Airborne fires back

Airborne rebuttal

The storied 82nd Airborne Division is officially taking exception to
a special investigative officer's conclusion that division paratroopers
were sent to Kosovo unprepared for peacekeeping last year.

We've obtained a copy of a memo, signed by the 82nd's chief of staff.
In the memo, Col. Jay Hood tells the chain of command that the report
"did not adequately reflect the training undertaken by the unit prior to
deployment.''

Col. Hood's memo is accompanied by documents purported to show the
3rd Battalion of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment spent hours
learning the delicate task of keeping peace in the tinderbox known as
Kosovo.

"Not only was the (3rd Battalion) at a high state of training in
tasks associated with its mission essential task list, but leaders of
that task force dedicated considerable time and resources to ensuring
they had attained a satisfactory level of training in each of the
predeployment tasks,'' the Sept. 18 memo states. "In short, quality
predeployment training was planned and conducted for the troopers.''

Gen. Eric Shinseki, Army chief of staff, ordered an investigation of
soldiers' conduct after an 82nd Airborne soldier was charged with raping
and killing a Kosovo girl. He was later convicted and sentenced to life
in prison.

The subsequent report by a special investigator concluded the 3rd
Battalion "was not adequately trained for peace support operation.''

An officer who reviewed Col. Hood's submission tended to side with
the investigator, not the 82nd Airborne.

He said the documents show that of 52 days to prepare for Kosovo, 21
were "non-training days.''

"A poor emphasis on training by the brigade and division,'' he said.
The Kosovo investigator concluded that a relatively small number of 3rd
Battalion soldiers abused and harassed ethnic Albanian Kosovars in a
misguided attempt to stop violent acts against the minority Serb
population.

Maj. Gary Tallman, 82nd Airborne spokesman, said the Hood memo was
submitted to U.S. Army Forces Command, which is reviewing the
investigative report.

"The review has not run its due course, and we are refraining from
further comment until that time,'' Maj. Tallman said. "We have received
follow-up questions from FORSCOM. We are working those right now.''

Gore vs. spooks

Congress will get a classified CIA memorandum today that was
subpoenaed by the House Government Reform Committee. The panel is
seeking to answer, once and for all, the question of whether Vice
President Al Gore rejected a 1995 intelligence report linking his
Russian friend, Viktor Chernomyrdin, to pervasive corruption.

According to House investigators, Mr. Gore scribbled across the top
of the CIA report a vulgarization for "bovine scatology.''

The committee is continuing to look into what a recent House report
calls "the bull incident.'' After the CIA at first said it couldn't
find the telltale report, it was traced to the White House. A White
House lawyer told House investigators the document couldn't be found
either. But when asked if it existed, the lawyer clammed up, indicating
to several House members that the report had been destroyed.

The Government Reform Committee pressed the CIA to conduct an
investigation of what happened to the document. Its secret findings will
be in the memorandum promised to the committee today. We are told that
at least one analyst, and possibly two, remember seeing Mr. Gore's
critique written on the report.

The report of the Speaker's Advisory Group on Russia stated that CIA
officials "described the intelligence information concerning
Chernomyrdin that was provided to Gore as 'more detailed and conclusive
than allegations of bribery and insider dealing that have been made in
the Russian media and elsewhere.'''

"Such misuse of intelligence data deepened the mistrust between the
White House and the intelligence community,'' the report said. The CIA
memo was written Oct. 6 but withheld from the committee. The panel
believes the CIA was trying to protect Mr. Gore from political
embarrassment
during the presidential election campaign. "We're pretty upset with the
CIA,'' one senior aide said.

Stealing arms know-how

The Pentagon identified 56 nations that went after controlled U.S.
weapons technology last year.

The findings are contained in the Defense Security Service's annual
report covering 1999, "Technology Collection Trends in the U.S. Defense
Industry.'' A total of 37 countries were detected in 1997 and 47 were
identified in 1998.

In keeping with the Clinton administration policy of making diplomacy
a higher priority than security, none of the countries is named.
However, 45 percent of the 227 incidents of foreign technology
collection last year were carried out by Asian nations, the report said.

Defense officials noted that limiting the identity of foreign
technology spies to percentages was a polite way for the administration
to avoid any mention of China. China has mounted a large-scale arms
technology acquisition against the United States.

U.S. radar technology was a major target, including know-how for
long-range radar and synthetic aperture radar -- the kind that helps
satellites see through clouds.

Foreign spies also sought aircraft technology and goods. Those
targets included "hot parts'' for advanced jet engines, F-22 fighter
planes, and information and goods on Chinook helicopters, F-18 Hornet
fighters and C-130J transports.

Spies also sought Patriot missile technology and propellant
technology associated with the Crusader missile and AIM-9 air-to-air
missile.

"Technologies generating most foreign interest in 1999 include
information systems, sensors and lasers, electronics, aeronautics
systems, and armaments and energetic materials,'' the report said. As
for sensors, "the nation with superior sensors has a significant
advantage over an adversary,'' it said.

USS Cole

A Navy helicopter pilot flying relief missions to the bomb-damaged
USS Cole filed this report to his colleagues back home:

"I will tell you that right now there are 250-plus sailors just a few
miles away living in hell on earth. I'm sitting in a nice air
conditioned state room; they're sleeping out on the decks at night. You
can't even imagine the conditions they're living in, and yet they are
still fighting 24 hours a day to save their ship and free the bodies of
those still trapped and send them home.

"As bad as it is, they're doing an incredible job. The very fact that
these people are still functioning is beyond my comprehension. Whatever
you imagine as the worst, multiply it by 10 and you might get there.

"It looked so much worse than I had imagined, unbelievable really,
with debris and disarray everywhere, the ship listing, the hole in her
side. I wish I had the power to relay to you all what I have seen, but
words just won't do it. I do want to tell you the first thing that
jumped out at me
(was) the Stars and Stripes flying. I can't tell you how that made me
feel ... even in this God forsaken hell hole our flag was more beautiful
than words can describe.

"Then I started to notice the mass of activity going on below, scores
of people working non-stop in 90-plus degree weather to save this ship.
They're doing it with almost no electrical power and they're sleeping
(when they can sleep) outside on the decks because they can't stand the
smell or the heat or
the darkness inside.

"They only want to eat what we bring them because they're all scared
of eating something brought by the local vendors. "I have never been so
proud of what I do, or of the men and women that I serve with as I was
today.''

We also obtained a message from a Navy command master chief, who had
communicated with 5th Fleet folks in the Persian Gulf.

"I spoke to the 5th Fleet CMC (command master chief) this morning and
asked him what it was like right now. Give me the feel, the taste and
the smell. He said think of primitive camping. You'd like a shower, you
may, may not get one for a day or two.

"The smell is horrible because the food is rotting. Your bed is the
deck because it's a little cooler. But yet, you almost need to force
these sailors on to the support ships because they don't want to leave
their shipmates, both those alive and those trapped below.''