In this issue:

Space Shuttle Columbia Lost During Descent; NASA, President Bush Vow Manned Space Program Will Continue

Former NASA Administrator: Investigation Should 'Move Quickly'

President Returned to Washington When Briefed on Shuttle

President Bush's Statement on Columbia

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. Faces Funding Crisis

Will Senate Approval of Extra Money for Amtrak, Education, Be Killed by House?

Bush Faces Opposition from Congressional Republicans Over Medicare Plan

Rangel, Hollings Seek Support for Bill To Reintroduce Draft

U.S. Will Rejoin International Fusion Energy Project

Nuclear Option Explicit in New Bush Policy Doctrine

More Evidence That Death Penalty May Be on the Way Out

From Volume 2, Issue Number 5 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Feb. 3, 2003

United States News Digest

Space Shuttle Columbia Lost During Descent; NASA, President Bush Vow Manned Space Program Will Continue

At just before 9 a.m. Feb. 1 Mission Control in Houston lost radio and telemetry contact with the Space Shuttle orbiter Columbia, which was in its last 15 minutes of descent, heading to a landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The vehicle was at an altitude of about 207,135 feet, traveling at 12,500 miles per hour, or more than 18 times the speed of sound. It was engaged in a series of banking "S" turns, which slow the orbiter down to allow it to land. Everything appeared normal for the landing.

Soon after, NASA began receiving reports from local media in eastern Texas that people had sighted the Shuttle breaking into pieces in the atmosphere. At 9:30, NASA's contingency team, which is assigned as a precaution before each launch, was assembled, and all telemetry data and notes were secured for the follow-up investigation. The team went to Texas to the command site where the debris will be assembled.

Speaking from the Kennedy Space Center in the afternoon, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe described the loss of the orbiter and crew as "tragic for the nation." He reported that President Bush had spoken to the families of the seven astronauts.

O'Keefe stated: "We have no indication that the mishap was caused by anything or anyone on the ground," and announced that in addition to the internal NASA Mishap Investigation Team, an external Mishap Investigation Board will be appointed, made up of Safety and Mission Assurance experts in departments of the Federal government, including the Air Force, the Navy, and the Department of Transportation. FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI are helping collect and secure the debris, but have not been asked to investigate the incident.

Following O'Keefe's statement, NASA Associate Administrator for Spaceflight and former astronaut Bill Readdy said that the space agency will do what the astronauts' families have asked them to do: "find out what happened, fix it, and move on." It should be noted that after the 1986 Challenger disaster, the families banded together to establish the Challenger Centers for Space Science Education around the nation, which teach thousands of children each year about space, science, and exploration.

Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) told CNN, "We never want America to walk away from being in the forefront of research." We should "never step back from America's preeminence in space; that is never an option." NASA "should be fully funded," she said, because it is "as important as national security and national defense."

Former NASA Administrator: Investigation Should 'Move Quickly'

In conversation with EIR Feb. 1, former NASA Administrator Jim Beggs, who was forced out of the space agency by a corrupt Justice Department in 1986—weeks before the Challenger accident—stated that Administrator O'Keefe has done the right thing in quickly appointing an expert outside investigating group.

You do not want a "political commission" like that created after the Challenger blew up shortly after launch in January 1986; that commission took six to eight months and looked at everything NASA did, he stressed. "The Challenger Commission wanted to assign blame," Beggs said, rather than finding the cause of the accident. The Columbia investigators should look at the telemetry, "and move quickly," he said. We should not "look at who's at fault, but at what happened." Beggs said we have to "see if we can fix" the problem. He said the situation was "very fluid," and he wouldn't speculate as to the cause.

On the question of replacing the orbiter, as President Reagan did in 1986, Beggs said that three Shuttles are enough to fly the currently reduced Shuttle schedule. More generally, he said, in frustration at the political posturing and budget cutting in the program, "we should decide to continue the space station, or end it."

President Returned to Washington When Briefed on Shuttle

President Bush rushed back from Camp David to Washington Feb. 1, on receiving confirmation that the Shuttle Columbia had gone down. Bush had been kept informed on developments since he had been told that Mission Control in Houston had lost contact with Columbia shortly after 9 ET. Around 10:30, Bush spoke with NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe from Camp David. He then returned to the White House, and talked again to O'Keefe, inquiring particularly about the families of the astronauts who perished.

President Bush was then connected to a conference call in which he spoke directly to the families gathered at Kennedy Space Center.

He spoke next by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and the two men exchanged condolences; one of the crew, Ilan Ramon, was the first Israeli astronaut in space. President Bush also spoke to Mexico's President Vicente Fox, French President Jacques Chirac, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien. With Putin, Bush underlined the importance of space exploration and of continuing the joint cooperation with Russia.

President Bush's Statement on Columbia

President Bush made a brief statement on the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia at 2 p.m. on Feb. 1.

"My fellow Americans, this day has brought terrible news and great sadness to our country. At 9 a.m. this morning, Mission Control in Houston lost contact with our Space Shuttle Columbia. A short time later, debris was seen falling from the skies above Texas. The Columbia is lost; there are no survivors," Bush said.

He named each of the seven astronauts onboard the Shuttle, and paid them tribute: "The cause in which they died will continue," Bush said. "Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on."

"In the skies today we saw destruction and tragedy. Yet farther than we can see there is comfort and hope. In the words of the Prophet Isaiah, 'Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.' The same Creator Who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the Shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth; yet we can pray that all are safely home."

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. Faces Funding Crisis

The PBCG was created by the U.S. government in 1974 to deal with pension crises, by taking over insolvent pension plans, to keep paying benefits to retired workers when a company can not. The PBCG is funded by companies which pay an annual fee to the PBCG for every worker that is enrolled in a pension plan. But the PBCG, which started 2001 with an $8-billion surplus, has burned through that surplus, and is expected to report at the end of this month a deficit of what appears to be between $1 and $2 billion for 2002, and which could become larger this year, according to the Jan. 25 New York Times.

During March 2000, the PBCG assumed the pension payments of steelmaker LTV, which drew down $1.6 billion in PBCG funds. In December, the PBCG assumed $1.1 billion of National Steel's unfunded pension claims, and a further $3.7 billion in Bethlehem Steel's unfunded pension claims. But the pension failures show no sign of stopping. In June 2002, U.S. Airways filed for bankruptcy, and it may seek help from the PBCG to pay $3.1 billion in pension contributions over the next seven years. The entire airline industry may soon be seeking help from the PBCG, as well as KMart, which recently filed for bankruptcy.

The PBCG has been discussing proposals to increase the annual fees that all companies pay to the PBCG for every worker enrolled, and/or to increase the fees that are paid by the companies that have underfunded pension plans. The latter proposal has the difficulty that it would increase the fees for companies that don't even have the money to meet current pension payments.

The PBCG faces a big problem in the growth of underfunded pension plans, which represents the gap between what companies have promised to pay in pensions, and the funds that the companies set aside to make the payments. Due to a plunge in the stock market, and changes in interest rates, the total underfunding of all pension plans insured by the PBCG has risen from approximately $40 billion at the end of 2000, to an estimated $300 billion at the end of 2002. If this process continues, the PBCG may soon be insolvent. Many workers retired thinking that they would collect a pension, and that the PBCG would back up that pension if the company they had worked for, could not. This may soon proved to be a bitter delusion.

Will Senate Approval of Extra Money for Amtrak, Education, Be Killed by House?

Senate approval of extra funds for Amtrak and education is likely to be killed by the House, as the Federal appropriations bill goes into conference. Most endangered in the Senate bill, which covers all non-defense spending for 2003, is an amendment to add $5 billion for education, sponsored by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), paid for by an across-the-board 1.3% cut for all other programs. The provision would probably be eliminated, or at least altered, said a spokesman for Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee, because it imposed cuts too steep for Federal agencies, especially the FBI. Also in jeopardy is an additional $438 million in funding for Amtrak, beyond the $762 million approved by the House last year—bringing the total to $1.2 billion requested by the passenger railroad to survive—in an amendment proposed by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash).

Wall Street Journal Says U.S. Has Legal Right To Take Over Iraq Oilfields

The Wall Street Journal of Jan. 29 asserted that the U.S. has the legal right to take over and run the Iraqi oilfields, but added that there are U.S. precedents against that.

Claiming that the rights of an occupying force, under The Hague Convention of 1907, will allow the U.S. to run the Iraqi oilfields pretty much as it wishes, the Journal also reported that 1) "A tribunal after World War II found that Japan breached international law by aggressively exploiting occupied oilfields in the Dutch East Indies and using the oil to fuel its own war needs"; and, 2) "The State Department, irked about Israel's occupation of Sinai oilfields after the Six-Day War, wrote: 'An occupant's rights ... do not include the right to develop a new oilfield.'"

Bush Faces Opposition from Congressional Republicans Over Medicare Plan

President Bush's proposal, in his State of the Union address, to offer prescription-drug benefits only to senior citizens who enroll in private managed-care plans, and not to those who remain in the traditional fee-for-service health insurance program, is coming under fire from Republican lawmakers—even before basic details have been released. So says a Jan. 30 Wall Street Journal article. The Administration is peddling Medicare privatization as a way to curb the rising costs of the program, which costs $250 billion a year.

"All of our changes should be voluntary," said Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which writes Medicare legislation. "That means I won't draw lines on drug coverage. All seniors should have access to affordable prescription-drug coverage, regardless of the choice they make."

Opposition is coming even from Republican Congressman Bill Thomas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who voted for previous unsuccessful drug-benefit proposals, as well as Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Me).

Rangel, Hollings Seek Support for Bill To Reintroduce Draft

Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-SC) are circulating a "Dear Colleague" letter asking for support for their legislation to reinstate the military draft. The letter invokes President John F. Kennedy's call to "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country?" saying that that call is as applicable today as it was in 1961. The bulk of the letter questions the claim from the Pentagon that the current all-volunteer force is sufficient to handle all of the military commitments that the U.S. has undertaken around the globe.

"The Bush Administration continues to talk about daunting new challenges facing us now, but then presumes that the same force levels can meet those challenges," it says. Because of those increased commitments resulting from peacekeeping missions, operations in Afghanistan, increased tension in the Korean Peninsula and a possible war with Iraq, "The American military needs require us to call again on citizen soldiers." They note the increased call-ups of National Guard and Reserves, but say that long-term dependency on those forces is not a viable solution. In a statement issued on Jan. 27, Rangel said that he and Hollings "hope that, together, we'll be able to convince our colleagues to take a good look at this war before we get involved in it. And if we do get involved, let all Americans say that we're sharing the sacrifice of this war."

U.S. Will Rejoin International Fusion Energy Project

Speaking to fusion scientists last week at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in New Jersey, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced that "President Bush has decided that the United States will rejoin the international negotiations on ITER," the international fusion energy project.

Abraham said that "international cooperation is indispensable to achieving results," and used the international program to discuss next-generation nuclear fission reactors as an example.

Abraham "commended" the nations that stuck with ITER after the U.S. pulled out in 1998, and assured fusion researchers that the decision "to join ITER in no way means a lesser role" for their domestic programs. According to the Department of Energy, the U.S. share of the estimated $5-billion cost of the tokamak reactor will be about 10%—which is, parenthetically, what the Chinese have offered to kick in. A Department of Energy press release issued following Abraham's speech, states that "China has recently joined the negotiations" for building ITER. A statement released by the White House soon afterwards, nonchalantly remarks that the U.S. "will be working with the United Kingdom, other European Union nations, Russia, China, Japan, and Canada," on ITER.

(The reason China has been able to join the negotiations is because the U.S. is not running the ITER project. The reason China has not been allowed to participate in the International Space Station is because the U.S. is running that project.)

Nuclear Option Explicit in New Bush Policy Doctrine

President Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive 17 on Sept. 14, 2002, which allows for use of nuclear weapons in response to chemical or biological attacks. In reporting that it has seen a copy of the document, the Washington Times of Jan. 31 says that this changes the decades-old U.S. policy of maintaining deliberate ambiguity as to the possible use of nuclear weapons.

"The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force—including potentially nuclear weapons—to the use of [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad, friends and allies," says the classified version of the Directive.

An unclassified version was released on Dec. 11 as the "National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction," and it omits the term "nuclear weapons," instead saying "including through resort to all our options."

More Evidence That Death Penalty May Be on the Way Out

The historic commutation of all Death Row cases in Illinois by outgoing Governor George Ryan (R) on Jan. 11 signalled a shift in America's attitude toward capital punishment. Now, Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele of Maryland will call upon Gov. Robert Ehrlich (like Ryan, both Republicans) to seek a new study of the issue, as the state prepares to carry out its first execution in more than four years, in March. Former Maryland Governor Paris Glendening (D) had declared a moratorium on executions following the release of a study showing that the state's capital punishment system was profoundly racially biased and that the ultimate penalty was applied unfairly, geographically, and otherwise.

Governor Ehrlich, who aggressively solicited African-American votes during his campaign, said he would end the moratorium, and instead review each case individually for clemency. Lt. Governor Steele, who is black and a Roman Catholic, has made it known that he is fervently "pro-life," and personally opposes the death penalty on religious grounds. "This report demonstrates the necessity for a closer look at how we handle these cases, from the moment an individual is captured to the moment he is sentenced," Steele said, in the first comment by the new administration in response to a study released Jan. 7 by University of Maryland criminologist Raymond Paternoster. According to the Jan. 26 Washington Post, Steele said that he finds the study's conclusions "personally troubling" and that Ehrlich has indicated that he too is "bothered by it."

Ehrlich has said he and Steele will review every death warrant, and "if I'm not comfortable with any aspect of the case, we won't go forward."

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