-Caveat Lector-
Inside the Ring
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
Taiwan HARM
The government of Taiwan secretly asked the
Clinton administration last month to sell it
High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles, or HARMs, as
part of its annual request for defensive arms, we
are told. Disclosure of the request for the
air-launched missiles, which home in on radar
beacons used to track aircraft, comes amid
disclosure in The Washington Times on
Wednesday that China is building a new
air-defense missile site near Taiwan.
A fight is under way inside the administration over
the request for HARMs, which have been star
weapons used in the Balkans and Iraq in recent
months to knock out anti-aircraft batteries.
Pro-Beijing officials at the State Department are
opposing U.S. sales of HARMs, arguing the
missiles could be used to knock out the
surface-to-air missile sites like the one being built
at Zhangzhou on China's coast, thus would be
considered offensive weapons because the site is
on the mainland.
Pentagon officials in favor of the sale deem them
necessary to maintain a balance of forces. They
point out that the HARMs are defensive missiles
allowed under the Taiwan Relations Act governing
U.S. arms sales to the island. Officials told us the
HARMs would be very effective against China's
two new Sovremenny-class guided-missile
destroyers, which come equipped with ample
radar for HARMs to attack -- and are not on the
mainland.
Russia will turn over the first new destroyer to
China tomorrow in St. Petersburg. The ship is the
first of two equipped with supersonic SS-N-22
cruise missiles to be based in Shanghai,
conveniently close to Taiwan.
China rebuttal
Some members of the special Cox committee on
Chinese spying are irate at the bashing they took in
a report by a Stanford University think tank.
The report, which received prominent play in
liberal news outlets who take a benign view of
Chinese global aims, castigated the bipartisan Cox
team for purportedly jumping to wild conclusions.
The Cox panel, named after Rep. Christopher Cox,
the chairman and California Republican,
concluded that Chinese spies stole design
information for the most advanced thermonuclear
weapons in the U.S. arsenal. The report was based
on the most secret information in the U.S.
intelligence community.
Now, an ally of Mr. Cox's has drafted a rebuttal to
the Stanford critics. We obtained a copy of "50
Factual Errors in the Four (Stanford) Essays.'' The
counterattack was authored by Nicholas Rostow,
staff director for the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence who worked for the Cox panel.
Pulling no punches, Mr. Rostow begins: "The
publisher of the essays, Stanford's Center for
International Security and Cooperation, is the
direct successor of the Center for International
Security and Arms Control, an organization whose
conclusions on Soviet intentions and compliance
with arms-control treaties were notoriously
wrong.''
Mr. Rostow then proceeds to uncover what he
termed 50 ``factual errors disclosed in a cursory
review of the four essays.''
Some examples:
"According to (one Stanford essay), the
committee report `maintains that PRC
penetration of U.S. labs commenced in the late
1970s.' No such statement is made in the
report.''
"(One essay) refers to the W-88 thermonuclear
warhead as `old' technology. It is, in fact, the
most modern nuclear weapon in the U.S.
arsenal, and until it was compromised, no
other nation in the world possessed such a
weapon. ... Since the W-88 is America's most
modern nuclear weapon, (the essay's)
description of it as `old' trivializes a very
important national security loss.''
One essay ``states that `no evidence is given in
any of the reports that the design of the (new,
smaller PRC nuclear warhead) was derived
from U.S. information.' That the specific
evidence is not given merely reflects the fact
that it is classified. The conclusion has been
stated, not only in the committee report, but
also in the public versions of the two
intelligence community reports on this subject
to Congress during 1999.''
Keep watching the sky
The North American Aerospace Defense
Command, known as NORAD, will use its
formidable satellite and ground radar tracking
systems for the 44th year in a row to monitor the
transit of a sleigh and nine -- not eight -- tiny
reindeer from the North Pole today.
Santa Claus' journey will be picked up first by
Defense Support Satellites -- those that would spot
a Chinese or Russian intercontinental ballistic
missile launch, says a smiling NORAD spokesman,
Master Sgt. Larry Lincoln.
``We can pick up the heat from Rudolph's nose,''
Lincoln said of the ninth reindeer pulling Santa's
present-filled sleigh. The monitoring is intended to
``keep the magic alive for children around the
world,'' he said.
About 100 Air Force and other volunteers will staff
phone lines inside NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain
complex in Colorado Springs for children to call in
their Christmas wishes or get an update on Santa's
travel. A World Wide Web site will provide
animation showing Santa's annual Christmas Eve
journey. Last year 80 million people visited the
website and about 20,000 people called to find out
the latest Santa update.
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough are national security
reporters for The Washington Times.
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Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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