- A House Intelligence Committee staff
investigation into an incident involving a Navy officer and Canadian pilot
has concluded both men suffered eye damage "that could be consistent
with laser burns" during a mission to photograph a Russian ship suspected
of spying, the panel's chairman said.
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- Rep. Porter J. Goss, Florida Republican,
said the probe had failed to link the laser-induced injuries directly to
the Russian merchant ship Kapitan Man, which was a target of a secret Canadian
helicopter photographic mission.
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- "The bottom line is that the eyes
of the Canadian helicopter pilot and the U.S. Navy liaison officer assigned
to the mission were apparently damaged, and the damage could be consistent
with laser burns," Mr. Goss said in a statement to The Washington
Times.
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- "That the cause was a laser from
a nearby Russian merchant ship has not been substantiated," he said.
"For the moment, we have to put this incident in the 'mystery' column."
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- Rep. Norm Dicks, Washington Democrat
and ranking member of the committee, said the panel received several briefings
on the incident and he agrees the source of the laser emanation is "basically
inconclusive." But Mr. Dicks, whose district includes the Navy's nuclear
submarine base at Bangor, Wash., said the Navy needs to step up its monitoring
of Russian merchant ships for suspected spying.
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- "Mostly, our concern is about whether
these ships have some kind of intelligence-gathering capability, and particularly
their proximity to a Trident submarine base," Mr. Dicks said. "We
have to keep our counterintelligence guard up; we have to assume they are
trying to gather intelligence."
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- Meanwhile, a Navy official said the service's
inspector general has not yet decided to launch another inquiry. "It's
in the preliminary stages," the official said.
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- At the time its report on the incident
was made public, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said there was "no
evidence" the Kapitan Man was involved in spying.
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- However, Pentagon officials said the
Kapitan Man and a sister ship, the Anatole Koleshnichenko, are suspected
of carrying out nuclear-submarine and other military surveillance missions
since the early 1990s.
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- Before 1991, Russian ships were barred
from entering harbors near the Bangor submarine base and used disguised
fishing vesels for intelligence gathering located off the coast.
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- Canadian military documents made public
last year also contradict the Pentagon and House panel.
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- Canadian Navy Rear Adm. R.D. Moore said
in one report that he believes the Russians fired a laser at the helicopter.
"I believe that the response to the close approach by the helo was
more likely to be indiscriminate use of a range finder than a provoked
or retaliatory reaction intended to injure," he said. Range-finders
use lasers to measure distances.
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- Another document said the reason a U.S.
boarding party did not find a laser on the Kapitan Man was that the ships'
crew "had almost 24 hours' notice of pending search and therefore,
evidence could have been removed."
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- Asked about the incident last year, Mr.
Dicks said he remained very suspicious about the Pentagon's probe and noted
that "something happened and it came from that ship," although
it would be difficult to prove. .
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