*****************************************************************
01/25/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.20
*****************************************************************
RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE
*****************************************************************
Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
line and first line of body
NUCLEAR POLICY
1 Las Vegas SUN: Syria Denies Weapons Received Before War
2 Las Vegas SUN: Kay: Iraq Likely Had No WMD Before War
3 Las Vegas SUN: Blair Faces Major Test in Iraq Arms Probe
4 Guardian Unlimited: New WMD blow for Blair
5 US: NEWS.com.au: Kay 'destroys government's credibility'
6 BBC: US chief Iraq arms expert quits
7 BBC: New US expert takes up WMD hunt
8 BBC: Blair stands firm over WMD
9 Las Vegas SUN: Britain: Iraq Weapons Hunt Must Continue
10 FT: White House still insists arms may be found
11 Las Vegas SUN: New Inspector Seeks Answers on Iraq Arms
12 UK Independent: Saddam's WMD never existed, says chief American arms
13 Las Vegas SUN: Powell: Iraq May Not Have Possessed WMD
14 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: S Korea, US, Japan Still Hopeful Over Nuc
15 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Davos Participants Call NK Nuke Issue Wor
16 KoreaTimes: Seoul Says 6-Way Talk Should Include NK's Uranium Progra
17 US: Journal Standard: Citizens must demand more responsible energy s
18 [Fwd: [du-list] ANTI-WAR GROUP STAGE PROTEST AT ARMS DEPOT]
19 The Hindu: Musharraf, Cheney discuss Indo-Pak. talks
20 Guardian Unlimited: Pakistan attacks traffic in 'nuclear secrets'
21 The Hindu: Dubai bank accounts of Pak. nuke scientists traced
22 DW-WORLD.DE: U.S. Adopts Conciliatory Tone in Davos, Calls on EU for
23 HindustanTimes: Pak scientists reveal top army names in nuclear deal
24 BBC: US officials hold talks in Libya
25 SF Chronicle: Jailed nuclear experts suffer Pakistan's blame, famili
26 Daily Times: It ‘appears’ scientists sold secrets
27 Daily Times: Govt to make findings about N-scientists public
28 Daily Times: PPP blames Musharraf for nuke transfer
29 UK Independent: The 50 lies, exaggerations, distortions and half tru
30 Las Vegas SUN: Pakistan Discusses Covert Nuke Program
31 Las Vegas SUN: Pakistan Nuke Expert Confined to Capital
NUCLEAR REACTORS
32 US: Ocean County News: Group claims N-plant will seek license renewa
33 US: Knox News: TVA hazing costs some their jobs
34 US: Las Vegas SUN: Panel Notes Safety Lapses at Texas Plant
35 Xinhuanet: Northeast India proposes nuclear power plant
36 US: St. Petersburg Times: Progress Energy's chairman to retire
NUCLEAR SAFETY
37 [DU-WATCH] FW: Gulf War Syndrome action demanded
38 [DU-WATCH] Fwd: Depleted Uranium Weapons Negative Health
39 EU Report on Health Effects of Ionizing Radiation
40 US: [RADFOOD] Action Item & Statement on COOL!
41 US: Newton Kansan Online: Nuke tests affected county
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
42 US: Rocky Mountain News: 82 plaintiffs sue Union Carbide
43 US: San Luis Obispo Tribune: County pushes for safer storage
44 US: Casper Star-Tribune: Residents sue former uranium mine operators
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
45 Group: Bomb material vulnerable
46 Mercury News: 1-year extension granted to UC for Berkeley lab
47 AP Wire: SRS program to continue for a little longer despite loss of
48 Las Vegas SUN: Energy Dept. to Redo Los Alamos Analysis
OTHER NUCLEAR
49 [Fwd: [du-list] DU in the news - Jan 26th 04]
50 Google News Alert - nuclear
51 Google News Alert - nuclear
52 San Mateo County Times: Laser hammers open way for tougher craft
53 Japan Times: Rokkasho in dark, or wary, about ITER
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
FULL NEWS STORIES
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
1 Las Vegas SUN: Syria Denies Weapons Received Before War
Today: January 25, 2004 at 15:30:07 PST
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Syria on Sunday denied claims that it
received weapons of mass destruction from Iraq shortly before
the United States and its allies invaded.
An article in London's Sunday Telegraph quoted David Kay, the
outgoing leader of a U.S. weapons search team in Iraq, as saying
that part of Iraq's secret weapons program had been hidden in
Syria.
But in an interview aired later Sunday on National Public Radio,
Kay said it is difficult to determine whether shipments to Syria
included weapons, in part because Syria has refused to cooperate
in this part of the weapons investigation.
In brief comments to reporters, Syrian Information Minister
Ahmad Hassan called the Telegraph report "baseless and
misleading."
The Syrian government has repeatedly denied that Iraqi weapons
of mass destruction were sent to Syria to prevent their
discovery by U.N. inspectors or U.S. troops.
American forces have turned up no evidence of such weapons
despite months of searching. Kay said he now believes there is
nothing to find.
"I don't think they exist," Kay said in the radio interview.
"The fact that we found so far the weapons do not exist - we've
got to deal with that difference and understand why."
--
*****************************************************************
2 Las Vegas SUN: Kay: Iraq Likely Had No WMD Before War
Today: January 25, 2004 at 13:55:12 PST
By SCOTT LINDLAW ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) -
U.S. intelligence agencies need to explain why their research
indicated Iraq possessed banned weapons before the American-led
invasion, says the outgoing top U.S. inspector, who now believes
Saddam Hussein had no such arms.
"I don't think they exist," David Kay said Sunday. "The fact
that we found so far the weapons do not exist - we've got to
deal with that difference and understand why."
Kay's remarks on National Public Radio reignited criticism from
Democrats, who ignored his cautions that the failure to find
weapons of mass destruction was "not a political issue."
"It's an issue of the capabilities of one's intelligence service
to collect valid, truthful information," Kay said. Asked whether
President Bush owed the nation an explanation for the gap
between his warnings and Kay's findings, Kay said: "I actually
think the intelligence community owes the president, rather than
the president owing the American people."
The CIA would not comment Sunday on Kay's remarks, although one
intelligence official pointed out that Kay himself had predicted
last year that his search would turn up banned weapons.
Kay said his predictions were not "coming back to haunt me in
the sense that I am embarrassed. They are coming back to haunt
me in the sense of `Why could we all be so wrong?'"
The White House stuck by its assertions that illicit weapons
will be found in Iraq but had no additional response on Sunday
to Kay's remarks.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said Kay's comments reinforced his
belief that the Bush administration had exaggerated the threat
Iraq posed.
"It confirms what I have said for a long period of time, that we
were misled - misled not only in the intelligence, but misled in
the way that the president took us to war," Kerry, a White House
contender, said on "Fox News Sunday." "I think there's been an
enormous amount of exaggeration, stretching, deception."
Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, said he was surprised Kay "did not find some
semblance of WMD" in Iraq. Roberts said a report on Iraq
intelligence, to be delivered to his panel Wednesday, should
help clarify the CIA's prewar performance.
"It appears now that that intelligence - there's a lot of
questions about it," Roberts said on CNN's "Late Edition."
In October 2002, Bush said Iraq had "a massive stockpile of
biological weapons that has never been accounted for and is
capable of killing millions." In his television address two days
before launching the invasion, Bush said U.S. troops would enter
Iraq "to eliminate weapons of mass destruction."
Kay returned permanently from Iraq last month, having found no
biological, nuclear or chemical weapons nor missiles with longer
range than Iraq's troublesome president, Saddam Hussein, was
allowed under international restrictions.
But on Sunday, Kay reiterated his conclusion that Saddam had "a
large number of WMD program-related activities." And, he said,
Iraq's leaders had intended to continue those activities.
"There were scientists and engineers working on developing
weapons or weapons concepts that they had not moved into actual
production," Kay said. "But in some areas, for example producing
mustard gas, they knew all the answers, they had done it in the
past, and it was a relatively simple thing to go from where they
were to starting to produce it."
The Iraqis had not decided to begin producing such weapons at
the time of the invasion, he concluded.
Kay also said chaos in postwar Iraq made it impossible to know
with certainty whether Iraq had had banned weapons.
And, he said, there is ample evidence that Iraq was moving a
steady stream of goods shipments to Syria, but it is difficult
to determine whether the cargoes included weapons, in part
because Syria has refused to cooperate in this part of the
weapons investigation.
Administration officials have sent mixed signals in recent days
about the hunt in Iraq for illicit weapons.
While Bush's spokesmen have insisted weapons will yet be found,
Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Powell held
open the possibility that they will not.
Cheney warned in March 2003, three days before the invasion: "We
believe he (Saddam) has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear
weapons."
But in an interview Wednesday with NPR, he said of the weapons
search: "The jury is still out."
Kay's comments echoed those of dozens of Iraqi scientists who,
in recent interviews with The Associated Press, claimed they had
not seen or worked on weapons of mass destruction in years.
Only a handful of Iraqi scientists who worked in former
bioweapons and missile programs remained in custody by the time
Kay left Iraq in December. Some of the detained scientists have
been held since April and Kay's conclusions were likely to raise
their hopes for release.
Kay said he resigned Friday because the Pentagon began peeling
away his staff of weapons-searchers as the military struggled to
put down the Iraqi insurgency last fall.
"I didn't think I had the capability to adequately direct an
organization that was working both for a four-star general as
well as working for me," Kay said. He said he understood the
urgency of quelling the rebellion for Gen. John Abizaid, senior
military man in the campaign, but "it is one of those
bureaucratic things that never work out."
Kay hopes to draw on his experiences to write a book on weapons
intelligence.
---
Associated Press writers Katherine Pfleger in Washington and
Dafna Linzer in Davos, Switzerland, contributed to this report.
--
*****************************************************************
3 Las Vegas SUN: Blair Faces Major Test in Iraq Arms Probe
January 24, 2004
By BETH GARDINER ASSOCIATED PRESS
LONDON (AP) -
Prime Minister Tony Blair faces a crucial judgment next week in
a political and personal drama that goes to the heart of the
debate about whether he hyped the case for war in Iraq.
Lord Hutton, the appeals judge who headed an inquiry into the
apparent suicide of weapons adviser David Kelly, will report his
conclusions on Wednesday.
Kelly died within days of being publicly identified as the
source of a British Broadcasting Corp. report that accused
Blair's government of "sexing up" an intelligence dossier on
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
The report set off a furious battle between the broadcaster and
the government, with each seeing its credibility and integrity
under attack.
Hutton spent months hearing testimony and gathering thousands of
pages of documents that offered the nation an unprecedented peek
at the inner workings of government. A key issue is the way the
government publicly identified Kelly as the source, a process in
which Blair's role is disputed.
In an interview published Sunday, Blair said he believes
Hutton's report will show the prime minister acted honestly both
in the naming of Kelly and the use by the government of
intelligence in the run-up to the war in Iraq.
"The issue vis-a-vis my integrity is, did we receive the
intelligence and was it properly relayed to people? And
obviously I believe that we did," Blair was quoted as saying in
The Observer newspaper.
Opposition Conservative Party leader Michael Howard already has
suggested the prime minister lied in denying he authorized the
leak. If Hutton reaches the same conclusion, or if he says the
government deliberately falsified the case for war, it could
force Blair's resignation.
However, few expect that to happen. Hutton has a reputation as a
cautious judge and will likely view the limits of his inquiry
narrowly, focusing on what caused Kelly to kill himself, said
Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at Oxford University.
Nonetheless, the prime minister has a lot riding on the report.
He faced intense opposition to the war among Britons,
particularly members of his Labour Party, and has battled
charges that he overstated the threat posed by deposed Iraqi
leader Saddam Hussein.
Hutton heard testimony and viewed evidence about the way Blair's
packaged intelligence for public consumption.
Kelly's death became the emotional focus of an angry national
debate over Iraq, crystallizing issues of war and international
politics in the personal tragedy of a soft-spoken, highly
respected scientist.
He was found on July 18 slumped in the woods near his
Oxfordshire home with his left wrist slashed and a nearly empty
pack of painkillers nearby.
Months earlier, on May 29, BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan had
broadcast a radio report quoting an anonymous official as
accusing the government of hyping claims about Iraq in a dossier
it published in September 2002.
Gilligan quoted his source as saying the government insisted on
including a claim that Iraq could deploy some chemical and
biological weapons within 45 minutes, despite intelligence
experts' doubts.
As a fight raged between the BBC and the government, Kelly told
his Ministry of Defense bosses that he had spoken to Gilligan
but did not recognize his comments in the reporter's central
claims and believed he was not the main source.
The scientist quickly found himself in the spotlight, after the
ministry's press office told journalists it would confirm the
suspected source's name to reporters who guessed it. He
testified before two Parliamentary committees, and was dead days
later. His widow said he felt betrayed by the superiors who
outed him.
Bogdanor said that with Howard raising expectations that the
report will harshly criticize Blair, anything less could help
the prime minister.
"The best scenario (for Blair), which I think is quite possible,
is very mild criticism of the government," he said, noting that
many Britons mistakenly believe Hutton will rule on arguments
about Iraq. "There may be some confusion, the public may think,
'Well, this resolves the issue of whether the war is
justified.'"
He added that the BBC, which has admitted mistakes in its
reporting, could be the target of some of the judge's criticism.
The affair has sullied the reputation of the broadcaster, which
acknowledged "loose use of language" in Gilligan's piece but
defends its essence. BBC bosses also were criticized for backing
the journalist without scrutinizing his work.
Gilligan testified that he made several errors in his report,
including incorrectly attributing some phrases to his source and
failing to give Blair's office the chance to respond before the
piece aired. He incorrectly identified Kelly as an "intelligence
source" in one broadcast.
Blair said he is confident he'll make it through what is likely
to be a tense week, including an expected close vote Tuesday on
his plan to raise college tuition.
Asked directly if he would still be leading the country on
Friday, he told The Observer: "I have every intention of doing
that, yes."
His defense secretary, Geoff Hoon, may not be so lucky - many
see him as the most likely scapegoat if Hutton harshly
criticizes the government.
---
On the Net:
Hutton Inquiry,
--
*****************************************************************
4 Guardian Unlimited: New WMD blow for Blair
Survey chief resigns saying Iraq never had stockpiles
Duncan Campbell and Patrick Wintour
Saturday January 24, 2004
The Guardian
Tony Blair last night suffered a blow on the eve of the most
testing week of his premiership when the US official at the helm
of the hunt for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction asserted
Iraq did not have large stockpiles of chemical and biological
weapons.
Resigning from his post after nine fruitless months in charge of
the Iraq Survey Group he said he did not think there had been a
large-scale weapons programme inside Iraq since 1991.
David Kay, a hardline CIA of ficial close to the Republicans also
criticised President George Bush for failing to give him adequate
support.
His remarks will add to the pressure on Mr Blair as he battles to
win backbench support ahead of Tuesday's vote on top-up tuition
fees and tries to avert criticisms in the Hutton report into the
death of the government weapons scientist David Kelly.
Lord Hutton is due to rule on whether the government exaggerated
the September 2002 intelligence dossier on the threat of Saddam's
arsenal.
Opposition parties are demanding an independent inquiry into
whether there was a massive intelligence failure - an inquiry
that would probe much wider than the narrower terms of reference
handed to Lord Hutton.
Mr Blair has already shifted ground from saying he was absolutely
confident that Saddam's weapons arsenal would be located to
saying instead that evidence of weapons programmes would be
found.
More recently on the BBC Frost programme he said he did not know
if any weapons would be found.
Downing Street had already been discussing the possibility of a
confidence vote next week if Mr Blair failed to win Commons
backing for tuition top-up fees.
Backbench rebels claimed the government needed to win over as
many 30 rebels ahead of Tuesday's vote, findings confirmed by a
Guardian survey today.
The news from Washington over the resignation of Mr Kay will
reduce Mr Blair's authority ahead of Tuesday's vote and also
raise fundamental questions about his judgment that urgent
military action in Iraq was necessary.
Mr Kay said of Iraqi weapons "I don't think they existed.
"What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the
end of the Gulf War and I don't think there was a large-scale
production programme in the 90s."
His suggestion that Saddam had no illegal weapons means Saddam
was involved in a gigantic bluff to shore up his international
prestige
Mr Kay added that the hunt would become even more difficult once
the US has handed over power to Iraqis in June. His departure had
been anticipated, but will be seen as indication that the search
for WMD may turn out to be futile.
The US wants to hand back power to Iraqis through a carefully
crafted process of selecting appointees to a transitional
government, but vociferous opposition from Shia clerics, who want
direct elections, is forcing a rethink.
A leading member of the Iraqi governing council close to the Bush
administration said yesterday that elections were possible, and
urged Washington to change its mind.
"Elections are possible," Mr Chalabi told a thinktank conference
in Washington. "Seek to make them possible and they will be
possible."
His replacement, former UN weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, has
also spoken sceptically about prospects for locating the menace
that was used as the casus belli. I think the reason that they
haven't found them is they're probably not there," he said
recently.
Downing Street responded by calling for patience, saying: "There
is still more work to be done, and we await that."
But the Liberal Democrats seized on the resignation with the
party's foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell claiming
"David Kay's admission that he does not believe that Iraq
possessed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons casts
severe doubt on the government's case for war.
Donald Anderson, the Labour MP who chairs the Commons foreign
affairs committee, acknowledged that it now appeared "likely"
that Saddam did not have the weapons attributed to him.
Mr Anderson told Newsnight: "It looks increasingly forlorn that
there are any chances now of finding those stockpiles."
The Bush administration has tried to shift the emphasis from the
hunt for WMD on to efforts to improve security and pave the way
for a handover of power to Iraqis.
The White House said last night it was hoping to learn soon
whether the UN would agree to send a team back to Iraq to examine
how best to elect a new Iraqi government.
Two UN security experts arrived in Baghdad last night to explore
whether security is good enough to allow a full UN team back in.
The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has said the UN should play
a part but not at the expense of the safety of its staff.
The US says security is improving, but incidents continue to kill
and maim, the latest bombing on Thursday killing two men at an
Iraqi Communist Party office.
Two US pilots meanwhile died last night when their helicopter
came down in northern Iraq.
It was unclear what caused the crash.
· The US military indicated yesterday that they may fill the
"spider hole where Saddam Hussein was eventually captured so that
it does not turn into an attraction for tourists.
A spokeswoman for the 4th Infantry Division, said yesterday: "To
get rid of the hole would reduce the amount of traffic to the
area, which only complicates our military mission."
Guardian Newspapers Limited
*****************************************************************
5 NEWS.com.au: Kay 'destroys government's credibility'
January 25, 2004
THE federal government's case for war against Iraq had been
destroyed by chief US weapons inspector David Kay, Labor said
today.
Foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd said Dr Kay's reasons for
quitting the post destroyed Prime Minister John Howard and
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer's credibility.
"David Kay's statement is political dynamite," Mr Rudd said.
A spokesperson for Mr Howard said the prime minister had no
immediate comment on Dr Kay's resignation.
Dr Kay, who led the US survey group's search for chemical and
biological weapons in Iraq after the war, resigned saying he did
not believe Iraq had stockpiles of the weapons.
Before the war the federal government maintained that Iraq had
weapons stockpiles and their elimination was the reason for
Australia joining the invasion force.
As recently as last December, Mr Downer said the interim Kay
report showed Saddam Hussein was still working on chemical and
biological weapons programs and maintaining his nuclear
aspirations.
"Now Dr Kay has torpedoed Mr Downer's credibility yet again," Mr
Rudd said.
"Dr Kay's statement has established once and for all that the
Australian people were taken to war with Iraq on the basis of a
lie.
"The whole affair demonstrates that at the beginning of a
federal election year, when it comes to national security Honest
John is fundamentally loose with the truth."
Agence France-Presse
About NEWS.com.au
*****************************************************************
6 BBC: US chief Iraq arms expert quits
Last Updated: Saturday, 24 January, 2004
[David Kay]
Mr Kay cast doubt on Iraq's weapons programmes
The head of the team searching for weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq, David Kay, has resigned.
Mr Kay said he did not believe Iraq possessed large stockpiles of
chemical or biological weapons.
He is being replaced by a former deputy head of the United
Nations weapons inspections team, Charles Duelfer.
Mr Duelfer said earlier this month he believed the chances of
finding chemical or biological weapons in Iraq were now "close to
nil".
Mr Kay gave no reason for leaving, but the BBC's Jon Leyne in
Washington says sources there speak of a mixture of personal
reasons and his disillusionment with the weapons search.
His resignation had been expected for a few weeks.
'No stockpiles'
The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) team leader was appointed by the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) last June to head the post-war
search for chemical, nuclear and biological weapons in Iraq.
[US troops examine a suspected mobile biological weapons facility
in Iraq (archive)]
No WMDs have been found in Iraq
The issue of banned weapons was the central element of the US
case for invading the country.
In an interview with Reuters news agency after his resignation
was announced, Mr Kay said he did not believe there had been
large-scale production of chemical or biological weapons in Iraq
since the end of the first Gulf War in 1991.
"I don't think they existed," Mr Kay said.
"What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the
end of the last Gulf War and I don't think there was a
large-scale production programme in the 90s."
"I think we have found probably 85% of what we're going to find."
Our correspondent says these are powerful remarks from someone
who once strongly believed Iraq's weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) represented a major threat.
Democrat criticism
In his recent State of the Union address, US President George W
Bush quoted the conclusion of Mr Kay's interim report, which said
only that WMD-related programme activities had been found in
Iraq.
The Bush administration has not officially reacted to Mr Kay's
latest remarks but correspondents say this is a serious
embarrassment for the White House. On Thursday, Vice President
Dick Cheney said he still had not given up hope of finding WMDs
in Iraq.
[Charles Duelfer ]
Mr Duelfer is widely respected in the arms control field
Leading Democrats have seized on Mr Kay's remarks.
"It increasingly appears that our intelligence was wrong about
Iraq's weapons, and the administration compounded that mistake by
exaggerating the nuclear threat and Iraq's ties to al-Qaeda,"
said Senator John Rockefeller, the senior Democrat on the Senate
Intelligence Committee.
"As a result, the United States is paying a very heavy price."
Jane Harman, of the House of Representatives intelligence
committee, said Mr Kay's comments pointed to a massive
intelligence failure and could not be ignored.
On Friday, the new ISG group head, Mr Duelfer, distanced himself
from his comments on US television earlier this month in which he
expressed doubts that banned weapons would ever be found.
"I have now been given the responsibility of being in charge of
the investigation and I don't know what the outcome will be. I
don't want to pre-judge that," he said.
Mr Duelfer, 51, served as deputy executive chairman of the UN
Special Commission on Iraq from 1993 to 2000.
*****************************************************************
7 BBC: New US expert takes up WMD hunt
Last Updated: Saturday, 24 January, 2004
[Charles Duelfer ]
Mr Duelfer was involved in checking Iraq's disarmament in the
1990s
The new head of the US team searching for banned weapons in Iraq
says he has been instructed simply to find "the truth, wherever
that lay".
Charles Duelfer said recently he did not believe Iraq had weapons
of mass destruction, but he insists he will approach his new job
with an open mind.
Senior officials in the US and UK say weapons programmes - the
key reason for invading Iraq - may still be found.
David Kay, who quit as head of the US search, said he thinks
there are none.
Mr Kay's resignation from the Iraq Survey Group had been
expected, but his strong comments had not.
I don't know what the outco will be Charles Duelfer Profile:
Charles Duelfer
Will WMD be found?
In an interview with Reuters news agency, Mr Kay said he did not
believe there had been large-scale production of chemical or
biological weapons in Iraq since the end of the first Gulf War in
1991.
"I don't think they existed," Mr Kay said.
"What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the
end of the last Gulf War and I don't think there was a
large-scale production programme in the 90s."
New responsibility
Mr Duelfer, a 51 year-old former UN weapons inspector, distanced
himself from comments earlier this month that he did not believe
banned weapons would ever be found. He said he had held that view
as an outsider.
"I have now been given the responsibility of being in charge of
the investigation and I don't know what the outcome will be.
[US troops examine a suspected mobile biological weapons facility
in Iraq (archive)]
No WMDs have been found in Iraq
"I don't want to pre-judge that," he said, adding that Central
Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet told him to find only
one thing: "That is the truth, wherever that lay".
Both Washington and London have modified their pre-war stance to
say the search is for evidence of weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) programmes - not necessarily the arms themselves.
In his State of the Union address, US President George W Bush
reiterated his view that the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein had
been necessary or "the dictator's weapons of mass destruction
programmes would continue to this day".
White House spokesman Scott McClellan stuck to that view: "We
remain confident that the Iraq Survey Group will uncover the
truth about Saddam Hussein's regime, the regime's weapons of
destruction programmes."
A spokesman for UK Prime Minister Tony Blair echoed him, saying:
"It is important people are patient and we let the Iraq Survey
Group do its work.
"There is still more work to be done and we await the findings of
that. But our position is unchanged."
'Nowhere to hide'
A former UN weapons inspector who opposed the war, Scott Ritter,
told the BBC that while Iraq was a large country, there were only
limited places to look for weapons factories.
Mr Kay led the Iraq Survey Group from June 2003
"Weapons of mass destruction are not produced in the deserts of
Iraq or in the mountains of Iraq. They are produced in modern
industrial facilities," he said.
"They have been forensically examined and no evidence of weapons
of mass destruction manufacture has been discovered. You cannot
hide a weapon unless you've produced it first."
Mr Kay's comments are being used by opponents of Mr Bush, who see
the war in Iraq as one area where he may face difficulties in
November's presidential election.
"It increasingly appears that our intelligence was wrong about
Iraq's weapons, and the administration compounded that mistake by
exaggerating the nuclear threat and Iraq's ties to al-Qaeda,"
said John Rockefeller, the senior Democrat on the Senate
Intelligence Committee.
"As a result, the United States is paying a very heavy price."
*****************************************************************
8 BBC: Blair stands firm over WMD
Last Updated: Sunday, 25 January, 2004
Mr Blair: I believed the intelligence we had at the time
Tony Blair has said he "has absolutely no doubt" the intelligence
about weapons of mass destruction he received in the run-up to
the Iraq war was genuine.
And Downing Street says he is standing by his comments to the
Observer newspaper, made before the head of the Iraq Survey Group
resigned voicing scepticism about WMD.
The prime minister would not say whether he thought actual
weapons will be found.
Mr Blair faces a testing week with the Hutton report and the
top-up fees vote.
Ex-junior defence minister Lewis Moonie said it now looked likely
the intelligence was "deficient".
Sooner or later we may we have to say 'yep, the intelligence was
faulty' Lewis Moonie MPs consider Blair's tough week
In the interview with the Observer, Mr Blair said he still
intended to be prime minister next Friday and his job was always
"at risk".
He would not state whether he thought actual weapons would be
found, saying it was a matter for the Iraqi Survey Group.
However he insisted: "I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that
the intelligence was genuine.
"It is absurd to say in respect of any intelligence that it is
infallible, but if you ask me what I believe, I believe the
intelligence was correct, and I think in the end we will have an
explanation."
On the day of the interview, US WMD search official David Kay
resigned saying he did not believe Iraq possessed large
stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons.
And at the weekend US Secretary of State Colin Powell conceded
Iraq may not have possessed any WMD stocks before the war last
year.
On Sunday a Number 10 spokesman said the prime minister's views
had not changed.
Paper trail
Meanwhile Mr Moonie, a junior defence minister during the Iraq
War who lost his post in June, said it was "increasingly looking
likely" the pre-war intelligence was deficient.
He told Scottish Television: "Sooner or later we may well have to
say 'yep, the intelligence was faulty and the decisions we took
were based on the best evidence available, and the best evidence
available wasn't good enough'."
[UK troops in Iraq]
The decision to go to war is under scrutiny from all sides
But Dr Moonie insisted Mr Blair had "acted in good faith" when he
argued the case for war.
Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett said the evidence may be a
"paper trail" of documents about weapons programmes rather than
physical proof.
She told BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend "every intelligence
service in the world" believed Saddam Hussein had access to WMD
and was prepared to use them.
Warning letters
But Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said Mr Blair's
judgement on WMD was in question.
He told BBC One's Breakfast with Frost programme: "The more that
we see the absence of weapons of mass destruction, the more we
see both the prime minister and the President of the United
States qualify what it is that the Iraq Survey Group may or may
not uncover."
Meanwhile the Sunday Telegraph said Mr Blair would escape
personal criticism from Lord Hutton over events which led to the
death of arms expert Dr David Kelly.
Downing Street has refused to comment on the paper's suggestion
the PM's aides have indicated he has not received a letter from
Lord Hutton warning him he will be criticised when the report is
released on Wednesday.
Conservative leader Michael Howard has written to Lord Hutton to
ask for a list of unpublished submissions to his inquiry ahead of
Wednesday's report.
The government, BBC, Andrew Gilligan and the Kelly family all
made written submissions after the hearings ended.
Dr Kelly apparently committed suicide after being named as the
suspected source for a BBC story on claims Downing Street "sexed
up" the government's Iraq weapons dossier.
*****************************************************************
9 Las Vegas SUN: Britain: Iraq Weapons Hunt Must Continue
January 24, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LONDON (AP) -
The British government said the search for Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction must continue, despite the resignation of the
head of the U.S.-led inspection team in the country.
David Kay's departure from the Iraq Survey Group emboldened
critics of the war, who called Saturday for British Prime
Minister Tony Blair to admit he had been wrong about the threat
posed by Saddam Hussein.
"It is becoming really rather undignified for the prime minister
to continue to insist that he was right all along when everybody
can now see he was wrong," said Robin Cook, a former Foreign
Secretary who resigned from Blair's Cabinet in March to protest
the war in Iraq.
Michael Ancram, foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition
Conservative Party, told British Broadcasting Corp. radio that
Kay's resignation "raises very serious questions about the prime
minister and indeed why he told us what he did last year, both
before and after the war about weapons of mass destruction."
The threat posed by Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear
weapons was Blair's main argument for joining the U.S.-led war
on Iraq.
Failure to find any such weapons since the fall of Saddam in
April has given fuel to Blair's political opponents and damaged
his standing.
Blair's office said the search for weapons would go on.
"It is important people are patient and let the Iraq Survey
Group do its work," a spokesman said on customary condition of
anonymity. "There is still more work to be done, and we await
that. Our position is unchanged."
Kay, who was appointed by the CIA last June, left Iraq for the
United States before Christmas and never returned.
Former U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer has been named to
take over the 1,400-strong weapons inspection team in Iraq.
--
*****************************************************************
10 FT: White House still insists arms may be found
By Edward Alden, Salamander Davoudi and Mark Huband
Published: January 24 2004 4:00 | Last Updated: January 24
2004 4:00
The decision by David Kay to step down as head ofthe Iraqi
weapons hunt - and his strong public statement that he had failed
to find any evidence of renewed weapons programs - will make it
far more difficult for the White House to maintain its claim that
such weapons might still be found.
But that has not stopped it from trying.
Despite yesterday's anticipated announcement that Mr Kay would
leave before submitting his final report, the US administration
is aggressively reviving its claims that Saddam Hussein, Iraq's
deposed leader, was cultivating weapons that posed an imminent
threat to the US.
President George W. Bush, in his state of the union address on
Tuesday, claimed that Mr Kay's cautiously worded interim report
last year had "identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-
related programme activities and significant amounts of equipment
that Iraq concealed from the United Nations".
That was followed by Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in an
interview with National Public Radio on Thursday: "I believe they
had programmes designed to produce weapons of mass destruction.
We still don't know the whole extent of what they did have."
The decision by Mr Kay to step down may revive the simmering
controversy over the US failure to find the Iraqi weapons that Mr
Bush had used to justify the attack on Iraq. In the UK, the
Hutton inquiry into the suicide of David Kelly, a senior weapons
expert who had challenged the Blair government's assessment of
the Iraqi threat, is set to release its report on Wednesday.
The political strategy pursued by the White House appears aimed
at maintaining for as long as possible public confusion about
just what has been found in Iraq.
"The administration still thinks they can talk over the heads of
the mainstream media and continue the myth that these weapons
programmes existed and we still might find significant
stockpiles," said Joseph Cirincione, who headed a Carnegie
Endowment study earlier this month that said the administration
had "systematically misrepresented" the threat from Iraq.
Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy specialist at the Brookings
Institution, said: "If I were working for them, I'd say 'Stop it
already. No one believes what you're saying any more'."
Mr Kay, who was appointed in June 2003 to head the search, told
Reuters yesterday that he did not think the US would make any
significant new discoveries. "In terms of understanding that
programme, we're well on our way, almost at the end."
He said that Iraqi stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons
were destroyed after the 1991 Gulf war and not rebuilt. Regarding
the country's nuclear programme, he said: "There had been some
restart of activities, but they were rudimentary."
While Mr Kay's departure was not unexpected, his scepticism over
continuing the search drew a sharp response from UK and US
intelligence officials.
"The work of the Iraq Survey Group goes on," a senior London
official said yesterday. "What is unsure is whether there is
agreement within the ISG over Kay's statements. But what is
certain is that there is still a huge amount of work to do in
Iraq."
A senior US official said that within the Central Intelligence
Agency there was still the view that "the work [in Iraq] goes on.
But as the election draws nearer this will probably become as
political an issue for President Bush as it now is for Tony
Blair."
The appointment of Charles Duelfer as Mr Kay's replacement is
unlikely to bolster the administration's case. He is among the
most experienced and respected US weapons inspectors, having
served from 1993 to 2000 as deputy executive chairman of the
United Nations commission overseeing the dismantling of Iraqi
mass destruction weapons.
But Mr Duelfer has also questioned the administration's claims on
Iraq, saying that he does not believe weapons will be found and
that the US is damaging its credibility by repeating false
claims.
He said in a statement released by the CIA yesterday announcing
his appointment that he was "absolutely committed to following
the evidence wherever it takes us".
Administration critics said they were baffled by the appointment.
"Charles Duelfer has said as clearly as anyone could say that
these weapons do not exist and yet he's being asked to search for
them," said Mr Cirincione. "I don't know what this administration
is thinking." Additional reporting by Mark Huband and Salamander
Davoudi
© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2004. "FT" and
"Financial Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times. Privacy
*****************************************************************
11 Las Vegas SUN: New Inspector Seeks Answers on Iraq Arms
January 24, 2004
By KATHERINE PFLEGER ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) -
The new inspector leading the search for Iraqi weapons says his
job is to seek answers to questions that have dominated much of
his career.
"My goal is to find out what happened on the ground. What was
the status of the Iraqi weapons program? What was their game
plan? What were the goals of the regime? To find out what is the
ground truth," said Charles Duelfer, named Friday to replace
David Kay as head of the U.S. weapons inspection team in Iraq.
Duelfer, the No. 2 U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq for much of
the 1990s, will lead roughly 1,400 scientists and other experts
of the Iraq Survey Group combing through documents, searching
facilities and interviewing Iraqis to determine the capabilities
of the fallen government.
Kay spent nearly eight months searching for, but not finding,
Saddam Hussein's purported weapons of mass destruction. Kay came
home to the United States for the holidays and did not return to
Iraq. He could not be reached for comment Friday.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Iraqi Foreign
Minister Hoshyar Zebari, said of Kay's departure, "That's his
personal decision."
"There will be a verdict on this weapons of mass destruction,
and for many Iraqis it's not a major issue," Zebari said. Saddam
"had those weapons. He developed them, used them with impunity
and he got away with it. He admitted having them and gave
information. Where they have gone, where they have disappeared,
we don't know."
Vice President Dick Cheney, in an interview Wednesday with
National Public Radio, said the administration still believes
weapons of mass destruction will be found.
Duelfer, 51, said he sees the job as an opportunity to pursue
questions unanswered during his seven years tracking Saddam's
weapons program as the top American on the U.N. team enforcing
the 1991 cease-fire agreement.
Before last year's invasion, Duelfer took a hard line,
consistently arguing that the Iraqi government posed a
significant threat due to Saddam's dedication to the pursuit of
weapons of mass destruction.
"I can only underline the view that, all other things being
equal, the current leadership in Baghdad will eventually achieve
a nuclear weapon, in addition to their current inventories of
other weapons of mass destruction," Duelfer told the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee in July 2002.
Since Saddam's fall last spring, however, Duelfer has grown more
skeptical that weapons will be found. In a column published by
The Washington Post in October, he said Saddam had long
differentiated between actually retaining weapons and
maintaining a capability to produce them.
The absence of weapons stocks "does not mean Saddam did not pose
a WMD threat," Duelfer wrote.
"But clearly this is not the immediate threat many assumed
before the war," he said. "The WMD threat appears to have been
longer term. Assuming this finding does not change, it will be
very important for the Iraq Survey Group to establish when all
agents and weapons were eliminated."
In a conference call on Friday, Duelfer said his earlier
comments were those of an outsider, and his job now is to be an
investigator.
David Albright, a former weapons inspector, said Duelfer had
gained respect for his work at the U.N. Special Commission on
Iraq. He said there was a perception that Kay was more of an
ideologue, convinced the weapons existed.
"Having Duelfer go in gives me more confidence that they can
wrap this up, and we can have some closure. Duelfer has much
more experience as an inspector," Albright said.
--
*****************************************************************
12 UK Independent: Saddam's WMD never existed, says chief American arms inspector
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
24 January 2004
David Kay, who stood down yesterday as head of the Bush
administration's hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,
said that he did not believe that any stockpiles of such weapons
ever existed.
Mr Kay, a former UN inspector, said that most of what was going
to be found in the hunt for Saddam Hussein's WMD had already been
uncovered. The returning of sovereignty to the Iraqis would make
the search more difficult, he added. "I don't think they
existed," Mr Kay said, referring to Saddam's alleged stockpiles
of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. "What everyone was
talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the [1991]
Gulf War and I don't think there was a large-scale production
programme in the Nineties."
Mr Kay's comments will be an embarrassment for the Bush
administration. Earlier this week the Vice-President, Dick
Cheney, one of Washington's most outspoken hawks who led the
rallying cry for war insisting that Saddam possessed WMD, said
the outcome of the search was not clear. "I think the jury is
still out," he said. "It's going to take ... time to look in all
of the cubby holes and ammo dumps in Iraq."
Despite having the resources of more than 1,000 personnel
dedicated to the hunt for such weapons, an interim report issued
by Mr Kay in October conceded that no weapons had been found,
even though there was evidence Iraq had retained the "template"
of a weapons programme.
The Bush administration appears determined to continue its public
stance that such weapons could be discovered.
Donald Anderson, the Labour chairman of the Foreign Affairs
Select Committee, said that Mr Kay's comments posed serious
problems for British and American intelligence agencies. "My
understanding is that the President and the Prime Minister were
acting on intelligence then available [at the time of deciding to
go to war]. So this raises very important questions about the
quality of that intelligence," he told BBC's Newsnight.
A Downing Street spokesman said: "It is important that people are
patient and we let the Iraq Survey Group do its work. Their work
is continuing and we should await the outcome of that. Our
position is unchanged."
Today the former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said that Mr Blair
must now admit that the Iraq war was a mistake.
Mr Cook said he believed Mr Blair led Britain into the conflict
in order to demonstrate to US President George Bush that he was a
reliable ally and had been driven by "missionary zeal" and
"evangelical certainty".
Mr Cook said on BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It is becoming
really rather undignified for the Prime Minister to continue to
insist that he was right all along when everybody can now see he
was wrong, when even the head of the Iraq Survey Group has said
he was wrong.
"I think it is very important that Tony Blair does concede that
there were mistakes made, maybe in all good faith, probably he
believed them genuinely, but there were mistakes. Because if we
don't face up to the fact that we got it wrong, then we are not
going to learn the lessons.
"We have got to drop this very dangerous doctrine under which we
went to war of the pre-emptive strike. If there was no threat
from Iraq we obviously had no right to carry out a pre-emptive
strike to remove that threat. And we better drop that doctrine
before somebody else in the world uses it in their own back
yard."
bUK Independent Ltd.
*****************************************************************
13 Las Vegas SUN: Powell: Iraq May Not Have Possessed WMD
January 24, 2004
By GEORGE GEDDA ASSOCIATED PRESS
TBLISI, Georgia (AP) -
Secretary of State Colin Powell held out the possibility
Saturday that prewar Iraq may not have possessed weapons of mass
destruction.
Powell was asked about comments last week by David Kay, the
outgoing leader of a U.S. weapons search team in Iraq, that he
did not believe Iraq had large quantities of chemical or
biological weapons.
"The answer to that question is, we don't know yet," Powell told
reporters as he traveled to this former Soviet republic to
attend the inauguration Sunday of President-elect Mikhail
Saakashvili.
Powell acknowledged that the United States thought deposed
leader Saddam Hussein had banned weapons but added, "We had
questions that needed to be answered.
"What was it?" he asked. "One hundred tons, 500 tons or zero
tons? Was it so many liters of anthrax, 10 times that amount or
nothing?"
A senior Bush administration official said Saturday from Davos,
Switzerland, where Vice President Dick Cheney was addressing
political and business leaders, that only time will tell about
the accuracy of prewar U.S. intelligence on Iraq's weapons
programs.
"We won't know until we've gotten through the process of
interviewing all the people who were involved in those programs
and an opportunity to inspect all the sites - until we've
completed the efforts that Kay started and that somebody else
now will have to finish," said the official, who spoke on
condition of anonymity.
The Sunday Telegraph in London reported that Kay said elements
of Saddam's weapons program were sent to Syria.
"We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons but we
know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials
that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including
some components of Saddam's WMD (weapons of mass destruction)
program," the paper quoted Kay as saying. "Precisely what went
to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that
needs to be resolved."
Kay told reporters in Washington in October that "senior Iraqi
officials, both military and scientific," had moved to Jordan
and Syria, "both pre-conflict and some during the conflict, and
some immediately after the conflict." Other U.S. officials,
including the head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency,
also have suggested Iraqis moved evidence of weapons of mass
destruction to Syria and perhaps other countries.
Almost a year has passed since Powell's speech before the U.N.
Security Council in which he accused Iraq of violating a U.N.
weapons ban imposed after Iraq invade Kuwait more than a decade
ago.
Since then, the administration has been less categorical on the
issue, contending that Saddam was actively pursuing banned
weapons. The administration generally has avoided the issue of
actual possession despite having spent at least $900 million in
the weapons search.
President Bush, in his State of the Union address last week,
cited an interim report by Kay in October in which the inspector
claimed to have found dozens of weapons-related programs and
equipment in Iraq.
"Had we failed to act, the dictator's weapons of mass
destruction programs would continue to this day," the president
said.
On Saturday, Bush's spokesman said the administration stood by
its assertions that Iraq had banned weapons at the time of the
U.S.-led war. Scott McClellan said it was only a matter of time
before inspectors uncover their location.
"The Iraq Survey Group's work is ongoing, and it is important
that they complete their work," McClellan said. "The truth will
come out, but we already know that Saddam Hussein's regime was
given one final opportunity to comply or face serious
consequences, and he chose to continue to be in clear violation
of his international obligations."
In an interview published Sunday, but conducted before the
announcement late Friday that Kay was stepping down, British
Prime Minister Tony Blair said he still believed the
intelligence received by his government before the war was
correct.
"It is absurd to say in respect of any intelligence that it is
infallible, but if you ask me what I believe, I believe the
intelligence was correct, and I think in the end we will have an
explanation," he was quoted as saying in The Observer newspaper.
Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, whose signature
campaign issue has been his opposition to the Iraq war, said
that Kay's comments further undermine Bush's claims that Iraq
under Saddam posed a threat to the United States.
Last week, Vice President Cheney told National Public Radio that
the administration had not given up on the search for weapons.
The "jury is still out," he said.
In his speech Saturday, Cheney urged "civilized people" to do
"everything in our power to defeat terrorism and to stop the
spread of weapons of mass destruction."
Taking over for Kay as head of the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group of
roughly 1,400 scientists and other experts is Charles Duelfer,
the No. 2 weapons inspector for the United Nations in Iraq for
much of the 1990s. The team is going through documents,
searching facilities and interviewing Iraqis to determine the
weapons capabilities of the fallen Iraqi government.
While the emphasis was on weapons of mass destruction as the
reason to wage war on Iraq, the administration also suggested
that Saddam was linked with the al-Qaida organization. Like the
weapons, no firm evidence of a solid link has been produced.
On Saturday, a U.S. official in Washington said Kurdish forces
had captured a senior al-Qaida figure as he tried to enter
northern Iraq.
Hassan Ghul, a senior facilitator in Osama bin Laden's terror
network, was turned over to the United States and is being
interrogated at an undisclosed location, the official said.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, had no details
about whether Ghul was cooperating or providing useful
information.
On Friday, a senior American official reported the capture of a
purported leader of anti-U.S. resistance in Iraq, Husam
al-Yemeni, who officials said headed a cell of operatives in
Fallujah, west of Baghdad. The official said al-Yemeni, linked
to the Ansar al-Islam group in Kurdish northern Iraq, was
thought to be a close associate of Abu Musab Zarqawi, described
by some as a key link between the al-Qaida terrorist network and
Saddam.
In recent months, U.S. forces in central Iraq have detained a
handful of people suspected of having ties to al-Qaida, but
American intelligence officials described them as mostly
low-level operatives with unclear purposes in the country.
---
Associated Press Writer Katherine Pfleger contributed to this
report.
--
*****************************************************************
14 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: S Korea, US, Japan Still Hopeful Over Nuclear Talks
Updated Jan.24,2004 14:41 KST
Efforts to arrange another round of multilateral talks to defuse
tensions from North Korea's nuclear ambitions remain on track
despite the communist state's apparent move to raise the stakes
by showing off its main nuclear facility to an unofficial
delegation of U.S. experts earlier this month.
Seoul's chief delegate in charge of the six-way talks Lee
Soo-hyuck, in a meeting with Korean correspondents in
Washington, said that South Korea, the United States, and Japan
were undeterred by the latest disclosures made by members of the
group that visited North Korea.
Briefing the reporters on discussions with his U.S. and Japanese
counterparts, Lee said that the three sides as well as China and
Russia were ready to resume with a second round of talks and
that whether the six countries will meet next month was up to
Pyeongyang.
Although he did point out that there were no signs yet from
North Korea that it would accept the talks, the South Korean
official again urged the communist state to agree to the
dialogue with no preconditions.
U.S. Assitant Secretary of State James Kelly, meanwhile, said
that he was hopeful a second round of talks can be convened soon
and that the Bush administration remained convinced dialogue is
the way to resolve the issue.
Arirang TV
*****************************************************************
15 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Davos Participants Call NK Nuke Issue World's Most Serious
Updated Jan.24,2004 18:24 KST
by Choi Wu-seok (wschoi@chosun.com)
American billionaire George Soros, the chairman of the
Soros Fund Managment, answers questions raised in the news
conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on
Thursday.
North Korea's nuclear program is becoming a major issue across
the world this year.
During his State of the Union address last Tuesday, U.S.
President George W. Bush said he was devoting efforts to prevent
North Korea and other regimes from possessing "dangerous" weapons
and demanded again that the North eliminate its nuclear program.
Participants at the Davos Forum said Monday that the issue would
become the biggest concern for the international community.
At a seminar focusing on the Korean Peninsula and stability in
Northeast Asia, the head of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said that countries' strategies
towards North Korea have so far been a series of mistakes, and
that he is sure that the North now possesses nuclear weapons.
He noted that because of the 1994 Geneva Agreement between the
North and the United States, the country has had ample time to
develop nuclear weapons. He said the Geneva Agreement was a
mistake, and that the North's nuclear development is the most
dangerous problem facing international society today.
After having an informal meeting on the North Korean
nuclear issue at the U.S. Department of State on Thursday,
Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, center, South Korean
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Lee Soo-hyuck, left,
and Mitoji Yabunaka, the head of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's
Asia and Oceana Affairs Bureau, take questions from reporters.
Maurice Strong, and aide to the United Nations Secretary General,
said that the issue would see a conclusion one way or another in
2004 since North Korea believes that U.S. President Bush will be
re-elected. Strong expressed concern, saying that Pyongyang is
adopting policies that are furthering the crisis.
The Davos Forum ends Sunday. The North Korean nuclear crisis and
the reconstruction of Iraq were dealt with as the main issues on
the agenda, and there were a diverse range of discussion
sessions, including talk about the increase in the threat of
terrorism and the international community's response, and about
the prospects for the global economy.
Approximately 2,300 political, economic, and business figures are
attending, participating in approximately 250 seminars under the
larger theme of prosperity and security.
*****************************************************************
16 KoreaTimes: Seoul Says 6-Way Talk Should Include NK's Uranium Program
Hankooki.com > Korea Times
By Seo Soo-min Staff Reporter
South Korea, the United States and Japan want the second round
of six-party talks to tackle North Korea¡¯s highly enriched
uranium (HEU) program as well as the plutonium-based nuclear
program at Yongbyon, Seoul¡¯s Deputy Foreign Minister Lee
Soo-hyuck said on Sunday.
Lee, returning from three-way consultations held Jan. 21-22,
said the consensus between the three countries was that they
should be able to verify the existence of the North¡¯s HEU
program at the six-way talks.
``Uranium can be produced in small amounts and is easy to hide,
so unless North Korea voluntarily and sincerely agrees to come
clean on the issue, it will be very hard for us to find it,¡¯¡¯
Lee said at Incheon International Airport.
South Korea¡¯s head delegate to the first six-nation meeting,
attended also by China, Japan and Russia, added that the U.S. has
hard evidence of the HEU program.
North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan denied the
existence of such a program to Siegfried Hecker, a U.S. nuclear
expert who visited Pyongyang recently.
The U.S. and China are reportedly in dispute over whether to
include the HEU issue on the agenda at the second six-way talks.
Due to its portable nature, verifying the dismantlement of a HEU
nuclear program requires more intrusive inspections. But the
program also requires much more time to make actual weapons than
a plutonium-based one, meaning Seoul and Tokyo have put less
focus on it.
Lee also said Seoul, Washington and Tokyo are even willing to
discuss a nuclear ``freeze¡¯¡¯ _ as opposed to an immediate
scrapping of all nuclear programs _ with North Korea at the next
six-way talks.
``If North Korea freezes its nukes and agrees that it will
dismantle its nuclear programs, South Korea, the United States
and Japan are willing to take corresponding measures according to
our coordinated steps,¡¯¡¯ Lee said.
``We expect the six-way talks to be fruitful if North Korea
agrees to appear.¡¯¡¯
This marks a shift from the U.S.¡¯ recent position of refusing
to discuss anything short of a complete dismantlement of North
Korea¡¯s nuclear programs at the second six-way talks.
China will deliver the results of the three-way meeting to North
Korea soon, and Pyongyang¡¯s reaction in the next few days will
determine whether the six-way talks can be held next month after
nearly half a year of delays.
Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun over the weekend reported the three
countries are hoping to hold the talks in mid-February. It also
said Washington has started building an international
verification regime for the North Korean nuclear program on the
assumption that an accord will be reached with Pyongyang.
ssm@koreatimes.co.kr 01-25-2004 15:46
*****************************************************************
17 Journal Standard: Citizens must demand more responsible energy sources than nuclear
Opinion
By Mary Blackmore
In November there was a successful filibuster of the House-passed
federal energy bill. Various reasons were cited by senators who
opposed the bill.
While there has been substantial press coverage of the egregious
MTBE liability provision, very little attention has been given to
the Bush administration's attempt through this bill to revive the
ailing nuclear power industry. With the aid of huge subsidies
(tens of billions of dollars) and by redefining terms (e.g.
depleted uranium waste would be re-classified as "low level"
waste, which requires a shorter monitoring period), nuclear power
is set to play a major role in our energy future. With no
protestations from the public, last year's bill will become this
year's bill.
In addition to outright loan guarantees and construction tax
breaks, the '03 bill called for a promising renewable fuel -
hydrogen - to be made using nuclear power. Hydrogen can be
produced from water using electricity generated from any type of
power, including solar and wind. Clean burning hydrogen clearly
is the best choice among future transportation fuels, but it
becomes unsustainable and nonrenewable when it is produced using
nuclear energy.
Nuclear power holds nothing for the public interest that is
positive. The technology leaves in its wake pollution from
uranium mining wastes, fission by-products that remain dangerous
for thousands of years and increasing costs to consumers either
through utility bills, income tax bills or both.
Also, in these times of terrorist alerts, additional centralized
sources of power are not what our tax dollars should be funding,
especially centralized sources that could, upon attack, release
dangerous amounts of radiation.
Large subsidies are not inherently bad. However, an equally large
public good must be served when our government decides to funnel
such tremendous amounts of tax money into a specific technology
or service. Clearly, the public good would be served best with
investment in increased energy efficiency and conservation along
with decentralized, nonpolluting, safe sources of energy. That's
a description of renewables like solar or wind.
The Senate will almost certainly take up debate of the energy
bill early this year. We have the technologies for conservation
and renewables. We have only to summon the collective will to
demand that they be the emphasis of our energy future.
Mary Blackmore is a resident of Forreston.
Copyright © 2004 The Journal-Standard All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
18 [Fwd: [du-list] ANTI-WAR GROUP STAGE PROTEST AT ARMS DEPOT]
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 20:38:42 -0800
Return-path:
Envelope-to: rogerh@energy-net.org
Delivery-date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 08:20:42 -0800
Received: from root by darwin.ctyme.com with ctyme-spam-scanned (Exim 4.30)
id 1AkQWX-00009c-Vf
for rogerh@energy-net.org; Sat, 24 Jan 2004 08:20:42 -0800
Received: from n18.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.73])
by darwin.ctyme.com with smtp (Exim 4.30)
id 1AkQWX-00009U-O3
for rogerh@energy-net.org; Sat, 24 Jan 2004 08:20:41 -0800
X-eGroups-Return: sentto-1009892-5242-1074961240-rogerh=energy-net.org@returns.groups.yahoo.com
Received: from [66.218.67.198] by n18.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 24 Jan 2004 16:20:41 -0000
X-Sender: et@nucnews.net
X-Apparently-To: du-list@yahoogroups.com
Received: (qmail 42327 invoked from network); 24 Jan 2004 16:20:40 -0000
Received: from unknown (66.218.66.172)
by m5.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 24 Jan 2004 16:20:40 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO pink.zilch.net) (209.70.46.10)
by mta4.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 24 Jan 2004 16:20:39 -0000
Received: from h-66-167-235-91.mclnva23.dynamic.covad.net ([66.167.235.91] helo=nucnews.net)
by pink.zilch.net with asmtp (Exim 4.24)
id 1AkQWX-0004CU-E5; Sat, 24 Jan 2004 11:20:19 -0500
Message-ID: <40129BE8.80706@nucnews.net>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax)
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
To: nucnews@yahoogroups.com, DU-List
X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report
X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [0 0] / [47 12]
X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - nucnews.net
X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 209.70.46.10
From: et@nucnews.net
X-Yahoo-Profile: nucnews
MIME-Version: 1.0
Mailing-List: list du-list@yahoogroups.com; contact du-list-owner@yahoogroups.com
Delivered-To: mailing list du-list@yahoogroups.com
Precedence: bulk
List-Unsubscribe:
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 11:23:04 -0500
Subject: [du-list] ANTI-WAR GROUP STAGE PROTEST AT ARMS DEPOT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Sender-Nameserver: ns4.yahoo.com ns5.yahoo.com ns1.yahoo.com ns2.yahoo.com ns3.yahoo.com
X-Sender-Hostname: n18.grp.scd.yahoo.com
X-Spam-Report:
* -5.0 SUBJ_WHITELIST Subject Whitelist
* -2.0 YAHOO_HOST From Yahoo Host
* -3.0 WHITE_PHRASE Phrases in non-spam
* -5.0 YAHOO_EGROUP From Yahoo eGroup
* -1.0 SUBJ_GROUP Subject Indicates Discussion List []
* 0.1 NO_REAL_NAME From: does not include a real name
* 0.1 LINES_OF_YELLING BODY: A WHOLE LINE OF YELLING DETECTED
* -5.0 BAYES_00 BODY: Bayesian spam probability is 0 to 1%
* [score: 0.0000]
* 5.0 LONG_SUBHOST_NAME URI: Name of subdomain in link is long
* 1.0 FORGED_RCVD_HELO Received: contains a forged HELO
* 0.1 RCVD_IN_NJABL RBL: Received via a relay in dnsbl.njabl.org
* [66.167.235.91 listed in dnsbl.njabl.org]
* 0.5 RCVD_IN_NJABL_PROXY RBL: NJABL: sender is an open proxy
* [66.167.235.91 listed in dnsbl.njabl.org]
* 1.0 RCVD_IN_DSBL RBL: Received via a relay in list.dsbl.org
* []
* 1.0 RCVD_IN_OPM_HTTP RBL: OPM: sender is open HTTP CONNECT proxy
* [66.167.235.91 listed in opm.blitzed.org]
* 1.0 RCVD_IN_OPM RBL: Received via a relay in opm.blitzed.org
* [66.167.235.91 listed in opm.blitzed.org]
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.70-cvs (1.220-2003-12-04-exp) on
darwin.ctyme.com
X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-11.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FORGED_RCVD_HELO,
LINES_OF_YELLING,LONG_SUBHOST_NAME,NO_REAL_NAME,RCVD_IN_DSBL,
RCVD_IN_NJABL,RCVD_IN_NJABL_PROXY,RCVD_IN_OPM,RCVD_IN_OPM_HTTP,
SUBJ_GROUP,SUBJ_WHITELIST,WHITE_PHRASE,YAHOO_EGROUP,YAHOO_HOST
autolearn=ham version=2.70-cvs
ANTI-WAR GROUP STAGE PROTEST AT ARMS DEPOT
A Chernobyl-style nuclear disaster could happen in Warwickshire,
according to anti-war campaigners.
21 January 2004 Leamington UK Courier
http://www.leamingtonspatoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=691&ArticleID=727125
They staged a demonstration outside the DM Kineton arms depot on
Saturday, protesting against the storage of weapons containing depleted
uranium - which they say could lead to widespread radioactive
contamination if there was a serious accident or terrorist attack.
Long Itchington resident Richard Williams was part of the 15-strong
group, who called themselves the Warwickshire Weapons Inspectors. He
said: "We succeeded in getting our message across, but we didn't have
any joy in our attempts to get into the base itself.
"We want people to be aware of what is really going on here. These
weapons could cause a major contamination of this densely-populated
region if there was an accident. This could lead to mass evacuation, and
the sealing-off of a large area of the Midlands for decades, even
centuries - as has happened in Chernobyl.
"It sounds unbelievable, but that's because the debate has been very
narrow, and anything from outside that perspective is very difficult to
believe. We're not scaremongering - it's just that no-one will admit
this could happen. We're met with a wall of silence from the
authorities, so we seem like a bunch of crazy loonies."
And Mr Williams believes the base is assisting what he believes are
crimes against humanity perpetrated by coalition forces in Iraq. He
said: "The whole of that country has been heavily contaminated by
massive use of these criminal munitions by the UK and US aggressors
during their illegal invasion. Many US and British military personnel
are also suffering from an upsurge of 'mystery illnesses', just as
happened during the first assault on Iraq in 1991.
"Under the Geneva Convention and the Nuremburg Principles, to which
Britain and the US are signatories, this constitutes a major crime
against humanity, the most serious crime recognised by international law."
Responding to the claims, Ministry of Defence spokesman Charlie Morton
said: "To compare DM Kineton with Chernobyl is a ludicrous suggestion.
Depleted uranium is less radioactive than materials found in household
smoke alarms. It's 40 per cent less radioactive than naturally-occuring
uranium, which we are exposed to every day through water, food and air.
"There were 17 American soliders who had embedded depleted uranium
shrapnel in their bodies after the 1991 Gulf War, and none has shown
signs of health problems attributable to the uranium. And their
offspring, a total of about 60 children, are perfectly healthy.
"The use of depleted uranium is not prohibited by any international
agreement, including the Geneva Convention. The fact is that no other
material is as effective at penetrating heavy armour. We have a duty to
protect our troops by giving them the best equipment."
--
Posted for educational and research purposes only,
~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~
See also http://nucnews.net - NucNews Links and Archives
To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send.
Yahoo! Groups Links
To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
*****************************************************************
19 The Hindu: Musharraf, Cheney discuss Indo-Pak. talks
Sunday, January 25, 2004 : 1615 Hrs
Islamabad, Jan. 25 (PTI): President Pervez Musharaf, who held
talks with US Vice-President Dick Cheney, in Davos, has said the
American leadership is "satisfied" with the peace process
between India and Pakistan as well as the steps taken by
Islamabad to probe allegations of nuclear proliferation.
After his hour-long meeting with Cheney in Davos, Switzerland,
yesterday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum,
Musharraf said he discussed the recent developments in the
Indo-Pak relations with the US Vice President.
He said Cheney expressed satisfaction over the initiation of a
dialogue process to settle all outstanding issues between the
two countries.
Musharraf said he also informed Cheney that the venue and level
of talks between Pakistan and India are being worked out to
start the composite dialogue next month.
All issues of mutual interest and regional and international
situation came up for discussion during the meeting, official
APP news agency quoted Musharraf as saying.
Referring to investigation into allegations of proliferation by
some top Pakistani nuclear scientists, he said he was happy that
the US fully understood that Pakistan was not involved in any
proliferation, in any way.
"It was some individuals, who for personal gains, were involved
in some sort of proliferation," he said.
It is "very sad that any person leaves aside his national
interests for some personal gains. We are investigating and they
(US) are very satisfied over it."
Musharraf said the two sides also reviewed the situation in
Afghanistan. "We informed them (US) about the steps we are
taking in our area and they were very satisfied."
He said Cheney expressed appreciation for Pakistan's
contribution in war against terrorism and "we told them that we
will not let any foreign element (terrorists) operate in
Pakistan."
He described his discussion with the US Vice-President as "very
good".
Later, Musharraf also met Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, and
sought his help for the development of Information Technology
(IT) in Pakistan.
Gates promised to look into Pakistan's request for investment in
the IT sector.
Summing up his visit to Davos, Musharraf said he went there with
two objectives -- to inform the world what is happening in
Pakistan and to remove the misperceptions about the country.
He said he had useful interaction with business leaders and told
them about the conducive business environment that exists in
Pakistan.
Copyright © 2004, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of
*****************************************************************
20 Guardian Unlimited: Pakistan attacks traffic in 'nuclear secrets'
Jason Burke, chief reporter
Sunday January 25, 2004
General Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani President, yesterday
called on international investigators to probe an illegal
underground traffic in nuclear secrets which he said stretched
from Asia to Europe.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland,
Musharraf, who has promised to prosecute those suspected of
selling his country's nuclear secrets to Iran in the late 1980s,
said he would also like to see European countries and scientists
investigated for their involvement in proliferation.
Pakistani investigators are currently checking the bank accounts
of nine scientists, officials and senior soldiers detained in
recent days on suspicion they may have sold nuclear technology to
Iran and other countries between 1988 and 1991.
Most are linked to the laboratories at Kahuta, Pakistan's leading
nuclear weapons laboratory. Several are being held for
'debriefings'. The Pakistani government denies it authorised any
transfers of weapons technology, but says individuals may have
done so for their own profit. Reports in Pakistan have mentioned
sums as highs as $12 billion being paid by the recipients of the
know-how.
Suspects include Abdul Qadeer Khan, the so-called father of
Pakistan's nuclear programme, and General Mirza Aslam Beg, a
former chief of army staff. Both are known to have sympathies
with Islamist groups. Khan, who is a national hero, is known for
having stolen blueprints of key technologies from a lab which
employed him in Belgium in the Seventies. Last week The Observer
revealed that United Nations inspectors who recently visited a
number of nuclear facilities in Libya discovered large amounts of
aluminium centrifuge parts, essential for enriching uranium, that
had 'all the hallmarks of the ... designs' stolen by Khan.
Musharraf said that Pakistan's investigation began after Iran
disclosed the names of people - including Pakistani scientists -
who provided them with nuclear technology. Last year the
International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) found evidence that
suggested an Iranian effort to procure nuclear materials for
military use. Tehran blamed components supplied from overseas and
maintained that its own nuclear programme was peaceful.
Yesterday Musharraf, who is already under fire for failing to
crack down on Islamic militant groups based in Pakistan, said it
was possible that 'unscrupulous' individuals had exploited the
autonomy they were given to develop Pakistan's nuclear deterrent
against India, a programme started about 30 years ago. Pakistan
tested a series of nuclear devices in May 1998, incurring
international sanctions that have only recently been partly
lifted.
'We are carrying out an in-depth investigation and ... we will
sort out everyone who is involved,' Musharraf, who took power in
1999, said.
Pakistan has also been accused of giving nuclear technology to
North Korea in return for details of long-range missiles.
Islamabad denies the charge.
According to Mohamed El-Baradei, head of the IAEA, nuclear
proliferation involves an international ring of professional
smugglers dealing in the technology of weapons of mass
destruction.
'What we are seeing is a very sophisticated network of
black-market proliferators, people who are selling material
underground...We're still very much in the process of
investigating this network,' he said.
· A former provincial governor for the Taliban regime was
arrested in a Pakistani border town yesterday. Mullah Abdul Manan
Khawajazai, an Afghan, was picked up by Pakistani police and
intelligence officers in Chaman.
Guardian Newspapers Limited
*****************************************************************
21 The Hindu: Dubai bank accounts of Pak. nuke scientists traced
Sunday, January 25, 2004 : 1830 Hrs
Islamabad, Jan. 25. (PTI): Foreign bank accounts of two senior
Pakistani nuclear scientists, who allegedly received money for
passing nuclear technology to Iran, have been traced by
investigators even as the government ordered all ministries and
departments not to invite Dr A Q Khan, the father of the
country's atomic bomb, to any official function.
The foreign bank accounts in which the proceeds from the
transfer of some nuclear technology to Iran have been deposited
were traced back to at least two senior nuclear scientists,
unnamed officials were quoted as saying by the local daily The
News today.
These accounts were being operated through a Dubai-based bank,
which has already provided the required information to Pakistani
authorities.
"It is an open and shut case. Their foreign bank accounts
swelled by millions of dollars as the sensitive information and
some hardware reached Iran," one official said.
For investigation and security reasons, the government sources
have not revealed the names of the scientists involved in the
deal. Yesterday the same newspaper hinted at Dr Khan and his
close associate Dr M Farooq.
The government has also instructed all ministries and
departments not to invite Dr Khan to any official function, the
newspaper said.
The decision to allow Dr Khan to continue as an Adviser to the
Prime Minister on Scientific Affairs would be taken by President
Pervez Musharraf who returned from Davos today after attending
the World Economic Forum.
Copyright © 2004, The Hindu.
*****************************************************************
22 DW-WORLD.DE: U.S. Adopts Conciliatory Tone in Davos, Calls on EU for Help
[DW-WORLD.DE]
[Meta Navigation]
26.01.04 04:56 UTC
The World Economic Forum wrapped up Sunday after five days of
talks focusing on cooperation and conciliation. Washington
appealed to Europe to lend a hand in bringing democracy to the
greater Middle East.
Compared to last year’s talkfest in the Swiss mountain retreat,
the 2004 World Economic Forum in Davos took place in a positive
atmosphere. Rather than exchanging war rhetoric, political
leaders focused on negotiation and cooperation. Led by Vice
President Dick Cheney, the U.S. delegation worked hard to set a
conciliatory tone.
"Cooperation among our governments and effective international
institutions are even more important today then they have been in
the past," said Cheney, considered one of Washington’s biggest
hawks and proponents of the Bush administration's go-it-alone
stance.
U.S. turns to EU
In a high profile speech on Saturday, the vice president appealed
to Europe, especially France and Germany who had faced off
against the U.S. in last year’s war, urging EU member states to
take an active role in rebuilding Iraq, helping to defuse
Iran’s nuclear ambitions and promoting international security.
Referring to Europe’s experience in overcoming age-old
antagonisms, fascism and communism, Cheney called on the EU to
help bring freedom to the greater Middle East from Iran to
Mauritania. "
Our forward strategy for freedom commits us to support those who
work and sacrifice for reform across the greater Middle East. We
call upon our democratic friends and allies everywhere, and in
Europe in particular, to join us in this effort," he said.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, while welcoming the
invitation to dialogue with Washington on the greater Middle
East, cautioned about getting carried away with illusionary grand
structures. "To think that from Morocco to Afghanistan we’re
going to have something structured is a bit of a chimera," he
told Reuters news service.
Solana also pointed out that the EU already had agreements and
cooperation with a dozen Mediterranean partners offering trade
and aid in return for economic reform and human rights. In a
veiled criticism of Washington’s foreign policy goals, Solana
said it would be hard to get the Arab world behind a collective
democratization initiative "without putting the same energy into
the solution of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process."
Europe focuses on economy
Most European leaders, however, were more preoccupied with the
U.S. dollar’s plunge against the euro, which is jeopardizing
economic recovery in the euro zone by making European exports
more expensive in international markets. European Central Bank
President Jean-Claude Trichet said Europe was "concerned about
excessive exchange rate moves," and he called for more
"stability" in the foreign exchange market.
Germany's deputy finance minister, Caio Koch-Weser, told AFP news
service that there was "complete consensus" among the 12 finance
ministers of the euro zone for stability in currency markets.
"If I am concerned about something it is that the euro alone has
to bear the brunt of the fall of the dollar because many areas of
the world are de facto linked to the dollar, be it through pegs
or intervention," he said.
The ECB’s Trichet also expressed worry over a ballooning U.S.
budget deficit, which if unchecked could become a source of
international contention when it effects interest and exchange
rates across the globe.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Donald Evans attempted to calm European
fears by saying the situation was both "very manageable" and
"affordable." He said the deficit would be brought down by some
"very, very tough decisions on spending." Neither Cheney nor
Evans seemed especially concerned about the weak dollar.DW staff
(ktz)
[Info]
World's Elite Returns to Davos
Iraq and the global economy topped the agenda as the political
and business elite braved heavy snow to open the World Economic
Forum in Davos, Switzerland. After a turbulent year, there is
willingness to talk again. (Jan. 21, 2004)
*****************************************************************
23 HindustanTimes: Pak scientists reveal top army names in nuclear deal
Vijay Dutt
London, January 25
Three of the nine Pak nuclear scientists detained over
allegations that nuclear secrets were sold abroad have admitted
to helping pass the nuclear weapons know-how to their
counterparts in Iran.
More crucially they have revealed names of retired senior
military officials and nuclear experts who played crucial roles
in deals which helped Iran to launch its nuclear weapons
programme.
A London-based Pak source told Hindustan Times that among the
named military officials there is one former ISI chief and a
former chief of army staff. The named chief of army staff is
allegedly General Mirza Aslam Beg, according to The Observer.
The latest revelations about such senior officials poses a
dilemma for President Musharraf, who promised last week to
prosecute anyone who sold nuclear weapons secrets. He has now to
decide whether to widen the investigation to include senior
military figures, identified by the three scientists.
A source is quoted saying this is "a highly sensitive issue. Some
of those identified are big names and it would not be easy for
the government to lay its hands on them".
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos President Musharraf
called on international investigators to probe an illegal
underground traffic in nuclear secrets which he alleged stretched
from Asia to Europe.
He reiterated his promise to prosecute those suspected of selling
Pak's nuclear secrets to Iran in the late 80s. But he urged that
European countries and scientists must also be interrogated for
their roles in proliferation.
Musharraf had set up a nuclear control and command system two
years ago, under the US pressure, said a source. "But this was
set up much after the alleged deals."
Pak investigators are currently looking into the bank accounts of
the nine scientists, officials and senior army personnel detained
in recent days on the suspicion that they sold secrets to Iran
and other countries between 1988 and 1991. Some of them are said
to be living beyond their means.
A report has said that rumours in Pakistan allege that sums as
high as $12 billion was paid by the recipients of the know-how.
According to The Observer suspects include Abdul Qadeer Khan and
General Beg. Another source also told Hindustan Times that Khan,
father of the Pak atom bomb, was possibly under house
surveillance and his movements were restricted.
© Hindustan Times Ltd. 2004.
feedback@hindustantimes.com
*****************************************************************
24 BBC: US officials hold talks in Libya
Last Updated: Sunday, 25 January, 2004
[Curt Weldon speaks after stepping off the first US-flagged plane
to land in Libya for decades]
The US officials hope to visit a former weapons site
A US congressional delegation has held talks with officials in
Libya in the first such mission since Colonel Muammar Gaddafi
took power.
The talks follow Libya's diplomatic overtures to the West,
including a pledge to halt banned arms development.
US delegation leader and Republican Representative Curt Weldon
hailed the visit as "historic".
Correspondents say the trip reflects a growing momentum towards
healing the bitter rift between US and Libya.
'Step forward'
The group joined Representative Tom Lantos, who became the first
elected US official to set foot in Libya for 38 years when he
arrived on Saturday.
[Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, December 2003]
No US congressman has visited Libya since Mr Gaddafi took power
Mr Weldon, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee,
told French news agency AFP he expected sanctions to be lifted
and official ties resumed.
"This visit is historic, we are seeking the establishment of
official ties between the two countries," he said.
But Mr Weldon also stressed that he did not officially represent
the US administration and that it would be up to the US president
and secretary of state to decide on a resumption of ties.
Libya wants a speedy normalisation of relations with the US, but
there is no sign yet that Washington is prepared to lift
sanctions against the north African state.
The Republican and Democrat members of the House of
Representatives flew in to Tripoli on Sunday on a US navy plane,
said to be the first aircraft flying the American flag to land in
Libya for decades.
Mr Weldon said earlier that the delegation would also visit a
university, the Libyan legislative body and "probably" a site
connected to Libya's programme to develop weapons of mass
destruction before leaving on Monday.
The BBC's Sebastian Usher says if nothing else, the very presence
of the congressmen in what Washington has long condemned as an
outlaw state represents a step forward.
Business pressure
In his recent State of the Union address, US President George W
Bush gave Libya's announcement as an example of how his
administration's foreign policy was reaping benefits.
The United Nations lifted sanctions on Libya after it agreed a
compensation deal for the families of the victims of the
Lockerbie bombing.
But US sanctions - which predate those of the UN - remain in
place.
Just this month, Mr Bush said he had no intention of lifting them
for the time being.
These sanctions are estimated to have cost Libya hundreds of
millions of dollars.
But they have also cost American businesses a huge lost
opportunity - with Libya's oil reserves among the highest in the
world.
There is now growing pressure from US oil companies and other
corporations eager to do business in Libya for the Bush
administration to drop sanctions at the earliest opportunity.
*****************************************************************
25 SF Chronicle: Jailed nuclear experts suffer Pakistan's blame, families say
Nation's president insists individuals, not government, leaked
atomic info
Juliette Terzieff, Chronicle Foreign Service Sunday,
January 25, 2004 [San Francisco Chronicle]
[Chronicle Sections]
Rawalpindi, -- Pakistan - While President Pervez Musharraf's
admission that some Pakistani scientists may have sold nuclear
know-how confirms the suspicions of U.S. and U.N. officials
trying to track the proliferation of weapons technology, the
families of nuclear experts in detention fear their relatives are
being set up to take a fall.
Musharraf, interviewed at the global economic forum in Davos,
Switzerland, warned Friday that "we will move against anybody who
proliferated." On Saturday, he returned to the issue, saying
Pakistan is investigating the possibility that government
officials knew technology was being transferred abroad. "We will
sort out everyone who is involved," he vowed.
"We're terrified after this statement," said Asim Farooq, the
24-year old son of Mohammad Farooq, who was in charge of overseas
procurement at Khan Research Laboratories, Pakistan's premier
uranium enrichment plant. "My father is a simple, honest man who
took time away from his own family to serve the nation. He's no
criminal."
Speaking outside the family's modest home in the middle-class
Satellite Town neighborhood, Asim Farooq angrily disputed the
idea that any scientist could have acted so independently.
"Anyone taking part in the nuclear program knew the importance of
secrecy, and that they were closely monitored to protect it," he
said.
Musharraf continued to insist Saturday that any nuclear
technology leaks that occurred took place without government
sanction. He said the secrecy of Pakistan's nuclear weapons
program, in which scientists were given full "freedom of action"
to develop the technology, may have created an opportunity for
wrongdoing.
"Covert meant scientists moved around with full autonomy in a
secretive manner," he said. That might have given unscrupulous
individuals opportunity to sell "national assets" outside of the
glare of "strategic check and controls."
Government agents are checking bank accounts of nine scientists
and administrators detained on suspicion of selling information
to Iran and elsewhere, a Pakistan Interior Ministry official said
Saturday.
But family members of those detained contend that under the
heavily guarded atmosphere of the nuclear program, such
independent action was impossible. And they complain that the
government's aggressive methods of investigation do not allow the
detainees to defend themselves.
"They came in the night, verbally provoking the family," Sima
Adil, the oldest daughter of Nazir Ahmad, the lab's chief
engineer, said of her father's detention on Jan. 17. "We don't
know what the charges are, nobody has been permitted access, and
anything we know comes only from the media or rumors."
Several families, including the Farooqs and Ahmads, have engaged
lawyers to argue for the protection of the scientists' basic
rights. Relatives worry that without overwhelming public scrutiny
of the ongoing investigation, the detained men may simply never
come home.
"If this was truly normal procedure, they would be debriefed in
their offices under routine circumstances," said lawyer Ikram
Chaudhry. "Instead, they have been taken from their homes to
undisclosed locations so that their families don't know if they
are alive or dead."
To buffer the government from public outcry, officials have
painted the detentions for the Pakistani public as part of a
normal routine or, alternatively, as an effort to satisfy the
international community, especially the United States.
At a hearing on Friday, the government's representative, Deputy
Federal Attorney Chaudhry Mohammad Tariq, requested two weeks to
gather more information about the location and condition of the
detainees, even though the information minister had promised two
days earlier that the investigation would be complete within a
week. Detentions began in November, days after the news broke
that someone in Pakistan might have passed on bomb-design secrets
to Iran.
Pakistan also faces suspicion it may have been involved in
trading nuclear know-how to North Korea in exchange for missile
technology in the early 1990s and may be the source for
centrifuge designs that have turned up in Libya.
Farooq was one of the first to be taken into custody by military
intelligence. Eight scientists and administrators from the Khan
facility remain in detention, while two others have been
released.
In his last communication with his family, on Dec. 8, Farooq
repeated the advice his worried relatives had already received
from the military about publicizing his disappearance. "He said
it would not help him, and we were afraid it would be harmful to
him," Asim Farooq said. "Instead he told us kids to concentrate
on our studies."
His son said Farooq's parting words to his children were: Mera
Allah hafiz, tera Allah hafiz. (God will help me, God will help
you.)
For weeks the family kept its silence, until last weekend's
arrest of eight more laboratory associates put the investigation
onto the front pages of newspapers around the world.
Unlike less prominent figures, Abdul Qadeer Khan -- for whom the
national nuclear laboratory is named -- is not under detention.
Khan, considered a national hero for giving the Islamic world its
first atomic bomb, has been confined to Islamabad, Pakistan's
capital, while the probe unfolds, and he continues to work as an
adviser in the prime minister's office, an acquaintance said
Saturday.
Zahid Malik, author of "Islamic Bomb," on Pakistan's nuclear
program, said that Khan has been questioned "many times" in
recent weeks. "He's cooperating (with the investigation), but
he's satisfied that he's done nothing wrong," Malik told the
Associated Press. · Printer-friendly version · Email this article
to a friend
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ
*****************************************************************
26 Daily Times: It ‘appears’ scientists sold secrets
| Monday, January 26, 2004
* Musharraf says no evidence of involvement of any government or
military personality
* Boldness needed for talks with India to advance
* Rejects foreign help in Osama hunt
* Calls Rizvi ‘unpatriotic’
* Qaeda could be behind attacks
DAVOS: President Pervez Musharraf said on Friday it appeared
Pakistani scientists had sold nuclear secrets abroad, but
reiterated Islamabad’s position that there had been no official
involvement.
President Musharraf told CNN at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in
Davos, Switzerland, that the investigation, begun in November
into alleged wrongdoing by the scientists would be finished in “a
few weeks”.
Asked the likely outcome, he replied: “Well, I would not like to
predict, but it appears that some individuals, as I said, were
involved for personal financial gain.”
And he stressed: “There is no such evidence that any government
personality or military personality was involved in this at all.”
Asked about reports that Pakistani scientists had also
transferred technology to Libya and North Korea, he replied: “I
am not denying anything because we are investigating; we have
sent teams to Libya, we have sent teams to Iran and we are in
contact with the IAEA. We are collecting all the data.” “Pakistan
is an extremely responsible state. All the nuclear and missile
assets, the strategic assets, are under total custodial control,”
he told reporters.
President Musharraf said Pakistan was investigating a “definite
possibility” that Al Qaeda ordered or carried out two attempts to
assassinate him last month. “We have rounded up all the people
directly involved, but the people who are behind that, yes we are
reasonably sure that it is Al Qaeda,” he said.
“We haven’t yet got to the top of identifying the person who has
issued the order but we know ... that may be the idea came from
the Al Qaeda,” President Musharraf said. President Musharraf said
that talks with India over the Kashmir dispute would progress
only if both sides were bold. “The relationship will progress
only if we show sincerity and resolve and also, may I say,
boldness,” Musharraf said. The president told politicians and
business leaders that fighting sectarian and religious extremism
in Pakistan was, alongside economic development, the toughest
challenge he faced.
Musharraf defended the effectiveness of military operations
against Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in the Pakistan-Afghan
border area and said they would not re-emerge as a strategic
threat. He said Al Qaeda was “on the run” in Pakistan and guessed
that Osama bin Laden was in hiding somewhere around the border of
Pakistan and Afghanistan.
However, he rejected the possibility of US forces being allowed
into the border region to look for “terrorists”, saying that
Pakistan had all the troops, equipment and intelligence it needed
for the job.
The president said Pakistan could consider reviewing its policy
on Israel if the Middle East peace process progressed
satisfactorily, allowing for the peaceful co-existence of
Palestine and Israel. However, Mr Musharraf ruled out any change
in Pakistan’s stance for the moment.
President Musharraf said he has “no sympathy whatsoever” for a
Pakistani journalist, Khawar Mehdi Rizvi. He accused Mr Rizvi of
trying to defame Pakistan. He described him as “a man conniving
with the French journalists and trying to concoct a movie showing
Pakistan in a bad light”. “He’s a most unsympathetic man, doesn’t
deserve any sympathy whatsoever because he was trying to bring
harm to my country and he’s the most unpatriotic man,” Musharraf
said. —Agencies Home | Main
Agassi and Roddick move a step closer to ‘clash of the
generations’ PCB puts an end to speculations over change of
leadership: Inzamam retains captaincy for the year 2004 Tendulkar
and Sehwag still in doubt against Zimbabwe Sri Lanka to host Asia
Cup cricket Quaid Cup, Trophy begin Feb 8 Klusener wants to make
a telling comeback Junior Hockey semis today PCB eyes Indian
sponsors for series Indian team fined France to increase number
of drugs tests ECB looks to resolve Zimbabwe tour dilemma Team
for Al-Fajar badminton tournament named Inter School Softball
from 27th Windies struggle against South Africa 2nd string
Pakistani players shine in Asian C’ship Ghazanfar wins table
tennis title Inter School Girls Athletics Alpine skiing: Rahlves
steals show from Maier IOC suspends Kim over corruption probe
Golf: Perry vaults into lead at Bob Hope Classic Lawrie surges
ahead in South Africa Basketball: Bryant in court for sensitive
hearing Asashoryu wins at New Year sumo Beckham’s Argy Bargies
just coincidence: Solari Milan sweep into semis as Roma fail to
shake off hoodoo Sport spots: Tyson’s lawyer seeks assault case
settlement
FIFA showpiece threat to English FA Cup Final Blatter deals
double fashion blow Arsenal are our main rivals, says Ferguson
Daily Times - All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
27 Daily Times: Govt to make findings about N-scientists public
Monday, January 26, 2004
By Shahzad Raza
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam (PML-QA) on
Sunday ensured that the government would make public the record
of investigation in the alleged nuclear-technology transfer
scandal in which Pakistani nuclear scientists might be involved.
“All proofs will be placed before the masses on the conclusion of
the probe,” said Syed Kabir Ali Wasti, vice president of the
PML-QA in a press statement. “If needed, bank account numbers and
details of deposits will be publicised,” he added. He said people
would be taken into confidence by making public all the details
including the banks accounts and details of the deposits.
Mr Wasti said anyone found to be involved in the proliferation
would not be spared. He said no previous government was involved
in transferring the nuclear technology, but that it might be the
act of some individuals for financial gains. About public
criticism on scientists’ debriefing, he said that the issue
should not be politicised. He condemned certain elements for
bringing families of the nuclear scientists out on the roads.
“Since the country is passing through a difficult time,
debriefing of scientists should not be made an issue against the
government,” he said, warning against the charges of
proliferation the country, could face, and the dangers of being
dubbed as terrorist, bankrupt and a rogue state.
Daily Times - All Rights Reserved Site developed and hosted by
WorldCALL Internet Solutions
*****************************************************************
28 Daily Times: PPP blames Musharraf for nuke transfer
Monday, January 26, 2004
Staff Report
LAHORE: The Pakistan Peoples’ Party has written a letter to all
foreign embassies in Pakistan asking them to hold President
Pervez Musharraf accountable for the transfer of technology,
instead of Pakistani nuclear scientists, since he was controlling
the command and control system when the technology was
transferred.
PPP Foreign Liaison Committee Chairman Munir Ahmad Khan wrote the
letter on Sunday in which he said that it was important to note
that General Musharraf was in charge of nuclear command and
control when the nuclear transfers took place. If so, then
General Musharraf and not the nuclear scientists, must be held
answerable to the nation for jeopardising the nuclear assets. He
wrote that it was hard to imagine that a bunch of Pakistani
nuclear scientists, despite having stringent security measures at
the Kahuta Research Laboratories, were able to transfer the
nuclear technology to any other country.”
The letter reads that it should be pointed out that under the
Benazir Nuclear Doctrine, enunciated in the beginning of 1989,
one of the three principles of policy was ‘No export of nuclear
technology’. In 1988, when the PPP assumed power, there was
international pressure on Pakistan to roll back its nuclear
programme. The elected government of Ms Benazir Bhutto initiated
talks with the concerned players and arranged a consensus between
the president, prime minister and armed forces as well as the
international community to save the nuclear assets. Under the
consensus, the Benazir Nuclear Doctrine was enunciated in which
‘No Export of Nuclear Technology’ was one of the guarantees that
Islamabad provided to the world community to save Pakistan’s
nuclear program from roll back. Mr Khan said that it was shocking
to hear allegations of nuclear export on the part of Pakistani
scientists. In these circumstances, it was necessary to let the
public know about the contents of the letter sent by the United
Nations’ nuclear watch dog, the International Atomic Energy
Agency, so that people of Pakistan should know the questions
asked. The nation must know the exact dates when the alleged
export of nuclear technology took place. “It is suspected that
this export of nuclear technology took place when the first
commando president of Pakistan General Musharraf was the Army
chief. However, the Musharraf regime is refusing to release
details, which is causing more suspicions”, reads the letter. The
PPP demanded immediate release of the IAEA letter to the Pakistan
government. “As the Army chief, General Musharraf would have been
in charge of the nuclear command and control structure, put
formally into place by the second PPP government in 1993 to
prevent individuals from acting individually,” said Mr Khan. He
wrote that it was to be debated if the Pakistani scientists
exported the technology for personal greed or whether they were
being made scapegoats to save General Musharraf and his clique.
Daily Times - All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
29 UK Independent: The 50 lies, exaggerations, distortions and half truths
that took this country to war
25 January 2004
Whatever the outcome of the Hutton inquiry and the vote on top-up
fees, the central charge this paper has consistently made against
Tony Blair is that he took this country to war in Iraq on a false
pretext. Raymond Whitaker and Glen Rangwala list 50 statements on
which history will judge him and his US partners.
1 Tonight, British servicemen and women are engaged from air,
land and sea. Their mission: to remove Saddam Hussein from power,
and disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.
Tony Blair, televised address to the nation, 20 March 2003
2 I have always said to people throughout that ... our aim has
been the elimination of weapons of mass destruction.
Tony Blair, press conference, 25 March 2003
Within days, Mr Blair contradicts himself about the aims of the
war.
3 But for this military action, Saddam Hussein and his sons would
still be in absolute control ... free to continue the repression
and butchery of their people which ... we now know was on such a
savage scale that victims number hundreds of thousands.
Tony Blair, article in 'News of the World', 16 November 2003
"Regime change" again becomes a central justification of the
conflict.
4 You know how passionately I believed in this cause and in the
wisdom of the conflict as the only way to establish long-time
peace and stability.
Tony Blair to British troops in Iraq, 4 January 2004
No mention of WMD was made on this trip. But with Saddam now in
custody and the insurgency in Iraq showing no sign of abating,
the PM finds a new reason for the war.
5 As for the existence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction,
there can be no doubt ... that those weapons existed. It is the
job of the Iraq Survey Group to find out what has happened, which
it will do.
Tony Blair, House of Commons, 21 January 2004
Mr Blair uses lawyer's language, ignoring Iraq's claim that the
weapons existed, but were destroyed more than a decade ago. His
next sentence implicitly acknowledges WMD may never be found.
6 For reasons that have a lot to do with the US government
bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue everyone could agree on,
which was weapons of mass destruction...
Paul Wolfowitz, US deputy defence secretary, 'Vanity Fair', June
2003
The Bush administration made no secret of its desire for "regime
change". Some were ready to admit that WMD was a red herring.
7 We know that he has stockpiles of major amounts of chemical and
biological weapons.
Tony Blair, NBC TV, 3 April 2002
From early 2002, the PM began to stress claims that Iraq had WMD
left over from before the 1991 war, without saying that most
agents would have deteriorated to the point of uselessness.
8 Iraq poses a threat to the world because of its manufacture and
development of weapons of mass destruction.
Jack Straw, interview with David Frost, 24 March 2002
Claims that Iraq was still producing chemical and biological
weapons were prominent, though UN inspectors hadn't found any
production of banned weapons after 1991.
9 It [the dossier] concludes that Iraq has chemical and
biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them,
that he has existing and active military plans for the use of
chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within
45 minutes ... and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear
weapons capability.
Tony Blair to the House of Commons, 24 September 2002
No such weapons were found in place once the invasion began.
10 I have absolutely no doubt whatever that he was trying to
reconstitute weapons of mass destruction programmes. ... [Saddam
Hussein] has always been intending to develop these weapons.
Tony Blair to the Commons Liaison Committee, 8 July 2003
Mr Blair switched to claims about weapons "programmes" and
Saddam's intentions. No further mention of weapons "existing".
11 Saddam was a danger and the world is better off because we got
rid of him.
Q: But stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of mass
destruction as opposed to the possibility that he could move to
acquire those weapons still --
A: So what's the difference?
Q: Well --
A: The possibility that he could acquire weapons. If he were to
acquire weapons, he would be the danger. That's, that's what I'm
trying to explain to you.
President Bush, television interview, 16 December 2003
For Bush, the "possibility" of Iraq obtaining weapons in future
was enough to have justified the war.
12 Already the Kay report identified dozens of weapons of mass
destruction-related programme activities and significant amounts
of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations.
George Bush, State of the Union address, 20 January 2004
Weapons programmes are now WMD-related programme activities.
13 Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminium tubes
and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to
enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.
George Bush, 7 October 2002
The White House ignored persistent evidence from US scientists
and the UN nuclear agency that the tubes were useless for
centrifuges.
14 The British government has learnt that Saddam Hussein recently
sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
George Bush, 28 January 2003
The CIA knew the claim was based on crudely forged documents.
15 We believe he [Saddam] has reconstituted nuclear weapons.
Vice President Dick Cheney, NBC's 'Meet the Press', 16 March,
2003
16 Q: Reconstituted nuclear weapons. You misspoke.
A: Yeah. I did misspeak ... We never had any evidence that he had
acquired a nuclear weapon.
Mr Cheney on 'Meet the Press', 14 September 2003
The VP took six months to correct his eve-of-war assertion.
17 The dossier shows that Iraq continues to produce chemical
agent for chemical weapons; has rebuilt previously destroyed
production plants across Iraq; has bought dual-use chemical
facilities; has retained the key personnel formerly engaged in
the chemical weapons programme; and has a serious ongoing
research programme into weapons production.
Tony Blair to the House of Commons, 24 September 2002
All the sites in Britain's WMD dossier were visited by UN
inspectors, and found to be clean.
18 What we are talking about is chemical weapons, biological
weapons, viruses, bacilli and anthrax - 10,000 litres of anthrax
- that he [Saddam] has.
Jack Straw, House of Commons, 17 March 2003
If the UN said it couldn't prove that Iraq had destroyed agents,
Britain said this proved Iraq still had them.
19 Saddam has ... the wherewithal to develop smallpox.
Colin Powell to the Security Council, 5 February 2003
UN inspectors said there was no evidence Iraq had any seed stock
from which to produce smallpox.
20 Those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing
devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them.
George Bush, Polish TV interview, 29 May 2003
This claim about mobile biological laboratories, echoed by Tony
Blair, was rubbished by David Kelly, who saw the vehicles and
believed they were for producing hydrogen. They were built to a
British design.
21 The Iraq Survey Group has already found massive evidence of a
huge system of clandestine laboratories, workings by scientists,
plans to develop long-range ballistic missiles.
Tony Blair, on British Forces Broadcasting Service, 16 December
2003
The Iraq Survey Group had never talked of a "massive" system, and
didn't link the laboratories with weapons production or research.
22 Is it not reasonable that Saddam provides evidence of
destruction of the biological and chemical agents and weapons the
UN proved he had in 1999?
Tony Blair to the House of Commons, 25 February 2003
In 1999 the inspectors emphasised they didn't have proof that
Iraq had prohibited weapons. They had suspicions that needed to
be checked.
23 The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials
sufficient to produce more than 38,000 litres of botulinum toxin
-- enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory
failure."
President Bush, State of the Union address, 28 January 2003
Unmovic said in March 2003: "It seems unlikely that significant
undeclared quantities of botulinum toxin could have been
produced, based on the quantity of media unaccounted for."
24 By 1998, UN experts agreed that the Iraqis had perfected
drying techniques for their biological weapons programmes.
Colin Powell to the Security Council, 5 February 2003
Unmovic said it "has no evidence that drying of anthrax or any
other agent in bulk was conducted".
25 If Saddam Hussein does ... readmit the weapons inspectors and
allow them to do their job... then the case for military action
recedes to the point almost of invisibility and that is obvious.
Jack Straw, interview with David Frost, 15 September 2002
When the inspectors returned to Iraq, Britain and the US said
they were ineffective and were being obstructed, leaving force as
the only option.
26 Journeys are monitored by security officers stationed on the
route if they have prior intelligence. Any changes of destination
are notified ahead by telephone or radio so that arrival is
anticipated. The welcoming party is a give away.
The PM's dossier of 3 February 2003
"In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side
knew in advance that the inspectors were coming," chief inspector
Hans Blix told the Security Council.
27 I have every confidence - and I have expressed that confidence
- in the weapons inspectors ... As long as this regime is in
place, and as long as it is refusing to co-operate, the
inspection process becomes well-nigh impossible.
Jack Straw to the House of Commons, 17 March 2003
28 The reason why the inspectors couldn't do their job ... was
that Saddam wouldn't co-operate.
Tony Blair, interview, 4 April 2003
The inspectors reported they were making progress. Iraq was
destroying missiles they had declared illegal when the US ordered
the inspectors out on the brink of war.
29 Never once did I come to this House and say that I believed
that we should not give the weapons inspectors more time because
I did not think that they were going to get any more co-operation
than they had had in the past.
Jack Straw to the House of Commons, 27 November 2003
The Foreign Secretary tortuously acknowledges that the weapons
inspectors were getting somewhere at the time of the invasion.
30 There is no evidence linking Iraq to the events of 11th
September; there is no evidence either so far that links Iraq to
the anthrax attacks in the United States."
Geoff Hoon, 29 October 2001
This was before the war in Afghanistan to oust al-Qa'ida.
31 Iraq could decide on any given day to provide biological or
chemical weapons to a terrorist group or individual terrorist ...
Dick Cheney, 10 January 2003
The White House concentrated instead on questionable connections
between Iraq and terrorism.
32 There are things that haven't been explained ... like the
meeting of Mohammed Atta [leader of 9/11 hijackers] with Iraqi
officials in Prague.
Q: Which now is alleged, right? There is some doubt to that?
A: Now this gets you into classified areas again.
Paul Wolfowitz, to 'San Francisco Chronicle', 23 February 2002
US intelligence had established Atta was in the US at the time of
the alleged meeting.
33 Mohammed Atta met Saddam Hussein in Baghdad prior to September
11. We have proof of that ... The meeting is one of the motives
of an American attack on Iraq.
Richard Perle, Pentagon adviser, September 2002
If there was any proof, it would surely have been produced by
now.
34 Iraq has trained al-Qa'ida members in bomb-making and poisons
and deadly gases
George Bush, 7 October 2002
This claim, four days before Congress authorised war, omitted
classified caveats and warnings that the information might be
unreliable.
35 There is some intelligence evidence about linkages between
members of al-Qa'ida and people in Iraq.
Tony Blair to the House of Commons Liaison Committee, 21 January
2003
Blair had just seen an intelligence report, later leaked, which
said al-Qa'ida was "in ideological conflict" with the "apostate"
Iraqi regime, and there were no current links.
36 In the event of Saddam refusing to co-operate or being in
breach, there will be a further UN discussion.
Tony Blair on Security Council Resolution 1441, 8 November 2002
When Britain later claimed that Iraq had violated the resolution,
it said another Security Council meeting was unnecessary.
37 Resolution 1441 gives the legal basis for this [war].
Tony Blair to the House of Commons, 12 March 2003
The opposite of his earlier pledge.
38 France said it would veto a second resolution whatever the
circumstances.
Tony Blair to the House of Commons, 18 March 2003
President Chirac said France would vote against any resolution
that authorised force whilst inspections were still working.
39 The oil revenues... should be put in a trust fund for the
Iraqi people administered through the UN.
Tony Blair to the House of Commons, 18 March 2003
Britain co-sponsored a Security Council resolution that gave the
US and UK control of the oil revenues.
40 The United Kingdom should seek a new Security Council
Resolution that would affirm... the use of all oil revenues for
the benefit of the Iraqi people.
Commons motion for war, proposed by Tony Blair, 18 March 2003
Iraq's oil revenues have been used to pay US firms, often at
vastly inflated prices.
41 Over some period of months, the Iraqis will have their
government selected by Iraqi people.
Donald Rumsfeld, press conference, 13 April 2003
Direct elections are not expected until the end of 2005.
42 This is about building a new civil society in Iraq after 35
years when we know women were suppressed, and ensuring women have
a voice in Iraq.
Patricia Hewitt, Trade and Industry Secretary, 16 October 2003
The US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council has removed all the
rights Iraqi women have acquired since the 1950s on divorce,
marriage, inheritance and child custody, reverting them to the
"traditional" form.
43 Iraq's ... got tunnels, caves, all kinds of complexes. We'll
find them.
George Bush, press conference, 3 May 2003
This combination of vagueness and certainty was common during and
immediately after the fighting.
44 There will certainly not be the quantity and proximity [of
WMD] that we thought of before. [Saddam might even have launched]
a massive disinformation campaign to make the world think he was
violating international norms, and he may not have been.
Kenneth Adelman, member of US Defence Policy Board, 17 May 2003
The excuses begin.
45 It is also possible that they decided that they would destroy
them [WMD] prior to a conflict.
Donald Rumsfeld to the Council on Foreign Relations, 27 May 2003
Hans Blix is now convinced they were destroyed before the
conflict - at least seven years before.
46 It is not the most urgent priority now for us since Saddam has
gone ...
Tony Blair 30 May 2003
Finding WMD slides down the scale of importance.
47 In a land mass twice the size of the UK it may well not be
surprising you don't find where this stuff is hidden.
Tony Blair, interview with David Frost, 11 January 2004
This excuse variously describes Iraq as "the size of California"
or "twice the size of France".
48 We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and
Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
Donald Rumsfeld, 30 March 2003
49 I should have said, 'I believe we're in that area. Our
intelligence tells us they're in that area,' and that was our
best judgement.
Mr Rumsfeld, 10 September 2003
WMD excuse which is now most prevalent: we believed it at the
time.
50 Q: But it is absolutely clear now that the 45 minute thing and
so on, that the weapons of mass destruction idea and you've moved
on to talking about programmes now rather than weapons of mass
destruction. But that was wrong wasn't it?
A: Well you can't say that at this point in time. What you can
say is that we received that intelligence about Saddam's
programmes and about his weapons that we acted on that, it's the
case throughout the whole of the conflict.
Tony Blair, interview with David Frost, 11 January 2004
The PM blames the intelligence.
UK Independent Ltd.
*****************************************************************
30 Las Vegas SUN: Pakistan Discusses Covert Nuke Program
January 24, 2004
By NICOLAS B. TATRO ASSOCIATED PRESS
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) -
Pakistan's president lifted the curtain Saturday on how his
country developed its nuclear weapons program three decades ago,
saying the covert nature of the system may have allowed
scientists to sell nuclear secrets without detection.
He also said Europeans should be investigated along with
Pakistani scientists who may have sold secrets abroad for
"personal gain."
President Pervez Musharraf said Pakistan is investigating
whether individuals in the government knew about the security
leak. Agents also are checking the bank accounts of nine
scientists and administrators detained on suspicion of selling
nuclear technology to Iran and other countries, an Interior
Minister in Pakistan said Saturday.
"We are carrying out an in-depth investigation and...we will
sort out everyone who is involved," Musharaff said on the
sidelines of the World Economic Forum meeting in this Alpine
resort.
Speaking to reporters at a breakfast meeting, Musharraf said
Pakistan's secret program to develop a nuclear weapon was
started about 30 years ago, after neighboring India conducted
nuclear tests, and that scientists were given "freedom of
action" to develop the technology.
"Covert meant scientists moved around with full autonomy in a
secretive manner," he said, adding that the program "could
succeed only if there was total autonomy and nobody knew. That
is how it continued."
"Now, if there was some individual or individuals, unscrupulous,
if they were for personal gain selling national assets ... it
was possible because it was not open, it was not under strategic
check and controls. That is why it was possible," he added.
He said those who might have leaked secrets were "anti-state
elements" who acted against government policy.
The investigation began after Iran disclosed names of people who
provided them with nuclear technology and they included
Pakistani scientists, Musharraf said.
"I accept that," he said, adding that he would like to see
European countries and scientists investigated for their
involvement as well.
Musharraf, Pakistan's top general who seized power in a
bloodless 1999 coup, said that only the European countries had
the sophisticated metallurgy necessary to produce fissile
materials required for nuclear weapons.
"There are European countries involved in the refining and
producing. It is high-class metallurgy. Where is it available?
In Europe. So why is no one talking about it?" he said.
The president said an investigation would reveal any government
involvement, and "the possibility of individuals having been
involved is there."
He said that the country's nuclear weapons were now under strict
government control and could not be seized even if he was
killed.
Musharraf, who survived two assassination attempts in the past
month, said he had set up a national command authority that he
chaired to guard the technology.
"There is very strict control and no question about it falling
into anyone's hands," he told reporters.
Musharraf told The Associated Press after the meeting, "The
security of all of this is a military responsibility. As long as
the military of Pakistan remains, nothing can go wrong."
In Islamabad, the Interior Ministry official, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said investigators suspect that of the
nine detainees, one scientist and one other person did something
for personal gain. He would give no names or further details.
For years Pakistan has scoffed at reports that its scientists
might have been involved in proliferation.
But the country started hedging in December, saying individuals
motivated by ambition or greed may have sold secrets, after U.N.
inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities showed that
"Pakistani-linked individuals" had acted as "intermediaries and
black marketeers."
Pakistani scientists were later implicated in a scheme to sell
high-tech centrifuge technology to Libya, and also have been
named in probes into North Korea's nuclear program.
Pakistan has acknowledged detaining "five to six" scientists and
administrators for what it calls "debriefings." Most have not
been released, relatives say, and no formal appearances or
charges have been made in court.
--
*****************************************************************
31 Las Vegas SUN: Pakistan Nuke Expert Confined to Capital
January 24, 2004
By MATTHEW PENNINGTON ASSOCIATED PRESS
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -
The father of Pakistan's nuclear program, considered a national
hero for giving the Islamic world its first atomic bomb, has
been confined to the capital as investigators probe whether
scientists leaked weapons technology, an acquaintance said
Saturday.
Abdul Qadeer Khan has been questioned "many times" in recent
weeks, said Zahid Malik, author of the book "Islamic Bomb" on
Pakistan's nuclear program.
"He's cooperating (with the investigation) but he's satisfied
that he's done nothing wrong," Malik, who met with Khan on
Thursday, told The Associated Press.
After denying for years that its scientists might have been
involved in proliferation and provided technology to North
Korea, Iran, Libya and Iraq, Pakistan recently acknowledged that
some individuals might have leaked information for personal
profit.
On Saturday, President Pervez Musharraf told reporters that the
extreme secrecy surrounding the development of Pakistan's
nuclear program 30 years ago gave wide latitude to scientists -
and possibly allowed them to sell information.
"Covert meant scientists moved around with full autonomy in a
secretive manner," he said, adding that the program "could
succeed only if there was total autonomy and nobody knew. That
is how it continued."
"Now, if there was some individual or individuals, unscrupulous,
if they were for personal gain selling national assets ... it
was possible because it was not open, it was not under strategic
check and controls. That is why it was possible," he added.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland,
Musharraf said his country's investigation started after Iran
disclosed to the U.N. inspection agency the names of people who
provided them with nuclear technology - including Pakistani
scientists.
Musharraf said agents were investigating whether Pakistani
government officials knew of technology being leaked overseas.
The probe also includes checks into the bank accounts of
scientists and authorities who have been detained in connection
with the suspected information leaks, an Interior Ministry
official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The official said investigators suspect one scientist and one
other person did something for personal gain. He would give no
names or further details.
"Pakistan's investigations are vigorous. And they are looking
into all dimensions, including financial aspects," Foreign
Ministry spokesman Masood Khan told AP.
Eight scientists and administrators from the Khan Research
Laboratories - Pakistan's leading nuclear weapons facility that
is named after Khan - are currently being held for what the
government has labeled "debriefings."
One scientist, Saeed Mansoor Ahmad, was released late Saturday,
said Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, who added that
interrogations could be over within a week.
Though he is confined to the capital, Khan is continuing his
work as an adviser in the prime minister's office, his
acquaintance Malik said.
"He's restricted to Islamabad but goes to his office in the
prime minister's secretariat," Malik told AP.
A government official said on condition of anonymity that
"security restrictions may have been increased" on Khan but that
the scientist had "chosen to stay in Islamabad" while
"debriefings" of laboratory employees take place.
Musharraf has vowed to prosecute any scientists who sold nuclear
secrets overseas for crimes against the state. In an interview
with CNN on Friday, he said he wouldn't like to predict the
outcome of Pakistan's investigation but that it appeared "some
individuals were involved for personal gain."
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N. atomic agency who is also
attending the World Economic Forum, said this week that the
nuclear proliferation allegations involved a "very sophisticated
network of black market" operators. But he said he had seen no
evidence that the Pakistani government was involved.
--
*****************************************************************
32 Ocean County News: Group claims N-plant will seek license renewal
January 24, 2004
By JARRETT RENSHAW Staff Writer, (609) 978-2015
LACEY TOWNSHIP - A group opposed to the continued operation of
the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant claims that Exelon Nuclear.
plans to file for a renewal of its operating license, which would
allow the plant to operate until 2029.
Exelon Nuclear spokesman David Simon would not confirm or deny
the organization's claim, only saying that the "company is moving
in a certain direction and is not ready to make anything official
as of yet."
Exelon Nuclear is the parent company of AmeriGen and owns 17
nuclear reactors throughout the country.
An energy associate from the New Jersey Public Interest Research
Group said the group released the information after it learned
that company officials announced at a luncheon last week that
they planned to pursue the renewal.
Lacey officials who were at the luncheon could not be reached for
comment.
Simon did confirm that the company was increasing lobbying
efforts in Washington and at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Simon said their efforts are aimed at defending what he says are
"emotional criticisms" against nuclear power plants.
"For some, the power plant is an emotional issue and it affects
their judgment. But for us, it is about the facts, and they are
that the power plant is safe and that New Jersey residents want
nuclear power," Simon said.
The NRC is the licensing commission that oversees all nuclear
power plants in the country.
Oyster Creek's current operating license is set to expire in
2009. The company has until April to submit a renewal
application, and, if approved, it would be allowed to operate
until 2029.
The April application deadline gives those opposed to the plant's
operation an opportunity to voice their opposition.
Suzanne Leta, of NJPIRG, said the group released the information
because it wanted people, especially government officials, to
feel the urgency.
"We feel the clock is running out, and that once the company
files for the renewal, their application will be rubber-stamped,"
Leta said.
Leta said she hopes state and local officials can apply enough
pressure to make the federal government reject the application.
It is not only groups like NJPIRG voicing their opposition,
several nearby communities, such as Stafford and Ocean Townships,
have passed resolutions calling for the plant's closure.
Among many other arguments, those opposed to the plant point to
the fact that the plant is the oldest one in the country. They
also say that emergency evacuation plans are not sufficient.
The biggest supporters of the plant are Lacey officials and Lacey
residents, who argue that the nuclear power plant is safe and an
important source of revenue for the township.
Township officials were angry that other towns passed resolutions
calling for the plant's closure, so they "punched back" and
passed a resolution calling for the plant to remain open.
The two sides should get their chance to present their arguments
in the coming weeks.
The NJPIRG will hold a community meeting in the Waretown library
tentatively scheduled for Thursday at 10:30 a.m.
Meanwhile, a local television station plans to air a public forum
sometime in early April.
To e-mail Jarrett Renshaw at The Press:
JRenshaw@pressofac.com
*****************************************************************
33 Knox News: TVA hazing costs some their jobs
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD, Associated Press
January 24, 2004
The Tennessee Valley Authority revealed Friday that four managers
were suspended and a fifth was warned for a hazing ritual in
which a nuclear worker was thrown into an ice-condenser safety
system.
In addition, eight contractor employees were either fired,
suspended, demoted or transferred for their involvement in the
April 24 incident at the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant near Chattanooga,
the TVA inspector general's office said.
TVA, the country's largest public utility, released a 25-page
inspector general's report on the incident Friday under a Freedom
of Information request from The Associated Press and other media.
TVA erased all names in the report.
The investigation, prompted by a single complaint, found the
"initiation" practice "was common and had been going on since the
1980s."
As many as 100 to 200 employees may have been subjected to the
hazing over the years, witnesses told investigators. Several
witnesses said "the practice was so widespread management must
have known," although the report contained denials from some
managers.
"One of the first things you learned about a nuclear plant was
becoming an 'icebaby,' " one witness told investigators.
"Icebaby" T-shirts showing "people in a basket" were even sold at
a workers' co-op. The report included pictures of four shirts.
Nearly 2,000 baskets containing boron-laced ice ring the top of
the building containing Sequoyah's reactor core. The ice is
supposed to cool any steam released during an accident, condense
it into water and reduce the threat of a radioactive release.
Boron is added because it has a very high capacity to absorb
radiation.
The investigation found the employee was sent on a bogus
assignment to get an ice sample during a power outage on April
24. She was to be "initiated" - a practice in which "females were
hit with ice coming out of the hose, which was like a snowball,
while men were thrown into the basket," the report said.
After waiting about an hour in the cold room, two employees came
in and one grabbed her ankles and flipped her into the basket as
she was leaning over to get a sample.
"She did a somersault and landed on her back with the ice hitting
her in the face. Her glasses were knocked sideways, and she had a
bruise across the side of her face." Then someone threw a tarp
over her.
"When (the employee) stood up, someone told her she did not need
to get a sample," the report said. "She was mad and upset."
Management learned of the incident when the employee reported it
to medical personnel that evening.
The report said a manager remembered another employee almost
losing a hand during horseplay around the ice condensers in the
past, yet the investigators report said, "No one had been hurt
over the years through this practice and everyone who knew about
it generally believed it was harmless."
The investigators said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's
resident inspector said there was no NRC violation in "sending
(an employee) into the ice condenser on a bogus assignment."
However, TVA issued a statement Friday saying the federal utility
"does not condone this type of behavior" and had "taken action to
reinforce that this type of behavior is unacceptable and will not
be tolerated in the workplace."
Two TVA nuclear plants utilize the ice-condenser system -
Sequoyah, a two-reactor unit plant near Chattanooga, and Watts
Bar, a one-unit plant near Spring City, Tenn.
© 2004 The Knoxville News Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
34 Las Vegas SUN: Panel Notes Safety Lapses at Texas Plant
January 24, 2004
By MATT KELLEY ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) - Workers dismantling an aging nuclear weapon
improperly secured broken pieces of a highly explosive component
by taping them together, federal investigators found. An
explosion could have occurred, they said.
The incident was among several recent safety lapses at the
Energy Department's Pantex plant near Amarillo, Texas, noted by
the independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Last
fall, workers taking apart another old warhead accidentally
drilled into the warhead's radioactive core, forcing evacuation
of the facility.
This month's unorthodox handling of the unstable explosive
increased the risk that the technicians would drop it and set
off a "violent reaction," the safety board said Tuesday in a
letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.
Such a reaction could have "potentially unacceptable
consequences," board chairman John T. Conway said in the letter,
which raised disquieting questions about safety at the Pantex
plant.
About 250,000 people live within 50 miles of the Pantex plant,
where the motto on its Web site is "Maintaining the safety,
security and reliability of America's nuclear weapons
stockpile."
Nothing exploded, and no one was hurt.
The National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the
Energy Department's nuclear weapons programs, is investigating,
spokesman Bryan Wilkes said Friday.
"Safety remains a priority for us," Wilkes said. "We are working
to address the issues in the letter."
Safety board chairman Conway's letter did not make clear whether
the explosive had been separated at the time from the
softball-sized chunk of plutonium that forms the pit, or
trigger, of a thermonuclear warhead. To prevent a thermonuclear
blast, the pit would have to have been separated from the larger
warhead.
If the explosive were still connected to the trigger, an
explosion could have injured or killed workers and could have
spread plutonium or other radioactive materials around the
facility.
The taping and removal of the explosive did not go as planned,
and only quick thinking by the technicians prevented them from
dropping the explosive, Conway wrote.
Conway said taping the explosives together was one of several
mistakes made by Pantex officials that risked an explosion.
Pantex officials also played down the risk, Conway said, calling
the cracks in the explosive and the fact that workers taped it
together a trivial change in procedures.
Jud Simmons, a spokesman for Pantex plant operator BWX
Technologies Inc., did not return telephone messages on Friday.
The pit's plutonium is surrounded by an explosive shell. When
the explosives detonate, the plutonium is compressed and causes
a nuclear explosion. In a thermonuclear weapon, that explosion
sets off an even stronger nuclear blast.
Workers dismantling the pit in question found the explosive was
cracked, which made it more unstable and easier to detonate,
Conway wrote. Their solution was to tape together the cracked
explosives and move them to another location.
In his letter, Conway said other problems included:
-Failing to consult the explosives' manufacturer to determine
how unstable the cracked explosives might be;
-Performing an incomplete and inadequate safety review before
going ahead;
-Allowing workers to perform the taping and removal without
practicing on a mock-up;
-Failing to have experts who had developed the procedure watch
the taping and removal to try to spot any problems.
Conway's letter does not elaborate on what might have happened
had the explosive detonated.
The Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has an inspector stationed
at the Pantex plant and at the nation's other nuclear weapons
sites. Weekly reports by the Pantex inspector, William White,
show several problems with safety at the plant, including flaws
in the software designed to control the movement of nuclear and
explosive materials around the site.
White reported in October that Pantex technicians had made a
mistake while dismantling a W62 warhead from a Minuteman
missile. A drill damaged part of the warhead's nuclear core,
prompting officials to evacuate the facility until experts
determined that no radiation had leaked, White wrote.
---
On the Net:
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board:
National Nuclear Security Administration:
Pantex:
--
*****************************************************************
35 Xinhuanet: Northeast India proposes nuclear power plant
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2004-01-25 10:11:58
NEW DELHI, Jan. 24 (Xinhuanet) -- A major producer of uranium
ore in India has mooted a proposal for setting up a 1,000-mw
nuclear power plant in East Singhbhum District of northeast
India's Jharkhand Pradesh.
The Press Trust of India cited Chief Minister Arjun Munda of
Jharkhand as saying that the estimated cost of the plant is about
1,024 million US dollars and the proposal has been placed before
the central government for approval.
Munda said he had a discussion with the Prime Minister in
this regard recently and also met senior officials of the
Hyderabad-based nuclear fuel complex.
Claiming that Indian Union Government has already assured
Jharkhand of setting up a uranium processing project in the East
Singhbhum District at a cost of 77 million dollars, Munda said
that he would be visiting the nuclear fuel complex to gather
further information about its functioning.
The central government reportedly would soon send a team of
experts to Jharkhand to conduct a survey in this regard. Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
36 St. Petersburg Times: Progress Energy's chairman to retire
Stepping in will be the No. 2 executive, who has been playing a
large role in guiding the company.
By LOUIS HAU, Times Staff Writer
Published January 24, 2004
Progress Energy Inc. said Friday that Bill Cavanaugh, the primary
architect of the 2000 takeover of Florida Progress Corp., will
retire as chief executive March 1. He will be succeeded by
president and chief operating officer Robert B. McGehee.
Cavanaugh, 65, will step down as chairman in May, when the
company's board will select a new chairman. The change in
leadership at Progress had been anticipated, and industry experts
said they don't anticipate any sudden changes in strategy at the
Raleigh, N.C., utility.
McGehee, 60, had been Cavanaugh's heir apparent. Since joining
the company, which was known as Carolina Power &Light, in 1997,
McGehee has assumed expanding managerial duties. In December, he
was given the added responsibility of overseeing Progress'
unregulated businesses.
McGehee and Cavanaugh have known each other since 1984, when
McGehee was chairman of a Jackson, Miss., law firm and Cavanaugh
was an executive with Entergy Corp., based in Jackson. Both are
veterans of the U.S. Navy's nuclear submarine program, as is
Progress Energy Florida president and chief executive Bill
Habermeyer.
The March 1 date means Cavanaugh will be able to step down close
to the retirement date in February he had originally set for
himself. In September 2002, Progress' board asked Cavanaugh to
delay his retirement by a year to February 2005. At the time, the
energy industry faced ballooning problems in wholesale power
markets and continued nervousness following the collapse of
energy trader Enron Corp.
But now that Wall Street jitters have calmed, and with McGehee
already overseeing all aspects of Progress' business, Cavanaugh
said in an interview Friday that "it just made sense for me to
step down and let him start running the company."
McGehee said he will spend the next few months assuring
employees, investors and Wall Street analysts of a smooth
transition. When asked Friday how his strategic vision for
Progress might differ from that of Cavanaugh, he demurred, saying
"that will develop over time."
He acknowledged that the company needs to make more headway in
reducing its debt. Ratings agencies have expressed concern that
the company hasn't cut it as much as expected since the merger.
But McGehee made it clear that he has no plans for dramatic
changes, noting that he already had a central role in guiding the
company. "I think if I thought something needed to be changed, I
would have already started on it," he said.
Roger Conrad, editor of the investment newsletter Utility
Forecaster out of McLean, Va., said Progress' decision not to
invest as heavily in wholesale power as other utilities means
that it hasn't had to make radical adjustments in its business
plan.
"I think they might run things a little more conservatively, but
they were already moving in that direction anyway," Conrad said.
"It's been a pretty steady outfit, and I think that's what people
will expect it to continue to be."
McGehee and Cavanaugh's personal styles are similar, according
to Harvey Schmidt, a former president of the Greater Tampa
Chamber of Commerce who is now president and chief executive of
the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce.
"I think part of the reason why management would be comfortable
with Bob in that leadership role is because the growth and
development of the company has really been a partnership between
Mr. Cavanaugh and Mr. McGehee," Schmidt said.
Cavanaugh said he plans to travel and spend more time with his
family at their beach house near Wilmington, N.C. He added that
he also hopes to stay active in the nuclear power industry,
although he said he wasn't yet sure in what capacity.
Nuclear power should be part of efforts by the United States to
diversify its sources of energy, Cavanaugh said. But he added
that an expansion of nuclear power generation would require a
national energy policy and further progress in opening a national
nuclear-waste repository in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. He also said
that in order for nuclear power to be cost-competitive with
natural gas, it must receive some sort of tax credit "for not
destroying the environment."
Cavanaugh said his proudest accomplishments at Progress included
the performance of the company's nuclear power plants, which
produced more electricity in 2003 than ever before, and CP's
acquisition of Florida Progress.
The deal raised the company's profile among investors, while
subsequent problems at other utility companies, including
cross-state rival Duke Energy of Charlotte, have further enhanced
Progress' image as a relatively stable player in the industry.
"I really applaud the employees in Florida and the Carolinas for
how they made the integration of Florida Progress and Carolina
Power &Light come together," Cavanaugh said.
Progress' shares close Friday at $43.82, down 38 cents amid a
general decline in utility stocks.
- Louis Hau can be reached at or 813 226-3404 ROBERT B. McGEHEE
Age: 60.
Born: Canton, Miss.
Education: U.S. Naval Academy, class of 1966; law degree,
University of Texas at Austin, 1973.
Military experience: U.S. Navy, 1966-1971, served as a
lieutenant on a nuclear submarine.
Previous work experience: attorney and later chairman of Wise
Carter Child &Caraway, Jackson, Miss., 1974-1997.
At Progress Energy: Joined predecessor CP in 1997; served as
president of Progress Energy Service Co., and president and chief
operating officer of Progress Energy Inc. [Last modified January
24, 2004, 01:32:07]
*****************************************************************
37 [DU-WATCH] FW: Gulf War Syndrome action demanded
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 16:24:43 -0600 (CST)
From: Susan H. Riordon [mailto:busters@ns.sympatico.ca]
Sent: January 22, 2004 8:16 AM
-----Original Message-----
Sent: January 21, 2004 23:41
Gulf War Syndrome action demanded
Gulf War Syndrome action demanded
[photo] Major Ian Hill became ill a day after taking anti-nerve agent
tablets
A call for action for those suffering from so-called Gulf War Syndrome is
due to be made in the House of Lords.
Lord Morris of Manchester will demand the government responds to a coroner's
ruling that an ex-soldier's death was linked to his service in the 1991 war.
The Labour peer will make the plea on Thursday, following the verdict on the
death of Army reservist Major Ian Hill in 2001, after a decade of ill
health.
Last November's coroner's decision, was the first of its kind in the UK.
Major Hill, 54, a retired Army officer with 20 years' experience as a field
nurse, volunteered for service because of a shortage of medically-trained
personnel.
'Inquiry promise'
His health deteriorated throughout the 1990s and he died in March 2001,
after founding the National Gulf War Veterans' and Families' Association.
Cheshire coroner Nicholas Rheinberg ruled at the Warrington inquest that he
had died from natural causes "to which service in the 1991 Gulf campaign
contributed".
Lord Morris said Major Hill's widow, Carole, told him that before becoming
prime minister, Tony Blair had promised her dying husband that if Labour won
power he would ensure that these veterans got a full public inquiry.
"These are matters which I shall be raising in the House of Lords," said
Lord Morris.
"Scores of Gulf War veterans have been taken ill and have died prematurely.
"This inquest ruling is something which the Ministry of Defence must respond
to."
------------------------
gulflink@yahoogroups.com is a service
of http://www.gulflink.org.
Hosted by: The Desert Storm Battle Registry
A Gulf War Veteran advocacy group!
Messages posted to this service are the
opinions of the senders, and do not
necessarily represent that of the group
or DSBR. Any advertisements posted at the
bottom are not necessarily endorsements
of DSBR and affiliates.
[Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Yahoo! Groups Links
To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
*****************************************************************
38 [DU-WATCH] Fwd: Depleted Uranium Weapons Negative Health
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 17:08:50 -0600 (CST)
There is a danger posed by "Depleted" Uranium beyond its extreme
negative health effects, and that is it has been used to lull the
world back across the nuclear threshold we were once determined never
to cross again:
tony_clifton_o5 wrote:
Depleted Uranium Weapons Negative Health Effects
US/British Forces Continue Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons Despite
Massive Evidence of Negative Health Effects
Sources:
The Sunday Herald
March 30, 2003
Title: "US Forces' Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons is 'Illegal'"
Author: Neil Mackay
Hustler Magazine
June 2003
Title: "Toxic Troops: What our Soldiers Can Expect in Gulf War II"
Author: Dan Kaplevitz
Children of War
March 2003
Title: "The Hidden Killer"
Author: Reese Erlich
Faculty Evaluator: Rick Williams JD
Student Researcher: Darrel Jacks, Jason Spencer
British and American coalition forces are using depleted uranium
(DU) shells in the war against Iraq and deliberately flouting a UN
resolution which classifies the munitions as illegal weapons of mass
destruction.
Nobel Peace Prize candidate, Helen Caldicott, states that the tiny
radioactive particles created when a DU weapon hits a target are
easily inhaled through gas masks. The particles, which lodge in the
lung, can be transferred to the kidney and other vital organs. Gulf
War veterans are excreting uranium in their urine and semen, leading
to chromosomal damage. DU has a half-life of 4.1 billion years. The
negative effects found in one generation of US veterans could be the
fate of all future generations of Iraqi people.
An August 2002 UN report states that the use of the DU weapons is in
violation of numerous laws and UN conventions. Doug Rokke, ex-
director of the Pentagons DU project says "We must do what is right
for the citizens of the world- ban DU." Reportedly, more than 9600
Gulf War veterans have died since serving in Iraq during the first
gulf war, a statistical anomaly. The Pentagon has blamed the
extraordinary number of illnesses and deaths on a variety of
factors, including stress, pesticides, vaccines and oil-well fire
smoke. However, according to top-level U.S. Army reports and
military contractors, "short-term effects of high doses (of DU) can
result in death, while long-term effects of low doses have been
implicated in cancer." Our own soldiers in the first Gulf War were
often required to enter radioactive battlefields unprotected and
were never warned of the dangers of DU. In effect, George Bush Sr.
used weapons of mass destruction on his own soldiers. The internal
cover-up of the dangers of DU has been intentional and widespread.
In addition to Doug Rocke, the Pentagon's original expert on DU, ex-
army nurse Carol Picou has been outspoken about the negative effects
of DU on herself and other veterans. She has compiled extensive
documentation on the birth defects found among the Iraqi people and
the children of our own Gulf War veterans. She was threatened in
anonymous phone calls on the eve of her testimony to congress.
Subsequently, her car, which contained sensitive information on DU,
was mysteriously destroyed.
UPDATE BY DAN KAPELOVITZ
Just as "Toxic Troops: What Our Soldiers Can Expect in Gulf War II"
hit the newsstands, the U.S. military was dropping a fresh batch of
depleted-uranium tipped shells on Iraq. The story couldn't have been
timelier; yet the mainstream media blatantly ignored Hustler's
coverage of the hazards of depleted uranium (DU) and largely failed
to report any DU-related stories.
Rather than being ashamed that a porn magazine was more willing than
they were to publish the truth, major media outlets kidded
themselves into believing that the story didn't need to be covered,
claiming it was "old news." While it's true that there has been some
limited coverage of DU ever since the first Gulf War, the average
American has not heard of depleted uranium. Those who have most
likely saw reports focusing on DU's awesome armor-piercing
abilities, not its harmful long-term effects on people and the
environment.
Had the mainstream media informed Americans about the hazards to the
military men and women caused by our own government, U.S. citizens
might not have been so gung-ho to again send our troops to Iraq.
Instead, TV pundits constantly told the American people that we
attacked the Iraqi people in order to "liberate" them. Thanks to
U.S. efforts, the Iraqi population is now free to live in a
radioactive battlefield.
As with the first Gulf War, there were relatively few immediate
American casualties. But with each passing year, more and more Gulf
War veterans are sick and dying, very possibly due to exposure to
depleted uranium. The latest Persian Gulf conflict was basically a
low-level nuclear war, and our new recruits are destined to suffer
DU-related illnesses and fatalities.
While there has been grass-roots activism against the use of
depleted uranium, the American military has ignored the concerns and
have even discounted their own report, completed six months prior to
the first Gulf War, that concluded that DU was indeed dangerous. At
least this time around, more soldiers seem to be aware of the
possible hazards of DU and are taking precautions to avoid exposure.
Some are even placing signs in Arabic to warn Iraqi children not to
play with radioactive shells or on contaminated tanks. After the
war, the British government, which also used DU weapons, asserted
that it should help clean up the radioactive mess that it created.
If the American media did its job exposing the truth, perhaps the
U.S. government, which was responsible for most of the damage, would
be shamed into sharing England's concerns.
Resources:
International Action Center
www.iacenter.org
The IAC published the book Metal of Dishonor Depleted Uranium:
http://www.nuclearpolicy.org
The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush's Military-Industrial Complex
by Dr. Helen Caldicott
Military Toxics Project, http://www.miltoxproj.org/
National Gulf War Resource Center, http://www.ngwrc.org
Uranium Medical Research Center, http://www.umrc.net
Campaign Against Depleted Uranium, http://www.cadu.org.uk
Update By Reese Erlich
The Pentagon loves using depleted uranium ammunition because it
penetrates and helps blow up enemy targets. They care little about
the long-term health effects on enemy soldiers, civilians or even
U.S. military vets. As I investigated the issue further, I began to
realize the government may well be covering up a health scandal,
just as it hid the effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam.
In Basra, before the U.S. invasion of 2003, doctors showed me a
photo album of horribly deformed children, some born without noses
or eyes. They compiled a cancer registry of children suffering from
leukemia and other cancers. Children exposed to DU in southern Iraq
saw a four fold increase in cancer and birth defects since 1990.
In "Hidden Killers," I combined original reporting from Iraq and
Bosnia with interviews of U.S. military veterans. Too many Iraqi and
Bosnian civilians exposed to DU are showing up with the same kinds
of cancers as American Gulf War vets.
I also learned that the Pentagon doesn't like critics. Military
officers and scientists who criticize the Pentagon's position can
come under withering attack. After the Gulf War, Maj. Doug Rokke was
assigned to develop official procedures for soldiers at sites where
DU was used. He and his committee mandated that soldiers wear
special protective clothing because of the cancer risk. The Pentagon
overruled him, claiming DU is safe. Rokke, who is on disability as a
result of his DU exposure, later had his disability benefits cut off.
The topic of depleted uranium ammunition has surfaced in the
mainstream media over the years, but strong denials from the
military and the complexity of the topic have muted many of the
stories. I've had editors at prestigious publications tell me they
won't touch the DU story because it's "too controversial." In my
opinion, few reporters or editors are willing to risk the career
danger inherent in criticizing the Pentagon, or taking on a popular
president during "wartime."
Since "Hidden Killers" came out, the Uranium Medical Research Center
(www.umrc.net) has published studies showing the devastating impact
of DU in the Afghanistan War, and the Christian Science Monitor
(5/15/03) featured an excellent report on the impact of DU use in
urban areas during the Iraq invasion.
I'd like to particularly thank the Stanley Foundation, a non-profit
in Muscatine, Iowa, for its support in producing "Children of War:
Fighting Dying, Surviving," the public radio documentary in which
Hidden Killers was featured.
http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004/8.html
--- End forwarded message ---
[Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Yahoo! Groups Links
To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
*****************************************************************
39 EU Report on Health Effects of Ionizing Radiation
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 15:53:33 -0600 (CST)
http://www.euradcom.org/2003/presserr3.pdf
This first report of the European Committee on Radiation Risk is
intended for regulators and those who have to make decisions about
the health effects of radioactive releases. It presents a rational
model for calculating the health risks of exposure to ionizing
radiation. Unlike the existing framework of modelling radiation
risk, the ECRR model uses evidence from the most recent research,
from new discoveries in radiation biology and from human epidemiology
to create a system of calculation which gives results which are in
agreement both with the mechanism of radiation action at the level
of the living cell and observation of disease in exposed populations.
This follows concerns about the conventional risk models advised
by the International Commission on Radiological Protection, a body
which has been widely criticised for lack of balance and for being
self appointed and too close to the nuclear industry. The ICRP model
entirely fails to explain ill health in populations exposed to
internal radioactivity. The ECRR cites massive amounts of evidence;
examples are effects following Chernobyl, the persistent 10-fold
excess of childhood leukaemia near Sellafield, lymphoma in veterans
exposed to depleted Uranium dust during the Gulf War and the Balkans,
and breast cancer in the cohort of women who were adolescent during
1957 - '63 when nuclear weapons-testing was at its height. The UK
government is sufficiently worried about the inability of the ICRP
model to explain or predict such clear evidence of harm from internal
radioactive exposures that in 2001 it set up its own Committee
Examining Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters (CERRIE). Dr Chris
Busby who is Scientific Secretary to the ECRR is a founder member
of CERRIE and also sits on the UK Ministry of Defence Depleted
Uranium Oversight Board (DUOB). In this volume, the committee
explains how the present risk model came to be universally used,
and points out its scientific shortcomings. It also addresses the
ethical basis of releasing radioactive materials to the environment.
The volume is essential reading for anyone involved in legislation
in this area and should also be of interest to members of the public
who need to estimate the effects of nuclear discharges.
Summary of contents The report outlines the committees findings
regarding the effects on human health of exposure to ionising
radiation and presents a new model for assessing these risks. It
is intended for decision-makers and others who are interested in
this area and aims to provide a concise description of the model
developed by the committee and the evidence on which it depends.
The development of the model begins with an analysis of the present
risk model of ECRR2003 A NEW SOURCE OF ADVICE ON THE HEALTH EFFECTS
OF IONISING RADIATION Page 2 the International Commission on
Radiological Protection (ICRP) which is the basis of and dominates
all present radiation risk legislation. The committee regards this
ICRP model as essentially flawed as regards its application to
exposure to internal radioisotopes but for pragmatic reasons to do
with the existence of historical exposure data has agreed to adjust
for the errors in the ICRP model by defining isotope and exposure
specific weighting factors for internal exposures so that the
calculation of effective dose (in Sieverts) remains. Thus, with the
new system, the overall risk factors for fatal cancer published by
ICRP and other risk agencies may be used largely unchanged and
legislation based upon these may also be used unchanged. It is the
calculation of the dose which is altered by the committee's model.
1. The European Committee on Radiation Risk arose out of criticisms
of the risk models of the ICRP which were explicitly identified at
the European Parliament STOA workshop in February 1998; subsequently
it was agreed that an alternative view should be sought regarding
the health effects of low level radiation. The committee consists
of scientists and risk specialists from within Europe but takes
evidence and advice from scientists and experts based in other
countries.
2. The report begins by identifying the existence of a dissonance
between the risk models of the ICRP and epidemiological evidence
of increased risk of illness, particularly cancer and leukaemia,
in populations exposed to internal radioactive isotopes from
anthropogenic sources. The committee addresses the basis in scientific
philosophy of the ICRP risk model as applied to such risks and
concludes that ICRP models have not arisen out of accepted scientific
method. Specifically, ICRP has applied the results of external acute
radiation exposure to internal chronic exposures from point sources
and has relied mainly on physical models for radiation action to
support this. However, these are averaging models and cannot apply
to the probabilistic exposures which occur at the cell level. A
cell is either hit or not hit; minimum impact is that of a hit and
impact increases in multiples of this minimum impact, spread over
time. Thus the committee concludes that the epidemiological evidence
of internal exposures must take precedence over mechanistic
theory-based models in assessing radiation risk from internal
sources.
3. The committee examines the ethical basis of principles implicit
in the ICRP models and hence in legislation based on them. The
committee concludes that the ICRP justifications are based on
outmoded philosophical reasoning, specifically the averaging
cost-benefit calculations of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism has
long been discarded as a foundation for ethical justification of
practice owing to its inability to distinguish between just and
unjust societies and conditions. It may, for example, be used to
underpin a slave society, since it is only overall benefit which
is calculated, and not individual benefit. The committee suggests
that rights-based philosophies such as Rawls's Theory of Justice
or considerations based on the UN Declaration of Human Rights should
be applied to the question of avoidable radiation exposures to
members of the public resulting from practice. The committee concludes
that releases of radioactivity without consent can not be justified
ethically since the smallest dose has a finite, if small, probability
of fatal harm. In the event that such exposures are permitted, the
committee emphasises that the calculation of collective dose should
be employed for all practices and time scales of interest so that
overall harm may be integrated over the populations.
4. The committee believes that it is not possible accurately to
determine radiation dose to populations owing to the problems of
averaging over exposure types, cells and individuals and that each
exposure should be addressed in terms of its effects at the cell
or molecular level. However, in practice this is not possible and
so the committee has developed a model which extends that of the
ICRP by the inclusion of two new weighting factors in the calculation
of effective dose. These are biological and biophysical weighting
factors and they address the problem of ionisation density or
fractionation in time and space at the cell level arising from
internal point sources. In effect, they are Page 3 extensions of
the ICRPs radiation weighting factors employed to adjust for
differences in ionisation density resulting from different quality
radiations (e.g. alpha-, beta and gamma).
5. The committee reviews sources of radiation exposure and recommends
caution in attempting to gauge the effects of novel exposures by
comparison with exposures to natural radiation. Novel exposures
include internal exposures to artificial isotopes like Strontium-90
and Plutonium-239 which bind specifically to DNA but also include
micrometer range aggregates of isotopes (hot particles) which may
consist of entirely man-made isotopes (e.g. Plutonium) or altered
forms of natural isotopes (e.g. depleted Uranium). Such comparisons
are presently made on the basis of the ICRP concept of absorbed
dose which does not accurately assess the consequence for harm at
the cell level. Comparisons between external and internal radiation
exposures may also result in underestimates of risk since the effects
at the cell level may be quantitatively very different.
6. The committee argues that recent discoveries in biology, genetics
and cancer research suggest that the ICRP target model of cellular
DNA is not a good basis for the analysis of risk and that such
physical models of radiation action cannot take precedence over
epidemiological studies of exposed populations. Recent results
suggest that very little is known about the mechanisms leading from
cell impact to clinical disease. The committee reviews the basis
of epidemiological studies of exposure and points out that many
examples of clear evidence of harm following exposure have been
discounted by ICRP on the basis of invalid physical models of
radiation action. The committee reinstates such studies as a basis
for its estimates of radiation risk.
7. The committee reviews the models of radiation action at the cell
level and conclude that the linear no threshold model of the ICRP
is unlikely to represent the response of the organism to increasing
exposure except for external irradiation and for certain end points
in the moderately high dose region. Extrapolations from the Hiroshima
lifespan studies can only reflect risk for similar exposures i.e.
high dose acute exposures. For low dose exposures the committee
concludes, from a review of published work, that health effects
relative to the radiation dose are proportionately higher at low
doses and that there may be a biphasic dose response from many of
these exposures owing to inducible cell repair and the existence
of high-sensitivity phase (replicating) cells. Such dose-response
relationships may confound the assessment of epidemiological data
and the committee points out that the lack of a linear response in
the results of epidemiological studies should not be used as an
argument against causation.
8. In further considering mechanisms of harm, the committee concludes
that the ICRP model of radiation risk and its averaging methods
exclude effects which result from anisotropy of dose both in space
and in time. Thus the ICRP model ignores both high doses to local
tissue caused by internal hot particles, and sequential hits to
cells causing replication induction and interception (second event),
and merely averages all these high risk situations over large tissue
mass. For these reasons, the committee concludes that the unadjusted
absorbed dose used by ICRP as a basis of risk calculations is flawed,
and has replaced it with an adjusted absorbed dose which uses
enhancement weightings based on the biophysical and biological
aspects of the specific exposure. In addition, the committee draws
attention to risks from transmutation from certain elements, notably
Carbon-14 and Tritium, and has weighted such exposures accordingly.
Weightings are also given to radioactive versions of elements which
have a particular biochemical affinity for DNA e.g. Strontium and
Barium and certain Auger emitters.
9. The committee reviews the evidence which links radiation exposure
to illness on the basis that similar exposures define the risks of
such exposures. Thus the committee considers Page 4 all the reports
of associations between exposure and ill health, from the A-bomb
studies to weapons fallout exposures, through nuclear site downwinders,
nuclear workers, reprocessing plants, natural background studies
and nuclear accidents. The committee draw particular attention to
two recent sets of exposure studies which show unequivocal evidence
of harm from internal irradiation at low dose. These are the studies
of infant leukemia following Chernobyl, and the observation of
increased minisatellite DNA mutations following Chernobyl. Both of
these sets of studies falsify the ICRP risk models by factors of
between 100 and 1000. The committee uses evidence of risk from
exposures to internal and external radiation to set the weightings
for the calculation of dose in a model which may be applied across
all exposure types to estimate health outcomes.
Unlike the ICRP the committee extends the analysis from fatal cancer
to infant mortality and other causes of ill health including
non-specific general health detriment.
10. The committee concludes that the present cancer epidemic is a
consequence of exposures to global atmospheric weapons fallout which
peaked in the period 1959-63 and that more recent releases of
radioisotopes to the environment from the operation of the nuclear
fuel cycle will result in significant increases in cancer and other
types of ill health.
11. Using both the ECRR's new model and that of the ICRP the committee
calculates the total number of deaths resulting from the nuclear
project since 1945. The ICRP calculation, based on figures for doses
to populations up to 1989 given by the United Nations, results in
1,173,600 deaths from cancer. The ECRR model predicts 61,600,000
deaths from cancer, 1,600,000 infant deaths and 1,900,000 foetal
deaths. In addition, the ECRR predicts a 10% loss of life quality
integrated over all diseases and conditions in those who were exposed
over the period of global weapons fallout.
12. The committee lists its recommendations. The total maximum
permissible dose to members of the public arising from all human
practices should not be more than 0.1mSv, with a value of 5mSv for
nuclear workers. This would severely curtail the operation of nuclear
power stations and reprocessing plants, and this reflects the
committees belief that nuclear power is a costly way of producing
energy when human health deficits are included in the overall
assessment. All new practices must be justified in such a way that
the rights of all individuals are considered. Radiation exposures
must be kept as low as reasonably achievable using best available
technology. Finally, the environmental consequences of radioactive
discharges must be assessed in relation to the total environment,
including both direct and indirect effects on all living systems.
ECRR2003 is dedicated to Prof. Alice Stewart, who agreed to be its
first Chair but who sadly did not live to see the recommendations
published.
ECRR2003 (ISBN 1 897761 24 4) is published on behalf of the committee
by Green Audit and is available by order from all bookshops, direct
from the publishers or by emailing admin@euradcom.org, price EU75.00
or stg 45. The committee is anxious to make the volume widely
available and therefore has set aside copies to be sold at a
concession price of EU25 (stg.15) for those individuals, students,
etc. who might find the full price beyond their finances. Application
should be made to the secretary by emailing admin@euradcom.org The
committee will be publishing further reports on specific issues
relating to radiation and health from time to time and will revise
its advice in the light of new research results and following
discussion among its members.
ECRR2003 was edited by Dr Chris Busby, with Dr Rosalie Bertell,
Prof Inge Schmitz Feuerhake, Prof. Alexey Yablokov and Dr Molly
Scott Cato.
46 scientists and others with a knowledge or interest in radiation
risk assessment who have assisted in the discussions or in the
preparation of the draft documents leading to the final report are
listed.
*****************************************************************
40 [RADFOOD] Action Item & Statement on COOL!
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 16:21:31 -0600 (CST)
**STATEMENT ON COUNTRY OF ORIGIN LABELING**
Senate Vote Denies Consumers Crucial Information About Their Food
Statement by Wenonah Hauter, Director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass
Energy and Environment Program
Today's vote by the Senate to approve the omnibus appropriations
package means that consumers will remain without a piece of vital
information about the food they and their families eat: its country of
origin. The budget package contains a provision that will delay the
implementation of mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL) until
2006, effectively killing the program. The 2002 Farm Bill required
mandatory country-of-origin labeling to be implemented by September of
this year. This vote is a slap in the face to U.S. consumers as well as
family farmers and ranchers, all of whom would benefit from the labeling
program because they could distinguish their products in the
marketplace.
The past six months have provided several vivid examples of why
consumers need to know where their food comes from. The discovery of
mad cow disease in two animals of Canadian origin (one in Canada in May
and one in the United States in December) as well as the hepatitis A
outbreak in Pennsylvania, which was caused by green onions from Mexico
and sickened more than 600 people, were high-profile reminders of the
distance food travels and the varying circumstances under which it is
produced. Yet when consumers go to the grocery store, they have no way
to differentiate between foreign and domestic products. Where food is
shipped from can indicate the conditions under which it was grown and is
a basic piece of information that consumers should have to enable them
to make informed choices.
Congress now should revisit this matter in separate legislation and
instruct the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to act swiftly to
implement country-of-origin labeling on schedule.
***********************************
**TAKE ACTION: SUPPORT RAD-BEEF BAN!** On Nov. 24, 2003, Public
Citizen and the Center for Food Safety filed a formal petition with
the Food and Drug Administration requesting that the agency revoke its
1997 approval of irradiated for ground beef. The petition was filed on
these grounds: Recent lab testing of irradiated ground beef purchased at
three prominent grocery stores and one fast-food restaurant detected
chemicals that do not occur naturally in any food . called
2-alkylcyclobutanones, or 2-ACBs. These chemicals have been
associated with cancer development in rats and genetic damage in human
cells. The FDA failed to follow its own protocols when it approved
irradiated ground beef, and the agency based this approval on many
flawed studies. The FDA has opened an official docket on the petition,
to which people can submit comments. Any comment must refer to Citizen
Petition No.4Z4752 on irradiated ground beef. There is no deadline
on submitting comments. You may submit comments electronically by going
to www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/oc/dockets/comments/commentdocket.cfm,
or you may submit them by regular mail. To view the complete petition
to the FDA, visit:www.citizen.org/documents/grbeefrevocation.pdf.
*Sample Letter*Division of Dockets ManagementFood and Drug
Administration5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061 (HFA-305)Rockville, MD 20852
RE: Citizen Petition No. 4Z4752 on irradiated ground Beef Dear Sir or
Madam: I am writing in support of Citizen Petition No. 4Z4752 to revoke
the FDA.s approval of irradiation to treat ground beef. I urge the
agency to rescind its approval of irradiated ground beef for these
reasons: - Recent testing of irradiated ground beef by Public Citizen
and the Center for Food Safety detected 2-ACBs in irradiated ground beef
purchased at three grocery stores and one fast-food restaurant. Recent
experiments have associated these chemicals with cancer development in
rats and genetic damage in human cells. - The FDA's 1997 approval of
irradiated ground beef is flawed because the agency based its decision
on deficient scientific studies. The FDA approval has led to irradiated
ground beef being sold in more than 5,000 supermarkets and restaurants
across the country. The FDA approval has also led the USDA to remove its
prohibition on purchasing irradiated ground beef for the National School
Lunch Program . thus setting up the potential for the largest known
irradiated food experiment ever conducted. Thank you for your attention
to this matter. Sincerely,
********************
If you would like to be removed from the radfood list, send an email to listserv@listserver.citizen.org with the words "unsubscribe radfood" in the message.
If you would like to be added to the radfood list, send an email to listserv@listserver.citizen.org with the words "subscribe radfood" in the message.
To learn more about food irradiation, visit our website at http://www.citizen.org/cmep/
Questions about the radfood list can be directed to RADFOOD-request@LISTSERVER.CITIZEN.ORG
-Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program
*****************************************************************
41 Newton Kansan Online: Nuke tests affected county
01/24/04
012404 frontpage 1 1 The Newton Kansan Many Americans, Harvey
County residents included, have been living under pretenses of
security and immunity to radiation caused by nuclear testing
done in Nevada during the 1950s and 1962. -->
Harvey ranks higher than other areas covered by Radiation
Exposure Compensation Act for fallout
By By Marathana Furches Newton Kansan
Many Americans, Harvey County residents included, have been
living under pretenses of security and immunity to radiation
caused by nuclear testing done in Nevada during the 1950s and
1962.
Everyone living in the contiguous 48 states was affected in some
way by the more than 100 tests performed by the United States,
according to a study done by the National Cancer Institute. Its
study not only shows that everyone was exposed to radiation of
some sort, but also that other counties rated higher in exposure
to the fallout than many of those covered by the Radiation
Exposure Compensation Act.
Harvey County is among them.
The National Cancer Institute Fallout Report was mandated by
Congress in 1982 and called for a study to estimate how much
iodine-131, which represents only 2 percent of the radioisotopes
the tests released, the American people were exposed to.
"This report represented an extraordinary effort on the part of
the NCI and yet the hot spots identified are not in the RECA list
of approved counties. No one in government has answered the
question why these few counties near the test site and not
others, such as yours (Harvey County), that had higher levels of
fallout," said Richard Miller, an environmental specialist and
writer who wrote the books "U.S. Atlas of Nuclear Fallout Volume
One" and "Under the Cloud: The Decades of Nuclear Testing."
Chuck Knapp, communications director for Rep. Todd Tiahrt,
looked into the matter with the Congressional Research Service
and a colleague, Ed Rappaport.
"It seems clear that proximity to the Nevada Test Site was a key
consideration, though not the only one. At the time RECA was
enacted (1990), there were no readily available dose
reconstruction data on which to make a determination on which
counties to include," Knapp said.
Knapp also said Congress expanded RECA in 2000 to cover more
cancer types as "compensable diseases," two more counties in
southeastern Utah and "most of northern/central Arizona to the
eligible area."
The information Knapp provided from a House report, said that in
formal comments on the bill, the administration stated, "The
National Cancer Institute, the experts in the field, advise us
that, at this time, NCI cannot offer any scientific diseases, nor
are there radiodosimetric studies or other scientific findings to
support the inclusion of the proposed area."
NCI defines radioactive fallout as "airborne radioactive
particles that fall to the ground during and after nuclear
weapons tests." These particles can be either ingested by eating
contaminated food particles or breathed in.
Though NCI only sought the number of iodine-131 fallout for each
county in the United States, Miller was able to determine the
total amount of radiation received by using the Hicks Table, he
said, which provides ratios for all of the 126 radioisotopes that
would have been released by the nuclear tests.
Overall, Harvey County ranked 855, out of all the counties in
the United States, for total fallout received as a result of the
tests done in Nevada. Gila County, Ariz., one of the counties
covered by RECA ranks 1,494, according to Miller. According to
the NCI Fallout Report, Harvey County was exposed to 203.58
microcuries per square meter during the 1950s and 1962. A
microcurie is one-millionth of a curie, which is the conventional
unit of activity of radioactive material and about the same as
the activity of one gram of radium.
The Plumbbob test series done in 1957 deposited 76 microcuries
per square meter on Harvey County, according to the report, which
is about the same as being exposed to the radiation of 150
X-rays. In fact, on Sept. 19, 1957, Harvey County ranked fifth in
the nation in receiving fallout from that test series, Miller
said.
Harvey County received radiation from 11 nuclear tests, Miller
said. The hottest fallout Harvey County experienced was June 5,
1952, when 66 microcuries per square meter were deposited. On
that same date, 1.43 inches of rain fell in Newton and 1.18
inches fell in Sedgwick, according to Greg Hammer, a
meteorologist with the National Climatic Data Center in
Asheville, N.C.
The rainfall likely came from a nuclear cloud blown by the same
weather pattern that brought the fallout.
According to Miller, Sedgwick County ranked second in the nation
twice, June 8, 1952, and Sept. 4, 1957. Butler County ranked
second Sept. 19, 1957, and fourth Sept. 20, 1957. McPherson
County ranked sixth April 12, 1955, fifth Sept. 4, 1952, and
first Sept. 10, 1957. Marion County was fifth May 31, 1952, 10th
June 5, 1952, and seventh April 18, 1955.
Kansas and Oklahoma, combined as a region, rank second in amount
of fallout received after Colorado and New Mexico. Kansas and
Oklahoma received 8.53 percent of the total fallout up to July
1953, Miller said. Colorado and New Mexico received 27.7 percent.
He added that for the radioisotopes Americium-241 and
curium-242, Kansas counties led the nation. McPherson County
ranked first and Harvey County 29th in the nation for these
isotopes.
Just because people and the environment were exposed to these
radioisotopes does not mean all of them still are present or that
they caused cancer. For example, the half-life of I-131 is eight
days, which means it already has decayed. A half-life of eight
days means that the isotope decays by half every eight days.
However, Miller said both Am-241 and Cm-242 "have relatively long
half-lives, which means they're going to be in the environment
for some time."
As far as determining a direct link to cancer and the nuclear
testing done in the 1950s and 1962, Miller said it can be
difficult to determine something as the absolute cause of the
disease.
"While there are several very strong correlations between
fallout and some cancers, proving that the cancer was caused by
fallout can be extremely difficult," Miller said. "Look how long
it took for the tobacco-cancer link to be accepted by
epidemiologists. Still, the correlations are significant, and
strong associations between fallout and cancer -- across the
U.S., and not just in Utah -- can be shown using different
statistical techniques."
The NCI Fallout Report demonstrated a potential correlation
between I-131 and thyroid cancer. The report reads, "The limited
data on persons exposed as children to I-131 from the nuclear
test fallout have provided suggestive, but not conclusive
evidence that it is linked to thyroid cancer."
Miller recently worked with Dr. Leif Peterson at Baylor College
of Medicine on a paper that explores the correlation between
fallout and cancers. It is waiting to be published, Miller said.
However, he added, "If we didn't find anything within a high
probability, then we probably wouldn't have sent the paper to be
published."
Office: 121 W. 6th Newton Kansas, 67114 Phone:(316) 283-1500
© Copyright 1998 - 2004 by The Newton Kansan
*****************************************************************
42 Rocky Mountain News: 82 plaintiffs sue Union Carbide
Old Colo. uranium mills blamed for host of illnesses
By John Accola, Rocky Mountain News
January 24, 2004
A group of descendents and former residents of two now-defunct
uranium mining towns in southwestern Colorado are suing Union
Carbide Corp., blaming the company's "utterly intolerable"
environmental practices for a host of suspected mill-related
illnesses and genetic disorders.
The lawsuit, filed in Denver federal court Friday by a Wyoming
law firm headed by renowned personal injury attorney Gerry
-Spence, lists 82 plaintiffs, many of whom were raised and
schooled in Uravan and Long Park before the towns were leveled
and declared Superfund cleanup sites in the mid-1980s.
Many road maps no longer show the two neighboring ghost towns in
Montrose County, where the discovery of radium established
Standard Chemical's Joe Junior Mill in 1914. In the 1950s, Union
Carbide - now a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Co. - took over the
mines, which produced uranium for the bombs that ended World War
II and later stocked America's nuclear arsenal during the Cold
War.
The complaint seeks unspecified monetary damages and a medical
monitoring plan for the plaintiffs and their families "who have
suffered and continue to suffer a significantly increased risk of
contracting serious latent diseases, including, but not limited
to, cancer."
A Dow Chemical spokeswoman, reached at the company's headquarters
in Midland, Mich., was notified late Friday of the lawsuit. She
said the company was not prepared to immediately comment on the
allegations and would likely issue a statement early next week.
The complaint accuses Union Carbide of negligence in the
processing, transportation, storage and disposal of vast
quantities of radioactive materials and other hazardous
substances at the Uravan uranium milling facility and mines.
According to a recent report from the federal Environmental
Protection Agency, Uravan's toxic cleanup is 92 percent
completed. In 1986, all of Uravan's residents were evacuated, and
most of the town's 260 buildings were removed.
But the lawsuit cites "nuclear incidents" that occurred between
1936 and 1984, when the mine operations generated 42 million
pounds of uranium oxide - called yellowcake - and 222 million
pounds of vanadium oxide.
It describes a steady convoy of trucks laden with tailings and
uranium ore rumbling nonstop through the town's unpaved Main
Street, kicking up dirt and dust.
During the boom years, Uravan was advertised by Union Carbide as
"a family friendly place," said the suit. A boarding house,
community center, medical clinic, swimming pool and school
facilities were located on both sides of the street.
The complaint charges that "hazardous substances, both
radioactive and non-radioactive, were spread throughout the
town," and children played on the tailings along the banks of the
San Miguel River, where residents swam and fished.
As late as the mid-1950s, liquid wastes were discharged directly
into the river until Union Carbide built a series of unlined
containment ponds, the suit said.
accolaj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2666
SITE MAP PHOTO REPRINTS CORRECTIONS 2004 © The E.W. Scripps
*****************************************************************
43 San Luis Obispo Tribune: County pushes for safer storage
| 01/24/2004 |
[sanluisobispo.com - The sanluisobispo home page]
Extra safeguards on dry-cask facility sought
David Sneed The Tribune
SAN LUIS OBISPO - County planners are standing by their
recommendation that a proposed above-ground storage facility for
highly radioactive waste be made more secure from terrorist
attacks.
On Thursday, the county released its final environmental
assessment of the proposed dry cask storage facility at Diablo
Canyon nuclear power plant. It contains seven additional safety
requirements that are intended to protect the power plant and its
dry cask facility from Sept. 11-style terrorist attacks.
Plant owner Pacific Gas and Electric Co. says the precautions are
unnecessary and the county has no authority to require them. The
utility asked that they be removed from the draft environmental
report that was released in September.
The dry-cask facility is to be built on Diablo Canyon property.
It will house used nuclear fuel rods that can no longer produce
energy for the plant. The rods are currently kept in a deep pool
inside the plant, but the capacity of the pool to hold the rods
is running out.
The additional requirements sought by the county are:
• Quickly transfer as many spent fuel assemblies as possible to
the dry-cask facility.
• Establish a no-fly zone around the plant.
• Make the dry casks more robust.
• Equip the facility with a fire-suppression system.
• Design the storage pad so that flammable liquids can drain away
from the casks.
• Enhance emergency response planning.
• Implement a vegetation management plan to protect the facility
from a wildfire.
The county Planning Commission will hold a hearing on the
dry-cask proposal on Feb. 26, when it will decide whether to keep
the safety recommendations in the final environmental impact
report (EIR). Federal nuclear regulators are expected to issue a
license to build the dry- cask facility later this year.
County officials concede that the federal Nuclear Regulatory
Commission has exclusive authority over safety at Diablo Canyon
and that the precautions are merely recommendations. However,
state environmental law allows the county to review issues
outside its jurisdiction and make recommendations to other
agencies.
"We think it's a good informational tool for people to have in
front of them, including the decision makers," said John Euphrat,
the county's principal energy planner.
The environmental report also notes that, after the terrorist
attacks of 2001, the possibility of someone trying to crash a jet
airliner into the plant can no longer be written off as
speculative, as federal officials have done in the past.
PG&E officials say they will comply with all valid requirements,
including those from the county in areas it is authorized to
regulate, such as erosion control and clean-air requirements.
"We think that where the county has the authority to regulate the
EIR is reasonable, but where it doesn't we will be in complete
compliance with all NRC requirements," said Jeff Lewis, plant
spokesman.
For more information about the county's dry-cask review, call
781-5702, or go to the county's Internet page at: mental.htm.
About SanLuisObispo.com |
*****************************************************************
44 Casper Star-Tribune: Residents sue former uranium mine operators over contamination
courtpvsfonegct
DENVER (AP) - The former operators of a uranium mine in
southwest Colorado were sued in federal court Friday over
allegations they exposed workers and their families to dangerous
levels of hazardous materials.
The 81 plaintiffs, including families of four people who
allegedly died from exposure, are seeking unspecified damages for
medical costs, lost wages and fear of cancer or death.
The lawsuit was filed against Union Carbide Corp., which had
mine and milling operations in Uravan from 1936 to 1984, and its
subsidiary Umetco Minerals Corp. The plaintiffs accused the
companies of failing to warn residents about contaminated soil,
groundwater and air that have since caused cancer, birth defects
and, in come cases, death.
Myra Dean, a spokeswoman for the Dow Chemical Co., which now
owns Union Carbide, said she had not yet seen the suit and could
not comment.
Union Carbide processed 42 million pounds of uranium and 220
million pounds of vanadium in Uravan, about 90 miles southwest of
Grand Junction near the Utah border in Montrose County.
The site was a major producer of uranium during the Cold War,
and some of its ore was used in the first nuclear bomb dropped on
Japan.
Beginning in the 1950s, waste from the mining operations was
discarded in unlined ponds above Uravan and near the San Miguel
River, the lawsuit said. Spray evaporation, in which hazardous
liquid waste was shot into the air to enhance evaporation, was
conducted for many years at the ponds, the suit says.
Uranium tailings, or waste produced during uranium mining, were
used in construction projects in and around the town, the suit
says. Such waste contained up to 98 percent of the original
radioactivity of uranium ore and was laced with heavy metals,
such as lead and arsenic, the suit says.
The suit also says hazardous substances, some radioactive, were
spread through town by dust from ore trucks, which used main town
roads to get to and from the mill.
The town was evacuated due to contamination by 1986. People
living in nearby Long Peak, a second town established for uranium
mine workers, also was contaminated, the suit says.
All mill buildings and more than 260 buildings in the
residential and commercial areas were removed. Some were so
contaminated that they were disposed in a special lined waste
holding cell, the suit says.
Under a federal court order, Umetco has spent more than $90
million cleaning up the site since 1987.
The suit says Union Carbide, which did periodic contamination
testing of the soil, knew or should have known Uravan residents
were being exposed to hazardous materials, some of which were
radioactive.
AP-WS-01-24-04 0007EST
*****************************************************************
45 Group: Bomb material vulnerable
[ajc.com]
[ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 1/24/04 ]
WASHINGTON -- An Energy Department security force was unable to
protect bomb-grade uranium from mock attackers in a recent
exercise at a nuclear weapons facility in Tennessee, a private
watchdog group has charged.
Had the attackers been real terrorists, they would have been able
to assemble a crude nuclear bomb at the facility and produce a
low-yield nuclear explosion, a spokesman for the Project on
Government Oversight, or POGO, said.
The attack took place last month at the Energy Department's Y-12
plant at Oak Ridge in the suburbs of Knoxville, where highly
enriched uranium components of U.S. nuclear weapons are
fabricated, POGO investigator Peter Stockton said.
Such tests of security forces are classified, Energy Department
Joe Davis said, adding a recent exercise at the Y-12 plant is
being evaluated.
"If the review is good, that will be classified, and if it's bad,
that will be classified, and I can't talk about it," Davis said.
"You can assume that anything POGO claims to know about this test
is necessarily second- or thirdhand."
In the exercise, POGO said, attackers were armed with harmless
laser guns, and the plant guards, who used similar "weapons,"
knew about the assault several hours before it was staged.
Even so, "according to government sources, the security forces
could not adequately protect the enormous stockpiles of highly
enriched uranium [HEU] from a terrorist attack," the POGO news
release stated. It did not identify the sources.
Stockton, who was special assistant to Energy Secretary Bill
Richardson in the Clinton administration, said a trained
terrorist who gained access to highly enriched uranium could
quickly construct a low-yield nuclear bomb, known as an
"improvised nuclear device."
Physicists have known for years that such a device could be built
with highly enriched uranium. The device, which physicists
sometimes call a "fizzle," might generate an explosion with a
yield equal to that of about 1,000 tons of TNT.
The World War II bomb that destroyed the Japanese city of
Hiroshima had a yield of 15,000 tons of TNT. The conventional
explosion that destroyed Oklahoma City's Alfred P. Murrah
Building in 1995 was believed to have had a yield equal to about
one ton of TNT.
2004 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
*****************************************************************
46 Mercury News: 1-year extension granted to UC for Berkeley lab
| 01/24/2004 |
[mercurynews.com - The mercurynews home page]
BIDDING FOR WEAPONS SITES PREPARED
By Jim Puzzanghera
Mercury News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - Under fire for its management of key federal
research facilities, the University of California has been
granted a one-year extension of its contract to run the Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory, the lab's director said Friday.
The news from lab director Charles Shank came as the U.S.
Department of Energy prepares to release an official timetable
for UC to compete for the first time against other universities
and companies to retain management of the prestigious facility,
along with two top-secret nuclear weapons labs -- Lawrence
Livermore, and Los Alamos in New Mexico.
Los Alamos problems
After a series of high-profile security lapses at Los Alamos, the
Energy Department last spring announced it would hold an open
competition to run the weapons lab for the first time. UC has
managed Los Alamos for the federal government ever since it
opened in 1943 to develop the first atomic bomb. Among the lapses
was the possible leak of nuclear weapons secrets from Los Alamos
to China, which spawned the Wen Ho Lee spy case in 1999.
Late last year, Congress also ordered competition for contracts
to run Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore labs, both of
which UC has run exclusively for more than 50 years. Unlike
Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos, Lawrence Berkeley, which
employs about 3,500 people, does unclassified scientific
research, such as computational engineering.
Speaking with reporters after a media luncheon to discuss
scientific projects at its 18 national laboratories, Energy
Secretary Spencer Abraham would not confirm the extension of UC's
contract to run Lawrence Berkeley. He said an announcement would
be made shortly. The contract expires next week, on Jan. 31.
But Shank told reporters that UC's contract had been extended
until Jan. 31, 2005, and said he was confident the university
system would continue to run the lab beyond that. The UC regents
have not officially decided if they will compete to keep running
the labs. But on Jan. 15, the regents took a significant step
toward competing for the contracts by authorizing UC officials to
agree to contract extensions, respond to government requests for
information and hire outside consultants.
``No person ever at UC has ever said anything other than we're
going to fight for this laboratory,'' Shank said. ``I don't have
the slightest question about it.''
UC news officer Chris Harrington said he was not aware of a
formal contract extension for Lawrence Berkeley, although he said
it would not be surprising.
Abraham said his department would formally publish a timetable
this month for competition to run each of the three labs.
Congress has given the Department of Energy two years to complete
the bidding procedures, which are expected to be highly
complicated because of the type of work done by the labs.
Competition coming
``We haven't reached a final decision in terms of the explicit
timing of those competitions,'' Abraham said. ``We're trying to
work it out so that these competitions would be spread out in a
fashion that allowed us to do the best possible job with each.''
Shank said there is a major difference between the contract for
Lawrence Berkeley, which does unclassified work, and those for
Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos, which do top-secret nuclear
weapons research. Because Lawrence Berkeley is located next to
UC-Berkeley and so is integrated into the UC system, Shank said
he is hard pressed to figure out who else would be interested in
running it.
But the nuclear weapons labs are unique and highly prestigious.
So far, defense contractor Lockheed Martin and the University of
Texas have expressed interest in bidding for contracts to run
them.
The uncertainty has not yet led to anxiety at Lawrence Livermore,
but researchers are ``curious'' about what will happen, said lab
director Michael Anastasio. UC's contract to run that lab expires
in September 2005.
``Most employees are very strongly supportive of the relationship
with the University of California,'' he said.
Contact Jim Puzzanghera at jpuzzanghera@krwashington. com or
(202) 383-6043.
*****************************************************************
47 AP Wire: SRS program to continue for a little longer despite loss of
federal funds
| 01/24/2004 |
[thestate.com - The thestate home page]
Associated Press
AUGUSTA, Ga. - With a loss of federal funding, Georgia's Savannah
River radiation monitoring program will continue in a scaled-down
version through April.
The U.S. Department of Energy provided $1.8 million over the past
three years to help Georgia's Environmental Protection Division
establish the program to determine if the Savannah River Site
nuclear plant near Augusta is leaking harmful radiation. The
payments stopped on Jan. 17.
Georgia was counting on $700,000 to operate the program in 2004.
Federal officials said the money was never intended to be an
ongoing means of support.
Jim Hardeman, the manager of state EPD's radiation monitoring
program, said the reduced, interim monitoring plan will mostly
monitor for tritium.
Employees will be paid at least through April. Hardeman said he
is unsure of the program's fate after April.
The extension will allow Georgia officials to use the nearly
$68,000 remaining in a 2003 Department of Energy grant totaling
$665,000. The money otherwise would have been returned to the
department, Hardeman said.
Although South Carolina already conducts radiation monitoring,
Augusta Mayor Bob Young and other Georgia officials have
contended monitoring is needed on the Georgia side.
Information from: The Augusta Chronicle
About TheState.com
*****************************************************************
48 Las Vegas SUN: Energy Dept. to Redo Los Alamos Analysis
January 24, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) - The National Nuclear Security
Administration is redoing its environmental impact statement for
a new biological research facility at Los Alamos National
Laboratory, which is the subject of a lawsuit by local
anti-nuclear activists.
The facility, built for research into anthrax and other
pathogens that could be used as biological weapons, is scheduled
to begin operations this summer.
The NNSA on Friday withdrew its 2002 environmental assessment,
which said the facility posed no significant impact, and said it
would conduct a second analysis.
The new analysis is needed because the laboratory was built
differently than originally planned, said Ralph Erickson,
manager of NNSA's Los Alamos field office.
The agency is a semiautonomous arm of the Department of Energy
that oversees nuclear weapons programs.
A lawsuit filed by Nuclear Watch of New Mexico claims the 2002
environmental assessment was grossly inadequate. "They have
finally realized that we mean business," said Nuclear Watch
director Jay Coghlan.
--
*****************************************************************
49 [Fwd: [du-list] DU in the news - Jan 26th 04]
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 20:40:43 -0800
Return-path:
Envelope-to: rogerh@energy-net.org
Delivery-date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 20:24:00 -0800
Received: from root by darwin.ctyme.com with ctyme-spam-scanned (Exim 4.30)
id 1AkyI2-0003nz-8f
for rogerh@energy-net.org; Sun, 25 Jan 2004 20:24:00 -0800
Received: from n25.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.81])
by darwin.ctyme.com with smtp (Exim 4.30)
id 1AkyI1-0003ly-Vo
for rogerh@energy-net.org; Sun, 25 Jan 2004 20:23:58 -0800
X-eGroups-Return: sentto-1009892-5249-1075091037-rogerh=energy-net.org@returns.groups.yahoo.com
Received: from [66.218.67.194] by n25.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 26 Jan 2004 04:23:57 -0000
X-Sender: davidbroatch@xtra.co.nz
X-Apparently-To: du-list@yahoogroups.com
Received: (qmail 1877 invoked from network); 26 Jan 2004 04:23:56 -0000
Received: from unknown (66.218.66.166)
by m12.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 26 Jan 2004 04:23:56 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO standby2.xtra.co.nz) (210.86.15.58)
by mta5.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 26 Jan 2004 04:23:56 -0000
Received: from mta1-rme.xtra.co.nz ([210.86.15.141]) by standby2.xtra.co.nz
with ESMTP
id <20040126042355.ISPB3427.standby2.xtra.co.nz@mta1-rme.xtra.co.nz>
for ; Mon, 26 Jan 2004 17:23:55 +1300
Received: from oemcomputer ([219.88.48.117]) by mta1-rme.xtra.co.nz
with SMTP
id <20040126042354.ZFLR9271.mta1-rme.xtra.co.nz@oemcomputer>
for ; Mon, 26 Jan 2004 17:23:54 +1300
Message-ID: <001801c3e3c5$018ebce0$100afea9@oemcomputer>
To: "du-"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1158
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165
X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 210.86.15.58
From: "David Broatch"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Mailing-List: list du-list@yahoogroups.com; contact du-list-owner@yahoogroups.com
Delivered-To: mailing list du-list@yahoogroups.com
Precedence: bulk
List-Unsubscribe:
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 17:29:35 +1300
Subject: [du-list] DU in the news - Jan 26th 04
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0015_01C3E431.F7D88B00"
X-Sender-Hostname: n25.grp.scd.yahoo.com
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.70-cvs (1.220-2003-12-04-exp) on
darwin.ctyme.com
X-Spam-Report:
* -3.0 WHITE_PHRASE Phrases in non-spam
* 2.0 LINK_PHRASE Phrase within link
* -5.0 YAHOO_EGROUP From Yahoo eGroup
* -5.0 SUBJ_WHITELIST Subject Whitelist
* -2.0 YAHOO_HOST From Yahoo Host
* -1.0 SUBJ_GROUP Subject Indicates Discussion List []
* -5.0 BAYES_00 BODY: Bayesian spam probability is 0 to 1%
* [score: 0.0000]
* 1.0 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML included in message
* 0.1 HTML_FONTCOLOR_BLUE BODY: HTML font color is blue
* 0.1 MAILTO_LINK BODY: Includes a URL link to send an email
* 1.0 MAILTO_WITH_SUBJ URI: Includes a link to send a mail with a subject
* 0.1 RCVD_IN_SORBS RBL: SORBS: sender is listed in SORBS
* [219.88.48.117 listed in dnsbl.sorbs.net]
* 1.0 CLICK_BELOW Asks you to click below
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-15.7 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,CLICK_BELOW,
HTML_FONTCOLOR_BLUE,HTML_MESSAGE,LINK_PHRASE,MAILTO_LINK,
MAILTO_WITH_SUBJ,RCVD_IN_SORBS,SUBJ_GROUP,SUBJ_WHITELIST,WHITE_PHRASE,
YAHOO_EGROUP,YAHOO_HOST autolearn=ham version=2.70-cvs
To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send.
| Yahoo! Groups Sponsor |
ADVERTISEMENT
 | |
 |
Yahoo! Groups Links
*****************************************************************
50 Google News Alert - nuclear
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 14:14:40 -0800 (PST)
WORKERS taped up nuclear warhead
Fort Worth Star Telegram
WASHINGTON - Workers at a Texas nuclear-weapons facility risked an explosion
this month by taping together broken pieces of high explosive being removed
from ...
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/7787764.htm
FATHER of Pakistan's nuclear program confined to capital during ...
San Francisco Chronicle
The father of Pakistan's nuclear program, considered a national hero for
giving the Islamic world its first atomic bomb, has been confined to the
capital as ...
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi%3Ff%3D/news/archive/2004/01/24/international1415EST0554.DTL
IAEA, Pakistan seek to smash nuclear underground
ABS CBN News
... said Saturday the agency was working with Pakistan to trace and cripple
a sophisticated underworld thought to be helping countries with clandestine
nuclear ...
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/NewsStory.aspx%3Fsection%3DWORLD%26oid%3D43127
'PAK. investigators say nuclear scientists aided Iran'
The Hindu
24 (PTI): Pakistani investigators have concluded that at least two of the
country's top nuclear scientists-- Abdul Qadeer Khan and Mohammed Farooq,
a manager ...
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/00324193060.htm
MUSHARRAF wants European nuclear scientists investigated
Rediff
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said European nuclear scientists should
also be investigated, along with the Pakistanis, as they may have sold
secrets ...
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/jan/24pak3.htm
LIBYA Hands Over Nuclear Weapons Design to UN
Voice of America
Libya has handed over a design for nuclear weapons to the United Nations
nuclear agency. The drawing provides the first hard evidence ...
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm%3FobjectID%3DEA52B59B-8E00-4B55-883D951FECF53257
MUSHARRAF: Scientists sold nuclear data
Chicago Tribune (subscription)
DAVOS, Switzerland -- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged
Friday that scientists from his country appeared to have sold nuclear
designs to other ...
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0401240185jan24,1,544922.story%3Fcoll%3Dchi-newsnationworld-hed
PAKISTAN frees scientist as nuclear leak probe continues
ABC Online
Pakistani authorities have released a nuclear scientist after he was cleared
in the ongoing investigation into alleged leaks of nuclear secrets to
Iran and ...
NORTH Korea Could Retain Nuclear Armaments This Year
Donga
The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) analyzed that
North Korea will retain four to eight nuclear armaments and in position
to produce one ...
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3%3Fbicode%3D060000%26biid%3D2004012584438
NUCLEAR Aid To Iran Alleged
Washington Post
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistani investigators have concluded that at least
two of the country's top nuclear scientists -- including Abdul Qadeer
Khan ...
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43223-2004Jan23.html
This daily-once News Alert is brought to you by Google News (BETA)...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Remove this News Alert:
http://www.google.com/newsalerts/remove?s=682e52ddd0720101&hl=en
Create another News Alert:
http://www.google.com/newsalerts?hl=en
Try Google News:
http://news.google.com/
*****************************************************************
51 Google News Alert - nuclear
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 14:51:03 -0800 (PST)
INVESTIGATION of nuclear 'heroes' divides Pakistan
Christian Science Monitor
The president admitted Friday that Pakistani scientists may have sold nuclear
information to other countries. By Owais Tohid | Correspondent ...
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0126/p07s01-wosc.html
EL Baradei: Threat of nuclear war never greater
Ha'aretz
BERLIN - The head of the UN nuclear agency, Mohamed El Baradei, said in
an interview released Sunday that the underground trade in atomic technology
means that ...
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml%3FitemNo%3D386763%26contrassID%3D1%26subContrassID%3D8%26sbSubContrassID%3D0%26listSrc%3DY
US mulls stronger nuclear curbs
Reuters
... The Bush administration is considering a change in international rules
to prevent countries like Iran from legally acquiring components for a
nuclear weapons ...
PAK scientists reveal big army names in nuclear deal
Hindustan Times
Three of the nine Pak nuclear scientists detained over allegations that
nuclear secrets were sold abroad have admitted to helping pass the nuclear
weapons know ...
REPORT: Workers taped up broken nuclear weapon
CNN International
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Workers at a nuclear weapons plant in Texas improperly
used tape to secure broken pieces of a highly explosive component, which
could have ...
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/Southwest/01/24/nuclear.plant/
PAKISTANI nuclear scientists suspected of helping Iran
The Straits Times
ISLAMABAD - Investigations show that at least two top nuclear scientists
gave unauthorised help to Iran's nuclear weapons programme, say senior
Pakistani ...
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/asia/story/0,4386,231779,00.html
US shifts stance toward nuclear agency
Boston Globe
... dismantle Libya's weapons program, diplomats here said it marked a
sharp departure from the Bush administration's often stormy relationship
with the UN nuclear ...
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/01/25/us_shifts_stance_toward_nuclear_agency
NORTHEAST India proposes nuclear power plant
Xinhua
24 (Xinhuanet) -- A major producer of uranium ore in India has mooted a
proposal for setting up a 1,000-mw nuclear power plant in East Singhbhum
District of ...
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-01/25/content_1287971.htm
PAK'S Nuclear Assets, Programme In Safe Hands
Pakistan News Service
LARKANA, Pakistan: Jan 25 (PNS) - Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali
has said that Pakistan's nuclear assets and nuclear programme were in
safe hands ...
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.paknews.com/main.php%3Fid%3D6%26date1%3D2004-01-25
KHATAMI: disarm the Middle East of nuclear weapons
Jerusalem Post
Iranian President Muhammad Khatami told Newsweek that his country has no
plans to manufacture nuclear weapons; however, it does reserve the right
to acquire ...
This daily-once News Alert is brought to you by Google News (BETA)...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Remove this News Alert:
http://www.google.com/newsalerts/remove?s=682e52ddd0720101&hl=en
Create another News Alert:
http://www.google.com/newsalerts?hl=en
Try Google News:
http://news.google.com/
*****************************************************************
52 San Mateo County Times: Laser hammers open way for tougher craft
Last Updated: Saturday, January 24, 2004 -
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
LIVERMORE -- Just over 50 years ago, the job of hardening metals
began shifting from metalsmiths and their hammers to streams of
tiny, hard beads that pounded metal faster and more consistently
than any human could.
Now the job of peening is going to light.
Five times a second inside an office warehouse here, an invisible
beam lances through a curtain of water and blasts a piece of
aerospace alloy.
Its aluminum skin explodes in a white cloud three times hotter
than the surface of the sun, the explosion reflected by the water
to hammer the metal again and again. A half an hour of this
battering by light leaves a compressed metal skin that is tougher
and several times longer lasting than any pounded by hand or
metal shot.
Scientists at Lawrence Livermore lab, Metal Improvement Co. and
jet-engine maker Rolls-Royce PLC said Friday they had
laser-peened more than 5,000 fan blades for engines on the Boeing
777 and Airbus 340-600 in Livermore and Earby, England.
After 20 years as a costly and slow lab-bound technology, laser
peening and smithing are now entering mainstream manufacturing
for the highest performance parts in engines, transmissions and
prosthetic limbs.
The process imparts five to 10 times deeper compression in metals
than other peening methods, scientists say. Using light beams,
metalworkers also can shape thick, structural pieces into curves
without adding extra metal to compensate for the stress fatigue
of bending them mechanically.
That opens the way to novel, lighter designs for automobiles and
aircraft that will save fuel consumption and maintenance costs.
Those savings already have driven two of the three top jet-engine
makers into laser peening. A Dublin, Ohio firm, LSP Technologies,
uses lasers to harden the fan blades in B-1B bombers and other
military jet engines made by General Electric. Hundreds of other
craft rely on titanium-alloy engine parts hardened by light.
"I believe this is only the tip of the iceberg," said Ian
Andrews, senior fan-blade engineer for Rolls-Royce.
"We think the future is very bright," said Dave Francis, senior
vice president at Metal Improvement Co., a Paramus, N.J.-based
firm founded on shot peening. Company officials approached
Livermore scientists in the 1990s about laser peening.
Laser hammers grew partly out of Livermore research into using
giant glass-slab lasers for fusing hydrogen. Several of the same
scientists who built the front end of the stadium-size National
Ignition Facility worked for years on perfecting a high-energy,
quick-firing laser for compressing and forming metals.
In late 2001, Rolls-Royce gave a fan-blade peening contract to
Metal Improvement, which rented its Livermore shop in January
2002 and began pounding blades with beams five months later.
"We did a lot of sleepless nights," said physicist Lloyd Hackel,
head of Livermore's laser science and technology group. "We
worked Christmas Eve and Easter Sunday. We so believed in it, we
were sort of lab rats to make it work."
The U.S. Department of Energy is eyeing laser peening for making
corrosion-resistant equipment for deep-sea drilling rigs and
containers for nuclear waste, destined for thousands of years'
storage inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The Defense Department
wants light hammers to arrest cracks in F-16 jet fighter
bulkheads.
Hackel predicts lightweight, laser-peened cars, trucks and planes
around the corner. Auto makers estimate the method could boost
the life of car frames by 50 percent, allowing the weight to be
trimmed by a tenth. For a million cars, automakers estimate fuel
savings of 9.4 million gallons a year.
"I see a revolution in aircraft design," Hackel said. "We're
going to see floppier aircraft that are lighter and can fly
farther with less fuel and carry more passengers." Contact Ian
Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com.
©1999-2003 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
*****************************************************************
53 Japan Times: Rokkasho in dark, or wary, about ITER
Saturday, January 24, 2004
Safety doubts, economic touts mount as decision on fusion
initiative nears
By ERIC JOHNSTON Staff writer
OSAKA -- Just weeks before a decision is made on whether Japan
or France gets to host the International Thermonuclear
Experimental Reactor project, Japanese officials are conducting a
last-ditch international campaign to secure support.
But in a village of 11,600 people located near the northernmost
tip of Honshu, where the ITER reactor would be built if Japan
wins the bid, people don't seem to know too much about the
project.
Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, was chosen as Japan's candidate
site for the ITER project partly because it is already a major
center for the nation's nuclear power industry.
It is home to a uranium enrichment plant and two storage
facilities for low-level and high-level radioactive waste. A
plant designed to reprocess spent nuclear fuel is meanwhile under
construction.
The ITER project represents one of the world's most ambitious
and controversial energy schemes, featuring the use of nuclear
fusion technology to produce energy.
When heated to about 100 million degrees, heavy hydrogen, or
tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, becomes plasma,
causing atomic nuclei to collide and combine, producing energy.
But controlling nuclear fusion to produce energy safely and
economically is a daunting technological task that has frustrated
researchers for decades. At present, one of the few applications
of nuclear fusion technology is the hydrogen bomb.
Building the plant will take at least 10 years, while another 20
years will be needed for the reactor to become operational on an
experimental basis. The total construction cost of the
experimental reactor is estimated to hit at least 700 billion
yen.
A final decision on the plant site was supposed to have been
made in a December meeting in Washington. But the six parties
involved -- Japan, the U.S., Russia, South Korea and the European
Union -- failed to reach agreement and decided to hold another
meeting in early February.
Earlier this month, members of Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi's Cabinet agreed that the government should seize every
opportunity to boost international backing for Japan's bid.
Science minister Takeo Kawamura visited South Korea, China and
Russia to garner support.
And yet, despite the importance of the project to Japan's
long-term energy strategy, public awareness in Rokkasho still
appears to be limited.
The last local poll on the issue -- conducted by a think tank in
2001 -- revealed that just 40 percent of the respondents were
aware of the prefecture's efforts to host the project.
In the same survey, which covered 559 people, just 16.5 percent
of the respondents said they supported hosting ITER, while 36
percent said they were opposed.
While some recent media reports have focused on the initiative,
antinuclear activists point out that local public knowledge is
still very limited.
"Since late last year, local media have run stories about the
dangers of the ITER project to the local environment, as well as
its huge cost. However, there is still no wide recognition within
the prefecture of how serious the issue is," says Keiko Kikukawa,
who represents the group No to ITER in Aomori Prefecture.
The group consists of about 80 Aomori residents opposed to the
project.
"This is because Rokkasho residents opposed to nuclear power
have spent the last few years trying to stop the reprocessing
center. They have not had a lot of time to think about the ITER
project, and information about it has been vague," she said.
Construction of the controversial reprocessing center began in
1993. The central government had overcome local opposition by
providing nearly 240 billion yen in public works subsidies to
Rokkasho residents and those in surrounding municipalities.
The plant was originally meant to be completed in 2005.
This timetable was pushed back by a year, however, when the
government discovered last fall that much of the welding at the
plant was shoddy and that improper construction methods had been
used.
A small group of opponents has meanwhile filed lawsuits against
the reprocessing plant that are are still winding their way
through the courts.
While there is not much public debate on whether it was wise to
invite ITER to Japan, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Masatoshi
Koshiba voiced opposition toward the project.
In an open letter to the government last March, he and Akira
Hasegawa, an award-winning scholar in plasma physics, warned that
the project could lead to health, environmental and safety
dangers through radiation contamination, and called on the
government to drop its attempts to host the project.
"Tritium is an extremely dangerous substance that can kill great
numbers of people in small amounts. It burns when combined with
oxygen, resulting in an extremely dangerous situation should an
accident occur," the letter says.
Kiyomi Wakamastu, a journalist with the Aomori Prefecture-based
Too Nippo Press who has been covering the ITER project for
several years, agrees with Kikukawa that concern over the
reprocessing plant has left little time for serious discussion
about ITER.
But he also said that local knowledge about the project is
limited for technical reasons.
"There have been explanations about what ITER is, but they've
been too technically complex for most people in Rokkasho to
follow. So they have tended not to want to think too much about
the issue," he said.
Those who support hosting the plant claim that the local
economic benefits from the project will far outweigh the costs.
The Aomori Prefectural Government estimates that, over a 30-year
period, the ITER project will add, directly and indirectly, 1.2
trillion yen to the local economy and create 100,000 jobs.
"Many of the jobs will come in the form of new businesses
ventures, as well as the service industries that will arise to
meet the needs of those working at the ITER. We also predict that
academic and research organizations will set up in Aomori," said
Mitsuhiro Seki, deputy councilor of the prefecture's ITER
Location Promotion Office.
Meanwhile, Takaaki Nakamura of the Aomori Prefecture ITER
Invitation Committee, a business lobby, said: "Most of the local
business community back the project and have held separate
seminars and discussions over the past few years on how to
coordinate support, although some remain opposed, or are unsure
and want more information."
Both Nakamura and Seki are confident that Rokkasho will be
awarded the site, primarily because of its geographical
advantages.
In its site proposal, submitted in 2002, Rokkasho played up the
convenience of its port facilities, which it said would
facilitate the easy transportation of heavy and large components
to the ITER site. By contrast, the proposed French site -- at
Cadarache -- is some distance from the nearest port.
Concerns about earthquakes were dismissed in the proposal as
negligible. And, as Kikukawa notes, very little is said in the
proposal about the potential dangers of the project.
"Respected scientists like Koshiba have clearly warned that the
safety and cost issues make the ITER project both dangerous and
not economical. Other countries, even the United States, which
initially proposed it, pulled out (from the race to host the
reactor) for similar reasons," she said. "Nobody, except a few
people in local politics and the construction industry, wants to
host the ITER."
Wakamatsu said the biggest supporters of ITER are those on the
village assembly of Rokkasho, of whom nearly all have direct or
indirect connections with local construction firms.
"Over half of the workers of Rokkasho are involved in the
nuclear power industry. I think most people are just hoping the
pro-ITER groups are right and that if the prefecture wins the
ITER, it will result in a better economy," he said.
The Japan Times: Jan. 24, 2004 (C) All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for
non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more
information go to:
*****************************************************************