CAN MOSCOW BE TRUSTED?
Russia's hidden nuclear missiles
Clinton turned blind eye
to major treaty violations
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
� 2000, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
WASHINGTON -- As President Clinton met with Russian President Putin in Moscow
to discuss nuclear arms control over the weekend, an old story from the Cold
War has resurfaced that sheds doubt on Russia's reliability as a negotiating
partner: nuclear-tipped SS-23 missiles that the Soviet Union never declared
to the United States, in direct violation of a 1987 arms-control agreement.
These missiles, which are now slated to be dismantled in Slovakia this month,
were hidden by the Red army in deep underground bunkers in Czechoslovakia,
despite Soviet promises to withdraw all nuclear theater missiles from Europe
and destroy them.
WorldNetDaily has obtained exclusive video footage of the SS-23s, that was
acquired clandestinely by U.S. intelligence agencies. The Soviet-era tapes
show the missiles on operational deployment in Eastern Europe with the Red
army.
Soviet-era photograph of the 4-axle SS-23 launch vehicle, in launch
position, believed to be equipped with an earth-penetrating warhead. They
secretly rushed several batteries of the shorter-range SS-23s to East
Germany, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria just prior to signing the Treaty, and
never declared them or destroyed them.
During the Cold War, the SS-23 missiles were equipped with a 100-kiloton
nuclear warhead and were fired from wheeled launchers, making them virtually
impossible to destroy once they were deployed from their underground storage
sites.
The Soviets secretly deployed the SS-23s in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and
Bulgaria in 1986. In the event of war in Europe between NATO and the Warsaw
Pact, they would have given the Soviets a clear military advantage by
allowing them to launch a surprise nuclear strike at the heart of NATO forces
in Germany.
Under the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Agreement signed in
Washington, D.C., on Dec. 8, 1987, President Reagan and General Secretary
Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to destroy all existing theater nuclear missiles in
Europe, including all SS-23s.
Soviet-era photo, supplied to the United States in compliance with the INF
Treaty in 1987, showing the complete SS-23 missile, including what U.S.
intelligence analysts believe to be an earth penetrator nuclear warhead. This
is a clear violation of the INF Treaty, and raises disturbing questions about
the commitment of the Russian government to arms control agreements.
While the Soviets allowed U.S. inspectors to witness the destruction of the
longer-range SS-20 missiles, which constituted the bulk of their force, they
secretly rushed several batteries of the shorter-range SS-23s to East
Germany, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria just prior to signing the Treaty, and
never declared them or destroyed them.
"This is a clear violation of the INF Treaty," said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa.,
"and raises disturbing questions about the commitment of the Russian
government to arms control agreements."
Article IV of the INF Treaty states: "Each Party shall eliminate all its
intermediate-range missiles and launchers of such missiles, and all support
structures and support equipment ... so that no later than three years after
entry into force of this Treaty and thereafter no such missiles, launchers,
support structures or support equipment shall be possessed by either Party."
SS-23 launch vehicle in the travel position, on display with the OKA missile
at a Moscow military museum. The Russians identify the SS-23 as having been
"destroyed in compliance with the Agreement between USSR and USA to Destroy
Medium and Shorter Range Missile Systems." Weldon and Maryland Republican
Roscoe Bartlett are concerned that Russia may be hiding much larger reserves
of nuclear weapons in a vast underground site built into the Ural Mountains,
known as Yamantau.
The SS-23 was named as one of the missiles slated for total elimination under
the Treaty. All SS-20 missiles were reportedly dismantled by June 1991.
Weldon and other members of the House Armed Services Committee are planning
to visit the current storage site of the SS-23s in Martin, Slovakia, since
the United States is footing the bill for dismantling the missiles, a process
set to begin later this month.
"We want to film these missiles and then ask the Russians some hard questions
about their commitment to arms control," Weldon said.
"We're going to ask the Russians, here's what you were doing in Eastern
Europe; what are you doing at home?" said Weldon.
Soviet-era photo, supplied to the United States in compliance with the INF
Treaty in 1987, showing the body of the SS-23 rocket, minus the nuclear
warhead.
Six missiles, two launchers and several dummy nuclear warheads will be
dismantled by the Slovak Republic with U.S. help later this year. A total of
73 SS-23s were secretly deployed by the Soviets in Eastern Europe, according
to Arms Control and Disarmament Agency compliance reports. If all 73 missiles
had been armed with nuclear warheads, their combined firepower would have
equaled 365 times the power of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
When the United States received the first reports about the existence of a
secret SS-23 force in September 1991, "it sent an electric shock through the
intelligence community," a former intelligence analyst told WND. "The
realization that the Soviets had a secret nuclear missile force undermined
all our premises about arms control."
There had long been a debate about the actual size of the Soviet nuclear
force, because of large numbers of non-deployed missiles and warheads the
Soviets were known to keep in reserve.
"Here was a real, clandestine missile force -- something the Soviets were
trying to hide from us," the analyst said. "It risked undermining every arms
control treaty we had ever signed with them."
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated in 1986 that
the Soviet Union had a clandestine strategic "reserve" force of several
thousand weapons, as large as Russia's current declared force, making a
mockery of arms control commitments with the United States.
Weldon agrees. "If arms control agreements are not upheld by both parties
they are meaningless pieces of paper."
The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, which was recently subsumed within
the State Department, quietly accused the Soviets of "bad faith." It equated
the secret deployment of the SS-23s in Eastern Europe to other arms-control
violations, notably the construction of a phased array radar system at
Krasnoyarsk.
Russian officials later admitted that the Krasnoyarsk radar was built on the
orders of the Soviet Politburo as a battle-management system, in conscious
violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.
A 1988 photograph, published in Paris Match, showing the body of SS-23
rockets withdrawn with Soviet forces from East Germany as part of the 200
declared SS-23s the U.S.S.R. agreed to dismantle and destroy under the INF
Treaty. The U.S. now believes the Soviet Union had an additional 73 missiles
deployed secretly in Warsaw Pact countries.
The last mention of the SS-23s appears in the May 1995 ACDA compliance
report, which states that the SS-23 missiles were "transferred with their
connecting sections, which would enable their use with nuclear warheads."
This led the United States to conclude that the Soviet Union had negotiated
the INF Treaty "in bad faith."
Despite these concerns, the May 1995 report states, "the United States does
not intend to address this issue in future reports but will continue its
ongoing efforts to see that these missiles are destroyed."
The first public mention that undeclared missiles still existed in former
Warsaw Pact countries dates from August 1997, when State Department spokesman
James Rubin told reporters in Washington that negotiations were underway with
both Slovakia and Bulgaria to dismantle the missiles. He called the talks
"action with friendly governments," and said the U.S. stood ready to help
them destroy the SS-23s.
The Bulgarians initially balked at destroying the missiles, stating it was in
Bulgaria's national interest to retain them, but eventually complied.
Slovakia said it didn't have the money to dismantle the missiles on its own.
The controversy dragged on until earlier this year.
Then on April 27, the U.S. charg� d'affaires in Bratislava, Douglas Hengel,
signed a memorandum of understanding with Slovakia's Chief of Staff Gen.
Milan Cerovsky, providing for U.S. financing of the destruction of the last
six SS-23 missiles by the end of October, with work beginning in June.
Altogether, the destruction will cost U.S. taxpayers $385,000, according to
the memorandum.
Soviet-era photo, supplied to the United States in compliance with the INF
Treaty in 1987, showing the 4-axle launch vehicle for the SS-23 system.
The Slovak missiles are from a battery of six missile launchers and 30
missiles, initially deployed to an underground base known as Site Adam about
100 miles northeast of Prague, Czech embassy spokesman Martin Weiss told WND.
Site Adam was originally part of a chain of defensive underground sites
ringing the borders of Nazi Germany and Austria, Weiss said, built in the
1930s. While many similar sites have been opened to the public -- including
one that has become a hot tourist spot -- Site Adam remains off-limits and is
still used by the Czech military.
Investigators working with the House Armed Services Committee in Washington
told WND that Site Adam was one of several underground sites in Eastern
Europe reinforced by Warsaw Pact forces during the Cold War as a nuclear
storage bunker. It is believed to extend some 20 stories below ground.
The Soviet army hastily pulled out of Eastern Europe over the summer of 1990,
taking the nuclear warheads from the SS-23s along with them. U.S. officials
believe it was not until September 1991 that Czechoslovak President Vaclav
Havel learned about the existence of the secret force of SS-23 missiles and
informed the United States.
As Czechoslovakia itself began to break up in mid-1992, Havel resigned and
the military assets of the country were split between the Czech and Slovak
Republics. Havel was elected as president of the newly formed Czech Republic
in 1993.
According to the Czech defense ministry, six of the 30 SS-23 missiles were
transferred to the Slovak Republic in 1993 as their share of formerly joint
military assets. The remaining missiles were dismantled quietly by the Czech
Republic in 1995-1996.
Slovakia is now seeking to join NATO, and invited NATO military attach�s
stationed in Bratislava to view the missiles on May 10.
A 1988 photograph, published in Paris Match, showing partially dismantled
SS-23 missiles, with the nuclear warheads separated from the rocket bodies.
"Warsaw Pact plans called for these missiles being ready to fire within 20
minutes of deployment," said Slovak diplomat Jan Orlovski. "Our people were
able to deploy them in front of NATO military attach�s in 17 minutes" in a
mock operational exercise conducted near the city of Martin.
The missiles will be dismantled at the Novaky military base in Slovakia
between now and October, while the launchers are being disassembled in
military workshops in the city of Trencin.
Arms control cover-up?
Congressman: Clinton pretended
'nothing was going on'
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
� 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa.
Congress has no confidence in this administration when it comes to arms
control, and will not approve any new arms control agreement if they have the
audacity to present one.
Why did the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency cease reporting on the
Russian violation of the INF treaty after its May 1995 Report? Rep. Curt
Weldon, R-Pa., and others believe it is because the Clinton administration
was trying to gloss over Russian misbehavior.
"The Russians were clearly not in compliance with arms control agreements,"
Weldon told WND, "but the administration did what it does so frequently,
which is to turn the other cheek and pretend that nothing was going on."
Weldon says he asked the Congressional Research Service to compile a list of
Russian and Chinese arms control violations over the past 6 years. When CRS
submitted its findings, even he was astonished at the scope of previously
unreported (or under-reported) violations. Russia alone, according to CRS,
had committed 17 violations of arms control agreements it had signed with the
United States, without ever receiving so much as a slap on the wrist.
"This administration has the worst record on arms control of any
administration in 50 years," Weldon said. "Congress has no confidence in this
administration when it comes to arms control, and will not approve any new
arms control agreement if they have the audacity to present one."
Inside Russia's magic mountain
Congressmen: Secret nuke-proof complex
bodes ill for U.S. arms-control negotiations
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
� 2000, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
WASHINGTON -- Deep in the Urals, in the region of Beloretsk, rises a mountain
called Yamantau. It is believed to conceal one of Russia's darkest nuclear
secrets -- a secret President Clinton, members of Congress and the U.S.
military top brass have raised repeatedly with Russia's leaders, without ever
receiving a response.
Some U.S. analysts believe the secret underground complex beneath Yamantau
Mountain betrays a lingering belief among top Russian leaders that they must
continue to prepare to fight and win a nuclear war. Russians say they still
fear the U.S.
As WorldNetDaily revealed yesterday, it is now known that the Soviet Union
used secret underground bases in Eastern Europe to conceal nuclear missiles
at the end of the Cold War, as an integral part of its nuclear war-fighting
strategy. In all, some 73 SS-23 missiles, packing a nuclear punch 365 times
the bomb that detonated over Hiroshima, were hidden by the Soviets in
violation of the INF Treaty, which went into force in June 1988.
On May 10, the Slovak Defense Ministry rolled out the SS-23s it had inherited
from a secret Soviet missile cache left over from the Cold War. The U.S. will
assist Slovakia in dismantling them later this year. Yamantau is a very large
complex -- we estimate that it has millions of square feet available for
underground facilities. We don't have a clue as to what they're doing there.
-- Then-Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command Gen. Eugene Habinger in 1998
If war had broken out those missiles would have given the Soviets an
overwhelming strategic advantage against the United States, allowing them to
decimate NATO forces in Europe in a surprise attack. The last of these
missiles will be destroyed this summer by the government of Slovakia, under a
grant from the United States.
Today, Russia may be conducting nuclear deception on a far vaster scale
beneath Yamantau Mountain, where it has dug out a gigantic underground
military complex designed to withstand a sustained nuclear assault. U.S.
intelligence sources tell WorldNetDaily that the Yamantau complex is but one
of some 200 secret deep underground nuclear war-fighting sites in Russia,
many of which have been significantly upgraded over the past six years at a
cost of billions of dollars.
This declassified Defense Intelligence Agency map shows the relative location
of the underground Yamantau Mountain complex. In response to repeated U.S.
inquiries, the Russian government has provided no fewer than 12 separate and
contradictory explanations for the site, none of them believed to be credible.
Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, U.S. intelligence sources believe the
Russian government has pumped more than $6 billion into Yamantau alone, to
construct a sprawling underground complex that spans an area as large as
Washington, D.C., inside the Beltway -- some 400 square miles.
In 1998, in a rare public comment, then-Commander of the U.S. Strategic
Command (STRATCOM) Gen. Eugene Habinger, called Yamantau "a very large
complex -- we estimate that it has millions of square feet available for
underground facilities. We don't have a clue as to what they're doing there."
It is believed to be large enough to house 60,000 persons, with a special air
filtration system designed to withstand a nuclear, chemical or biological
attack. Enough food and water is believed to be stored at the site to sustain
the entire underground population for months on end.
"The only potential use for this site is post-nuclear war," Rep. Roscoe
Bartlett, R-Md., told WorldNetDaily. Bartlett is one of the handful of
members of Congress who have closely followed the Yamantau project.
The Yamantau Mountain complex is located close to one of Russia's remaining
nuclear weapons labs, Chelyabinsk-70, giving rise to speculation it could
house either a nuclear warhead storage site, a missile base, a secret nuclear
weapons production center, a directed energy laboratory or a buried command
post. Whatever it is, Yamantau was designed to survive a nuclear war.
In response to repeated U.S. inquiries, the Russian government has provided
no fewer than 12 separate and contradictory explanations for the site, none
of them believed to be credible. The Clinton administration admits that the
Russian government has refused to provide any information on the underground
complex. Despite this, administration officials tell Congress not to worry.
A 1997 Congressional Research Service report said that the vast sums invested
to build the Yamantau Mountain complex "provide evidence of excessive
military modernization in Russia." Russia is pouring money into this and
other underground nuclear sites at the same time U.S. taxpayers have provided
billions of dollars in aid to Russia to help dismantle nuclear warheads taken
off line as a result of START I and START II.
"Yamantau Mountain is the largest nuclear-secure project in the world," said
Rep. Bartlett. "They have very large train tracks running in and out of it,
with enormous rooms carved inside the mountain. It has been built to resist a
half dozen direct nuclear hits, one after the other in a direct hole. It's
very disquieting that the Russians are doing this when they don't have $200
million to build the service module on the international space station and
can't pay housing for their own military people," he said.
The Russians have constructed two entire cities over the site, known as
Beloretsk 15 & 16, which are closed to the public, each with 30,000 workers.
No foreigner has ever set foot near the site. A U.S. military attach�
stationed in Moscow was turned back when he attempted to visit the region a
few years ago.
Neither the Central Intelligence Agency nor the Defense Intelligence Agency
would comment on what the Russians were doing at Yamantau Mountain.
"There's not a lot we could say without venturing into the classified realm,"
CIA spokesman Mike Mansfield said. "It's hard to discuss it with any
specificity."
Russia is pouring money into this and other underground nuclear sites at the
same time U.S. taxpayers have provided billions of dollars in aid to Russia
to help dismantle nuclear warheads taken off line as a result of START I and
START II.
This U.S. satellite photograph of the Yamantau Mountain region was taken on
Oct. 16, 1997, and annotated by the Defense Intelligence Agency. Clearly
recognizable signs of excavation can be seen at the areas marked Yamantau
Mountain and Mezhgorye. Two above-ground support cities, each housing 30,000
workers, are located at Beloretsk and Tirlyanskiy. It's very disquieting that
the Russians are doing this when they don't have $200 million to build the
service module on the international space station and can't pay housing for
their own military people. -- Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md.
Both agencies have provided repeated briefings on Yamantau to Congress, and
have declassified satellite photographs which reveal above-ground support
facilities for the underground sites as well as tell-tale signs of
excavation.
The very little that is known publicly about the site comes from Soviet-era
intelligence officers, who defected to Great Britain and the United States.
In public testimony before a House Armed Services Subcommittee last October,
KGB defector Col. Oleg Gordievsky said the KGB had maintained a separate,
top-secret organization, known as Directorate 15, to build and maintain a
network of underground command bunkers for the Soviet leadership -- including
the vast site beneath Yamantau Mountain.
"And what is interesting," said Gordievsky, was that President Yeltsin and
Russia's new democratic leaders "are using those facilities, and the same
service is still running the same facility, like it was 10, 15 years ago."
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