National News
Republicans criticize lax’national security policies
By William C. Mann
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Clinton
administration has displayed “lax
attitudes toward national securi
ty,” the Senate Intelligence Com
mittee chairman said Sunday, cit
ing reports Chinese stole U.S.
technology to produce a better nu
clear bomb.
The committee already is inves
tigating commercial technology
transfers that Sen. Richard Shelby
and other GOP leaders contend
could help the Chinese upgrade
their missile forces.
The new allegations “will cer
tainly” mean more hearings, said
Shelby, who criticized the admin
istration for “lax attitudes toward
national security.”
“We have been on top of this lax
security for a number of years.
We’ve been pushing, we've been
prodding the administration to do
more, to tighten up security,” Shel
by said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Senate Majority Leader Trent
Lott predicted Congress would be
“very aggressive” in dealing with
the administration.
“I think Congress is going to
have to toughen up in dealing with
this administration, particularly
when it comes to China and the vi
olations that have occurred there,”
he said on “Fox News Sunday.”
The New York Times and
Newsweek magazine reported that
China had obtained from Energy
Department nuclear laboratories
knowledge of America’s top-secret
W-88 miniaturized warhead.
Reiterating the administration
position, White House national se
curity spokesman P.J. Crowley
said Sunday in a telephone inter
view that an interagency assess
ment to determine “what damage,
if any,” was done started in 1996
and that the appropriate commit
tees of Congress have been kept
“updated throughout.”
“Meanwhile, once we knew the
scope of the problem we have in
stituted a series of very strong mea
sures to improve security and
counterintelligence at DOE labs,”
Crowley said.
Republicans contend the admin
istration allows dangerous transac
tions so as not to disturb always
touchy relations with one of the
largest U.S. trading partners.
Lott, R-Miss., said the case is
“just another example of where the
administration apparently is more
interested in engagement (with
China) than they are what’s hap
pening in that engagement.”
“The administration continues to
resist really getting into what
caused the problem and solving the
problem,” Lott said. “China is get
ting to be more and more of a prob
lem, both in their human rights con
duct and the way we deal with it,
but also a continuation of their ef
forts to get technology improperly
and then use it improperly.”
Clinton travels to hurricane-battered Central America
By Sandra Sobieraj
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Hamstrung by domes
tic politics, President Clinton ventures emp
ty-handed into hurricane-clobbered reaches
of Central America this week. His message
of solidarity with America’s neighbors is
aimed as much at Congress as at the people
rebuilding the region’s roads, homes and
schools.
Clinton embarks Monday — without his
wife, sidelined by a recurring back problem
— on what is intended to be a four-day good
will tour of reconstruction projects in
Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Hon
duras, those hardest hit by last fall’s Hurri
cane Mitch.
“Our moral responsibility as a neighborto
this region coincides perfectly with our in
terests as a nation,” said National Security
Adviser Sandy Berger.
But the president leaves at home nearly $1
billion in U.S. aid trapped on Capitol Hill by
unrelated, partisan disputes over spending.
Most likely, he will encounter the disap
pointment of Central Americans who fault
his trade policy as halfhearted.
A U.S. promise not to deport illegal immi
grants back to El Salvador and Guatemala
during the disaster crisis was set to lapse
Monday.
But Foreign Minister Eduardo Stein Bar
illas of Guatemala warned that the forced re
turn of a large number of immigrants would
severely crimp recovery efforts.
“Our battered economies are not going to
be able to sustain this influx of people back
to the region,” he said.
Clinton will address the Salvadoran legisla
tive assembly Wednesday. He will stand with
disaster victims in a schoolyard in Posoltega,
Nicaragua, where mudslides wiped out entire
villages, and lend support to U.S. troops pitch
ing in on the reconstruction.
At Guatemala City’s anthropology muse
um, Clinton plans a roundtable talk on peace
with citizens still smarting from a Guatemala
truth commission report last week that
blames most of the deaths and disappear
ances during that nation’s 36-year civil war
on the U.S.-backed army and the CIA.
On Thursday, Clinton is to convene a
summit with Central American presidents
to make sure the post-Mitch crisis does not
derail free-market economics and democrat
ic systems.
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