Poet general

Chinese Lt. Gen. Xiong Guankai, deputy chief of staff for
intelligence, waxed poetic during his three-day visit to Washington. The
general resorted to symbolism to signal a thaw in U.S.-Chinese military
relations since the ties went into the deep freeze over NATO's bombing
of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in May.

Gen. Xiong recited verse at two banquets and led fellow "friends of
China'' in a round of singing Auld Lang Syne at a third, held at the
Chinese Embassy Wednesday.

On Monday night at the Nixon center, the general quoted English poet
Percy Shelley: "If winter is here, can spring be far behind?'' as a way
of saying ties would warm.

Then at a Pentagon-sponsored banquet Tuesday, Gen. Xiong recited a
poem by Mao Zedong, Communist China's founder. Mao's poem was about a
flower blooming in winter -- a reference to the current harsh state of
U.S.-Chinese relations.

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Defense officials said the general's symbolic remarks carried more
weight than his statements during closed talks at the Pentagon. In those
meetings, Gen. Xiong criticized plans for U.S. advanced arms sales to
Taiwan and continued to insist the embassy bombing was not accidental.
He repeated Chinese government demands for punishment of the U.S.
officials responsible.

Gen. Xiong's friendly face is in sharp contrast to the remarks he
made in 1995 to former defense official Charles Freeman. The general
suggested then that China would use nuclear weapons against Los Angeles
if the United States defended Taiwan in a conflict with the mainland.

Kosovo conniption

Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, D-Ohio, has withdrawn his sponsorship of a
General Accounting Office study of the air war over Yugoslavia. The
reason: He wanted the same tough-minded auditors who savaged Air Force
claims about the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Instead, the GAO has assigned a
completely new team.

"In spite of that commendable record,'' Mr. Kucinich said in a letter
to Comptroller-General David M. Walker, who heads the GAO, "GAO chose to
award ... my study to a different team without the same track record of
independence. In light of the fiscal and military significance of a
study on Operation Allied Force, I have lost confidence in the
commitment of GAO to produce a study that is independent of the
(Pentagon).

"I herewith withdraw my Sept. 28 request for a GAO study on Operation
Allied
Force and further ask that my name be removed from any publication
issued pursuant to that request,'' said Mr. Kucinich. The congressman
was one of only a handful of House Democrats who opposed the U.S.-led
NATO bombing of Kosovo to force out Serbian forces.

For the record, it should be noted that the GAO's Gulf War study was
contested not only by the Air Force but by independent analysts who did
a separate study. The 1993 Gulf War Air Power Survey credited Air Force
and Navy aircraft with far more bull's-eyes than did the GAO.

GAO defenders say the auditors did more than just accept the military
claims. They dug through mission chronologies and bomb damage
assessments to conclude the Air Force made some bogus claims.

Anyway, Comptroller Walker is not backing down as his team verifies
whether, as claimed, NATO "smart'' bombs and missiles chalked up an
astounding 99.6 accuracy rate.

"I was surprised and saddened by your letter,'' he said in a note to
Mr. Kucinich.

"We assigned the lead for this work to our national security
preparedness issue area because it is responsible for conducting the
majority of our work related to military operations and readiness,'' he
added. "Staff in that group has extensive experience and an excellent
reputation in conducting thorough and objective evaluations in these
areas, including work related to U.S. participation in the Gulf War,
contingency operations in the Balkans and the defense of South Korea.''

"GAO prides itself in its reputation for conducting all of its
evaluations in an objective and unbiased manner irrespective of who
requests or conducts the work.''

While Mr. Kucinich bowed out, the other congressman requesting the
study, Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Penn., remains a sponsor.

Grozny lessons

A report circulated recently in the Pentagon highlighting the
savagery of the 1994-95 war in Chechnya -- the last time Russian troops
got bogged down against Muslim separatists. Military sources tell us it
is applicable to current operations.

"Russian Army Lessons Learned from the Battle of Grozny'' presents 16
points
about fighting inside the Chechen capital.

Here are some highlights:

"Chechens were brutish, especially with prisoners. (Some reports say
the Russians were no better, but most say the Chechens were the worst of
the two sides.) Whoever was at fault, the battle degenerated quickly to
one of `no quarter asked, none given.' Russian wounded and dead were
hung upside down in windows of defended Chechen positions. Russians had
to shoot at the bodies to engage the Chechens. Russian prisoners were
decapitated and at night; their heads were placed on stakes beside roads
leading into the city, over which Russian replacements and
reinforcements had to travel. Both Russian and Chechen dead were
routinely booby-trapped.

"The Russians were not surprised by the ferocity and brutality of the
Chechens, they expected them to be `criminals and animal brutes.' But
they were surprised by the sophistication of the Chechen use of
booby-traps and mines. Chechens mined and booby-trapped everything,
showing excellent insight into the actions and reactions of the average
Russian soldier. Mine and booby-trap awareness was hard to maintain.''

Gay spooks

Some veterans of the supersecret National Security Agency, at Fort
Meade, Md., were shocked upon receiving the agency's December
newsletter. It revealed that NSA now has its own homosexual employees
group. Not only that, the Alan Turing chapter of the Gay, Lesbian or
Bisexual Employees (GLOBE) group, named after the English mathematician
and World War II code breaker, held its December general meeting at the
Country 7 complex building 9914.

The building was a motel purchased by NSA for its cryptological
museum and is located along the Baltimore-Washington Parkway near NSA's
sprawling headquarters building. GLOBE also uses the NSA's e-mail system
to contact its members.

"A couple of years ago if you had anything like that you would be
thrown out,'' said one retired NSA official.

Rigorous security standards at the spy agency until recently regarded
employee homosexuality as a security risk. Security officials feared
homosexual officials involved in secret code and communications
intercept work could be blackmailed by foreign intelligence services and
recruited as spies.

China threat

Expect a harsher than usual assessment of the rise of China when CIA
Director George J. Tenet presents his annual world threat briefing to
the Senate Intelligence Committee, CIA sources tell us. The briefing had
been set for this week but was postponed because of the snowstorm.