WASHINGTON. Dec 11 : Worried US Central Intelligence Agency analysts foresee a Soviet Union shattered by shortages of food and niei. ns mi Diary awnewienra and without discipline and its once commanding leader reduced to a figurehead, reports

Those developments. CIA Director Robert Gates says, will mean a winter of social unrest unmatched since the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917. Its a prospect made ail the more unsettling by the 30.000 Soviet* nuclear

"The situation is dangerously unstable." Gates told the House Armed Services

economy Is in a free fall with no prospects for reversal in

For the leaders of the In

republics, st feast tn the short term, "we are deeply concerned that the enormous economic and social chai tenges aw overwhelm them." Gates aoM.

He added that discipline and cohesion in the formerly

powerful Red Krmf were disappearing. Shortages of food, fuel and housing for troops tJ^reHabthty of’the forces was "dubious." he said

At the same time. Robert Strauss, the US ambassador to that Urevolatile situation could give rise to a nationallot. dswt-agogic leader who would fan ethnic tenstona and Ignite civil

Strauss wua duetto tootM^ I Services Committee, which Chairman Les Aspin said to be

ginning yet another re examination of US defense spending In light of the changing Soviet threat

The whole Soviet Union is disappearing." Aspin said after a two-hour closed-door briefing by Oates that followed a public hearing. "We re back to the drawing board."

Aspin also criticised President Bush for his reluc tance to endorse a dlrs 1 bil lion package of US aid to the Soviet just before Congress adjourned for the year Bush's silence forced Aaptn end other IwvroImvw io ouaMi oci

their own a shrunken version

that provides dlrs 400 million to help dismantle Moscow's nuclear arsenal

The committee's senior Republican. Rep. William Dickinson of Alabama, said Gates told the panel 1n private that Soviet President Mikhail S Gorbachev "is losing out" as central control unravels

Two other sources who attended the briefing, speaking only on condition of anonymity, said Gates por frayed Gorbachev aa tn charge oniy of the country's foreign relations and said even, that power to eroding.

"He's not going to riae from the ashes this time." said one of the officials.

President Bush on Tuesday signed Into law legislation normalizing trade relatione with the Soviets. Congress ap proved the "most favoured nation' trade status for the Soviets Just before adjourning feat month.

two countries, which now to tab dlrs 4 billton s year. moat sf It US r»n exports and W ports of oil and precious met dis from the Soviets