WashPost про Кучму\Мельниченко
05/11/2002 | AST
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3754-2002May10.html
By Sharon LaFraniere
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 11, 2002; Page A19
MOSCOW, May 10 -- A former bodyguard of Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma said he told a federal grand jury in San Francisco last month that Kuchma approved a $100 million sale of a sophisticated radar system to Iraq nearly two years ago.
Mikola Melnichenko, who claims to have recorded many incriminating conversations in Kuchma's office, said in a telephone interview last week that he gave U.S. prosecutors a transcript of a conversation he taped in July 2000 in which Kuchma approved the secret shipment of the radar system in a Ukrainian trucking company's crates.
Sales of military goods to Iraq have been banned since 1990 by a U.N. embargo.
Melnichenko, who has been granted political asylum in the United States, and his lawyer, Scott Horton, said the Justice Department was actively looking into the allegations. Melnichenko said in the interview that he was scheduled to testify before the grand jury again this week.
Such a radar system could be used not only against U.S. and British warplanes patrolling a "no-fly" zone over Iraq, but also against an invading force should the United States decide to attack Iraq.
Kuchma has vigorously denied approving any weapons deals with Iraq. Iraq has denied receiving the radar system, known as Kolchuga.
The Justice Department may have no jurisdiction to pursue Melnichenko's accusations, unless prosecutors can show that Kuchma used U.S. banks to launder profits of crime. Horton said he does not know where the Justice Department inquiry is headed, or whom it is targeting. The Justice Department did not returns calls asking for comment.
"Justice officials told me repeatedly [that] whether it is something that could be prosecuted in the U.S. or not, the Justice Department takes an extremely keen interest in this," Horton said in a telephone interview from London.
Melnichenko has resisted a request by the Justice Department's organized crime task force to turn over all 1,000 hours of tape recordings he claims to have of purported Kuchma conversations. He said in the interview he refused because some tapes would reveal state secrets, not official corruption.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said last month that "to date, we have seen no credible evidence that the Kolchuga radar system was transferred to Iraq," but that the United States was investigating all possibilities. Another U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, voiced skepticism about the veracity of the transcript Melnichenko provided.
Kuchma has acknowledged that Melnichenko could have taped his conversations, possibly at the behest of foreign powers that he says want to topple his government. He insists, however, that the tapes were doctored to falsely implicate him in crimes.
Serhiy Makarenko, head of Ukraine's counterintelligence service, told the Ukrainian newspaper 2000 last month that Valeri Malev, who headed Ukraine's arms export agency, recently proposed that Ukraine sell the Kolchuga system to Iraq, but "was told the deal was impossible" because of the arms embargo.
The Kolchuga radar, named after a Russian suit of armor, is the pride of the Ukrainian arms industry. It was first manufactured in 1988, when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, and has been modernized.
The radar can track ground targets at a distance of 360 miles and air targets as far away as 480 miles, according to defense publications. Ukrainian arms officials say it is uniquely passive, meaning it gives off no signals that could warn its targets.
The Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based research group, published a transcript last month of a purported discussion between Kuchma and Malev, the arms export chief, about the Iraqi deal. The center said a former FBI expert employed by Bek Tek, a Clifton, Va.-based firm that performs audio- and videotape analysis, authenticated Melnichenko's recording of the discussion about the Iraqi arms deal.
According to the center's transcript, Malev told Kuchma that Iraq had approached Ukraine through "our Jordanian intermediary," asking to buy four Kolchuga radar stations for $100 million.
Malev suggested that the radar equipment be shipped to Iraq in a truck manufacturer's crates, and that people with forged passports be sent to install the system, according to the transcript.
"Okay. Go ahead," said the man identified as Kuchma, according to the transcript. He also said, "Just watch the Jordanian keeps his mouth shut."
Oleksandr Zhyr, who headed a Ukrainian parliamentary investigatory commission, said he told Kuchma on March 3 that the commission had evidence he had violated the arms embargo against Iraq. Malev, the arms export chief, died three days later when police said his car veered into oncoming traffic and hit a truck.
Senior Ukrainian officials have said there is no doubt that Malev's death was an accident. Zhyr, who was defeated in the March 31 parliamentary elections, said he found the timing of the accident suspicious and that it should be investigated. "Kuchma and his men are scared of the investigations and therefore they are removing all the key witnesses," he told the Center for Public Integrity.
Melnichenko has been at the center of the biggest political scandal in Ukraine since it broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991, involving the kidnapping and death of a journalist. It began in November 2000, when Kuchma's political opponents disclosed that Melnichenko had secretly taped Kuchma with a recorder hidden under the couch in the president's office. They released one tape in which Kuchma purportedly ordered the kidnapping of Ukrainian journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, whose beheaded body was found in the woods outside Kiev, the capital. Kuchma has denied any involvement in the journalist's death.
U.S. authorities granted Melnichenko political refugee status in April 2001, three months after Ukrainian authorities charged him with treason and slander. He tried unsuccessfully to register as a candidate for the Ukrainian parliament this spring.
Melnichenko waited a year after the controversy over the Gongadze tape died down before releasing the tape in which Kuchma purportedly approved the arms deal. He said in the interview that he feared further charges would hurt his country but not Kuchma. "I didn't want to sling more and more mud," he said.
Melnichenko said the Justice Department is not the only party interested in his tapes. For the past year, he said, emissaries from Ukraine have contacted him in the United States and tried to bribe him to destroy the recordings, finally offering him $15 million.
Melnichenko also asserted that the tapes show Kuchma is involved in massive graft and money laundering. He said he recorded conversations in which Kuchma ordered aides to skew elections, burn down a building, harass opponents with tax inspections and physically attack a lawmaker.
Kuchma and his supporters have rejected such allegations.
Melnichenko is now dealing with the same U.S attorney's office that obtained a 53-count indictment against Pavlo Lazarenko, Ukraine's prime minister under Kuchma from mid-1996 to mid-1997. Lazarenko is currently in jail in San Francisco, awaiting trial on federal charges that he used U.S. banks to launder $114 million in funds he allegedly stole while in office.
It is unclear how seriously the allegations against Kuchma have hurt Ukraine's relationship with the United States. In one recent overture, Kuchma invited FBI experts to Kiev to help investigate Gongadze's death. The agents returned home after just one week, saying Ukrainian law enforcement officials blocked their efforts.
Congress this year trimmed technical assistance to Ukraine by $16 million, citing questionable deaths of journalists and dissidents. Still, lawmakers approved $160 million in aid. Ukraine is the eighth-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid.
Staff writer Vernon Loeb in Washington contributed to this report.
By Sharon LaFraniere
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 11, 2002; Page A19
MOSCOW, May 10 -- A former bodyguard of Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma said he told a federal grand jury in San Francisco last month that Kuchma approved a $100 million sale of a sophisticated radar system to Iraq nearly two years ago.
Mikola Melnichenko, who claims to have recorded many incriminating conversations in Kuchma's office, said in a telephone interview last week that he gave U.S. prosecutors a transcript of a conversation he taped in July 2000 in which Kuchma approved the secret shipment of the radar system in a Ukrainian trucking company's crates.
Sales of military goods to Iraq have been banned since 1990 by a U.N. embargo.
Melnichenko, who has been granted political asylum in the United States, and his lawyer, Scott Horton, said the Justice Department was actively looking into the allegations. Melnichenko said in the interview that he was scheduled to testify before the grand jury again this week.
Such a radar system could be used not only against U.S. and British warplanes patrolling a "no-fly" zone over Iraq, but also against an invading force should the United States decide to attack Iraq.
Kuchma has vigorously denied approving any weapons deals with Iraq. Iraq has denied receiving the radar system, known as Kolchuga.
The Justice Department may have no jurisdiction to pursue Melnichenko's accusations, unless prosecutors can show that Kuchma used U.S. banks to launder profits of crime. Horton said he does not know where the Justice Department inquiry is headed, or whom it is targeting. The Justice Department did not returns calls asking for comment.
"Justice officials told me repeatedly [that] whether it is something that could be prosecuted in the U.S. or not, the Justice Department takes an extremely keen interest in this," Horton said in a telephone interview from London.
Melnichenko has resisted a request by the Justice Department's organized crime task force to turn over all 1,000 hours of tape recordings he claims to have of purported Kuchma conversations. He said in the interview he refused because some tapes would reveal state secrets, not official corruption.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said last month that "to date, we have seen no credible evidence that the Kolchuga radar system was transferred to Iraq," but that the United States was investigating all possibilities. Another U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, voiced skepticism about the veracity of the transcript Melnichenko provided.
Kuchma has acknowledged that Melnichenko could have taped his conversations, possibly at the behest of foreign powers that he says want to topple his government. He insists, however, that the tapes were doctored to falsely implicate him in crimes.
Serhiy Makarenko, head of Ukraine's counterintelligence service, told the Ukrainian newspaper 2000 last month that Valeri Malev, who headed Ukraine's arms export agency, recently proposed that Ukraine sell the Kolchuga system to Iraq, but "was told the deal was impossible" because of the arms embargo.
The Kolchuga radar, named after a Russian suit of armor, is the pride of the Ukrainian arms industry. It was first manufactured in 1988, when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, and has been modernized.
The radar can track ground targets at a distance of 360 miles and air targets as far away as 480 miles, according to defense publications. Ukrainian arms officials say it is uniquely passive, meaning it gives off no signals that could warn its targets.
The Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based research group, published a transcript last month of a purported discussion between Kuchma and Malev, the arms export chief, about the Iraqi deal. The center said a former FBI expert employed by Bek Tek, a Clifton, Va.-based firm that performs audio- and videotape analysis, authenticated Melnichenko's recording of the discussion about the Iraqi arms deal.
According to the center's transcript, Malev told Kuchma that Iraq had approached Ukraine through "our Jordanian intermediary," asking to buy four Kolchuga radar stations for $100 million.
Malev suggested that the radar equipment be shipped to Iraq in a truck manufacturer's crates, and that people with forged passports be sent to install the system, according to the transcript.
"Okay. Go ahead," said the man identified as Kuchma, according to the transcript. He also said, "Just watch the Jordanian keeps his mouth shut."
Oleksandr Zhyr, who headed a Ukrainian parliamentary investigatory commission, said he told Kuchma on March 3 that the commission had evidence he had violated the arms embargo against Iraq. Malev, the arms export chief, died three days later when police said his car veered into oncoming traffic and hit a truck.
Senior Ukrainian officials have said there is no doubt that Malev's death was an accident. Zhyr, who was defeated in the March 31 parliamentary elections, said he found the timing of the accident suspicious and that it should be investigated. "Kuchma and his men are scared of the investigations and therefore they are removing all the key witnesses," he told the Center for Public Integrity.
Melnichenko has been at the center of the biggest political scandal in Ukraine since it broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991, involving the kidnapping and death of a journalist. It began in November 2000, when Kuchma's political opponents disclosed that Melnichenko had secretly taped Kuchma with a recorder hidden under the couch in the president's office. They released one tape in which Kuchma purportedly ordered the kidnapping of Ukrainian journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, whose beheaded body was found in the woods outside Kiev, the capital. Kuchma has denied any involvement in the journalist's death.
U.S. authorities granted Melnichenko political refugee status in April 2001, three months after Ukrainian authorities charged him with treason and slander. He tried unsuccessfully to register as a candidate for the Ukrainian parliament this spring.
Melnichenko waited a year after the controversy over the Gongadze tape died down before releasing the tape in which Kuchma purportedly approved the arms deal. He said in the interview that he feared further charges would hurt his country but not Kuchma. "I didn't want to sling more and more mud," he said.
Melnichenko said the Justice Department is not the only party interested in his tapes. For the past year, he said, emissaries from Ukraine have contacted him in the United States and tried to bribe him to destroy the recordings, finally offering him $15 million.
Melnichenko also asserted that the tapes show Kuchma is involved in massive graft and money laundering. He said he recorded conversations in which Kuchma ordered aides to skew elections, burn down a building, harass opponents with tax inspections and physically attack a lawmaker.
Kuchma and his supporters have rejected such allegations.
Melnichenko is now dealing with the same U.S attorney's office that obtained a 53-count indictment against Pavlo Lazarenko, Ukraine's prime minister under Kuchma from mid-1996 to mid-1997. Lazarenko is currently in jail in San Francisco, awaiting trial on federal charges that he used U.S. banks to launder $114 million in funds he allegedly stole while in office.
It is unclear how seriously the allegations against Kuchma have hurt Ukraine's relationship with the United States. In one recent overture, Kuchma invited FBI experts to Kiev to help investigate Gongadze's death. The agents returned home after just one week, saying Ukrainian law enforcement officials blocked their efforts.
Congress this year trimmed technical assistance to Ukraine by $16 million, citing questionable deaths of journalists and dissidents. Still, lawmakers approved $160 million in aid. Ukraine is the eighth-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid.
Staff writer Vernon Loeb in Washington contributed to this report.
Відповіді
2002.05.11 | Ctrl-C
http://www.pravda.com.ua/?20511-1-new - переклад (-)
2002.05.12 | AST
Можна порівняти
Свіжа стаття з Н-Ю Таймз: Росія готується до відновлення ядерних випробувань.
Підозри американців грунтуються на власних розвідданих і обговорюється офіційними особами в Конгресі, на відміну від скандалу Кучма\Ірак.
При цьому, ніхто не боїться що така інфа може зашкодити чи зачіпити Путіна.
U.S. Says Russia Is Preparing Nuclear Tests
By THOM SHANKER
ASHINGTON, May 11 — Administration officials have briefed Congress on what they described as disturbing intelligence indicating that Russia is preparing to resume nuclear tests, even as President Bush is scheduled to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to discuss arms control later this month, government officials said.
Selected members of the House and Senate met in small, closed sessions and were told of a new analysis by the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee, a panel that collects the views of many federal agencies on nuclear issues.
Among the members of Congress who received the briefing, the reaction ranged from alarm to skepticism. Some debated whether the intelligence report was a tactic to help clear the way for the United States to resume nuclear testing. Others were so concerned that they drafted legislation this week that would call for access to Russian nuclear sites and allow work on a new generation of American nuclear warheads.
The assessment described technical activities on a Russian island above the Arctic Circle that is the equivalent of the American nuclear test range in Nevada, officials said. The pattern of work on the island, Novaya Zemlya, matches known Russian activities in preparation for past nuclear tests, officials said.
The briefings to Congress were not the first time the American intelligence agencies had warned of activities on the island, though, and some government analysts have raised questions over the months about whether Russia may already have detonated tiny nuclear devices.
Russian officials steadfastly maintain that their nuclear weapons program remains within the constraints of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The treaty was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, but has not been ratified by the Senate. President Bush has said it does not adequately protect the nation's security interests, although the Bush administration continues to honor the test moratorium.
Operations to gather intelligence on the Russian nuclear program are among the most sensitive missions undertaken by the United States, and disputes over exactly what is occurring on Novaya Zemlya have divided intelligence analysts and administration officials in past years.
Officials insisted that the Congressional briefings had nothing to do with pushing a hard-line agenda ahead of Mr. Bush's meeting with Mr. Putin this month. The timing of the briefings "was coincidental," one administration official said.
One member of Congress, who was present at the briefing and remained skeptical of the evidence of Russian testing, said, "The administration seems to want to resume nuclear testing and to develop new nuclear weapons."
The only public reference to the briefings came on the floor of the House on Thursday, when Representative Curt Weldon, Republican of Pennsylvania, made passing reference to the intelligence analysis. Mr. Weldon said the briefing he attended was at the "code word level" of classification, and he said he was so alarmed that he drafted an amendment to the 2003 defense authorization bill.
The version of his amendment that passed the House this week would allow the United States to conduct research and conceptual design work on a new class of nuclear warheads. Language was deleted that would allow the United States to resume testing if the government certified that another nation had resumed testing. But in setting up what Mr. Weldon called "an aggressive level of transparency," the amendment would establish a program for Russian scientists to visit the Nevada nuclear test site in exchange for visits by Americans to Novaya Zemlya.
"There may be something going on in Russia that we don't understand, that may trouble us — and they may feel the same about something we're doing on our side," Mr. Weldon said in a telephone interview after the vote. "It's best to counter that, and not to recreate feelings that existed in the cold war, but take this opportunity to engage."
Mr. Weldon, who described himself as "Russia's best friend but her toughest critic," said he remained deeply concerned that conservative elements in Russia's Defense Ministry, its foreign intelligence service and its atomic energy ministry "want to move us and Russia away from a close dialogue" and might be responsible for the worrisome actions at Novaya Zemlya.
Sean McCormack, spokesman for the National Security Council, said today that the White House would have no comment on intelligence matters. On the question of Russian nuclear testing, he said, "We are concerned that we may not be able to know if any entity were testing in a way designed to avoid detection, and we expect Russia to abide by the testing moratorium it has declared for itself."
The intelligence report on Novaya Zemlya was included in a broader briefing to Congress on cooperative programs between the United States and Russia to reduce threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, a project that includes tracking Moscow's compliance with a number of arms control agreements, including the test-ban treaty.
When internal administration debates over Russian nuclear testing surfaced previously, just more than a year ago, the director of nuclear weapons development and testing at the Russian atomic energy ministry denied any violation of the comprehensive test ban, a stance repeated by a variety of Russian officials in the intervening months.
In an interview in February 2001 with The New York Times, Dr. Nikolai P. Voloshin said that work at Novaya Zemlya was to ensure the reliability of aging warheads, not to develop new weapons. He noted that the test-ban treaty defined no specific "threshold" for a violation, but said simply that nuclear explosions should not occur. "It doesn't specify whether one neutron or two neutrons can be emitted," he said.
Advocates of the test-ban treaty pointed out that it had provisions under which the United States could seek to inspect the Russian test site, and they expressed concerns that the briefings for Congress were part of an administration campaign to resume nuclear tests in Nevada.
"The Bush administration appears to be slowly but steadily moving in the direction of removing the obstacles preventing a resumption of U.S. testing and developing a rationale for resuming testing," said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. "While it is clear that this administration has no interest in seeking ratification, it must be careful not to provoke other nuclear states and further alienate allies who support the test ban treaty."
The administration's recent assessment of the nation's strategic arsenal, called the Nuclear Posture Review, suggests it may be necessary to resume testing to make new nuclear weapons and to ensure the reliability of existing ones.
The Bush administration has no formal plans to resume nuclear testing, but the president has said he does not support the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, describing it as not verifiable and not enforceable.
Mr. McCormack, the National Security Council spokesman, today repeated administration policy that "the United States has no plans to resume its nuclear testing program." He emphasized that the administration would "continue to observe the nuclear testing moratorium consistent with our right to take measures to ensure stockpile safety and integrity in extraordinary circumstances."
Officials at the Departments of Defense, Energy and State, and at the National Security Council have discussed whether President Bush should renounce Mr. Clinton's signature on the test-ban treaty. Just this week, the Bush administration formally renounced American support for the treaty creating an International Criminal Court; that treaty likewise had been signed by Mr. Clinton but was not ratified by the Senate.
2002.05.12 | Shooter
Ти (часом) втомлюєш
AST писав(ла):>
> Свіжа стаття з Н-Ю Таймз: Росія готується до відновлення ядерних випробувань.
>
> Підозри американців грунтуються на власних розвідданих і обговорюється офіційними особами в Конгресі, на відміну від скандалу Кучма\Ірак.
> При цьому, ніхто не боїться що така інфа може зашкодити чи зачіпити Путіна.
Ну ніяк не можеш догнати, що Росія, Китай, Чехія - "устаканені" варіанти для гамерики (кожен по-своєму). А Україна все ще чіхає потилицю. Тому й "манера поведінки" щодо перерахованих може/має бути відмінною.