Vieques

WASHINGTON - The Navy intends to halt training on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques by May 2003, reversing its long-running insistence that no other locale was suitable for battle simulations, defense officials said last night. Navy Secretary Gordon England plans to set up a commission as early as today to search for alternatives. A defense official cautioned that the Navy would leave only if acceptable alternatives can be found. But the Navy believes it will find those alternatives, which could range from another location for live-fire training, or simulation.

For 62 years, the U.S. Navy's hulking presence kept Vieques, a Puerto Rican tropical idyll, frozen in a Cold War time warp. During those decades when the military used Vieques' beaches for bombing practice, this serenely beautiful, 21-mile-long island off Puerto Rico's east coast saw only a few thousand visitors a year, mostly harried urbanites seeking a respite from noisy, crowded San Juan. Paradoxically, the Navy preserved the beauty of Vieques for posterity. Now the Navy is gone, driven away by protests after a fighter jet missed its target and a stray bomb killed a local civilian in 1999.

In the NationUranium bullets fired at controversial facilityMIAMI -- U.S. Marines mistakenly fired uranium bullets at a Navy facility in Puerto Rico that has been the subject of protests over maneuvers that killed a civilian and wounded four other people, U.S. officials said yesterday.The Puerto Rican Independence Party, which has been leading protests against the U.S. Navy on the island of Vieques off Puerto Rico's east coast, alleged last week that the U.S. military had fired the prohibited rounds.

WASHINGTON - In his last hours in office, President Clinton ordered the Defense Department to examine a new study that shows a high incidence of heart problems among the residents of Vieques, Puerto Rico, where the Navy has held bombing exercises for 50 years. Gov. Sila M. Calderon of Puerto Rico asked the president last week to order an immediate halt to the bombing, based on the preliminary findings of the study, which blamed the noise from huge exercises for a high rate of symptoms of an unusual disorder known as vibroacoustic disease.

WASHINGTON -- On tiny Vieques Island off Puerto Rico, a brewing battle is pitting the mighty U.S. Navy against impoverished residents -- with reverberations that could affect the political futures of none other than Vice President Al Gore and Hillary Rodham Clinton.For 58 years, Vieques served as the Navy's exclusive East Coast firing range -- until it was shut down and occupied by protesters in April, after an errant bomb from a Marine Corps jet killed a civilian Puerto Rican guard and wounded four others.

WASHINGTON -- The Navy should vacate its World War II-era bombing range off Puerto Rico in five years and until then curtail its bombing and gunnery practice by up to 50 days a year, according to the recommendations of a presidential panel.But the findings of the four-member panel, expected to be released soon, are being rejected by Puerto Rican leaders, who say the report does not go far enough. They are bitterly opposed to any more bombing on tiny Vieques Island, where a security guard was killed in April by an errant 500-pound bomb from a Marine Corps fighter jet."

The Vieques demo was really about jump-starting the independence movement which no Puerto Ricans support. Didn't work. $200,000 or $10,000 for each month of loyal service is not bad severance, even in Columbia. Only London could elect Ken Livingstone. He is too kooky left for Beijing. All Norris has to do is reduce the shootings of Afro teens by other Afro teens and cops. He says he knows how.

ISABEL SEGUNDA, Puerto Rico -- Vieques is an island with a dual personality. It is a tourist destination and a target.Vacationers frolic on its stunning tropical beaches. The U.S. Navy makes large craters with explosive shells or sends in the Marines.Even before Hurricane Hugo hovered over Vieques for 12 devastating hours, some portions looked like a war zone.Many residents have feuded with the Navy for more than a decade. They complain that live fire, even if confined to remote sites, is deadly to the island's economic future.

WASHINGTON -- Citing "serious concerns" from Puerto Rico, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen has delayed his recommendation to President Clinton on the fate of a 58-year-old Navy firing range there, even though a presidential panel concluded yesterday that the range should continue operating for five more years.Cohen asserted that U.S. forces must be kept "well-trained and ready." But he said there should be more discussions with officials on Puerto Rico and Vieques Island, which the Navy and Marines have long used as a live-fire range.

WASHINGTON -- Eager to ease a political and national security headache, the Clinton administration has decided to mediate the fate of a Puerto Rican island that has served as a Navy bombing range for 58 years, administration sources said yesterday.Undersecretary of Defense Rudy F. de Leon has been selected to try to resolve the issue with Puerto Rican officials, who are demanding that the bombing stop and are pressuring Vice President Al Gore and Hillary Rodham Clinton, a likely New York Senate candidate, to side with them.