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Journalism of Courage
WASHINGTON, June 9: Senate majority leader Trent Lott, saying the Clinton Administration provided Congress with “wholly inadequate” information on technology transfers to China, called on it to provide more detailed intelligence documents.
“We continue to be very concerned about the national security damage that has been done or may have been done by the transfer of missile technology to China,” the Mississippi Republican told reporters yesterday.
He complained that, “even after Attorney General Janet Reno withdrew her objections, the CIA had provided the Senate intelligence committee with only three paragraphs or conclusions from three out of the four reports” requested.“We expect those four reports to be forthcoming. And I hope the Justice Department will provide them,” Lott said.
Both the Senate and House are investigating whether a report by Loral on the causes of the 1996 explosion helped the Chinese improve their military missile technology.
Last week, CIA director George Tenet atfirst refused to pass on to the Senate Intelligence Committee his agency’s assessment of the matter, citing Justice Department objections that it could hamper its own criminal investigation of the 1996 incident.
Reno later relented, and on Friday appeared before the panel to promise cooperation. The CIA delivered a one-page assessment to the panel later Friday.
According to those familiar with the document, it generally held that the missile crash and the information provided to the Chinese by Loral and another US aerospace firm, Hughes Space and Communications Co., did not raise concerns about the increase of nuclear proliferation or jeopardize national security.
A still-classified Pentagon damage assessment reportedly found otherwise.“Once again it looks like the administration is not being cooperative in providing information on this very sensitive and very serious matter of technology being transferred to China, because the information that we did get last Friday night was wholly inadequate,” Lottsaid.
Later CIA spokesman Bill Harlow said the agency had provided the information on Friday that the Senate requested from it.
The Senate panel and its counterpart in the House chaired by Rep. Christopher Cox, want to know why President Clinton approved a waiver in February to allow Loral to launch another satellite atop a Chinese rocket while the Justice Department was still investigating the crash of the earlier one. Congressional investigators also want to know if there is a link between the satellite waivers and Democratic campaign contributions from Loral chairman Bernard Schwartz and reported donations to the party from a Chinese military official. Asked yesterday if she would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the technology transfers, Reno said she did not have cause to do so now but that the matter was still under consideration. “At this point, we are considering all aspects of the matter, but I don’t have a basis. if I find specific and credible evidence that a covered person may havecommitted a crime, I will trigger the application,” Reno said on CNN’s Larry King Live.
Meanwhile, a space communications industry group launched its own counter-offensive, saying it was unlikely that national security interests were compromised when Loral Corp turned over information to China about the 1996 explosion of a Chinese missile carrying a Loral Communications satellite. “We urge restraint by Congress until the results of its own reviews are complete,” Don Fuqua, president of the Aerospace Industries Association, said at a news conference.
