government to monitor electronic transfers without a warrant.

"Since the government has already approved the export of one conditional access encryption system (clipper)," states the Bankers Trust memo. "BT Believes it will be difficult -- and contrary to the interests of law enforcement -- to restrict export of other conditional access encryption products. ... BT's system design accommodates the possibility that it will be adopted."

The second document is an Aug. 19, 1998 letter to Charlotte Knepper at the National Security Council from Philip J. Greene, U.S. Commerce Office of the Chief Counsel for Technology in reference to a FOIA request from Softwar for documents relating to CSPP. The letter includes two attachments, an e-mail from Commerce Undersecretary Dave Barram dated Jan. 3, 1996, and a copy of the Softwar FOIA request for "Computer Systems Policy Project."

According to Undersecretary Barram, "Terrorist activity" was of no concern to the corporate members of the CSPP. "They aren't likely to think the risk society avoids for however long, offsets the economic risk to American industry."

Unsaid in the memo is the fact that David Barram, former CEO of Cray Corp., then the leading Super-Computer maker in America, was also a former member of the CSPP.

In 1996, President Clinton changed the law and allowed advanced U.S. computer technology to be sold to foreign military users. Clearly, in 1996 the CSPP export policy became Clinton's export policy.

The economic impact (money) of losing 3 percent of total sales is by far more important to this president and his big business backers than U.S. national security. As a result, nuclear weapons designed and built using American supercomputers are now being deployed. These new weapons threaten all human life on Earth with the "risk" of extinction. We can only thank the CSPP and Bill Clinton for taking such a risk with our lives over something as important as money.

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