1 -k t - April 14, 2000, The Behrend Beacon, page 5 ■ —■ World News ■— U.S. ready to use force to remove Elian Gonzalez by David A. Vise The Washington Post April 7, 2000 WASHINGTON Attorney General Janet Reno and other senior Clinton administration officials have devised a plan to use force to remove Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Mi ami relatives unless they agree to co operate in turning the boy over to au thorities and his father, people famil iar with the matter said Friday. Rather than approaching the house by night, senior Justice Department officials have decided, if necessary, to send a team of federal marshals and immigration officers to take custody of the youngster in daylight. They an ticipate resistance from a human chain of anti-Castro protesters, sources said. The decision to remove Elian dur ing the day was made after Justice De partment officials consulted with two psychiatrists and one psychologist about the least traumatic way to take custody of the child, sources said. Officials are counting on local po lice to handle any rioting by protest ers. While they prefer a peaceful resolution of the matter after weeks of negotiations, Attorney General Janet Reno and Deputy Attorney Gen eral Eric H. Holder Jr. now are pre pared for the potentially ugly spec tacle of televised conflict with pro testers in Miami to uphold the law, sources said. The arrival on Thursday, April 6, from Cuba of the 6-year-old’s father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who pleaded for custody of his son again Friday, cemented that decision, sources said. 19 Marines die in crash of Osprey, a controversial aircraft by Tony Perry and Judy Pasternak Los Angeles Times April 9, 2000 Plans to deploy a controversial mili tary aircraft now in the final stages of testing were cast in doubt Sunday after 19 Marines were killed in a weekend crash that ranks among the most deadly peacetime accidents in years. A tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey, built to take off like a helicopter but then rotate its propellers 90 degrees to fly like a fixed wing craft, crashed nose down Satur day night near a municipal airport at Marana, Ariz., about 15 miles north west of Tucson. The aircraft, which was landing when it crashed, was participating in an exercise simulating the rescue of personnel from a hostile environment. Of the 19 dead, 14 were members of combat troops from Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego, one was from the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego, and four were Osprey crew members from a helicopter squadron in Quantico, Va, The crash was the third most deadly Army Corps of Engineers’ N.Y. cleanup spurs criticism, probe by Michael Grunwald The Washington Post April 10, 2000 TONAWANDA, N.Y. A bleak in dustrial site cluttered with rusting trash bins and danger signs sits next door to the elementary school here, a radioactive relic of the race to build the atomic bomb. The site concealed a secret uranium plant during World War 11, processing ore from Colo rado and Congo for the historic Man hattan Project. Now it conceals a contaminated mess, a wartime legacy of low-level nuclear waste. The Army Corps of Engineers, the nation’s largest and most energetic public works agency, is supposed to fix that mess. In September 1997, after a late-night flurry of political machinations, Congress transferred the radiation cleanup program for Tonawanda and 20 similar sites from the Department of Energy to the Corps. Eager to take on the $l4O million-a-year mission, Corps offi cials argued that their agency was a natural for the job.” But in Tonawanda, a gritty suburb of Buffalo, the Corps may be mak ing an environmental and political mess of its own. The agency s $2B million cleanup plan for the site would allow radioactive uranium levels at least six and possibly 30 times higher than any other such plan in history; state and federal “We are going to constantly be tak ing the temperature of the relatives and of the crowds around there, and we will plan to use the minimum amount of force,” a Clinton adminis tration official said. “At no time will we be losing sight of what is in the best interest of the child, and we are absolutely committed to being sensi tive to what may prove traumatic as humanly possible. “We fully expect the local police to fulfill their responsibility to the citi zens of the city of Miami and Dade County to protect innocent people from being harmed and property from being destroyed,” the official added. Reno emphasized Friday that she wants to resolve the situation peace fully and called on the family to live up to its pledge to comply with the law. Elian’s Miami relatives and their at torneys have said they will comply with the law in dealing with the boy’s custody and would not try to impede federal officials who come to take him away. The relatives have said repeat edly, however, that they would not help officials in removing Elian but would merely stand aside. Talks between Immigration and Naturalization Service officials and the Miami relatives who are caring for Elian broke off Thursday, April 6. Friday, a legal and tactical strategy kicked into gear after Reno met with Juan Miguel Gonzalez for about an hour in her office suite at the Justice Department. Reno was moved by her discus sions with Gonzalez, sources said, just as she had been by reading the transcripts of INS interviews with him involving military personnel within the United States in the past ten years. In no other crash have more Marines been killed, the Marine Corps said. “Evaluating new equipment and training for war, like war itself, puts life at risk. In peace and war, Marines accept that risk it is a bond between us. ” -Richard Danzig, Navy Secretary Since 1990, the only crashes of mili tary aircraft in the United States with greater loss of life were the crash of an Air Force plane in 1995 that killed 24 regulators say they have never seen a weaker proposal. New York’s health department warned that the site may need a radioactive materi als license after the cleanup. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency has launched a criminal investigation into early dis posal efforts in Tonawanda, probing whether the contractors hired by the Corps mishandled waste and even manipulated data to disguise radio active material as less dangerous garbage. California regulators are investigating, too; they claim that more than 2,000 tons of Tonawanda debris was buried illegally at a San Joaquin Valley dump without a fed eral radioactive waste license. On Wednesday, April 5, a Senate com mittee will hold a hearing on the broader Corps decision to dispose of many of its Manhattan Project left overs in such landfills. The Corps insists its cleanup of the so-called Linde-Praxair site here will protect human health and the envi ronment. And the agency’s first two radiation cleanups one in Tonawanda, one in nearby Buffalo do appear to be success stories. The Corps believes less stringent standards make economic sense at Linde-Praxair, because the waste is confined to an industrial location and is generally considered “low level” uranium, thorium, and radium. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., says one in Cuba. She and her advisers have decided that it is time to make con tingency plans to forcibly take cus tody of Elian, who was picked up in the ocean on Thanksgiving Day after his mother and others drowned at tempting to flee Cuba. Reno, whose tenure as attorney general began with the fiery deaths of 75 people near Waco, Texas, after the Branch Davidian compound was stormed by FBI agents, once again is in an extremely difficult position re garding the best way to resolve a po tentially lethal dispute. Politically, the stakes are high, but Reno believes the dynamics have shifted since the boy’s father arrived, pleaded for the return of his son, and freely expressed the desire to return to Cuba, sources said. As law enforcement officials were devising possible forcible-entry sce narios, White House officials were watching with concern, determined that the Justice Department avoid tak ing any action that might spark un rest in Miami. While White House officials said they are not directly making decisions in the Elian Gonzalez case, senior Clinton aides are being updated sev eral times daily. They expect to be briefed and given the right of re fusal on any plan that Reno and her subordinates want to carry out. “Our concern is that the rule of law prevail, and that everyone involved is respectful of the rule of iaw,” a se nior White House official said. The Justice Department plan has been developed by Reno, Holder, Im migration and Naturalization Service Director Doris N. Meissner, and two and the collision of two Air Force planes in 1994 that killed 23. “This terrible loss of life is a re minder of how many men and women in the nation’s military put their lives at risk, each and every day, so that we might be a free people and the cause of peace can be advanced throughout the world,” President Clinton said in a statement issued after he called the commanding officers of the victims. Military crash investigators probing the charred wreckage of the aircraft Sunday did not speculate in public about the cause of the accident, which occurred at about 8 p.m. They will attempt to determine if the crash was the result of mechanical malfunction, pilot error, or problems associated with night-vision goggles and the use of forward-looking infra red radar. Goggles allow crew mem bers to see in the dark but can some times impair peripheral vision. Some witnesses said they thought the plane was on fire before the crash. In response to the crash, a Pentagon spokeswoman said no Ospreys will be flown “until we can get our arms around what may have happened.” Corps lawyer told her it is so safe, she could roll around in it. Leading radiation experts em phatically disagree. They caution that even low-level waste can in crease cancer risks, and even low- Radioactive dirt being removed from one of several Army Corps of Engineers cleanup sites in Tonawanda, N.Y. The Corps’ recent entree into nuclear waste offers a new example of how this agency’s ties to Congress have allowed it to expand its mission over the years level waste sites can hide dangerous “hot spots.” And they warn that the Corps is literally breaking new ground in radiation protection, ig noring long-accepted procedures and introducing unprecedented assump tions into its cleanup plan. Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environ mental Research outside Washing ton, D.C., reviewed hundreds of pages of Tonawanda documents at senior Justice Department staff mem bers who report to Holder: James E. Castello, associate deputy attorney general, and Brad Glassman, counsel to the deputy attorney general. Castello and Glassman have previ ously worked together on sensitive immigration matters. Reno reiterated Friday an offer first made to the family in Miami last week: turn over Elian immediately to his father, who is staying in Bethesda, Md., and she will seek to have them remain in the United States while the appeals process over Elian’s immigration status and custody con tinue. Or, alternatively, keep the boy until federal marshals seize him pur suant to a court order, but there would be no government effort to keep Juan Miguel Gonzalez and his son from returning to Cuba before the appeals process is over. The Justice Department plan, which has been reviewed by White House officials, includes seeking a court order directing the relatives in Miami to turn Elian Gonzalez over to the INS. If they do not comply, they can be held in contempt of court and subject to criminal sanctions or fines. “Our duty and responsibility is to fulfill the order of a court and to see that the rule of law prevails," a Clinton administration official said. “Reno and Holder and Meissner are of one mind. . . . Local disturbances will in no way prevent the law from being enforced." Reno declared Friday: “There is a bond, a special, wonderful sacred bond, between a father and his son. one that I intend to uphold.” Th e Boeing Co., which produces the Osprey jointly with Bell Helicop ter Textron of Fort Worth, Texas, issued a statement calling the crash "a source of great concern and sorrow for all of “Both companies [Boeing and Bell] are cooperating and supporting the Marine Corps to determine the cause of this accident,” the statement said. A Marine Corps spokesman Sunday declined to say whether the crash might jeopardize plans for the aircraft. “I don’t even want to speculate on that,” Capt. Rob Winchester said. “It's go ing to be based on the investigation.” The military has experimented with the Osprey for more than a decade at a cost of several hundred million dollars. Saturday’s crash occurred during the final stages of a seven-month evalua tion period to determine the aircraft's “operational suitability” for deploy ment. The Marines in Saturday’s crash were training for deployment to the Persian Gulf. The first twin-turbine Ospreys are set to deploy within three years with Ma rines from a helicopter squadron in New River, N.C. The entire fleet of The Washington Post's request. Makhijani also spoke at length to a Corps technical expert, and while he was impressed with the agency’s openness, he believes its plan “sets a poor example for cleanup in other areas of the country.” “The Army Corps has claimed it is cleaning up this site to a free-re lease standard clean enough so that homes can be built there and children can play,” he said. “I have concluded that its claim is based on egregious assumptions.” The story of the Corps’ recent en tree into nuclear waste offers a new example of how this unusual Penta gon-based agency’s close ties to Six-year-old Elian Gonzalez (left) gives a kiss to Donato Dalrymple, one of the two fishermen who rescued him last November, while they play in the on the slide in his Miami relative’s home. At right is Lazaro Martel. Ospreys is not scheduled to be ready until 2014. "Evaluating new equipment and training for war, like war itself, puts life at risk," Navy Secretary Richard Danzig said in a prepared statement. “In peace and war, Marines accept that risk it is a bond between us.” As investigators began the laborious job of determining the cause of the' crash. Marine Corps officers and se nior enlisted personnel fanned out across the country to notify the fami lies of the dead and to stay with them to help them deal with their grief. "The entire Marine Corps family grieves for the Marines we’ve lost in this tragedy, and our thoughts and prayers go out to their families," Ma rine Corps Commandant Gen. James Jones said. For Camp Pendleton, the Osprey crash marked the second tragedy in four months. In December, a CH-46 crushed in the ocean during a training mission off Point Loma, killing six Ma- rines and a Navy corpsman. The Osprey, named for a large, div ing bird of prey, is meant to be the Marine Corps’ replacement for the ag- Congress have allowed it to expand its mission over the years, some times into areas where its qualifica tions are in question. The result, say environmentalists, anti-tax advo cates, and local activists, has been a steady stream of wasteful pork-bar rel projects, vast environmental damage and now, at Tonawanda, the specter of a radiation debacle. In recent months, the agency’s military-led bureaucracy has been criticized for devising an internal "Program Growth Initiative” de signed to boost the agency’s budget by $2 billion, and for allegedly rig ging a study to justify billion-dollar projects on the Mississippi and Illi nois rivers. Army Secretary Louis Caldera recently announced a series of management reforms designed to restore public confidence in the Corps, but suspended them on Thursday, April 6, after just one week, a response to heavy pressure from several key Republican sena tors. The agency’s defenders inside and outside Congress say the Corps an aggressive, 37,000-employee powerhouse with a can-do mental ity is the obvious choice for an earth-moving job like Tonawanda. “We’ve got the expertise,” said George Brooks, a top Corps engineer in Buffalo. "We know we can do this.” But the Corps is taking an unprec- ing CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters, which have been criticized as too slow, too loud, and too prone to maintenance problems. The Osprey is built to achieve speeds in excess of 325 mph and fly at an alti tude over 22,000 feet. With twice the capacity and range of conventional helicopters, the aircraft is designed to carry 24 troops and external loads of 15,000 pounds for distances as far as 2,000 miles. The craft can also lly high enough to be used by paratroopers. The Marine Corps, which has or dered 360 of the $44 million Ospreys, has stuck with the new aircraft despite some congressional criticism and a crash into the Potomac River in 1992 that killed four Marines and three ci vilians. That crash was caused w hen an engine caught lire, a design defect the military insists has been corrected. “The Marine Corps has stuck its neck way out with the Osprey and bet very heavily that its brand-new technology will work,” said Stephen Millikin, a retired Navy helicopter pilot and edi tor of The Hook, the publication of the San Diego-basedTailhook Association, a carrier aviation support group. edented approach to nuclear cleanup, and its critics ask why a public work* agency is setting new radiological standards. The Corps, they say, didn’t enhance its case when it re fused to follow the normal procedure of hiring a “verification contractor" to monitor its work in Tonawanda even after a local citizens group of fered to pay the bill. “The Corps just doesn't seem to be operating in the real world," said Paul Giardina, chief of the radiation and indoor air branch for the FPA's New York regional office, “They ’re so far out of line; we've newer seen anything like it." Corps officials have refused to change the controversial numbers m their official plan, but in public meetings, they have pledged that their final cleanup levels at Linde- Praxair will be W'ell below the legal maximums, satisfying the demands of the critical state and federal regu lators. The blunt-spoken com mander of the agency's Buffalo dis trict, Lt. Col. Mark Feierstein, has offered a straightforward message to the community: trust us. “To me, the Army is an organiza tion where to the maximum extent possible you do the right thing, and that’s why 1 stayed in it,” Feierstein said at a meeting last April. “Again, if you trust your military, that’s w hy Congress gave this mission to the Corps of Engineers.”
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