***************************************************************** 01/28/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.23 ***************************************************************** 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 Bush Denies Saying Iraq Was "Imminent Threat" 2 US: Kay, Kerry, Public Opinion 3 US: Las Vegas SUN: Ex-U.S. Inspector to Testify on Iraq WMD 4 CS Monitor: Crying wolf on Iraqi WMD costs US credibility on North 5 Washington Times: Secrecy shrouds nukes 6 US: TIME: Tony Karon - President Bush's Naked Envoy 7 US: WATE.com: Nuclear Consultants Assure East Tennesseans on WMD Saf 8 War Wire: Syria reiterates demand for nuclear-free Middle East 9 thedailytimes.com - Libyan nuclear shipment passes through Blount 10 Hi Pakistan: Scientists being made scapegoats: PPP - Bureau Report 11 Khaleej Times: Ex-army chief says nuclear proliferation nothing new 12 Asia Times: US draws a line on Pakistan's nuclear program 13 PakNews.Com: Pakistan Never To Roll Back Its Nuclear Programme 14 Las Vegas SUN: Libya, Iran Linked to Pakistan Nuke Plans 15 Las Vegas SUN: Top Pakistan Nuke Scientist Tied to Leaks NUCLEAR REACTORS 16 US: NRC: NRC Finds No Significant Environmental Impact from Extended 17 US: NRC: NRC Modifies Financial Information Requirements for Power R 18 US: NRC: NRC to Conduct FY2005 Budget Briefing February 2 in Rockvil 19 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Finance board mulls VY uprate 20 Sofia: Bulgaria's 2nd N-Plant Construction "Starts in 2005" 21 US: News 12: Panel hears testimony about Indian Point’s cooling syst 22 US: Toledo Blade: Generator at Fermi II called iffy in earthquake 23 ITAR-TASS: Novovoronezh NPS, EU discuss reactor control upgrading 24 ITAR-TASS: Armenian NPP to be shut down for reloading, maintenance 25 SOFIA NEWS: Nokia Bulgaria Bulgaria's 2nd N-Plant Construction "Star 26 US: NRC: NRC to Hold Public Meeting on Environmental Review for Prop NUCLEAR SAFETY 27 [DU Information List] Study finds link between agent orange 28 [du-list] DU Forum at MIT 3/6/04 29 US: [du-list] Wesley Clark re His Bombing Of Civilians, Use Of 30 US: Filibuster stalls radiation exposure compensation act 31 AU SMH: Nuke secrets sold on black market NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 32 US: Alert! Comment to EPA on radioactive materials deregulation! 33 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Fight to keep N-dump at bay has support 34 US: OSDB: Formulating policy for an uncertain Earth's future 35 Las Vegas SUN: Letter: A glowing tribute needed for Bush 36 NRC: Advisory Committee on the Medical Uses of Isotopes: Meeting 37 US: KTVB.COM: Magic Valley residents worried about aquifer 38 Pahrump Valley Times: DOE to test Yucca Mountain workers NUCLEAR WEAPONS US DEPT. OF ENERGY 39 [NukeNet] DOE and advanced biowarfare agent labs, SF Weekly 40 Guardian Unlimited: Plutonium Trigger Site 41 Oak Ridger: Libyan nuke materials shipped to Y-12 42 Oak Ridger: Lawmakers approve of removal project 43 Oak Ridger: Our View: Public is due direct answers to POGO 44 Las Vegas SUN: Nuke Facilities Safety Rules Are Targeted OTHER NUCLEAR 45 [du-list] News Stories 46 [du-list] Libyan accomodation turns nuke spotlight on 47 Google News Alert - nuclear 48 War Wire: Japan confident of winning colossal nuclear fusion project 49 Las Vegas SUN: Japan May Consider Sharing Fusion Project ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Bush Denies Saying Iraq Was "Imminent Threat" Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 12:46:25 -0600 (CST) =============================== THE DAILY MIS-LEAD < http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1435098&l=16172 > =============================== BUSH CLAIMS TO NEVER SAY IRAQ WAS "IMMINENT THREAT" Facing mounting pressure over charges that the White House deliberately misled the American people about Iraq's WMD, President Bush is now claiming that U.N. weapons inspectors were not allowed into Iraq before the war. Yesterday, the pesident said, Iraq "chose defiance. It was [Saddam's] choice to make, and he did not let us in." But U.N. weapons inspections led by Hans Blix began on November 27th, 2003, as noted by the State Department at the time. Over the course of the next five months, those inspections found "little more than 'debris'" from a WMD program that had long since been destroyed. The weapons inspectors were forced to leave when Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq. President Bush then "refused to permit the U.N. inspectors to return to Iraq." When asked about the issue yesterday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan claimed the entire WMD issue was unimportant because the Bush Administration had never said Iraq was a threat. He said, "the media have chosen to use the word 'imminent'" to describe the Iraqi "threat" - not the Bush Administration. But the record shows the Administration repeatedly said Iraq was an "imminent threat." On May 7th, less than a week after the president announced the end of major combat operations, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was asked, "Didn't we go to war because we said WMD were a direct and imminent threat to the U.S.?" He replied, "Absolutely." Similarly, in November 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, "I would look you in the eye and I would say, go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month...So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?" Most notably, Vice President Cheney said two days after President Bush's 2003 State of the Union that Saddam Hussein "threatens the United States of America." Visit Misleader.org for more about Bush Administration distortion. --> < http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1435098&l=16173 > =========================================================== Subscribe to the Daily Mislead! Go to http://www.misleader.org and enter your e-mail address in the "Receive the Daily Mislead" box in the top-left corner of the page. To unsubscribe send an email to latest@daily.misleader.org with only the word "remove" in the subject line of your e-mail, or visit http://daily.misleader.org/unsubscribe/ and follow the instructions listed there. ***************************************************************** 2 Kay, Kerry, Public Opinion Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 15:08:45 -0600 (CST) Institute for Public Accuracy 915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045 (202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org ___________________________________________________ PM Wednesday, January 28, 2004 * Kay * Kerry * Public Opinion JIM NAURECKAS, jnaureckas@fair.org, http://www.fair.org/press-releases/kamel.html, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0226-01.htm, http://www.fair.org/extra/0305/kamel.html, http://www.fair.org/extra/0307/wmdhunt.html, http://www.fair.org/press-releases/iraq-weapons.html David Kay testified today in Congress about his inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Naureckas is editor of Extra!, the magazine of FAIR, which has published numerous pieces on the "missing" weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Naureckas said today: "Media are puzzling over how the intelligence could have been so wrong about Iraqi weapons. The administration and the media both ignored the main message of Iraq's most important defector, Saddam Hussein's son-in-law Hussein Kamel: He told the U.N. and the U.S. in 1995 that all of Iraq's banned weapons had been destroyed. Press and state rejected this information for the same reason: It wasn't the story they wanted to tell." BRIAN WILLSON, bw@brianwillson.com, http://www.brianwillson.com/awolkerry.html Willson, a former U.S. Air Force captain who served in Vietnam, first met Kerry in 1971 during protests on Capitol Hill. In the 1980s, Willson was one of "Kerry's Commandos" or "the dog hunters"; and then-Lt.-Gov. Kerry appointed Willson to his Vietnam Veteran's Advisory Committee. In October 2002, Willson wrote "An Open Letter to Senator John Kerry on Iraq" the day after Kerry gave his pro-war speech in the Senate. [See: ] GWENDOLYN MINK, grmink@verizon.net Mink is the author of the book "Welfare's End" and is currently writing a book on the Democratic party. She said today: "The Kerry campaign seems to be focused on demonstrating the candidate's martial virtue to win over the warrior electorate. Combined with Kerry's unapologetic defense of his vote giving President Bush carte blanche to invade Iraq, the masculinist Kerry campaign raises disturbing questions about just how much Kerry would change current foreign and military policy. Worse, in its appeal to combat veterans, the Kerry campaign has totally ignored pressing gender issues. Kerry did not attend the Lifetime Women's Issues forum in New Hampshire on Sunday. He has not offered any proposals to advance women's equality and economic well-being, especially the equality and well-being of poor women in poor families that have been left behind. Quite the contrary. On election night in New Hampshire, Kerry pointed to his support for 'welfare reform' to prove his centrist credentials." STEVEN KULL, skull@his.com, http://www.policyattitudes.org Kull is director of the Center on Policy Attitudes and coauthor of the book "Misreading the Public." He said today: "When you go through the issues, there's fairly low approval for the administration. That's the case on education, Social Security, healthcare, prescription drugs -- and even on Iraq, approval has dipped. The only area where Bush still gets good approval is the 'war on terrorism.' I don't know that the public is fully aware of how out of step the administration is with the public." [The following web page helps people determine which candidates agree with them on the issues: .] For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 _________________________________________________________________ You received this message as a subscriber on the list: public@lists.accuracy.org To be removed from the list, send any message to: public-unsubscribe@lists.accuracy.org For all list information and functions, including changing your subscription mode and options, visit the Web page: http://lists.accuracy.org/lists/info/public ***************************************************************** 3 Las Vegas SUN: Ex-U.S. Inspector to Testify on Iraq WMD Today: January 28, 2004 at 7:55:14 PST By KATHERINE PFLEGER ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - Senators want to speak with the former top U.S. weapons inspector who said he couldn't find evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, a primary justification by President Bush for the war in Iraq. David Kay, who was scheduled to testify before a Senate committee Wednesday, is one of a number of U.S. officials who have recently adjusted their position on Saddam's weapons capabilities. As special adviser to CIA Director George Tenet, Kay was chosen last year as the Iraq Survey Group leader in part because he was convinced weapons would be found. "My suspicions are that we'll find in the chemical and biological areas, in fact, I think there may be some surprises coming rather quickly in that area," he said on CNN in June. Now, Kay says he believes large stocks of weapons are unlikely to be found and blamed faulty intelligence for the misguided assessments. Kay resigned Friday, saying he was stepping down because resources were being shifted away from the search. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., called the Wednesday hearing to receive Kay's views directly, even though Kay no longer has an official government position. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday that it's premature to speculate about "why we were wrong," and rejected Kay's statement that the work in Iraq is 85 percent done. "Even if we are 85 percent done, what could you have in that 15 percent of information?" the U.S. official said. "The amount of chemical and biological agent that would be required is extremely small in terms of physical footprint. It could be easily hidden." While inspectors have been unable to unearth weapons of mass destruction, they have found new evidence that Saddam's regime quietly destroyed some stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons in the mid-1990s, Kay told The Washington Post in an interview in Tuesday editions. Kay said the evidence consisted of contemporaneous documents and confirmations from interviews with Iraqis and indicated Saddam did make efforts to disarm well before Bush began making the case for war. Democratic presidential contenders have grabbed onto Kay's conclusion on the absence of banned weapons. "The administration did cook the books," Howard Dean told reporters Tuesday. "I think that's pretty serious." Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., has called for a new investigation by an independent commission, or a broadened probe by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Kay's resignation and subsequent statements come as many in the Bush administration subtly are changing their assertions about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, including President Bush. In last year's State of the Union, Bush called Saddam a "dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons." In the State of the Union this month, Bush spoke of Saddam's programs, rather than weapons: "Had we failed to act, the dictator's weapons of mass destruction programs would continue to this day. " When asked Tuesday by reporters about Kay's assertions, Bush didn't say that the banned weapons would eventually be discovered: "We know from years of intelligence - not only our own intelligence services, but other intelligence gathering organizations - that he had weapons - after all, he used them." Intelligence officials say the probe will take time, and plenty of work lies ahead. Kay and others have blamed looting immediately after the war on the difficulties in painting a picture. But Kay also has said that flawed intelligence from 1998 forward - when United Nations inspectors withdrew from Iraq - contributed to the mistakes. Last February, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations Security Council that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed "real and present dangers." "There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction," he said. This weekend, Powell began to backpedal, saying the United States thought Saddam had banned weapons, but "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?" -- ***************************************************************** 4 CS Monitor: Crying wolf on Iraqi WMD costs US credibility on North Korea csmonitor.com for 01/29/2004 from the January 29, 2004 edition By Jon B. Wolfsthal WASHINGTON  Polls show Americans continue to think the Iraq war, overall, was justified, even if weapons of mass destruction (WMD) - the public rationale for the war - have not been found. But this doesn't mean that the intelligence failure in Iraq - not just by the US, but by Britain, France, Israel, and others - is without a price. The costs to US international credibility are high and are being felt in other parts of the world, most of all with regard to North Korea. Seeds of doubt sown in Iraq over US intelligence now have countries in East Asia, including close US allies, openly doubting US intelligence about North Korea's nuclear program. These doubts may enable North Korea to divide the US from its allies in the region and reduce the chances for a peaceful termination of North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions. In 1994, North Korea promised the US to freeze its plutonium production under international verification in exchange for the construction of two modern nuclear reactors and energy assistance. But in the summer of 2002, US intelligence determined that North Korea had been secretly pursuing another program to enrich uranium for weapons in violation of its international obligations. (A weapons program based on uranium is as dangerous as one based on plutonium, and harder to detect. The uranium route could also be expanded more quickly than the plutonium program, making the long-term threat even greater if the uranium exists and continues. Both programs must be eliminated to ensure the peninsula remains free of nuclear weapons.) When the Bush administration confronted North Korean officials on the uranium program during bilateral talks in October 2002, North Korea reportedly confirmed its existence. But, since then, North Korea has denied the existence of the highly enriched uranium (HEU) program and attributed its perceived confirmation to a translation error. These denials were also made to a private group of US citizens that has just returned from North Korea. But US officials steadfastly maintain that their evidence leaves no doubt about the existence of the program. US intelligence agencies estimate that North Korea might be able to produce a uranium-fueled nuclear weapon within two or three years. Others are unconvinced. China, a key player in the six-party talks with North Korea, has now begun to express doubts about the US allegations that North Korea has an HEU program. Chinese Embassy spokesman Sun Weide says China doesn't know if North Korea has an HEU program. Now, quietly, South Korean officials are beginning to express the same doubts. Echoes of these doubts are being heard in Japan. Even if these countries have other reasons for differing with the US, the failure to find WMD in Iraq gives them an excuse to question the reliability of American intelligence. In turn, this makes holding a united front against North Korea more difficult for the Bush administration. US failure to share the location of any HEU facilities in North Korea, and its apparent refusal to share evidence of the program with South Korea, compounds doubts. If the US was wrong - or manipulated intelligence - in Iraq, how can it be completely trusted in North Korea? No one is certain of North Korea's long-term objectives. It surely would be happy to normalize relations with the US while keeping a secret nuclear capability. The US, however, has every incentive to end the nuclear activities in North Korea and is wisely pushing Pyongyang to agree to eliminate the entire nuclear program under effective and intrusive verification. But the question remains: Just what does North Korea's nuclear program include, and does a HEU program really exist? Growing doubts over US intelligence threaten a united front toward Pyongyang. The question of North Korea's HEU program must be settled early in the six-party talks because the sides must define what will be covered in any agreement to freeze and/or dismantle Pyongyang's nuclear activities. Confusion on this issue makes progress in other areas next to impossible. To ease concerns over US intelligence estimates, the US must be more open with South Korea, Japan, and even China about its intelligence on North Korea. While this carries the risk of North Korea learning more about what the US knows and how it collects intelligence, the risk of letting doubts linger may be greater. They may, in part, keep the six-party talks from even getting to the next stage of discussions and prevent the US and North Korea from agreeing on what a nuclear deal will or will not cover. Also, the US should work to openly review and assess how it could have been so wrong in Iraq. Doing so poses little political risk for the president in a country where the majority seems willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt. It also offers significant benefits in terms of international credibility. Is it possible the US got it wrong again? Unlikely, but possible, given the scope of its intelligence failure in Iraq. So it's not surprising that its conclusions about North Korea are in question. The US must put these doubts to rest as quickly as possible if any talks with the North Koreans are going to succeed. " Jon Wolfsthal is deputy director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2004 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 Washington Times: Secrecy shrouds nukes January 28, 2004 JERUSALEM  Washington struck one more name from the list of aspiring members of the doomsday weapons club when Libya's self-described "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution," Moammar Gadhafi, emerged from his burrow of international isolation last month. But Col. Gadhafi's announcement that Libya was ready to dismantle its weapons programs caused few ripples in Israel, possessor of one of the most secretive programs of weapons of mass destruction. Washington was silent, too, despite an increasingly compelling reason for raising the issue with its closest Middle East friend  namely, that Syria and Iran, with Egypt's backing, say they will not disarm unless Israel does. For the Bush administration to pressure Israel to declare the existence of its weapons of mass destruction and outline the contingencies for their use would, at the very least, remove a glaring double standard in the White House's high-minded proclamations on the subject. It certainly would reassure moderate Arab states, where Israel usually is viewed as Goliath, not David. Just as important, it would rob "rogues"  whether states, groups or individuals  of a major rallying cry for recruiting followers to sow bloodshed and calamity against the West, namely that Washington conveniently ignores Israel's defiance of international disarmament efforts. But pressure to disarm, whether from Washington or inside Israel, is unlikely anytime soon. Since the inception of its nuclear-weapons program in the mid-1950s, Israel has hewed to a policy of neither confirming nor denying its existence. Few doubt, however, that it possesses such an arsenal. According to the Federation of American Scientists and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Israel has at least 200 nuclear warheads. If the assertions are true, that would make Israel the world's fifth-largest nuclear power, surpassing Britain. Its arms stockpile also features other advanced weaponry, official U.S. sources suggest. A 1993 report by the Office of Technology Assessment for the U.S. Congress states that Israel has "undeclared offensive chemical warfare capabilities" and is "generally reported as having an undeclared offensive biological warfare program." Israel is not a signatory to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and therefore is not subject to inspections and the threat of sanctions by the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. The state's efforts to disguise its activities have gone beyond an unwillingness to enter the international antiproliferation regime. In the early 1960s, Israel deceived U.S. scientists inspecting its Dimona nuclear facility by constructing a fake control room to an underground uranium processing facility, said "The Samson Option," an account of Israel's nuclear-weapons program by Seymour M. Hersh. On the issue of programs of weapons of mass destruction, international criticism never has troubled Israel. Israelis say the weapons are safe in their hands because they are not bent on destroying their neighbors, even though Syria and Iran have sought mass-destruction weapons partly to counter Israel's and have put the region's security on a more wobbly foundation. Israel's policy of neither confirming nor denying the existence of its nuclear, biological and chemical arsenal has served it well. As former Prime Minister Shimon Peres has put it, "The suspicion and fog surrounding this issue are constructive." On the one hand, the perception that it is a member of the nuclear club has provided Israel with a high level of deterrence in the Arab world. On the other hand, Israel's official opaqueness has enabled it to become the region's pre-eminent military power while avoiding a direct collision with U.S. policy on weapons proliferation, a collision that might jeopardize portions of its aid from Washington, which exceeds $3 billion annually. This official posture of ambiguity "has enabled Israel for decades to enjoy the best of both worlds," said Shai Feldman, director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv. Whether the policy suits a new era and the perils that Israel faces is another matter. Does the veil around Israel's weapons of mass destruction program undermine or encourage what the Israeli government says it wants  a Middle East free of doomsday weapons? In recent speeches, Israeli military officials have said that the country faces no threat on its "eastern front." Brig. Gen. Eival Giladi boasted last month that the next time Syria and Israel clash in a war, the army will reach Damascus as quickly as U.S. troops drove to Baghdad in the spring. The officials also have conceded that traditional concepts of deterrence and victory do not apply in the war on terrorism, where the combatants mainly are states and organizations, not states and states. In short, nuclear weapons are useless against jihadis calling for holy war. There is widespread agreement, too, that the strategic landscape of the Middle East has been transformed by Col. Gadhafi's about-face, Saddam Hussein's ouster from power in Iraq, and the decision by Iran's mullahs in mid-October to allow stricter international weapons inspections. Indeed, membership in the nuclear club appears to be losing value owing to the financial costs and risks of outside intervention. Still, Israeli leaders are skeptical, Mr. Feldman said. To them, Col. Gadhafi's turnabout, like Iran's, reveals the weakness of international inspections and safeguards. Although Tehran and Tripoli are signatories of the Nonproliferation Treaty and subject to its sanctions, evidence shows that both made significant advances toward development of mass-destruction weapons that went undetected for years. For all its military strength, Israel also remains profoundly anxious. Influential Israelis think that the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States ushered in a rising global tide of hate aimed at Jews and the Jewish state. It is not hostility to Israel's policies, they insist, but a racially tinged venom that has been a harbinger of some of the most tragic chapters of Jewish history. Against this background, only one in four Israelis think that their country should give up its nuclear arsenal as part of a regional disarmament campaign, according to survey published this month by Israel's state broadcaster. Under these circumstances, any serious talk of relinquishing germ, gas and nuclear weapons probably is unrealistic. Also, if recent news accounts about a famed nuclear whistleblower are any indication, even acknowledging what the world assumes to be true appears premature. Last month, Israel's domestic intelligence agency was said to be considering how to silence Mordechai Vanunu, who is scheduled for release from prison in April. Mr. Vanunu, a former nuclear technician, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for espionage after giving dozens of pictures and a description of purported weapons from Dimona to London's Sunday Times newspaper in 1986. He was lured from London to Rome by a female Israeli spy and taken to Tel Aviv for trial. The disclosures led to a sharp upward revision of the number of nuclear warheads Israel was thought to possess. [Mr. Vanunu was convicted of treason in a secret trial and kept in solitary confinement for more than a decade. A partial transcript of the trial was released by the state attorney in 1999 at the request of the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, which devoted half its front page and nine inside pages to the court records. [The transcript told Mr. Vanunu's personal story, following him from an Orthodox Jewish upbringing through his conversion to Christianity, his political activism on behalf of Palestinians when a student, and his decision to go public with Israel's nuclear secrets. ["I wanted to confirm what everyone knows," he said at his trial. "I wanted to put ... [Israel's nuclear program] under proper supervision."] Israeli authorities are said to be afraid that Mr. Vanunu could become a leader in a campaign to pressure the state to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction programs. Local news reports have said that the options under consideration for muzzling Mr. Vanunu included barring him from traveling overseas or speaking in public after his release. Israeli officials have confirmed the reports, but denied further comment. ***************************************************************** 6 TIME: Tony Karon - President Bush's Naked Envoy Dick Cheney still insists against the evidence that Saddam was a WMD menace Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2004 Somebody, please tell Dick Cheney to put on some clothes. Like the naked emperor of the fairy tale, the Vice President is on a sweep through Europe asking for help in Iraq, at the same time as insisting that the Iraq invasion had maintained U.S. credibility: "There comes a time when deceit and defiance must be seen for what they are," Cheney told a polite but skeptical audience of power brokers at Davos. "At that point, a gathering danger must be directly confronted. At that point, we must show that beyond our resolutions is actual resolve." Cheney's John Wayne posturing — "direct threats require decisive action" — suggests that he must think the Europeans hadn't noticed that the Bush administration has been forced to concede that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The "gathering danger" of which Cheney continues to speak was but a phantom menace. When the fall of Saddam's regime and the occupation of Iraq had failed to reveal the massive stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons of which the Bush team had warned — nor the nuclear weapons program that Cheney insisted had been reconstituted — the Bushies insisted that given time, they would provide the evidence to back up the extravagant prewar claims of the unconventional weapons threat from Iraq. Last week, however, they appeared to quietly give up the ghost. David Kay, the CIA weapons inspector put in charge of the hunt by the Bush administration quit and told National Public Radio that Iraq had no stockpiles of banned weapons when the war began last March. Some in the administration, like Secretary of State Colin Powell, graciously acknowledged the egg on their faces. Powell told reporters aboard his plane that his indictment of Iraq at the UN Security Council a year ago was based on what U.S. intelligence believed to be true at the time — a prospect rendered rather frightening by rereading Powell's presentation, widely hailed at the time as making the most credible case for war, of which remarkably little bears up. A comprehensive analysis of the fate of various prewar claims by the British American Security Information Council (http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Research/2004WMD3.htm#01) suggests that Bush and Blair may have done better to listen more carefully to chief UN weapons inspector Dr. Hans Blix. The UN never actually claimed that Iraq still had stockpiles of banned weapons; merely that it had not provided the evidence to vouch for its claim to have destroyed all of those weapons. Treated like an ineffectual appeaser by most of the U.S. media before the war, Blix suddenly looks like the only one who had it right and quite a few publications, and politicians, owe him an apology. Kay's comments, of course, are a refreshing departure for a man, who as Slate's Fred Kaplan notes, had mastered the art of building castles out of thin air, artfully choosing his words to allow administration sound-bite authors to imply that WMD evidence was imminent. Kay did, of course, do his former employers the service of trying to pin the blame for going to war under false pretenses onto the CIA. That seems to be the White House fallback position, too, although Press Secretary Scott McClellan gamely suggests that Kay's conclusion may be "premature" — in other words, don't expect us to confirm the obvious until after November. To be sure, there's no doubt that the intelligence community got it badly wrong on Iraq. But there's also plenty of evidence, well documented in a study by the Carnegie Endowment, to suggest that the intelligence community was placed under considerable pressure to provide the answers on Iraq that the administration's hawks wanted to hear. Some advocates of going to war to stop a WMD threat on U.S. soil have admitted their error: Former National Security Council official Ken Pollack, for instance, whose book "The Gathering Storm" made the case for many a liberal hawk that invasion was the only way to stop Saddam becoming a nuclear threat, provides an excruciatingly detailed explanation of how and why U.S. intelligence erred, but more importantly, concludes with a warning that Vice President Cheney might heed: "Fairly or not, no foreigner trusts U.S. intelligence to get it right anymore, or trusts the Bush Administration to tell the truth. The only way that we can regain the world's trust is to demonstrate that we understand our mistakes and have changed our ways." Faced with an increasingly complex and messy situation in Iraq, the U.S. needs a lot more international help extricating itself than it needed going in — indeed, Washington's ability to prevent its standoff with the Shiite majority over elections from erupting into confrontation now depends on a UN team agreeing that elections by June are not practical. Mr. Cheney's mission in Europe appears to have been to mend fences in order to win European backing in Iraq and elsewhere. The problem, however, is that not only was U.S. diplomatic influence was severely damaged on the march to war, but that the failure of the invasion to produce the evidence to back Washington's claims has further dented its credibility. That's unlikely to be repaired as long as Cheney is acting as if David Kay had proved the earth was flat. Tony Karon is a senior editor for TIME.com. His column on Copyright © 2004 Time Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 WATE.com: Nuclear Consultants Assure East Tennesseans on WMD Safety January 28, 2004 OAK RIDGE (WATE) -- After a 55,000 pound shipment of Libya's weapons of mass destruction arrived at the Y-12 complex, a Knoxville nuclear expert talks to 6 News about the security measures. White House officials said Tuesday the shipment will be evaluated at Y-12, and parts of it could be dismantled. The Y-12 National Security Complex is considered the Fort Knox of highly-enriched uranium. It's also the country's leading dis-assembly plant for nuclear weapon components. "The business of storing nuclear material started in Oak Ridge more than a half a century ago," Dr. Lee Dodds told 6 News Wednesday. He retired from Y-12 and works as one of its consultants. Plus, he heads UT's nuclear engineering dept and specializes in nuclear safety. "The material that's brought over here is perfectly safe. We're just going to store it here, similar to what we did with the Sapphire Project a few years ago." Sapphire was a top secret project in 1994 that brought tons of weapons grade uranium from Kazakhstan to Y-12. From what little he knows about the Libyan shipment, Dr. Dodds said the shipment doesn't contain fissile material. But even if it did, he said there's no better place for it. "We've been doing this for 60 years and it's been perfectly safe for 60 years and not a problem. They went to the area of expertise in the western world for highly enriched uranium and that's Y-12." Congressman Zach Wamp spoke about the Libyan shipment from Washington Wednesday. He said even with the recent criticism for lapses in Y-12 security, the decision is a vote of confidence. "It's encouraging to know we're called in again to handle the world's most dangerous materials to safely store them and secure them for our country and the free world," Wamp said. Eventually, the materials from Project Sapphire was transferred out of Oak Ridge to be used in other programs. The same could happen with the Libyan shipment. But while it's at Y-12, experts say there's no need to worry. "I've been in the warehouse where they store the stuff and it's perfectly safe," Dodds said. "I can tell you that from first hand experience." No state or federal agency, from the Knox County Sheriff's Office to the White House, would talk on the record specifically about the Libyan shipment, citing security issues. Speaking on general, non-specific terms, Elgan Ursey, with the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA), said the higher the radioactivity of a transport, the more security requirements are involved. Those include armed escorts, often commercial vehicle enforcement officers or state troopers. All nuclear or radioactive transports termed high level are tracked by satellite in a nationwide system called Transcom, based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. But TEMA officials at the emergency operations center in Nashville have access to Transcom data. If something happens to a truck transporting radioactive agents, monitors are made aware in real time. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission makes many of the requirements for radioactive transports. From casks to carry the materials, to radiological surveys of the trucks, to make sure there's no radioactive leakage. Low level radioactivity trucks need no special accommodations, other than notices or signs on the truck noting that it's carrying radioactive cargo. The plane that transported the WMDs to East Tennessee will be serviced and return to Libya in February for another shipment of weapons components. For security reasons, officials won't say if the shipment will be brought to Y-12. 6 News Reporters Steve Gehlbach and Vince Lennon contributed to this report. All content © Copyright 2000 - 2004 WorldNow and WATE. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 8 War Wire: Syria reiterates demand for nuclear-free Middle East WAR.WIRE GENEVA (AFP) Jan 27, 2004 Syria on Tuesday reiterated its demand for the Middle East to be made free of weapons of mass destruction "without exception", at a disarmament conference at the United Nations' European headquarters in Geneva. Although no country was mentioned by name as harbouring such weapons, Syria has in the past said its neighbour and long-time enemy Israel must abandon its nuclear arsenal before Arab states can be asked to give up any alleged weapons programmes. "Syria attached great importance to the issue of regional security, which could only be established with the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction by all States, without exception," Syrian ambassador Mikail Wehbe was quoted as saying in an official summary of his speech. "Syria had always called for the Middle East to become a zone which was free of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons," he told the first stage of the conference, which started last week and is due to run until March. Damascus, which finds itself more than ever in Washington's sights for its own alleged weapons programme, would like to see a binding agreement to assure the safety of countries without a nuclear arms capacity, the ambassador said. Recent progress has been made in cleaning up the region's reputation for covert arms projects, following the renunciation of weapons of mass destruction by Libya and Iran's acceptance of tough inspections of its nuclear programme. The United States, Israel's chief ally, has urged Syria to follow Libya's example and has threatened Damascus with political and economic sanctions, accusing it of developing banned weapons and of supporting "terrorism". But Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said it is impossible to ask Arab and Muslim states -- where there is no proof that they possess such weapons -- to allow inspections of their installations while ignoring Israel's weapons arsenal. "If they (the Americans) were really serious, let the entire region be free (of such weapons)," he was quoted as saying in a newspaper interview published earlier this month. The conference on disarmament, which comprises 65 member states, on Tuesday adopted an agenda for this year's session which covers issues such as prevention of nuclear war, prevention of an arms race in outer space and new types of weapons of mass destruction. WAR.WIRE ***************************************************************** 9 thedailytimes.com - Libyan nuclear shipment passes through Blount [Pellissippi State Technical Community College] 2004-01-28 by Duncan Mansfield The Associated Press KNOXVILLE -- The Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, despite recent reports of security lapses, has again been called on to handle nuclear materials that threatened the world. A shipment of 55,000 pounds of nuclear-related and missile equipment from Libya arrived Tuesday, marking at least the third shipment of dangerous material from a foreign country sent to the Tennessee facility for inspection, storage and disposition since 1994. Ten years ago, the plant received 1,320 pounds of highly enriched uranium from the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan in a secret nonproliferation mission code-named ``Project Sapphire.'' Much of that material, instead of finding its way into terrorist hands, ultimately was downblended into fuel for commercial reactors. The Oak Ridge plant received a smaller shipment ``capable of making a dirty bomb'' from somewhere in the Middle East in the two years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn. Wamp, whose district includes Oak Ridge, said he was notified before the plane left Tripoli late Monday that this third shipment was on its way. ``It is high praise when the White House says the shipment is now in a `secured facility in Tennessee' and I know exactly where that is,'' Wamp said of Y-12. ``We still have the best, brightest, toughest people in the country, and once again we are called on to handle the world's most dangerous products,'' he said. The nuclear weapons plant, created as part of the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb to end World War II, today is a 4,700-employee, 800-acre complex that refurbishes parts for every warhead in the nuclear arsenal and is the main storehouse in the U.S. for weapons-grade uranium. The Energy Department facility has been widely criticized recently for lapses in security -- guards cheating on security drills, a poor performance on the most recent exercise in December and an admission that as many as 200 security keys were lost. ``Without question security upgrades are in the works,'' Wamp said, but added that it was still ``reassuring and encouraging to see that the country knows that Oak Ridge is the most capable place'' to handle such cargo. The jet from Libya arrived at 8:37 a.m. EST at Knoxville's McGhee Tyson Airport and its contents were quietly taken to Oak Ridge, about 20 miles to the west. The shipment contained uranium hexaflouride and centrifuge parts for enriching uranium and long-range missile guidance sets. White House spokesman Taylor Gross said the shipment follows Libya's announcement Dec. 19 to voluntarily give up its weapons of mass destruction in a bid to normalize relations. What will happen to the material is unclear. Observers said the exact contents of the shipment may still be unknown. Energy Department officials in Oak Ridge and Washington declined to comment. Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This The Daily Times 307 East Harper Ave. Maryville, TN 37804 Mailing Address: PO Box 9740 Maryville, TN 37802-9740 ***************************************************************** 10 Hi Pakistan: Scientists being made scapegoats: PPP - Bureau Report January 28 2004 PESHAWAR, Jan 27: The Pakistan People's Party has criticized the government for what he termed the humiliatory treatment of nuclear scientists, blaming President Pervez Musharraf of trying to safeguard his hold on power by making them (scientists) scapegoats. PPP's NWFP chief Khwaja Mohammad, in a statement issued here on Tuesday, praised the party's founding chairman Zulfikar Ali Bhutto for pledging to make Pakistan a nuclear power in 1974 to effectively counter the hegemony of regional powers while criticizing President MUsharraf for what he termed the roll-back of the country's atomic programme. Expressing displeasure over what he termed the media trial of national heroes, he said it revealed the rulers' weaknesses. He urged the government to discuss the issue in parliament besides calling it to take the nation into confidence over the matter, exposing everyone involved in what was now being described as the 'leakage of nuclear capability' to some countries. Mr Hoti described the nuclear scientists' humiliation as being a bid to divert the people's attention from urgent problems like unemployment, deteriorating law and order situation. Stressing the need for holding fresh, fair and free general elections under the supervision of an independent election commission and peaceful transfer of power, he said it was the only solution to the present national crisis. He urged the government to release all political prisoners, including Asif Ali Zardari, and allow PPP's chairperson Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan Muslim League chief Mian Nawaz Sharif and others to return to Pakistan and permit them to take part in the politics. Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 Khaleej Times: Ex-army chief says nuclear proliferation nothing new to Pakistan (DPA) 28 January 2004 ISLAMABAD - A former Pakistani army chief on Wednesday did not rule out the possibility of nuclear technology transfer by ?individual scientists? to Iran, but insisted it could happen anywhere in the world. ?It is not something peculiar to Pakistan alone ... scores of Russian scientists attempted to do this after the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 90s,? retired General Aslam Beg said in an interview with the television program ?Geo?. ? The US government had to intervene and spent 400 million US dollars to purchase such weapons off the open market to prevent their proliferation,? Beg said. Beg, however, insisted that the Pakistan Nuclear Authority (PNA) under former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto had applied enough checks to prevent unauthorized leakages. General Beg also denied having ever suggested to the government of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif that they sell nuclear know-how to Iran for billions of dollars. ?This is a total lie,? Beg said. The ex-army chief also spoke of a ?conscious decision in a 1989 PNA meeting not to enrich uranium beyond 5 per cent because we had achieved the basic objectives of our nuclear programme by then?. Several Pakistani scientists are currently being investigated for their alleged links to Iranian and Libyan nuclear programmes following tips provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in November last year. A leading Pakistani newspaper claimed on Wednesday that Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan - revered as ?Father of Pakistan?s nuclear bomb? - had made millions of dollars because of his direct ties with the international nuclear black market. President Pervez Musharraf has promised stern action against those found guilty of ?unauthorized nuclear-related transfers? but has also called on European nations to move against members of the international ?nuclear under-world?. page *© 2003 Khaleej Times* All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 12 Asia Times: US draws a line on Pakistan's nuclear program By Syed Saleem Shahzad ISLAMABAD - The United States's patience could finally be running out with Pakistan and its nuclear program, even though Islamabad is scrambling to reassure Washington that any proliferation in the past was an aberration on the part of rogue individuals. Disclosure by Iran to the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency of the names of people who provided Tehran with nuclear technology - including Pakistani scientists - has clearly alarmed Washington, even though these events took place some years ago. Under strong US pressure, Pakistan has grilled at least 13 scientists from Kahuta, the site of the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL), Pakistan's main nuclear weapons laboratory, and at least three are expected to be charged with selling Pakistan's nuclear technology to another country. Among those interrogated are former KRL director-general, Mohammed Farooq, and Major Islamul Haq, the principal staff officer of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan. Dr Khan spearheaded Pakistan's nuclear development program until his replacement two years ago as head of KRL, again under severe pressure from the US, which feared connections of al-Qaeda elements with some Pakistani scientists. All of Pakistan's scientists are also now under heavy surveillance to track their every move, and the government has issued a circular stating that Dr Khan, a long-time celebrity in Pakistan, is not to be invited to any ceremonies or official functions, or in any way treated as a VIP. Parallel to this Pakistani investigation, though, the US has launched its own independent probe into Pakistan's links to the nuclear programs of Iran, Libya and North Korea, and, depending on the results, according to insiders in the Pakistani administration, Washington could lean on Islamabad to completely abandon its program. Such action would conform with the US's broader agenda to defuse tension on the sub-continent. Already the US has forced India and Pakistan, not quite kicking and screaming, to the peace negotiating table, and for this peace process to last, Pakistan, a perennial meddler in Afghanistan and Kashmir in particular, would need to be tamed. The US hand has been strengthened by the weekend announcement by President General Pervez Musharraf, who for the first time admitted that "some individual or individuals" may have been involved in proliferating Pakistan's nuclear technology. And on Monday, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, saying that a two-month probe into allegations of nuclear technology proliferation to Iran and Libya was near completion, added: "One or two people acted in an irresponsible manner for personal profit. Money is involved in the matter. I am not naming any scientist." According to sources in the Pakistani establishment who spoke to Asia Times Online, after questioning a few Pakistani scientists, US intelligence operators are now looking for a Karachi-based Pakistani entrepreneur who is said to manufacture some of the components that are used in atomic programs. The investigators want to establish the level of proficiency of the manufacturing, and the chances of the products being - or having been - exported. US attention is also focussed clearly on Dr Khan. US and UK investigators have already made known evidence of him traveling on a personal rather than a diplomatic passport to Iran, North Korea, the United Arab Emirates and the UK. The UK government unofficially informed Islamabad several times of the visits, but received no response, leading investigators to conclude that he was, in fact, on official business. Tehran authorities have also released information concerning a property near the port of Bandar Abbas, officially given to Dr Khan by the government of Iran. Pakistan builds a time bomb A Pakistan scientist who was affiliated with Pakistan's nuclear program spoke to Asia Times Online, on condition of anonymity, about the country's nuclear program. The program was the brain child of former premier Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was a champion of Third World countries and their rights. "If India develops nuclear weapons, Pakistan will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry" in order to develop a program of its own, he said at the time. Bhutto was instrumental in bringing Dr Khan to Pakistan in the mid-1970s from the Netherlands where he had been associated with Urenco, a British,German and Dutch consortium. After his return to Pakistan, the Dutch government accused Dr Khan of stealing centrifuge plans from the plant. He was tried in absentia and convicted; the verdict was later overturned on a technicality. Western experts believe that Pakistan used Urenco gas centrifuge blueprints and information to build its own facilities. Through Bhutto's diplomacy, according to the scientist who spoke to Asia Times Online, Iran and Libya were persuaded to make a joint investment in Pakistan's program. As a result, they were privy to the first phases of that program. Due to the secrecy of the program at this stage, all information and financing was channeled directly through Bhutto, even using his personal bank accounts. Dr Khan, too, answered only to Bhutto, and his "welfare" was the premier's responsibility. Bhutto's government, though, was toppled by General Zia-ul Haq in a coup in 1977 over allegations of vote rigging. Two years later, on April 4, 1979, Bhutto was hanged after being convicted a year earlier on charges of conspiring to murder a political opponent. Bhutto's demise - both political and physical - ended the cosy relationship that Pakistan had had with Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, while the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, which threw out the monarchy, severely strained Tehran's ties with pro-US Pakistan. These developments obviously forced Pakistan to continue its nuclear program on its own. In 1979 a pilot uranium enrichment facility started up at Sihala, and construction began on a full-scale facility at Kahuta. In April of that year, the US imposed sanctions on Pakistan after learning about its enrichment program. At the same time, however, Pakistan became the main supply line of arms (mostly from the US) to Afghan mujahideen rallying to fight the Soviets, who had invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. And once the Iran-Iraq war broke out in 1980, Pakistan developed into a key transit point for arms on their way to Iran. In 1981, because of its importance in the Afghan puzzle, the US Congress granted Pakistan a six-year exemption from the Symington Amendment, which prohibited aid to any non-nuclear country engaged in illegal procurement of equipment for a nuclear weapons program. Pakistan also accepted a US$3.2 billion, six-year aid package from the US that included the sale of F-16 planes. Free from the threat of sanctions, in 1982, there was a cold test at a small-scale reprocessing plant in Pakistan. Around this time, Allama Ariful Hussaini, the chief of the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Fiqa-i-Jaferia Pakistan, the largest Shi'ite organization in Pakistan, emerged as a go-between for Tehran and Pakistan, first for arms, and ultimately in the transfer of nuclear technology. By 1986, US sources were reporting that Pakistan had produced weapons-grade uranium (greater than 90 percent U-235. Hussaini was shot dead in Peshawar in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) a few days before General Zia's death in a plane accident in August 1988. Hussaini's party blamed then corps commander and governor of NWFP, Lieutenant-General Fazal-i-Haq, who was Zia's right-hand man. Haq himself was later murdered by a Shi'ite assassin. By the late 1980s, then, the US was aware that Pakistan's nuclear program was well advanced, and knew that Pakistan and Iran were cooperating in weapons transfers - most likely including nuclear technology. In mid-1988, a US oil tanker was fired on and it emerged that US missiles that had been given to Pakistan as supplies for Afghan mujahideen had been used in the attack. The US was outraged, and proposed an audit at a large ammunition dump at Ojri in Pakistan. Mysteriously, to this day, on August 17, 1988, the dump went up in a huge blast that killed about 100 people and injured thousands. An inquiry did find, however, evidence that the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence was involved in selling Stinger missiles and other American arms on the black market. Since Pakistan was still a trusted ally in the Cold War, the US did not take any action. In June 1989, then prime minister Benazir Bhutto visited Washington DC. In February of that year, Pakistan announced the successful test of two new surface-to-surface ballistic missiles: Hatf I and II, with 80 kilometer and and 300 kilometer ranges. Before Bhutto's trip, though, production of highly-enriched uranium was stopped, a step that was verified by the US. It is believed that production was re-started after heightening tensions with India over Kashmir in 1990. During these years, the deep seeds of suspicion over Pakistan's trustworthiness were planted, and they are now bearing the fruit that could poison Pakistan's nuclear program, with the country's scientists already feeling the ill effects. (Note: On May 28 and 30 of 1998, Pakistan conducted underground nuclear tests - six according to the government - in response to India's May 11 and 13 five underground tests.) (Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. Jan 29, 2004 material from Asia Times Online may be republished in any form without written permission. Copyright 2003, Asia Times Online, 4305 Far East Finance Centre, 16 Harcourt Rd, Central, Hong Kong ***************************************************************** 13 PakNews.Com: Pakistan Never To Roll Back Its Nuclear Programme January 28, 2004 Zil - Haj 5, 1424 Hijri Ziqaad 28, 1423 Hijri Editor-in-Chief: Asim Mughal ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Jan 28 (PNS) - Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has said that Pakistan will never roll back its nuclear programme at any cost. Kashmir issue and nuclear programme are the matter of life and death for Pakistan, the Information Minister said in an interview with ARY One World television telecast Tuesday. Replying to a question, he said, "I assure you that Pakistan will never roll back nuclear programme at any cost." If there is any wrong or mistake committed by any individual it has to be tackled, he said and added that Pakistan is a responsible state. He said the world community has admitted that Pakistan is not involved in proliferation of nuclear technology. Pakistan understands its responsibilities and will handle the debriefing in a proper manner, he said. To another question the Minister said Pakistan is not trying to go nuclear, instead it is a declared nuclear state.About the ongoing debriefing sessions the minister said seven persons were being debriefed, four scientists and three security personnel. He said debriefing session with one scientist will end in a couple of days. He said this is a sensitive national issue and is being blown out of proportion needlessly. Denying involvement of any foreigner in debriefing, Sheikh Rashid said that Pakistani scientists and security personnel were being debriefed only by Pakistanis. Sheikh Rashid said, there were about 6,000 scientists in the country and more than 60,000 workers were attached with 10 related organizations. He said the national interest demanded action against any individual found guilty of misconduct at any point of time. He said there was no need to worry about the scientists who were not involved in financial gains. The Minister said the case would be finalized in a couple of days. He said the whole nation is proud of its scientists for making the country invincible. These scientists are the shining stars and pride of the nation. He said Pakistan will not allow anybody to defame our scientists. "We will never allow the hard work and achievements of our national heroes go waste at any cost", the Information Minister added. The End. ***************************************************************** 14 Las Vegas SUN: Libya, Iran Linked to Pakistan Nuke Plans Today: January 28, 2004 at 8:35:10 PST By MATTHEW PENNINGTON ASSOCIATED PRESS ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program and a top aide had black market contacts that supplied sensitive technology to Iran and Libya, Pakistani intelligence officials told The Associated Press Wednesday. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, long revered as a national hero in Pakistan, and Dr. Mohammed Farooq, former director-general of the Khan Research Laboratories, also have failed to account for funds in their personal bank accounts, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Both men deny they helped Iran and Libya, the officials said, as an investigation into nuclear technology trade nears an end. "These are the two people who had links and contacts with those who have been supplying many things to those countries who wanted to become nuclear power," one official said. Another official said Khan had been shown documents and other material and had acknowledged his contacts with dealers who worked for him in the past, but he denied he had profited or played any role in supplying technology to either Iran or Libya. "He says he is the victim of an international conspiracy," the official said. Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, Pakistan's army chief of staff from 1988-91, told AP in an interview Wednesday that Pakistan's program to develop a nuclear bomb had relied on black market suppliers, and Pakistani scientists may have shared their contacts with Iran and Libya. He complained, however, that the investigation is treating top scientists like Khan as criminals, while they should be respected for providing the country's nuclear deterrent against rival India. "These scientists who are being questioned today, the only crime you can say they committed was to tell the Iranian friends or the Libyan friends 'Go to such and such a place and the item is on sale. Buy it from them,'" Beg told AP. Asked what should happen to scientists who were found to have shared "underworld" contacts, Beg said: "Nothing. They have committed no crime." Beg acknowledged that some Pakistani scientists may have accrued personal wealth, but they had not misused state funds. Pakistan began its investigation into its nuclear program and possible proliferation to Iran in late November after admissions made by Tehran to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog based in Vienna, Austria. Allegations also have surfaced that Pakistani technology spread to Libya and North Korea. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali will take the final decision about the fate of Khan and Farooq after the investigation is completed "within days," one official said. Three scientists, including Farooq, and four security officials from the Khan Research Laboratories - named after Khan - are in detention. Khan is restricted to the capital, Islamabad, and has made no public comment. The government has publicly said "one or two people" acted for personal profit, but denies there was any official authorization for nuclear transfers to other countries. There is growing international concern about the "black market" in nuclear technology that circumvents restrictions on its supply. Gen. Beg denied allegations that he had authorized transfers of nuclear know-how between Pakistan and Iran during the late 1980s, and said Iran had never made such a request, although the two countries did cooperate in transfer of conventional weapons. "There's no truth in it. It's an absolute lie," said Beg, who was a strong advocate of a strategic alliance with Iran during his tenure. Beg said Pakistan had been justified in using clandestine means to create a nuclear bomb - the first in the Islamic world - after larger neighbor India tested a nuclear device in 1974. "Any country which is threatened by the nuclear capability of their neighbor, they have a right to acquire it," he said. "When you want to get this kind of technology and know-how, you have to go to the market where these items are under sale," which he said spread "all the way from the United States, Europe, Russia." "That's how we acquired our capability. It was a known fact throughout the world. The Americans knew it," Beg said. He added that other countries, including Israel and India, had done the same. "It's a vicious circle and Pakistan is being singled out," Beg said. ---- Associated Press writer Munir Ahmad contributed to this report from Islamabad. -- ***************************************************************** 15 Las Vegas SUN: Top Pakistan Nuke Scientist Tied to Leaks Today: January 28, 2004 at 11:55:11 PST By MATTHEW PENNINGTON ASSOCIATED PRESS ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - The father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program and a top aide had black market contacts that supplied sensitive technology to Iran and Libya, and both have failed to account for funds in their bank accounts, intelligence officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday. Also, a former army chief told AP the country's nuclear program relied on clandestine suppliers and scientists may have shared those contacts. Under suspicion are Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, long revered as a national hero, and Dr. Mohammed Farooq, former director-general of a key nuclear facility, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "These are the two people who had links and contacts with those who have been supplying many things to those countries who wanted to become nuclear powers," one official said. Another intelligence official said Khan had acknowledged his contacts with black market dealers. Both Khan and his former aide deny they profited or played any role in supplying technology to either Iran or Libya. Khan "says he is the victim of an international conspiracy," the official said. Critics accuse President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, of bowing to international pressure by detaining and interrogating scientists who gave the Islamic world its first nuclear weapon. The United States said it has assurance from Musharraf that Pakistan wasn't involved in the nuclear trade. "President Musharraf has assured us that, one, that was part of the past, and the past is the past. We've made that very clear," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Wednesday. Yet there is growing international concern about a black market in nuclear technology. Pakistan began its investigation into its nuclear program and possible proliferation to Iran in late November after admissions made by Tehran to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Allegations since surfaced that Pakistani technology also spread to Libya and North Korea. The government acknowledges that "one or two people" acted for personal profit but denies there was any official authorization for sharing of information throughout Pakistan's nuclear program, launched by Khan in the early 1970s. Three scientists, including Farooq, and four security officials from the Khan Research Laboratories - named after Khan - are being detained. Khan is restricted to the capital Islamabad and has made no public comment. Musharraf and Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali will decide the fate of Khan and Farooq after the investigation is completed "within days," one official said. Separately, Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, Pakistan's army chief of staff from 1988-91, told AP that Pakistan's program to develop a nuclear bomb relied on black market suppliers - and that Pakistani scientists may have shared their contacts with Iran and Libya. He complained, however, that the inquiry unfairly treats top scientists like Khan as criminals. "These scientists who are being questioned today, the only crime you can say they committed was to tell the Iranian friends or the Libyan friends 'Go to such and such a place and the item is on sale. Buy it from them,'" Beg told AP on Wednesday. Asked what should happen to scientists who were found to have shared contacts, Beg said: "Nothing. They have committed no crime." He also acknowledged that some Pakistani scientists may have accrued personal wealth but insisted they did not misuse state funds. "I'm sure that whatever money was given to Dr. Khan and (other) people, no money was misused, because I was a member of the Nuclear Command Authority and for three years the balance sheet was presented and everything was accounted for," he said. Beg denied allegations that he authorized transfers of nuclear know-how between Pakistan and Iran during the late 1980s. He said Iran never made such a request, though the two countries cooperated in the transfer of conventional weapons. "There's no truth in it. It's an absolute lie," said Beg, a strong advocate of a strategic alliance with Iran during his tenure. Beg said Pakistan was justified in using clandestine means to create an atomic bomb after neighbor India tested a nuclear device in 1974. "When you want to get this kind of technology and know-how, you have to go to the market where these items are under sale," which he said spread "all the way from the United States, Europe, Russia." "That's how we acquired our capability. It was a known fact throughout the world. The Americans knew it," Beg said. He added that other countries, including Israel and India, had done the same. "It's a vicious circle and Pakistan is being singled out," Beg said. --- Associated Press writer Munir Ahmad contributed to this report. -- ***************************************************************** 16 NRC: NRC Finds No Significant Environmental Impact from Extended Operation of Ginna Nuclear Power Plant News Release - 2004-01 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 04-012 January 28, 2004 environmental impact statement on the proposed renewal of the operating license of the R. E. Ginna nuclear power plant. In the environmental impact statement, the NRC staff found there are no environmental impacts that would preclude license renewal for an additional 20 years of operation. The Ginna nuclear facility is located 20 miles from Rochester, New York. The operating license expires on September 18, 2009. Rochester Gas and Electric Corporation, the operator of the plant, submitted an application for renewal of the license on July 30, 2002. As part of its environmental review of the application, the NRC held two public meetings near the plant to discuss the scope of the review and a draft version of the environmental impact statement for the facility. Comments were received from members of the public, local officials and representatives of State and other Federal agencies. Copies of the statement are available electronically on the NRC web site at the following address: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1437 /supplement14/sr1437s14.pdf. The report also is available for public inspection at the NRCs Public Document Room, located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. Last revised Wednesday, January 28, 2004 ***************************************************************** 17 NRC: NRC Modifies Financial Information Requirements for Power Reactor Licenses News Release - 2004-01 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 04-013 January 27, 2004 regulations to remove the requirement that power reactor licensees that are not electric utilities submit financial information in their license renewal applications. Within the meaning of NRC regulations, an electric utility refers to any entity that generates or distributes electricity and recovers the cost of this electricity through rates established by a separate regulatory authority, or by the entity itself as in the case of a public utility district. The NRC is also adding a requirement that a licensee changing from an electric utility to a non-electric utility status without a license transfer notify the NRC and submit the financial information that is required for obtaining an initial operating license. A non-electric utility refers to a company that sells electricity at spot market prices and therefore does not recover its costs through the rate-making process. The NRC believes that its financial reviews during initial licensing, license transfers or the transition from electric utility to non-electric utility status, in addition to monitoring of financial health between these reviews, provide a sufficiently comprehensive framework to assess financial qualifications. The agency does not believe that the license renewal process is sufficiently unique to warrant a separate financial review. On June 4, 2002, the NRC published a proposed rule on changes to the requirement for non-utilities to submit financial information. It received comments from nine different organizations, including a state group, three non-profit firms and five companies in the nuclear power industry. Although all comments were considered, no changes were made to the final rule, which will become effective 30 days after publication in a Federal Register notice, expected soon. Last revised Wednesday, January 28, 2004 ***************************************************************** 18 NRC: NRC to Conduct FY2005 Budget Briefing February 2 in Rockville, Maryland News Release - 2004-01 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 04-014 January 28, 2004 interested reporters on its budget for Fiscal Year 2005 (October 1, 2004 to September 30, 2005) on Monday, February 2 at 3:30 p.m. at 11555 Rockville Pike in Rockville, Maryland. The FY 2005 budget provides the necessary resources for the agency to regulate the Nations civilian use of byproduct, source, and special nuclear materials to ensure adequate protection of public health and safety, to promote the common defense and security, and to protect the environment. Jesse L. Funches, the agencys Chief Financial Officer, will lead the budget presentation in the Press Room1F22--of the One White Flint North Building located across the street from the Metro Red Lines White Flint Station. Immediately following the presentation will be a question and answer session. Copies of the agencys budget (NUREG-1100, Volume 20) are available from the Office of Public Affairs by calling 301-415-8200. The document also will be available February 2 on NRCs web site at http://www.nrc.gov at the Plans, Budget, and Performance link in the bottom right-hand corner of the web page or may be purchased from the Government Printing Office by calling 202-512-1800. Last revised Wednesday, January 28, 2004 ***************************************************************** 19 Brattleboro Reformer: Finance board mulls VY uprate January 28, 2004 Brattleboro, VT By TOBY HENRY Reformer Staff BRATTLEBORO -- The Senate Finance Committee plans to discuss the public benefit of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant's proposed "uprate" this afternoon. Spokesmen for Entergy, the plant's owner, as well as the anti-nuclear New England Coalition, said they expect the hearing to focus on the memorandum of agreement reached in November between Entergy and the Vermont Department of Public Service. Under the $20 million agreement, the company will distribute funds to a variety of sources across the state, including about $8 million for the governor's clean water initiative. The initiative includes plans for the cleanup of Lake Champlain. The coalition is a party to the hearings before the Public Service Board on the plant's proposed 20 percent power boost. The hearings concluded earlier this month, and a decision from the board on a certificate of public good is expected in mid-March. Ray Shadis, staff adviser for the New England Coalition, said his group plans to send at least three witnesses to testify before the Senate committee. Witnesses are expected to include Arnie Gundersen, a former senior vice-president with Danbury, Conn.-based Nuclear Energy Services, as well as Putney resident Peter Alexander, the coalition's new executive director. Gundersen said his testimony will focus on what he says are increased risks of both nuclear accidents and the spread of radiation that would result from the uprate. Despite such dangers, Gundersen said, much of the money put forward by Entergy to establish a public benefit appears to be headed toward cleanup of Lake Champlain. "The risk of chemicals coming from cooling tower drift, the risk of extra radiation, the risk of having extra spent fuel on site -- all that accrues to Windham County, but the benefits are accruing to Chittenden County," he said. Gundersen added that the increased on-site radiation after the uprate could also boost decommissioning costs. Although the ratepayers and Entergy would split excess decommissioning funds, which Gundersen estimated at $5 million, the uprate could eat up any money that would, under normal operating power, have been left. "(The uprate) could easily increase decommissioning costs by $12 million to $15 million, so essentially, the Lake Champlain cleanup is being paid for with Windham County's money," he said. "The bottom line is they're robbing Peter to pay Paul." Vermont Yankee spokesman Rob Williams said Tuesday that Entergy plans to send Gerard Morris, who Williams said was a lobbyist for the Burlington-based New England Public Affairs Group, to testify on Entergy's behalf. Regarding any proposals to direct part of the $20 million to Windham County, Williams said elected officials would have to make that decision. Sen. Rod Gander, D-Windham, one of the committee's seven members, said Tuesday that health concerns will prevent him from attending the afternoon hearing. However, Gander said committee members will send him recorded copies of the testimony, and he vowed to revisit the uprate when he returns to the Statehouse next month. Gander said he has not asked any of his fellow committee members to ask questions on his behalf, but added that he has confidence in the committee, chaired by Sen. Ann Cummings, D-Washington, to conduct a thorough hearing. He added that he supports an independent safety evaluation for the 31-year-old plant. Although the plant is slated to be the subject of an assessment by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission this year, Shadis said the scope of the planned assessment would amount to little more than a review of plant paperwork. Instead, Shadis and others have called for a thorough on-site independent inspection similar to the one performed on the Maine Yankee plant in 1996. Gander agreed that the NRC or another qualified entity should conduct a thorough review of the plant's condition "beyond what the NRC already has planned." "There is no reason not to," Gander said. "I think it's pretty obvious. The safety of it should be a primary concern." Gander said that one aspect of the uprate that concerns him is a bill passed last year which changes the way the facility is taxed. Previously, Gander said, the plant was taxed according to its material value -- revenue that shrunk each year due to depreciation of the plant over time. Under the new law, the plant is taxed according to the amount of energy it generates. "The bill was perfectly straightforward, there was nothing wrong with that, and it was seen as a way to make sure the tax was fair," Gander said. "But what it does, in a sense, is make it in the state's interest to have the uprate. I'm just not sure that was a good idea. It's one more instance where we seem to be heading toward a decision to relicense Vermont Yankee." ***************************************************************** 20 Sofia: Bulgaria's 2nd N-Plant Construction "Starts in 2005" novinite.com Sofia Morning News Business: 28 January 2004, Wednesday. The construction works on Bulgaria's second nuclear power plant in the town of Belene will be launched in 2005, and three years later the first 1000 MgW unit will be started, the local Yantra Dnes newspaper reported, citing engineer Vassil Bandov, deputy-chief of the plant. The article also claims that by the end of April 2004 the report on the effects of the plant on the environment will be ready. Earlier in January Atomic Energy of Canada, one of the foreign companies that eye the construction of the second nuclear power plant, recommended to the Bulgarian government to either back with arguments the project or decide on using alternative technologies which enjoy popularity in the European Union. The President of the Canadian company also called on the government to weigh up the economic pros and cons and choose the appropriate technology. On Dec 19, 2002 Bulgarian government lifted the ban on the completion of Bulgaria's second nuclear plant. The project for its construction was shelved in 1992 after pressure from environmentalists. All Rights Reserved © Novinite Ltd., 2001-2004 - Copyright ***************************************************************** 21 News 12: Panel hears testimony about Indian Point’s cooling system (01/28/04) WHITE PLAINS - On Wednesday, a panel from the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) heard testimony on the environmental effects of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. In November the state ordered Entergy, the plant’s owner, to stop using the Hudson River water to cool its reactors. The reason is because heated water from the plant is blamed for killing millions of fish. The plant’s opponents say the DEC was wrong to give Entergy 15 years to fix the problem. The DEC could order Indian Point to shut down if they don’t change their cooling system. TickerTech.com. Copyright C 2000 Ticker Technologies Inc., All (C) 2004 News12.com &Rainbow Media Terms of Usage | ***************************************************************** 22 Toledo Blade: Generator at Fermi II called iffy in earthquake Article published Wednesday, January 28, 2004 By TOM HENRY BLADE STAFF WRITER Fermi II had all the backup power Detroit Edison Co. needed to keep the northern Monroe County nuclear plant in a safe mode during the August blackout. But the utility yesterday acknowledged that one of four emergency diesel generators that provide Fermi II’s backup power probably wouldn’t have worked if an earthquake had struck the Midwest during the outage. Earthquakes and smaller seismic events are rare here compared to California, but they have been documented from time to time. Detroit Edison spokesman John Austerberry told The Blade that a connection on an oil line to the generator in question probably wouldn’t have held up. A bushing wasn’t properly threaded following maintenance in June. The utility believes workers relied on a flawed manual, he said. The problem was fixed in November. It was diagnosed after workers questioned a subtle difference between the line’s oil pressure being in an acceptable range, yet not returning to its expected level, Mr. Austerberry said. The utility, as a matter of record, went back and declared that one generator inoperable from June through November. Technical specifications call for such oil lines to withstand an earthquake, Mr. Austerberry said. The problem is expected to be cited in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s plant performance report for Fermi II, Jan Strasma, an NRC spokesman, said. NRC procedure calls for the agency to perform a follow-up inspection. The plant wasn’t in danger of losing backup power: Three of Fermi II’s four emergency diesel generators were operable. Most single-unit facilities, including Fermi II, can get by temporarily with two operable generators, Mr. Strasma said. Even the generator in question at Fermi II worked fine for 22 hours during the blackout. Each of the plant’s four generators is inspected once a month, Mr. Austerberry said. ***************************************************************** 23 ITAR-TASS: Novovoronezh NPS, EU discuss reactor control upgrading [ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia] 28.01.2004, 12.55 NOVOVORONEZH, January 28 (Itar-Tass) - Specialists of the Novovoronezh nuclear power station (NVNPS) and the European Union (EU) on Wednesday began to discuss matters concerning the modernisation of the control system for the one-million-kilowatt Power Unit 5, NVNPS Deputy General Director Alexander Revin has told Itar-Tass that this work is being done in realisation of the TACIS international cooperation programme, the cost of which is about 15 million US dollars. NVNPS specialists have drawn up the necessary documentation, on the strength of which special equipment for the power unit will be manufactured to implement the project, which has become a pilot one in cooperation between the EU and the Rosenergoatom Company. The modernisation of the equipment of Power Unit 5, which was put into operation in 1980 to become the first one-million-kilowatt unit in domestic nuclear power engineering, will make it possible to improve its radiation shielding system. The contract also provides for the installation of an up-to-date reactor emergency shutdown system. Three power units with an aggregate power of 1,800,000 kilowatts are now under load at the NVNPS. The radiological situation at the station and in the adjacent territory is normal. © ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy, ***************************************************************** 24 ITAR-TASS: Armenian NPP to be shut down for reloading, maintenance 28.01.2004, 15.07 YEREVAN, January 28 (Itar-Tass) - The Armenian nuclear power plant will be shut down on July 1 for nuclear fuel reloading, the NPP director Gagik Merkosyan said. He said the plant’s power unit and its turbines would undergo a simultaneous 65-day preventive maintenance. The Armenian NPP was put into operation in 1979 and shut down in 1989 after a devastating earthquake in the republic. The plant’s industrial exploitation was resumed in 1996. Last year the Armenian NPP generated 36 percent of the total amount of electricity produced in the country. In the meantime the European Union demands that the plant, located 40 kilometres west of Yerevan, be closed down. The Armenian authorities believe that the closure of the nuclear power plant is admissible only given availability of alternative electricity sources. © ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy, ***************************************************************** 25 SOFIA NEWS: Nokia Bulgaria Bulgaria's 2nd N-Plant Construction "Starts in 2005" novinite.com Business: 28 January 2004, Wednesday. The construction works on Bulgaria's second nuclear power plant in the town of Belene will be launched in 2005, and three years later the first 1000 MgW unit will be started, the local Yantra Dnes newspaper reported, citing engineer Vassil Bandov, deputy-chief of the plant. The article also claims that by the end of April 2004 the report on the effects of the plant on the environment will be ready. Earlier in January Atomic Energy of Canada, one of the foreign companies that eye the construction of the second nuclear power plant, recommended to the Bulgarian government to either back with arguments the project or decide on using alternative technologies which enjoy popularity in the European Union. The President of the Canadian company also called on the government to weigh up the economic pros and cons and choose the appropriate technology. On Dec 19, 2002 Bulgarian government lifted the ban on the completion of Bulgaria's second nuclear plant. The project for its construction was shelved in 1992 after pressure from environmentalists. | *Top 100* * All Rights Reserved © Novinite Ltd., 2001-2004 - Copyright &Disclaimer - Privacy Policy Novinite.com (thebulgariannews.com also) ***************************************************************** 26 NRC: NRC to Hold Public Meeting on Environmental Review for Proposed Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 2 License Renewal News Release - Region IV - 2004-00 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region IV No. IV-04-005 January 26, 2004 CONTACT: Victor Dricks Phone: 817-860-8128 E-mail: opa4@nrc.gov The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff invites the public to provide its comments on Tuesday, February 3, regarding an application submitted by Entergy Operations to renew the operating license for the Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO), Unit 2, nuclear power plant near Russellville, Arkansas. Comments are invited on environmental issues the public believes the NRC should consider in its review of the application. There will be two sessions held on February 3 at the Holiday Inn in Russellville. The first session is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. The second session is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. The NRC will host an open house beginning one hour before the start of each meeting to provide members of the public with an opportunity to talk informally with agency staff. Both sessions will begin with identical overviews. The NRC staff will provide a presentation on the license renewal and environmental review processes, the proposed scope of the environmental review for the ANO Unit 2 application and the proposed time frame for the review. Interested government agencies, organizations and individuals will then have an opportunity to offer comments or suggestions on environmental issues they believe should be reviewed or on the proposed scope of the review. Under NRC regulations, the original operating license for a nuclear power plant has a term of 40 years. The license may be renewed for up to an additional 20 years if NRC requirements are met. The current operating license for ANO Unit-2 is due to expire on July 17, 2018. The Commission unanimously approved license extension for ANO Unit-1 on June 20, 2001, following a review of staff recommendations. As part of its application, Entergy submitted an environmental report. That report is available for public review in the NRC Public Document Room at NRC headquarters, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. In addition, the Pendergraft Library, located at Arkansas Tech University, 305 West Q Street, Russellville, AR 72801 has agreed to make the report available for public inspection. The application is also available on the NRC Web page at: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applicati ons/ano-2.html. An existing NRC document, "Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants," (NUREG-1437), assesses the scope and impact of environmental effects that would be associated with license renewal at any nuclear power plant site. The NRC staff is gathering information at the meeting for a supplement to the generic environmental impact statement that will be specific to ANO Unit-2. It will contain a recommendation regarding the environmental acceptability of the license renewal action. At the conclusion of the information-gathering process, the NRC staff will prepare a summary of conclusions and significant issues and will send a copy to interested persons who participated in the scoping process. The summary will also be available for public review at the Pendergraft Library, located at Arkansas Tech University, 305 West Q Street, Russellville, AR 72801 and will be accessible electronically through the NRC Public Electronic Reading Room found at www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Assistance in using the electronic reading room is available by calling the NRC Public Document Room at 1-800-397-4209, or 301-415-4737. The NRC staff will then prepare a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) supplement for public comment and will hold a public meeting to solicit comments. After consideration of comments received on the draft, the NRC will prepare a final EIS supplement. Members of the public may also submit written comments on the ANO Unit-2-specific supplement to the generic environmental impact statement. Comments should be submitted by February 20, either by mail to the Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Mail Stop T-6-D-59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001, or by e-mail to: ANOEIS@nrc.gov. Last revised Tuesday, January 27, 2004 ***************************************************************** 27 [DU Information List] Study finds link between agent orange Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 18:00:35 -0800 ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/KlSolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4037340/ Study finds link between Agent Orange, cancer Military concedes toxic chemical increases risk of illness MSNBC staff and news service reports Updated: 1:42 p.m. ET Jan. 23, 2004 WASHINGTON - Air Force veterans who were exposed to the chemical defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War have an increased risk of prostate and skin cancer, military researchers reported. The ongoing study of 2,000 Vietnam veterans shows for the first time an elevated risk of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. Previous studies have found increased risks of prostate cancer, chronic lymphocytic leukemia and also diabetes. “A new analysis of cancer incidence among Air Force veterans of the Vietnam War found increased risks of prostate cancer and melanoma in those who sprayed Agent Orange and other herbicides,” the Air Force Surgeon General’s office said in a statement. It does not find the veterans are any more likely to die of these cancers than the general population. “It’s just because we have new numbers, new exams,” a spokesman said. “The guys are getting older, so we are seeing higher incidences.” The study is to be reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences, which will report its results to the Veterans Affairs Department. Complaints of health problems Between 1962 and 1971 an estimated 20 million gallons of herbicides, including Agent Orange, were used to strip Vietnam’s thick forests to make bombing easier. Veterans exposed to the powerful pesticides have complained for years about a variety of health problems, and in the late 1970s the government started to investigate them systematically. The latest study, to be published next month in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, is not the last word on cancer and Agent Orange, the Surgeon General’s office warned. It has many weaknesses and must be studied along with other research. Operation Ranch Hand For this particular study veterans called the Ranch Hand group are being examined regularly. Operation Ranch Hand was the unit responsible for the aerial spraying of herbicides and medical experts say they got the highest exposure to Agent Orange, which contains dioxins and other toxic chemicals. Starting in 1986, their blood was tested for dioxin, a chemical that builds up in the body and that can cause cancer and birth defects. “The dioxin determinations were accurate but were measured 15 to 30 years after service in the Ranch Hand unit,” the surgeon general’s statement said. “The study interpretations are limited because other environmental exposures were not measured.” Vietnam’s government says about 1 million Vietnamese are victims of Agent Orange, including veterans, civilians living in affected areas and their descendants. The U.S. government maintains there is no proven direct link between dioxin and many of those illnesses. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report ________________________________________________________________________ BT Yahoo! Broadband - Free modem offer, sign up online today and save £80 http://btyahoo.yahoo.co.uk Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pandora-project/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: pandora-project-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 28 [du-list] DU Forum at MIT 3/6/04 Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 18:00:36 -0800 See speakers etc. below Depleted Uranium: Toxic Contaminant or Necessary Technology March 6, 2004 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM An afternoon-long forum examining the politics, the policy and the science of depleted uranium. For a complete list of speakers, please go to http:/web.mit.edu/tac/www Sponsored by Civil and Environmental Engineering, Center for International Studies, Nuclear Engineering, Lab for Energy adn the Environment, Program for Human Rights and Justice, STS, the Social Justice Cooperative and the Technology and Culture Forum at MIT. RSVPs are not necessary. spacer.gif Steve Taylor National Organizer Military Toxics Project 207-783-5091 (phone) www.miltoxproj.org "Networking for Environmental Justice" Depleted Uranium Anti-Tank Shells: Toxic Contaminant or Necessary Technology?: Saturday, March 6, 2004 An afternoon symposium from 1:30pm to 4:30pm examining the politics, the policy, and the science of depleted uranium. 1:00-2:30: A science panel will focus on potential adverse environmental exposures deriving from DU, including its known health effects. The speakers will be a DU toxicology specialist from the Department of Defense, a nuclear contamination scientist from the Department of Energy; and the United Nations Environment Programme's scientist leading investigations of DU contamination in Kosovo. 3:00-4:30: A balanced policy discussion will address issues such as the history of DU use, possible links between DU exposure and Gulf War syndrome, and facts vs. fiction surrounding the DU controversy. The speakers will be a Department of Defense spokesperson on Veteran Affairs and a former board member of the National Gulf War Resource Center. For information regarding the speakers, please see below. SPEAKERS: Alexandra Miller - Radiologist, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute Ken Czerwinski - former MIT Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering Jan Snihs - Researcher, Swedish Radiation Protection Institute; scientific leader, UN Environmental Programme, Kosovo Michael Kilpatrick - Deputy Director, Deployment Health Support, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Dan Fahey - Policy analyst, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; former US veteran, Persian Gulf, 1991 Jim Walsh - Executive Director, Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University 1:30-4:30 P.M. Room 34-101 (50 Vassar Street), MIT 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 the Yahoo! Terms of Service. Attachment Converted: spacer.gif: 00000001,3ac2ef85,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 29 [du-list] Wesley Clark re His Bombing Of Civilians, Use Of Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 18:00:39 -0800 DEMOCRACY NOW! Confronts Wesley Clark Over His Bombing Of Civilians, Use Of Cluster Bombs And Depleted Uranium And The Bombing Of Serb Television EXCLUSIVE: Monday, January 26th, 2004 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/26/1632224#transcript In a Democracy Now! exclusive, General Wesley Clark responds for the first time to in-depth questions about his targeting of civilian infrastructure in Yugoslavia, his bombing of Radio Television Serbia, the use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium, the speeding-up of the cockpit video of a bombing of a passenger train to make it appear as though it was an accident and other decisions he made and orders he gave as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander. Click here to read transcript of Jeremy Scahill questioning General Wesley Clark Since the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, General Wesley Clark has not answered any in-depth questions about his targeting of civilian infrastructure in Yugoslavia, his bombing of Radio Television Serbia, the use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium, the speeding-up of the cockpit video of a bombing of a passenger train to make it appear as though it was an accident and other decisions he made and orders he gave as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander. With the New Hampshire primary just 24 hours away, the remaining Democratic candidates are in their final push to win votes in the key poll in the Granite state. Whether or not Howard Dean wins or loses, he set the tone very early for what has become a definitive issue in the race early on: opposition to the war in Iraq. Among the Democrats, Dennis Kucinich, Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun held the most clear antiwar stances. But Braun has pulled out of the race, Al Sharpton is not in New Hampshire and Dennis Kucinich - well the media hardly gives him any airtime. With the exception of Senator Joseph Lieberman, all of the candidates have sought to portray themselves as opponents of the war. But only Kucinich has announced a concrete plan for withdrawing US forces from Iraq. The theme of Iraq is the main issue on which General Wesley Clark is running his campaign. * Gen. Wesley Clark, speaking at a rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on January 24, 2004. TRANSCRIPT GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We went to war with Iraq without an imminent threat from Iraq. Without any connection between Iraq and the events of 9-11. We went to war with Iraq before all diplomatic options were exhausted. We went to war with Iraq without our allies all on board. We went to war with Iraq without a clear understanding and a plan for what was going to happen when we did get to Baghdad, and we didn't have the forces on hand to handle the situation. In short, I don't consider the war with Iraq patriotic. It was simply bad leadership and deceptive practices. It was wrong, and I’m going to hold the president of the United States accountable. He didn't do the right thing for America. It's that simple. He didn't do it! Clark portrays himself as the antiwar warrior and his rhetoric against the war has escalated significantly over the past week of campaigning in New Hampshire. At his campaign stops, he has been saying regularly, "The war is wrong." This is not always what he said as one voter pointed out to him onstage. * Gen. Wesley Clark, responding to a voter asking about his previous comments on Iraq as a CNN commentator. TRANSCRIPT GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I was a military analyst and so I looked at everything in great detail. I wasn't allowed on television to talk politics at all. I testified in front of the senate, but the "Boston Globe" did a long piece on my military stuff about three or four days ago. You can find it there. Joanna Weiss wrote it, and she said what's changed is my rhetoric. My rhetoric has changed, because when I wasn't a politician, I couldn't speak out this forcefully, because I didn't have any basis for doing it. I had a military commentary that I gave. I said from the beginning of the war with Iraq, that Iraq wasn't an imminent threat. I said in the beginning that we shouldn't rush into war. I said that it was an elective war. I always believed that he had weapons of mass destruction because that's what the intelligence told us. And I wasn't -- I didn't know how much to rely on the intelligence. In fact, at one point, I had lunch with a bunch of other retired generals, with Donald Rumsfeld just a few months in front of the war and Rumsfeld told me that he knew where 30% of the weapons were. Well, if the secretary of defense tells you personally, I still didn't think it was an imminent threat, but I wasn't privy to the intelligence. He was. They misled the American people, so I didn't think we had to go to war, but I will admit my rhetoric has gotten harsher and tougher since then because I think they misled us. I think it was deliberate. I found out that Rumsfeld on 9-11 that he said he was going to try to use it to take us to war with Saddam Hussein. I have never been inconsistent. This is in sharp contrast to statements Clark made as a commentator on CNN before the bombing last year. In January, Clark told CNN, "He [Hussein] does have weapons of mass destruction." When asked, "And you could say that categorically?" Clark responded: "Absolutely." In February, Clark told CNN, "The credibility of the United States is on the line, and Saddam Hussein has these weapons and so, you know, we're going to go ahead and do this and the rest of the world's got to get with us...The U.N. has got to come in and belly up to the bar on this. But the president of the United States has put his credibility on the line, too. And so this is the time that these nations around the world, and the United Nations, are going to have to look at this evidence and decide who they line up with." Immediately following the fall of Baghdad to US forces, Clark responded to a question about finding the alleged weapons of mass destruction, saying: "I think they will be found. There's so much intelligence on this." But as Clark speaks out about the war in Iraq, his own record in a different war is almost never examined. That is his role as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO during the 78 day bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Sure, the Clark campaign promotes this in its TV ads - but they say that he liberated a nation and ended a genocide. Clark mentions it often in his stump speeches and the debates. But as a qualification to be commander-in-chief. What is not discussed is what Clark actually did when he was running a war. Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill covered the 78 day bombing of Yugoslavia from the ground in 1999, the war Clark was leading as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. Jeremy is now in New Hampshire and joins us on the line from Concord, New Hampshire. * Jeremy Scahill, Democracy Now! correspondent speaking from Concord, New Hampshire. Since the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, General Wesley Clark has not answered any in-depth questions about his targeting of civilian infrastructure in Yugoslavia, his bombing of Radio Television Serbia, the use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium, the speeding-up of the cockpit video of a bombing of a passenger train to make it appear as though it was an accident and other decisions he made and orders he gave as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander. This weekend, we had a chance to ask Clark some questions he has never faced before. After a rally where Clark was filming a TV commercial for his campaign, Jeremy and I made our way to the stage. As we attempted to question General Clark, we were told by his press people that he would not be taking questions from reporters. As he was heading backstage, Jeremy approached Clark. * Gen. Wesley Clark, being questioned by Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill. TRANSCRIPT: JEREMY SCAHILL: In Yugoslavia, you used cluster bombs and depleted uranium... GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Sure did. JEREMY SCAHILL: I want to know if you are president, will you vow not to use them. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I will use whatever it takes that's legal to protect the men and women against force. JEREMY SCAHILL: Even against civilians in the Nis marketplace? Why bomb Radio Television Serbia? Why did you bomb Radio Television Serbia? You killed 16 media workers, sir. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They were-[in audible - Interview interrupted by another questioner.] That was Clark making an exit off the stage. We followed him as he left the theater and walked down the streets of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, shaking hands, signing autographs, talking to potential voters. As he was entering a business establishment, Jeremy Scahill again approached the General. * Gen. Wesley Clark, being questioned by Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill. TRANSCRIPT: JEREMY SCAHILL: General Clark, on that issue of the bombing of Radio Television Serbia, Amnesty International called it a war crime. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Excuse me -- I'm not -- JEREMY SCAHILL: Amnesty called it a war crime and it's condemned by all journalist organizations in the world. It killed makeup artists. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I want to answer this fellow. Because the truth was that that -- first of all, we gave warnings to Milosevic that that was going to be struck. I personally called the CNN reporter and had it set up so that it would be leaked, and Milosevic knew. He had the warning because after he got the warning, he actually ordered the western journalists to report there as a way of showing us his power, and we had done it deliberately to sort of get him accustomed to the fact that he better start evacuating it. There were actually six people who were killed, as I recall. JEREMY SCAHILL: There were 16. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I recall six. JEREMY SCAHILL: I was there at the time and I knew the families. They do hold Milosevic accountable and they also hold you accountable, sir. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They were ordered to stay there. JEREMY SCAHILL: And they were makeup artists, and they were engineers, and they were technicians GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I remember reading the story, but I want to tell you about it. JEREMY SCAHILL: Amnesty International said you committed a war crime by bombing that. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It was all looked at by the International Criminal Tribunal crime by Yugoslavia. All of my actions were examined and they were all upheld by the highest law in the United States. JEREMY SCAHILL: And you think a media outlet is a legitimate target? GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, but when it is used as command and control, it is. But then JEREMY SCAHILL: Even if it kills… GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Now wait a minute, you have to let me finish and then I will let you finish. JEREMY SCAHILL: Go ahead. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: What I said is, we would give them the warnings. It was part of the command and control systems. It was approved as a legitimate target under the laws of land warfare and went through the U.S. Government. That was the basis on which we struck. We actually called the bombers back one time, because there was still -- it was still unclear to us that we weren't absolutely certain. What we know is that Milosevic ordered them to stay there, and it was wrong, but I was doing my duty, and I have been looked at by the law, so -- I mean, I respect Amnesty International. I think they're a good organization, but -- JEREMY SCAHILL: But do you feel any remorse for the killing of civilians that you essentially were overseeing? GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yes, I do. JEREMY SCAHILL: And what about the bombing of the Nis marketplace with cluster bombs, shredding human beings. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It was terrible, but you know in that instance, if we had got the same incident, there was a cluster bomb that opened prematurely. It was an accident. And every one of these incidents was fully investigated. All of the material from the Yugoslavian government was given to the International Criminal Tribunal, plus as the NATO commander, I made a full report to the International Criminal Tribunal. It was all investigated. The pilots who did it, nobody could have felt worse than the pilots who did it. And I got a letter from a man in Serbia who said you killed my granddaughter on a schoolyard at Nis. I know how he must have felt. And I felt so helpless about it. Every night before I let those bombs go, I prayed we wouldn't kill innocent people. But unfortunately, when you are at war, terrible things happen, even when you don't want them to. You can't imagine what those pilots felt like in those convoys when they struck the convoys. You remember the convoys? JEREMY SCAHILL: In Gurdulica were the 72 Albanians were killed. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: In that place, too. And they had flown over it a couple of times. You know, we just -- we were trying to establish some kind of communications on the ground with the Albanians. The Serbs were on the nets, and they were jamming all of the communications, and they were doing imitative communications deception. And nobody could get the truth about it. We saw the Serb vehicles around the place. And I didn't make the decision, but they were following orders on my command. And it was looked at, and so forth. The decision was made as a legitimate target. It turned out that they had been ordered to stay in there by the Serbs. The Serbs were surrounding the place to keep them penned in. It was horrible. You never forget stuff like that. That's why when this government has used force as it has, it makes me so angry. Because these people in the White House don't understand -- you don't use force except as a last, last, last resort. JEREMY SCAHILL: On April 12th you targeted a passenger train, and then you showed a video that was sped up at three time the speed. Why? GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think -- first of all, the passenger train was not targeted. The pilot's instructions were to go after a bridge, and not the train. He felt, as he launched that missile, that all of a sudden at the very last minute, the train suddenly came into his field of view. I showed the tape. I did not know that the tape was accelerated. I don't think it was three times. I think it was one-and-a-half times. Whatever it was, it was going faster than the actual speed. It made it look like it was -- JEREMY SCAHILL: But the Supreme Allied Commander, you are ultimately responsible for all of the information that came out. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's true. I was. JEREMY SCAHILL: What the actual in real-time speed showed is that the pilot actually moved the target so that it would hit the train. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I don't have that information. JEREMY SCAHILL: 12 people were killed, including an orthodox priest. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's terrible. But, I don't have the information. When I looked at it, we didn't see that. All of the material was sent to The Hague and they did not see that either. JEREMY SCAHILL: Do you think you owe the people of Serbia who died in that war an apology? GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, I don't because I did my duty as the commander for NATO and for the United States. I think Slobodan Milosevic owes the people of Serbia an apology, because we acted to prevent regional destabilization, and to be honest, when you take the kinds of actions that he has done, he was the proximate cause. All we tried to do was head off the ethnic cleansing through diplomacy, and basically, he had a plan to go to war, no matter what. JEREMY SCAHILL: But now the U.S. is supporting a regime of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo where all minorities have been forced out, including almost every single Serb. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well you know, we are trying very hard not to allow that to happen. And we have worked very hard with the Kosovo Albanians and the Serbs, but to be honest with you that regime that's north of the Ibar River is a regime that wants to prevent Serbs from living peacefully with Kosovo Albanians. So, both sides have to share the blame. They have been under the control of Seselj and also some under Milosevic and their tactic in 1999 was to provoke the retaliation by the Albanians to be able to blame the Albanians for reverse ethnic cleansing. There were -- there were crimes on both sides and they needed to be investigated. To the best of my ability as NATO commander at the time, we did. JEREMY SCAHILL: But then why -- you have a man like Agim Ceku in power, a man who was responsible for the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs at Kraina, a man trained by MPRI in Virginia. Why put a man like that in charge? What kind of message does that send to ethnic minorities in Kosovo, when a man who is a basically a war criminal is in charge of what is going to be the future army in Kosovo. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, we looked at his record and it's not clear that he's going to be in charge of the future army of Kosovo. He did receive instruction from a contracted U.S. firm at MPRI. He received basic information after he became there in charge of the Kosovo protective corps. We thought that was the best way to maintain order and security in the country. JEREMY SCAHILL: He has been accused of hate speech by the United Nations. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Lots of people in that part of the world have been accused of hate speech, and they shouldn't do it. I met with Agim Ceku a few times when I was over there, and I told him who I thought about it. I don't accept that language. JEREMY SCAHILL: Do you think that he should be in a position of power in Kosovo? GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, you know, I'm so far removed from the issues right now -- JEREMY SCAHILL: But you know him. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But I can’t ­ yeah ­ I know him, but what I have seen of him, he is the one of the more reasonable people in that region. JEREMY SCAHILL: Because in your ads you say you liberated a nation. And that’s why I am asking you this question. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: The thing is I have got to talk to some other voters. Is that okay? Can you excuse me? JEREMY SCAHILL: Absolutely. Thank you very much. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I am trying to answer all your questions. JEREMY SCAHILL: Thank you I appreciate it. Thank you for being patient with me. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you. To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our new online ordering or call 1 (800) 881-2359. -- 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/ ***************************************************************** 30 Filibuster stalls radiation exposure compensation act Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 23:48:48 -0600 (CST) http://www.cibolabeacon.com/articles/2004/01/27/news/news16.txt Filibuster stalls radiation exposure compensation act U.S. Senator Pete Domenici today expressed dismay at the Senate's failure to overcome a filibuster that would allow Congress complete the FY2004 appropriations process with increases for veterans and students, as well as at least $87.3 million in specific project funding forNew Mexicocommunities and programs. The Senate today failed to reach a 60-vote litmus test to end a filibuster against the FY2004 Omnibus Appropriations Bill. The package, which includes seven unfinished spending bills, remains stuck in limbo as the Senate voted 48-45 not to proceed to a final vote on the package. Domenici, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said he is uncertain how, or if, the filibuster will be overcome. Agencies and federal departments covered in the bill are forced to operate at lower 2003 funding levels. "All the special projects in this bill forNew Mexicojust won't happen if we don't get past this filibuster. I don't see how that will happen at this point, unless more Senators are convinced to stop playing politics and allow this bill to become law," Domenici said. "There are no good reasons for us not to get our work done. The country needs this bill. Veterans need this bill. Public health needs this bill. Children and teachers need this bill. We are failing them and the nation with this filibuster." Domenici said the filibuster means that at least $8 million for northwestNew Mexicowill remain unavailable at the local level. This funding does not include resources these communities might have received through programs that are national in scope. The omnibus package includes seven appropriations bills for FY2004, which began last Oct. 1. The bill, passed in December by the House, includes the funding for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Program -- $3 million in Justice Department funds for administrative expenses to process RECA claims; plus funding for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act -- $2 million in Labor Department funding to assist in education, prevention and detection of illnesses associated with uranium mining and milling at nuclear test sites. ***************************************************************** 31 AU SMH: Nuke secrets sold on black market - www.smh.com.au [Sydney Morning Herald Online] January 29, 2004 Pakistani investigators have concluded that two senior nuclear scientists used a network of middlemen operating a black market to supply nuclear weapons technology to Iran and Libya, three senior Pakistani intelligence officials have said. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who is considered the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, and Mohammed Farooq provided the help, which included blueprints for equipment used to enrich uranium. They dealt directly and through a black market based in the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, the officials said. They claimed the middlemen, from South Africa, Germany, the Netherlands, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, also offered the scientists' services to Syria and Iraq. But the deals apparently never materialised, said the officials, who refused to be identified. In return for their help in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Iran channelled millions of dollars to foreign bank accounts allegedly controlled by the two scientists. They said that Dr Khan amassed large real estate holdings in Pakistan and Dubai. Dr Khan and Dr Farooq were colleagues at the country's premier nuclear weapons laboratory, A Q Khan Research Laboratories, which is named after Dr Khan. The officials said the findings arose from an investigation being conducted by the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence agency. It was initiated after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) presented Pakistani officials last year with evidence that Pakistani technology may have played a role in the clandestine nuclear weapons programs of Iran and Libya. In addition to concerns raised by the IAEA, US intelligence officials have said they believe North Korea obtained uranium-enrichment technology and equipment from Pakistan in exchange for missiles. Pakistan is one of a handful of countries that remain outside the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and is not bound by many of the international restrictions on the export of nuclear technology. One of the officials involved in the current investigation said that while the "money trail" provides some of the evidence against Dr Khan and Dr Farooq, the most damaging information was given by Iran and Libya to the IAEA, which passed it to Pakistani authorities. "The governments of Iran and Libya have exposed the racket," one of the officials said. "They made no attempt to hide their sources, as if they wanted to settle score with Pakistani scientists." The Washington Post Copyright © 2004. The Sydney Morning Herald. advertise| ***************************************************************** 32 Alert! Comment to EPA on radioactive materials deregulation! Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 18:00:44 -0800 NIRS RADIATION ALERT and UPDATE (1/2004) Nuclear Power and Weapons Waste to go to Regular Landfills and other "Non-Regulated Management" Environmental Protection Agency joins Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Departments of Energy and Transportation in Deregulating Radioactive Waste Comments due to EPA by March 17, 2004 Email to: a-and-r-Docket@epa.gov The US Environmental Protection Agency is planning to make a new rule that would allow nuclear waste to go to places that are not licensed for radioactive materials. The goal appears to be to redefine radioactive materials, no matter what their source (nuclear power, nuclear weapons, naturally occurring or other), based on EPA-calculated and projected risks. The new category of nuclear materials (once called BRC or Below Regulatory Concern) would supposedly not need radioactive regulatory controls. EPA does not consider all the potential health effects of radiation and hazardous materials in estimating the risks. They have never demonstrated the accuracy of their predictions. 1) First, EPA would allow mixed radioactive and hazardous wastes to go to facilities permitted for hazardous waste only (RCRA C hazardous waste dumps and processors). 2) Second, radioactive waste (not mixed with hazardous) could be permitted to go to places that do not have radioactive licenses or regulations, such as regular garbage dumps or incinerators or hazardous sites. EPA justifies this by claiming they will provide an acceptable level of protection from radiation risk. It seems obvious this would be a problem for communities around the waste sites, many of which already leak. 3) Third, EPA suggests that a "non-regulatory approach" to management of radioactive waste is an option and requests creative ideas for "partnering" with waste generators or other schemes to relieve the regulatory burden. Nothing would prevent radioactive materials from going to recycling facilities and being mixed with the normal recycling streams which are made into everyday household items like toys, cookware, personal use items, cars, furniture and civil engineering projects like roads and buildings. 4) This dangerous proposal dovetails neatly into the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's rulemaking to deregulate and release radioactive material from control, ironically called "Control of Solids." The NRC is considering several options for nuclear waste deregulation including continuing the current case-by-case release procedures, starting new release procedures that are based on projected risks, sending the waste to sites that are not licensed for nuclear materials. NRC is claiming they could approve "restricted" release of nuclear waste meaning certain conditions would apply but that NRC would not enforce them--someone else, as yet un-named would. The upshot is that NRC and EPA are joining forces to allow nuclear power and weapons waste which is now generally required to be regulated and controlled, to be released to waste sites never designed to take radioactive materials and either deliberately or unintentionally to the marketplace where it will come into routine daily contact with us, our children and environment. 5) To make matters even worse, the US NRC and US Department of Transportation are on the verge of finalizing new transport regulations (TSR-1) that would exempt various levels of hundreds of radionuclides from regulatory control in transit. This will make it easier for NRC and EPA to deregulate nuclear wastes since they will no longer require regulation, labeling or control as radioactive material during transportation. (This is especially distressing in light of increased security concerns about transportation of nuclear materials that could be used for dirty bombs. More unregulated nuclear materials will be on the roads, rails, barges and aircraft.) 6) Finally, the Department of Energy is in the process of a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement on releasing radioactive materials from its sites. In 2000, DOE halted the commercial recycling of potentially radioactive metals from certain contaminated area on its sites, but could resume it. DOE continues to allow radioactively contaminated metals out for unregulated disposal and to allow other radioactively contaminated materials out for recycling or unregulated disposal--soils, concrete, asphalt, plastic, wood, equipment, buildings, sites and more. EPA's Nov. 18, 2003 notice would help legalize DOE's release of nuclear weapons wastes from regulatory control. ACTIONS: 1) Send a letter to the new EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt telling him what you think of the EPA's proposed action, encouraging him withdraw it. Administrator Mike Leavitt, US Environmental Protection Agency, 1101A, Ariel Rios Building, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. Washington, DC 20460 leavitt.michael@epa.gov 2) Comment to EPA and get organizations and landfill boards to do so at a-and-r-Docket@epa.gov The proposal is on the EPA website (www.epa.gov/radiation) and will be posted with comments on NIRS website (www.nirs.org) soon. 3) Tell EPA we need a 6 month extension to run their ideas by our communities that will be impacted. 4) Let your elected officials know how you feel about these dangers by sending them a copy of your letter to Secretary Leavitt, comments to EPA, NRC, DOT and/or DOE and telling them about your opposition to the federal rules that would deregulate and exempt nuclear materials from regulation. For more information contact: Diane D'Arrigo, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), 1424 16th Street NW Suite 404, Washington, DC 20036, dianed@nirs.org, 202 328-0002 ext 16 See NIRS website under Campaigns at www.nirs.org for more info and actions. This is the NIRS E-Mail Alert list. You are on this list because you signed up on our website, at a NIRS table at a concert, on a petition, or directly to NIRS. Your name and address are never sold, rented, or traded with anyone for any reason. For address changes or to unsubscribe, just send an e-mail to nirsnet@nirs.org. If you have friends or colleagues who would like to be on this list, have them send a note to nirsnet@nirs.org ***************************************************************** 33 Salt Lake Tribune: Fight to keep N-dump at bay has support January 27, 2004 By Nicole Warburton Special to The Tribune Lawmakers agreed Monday that fighting a a proposal to store high-level nuclear waste on the Goshute Reservation in Skull Valley should continue to be a state priority. "I'd hate to see us lose sight after being in the battle for years," Sen. Dave Thomas, R-South Weber, said at a meeting of the Joint Transportation, Environmental Quality and National Guards Appropriations Subcommittee. Members of the committee are being asked to approve $500,000 in supplemental funds for 2004 and 2005 fiscal years for legal and technical fees of the state's ongoing attempt to halt storage of nearly 44,000 tons of nuclear waste on the Goshute Reservation, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The state has spent nearly $3.8 million since 1997 fighting the plan by a consortium of nuclear power companies to store waste on the Goshute reservation until a proposed federal facility is operating at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. This is "above and beyond the wildest dreams" of what's been going on with Envirocare, said Rep. Joseph G. Murray R-Ogden, inferring that the state should focus attention and money on litigation of the Goshute proposal and not on the private hazardous waste landfill in Tooele County involved in recent controversy. netter@darnfastnet.com Copyright Salt Lake City Tribune ***************************************************************** 34 OSDB: Formulating policy for an uncertain Earth's future Oregon State Daily Barometer Wednesday January 28, 2004 OSU Geosciences presents lecture on the impact of waste policy on the environment By Aaron Hougham The Daily Barometer The United States is in the middle of the biggest gold boom in American history. Dr. Jonathan Price, state geologist and director for the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, responded to this news with two questions: "So what?" and "Who cares?" Price presented his lecture titled "Science and Public Policy from the Perspective of a State, Professional and Economic Geologist," Tuesday afternoon to a crowd of students, faculty and community members in Cordley Hall. The lecture was the fourth of 10 lectures in a seminar facilitated by the OSU Department of Geosciences titled "Formulating Policy for an Uncertain Earth." Presentations on a variety of topics will be given each week throughout winter term on Tuesday at 4 p.m. in Cordley Hall, room 109. Nearly 50 students are enrolled in the seminar as one-credit GEO 407/507. The course is graded on attendance and submission of a weekly question. However, the lectures are free and the public is invited. The seminar series was the brainchild of Dr. Anne Nolin, a professor in the Department of Geosciences who was interested in the relationship between her work as a geoscientist and the influence it had on public policy. "I wanted to understand the larger societal impact of the work that I do," Nolin said. According to Nolin, the purpose of the course is to understand the role of geosciences in environmental policy while exposing those in attendance to a wide variety of leading experts and scientists in the field. The common bond of the presenters is an attempt to understand how uncertain and often unpredictable scientific information can be used successfully in the formation of public policy. "In the realm of geosciences, we collect data for a purpose," Nolin said. "And it is used by people making decisions and formulating policies. But we also need to understand the inherent uncertainty of scientific knowledge." Several topics will be discussed, including environmental sustainability, water policy, forest resources and climate change. Price's Tuesday night lecture focused primarily on waste policy, the impact of mining and safeguards against natural hazards such as earthquakes. He believes that scientists have much to contribute to public policy decision, but they must be careful to differentiate between their own opinions and objective conclusions. And, he warned, geoscientists must always be ready to answer the inevitable "So what?" One topic he discussed was the import and export of mined resources between the United States and the world. The United States is heavily dependent on imports for some materials, such as aluminum, while being self-sufficient in other areas like coal. "The simple fact is, the U.S. is a huge consumer of the world's resources," Price said. "And as a major consumer, the U.S. ought to be a major producer as well." Price also provided insight into complex issues that geoscientists have to face, such as nuclear waste disposal at sites like Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Price noted that the probability of a natural disaster at a specific site may be very small, but decisions must take into perspective the enormity of geologic time. "A volcano eruption or major earthquake may only happen once in a million years, but when you're talking about a huge amount of time, the odds get much higher," Price said. The seminars were made possible through financial support from The L.L. Stewart Faculty Development Fund, the OSU Foundation and the Institute for Natural Resources. Nolin noted that each speaker lecture will be taped and a library of the presenters from the series will be available for viewing in the near future. Anyone interested should contact the Department of Geosciences for more information. For updated information on upcoming speakers and topics, check out the OSU Department of Geosciences Web site at www.geo.oregonstate.edu. Aaron Hougham is a staff writer for The Daily Barometer. He can be reached at baro.campus@studentmedia.orst.edu. © 2004 The Daily Barometer, Oregon State University ***************************************************************** 35 Las Vegas SUN: Letter: A glowing tribute needed for Bush Today: January 28, 2004 at 9:07:05 PST There are many places in Southern Nevada that reflect the feelings of the people in how they honor their leaders -- Hoover Dam, Washington Street, Jefferson Street, Bailey FBI Building, etc. I want to propose another place to honor. We have done little to honor President Bush, both elder and younger. My proposal is this: Lets call Yucca Mountain the "George W. Bush Nuclear Dump Site." We could also call the tunnel for the waste disposal "The Spencer Abraham Shaft." I am sure that there would be widespread support for such a program, and maybe those interested could send a dollar or two to the Democratic Party. RON NELSON ***************************************************************** 36 NRC: Advisory Committee on the Medical Uses of Isotopes: Meeting FR Doc E4-131 [Federal Register: January 28, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 18)] [Notices] [Page 4185-4186] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr28ja04-101] Notice AGENCY: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice of meeting. SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will convene a meeting of the Advisory Committee on the Medical Uses of Isotopes (ACMUI). The agenda is under development, but will relate to issues arising from the revised 10 CFR part 35, Medical Use of Byproduct Material. To review agenda items as they become available, see http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/ acmui/schedules/2004/ or contactarw@nrc.gov. DATES: ACMUI will hold a public meeting on March 1, 2004, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. On March 2, the ACMUI will convene at 8 a.m. for its public meeting, but will brief the Commission from 9:30 a.m.-12 p.m. At 1 p.m. on March 2, the ACMUI will recconvene, if necessary, to continue its public meeting until 5 p.m. The meeting and the Commission briefing will take place at the addresses provided below. ADDRESSES: For Commission Briefing: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, One White Flint North Building, Commissioners' Conference Room 1G16, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD, 20852-2738. For Public Meeting: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Two White Flint North Building, Auditorium, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852-2738. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Angela R. Williamson, telephone (301) 415-5030; e-mail arw@nrc.gov of the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Conduct of the Meeting Manuel D. Cerqueira, M.D., will chair the meeting. Dr. Cerqueira will conduct [[Page 4186]] the meeting in a manner that will facilitate the orderly conduct of business. The following procedures apply to public participation in the meeting: 1. Persons who wish to provide a written statement should submit a reproducible copy to Angela R. Williamson, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Two White Flint North, Mail Stop T8F5, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852-2738. Submittals must be postmarked by February 9, 2004, and must pertain to the topics on the agenda for the meeting. 2. Questions from members of the public will be permitted during the meeting, at the discretion of the Chairman. 3. The transcript and written comments will be available for inspection on NRC's Web site (http://www.nrc.gov) and at the NRC Public Document Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852-2738, telephone (800) 397-4209, on or about March 22, 2004. Minutes of the meeting will be available on or about May 3, 2004. This meeting will be held in accordance with the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (primarily Section 161a); the Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App); and the Commission's regulations in Title 10, U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Part 7. Dated: January 23, 2004. Andrew L. Bates, Advisory Committee Management Officer. [FR Doc. E4-131 Filed 1-27-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 37 KTVB.COM: Magic Valley residents worried about aquifer 03:39 PM MST on Wednesday, January 28, 2004 Associated Press TWIN FALLS -- Magic Valley residents living downstream from a nuclear laboratory want to know how clean the water will be 100 years from now. And they say the Department of Energy's cleanup proposal for the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory isn't focused on protecting the aquifer. The department's proposal would lower the standard by cleaning up soils to only a four-foot depth. The current clean-up plan calls for a ten-foot depth. But laboratory officials say the current plan was developed with the idea that in 100 years, homes would be built on the site. Now that the laboratory has been given a new objective, as a nuclear research and development facility, that's unlikely. Magic Valley residents say they want to know how the shallower soil clean-up would affect the aquifer underneath the laboratory. ***************************************************************** 38 Pahrump Valley Times: DOE to test Yucca Mountain workers January 28, 2004 SILICOSIS SCREENING The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management announced last week the initiation of a voluntary Silicosis Screening Program for current and former workers at the Yucca Mountain project. The program is being offered, free of charge, to project employees who were involved in tunneling and underground operations, as well as the set-up of experiments in the Exploratory Studies Facility since 1992. Silica is one of the minerals that naturally exist in the desert soils and rocks at Yucca Mountain. Silica can become airborne during dust-producing activities such as tunnel boring. If inhaled, silica can collect in the respiratory system and with long-term exposure, can cause a chronic, progressive lung disease called silicosis. The most visible symptoms are coughing and shortness of breath. Regulatory limits for airborne silica were exceeded at various times during the tunnel mining operations at Yucca Mountain from 1992 to 2000, the DOE states. During early work at the site, respiratory protection, dust masks were issued to workers but not consistently applied. In 1995-96, tunnel ventilation and dust control practices were enhanced. In 1998, the DOE established a silica protection program to provide medical evaluations for current workers who spend more than 20 days underground per year, including chest X-rays, standard medical exams, spirometer analysis and other tests. "We will continue to emphasize a safety conscious work environment for all of our employees. I commend the workers who brought this need for this program to the attention of management," Margaret Chu, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management said in a prepared statement. Under an existing DOE contract, a consortium led by the University of Cincinnati is conducting the Silicosis Screening Program. DOE will provide names of former workers to the University of Cincinnati, who also will work with the Center to Protect Workers Rights, to send general inquiries to trade unions in an effort to locate former Yucca Mountain workers. The program will include worker notification, a work history interview and medical exam. The DOE estimates 1,200 to 1,500 workers might be asked to participate in the program. For comment or questions, please e-mail Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2003 ***************************************************************** 39 [NukeNet] DOE and advanced biowarfare agent labs, SF Weekly Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 18:00:45 -0800 From sfweekly.com Originally published by SF Weekly Jan 28, 2004 ©2004 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved. A Question of Risk Plans for a biodefense "hot lab" at Lawrence Livermore have ecologists, disarmament advocates, and mainstream scientists up in arms BY RON RUSSELL For more than 10 months, U.S. and coalition forces have scoured Iraq for biological weapons and the laboratories that may have produced them. Here at home, with little media scrutiny, the Bush administration is pursuing plans to build advanced labs of its own to experiment with some of the deadliest pathogens known to humankind, including anthrax, bubonic plague, botulism, and Q fever. In the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the anthrax scare that followed, Congress appropriated $6 billion for defenses against germ warfare. The result: an all-out rush among competing agencies -- from the Centers for Disease Control to the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Energy -- to expand or create new high-security "hot labs" for handling toxic biowarfare agents. Of the more than two dozen such facilities planned or already in development nationwide, none has alarmed critics more than the one envisioned for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore. The Department of Energy also wants to open a similar biolab at Livermore's sister compound, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. But Lawrence Livermore's location, 40 air miles from downtown San Francisco, would make it a one-of-a-kind germ and nuclear research hub near a major population center. DOE officials say it makes sense to engage in germ research at high-security nuclear labs, especially Lawrence Livermore, which already is involved in studies aimed at detecting and identifying biological weapons. They say the existing Biotechnology Research Program at Livermore is helping to develop defenses against biowar agents while undertaking health-related biotech research. Nonetheless, the national biodefense buildup has critics, including some prominent scientists, worried. "The proliferation of these labs is a recipe for disaster," says Eileen Choffnes, a program manager at the National Academy of Sciences, a private group that advises the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Choffnes fears that the Bush germ defense expansion could perversely end up creating training grounds for would-be terrorists. She also argues that commingling nuclear weapons and biowar research could also make Lawrence Livermore -- which, like Los Alamos, is managed by the University of California -- a prime target for terrorists. Others object to construction of hot labs at the two fabled atomic weapons facilities on geopolitical grounds, saying that at the very least they create the perception that the United States -- despite treaty obligations and assurances to the contrary -- has secret ambitions to develop a new generation of bioweapons, and that other nations could be tempted to do so as well. "Try and think of a scenario in which you could send a worse signal on this issue than to do this kind of research at Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos," says Edward Hammond, who heads the Sunshine Project, a biodefense watchdog group based in Texas. "I don't think there is one." But unlike a slew of biowarfare labs that are proceeding apace -- including one at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and another at the Army's Fort Detrick in Maryland, one of the nation's largest existing biolabs -- the plans for Livermore and Los Alamos have hit a snag. Amid little fanfare, a federal judge in Oakland last month temporarily suspended work on both germ labs pending arguments in a lawsuit brought by two watchdog groups, Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs and Nuclear Watch of New Mexico. The suit accuses Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos of failing to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, a 1969 law that requires federal projects be assessed for their potential ecological impact. Whenever a federal agency engages in action that may significantly affect the quality of the environment, the agency must prepare an environmental impact statement, an exhaustive review that typically takes 18 months or more to complete. In submitting a much less detailed environmental assessment, the Department of Energy invoked a NEPA provision that relieves it of having to prepare an EIS by declaring that the planned biofacilities at Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos will have no significant environmental fallout -- a claim critics scoff at. "The notion that these biolabs do not represent a significant impact is almost laughable," says Stephen Volker of Oakland, lead attorney for the labs' opponents and a longtime Sierra Club lawyer. Assistant U.S. Attorney Barclay Sanford, the government's point man in the case, declined to comment. U.S. District Judge Saundra Armstrong has set the next hearing for April. The brouhaha over the biolabs comes at an especially inconvenient time for the University of California. Following security, managerial, and financial scandals, the Department of Energy announced that UC's decades-long management of Los Alamos -- where the first atomic bombs were built during World War II -- is no longer assured, since its contract with the government will be opened to bids in 2005. In November, President Bush signed legislation requiring competition for contracts to manage all six national labs financed by the energy department, including Lawrence Livermore and even Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, overlooking the UC Berkeley campus. If the energy department is forced to prepare an EIS as the lawsuit requests, it could easily push back the opening of the biolabs at Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos for up to two years. However, a court cannot block the eventual operation of the facilities. That's because, as the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a 1980 case, NEPA involves strictly procedural matters. Once the government makes a decision on a project subject to NEPA, judges can only make sure that it follows the law and considers the environmental consequences; they cannot reverse the decision itself. But the real consequence of the legal challenge -- and why opponents of the biodefense buildup are watching it closely -- has more to do with the court of public opinion. Antagonists believe that if the government is forced to provide a full accounting of what they perceive as the unwarranted risks associated with the facilities, there will be a backlash. "It's analogous to the war in Iraq," says Volker. "Imagine if the Bush administration had had to prepare an EIS on its plans to go after weapons of mass destruction. We might have learned that there were no such weapons and the effort would have fizzled. It's similar with these biodefense labs. If [the government] isn't allowed to promote them behind a veil of secrecy, it can only be to the public's advantage." Biolabs are classified according to the safety measures required to contain the infectious agents they handle. The most secure labs, designated Biosafety Level 4, contain pathogens for which there are no known cure, such as Ebola. The proposed lab at Lawrence Livermore, a Biosafety Level 3 facility, would enable scientists to work with potentially life-threatening microorganisms such as anthrax, bubonic plague, and Q fever, a rare infectious disease usually transmitted in raw milk. There are roughly 300 BSL-3 facilities in the U.S. already, most of them tiny labs on college campuses and in hospitals. The quantity of pathogens these centers handle generally is minuscule compared with what the DOE has proposed for Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos. Critics have seized on DOE documents that reveal, for instance, that the Livermore biolab would be equipped to handle germ cultures in quantities up to one liter, compared to the much smaller amounts typical of medical testing and academic research. But Lawrence Livermore spokesman Stephen Wampler insists larger batches are needed to develop biodefense technologies. "Many of the areas we study for developing detection systems involve either genomes or the proteins those genomes create," he says. "If you're going to study the protein, you need to make enough protein for your research." Lawrence Livermore scientists have operated biomedical facilities at the lower levels of biosafety -- 1 and 2 -- for several years. Officials say such work has already paid off, with the lab taking a lead role in developing detectors for chemical and biological weapons. But they complain that to carry out research, Livermore scientists increasingly must depend on distant higher-level labs, including one operated by the Centers for Disease Control in Fort Collins, Colo., and another at the Army's Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah. The Livermore BSL-3 facility would be located in a 1,500-square-foot, "permanent prefabricated" building -- a sort of high-tech mobile home -- atop a concrete slab in what is currently a parking lot next to a BSL-2 lab. One of its three small climate-controlled rooms will be devoted to aerosolizing bioagents and conducting what DOE calls "challenges" on up to 100 rats, mice, or guinea pigs at a time. After being exposed to infectious agents and studied, the animals will be tossed into a high-temperature blender called a "tissue digester." The device, DOE officials say, converts contaminated organic material into a sterile aqueous solution and harmless ash. But while insisting that the lab will be safe, the energy department's environmental assessment offers few details. For example, it fails to analyze transportation risks such as damaged containers, theft, or sabotage, although the U.S. Postal Service and commercial delivery services will transport potentially lethal bioagents to and from the lab. The document similarly glosses over in-house security risks, such as those posed by terrorists or disgruntled employees. The assessment is amazingly dismissive of the potential for pathogens to be accidentally released as the result of a catastrophe. Declaring that heat, fire, and sunlight "would potentially" render hazardous materials "innocuous," one passage concludes, "Consequently, catastrophic events such as earthquake, fire, explosions and airplane crashes, normally considered as initiating events in DOE radiological or chemical analyses, [are] viewed as having the potential to actually reduce the consequences of microbiological material releases." The assessment disposes of seismic risk in a few sentences and curiously asserts that there is no active earthquake fault "in proximity to the location of the proposed site." Yet the energy department's own map included in the document shows that the active Las Positas Fault stretches across the southeast corner of the 850-acre Lawrence Livermore grounds. A study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, which opposes the BSL-3 facility, takes sharp issue with the DOE's evaluation of seismic risks. NRDC scientist Matthew McKinzie used computer modeling to calculate how quakes of various magnitudes might trigger the release of anthrax from the lab. Assuming a westerly breeze following an anthrax release brought about by only "light" damage to the lab, McKinzie calculates that at least 9,000 people could die in the East Bay and San Francisco; tens of thousands of others, he says, could be sickened. While taking aim at what they see as the government's shoddy risk assessment, opponents remain frustrated by the dearth of public information about the planned biolabs. Although secrecy comes with the territory at nuclear weapons research facilities, the government has taken pains to keep even the most rudimentary data related to the germ facilities under wraps. The Energy Department declined to make available a spokesman to discuss its environmental findings for this article. The tight lips have fueled the suspicion, whether justified or not, that the research DOE wants to do at Livermore and Los Alamos may not be purely defensive, as the government contends. By law, an Institutional Biosafety Committee, consisting of Lawrence Livermore staff members, community health-care providers, a DOE representative, and members of the public, is supposed to review issues related to the biolab proposal. Indeed, the energy department's environmental assessment highlights the committee's existence as a reason the public should be reassured about its intentions for the facility. But its meetings are closed to the public and lab officials refuse to divulge the identities of its 20 members, including three reportedly chosen from the public. Wampler, the lab spokesman, says members aren't identified because "they don't particularly want to be. They aren't compensated. They're just providing a public service." He says meetings are closed because the subject matter usually "involves planned scientific experiments. There is intellectual property that has not been patented and scientists want to publish their data." In September, Tri-Valley CAREs, the Livermore-based watchdog group, petitioned Lawrence Livermore and the Energy Department for details of the committee's agendas, minutes, rules, and members. "Four months later, we've received no information," says Marylia Kelley, the group's executive director. "The government is essentially saying, 'Trust us' when it comes to the lab. So why do they act like they have something to hide?" Such opposition isn't surprising, considering Lawrence Livermore's less-than-stellar track record for environmental safety and security. The military and scientific advances that have occurred there over the last half-century have exacted a toll. There is severe soil and groundwater pollution at the lab's main campus on the southeast outskirts of Livermore and at its Site 300 testing range 15 miles to the east, near CONTINUED IN NEXT EMAIL Marylia Kelley Executive Director Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) 2582 Old First Street Livermore, CA USA 94551 - is our web site address. Please visit us there! (925) 443-7148 - is our phone (925) 443-0177 - is our fax _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings at: http://chrome.nocdirect.com/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 40 Guardian Unlimited: Plutonium Trigger Site Wednesday January 28, 2004 11:16 PM By H. JOSEF HEBERT Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Bowing to Congress, the Energy Department is putting off further action on selection of a site for making plutonium triggers for the nation's nuclear arsenal. The department said Wednesday it would postpone development of an environmental impact analysis for the manufacturing plant ``in order to address congressional concerns that it is premature to pursue further decisions'' on the program. This also would mean a delay in picking a site among the five that have been considered, officials said. The government halted the production of plutonium ``pits,'' or triggers, for warheads in 1989. The pit, about the size of a softball, is a critical component of a nuclear warhead. Energy Department officials have said the capacity to produce more of them is essential to ensure the reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile. Nuclear nonproliferation advocates fear the proposed plant would be the first step to developing new warheads. Senior administration officials have denied any such intentions. Congress also has been skeptical about the proposed manufacturing plant, which is expected to cost as much as $4.4 billion, depending on production capacity. One option calls for making more than 450 plutonium triggers a year. As part of the department's appropriation, Congress urged that the program be put on hold until hearings can be held. Lawmakers also slashed the department's $23 million request for preliminary work on the program to $10.8 million. The department has not picked a site. Two years ago it said it was considering two sites in New Mexico and one each in Nevada, Texas and South Carolina. A final environmental impact statement on the sites was expected to be issued in April. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who was unsuccessful in an attempt to scuttle the program, said she welcomed the delay. She said she hoped the decision ``marks the beginning of a more measured review of the administration's nuclear program.'' Linton Brooks, undersecretary for nuclear security, said the postponement does not suggest that the department is abandoning the program. ``While there is widespread support in Congress for this project, we need to pause to respond to concerns that some committees have raised about its scope and timing. ... Some members clearly have questions about our timing and decision-making process,'' he said in a statement. Brooks, who heads the semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages nuclear weapons programs, said restoring the capability to make plutonium pits ``is an essential element'' of defense policy. Critics saw the delay as evidence that Congress may move to halt the project. ``We applaud the decision to postpone and hope it's the first step to scrapping a dangerous and unnecessary nuclear bomb plant,'' said Bob Schaeffer, spokesman for the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. The group is a network of local organizations near nuclear weapons facilities. Tom Clements, a nuclear proliferation expert at Greenpeace International, said the department is ``responding to congressional concern about a lack of justification for this facility.'' The plan calls for the new trigger production plant to be operating by 2020. Currently the Energy Department refurbishes triggers from disassembled warheads when they are needed. The five sites under consideration for the new plant are Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant facility, also in New Mexico; the Nevada Test Site; the Pantex facility in Texas; and the Savannah River weapons complex in South Carolina. ^-- On the Net: National Nuclear Security Administration: http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/ Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ***************************************************************** 41 Oak Ridger: Libyan nuke materials shipped to Y-12 Story last updated at 12:16 p.m. on January 28, 2004 REASON: Y-12 has historically been viewed as a weapons producer, but the facility is also active in programs to help reduce the spread of weapons of mass destruction. By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff paul.parson@oakridger.com Oak Ridge's Y-12 National Security Complex is playing an important role in an effort to rid Libya of its weapons of mass destruction. As part of that project, and in close partnership with the Libyan government, a transport plane left Tripoli Monday night and landed at 8:37 a.m. Tuesday at McGee Tyson Airport in Knoxville. The materials were then transported to the Y-12 weapons plant, which has encountered several security-related issues lately. Ellen Boatner, a spokeswoman for BWXT Y-12, which manages Y-12 for the federal government, declined to comment on the shipment to the Oak Ridge plant and directed all questions to the National Nuclear Security Administration. However, representatives from the NNSA, which oversees the federal weapons facilities, directed all questions to the White House press office. "Included on this plane were critical materials related to Libya's nuclear weapons program and ballistic missile capabilities," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan during a press briefing. "This shipment is estimated to be about 55,000 pounds of equipment. These materials include both sensitive documentation and equipment." McClellan said the shipment was a response to a Dec. 19 announcement by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi that he would voluntarily give up his weapons of mass destruction programs. According to McClellan, the plane that landed at McGee Tyson Airport carried so-called feedstock and centrifuge parts - both of which are used to enrich uranium for weapons use. The White House spokesman also said the shipment contained ballistic missile guidance sets for longer-range missiles, which Libya has voluntarily agreed to eliminate. Prior to this shipment, according to McClellan, another plane last week brought out the "most sensitive documentation" associated with the Libyan nuclear weapons program. He noted that these shipments are "only the beginning of the elimination of Libya's weapons." Officials declined to comment on whether other weapons-related shipments would be heading to Oak Ridge or how this week's cargo was brought into Y-12. News of the shipment to Y-12 follows recent security-related issues, including a critical report from the Department of Energy's Inspector General on security tests at the plant. Y-12 has historically been viewed as a weapons producer, but the facility is also active in programs to help reduce the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The Oak Ridge plant is also the nation's principal storehouse for bomb-grade uranium. In fact, Oak Ridge once stored 600 kilograms of highly enriched uranium - enough to make more than 20 nuclear devices - from the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan. The operation, referred to as Project Sapphire, began in early 1994 when the government of Kazakhstan asked the United States for assistance in disposing of the uranium that it could not store securely. On Oct. 7, 1994, President Clinton directed the Department of Defense and DOE to undertake a joint mission to retrieve the highly enriched uranium. A 31-member U.S. team - most of them from Y-12 and representing Martin Marietta Energy Systems, which managed the facility - was dispatched to Ulba, Kazakhstan, with one of their duties being to package the material for transportation. A month later, three C-5 aircraft were sent to Kazakhstan to pick up the uranium and the team. The aircraft carrying the uranium landed at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware where the material was loaded onto trucks and transported to Oak Ridge. By removing the material from Kazakhstan, the United States put this bomb-grade nuclear material out of the reach of potential terrorists and other groups. Officials started shipping the highly enriched uranium to Babcock and Wilcox in Lynchburg, Va., in early 1995 where it was to be blended down into commercial reactor fuel. The last shipment left Y-12 in October 1995. ***************************************************************** 42 Oak Ridger: Lawmakers approve of removal project Story last updated at 12:51 p.m. on January 28, 2004 WAMP: 'Y-12 is the premier facility to bring these materials.' By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff paul.parson@oakridger.com U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District, said the shipment of components from Libya's nuclear weapons program to the Y-12 National Security Complex is a sign of confidence in the Oak Ridge plant. There's no doubt, according to the congressman, that Y-12 has been under fire in recent weeks due to security-related issues. Recent events included a watchdog group's claims that Y-12 couldn't adequately protect its stockpile of uranium from terrorists to the release of a report from the Department of Energy's Inspector General, which stated a June 2003 security test was "tainted and unreliable." "In the middle of the storm, we are reminded that Y-12 is the premier facility to bring these materials," said Wamp, who added that he plans to get to the bottom of the security issues. "Our guard force has to be the best in the world." Zach Wamp Wamp also noted that the recent shipment of foreign nuclear materials to Oak Ridge is the third time that's happened since he's been in office. In 1994, 600 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan was brought in to the Oak Ridge plant for storage. The material was later transported to Babcock and Wilcox in Lynchburg, Va., in early 1995 where it was to be blended down into commercial reactor fuel. In addition to producing components for nuclear weapons, Y-12 is the nation's principal storehouse for weapons-usable uranium. On Tuesday, the plant received around 55,000 pounds of equipment, which included so-called feedstock and centrifuge parts - both of which are used to enrich uranium for weapons use. U.S. Sen Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., agreed with Wamp that Y-12 plays an important role in the security of the nation. "The shipment of these materials out of Libya is a critical first step in securing nuclear materials and equipment to make sure they don't end up in the hands of terrorists," Alexander said. As for security at Y-12, it's continuously getting better, according to Jean "John" Burleson, senior vice president and general manager of Wackenhut Services Inc.'s Oak Ridge team. Wackenhut has provided security at Y-12 since January 2000. ***************************************************************** 43 Oak Ridger: Our View: Public is due direct answers to POGO Story last updated at 11:59 a.m. on January 28, 2004 Walt Kelly's "Pogo" captured a generation's imagination with the statement: "We have met the enemy and he is us." It was a POGO of another sort that captured the imagination of our community earlier this month. And, we're still waiting for some answers. On Jan. 15, the Project On Government Oversight, a self-described "watchdog" group, released a "press alert" describing a recent test of Y-12 National Security Complex's guard force as "pretty ugly." Specifically, POGO cited "government sources" as saying "security forces could not adequately protect the enormous stockpiles of highly enriched uranium from a terrorist attack. "The Y-12 facility is of particular concern, as it houses the most materials in the nuclear complex that could be used for the creation of an improvised nuclear device or an actual nuclear detonation on site." POGO added: "One major security problem at Y-12 is they have six Material Access Areas that store large inventories of [highly enriched uranium]. Most of these buildings are at least 50 years old, and were not designed to store large quantities of weapons-grade nuclear materials." Since POGO's "alert," we've made several requests to speak with BWXT Y-12 officials regarding security issues - including the appointment of a new security chief. In a statement last week, BWXT Y-12 not only denied our interview request but noted, "Further, the company has no comment on the recent report by a watchdog group." The National Nuclear Security Administration isn't talking either. The public has a right to know whether criticisms leveled at Y-12 have merit; and, if so, what is being done to safeguard those who live and work in the Oak Ridge area. To make a bad situation worse, we shared "breaking news" with online readers yesterday that "critical materials related to Libya's nuclear weapons program" may have been shipped to Oak Ridge for storage. Though BWXT Y-12 wouldn't confirm these components are in the Y-12 Complex, we're forced to draw our own conclusions - primarily because those managing the Oak Ridge weapons plant have in a real sense said they aren't accountable to the public. They are wrong. Added to this mix is a report released this week from the Department of Energy's Inspector General stating results of yet another security test held last June at Y-12 were "tainted and unreliable." The public has a right to know what's going on in relation to the recent POGO report, and it's a true shame the powers-that-be have chosen to put the public off for this long. Though we certainly share the genuine concern everyone has for national security, this doesn't negate the fact that the public is due some direct answers. ***************************************************************** 44 Las Vegas SUN: Nuke Facilities Safety Rules Are Targeted Today: January 28, 2004 at 13:10:14 PST By NANCY ZUCKERBROD ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is moving to replace safety requirements at federal nuclear facilities with standards written by contractors - after Congress directed the government to start fining the contractors for violations. Long-established government minimum standards at the more than two dozen nuclear weapons plants and research labs around the nation would become unenforceable guidelines under the Energy Department proposal. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., an author of the 2002 legislation ordering the fines, accused the administration of distorting Congress' intent with a plan that "will likely decrease worker protection." John Conway, chairman of an advisory board overseeing safety at the Energy Department, agreed that the proposal would weaken safety standards covering more than 100,000 workers at the facilities. "The way it's written, I don't like it at all," said Conway, head of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Energy Department officials said they have not made a final decision on the proposal and emphasized that the government would retain the authority to approve or reject the contractor-written safety requirements. "The department believes the proposed rule seeks to fully protect our workers," Assistant Secretary Beverly Cook said. The proposal was outlined in a draft regulation put out by the department last month. Cook described it as part of a continuing effort to get contractors to focus on hazards specific to their sites rather than on dangers that don't exist everywhere. The Energy Department can now fine contractors who expose workers to hazardous levels of radiation, but it has no authority to levy fines for failing to protect workers from other industrial dangers, such as exposure to toxic chemicals. The proposed rule would change that, allowing the department to assess fines against contractors who violate what would be contractor-written safety plans dealing with industrial hazards. "The decision making will be largely in the hands of contractors to decide what protections are appropriate," said Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio. "It's the fox guarding the hen house." The government often gives contractors financial incentives to complete projects ahead of schedule, and tough safety standards could slow contractors down, said Leon Owens, a worker and past president of the local union at the government's uranium plant in Paducah, Ky. "I don't feel that a contractor would be as inclined to develop rules that would go the extra length to provide adequate protection for workers," Owens said. Some of the basic standards the Energy Department generally requires contractors to meet mirror Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations at private industrial sites, including commercial nuclear power plants. While some contractors say they like the new rules, at least one is on record as opposing them. UT-Battelle, which operates the government's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., said it would prefer one set of rules, based on OSHA guidelines, for all contractors. --- On the Net: Energy Department: http://www.doe.gov/ Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board: http://www.dnfsb.gov/ -- ***************************************************************** 45 [du-list] News Stories Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 18:00:42 -0800 Thanks to Christine Ziebold for the Twin Cities DU stories. Steve Taylor National Organizer Military Toxics Project 207-783-5091 (phone) www.miltoxproj.org "Networking for Environmental Justice" Stephanie Ariganello staff writer Arden Hills Bulletin 1-14-2003 Concern over possible depleted uranium leaks and remediation clean up drew residential crowds to discussions regarding the former Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant in Arden Hills. On Monday, Jan. 5, a national representative for the Environmental Protection Agency headed a presentation regarding depleted uranium on former TCAAP land. On Jan. 6 the TCAAP Restoration Advisory Board held a regular meeting to discuss the pending five-year environmental review conducted through the United States Army. Depleted uranium was used in the production of certain munitions in what was known as Building 502 on TCAAP property. Alliant Techsystems Inc., a child company to Honeywell, was the manufacturer of the DU shells and penetrators from the 1970s until the late 80s or early 90s. Alliant’s largest customer is the U.S. Department of Defense. DU is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process for nuclear fuel and weapons-grade uranium production. It is considered waste material and under strict storage requirements because of its radioactive nature. The first meeting served as a forum for informing residents on the basics of the production and clean up efforts. According to some attendees, questions still remain unanswered. Most of the frustration surrounding the issue seems to come from the “compartmentalizing” of the government agencies. The EPA, though involved in the remediation on some level and enforcer of standards, defers to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on sites involving substances like depleted uranium. DU resurfaced during the RAB meeting the following evening, as many questioned its role in the five-year environmental assessment. One man in the audience stood to ask if the DU had been removed completely. “Alliant is ready to ship the last few bags,” said a representative from Alliant regarding the bags of soil containing the contaminant. “They’re frozen now, so we have to wait until the spring when they thaw.” RAB member Christine Ziebold noted in the literature she had read that DU had not been confined specifically to building 502 and its closed sewer system. “We know that DU has been released through the sewer system,” said Ziebold regarding building 502. “Army documents specify 100 pounds a year made their way into the Mississippi [River] in 1981.” Another RAB member disagreed with Ziebold’s interpretation, noting that “no one was wrong or right, it is just something we have to look at deeper.” One resident in the audience questioned if health assessments relating to the DU and possible community contamination had been performed. The response was no. “Stringent controls were in place to monitor the material to make sure it did not go out of the building,” said the Alliant representative. He continued, saying testing had been performed around and under the building and that levels had not exceeded the regulations. However, more testing and sampling is to be done before a final report is released. Ziebold countered, commenting, “That is one part of the story. I’ve seen documents that show another part of the story.” Building 502 has since been removed from TCAAP. The five-year assessment and newly surfacing issues at TCAAP will be covered in greater detail in next week’s Bulletin. ------------------------------------------------------------ Posted on Wed, Jan. 21, 2004 ARDEN HILLS: City seeks assurances that uranium will be cleaned up BY ALLEN POWELL II Pioneer Press The city of Arden Hills plans to request a report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission later this week that outlines exactly what steps have been taken to clean up radioactive waste at the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant. As plans for redevelopment of the 2,370-acre site progress, city officials want to know how the U.S. Army and Alliant Techsystems — the company that produced weapons on the site — disposed of waste products from depleted uranium rods used for decades, said Aaron Parrish, Arden Hills community development director. The city wants to make sure residents are not in danger of being exposed to radioactive materials. "At this point, we're proceeding on the assumption that (the cleanup) was done correctly," Parrish said. "This is more of a documentation and disclosure process." The city wants the federal commission to provide information on the extent and nature of the contamination, what has been done to clean it up and a final statement that the cleanup is complete, Parrish said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses companies that use radioactive materials and monitors the cleanup of sites where those materials are used, he said. Decontamination of the site — where uranium rods were used to make projectile ammunition — began in 2001 and should be completed by spring, said Mike Fix, the plant installation director. All residual traces of radiation must be removed before the site can be turned over to the city, he said. One wing of the building where the uranium rods were housed has been torn down, and all of the building materials and equipment have been scanned to determine levels of radionuclides, Fix said. Material at or below the accepted levels of contamination was disposed of like normal construction debris, he said. The remaining materials have been placed in several large "super sacks" on the property for transportation to a low-level radioactive landfill when the weather warms up, he said. The sacks' winter site will be checked to ensure that no radionuclides seeped into the ground, Fix said. Federal officials said they were unsure how long it would take to respond to the city's request but that the city could get the information it sought from Alliant. 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 129f05.jpg 12a09f.jpg ---------- 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 the Yahoo! Terms of Service. Attachment Converted: 129f05.jpg: 00000001,6f4d92d5,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 12a09f.jpg: 00000001,6f4d92d6,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 46 [du-list] Libyan accomodation turns nuke spotlight on Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 18:00:49 -0800 http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_1260.shtml JERUSALEM (IPS/GIN) - The recent decision by Muammar Gadhafi to relinquish his weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles will have enhanced the sense among Israeli leaders that their regional strategic position, already improved by the toppling of Saddam Hussein, is far better at the start of 2004 than it had been at the start of last year. But any rejoicing will have been short-lived, as Israeli decision-makers quickly began to understand that the decision by the Libyan leader had suddenly reopened the discussion on monitoring of non-conventional weapons in the Middle East. This cast an uncomfortable spotlight on the Jewish state’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) arsenal, which no Israeli government has ever officially acknowledged. In the wake of Colonel Gadhafi’s announcement, as well as Iran’s declared willingness to accept nuclear inspections, both Egypt and Syria have recently called on Israel to give up its estimated 300 warheads. Syrian President Bashar Assad, now facing threats of U.S. sanctions similar to those encountered by Col. Gadhafi, repeated that call on a recent trip to Turkey. Col. Gadhafi made specific mention of Israel after his pronouncement. He reasoned that if other countries in the region followed his example, pressure would grow on Israel to follow suit. Following Iran’s declaration, and possibly knowing that a Libyan deal was in the works, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohammed El Baradei called on Israel in December to give up its nuclear weapons as part of a regional peace agreement. Mr. El Baradei suggested Israel was fueling a WMD race in the Middle East. He said he feared a situation in which "there will be continued incentive for the region’s countries to develop weapons of mass destruction to match the Israeli arsenal." Arab League chief Amr Moussa sounded a similar note, saying that Israel’s possession of WMDs would "perhaps" lead other countries in the region to try "to protect themselves against such weapons." Despite the diplomatic heat, Israel is not about to alter its decades-old policy of "nuclear ambiguity." It neither admits to, nor denies having nuclear weapons, although there is little doubt it does, and the docile-on-the-subject United States is not about to force it to do so. Israel continues to view nuclear deterrence, even if undeclared, as the ultimate guarantee of its survival in a hostile neighborhood. But that does not mean the changing nuclear climate has gone unnoticed in the Israeli Foreign Ministry or the defense esta-blishment. Officials are considering the question, whether Israel should agree to monitoring of its own free will sometime down the line, or wait until outside pressures become irresistible. There has been speculation in the wake of Libya’s move that Israel might consider ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) if other countries in the region do the same. But the longstanding position of countries like Egypt and Syria, both believed to have chemical weapons, is that they will not sign the CWC until Israel signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Israel’s nuclear program began in the 1950s and was spearheaded by former prime minister and now Labor Party leader Shimon Peres. He initiated the building of a nuclear reactor with U.S.-encouraged French assistance in the southern desert town Dimona. The project has been shrouded in almost complete secrecy ever since. There is no public monitoring of the facility. That secrecy was breached once in 1986 when a technician at the reactor, Mordechai Vanunu, disclosed information about the facility to Britain’s Sunday Times. Based on his disclosures, it was estimated that Israel has some 200 nuclear warheads. Mr. Vanunu paid a price for the whistleblowing. He was abducted by Israeli agents from Rome, brought to Israel and sentenced to 18 years in jail. He is up for release in April. Israeli officials have hinted he will not be allowed to leave the country, lest he disclose further information. Some observers have suggested, though, that the nuclear speculation fueled by Mr. Vanunu’s revelations actually boosted Israel’s deterrence capacity. A recent opinion poll conducted for the state-run Israel Radio indicates that any pressure on Israel to dismantle its purported nukes will not come from within, where there is broad consensus on the issue. A majority of Israelis (77.4 percent) believe their country has nuclear capability, and 56.1 percent said they opposed giving it up, even if the Middle East becomes a WMD-free zone, according to the survey. Some 25 percent said they would support such a move. The liberal Israeli daily Haaretz seemed to reflect public opinion when it wrote in an editorial early January that "in the Middle East where there are still many groups that reject the very existence of Israel as a Jewish state in the region, so it is too early to discuss Israel’s nuclear capabilities." Shimon Peres came closest among Israeli leaders to confessing having the bomb. He suggested to a group of newspaper and magazine editors in 1995 when he was prime minister that, in the event of comprehensive regional peace, he would scrap his country’s nukes. He is quoted as having said, "Give me peace and we’ll give up the atom. That’s the whole story." With no prospects of regional peace on the horizon, that is unlikely to happen soon. The one party that could force Israel to give up its nuclear weapons is the United States. But U.S. officials, speaking anonymously, have told Israeli reporters in recent days that Washington, influenced by its media and a powerful, deep-pocketed pro-Israel lobby, is not about to lean on its key Mideast ally. © Copyright 2004 FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals 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 12b701.jpg 12b853.jpg ---------- 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 the Yahoo! Terms of Service. Attachment Converted: 12b701.jpg: 00000001,3c618ade,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 12b853.jpg: 00000001,3c618adf,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 47 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 15:07:00 -0800 (PST) US brings large cargo of nuclear gear from Libya Hindustan Times As part of its pledge to dismantle weapons of mass destruction, Libya has shipped 55,000 tons of nuclear and missile related equipment to the United States. ... 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.hindustantimes.com/news/181_551959,00050001.htm FATHER of Pakistan's nuclear program had black market contacts, ... Canoe.ca ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - The father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program and a top aide had black market contacts that supplied sensitive technology to Iran ... 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://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2004/01/28/328140-ap.html ' Pak reassured US on nuclear sales ' Sify The White House on Wednesday downplayed concerns that Pakistani scientists sold nuclear secrets on the world black market, citing Islamabad's assurances 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://sify.com/news/fullstory.php%3Fid%3D13373071 JAPAN confident of winning colossal nuclear fusion project EU Business A Japanese site will accommodate the ITER experimental nuclear reactor project if its technological merits and the importance of locating such a major project ... 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.eubusiness.com/afp/040128083317.233ef2kb NUCLEAR Consultants Assure East Tennesseans on WMD Safety WATE OAK RIDGE (WATE) -- After a 55,000 pound shipment of Libya's weapons of mass destruction arrived at the Y-12 complex, a Knoxville nuclear expert talks to 6 ... 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.wate.com/Global/story.asp%3FS%3D1620436 BENAZIR adopted nuclear restraint policy : Beg . Hi Pakistan ... with former President Ghulam Ishaq Khan had adopted a policy of slow-down towards enrichment of ninety per cent of uranium and decidedly prevented any 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.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php%3FnewsId%3Den52269%26F_catID%3D%26f_type%3Dsource ATIKU Wants World Devoid of Nuclear War AllAfrica.com Vice President Atiku Abubakar yesterday said Nigeria will continue to seek a peaceful world devoid of constant threat of nuclear war. ... S Korean foreign minister upbeat on nuclear talks Deepika SEOUL, Jan 28 (Reuters) South Korea's new foreign minister gave an upbeat assessment today of the chances for nuclear talks with North Korea, saying six-way ... 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.deepikaglobal.com/ENG4_sub.asp%3Fccode%3DENG4%26newscode%3D39037 LIBYA nuclear arsenal in US News24 (subscription) Washington - An American plane carrying components of Libya's nuclear weapons and missile programmes arrived on Tuesday in the United States as President ... 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.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1475051,00.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/ ***************************************************************** 48 War Wire: Japan confident of winning colossal nuclear fusion project WAR.WIRE TOKYO (AFP) Jan 28, 2004 A Japanese site will accommodate the ITER experimental nuclear reactor project if its technological merits and the importance of locating such a major project in Asia are fairly assessed, the country's science minister said Wednesday. "I have no doubt that the Japanese site will be chosen if a fair assessment is made from a scientific and technological viewpoint," said Takeo Kawamura, minister of education, culture, sports, science and technology. ITER, or the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, aims to test technology for nuclear fusion, billed as the clean, safe, inexhaustible energy source of the future. The European Union, the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia are to vote in late February on whether the French town of Cadarache or the northern Japanese village of Rokkasho-mura should host the 10-billion-dollar project. They failed to decide on the site at a meeting in December, with Japan drawing backing from the United States and South Korea, while France won support from China and Russia. While arguing "the odds are in favour of us", Kawamura said Japan and France could discuss the possibility of sharing the project by siting the actual reactor site in one country and an information centre in the other. He said no detailed debate on compromise plans had taken place. Kawamura said "the most excellent point for Rokkasho-mura is its transport capability", arguing extra care must be taken in bringing in huge and heavy components into the host country from other nations. He said the reactor site would be less than five kilometres (three miles) from an existing major port, compared with 100 kilometres between Cadarache and the port of Marseilles. Earlier this month, the US publicly backed Japan for the first time to host the experimental reactor, saying it offered a superior site. Toichi Sakata, chief of the science ministry's research development division, said "it is clear that the United States is very much concerned about the transport capabilities of Cadarache". The minister also stressed the importance of Asia playing a greater role in scientific fields. "So far most international collaboration projects have concentrated in Western countries," he said. "The ITER project has made for the very first time an Asian country volunteer to host such a project," he said, adding Japan would prove that an Asian host could be as good as a Western host. Kawamura toured South Korea, Russia and China this month to muster support for Japan's bid. WAR.WIRE ***************************************************************** 49 Las Vegas SUN: Japan May Consider Sharing Fusion Project Today: January 28, 2004 at 5:40:29 PST ASSOCIATED PRESS TOKYO (AP) - Japan would consider sharing with France the right to host the world's first large-scale nuclear fusion plant, if an international consortium can't decide between the two next month, a top government official said Wednesday. France and Japan are bidding for the plant, which would generate energy by reproducing the sun's power source - an estimated US$12 billion effort to find an alternative to fossil fuels like coal and oil. The project's sponsors - the European Union, the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea and China - had met in December to choose the site for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, known as ITER. But they failed to reach a consensus. Science Minister Takeo Kawamura told reporters on Wednesday that Tokyo's first priority would be to break the deadlock at the next meeting, expected to be held in late February. "We don't want to stop the momentum behind this project," he said. "But if we can't agree at the next meeting ... the two bidding nations could hold talks to consider how we might divide up the facilities, for instance, into the reactor and information center portions," he added, without elaborating. At the December meeting, the United States and South Korea had sided with Japan's proposed site of Rokkasho, on the northern tip of Japan's main island of Honshu. Russia and China cast their votes with the EU's site at Cadarache, in southeastern France. Canada, which had been at past meetings, didn't attend and will likely withdraw. At stake is international prestige and thousands of jobs for the local economy. The host country will shoulder 48 percent of the estimated US$5 billion cost of construction over 10 years, while the others each would pay for about 10 percent. Earlier this month, Kawamura flew to China and Russia to seek their support for the Rokkasho site. He said Wednesday that he pitched Japan's technological expertise and outlined the benefits of having such a key project in Asia. He also tried to allay Chinese officials' worries about building the reactor in earthquake-prone Japan. Although he received no commitments from the two nations, Kawamura said: "I'm convinced that Japan's site would be chosen based on an objective scientific and technological assessment." French Prime Minister Jean Pierre Raffarin told reporters earlier this month that the Europeans were prepared to go it alone, if necessary. Fusion, which powers the sun and stars, involves colliding atoms at very high pressure and temperature inside a reactor. When the atoms fuse into a plasma, they release energy that can be used to generate electricity. The process produces low levels of radioactive waste but no greenhouse gases. The risk of a radioactive meltdown is small. The reactor would run on an isotope of hydrogen, a virtually limitless source of fuel that can be extracted from water. Fossil fuels are expected to run short around the middle of this century. -- ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************