-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! ARTICLE 1 Rumsfeld: Iraqi Strikes Met Goal Ed.: Another total success? This is beginning to worry me. It seems the old spin continues under the new leadership. With only marginal weapons performance, they have now ensured that our pilots are safer? How about the possibility that with each one of those milk runs, we’re compromising more of our targeting and air defense counter-measures? A recent AP report. By ROBERT BURNS WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday that last month's air strike on Iraq accomplished its goal, but he admitted what the Pentagon previously had been unwilling to say publicly: Navy bombs used in the attack performed much worse than expected. Two-dozen U.S. and British jets attacked air defense sites around Baghdad on Feb. 16. The Pentagon has said it acted because Iraq had been improving its ability to target - and potentially shoot down - pilots patrolling the ``no-fly'' zone over southern Iraq. ``Our interest was in addressing the question of the safety of the coalition pilots that are flying those missions,'' Rumsfeld said. ``There's no question but that their safety is better today than it was before.'' Rumsfeld spoke during an unannounced appearance at the Pentagon's regular news briefing conducted by his chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley. The secretary introduced Paul Wolfowitz, who was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday to be deputy defense secretary. He and Rumsfeld are the only confirmed Pentagon appointments, although Rumsfeld said nearly a dozen others are in the works. Other officials have said the White House is close to announcing nominations for Army, Navy and Air Force secretaries, the civilian chiefs of the services. The targets of last week's air strikes were about 20 radar installations and several facilities that provide command and control links between the radars and other elements of Iraq's integrated air defense. Pentagon officials speaking on condition of anonymity have said that more than half of the Navy bombs used against the radars missed their intended impact points, although some of the radars were damaged. Rumsfeld said there is ``no question'' that ``the Navy munitions did not find their targets precisely, and we now think we have a pretty good grip on exactly why that happened, and it's unlikely to happen again.'' He did not elaborate. The Navy weapon in question is the AGM-154A, also known as the Joint Standoff Weapon, or JSOW, which first was used in January 1999. In last week's attack they were launched by Navy F/A-18 fighters. Earlier this week, defense officials said the Navy had concluded that most of those weapons went astray because on-board sensors had too little time to adjust the bombs' flight path to account for heavy winds. The solution, these officials said, is to ensure that in future missions, the bomb is programmed to level out sooner upon approaching the target. The bomb needs to be in level flight for the sensor to correctly calculate the wind factor and allow for course corrections. On a level course, however, the bomb is more vulnerable to hostile air defenses, so mission planners seek to make the bomb's final approach to the target as short as possible. The 14-foot-long bomb navigates on a glide path using signals from global positioning satellites. In a related development, Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf reiterated his country's position that the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq are illegal and unjustified. In a letter released Thursday, al-Sahhaf criticized U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan for failing to condemn the U.S.-British air strikes - which Iraq says killed three Iraqis and wounded 25 others - and for saying it was up to the U.N. Security Council to determine the legality of the no-fly zones. ARTICLE 2 Bush Faces Tough Choices On Weapons Ed.: All of these systems are Cold War relics and deserve the axe. That doesn’t mean however that we discontinue research and development for future combat systems. An AP Report. By ROBERT BURNS WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush is facing some tough choices on the future of big-ticket military weapons. The Air Force's $62 billion F-22 stealth fighter program, the Navy's $25 billion DD-21 destroyer, the Marine Corps' troubled $41 billion V-22 Osprey program and the developing $200 billion Joint Strike Fighter fleet are all candidates for the budget ax. Bush has made clear that his first priority for the military is to put more money in the pockets of American troops and their families. The politically tougher choices of where to invest in weapons modernization are yet to be made, with the exception of Bush's commitment to a national missile defense - which could cost $60 billion or more. "In our broader transformation effort, we must put strategy first, then spending,'' Bush told Congress this week. On Wednesday the administration unveiled a $310 billion defense budget but included few spending specifics; details are expected to come in April. During visits to military bases in mid-February, Bush said the advances he foresees in defense technologies will require ``great effort and new spending.'' To afford those increases - and to fit Pentagon priorities with the Pentagon strategy being built by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld - some weapons programs presumably will get cut, delayed or scaled back. The question is which ones. ``They don't want to commit themselves to anything until this (Rumsfeld) review is finished,'' said Jack Spencer, a defense analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a think tank. Rumsfeld has called on a range of expertise inside and outside the Pentagon to look at such central issues as a new strategic concept of what the military should be used for; ways of improving Pentagon financial management; prospects for reducing U.S. nuclear forces, and the most effective approach to building a defense against ballistic missiles for the United States and its allies. Until preliminary results are in - perhaps as early as April - neither Rumsfeld nor the president is likely to answer the many questions that have been raised about the future of major weapons programs. Among those thought to be in jeopardy: The V-22 Osprey, a centerpiece of the future of Marine Corps aviation. The hybrid aircraft, which takes off and lands like a helicopter and flies like an airplane, was in trouble even before Bush took office. After a December crash - the second fatal Osprey accident in nine months - the Pentagon created an outside panel to review the entire program. At stake: a decision on whether to begin full-scale production. The Marines are desperate to get a fleet of Ospreys to replace Vietnam-era CH-46E combat assault helicopters and CH-53D transport helicopters, which are breaking down at an alarming rate. Vice President Dick Cheney tried to kill the V-22 program in 1989 when he was defense secretary, but Congress rescued it. So far $12 billion has been spent on it; another $29 billion is planned. The next-generation strike aircraft, known as the Joint Strike Fighter, with a price tag of $200 billion. The plan, still on the drawing boards, is to build versions for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. William Cohen, the defense secretary during President Clinton's second term, called the plane the ``only affordable solution'' to sustaining the military's fighter force through the year 2050. Andrew Krepinevich, director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, says Bush should cancel the Joint Strike Fighter and put more resources into developing ``unmanned combat air vehicles,'' the kind of leap-ahead technology that the president has said he finds attractive. The Navy's DD-21, a next-generation destroyer tailored for land attack warfare. The Navy wants to build 32 of these, with construction to begin in 2005, at a total cost of $25 billion. Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute think tank says the DD-21 is the most vulnerable of the Navy's ship construction projects, although he notes that politics could play an important role: the two shipyards involved are in Maine - home of Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee - and Mississippi, home of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, also a Republican. The Air Force's F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, to replace the F-15E Strike Eagle. The price tag is $62 billion for 339 planes, and it is priority No. 1 for the Air Force. If push comes to shove, Thompson thinks the Air Force would advocate keeping the F-22 program at the expense of the Joint Strike Fighter. ARTICLE 3 Powell Pledges Troops for Balkans Ed.: Doesn’t appear like much will be changing, especially since the Balkans are heating up once again. I could almost bet that we’re trying to strike a fat little deal: Keep the troops in the Balkans, in return for a juicy missile defense deal with Europe. An AP report. By BARRY SCHWEID BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Secretary of State Colin Powell pledged the Bush administration will stay the course with peacekeepers in the restive Balkans, where more than 9,000 U.S. troops patrol Bosnia and Kosovo. ``We went in together and we will come out together,'' Powell said Tuesday, offering a firm U.S. commitment that was in question after President Bush said he would review the use of American troops there. Skepticism within the Bush administration about U.S. peacekeeping missions was set aside as Powell, in his debut at NATO headquarters in a diplomatic role, promised worried Europeans that the United States ``would avoid any steps that jeopardize'' the alliance's unity. And, in a show of support, the allied foreign ministers moved closer to supporting the administration's futuristic missile defense plans. ``I got a very good response from all my colleagues,'' Powell said. Lord Robertson, the NATO secretary-general, called Powell's participation in his first North Atlantic Council session, ``a reminder of the vital importance of the trans-Atlantic link.'' The meeting was held against the backdrop of growing tensions in the Balkans, where the open-ended U.S. commitment to peacekeeping was in question. Bush and his top foreign policy advisers talked about limiting U.S. troop involvement, leaving most peacekeeping to Europe. Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, created a stir during the presidential campaign when she said the United States should pull troops out and Bush, too, said he wanted to bring Americans home. After some European alarm, Bush softened his stance, saying two weeks ago there would be ``no precipitous withdrawal from the (overseas) commitments we inherited,'' though he said he would be more ``careful'' and ``judicious'' about peacekeeping deployments in the future. When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld met with European defense officials in Munich, Germany, on Feb. 3, he told his peers, ``We will not act unilaterally, or fail to consult our allies.'' Rumsfeld also said the peacekeeping force in the Balkans is now ``appropriately smaller and lighter,'' and he noted that since 1996, NATO has been reviewing troop levels every six months. ``We believe this process of consultation, assessment and change should continue,'' Rumsfeld said. In 1995, 20,000 U.S. troops were among 60,000 NATO-led peacekeepers in Bosnia on a mission meant to last only a couple of years. Now, 4,500 Americans remain on the ground among 22,000 peacekeepers. In Kosovo, 5,000 of 46,000 peacekeepers are American - about the same number deployed in June 1999 on the mission with no end in sight. NATO Secretary-general Robertson called the situation in the region ``alarming'' and said even with Slobodan Milosevic gone as Yugoslavia's president ``what is needed now is the courage and the imagination for the political leadership of the region to rise above past bitterness….'' At the heart of current unrest is a three-mile-wide demilitarized zone that separates the Yugoslav army and peacekeepers. It is being used by ethnic Albanian extremists for attacks on Serbian authorities. Powell and the NATO allies agreed Tuesday to consider a ``phased and conditioned'' reduction in the buffer zone. The decision by alliance foreign ministers was clearly meant as an encouragement to the new government of Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, which has proposed elimination of the demilitarized zone. ``The NATO foreign ministers expressed their deep concern over the use of the ground safety zone as a safe haven for extremist activities,'' Robertson said. ``NATO is therefore prepared to implement a phased and conditioned reduction of the ground safety zone.'' He didn't say what would be involved in such a reduction. Powell said the United States will participate in ``whatever action the alliance believes is necessary'' and had a message for ethnic Albanian extremists: ``This is not the time to start a new conflict in Europe.'' Robertson welcomed Powell, whose two-hour meeting with NATO foreign ministers was called by the United States as essentially a get-acquainted session. But there was no shortage of problems that require his attention. To start with, most of the allies are uneasy with the Bush administration's decision to push ahead with plans to develop a national missile defense system - a project many call a recipe for a new arms race. Powell, however, said the United States would consult with the allies before selecting a particular defense system and the technology. He added that the United States, its allies and Russia all agree that ``whatever the differences about missile defense, there is no doubt there is a threat'' of missile attack by rogue states. Russia has countered with a vague proposal of its own to defend Europe. ``The details are still quite sketchy,'' Powell said. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. 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