Pentagon urges Russia to come to nuclear monitoring center for Y2K

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Pentagon urges Russia to come to nuclear monitoring center for Y2K

WASHINGTON, July 22 (AFP) - The Pentagon is urging Russia to send officers to an early warning monitoring center in Colorado to help prevent nuclear misunderstandings that may arise from Y2K computer failures, defense officials said Thursday.

Russia backed out of plans for a joint center in March in anger over the NATO air campaign against Serbia, but the Pentagon wants to have it in operation by December with Russian participation, the officials said.

"We have an offer on the table to the Russians right now and we are expecting a reply sometime hopefully in the next couple of weeks," said Peter Verga, deputy undersecretary of defense.

"We'd like to get restarted in about August in order to get that in place by mid-December," he said.

Under the plan, US and Russian military officers working at computer consoles in the center in Colorado Springs would monitor real-time data derived from US early warning data on missile launches.

US officials are worried that misunderstanding may arise if Russia's computerized command and control systems are suddenly hit by glitches or failures on New Year's, when the year 2000 threatens to create havoc in some computer systems.

The Pentagon hopes to offset that danger by giving the Russians access to information from US early warning systems during the critical millennium bug dates.

Verga, however, minimized the risks involved if the Russians decide not to participate in the center.

"We've been assured by the Russians that their systems, just like our systems, are not totally dependent on computers, and therefore not subject to failure on Y2K (Year 2000)," Verga said at a Pentagon press conference. "It's more a matter of confidence."

"We have in place the hotlines which have been in place since the '60s that allow the exchange of information directly with Russian command authorities," he said.

US Defense Secretary William Cohen, meanwhile, said the Pentagon has fixed, tested and verified fixes on 92 percent all its "mission critical" computer systems for Y2K bugs, and expects to have them all completed by December.

"It is literally a race against time," he said.

All but two of 198 nuclear-related mission critical systems have been fixed, and work-arounds have been devised for the remaining ones, said Admiral Richard Mies, commander-in-chief of the US Strategic Command.

"I want to make it clear there is no risk of accidental launch," said Mies.

"Procedures for launching our nation's nuclear weapons involve multiple safeguards, such as code verifications and human interactions, to verify and authenticate an order from the president," he said.

"Computers by themselves cannot launch nuclear weapons," he said.

The Pentagon, which has 10,000 separate computer systems and 1.5 million computers, will have spent 3.7 billion dollars by March fixing the Y2K problem.

It is feared that computers programmed to read the calendar year as two digits will be stumped on January 1 when the year 2000 registers as "00."

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What can one say !!

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), July 22, 1999

Answers

Here is a Cohen quote from the previous Pentagon article posted today.

"Cohen said 94 percent of the system was Y2K ready and the rest would be by the end of the year."

In this article he states 92% y2k Ready.

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), July 22, 1999.


Yup. Well maybe Clinton can wrangle a few of them to at least show up for his big Year 2000 shindig! Got Vodka?

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), July 23, 1999.

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