Text COM:2034998 (116 lines)

From: Jayasacisuta (das) DDG (Denver, CO - USA)

Date: 21-Jan-99 23:50

To: Apocalypse 1999? (Are you ready?) [407]

Subject: pentagon ready?

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Pentagon: We'll Be Ready for Y2K

Reuters

12:00 p.m. 15.Jan.99.PST

The US military will be ready to fight any

Year 2000 computer problems that may

arise, but fears Russia is not as

well-prepared, a top Pentagon official

said on Thursday.

In an upbeat briefing about the

Pentagon's preparedness for any Y2K

computer glitches, Deputy Defense

Secretary John Hamre was also confident

that other crucial US sectors, such as

banking, telecommunications, and power

grids, would be ready.

Allaying fears of missiles being fired

without warning or planes crashing due to

computer glitches, Hamre said that 1,673

out of the military's 2,300 mission-critical systems had been fixed and all

of them would be ready by midnight on 31

December.

"The Department of Defense will be able

to protect the people of the United

States and its allies in 351 days and 12

hours. There is not a question about

that," said Hamre, pointing to a digital

clock counting down to 2000. "We will be

100 percent ready by the end of the

year."

The mission-critical systems range from

early-warning systems and nuclear

command and control to individual

weapons that are heavily reliant on

computers for direction.

"We don't know what problems might

occur, but we think they will be modest

because the bulk of the country seems to

be doing what we are doing -- really

getting on top of this problem," said

Hamre.

Hamre voiced some concern that Russia

was not as active in tackling the Y2K

problem as the United States, especially

for early-warning systems, adding that a

delegation was going to Russia next week

to discuss working together on the issue.

"My sense is that Russia is not as fully

aware of the extent that this is a

problem. They don't seem to have the

same level of urgency that we have over

it. But we are comfortable they will retain

positive control over their nuclear

inventory," said Hamre.

"We are not anxious there are going to be

accidental occurrences as a result of Y2K

for nuclear command and control

systems. But we want to have the least

amount of uncertainty," he said.

The early-warning systems rely heavily on

computers to mesh data from satellites,

radar, and other sensors and are used by

Russia and the United States to monitor

impending threats such as missile

launches or unidentified aircraft.

Hamre said the private sector in the

United States was well-prepared for next

year and he was impressed by work that

had been done in areas such as

telecommunications and energy.

"We have a lot of insight into what is

going on in the private sector, and we

are really very confident that we are not

going to have the wide-scale disruption

that some people had been forecasting,"

he said.

Lieutenant Colonel Warren Patterson,

assigned to the military's Y2K Task Force,

was involved in a series of tests over

three days last month to check Year

2000 compliance of an early-warning

detection system.

During that period, over 30 simulated

missile tests were conducted and the

systems involved coped with those

successfully from beginning to end, said

Patterson.

Hamre said Defense Secretary William

Cohen had motivated his staff to find a

solution to the Year 2000 computer

problem by describing it as a

"war-fighting" issue.

"Rarely [in war] do you know the time,

the place, and the date precisely when

the enemy will attack. But we do know in

this case, and it is at midnight on the

31st of December.

"[Cohen] said ... it is not just a computer

geek issue, and I am holding you

responsible for it," said Hamre.

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