***************************************************************** 02/04/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.29 ***************************************************************** 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 Sabotages WMD Commission Before It Starts 2 UK The Times: Q: Brian Jones and the Iraq dossier 3 Las Vegas SUN: Scientist Said to Doubt Iraq Intelligence 4 Las Vegas SUN: Experts Worry Terrorists Have Nuke Plans 5 Las Vegas SUN: Blair Limits Inquiry on Iraq Intelligence 6 Las Vegas SUN: Rumsfeld: WMD May Still Be Found in Iraq 7 Las Vegas SUN: Bush Faces Dilemmas in Iraq Intel Panel 8 Las Vegas SUN: Blair Defends Iraq War Despite Protests 9 BBC: Iraq: Mindset behind intelligence 10 TOMPAINE.com - Iraq Intelligence Failure 11 Washington Post: Blair Opens Second Inquiry on Iraq 12 Guardian Unlimited: Intelligence chiefs 'ignored WMD warnings' 13 Mirror.co.uk - PILGER: BLAIR'S MASS DECEPTION 14 english.eastday: Iraqi children -- between agonizing past and dream 15 MSNBC: Tenet to speak on Iraq intelligence 16 Las Vegas SUN: Australia Doesn't Plan Weapons Inquiry 17 UK Independent: Ex-cabinet secretary to head WMD intelligence inquir 18 UK Independent: Frantic calls behind Kennedy's 'political' decision 19 UK Independent: Intelligence chief's bombshell: 'We were overruled o 20 Las Vegas SUN: North Korea Prepares for Nuclear Talks 21 Las Vegas SUN: Koreas Wrangle Over Nuclear Crisis 22 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Boucher: ˇ®NK Nuclear Freeze to Be Discus 23 Daily Yomiuri: Koizumi happy 6-way talks to reopen 24 Daily Yomiuri: Pyongyang's N-ambitions paving way for sanctions 25 BBC: N Korea sticks to talks demands 26 Washington Post: N. Korea And U.S. Have Plenty To Discuss 27 Xinhuanet: Nuclear issue tops agenda of Wednesday's inter-Korean tal 28 Straits Times: N. Korea insists on US compensation for N-freeze - 29 US: Las Vegas SUN: Tauzin May Become Pharmaceutical Lobbyist 30 DOE: U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force: Interim Report: 31 NYT: Rep. Tauzin Likely to Pass on a 13th Term 32 US: Internetnews: Tauzin Resigns Key Technology Committee 33 US: Las Vegas SUN: Tauzin's resignation won't help Nevada's Yucca fi 34 US: TOMPAINE.com - The CIA Ate My Homework 35 TOMPAINE.com: Chutzpah, Thy Name Is Perle 36 US: Washington Post: Deficit Spurs GOP To Trim Energy Bill 37 Las Vegas SUN: Pakistan Scientist Said to Seek Reprieve 38 PRAVDA.Ru: Russian Defense Ministry to conduct first big military ex 39 Guardian Unlimited: Threat to British Energy rescue 40 Daily Times: Op-ed: Reinforcing nuclear secrecy —M V Ramana 41 Straits Times: Malaysian probe finds no Libyan nuclear links 42 New Straits Times: We lack know-how to make nuke parts NUCLEAR REACTORS 43 US: Atlantic County News: Nuclear regulators scold Salem County N-fa 44 US: NRC: Decon fund changes 45 US: toledoblade.com: Reactor back to full power at Fermi II 46 US: toledoblade.com: Davis-Besse gets vote of confidence from NRC 47 US: NRC: Regulatory Guide; Issuance, Availability 48 ITAR-TASS: Russian n-plants will generate 230 bln KWh a year by 2020 NUCLEAR SAFETY 49 [du-list] Gulf veterans hail urnaium poisoning ruling 50 EUpolitix - Nuclear struggle recommences 51 Japan Times: Fears over depleted uranium lead to GSDF use of dosimet 52 ITAR-TASS: IAEA calls for stopping illegal trade in nuclear material 53 GN Online: IAEA to notify UN of violations 54 US: Daily Utah Chronicle: Nuclear testing may cause thyroid cancer, 55 UK Independent: Veterans to abandon legal claims for 'Gulf war syndr 56 Malaysia Star: Firm under probe over sale of centrifuges NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 57 Las Vegas SUN: Letter: Nuclear dump's huge risks, costs outweigh ben 58 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Mountain of danger 59 RGJ: DOE seeks $189 million to plan routes to Nevada nuke waste dump 60 US: AP Wire: MOX plant construction delayed until 2005 61 US: NWTRB: Calendar 62 NRC: Notice of Intent To Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement 63 US: NRC: Private Fuel Storage, L.L.C.; Notice of Reconstitution 64 ITAR-TASS: Dump for nuclear waste to be built at Ignalina nps 65 US: Albuquerque Tribune: Nuke landfill isn't good for health - or fo NUCLEAR WEAPONS US DEPT. OF ENERGY 66 Knox News: Workers evacuated, sent home after alarm in K-25 building 67 Daily Camera: Funding gone for cleanup coalition 68 Tri-City Herald: Cleanup report details trench use 69 kgw.com: News for Oregon and SW Washington 70 Oak Ridger: USEC's net income around $10.7 million 71 Oak Ridger: Waste facility now up and running 72 Oak Ridger: DOE's proposed Oak Ridge budget totals $1.9B for FY 2005 73 Oak Ridger: FY 2004 cleanup program facing at least $29.2M in cuts 74 Oak Ridger: Contaminated South Knoxville site subject of $2.8M contr 75 Oak Ridger: Hydrogen- related facility coming to OR OTHER NUCLEAR 76 Google News Alert - nuclear 77 PRN: International Isotopes Inc Acquires Exclusive Patent ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Bush Sabotages WMD Commission Before It Starts Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 13:05:44 -0600 (CST) =============================== THE DAILY MIS-LEAD < http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1435098&l=16923 > =============================== BUSH SABOTAGES WMD COMMISSION BEFORE IT STARTS Over the last two days, President Bush and the White House have claimed that they are going to establish an "independent" commission to promptly investigate the over-hyping of intelligence before the Iraq war. But as details come out about the White House's proposal, it appears the commission will be neither independent nor prompt. Specifically, the president will appoint the entire commission himself, breaking the previous tradition of allowing lawmakers from both parties to appoint commission members. Although lawmakers have raised objections to the commission's lack of independence, the White House is moving forward with its plans. Additionally, despite the fact that the commission's work will be critical to national security, the president will only authorize a commission that produces a report after the election -- so as to minimize any political fallout for himself. This contrasts sharply to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is putting national security ahead of politics. As the Los Angeles Times reports, "in contrast to a bipartisan investigating committee announced by Bush, the British panel is to announce its conclusions by July. That would put any damaging disclosures for Blair's government well in advance of parliamentary elections, expected in 2005." It also contrasts with similar investigations in the United States. In 1983, after the terrorist attacks on U.S. troops in Beirut, a commission was appointed and finished its work within 3 months. As one major newspaper editorial board summed up, "The president's goal is to delay any objective findings about prewar intelligence until after the election, leaving him free to decide what the administration knew and didn't know and who is to blame." And the President's continued misleading on WMD could come at a price. As Republican Senator Chuck Hagel said, a failure to convince the public that Bush did not "exaggerate" the case for war "would put the president in a very bad position. He said people would start asking, "Do we trust his word? Do we trust him to lead this country?" Visit Misleader.org for more about Bush Administration distortion. --> < http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1435098&l=16924 > =========================================================== 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 UK The Times: Q: Brian Jones and the Iraq dossier February 04, 2004 Dr Brian Jones, a former senior intelligence official, has today raised fresh doubts over the way that the Government's dossier on Iraqi weapons was put together. Michael Evans, Defence Editor, left, reports on his claims. Who is Dr Jones and how senior was he? Dr Jones is now retired but when he worked at the MoD he was in the scientific and technical directorate of the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) and was responsible for analysing all intelligence on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. He was the most senior official and this branch has long experience in this field. What are his claims? He is now claiming that the whole of the DIS was unhappy with the claims made in the Government's dossier on Iraq. In the Hutton inquiry he said that he and a colleague had written to the deputy chief of defence intelligence voicing reservations about the wording of the dossier in relation to the alleged stockpiles of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons, and the claimed 45-minutes timeframe for deploying such weapons. Are they damaging? The claims from Dr Jones are damaging because the timing of his article in The Independent today comes so soon after the setting up of the Butler inquiry into the quality of intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq. But although Dr Jones claims that the whole of the DIS was unhappy with the dossier, the chief and deputy chief of the DIS at the time were both on the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which approved the wording of the dossier before it was published in September 2002. Downing Street will be able say that his complaints and reservations were all dealt with by Lord Hutton. Why has Dr Jones made this claim now? I think that Dr Jones has written his article because he does not want his old employers, the DIS, to get the blame for any mistakes uncovered by the Butler inquiry. He appears to feel that he and his former colleagues were ignored when they raised concern over the dossier and wants everyone to know that he was not alone, and is now acting as an unofficial spokesman for the whole department. Lord Butler of Brockwell will have the job of deciding whether he had a genuine grievance or whether his superiors at DIS acted with proper judgment in downplaying the reservations expressed by their staff. What is the DIS? What part did it play in the dossier? The DIS has a large staff, about 800, which receives all intelligence, secret and open-sourced, which relates to defence matters; in other words anything that will have relevance to Britain's Armed Forces. The DIS, therefore, sees secret material from MI6, MI5, GCHQ and from foreign intelligence agencies. It does not have its own spies operating abroad. It played an important part in the dossier because of its analysis expertise and because of its large body of experts in chemical and biological weapons. What is the intelligence hierarchy and how does it work? There is no intelligence hierarchy as such. All the agencies are supposed to work together and share everything, except sources, and their product is then assessed finally by the JIC. The heads of each of the agencies have similar "rank" as members of the JIC. Copyright The Times - timesonline.co.uk ***************************************************************** 3 Las Vegas SUN: Scientist Said to Doubt Iraq Intelligence Today: February 04, 2004 at 1:55:12 PST ASSOCIATED PRESS LONDON (AP) - A British weapons expert renewed claims that intelligence chiefs had doubts about the information used to build the case for military action in Iraq, as legislators prepared for a debate on the reasons for war. Retired weapons scientist Brian Jones said senior officials had ignored warnings from their own experts that intelligence did not prove Iraq had chemical or biological weapons. Writing in The Independent newspaper, Jones said he and his experts agreed "that on the basis of the intelligence available to them the assessment that Iraq possessed a (chemical or biological weapons) capability should be carefully caveated." A dossier published by the government in September 2002 said Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons, including some that could be deployed on 45-minutes' notice. At the time Jones headed a section of the Defense Intelligence Staff charged with analyzing intelligence about nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. In September, he told Lord Hutton's inquiry into the death of a government weapons scientist that he and other experts had been concerned the dossier was "over-egging certain assessments" of Iraq's weapons capability. Last week Hutton cleared the government of charges it had "sexed up" the dossier to make a stronger case for war. A debate on the report was scheduled in the House of Commons on Wednesday. No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and on Tuesday Prime Minister Tony Blair announced an inquiry into the quality of prewar intelligence. -- ***************************************************************** 4 Las Vegas SUN: Experts Worry Terrorists Have Nuke Plans Today: February 04, 2004 at 4:20:14 PST By BURT HERMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - The nuclear black market that let Iran, Libya and North Korea acquire weapons technology from Pakistan under the noses of international monitors raises suspicions that terror groups also acquired bomb components or plans, experts told The Associated Press. Al-Qaida apparently has shown interest in acquiring nuclear technology. Two Pakistani nuclear scientists were detained in late 2001 after meeting Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan on suspicion of giving away secrets, but they were later released without being charged. The military, which controlled the weapons program, also is known to have elements who sympathize with the Taliban and bin Laden. Pakistan has for years denied spreading nuclear technology and claimed its arsenal was safe from extremists. But strong international pressure after Iranian revelations to the U.N. nuclear watchdog forced Islamabad to begin an investigation of its weapons program in November. It admitted last month for the first time that scientists had leaked technology. Officials say Abdul Qadeer Khan - the father of Pakistan's nuclear program - has confessed to selling equipment related to centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Libya also received designs for a nuclear bomb from Pakistan that it handed over to U.S. and British intelligence last month, European diplomats say. Khan, however, has denied making a confession, according to the leading Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami. Pakistan itself relied on international black market supplies for the equipment used in its nuclear weapons program that started in the 1970s. "If the black market could transfer technology from Europe to Pakistan in spite of all these sanctions and embargoes, that same black market of smugglers can also pass on materials from this lab to terrorist groups," said A.H. Nayyar, a nuclear physicist and head of the Pakistan Peace Coalition. "The possibility exists and needs to be investigated thoroughly." Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan on Tuesday denied that Pakistani nuclear technology had fallen into terrorist hands. "It's absolutely negative, there is no truth in it," he said. The government also has denied official complicity in giving away technology, but a friend of Khan's told the AP that top army officials, including now-President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, were "aware of everything." White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Bush administration accepted Musharraf's assurances that the Pakistani government was "not involved in any kind of proliferation." Musharraf has said the scientists were given wide latitude to develop the nuclear program and worked in secret even from top officials. That secrecy also has raised fears that nuclear workers may have transferred technology or equipment to terrorists, either for money or ideological sympathy. Experts say centrifuge technology wouldn't be of much use to terror groups, who probably couldn't set up the vast facilities required to enrich useful quantities of uranium, with hundreds of technicians needed to run thousands of centrifuges. "It's hard enough for countries to do," said Gary Samore, a nonproliferation expert at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. The acquisition of weapons designs, however, would make it far easier for terrorists to make a workable bomb, said David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. And if a terror group was able to obtain highly enriched uranium - anywhere from about 110 to 220 pounds - it could possibly build a bomb similar in design to that used on Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of World War II, experts said. "It's not something that you or I could do in our backyards, but it's relatively easy," Samore said. Pakistan is estimated to have produced more than 1,540 pounds of highly enriched uranium, but no official figures have ever been released. "It is very important that all the material that has been produced is accounted for to the last gram," said Nayyar. "If it is not done, then the doubt remains." Sultan, the military spokesman, declined to comment on whether Khan's alleged confession mentioned highly enriched uranium and potential leaks of it outside Pakistan. The strongest known link between Pakistani scientists and terrorists were the 2001 arrests Sultan Bashir-ud-Din Mahmood and Abdul Majid, who worked for Pakistan's Atomic Energy Commission until retiring in 1999. The commission, together with Khan's lab worked on the nuclear weapons program. Mahmood's son told the AP in December 2002 that his father - a deeply conservative Muslim who sympathized with the Taliban - met bin Laden several times between 2000 and July 2001 and the al-Qaida leader asked how to make nuclear bombs. Mahmood claimed to have rebuffed the request, telling bin Laden "it is not child's play for you to build a nuclear bomb," according to his son, who didn't want to be named. The scientists were cleared of all charges and released in December 2001. "Pakistani scientists were active there (in Afghanistan) - we never got to the bottom of it," said Albright, also a former Iraq nuclear weapons inspector. In light of recent news, the years of Pakistani denials ring especially hollow, Albright said, hoping international pressure would finally make Pakistan come clean. "There's a lot of smoke and mirrors that the government is throwing up, but at the same time it's being forced to reveal information," he said. -- ***************************************************************** 5 Las Vegas SUN: Blair Limits Inquiry on Iraq Intelligence Today: February 04, 2004 at 5:15:12 PST By BETH GARDINER ASSOCIATED PRESS LONDON (AP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted Wednesday an inquiry he ordered will examine only the quality of intelligence leading to the invasion of Iraq - not whether the war that ousted Saddam Hussein was justified. "That is a question for the government first, then for parliament and finally for the people to decide. ... There will carry on being a debate about whether the war was justified or not. That is democracy. We don't need a committee to tell us that." Blair spoke at the opening of a parliamentary debate on the reasons for war with Iraq, reacting to a challenge by Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy in the House of Commons. The third-largest party in Parliament, the Liberal Democrats, have refused to back the inquiry - which Blair announced Tuesday - because it will examine the government's use of intelligence in making the case for war, not the justification for the invasion. In the runup to Wednesday's debate, a weapons expert renewed claims that intelligence chiefs had doubts about the information used to build the case for military action. Retired weapons scientist Brian Jones said senior officials had ignored warnings from their own experts that intelligence did not prove Iraq had chemical or biological weapons. Writing in The Independent newspaper, Jones said he and his experts agreed "that on the basis of the intelligence available to them the assessment that Iraq possessed a (chemical or biological weapons) capability should be carefully caveated." A dossier published by the government in September 2002 said Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons, including some that could be deployed on 45-minutes' notice. At the time Jones headed a section of the Defense Intelligence Staff charged with analyzing intelligence about nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. In September, he told Lord Hutton's inquiry into the death of a government weapons scientist that he and other experts had been concerned the dossier was "over-egging certain assessments" of Iraq's weapons capability. Last week Hutton cleared the government of charges it had "sexed up" the dossier to make a stronger case for war. A debate on the report was scheduled in the House of Commons on Wednesday. No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. -- ***************************************************************** 6 Las Vegas SUN: Rumsfeld: WMD May Still Be Found in Iraq Today: February 04, 2004 at 8:55:14 PST By ROBERT BURNS ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Wednesday he is not ready to conclude that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before U.S. troops invaded to depose Saddam Hussein last year. Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee that U.S. weapons inspectors need more time to reach final conclusions about whether chemical and biological weapons existed in Iraq before the war, as the Bush administration had asserted before sending American troops into battle. In a prepared statement, Rumsfeld said he was confident that prewar intelligence, while possibly flawed in some respects, was not manipulated by the administration to justify its war aims. In his first public comments on the subject since David Kay told Congress last week that he believed it was now clear that U.S. intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs was fundamentally flawed, Rumsfeld praised the efforts of U.S. intelligence agencies and stressed the difficulty of penetrating secretive societies like Iraq. Rumsfeld offered several examples of what he called "alternative views" about why no weapons have been discovered in Iraq, starting with the possibility that banned arms never existed. "I suppose that's possible, but not likely," he said. Other possibilities cited by Rumsfeld: - Weapons may have been transferred to a third country before U.S. troops arrived in March. - Weapons may have been dispersed throughout Iraq and hidden. - Weapons existed but were destroyed by the Iraqis before the war started. Or, Rumsfeld postulated, "small quantities" of chemical or biological agents may have existed, along with a "surge capability" that would allow Iraq to rapidly build an arsenal of banned weapons. Commenting on that possibility, Rumsfeld said, "We may eventually find it in the months ahead." Lastly, he offered the possibility that the issue of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction "may have been a charade" orchestrated by the Iraqi government. It is even possible, he said, that Saddam was "tricked" by his own people into believing he had banned weapons that did not exist. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and other Democrats on the committee reminded Rumsfeld that in September 2002 he said "we know" where weapons of mass destruction are stored in Iraq. Explaining that remark, Rumsfeld told the panel that he was referring to suspected weapons sites, but he acknowledged that he had made it sound like he was talking about actual weapons. The remark "probably turned out not to be what one would have preferred, in retrospect," he said. The Kay team, known as the Iraqi Survey Group, did confirm one thing, Rumsfeld said: "The intelligence community got it essentially right" with regard to Iraq's ballistic missile programs. It found that Iraq was working on missiles of longer range than was permitted under U.N. sanctions. Rumsfeld also said he saw a possibility that Iraq managed to hide some banned weapons of mass destruction. He said that it took 10 months to find Saddam Hussein and that the hole in which he was found on Dec. 13 "was big enough to hold biological weapons to kill thousands" of people. "Such objects, once buried, can stay buried," Rumsfeld said. The findings of the Kay group, he added, so far have "not proven Saddam Hussein had what intelligence indicated he had and what we believed he had. But it also has not proven the opposite." -- ***************************************************************** 7 Las Vegas SUN: Bush Faces Dilemmas in Iraq Intel Panel Today: February 04, 2004 at 9:25:16 PST By KEN GUGGENHEIM ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush's decision to appoint a commission on Iraq intelligence was intended to take pressure off a potentially explosive political issue. But setting up the commission offers its own dangers. If the commission is truly independent, as the president has promised, it could examine not only the work of intelligence agencies, but how the administration handled intelligence. It could make demands for access to Bush's secret intelligence briefings, as has the congressionally created commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But if the commission members are seen as too close to Bush, the panel's credibility could be questioned. Democratic leaders have already expressed doubts that a commission appointed entirely by the president can be impartial. Bush is likely to formally announce creation of the commission in an executive order Friday. But the White House already has begun defending it. "This commission will be bipartisan and independent and they will have full access to the information they need to do their job," Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday. Impetus for the independent investigation developed after the former CIA weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay, said last week he doubted that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in recent years. Those weapons were one of Bush's main arguments for war. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Wednesday he is not ready to conclude that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before U.S. troops invaded to depose him last year. He told the Senate Armed Services Committee that U.S. weapons inspectors need more time to reach final conclusions about whether chemical and biological weapons existed in Iraq before the war, as the Bush administration had asserted before sending American troops into battle. The White House originally had opposed an independent investigation, saying it wanted to give the search for weapons more time. But it reversed course as pressure grew from Republicans and Democrats. The White House has stressed that the commission's mandate will be wide-ranging, examining not only Iraq but also flawed intelligence on Pakistan, Iran and other nations. But Bush could face criticism if the review is so broad that commissioners can't delve deeply into Iraq intelligence before its work ends early next year. Finding the right balance on the commission will be difficult. McClellan said commissioners "will be people of experience in the public sector; they will be people with expertise in intelligence." The White House has not disclosed any names, but among those that lawmakers and others have suggested as qualified candidates are former CIA directors Robert Gates, William Webster and James Woolsey; former Sens. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., Warren Rudman, R-N.H., and Gary Hart, D-Colo; former CIA deputy director Richard Kerr and Kay. But a panel that includes too many former intelligence officials may have difficulty examining work done under their watch. Former Sen. David Durenberger, R-Minn., said the commission needs the perspective of policy-makers who depend on intelligence. "I think the emphasis needs to be more on the foreign relations/national security side than on the intelligence side," he said. Bush may also find that some of the most qualified people may not want a high-profile government position. The Sept. 11 commission's original chairman, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and vice chairman, former Sen. George Mitchell, D-Maine, resigned shortly after their appointments, citing concerns about potential conflicts of interest with their professional work. Members of the Sept. 11 commission were required to publicly disclose their business interests, but it is not clear whether Iraq commissioners would have to do the same. That would depend on the commission's structure and the commissioners' pay and work demands. This offers another problem: Some potential commissioners may be reluctant to serve if they have to reveal financial details. But if public disclosures aren't required, questions could be raised about secret conflicts of interest. Democrats continue to express skepticism about the president's plans. On Tuesday, presidential candidate Howard Dean called them "a totally inadequate response to a blunder of this magnitude." Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., said he would continue pushing for a congressionally created panel. "The American people have a right to expect a complete, honest assessment of what went wrong, and the assignment of full accountability," Corzine said. Republicans backed Bush. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said a congressionally appointed commission would take too long to complete its work. "We need to make sure our intelligence is good now, as soon as possible, not a year or 18 months or two years from now," he said. Former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., said Bush will "be criticized regardless who's on the panel, but I think the panel will stand or fall on its own merits." "If it's a good panel, it doesn't matter who chose it," he said. -- ***************************************************************** 8 Las Vegas SUN: Blair Defends Iraq War Despite Protests Today: February 04, 2004 at 10:40:13 PST By BETH GARDINER ASSOCIATED PRESS LONDON (AP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair, undaunted by critics but briefly silenced by shouting protesters in the House of Commons, said Wednesday he was proud of his decision to go to war in Iraq, even though weapons inspectors have found less than he expected. While a new inquiry will examine the prewar intelligence, Blair said only lawmakers and the British people can pass judgment on whether he was right to join the U.S.-led invasion. "To attempt to subcontract this issue to some committee as to whether it was right or wrong to go to war is not merely wrong, ultimately, it is profoundly undemocratic," he said. At a Commons debate interrupted by heckling, Blair said inspection teams had turned up evidence showing Saddam Hussein's "total, unrepentant, malignant intent" and his violation of United Nations resolutions - enough to justify the U.S.-led invasion. "I accept (the inspectors) have not found what I and many others including Dr. (David) Kay confidently expected they would - actual weapons ready for immediate use," Blair said, referring to the former top U.S. inspector in Iraq. "But let others accept that what they have found are laboratories, technology, diagrams, documents, teams of scientists told to conceal their work on biological, nuclear and chemical weapons capability, that in sum amounts to breaches of the United Nations resolution," Blair said. "If all that the (Iraq Survey Group of inspectors) find is all that they have found, ... we would have been irresponsible in the highest degree not to have acted against Saddam and rid him and his loathsome regime from power," he said. Blair announced an inquiry Tuesday into the quality of prewar intelligence. Pressure for such an investigation grew after Kay said he doubted Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in recent years and President Bush authorized an examination of U.S. intelligence. Blair spoke at the start of a parliamentary debate on senior judge Lord Hutton's report clearing the government of wrongdoing in the death of a Defense Ministry weapons scientist and the preparation of an intelligence dossier on Iraqi weapons. Shouts from anti-war protesters in the public gallery interrupted Blair's statement five times, prompting Speaker Michael Martin to order the gallery cleared and suspend proceeding for about 10 minutes. "Murderer!" shouted one protester. "Whitewash!" yelled another. Police detained four men and three women. The protesters said they represented a group called Oxford Residents for the Truth. Blair said the new inquiry will examine the quality of prewar intelligence. He defended Hutton's report, which cleared his government of allegations it hyped evidence in the September 2002 dossier to justify war and mistreated adviser David Kelly before his July suicide. Hutton found that the British Broadcasting Corp. was wrong in reporting that Blair's office "sexed up" the dossier and overrode objections from intelligence officials to claim Iraq could deploy biological and chemical weapons within 45 minutes. "Not a single shred of evidence was presented to his inquiry that would have justified an alternative finding," Blair said. The BBC quoted an anonymous official later identified as Kelly. Hutton's report prompted the BBC's board chairman and its chief executive to resign, along with the journalist who reported the piece. The judge's report has been met with skepticism by some Britons and many of Blair's political opponents, who have derided it as a "whitewash" that was too easy on the government and too harsh on the BBC. Pressing that theme, a handful of protesters dressed in wigs, robes and glasses to look like Hutton splashed white paint on the gates of 10 Downing Street, the site of the prime minister's official residence. The Metropolitan Police said five people were arrested for criminal damage. Michael Howard, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, criticized Blair's statements about Defense Ministry officials' leaking of Kelly's name to the public, saying the prime minister had contradicted himself. Howard, whose party staunchly supported the war, also slammed what he called Blair's quick turnaround on the need for a new inquiry. "For many months the prime minister has been in denial on the need for an inquiry. He has been the last person ... to change his mind," Howard said. -- ***************************************************************** 9 BBC: Iraq: Mindset behind intelligence Last Updated: Wednesday, 4 February, 2004 Analysis by Paul Reynolds BBC News Online world affairs correspondent A year after the US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the American case against Iraq to the Security Council, attention is turning from the actual failures of intelligence to why they happened. [Colin Powell making the case against Iraq at the Security Council] Powell made the case against Iraq On 5 February 2003, Mr Powell declared: "Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." A year on, that claim is hard to justify in several key respects. Even Colin Powell himself now says that he "doesn't know" if he would have supported war if he had known there were no actual stockpiles of weapons as he claimed that there were in his speech. What is striking is the mindset displayed in the speech. The natural suspicion of Saddam Hussein meant that many pieces of intelligence were interpreted in an unfavourable manner even when another interpretation was available. It is this mindset which some experts now think lay behind the failure of intelligence. Put simply, you see what you want to see. It has happened in warfare many times before. Stalin refused to believe that Hitler would attack in June 1941. The Israelis did not believe the evidence of their eyes before Egypt crossed the Suez Canal in 1973. Britain failed to heed signs that Argentina might take the Falklands in 1982. Fear and loathing In the case of Iraq, it was compounded by the knowledge that Saddam Hussein had indeed developed and used such weapons before. Intelligence assessment therefore was based on the assumption that he might well try again. Information which led in that direction was accorded importance. Information which did not was doubted. We are particularly bad abo understanding societal trends Dr David Kay Dr David Kay, until recently head of the Iraq Survey group, put his finger on one of the central issues when he said that the secrecy and corruption in Iraqi society meant that accurate intelligence from reliable sources was very hard to get. He compared the failure to the overestimates of the Soviet Union's economy in the late 20th century. " We are particularly bad about understanding societal trends," he told a Senate committee. Believing the worst Another former CIA expert, Kenneth Pollack, in a long analysis of what went wrong in the Atlantic Monthly, also refers to the attitude that Saddam must be up to no good. "Everyone outside Iraq missed the 1995-1996 shift in Saddam's strategy - that is, to scale back his WMD programmes to minimise the odds of further discovery - and assumed that Iraq's earlier behaviour was continuing." Looking back, there are several examples of the mindset at work in the Powell presentation. 1. Material which is simply unaccounted for must be weapons. The UN inspector Dr Hans Blix knew that Iraq had not fully explained what had happened to various quantities of biological and chemical agents, but could never bring himself to say that this was potentially insignificant. It provided a loophole which could be exploited by those who argued that the absence of evidence was not evidence of absence. Mr Powell made use of the loophole. He declared that Saddam Hussein had admitted to having 8,500 litres of anthrax but that he "could have produced 25,000 litres." There was no evidence that he actually did so, but the possibility that he could became the probability that he had. Later, Mr Powell says that "Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent." This notional agent then becomes something more in the next sentence: "That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield weapons." 2. A reliance on potentially unreliable human sources: the mobile laboratories. Mr Powell relied on human sources in his account of trucks, which, supported by artists' impressions, he described as "mobile, biological agent factories." He quoted four such sources and said that Iraq had at least seven such trucks. Two have been found but crucially there is no agreement as to what they were. The CIA website still says they were for biological warfare. But Dr David Kay told the Senate Committee: "I think the consensus opinion is that when you look at those two trailers, while they had capabilities in many areas, their actual intended use was not for the production of biological weapons." 3. Taking sides over disputed intelligence: the aluminium tubes. This is a prime example of disputed physical intelligence which was presented as reliable on the balance of probabilities. Mr Powell did mention the doubts expressed about whether they were for a uranium-enriching centrifuge or for rocket tubes as some experts concluded. But he came down firmly on the side of the more sinister explanation. The issue is unresolved to this day. [Photos of Iraq shown to Security Council] What did the photos show? 4. Remote intelligence: interpreting aerial photographs. Much was made of these, which purportedly showed chemical weapons dumps being sanitised of their illegal stocks. Since no such stocks have found, the activity in the photos remains a mystery. They made an impact at the time. But they have not been substantiated by finds on the ground. The strong points On the other side of the coin, some of the allegations made by Mr Powell remain strong. The tapes of conversations between Republican Guard officers did refer to the removal of a "modified vehicle" and to the need to hide references to "nerve agents" in wireless instructions. These remain suggestive though not determinative. The accusation that Iraq was developing missiles of a range beyond that permitted by the UN has been born out. Also strong was Mr Powell's description of how Iraq failed to come clean and open its books, sites and scientists to full inspection, as it was required to do under resolution 1441. Kay's own conclusions David Kay's conclusion is that Iraq was conducting "weapons of mass destruction-related programme activities." It was a phrase he used in his interim report in October 2003 and one picked up by President Bush. Examples of this, Dr Kay told the Senate Committee, were work on a precursor for VX nerve agent and on the production of anthrax in dry form. His interim report had also referred to a clandestine network of laboratories and to work on ricin and aflatoxin. That is dangerous and illegal activity, but it is some way away from Mr Powell's assertion to the Security Council that "Saddam Hussein and his regime have made no effort, no effort, to disarm, as required by the international community." ***************************************************************** 10 TOMPAINE.com - Iraq Intelligence Failure John Prados is an analyst with the National Security Archive in Washington, DC, and author, most recently, of The White House Tapes; Eavesdropping on the President. The recent reports of the creation of a new security service in Iraq suggest an advance in the intelligence war there, but evidence suggests the opposite may well be true. First, the idea of a new agency is not new, as the United States authorities and CIA have been recruiting former Iraqi intelligence officers since last summer. Moreover, this is not the first time we have heard pronouncements of progress that do not concord with facts on the ground. While little is yet known about the new service, a look at the intelligence war in Iraq, including the capture of Saddam Hussein, suggests that intelligence about the insurgency is weak at best, and not necessarily improving. When Saddam Hussein was captured last year, President George W. Bush praised the CIA analysts, field operatives and troops who had located the former Iraqi dictator and took him prisoner. General John Abizaid, the head of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) including Iraqi operations, refused to characterize the result as an intelligence windfall but did say, "It's clear that we have gained a greater understanding of how things work as a result of capturing [Saddam] and looking over his environment and understanding the whole picture." American military spokespersons, including General Abizaid and also the commander of his garrison in Baghdad, Brigadier General Martin E. Dempsey of the 1st Armored Division, soon started making explicit statements that the United States had gained the upper hand in intelligence. They detailed, for example, how many Iraqi resistance cells remain in Baghdad (10); the proportion of roadside bombs that are found before exploding (three-quarters); and other concrete assertions about how the rebels operate. The capture of Saddam certainly represented an intelligence success and is worth examining in greater detail. But the larger record of American intelligence successes amid the still-violent occupation remains mixed. In fact, by some measures, the successes of the Iraqi resistance have been increasing—not diminishing, as U.S. military officials have said. Tracking Down Saddam How was Saddam captured? According to reconstructions of the chase in the press, by June 2003, with reports of sightings and the appearance of tape recordings of the Iraqi fugitive, Americans had become convinced that Saddam remained in the country. Certain aides were captured, and their information led to a series of fruitless raids, some close but all failures, in the Tikrit area during July. The CIA began work then on a network analysis of families linked to Saddam in an effort to identify individuals who might serve as intermediaries for the fugitive. Results were pooled with military intelligence and by the fall the 4th Infantry Division, the garrison at Tikrit in the heart of the so-called Sunni Triangle, had a full-time staff of 16 dedicated to the Saddam search. A network chart that had begun with four names eventually contained dozens, a Mafia-like organization. By finding bodyguards, drivers, gardeners and the like the United States eventually zeroed in on Saddam. In fact, months were required to get this effort into gear. The Central Command is reported to have spent $11 million to set up an integrated system which is now online but has yet to produce visible results other than Saddam's capture. Like any intelligence effort outcomes depend upon quality information. During the Vietnam War the United States set up a virtually identical tracking effort called the Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation Program (ICEX), a predecessor to the Phoenix Program. In Vietnam, we found that data inputs were frequently inaccurate and often the product of informants with scores to settle. The result, according to the 1969 and 1970 official reports of the Phoenix program, was that only about a third of the 41,800 Vietnamese "neutralized" under Phoenix in 1969-1970 were so-called priority targets, and many of those were innocent civilians who had been misidentified. The same difficulties exist in Iraq today. Where Are All The Informants? American officers consistently say their best intelligence results from tips provided by Iraqis. In May and June, when a U.S. inspection group from the Army's Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) visited Iraq, and before the resistance really got going, these were being received by our tactical human intelligence teams at a rate of 30 a day, one quarter the rate anticipated. The group's report shows that the teams themselves were not numerous enough. In June, there were 69 of the U.S. teams (each consisting of a couple of intelligence specialists plus a translator) and a shortage of 15. In November briefers at the 4th Infantry division told analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies that they could deploy only half of the teams they would like to have. Officers have claimed that tips are flowing in at an increasing number since the arrest of Saddam but it is unlikely the rate is anything near the original U.S. expectations. Again there are similar data from the Vietnam War, where numbers of tips from locals were held up as indicators of progress, where in fact the number of tips had little to do with the true security situation. Wanted: Arabic Speakers Language ability is a serious problem by itself. The INSCOM group in May found most Iraqi interpreters had no knowledge of military terminology nor stamina for field operations—in fact many were "convenience store workers and cab drivers, most over the age of 40." These interpreters had about enough ability "to tell the difference between a burro and a burrito." The pressures on the United States for Arabic and dialect linguistic abilities drove the Bush administration beginning in November to divert linguists to security operations from the crucial search for weapons of mass destruction that might have been held by the former regime. Dr. David Kay, who recently resigned as director of the Iraq Survey Group, affirmed in congressional testimony last week that his decision to leave was sealed when he lost the battle to retain the linguists assigned to his group. The resistance has not been blind to the pressures on the coalition forces. The increasing number of bomb attacks aimed at Iraqis working with the United States is precisely intended to cut collaboration with the occupation forces. While much has been said of American unmanned aerial vehicles with their cameras and other sensors, these too are limited as intelligence collectors. This is because they cannot be overhead everywhere at once, cannot fly quickly enough to the locale of an incident, and do not communicate directly with ground troops. The bottom line is that the intelligence effort in Iraq still has far to go. This is apparent just from claims as to the strength and nature of the resistance. In August the number of rebels was put at about 5,000—a figure repeated by General Abizaid and others. That estimate has not changed from then to now in spite of daily combat operations. Repeated assertions that rebel forces include substantial numbers of foreigners such as Al Qaeda members are not reflected in the nationalities of suspects apprehended by the occupation forces. Wrong About The Resistance Assertions about Al Qaeda have the same ring as arguments during the Vietnam War that the resistance was made up of infiltrators from North Vietnam rather than South Vietnamese guerrillas. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, as late as September 2003, that the resistance was made up of "disparate elements." Documents captured with Saddam and elsewhere have improved the state of knowledge but it is not clear by how much. Thus nine months into a guerrilla war, U.S. commanders appear to have little detailed knowledge of the adversary—an unprecedented state of affairs. Through December and January CENTCOM military operations intensified as raids and cordon-and-search operations attempted to follow up the success against Saddam. Last week Major General Raymond Odierno, commanding the 4th Infantry Division at Tikrit, went so far as to declare the rebels have been "brought to their knees," now representing merely a "fractured, sporadic threat." Military spokesmen are citing numbers of daily incidents in the 15-20 range to buttress the claim that the resistance has been broken. They compare that to the month of Ramadan, last October and November, when the incident rate was running as high as 40 a day. But in August 2003 incidents were averaging 15 daily, and the coalition authorities are systematically not reporting rebel attacks against Iraqi police, interpreters or other perceived collaborators. Add those back in and the level of rebel activity may indeed be comparable. Casualty rates certainly are-in October, 33 American soldiers were killed in action while in January 2004 combat deaths are that high and still counting. In other words, the evidence is that unknown rebel forces are becoming more effective, inflicting equivalent casualties in fewer attacks while also achieving results against Iraqis who ally themselves with the occupation authorities. By any measure, the intelligence effort in Iraq needs improvement. Click here to subscribe to our free e-mail dispatchand get the latest on what's new at TomPaine.com before everyone else! You can unsubscribe at any time and we will never distribute your information to any other entity. Published: Feb 03 2004 ***************************************************************** 11 Washington Post: Blair Opens Second Inquiry on Iraq (washingtonpost.com) Tough Questions In Commons For British Leader By Glenn Frankel Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, February 4, 2004; Page A18 LONDON, Feb. 3 -- Prime Minister Tony Blair faced another round of criticism and questioning Tuesday as he launched an inquiry into why Britain's intelligence services apparently failed in their prewar assessment of Iraq's access to weapons of mass destruction. Blair underwent a grilling from committee chairmen at the House of Commons, some of whom accused him of taking Britain to war based on the premise that Iraq was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. "Do you regret now in retrospect that you placed your case wholly on that one issue of weapons of mass destruction?" asked Donald Anderson, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. "It's a pretty flimsy foundation, isn't it?" Anderson recited to Blair segments of the congressional testimony given last Wednesday by David Kay, former head of the Iraq Survey Group, that his team of inspectors had failed to find such weapons. Blair responded with his own readings from Kay's testimony to support his claim that Iraq had been in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and had remained a threat because it was preparing to develop such weapons. Blair also argued that the U.S.-led military campaign had influenced such other countries as Iran, Libya and North Korea to seriously consider ending their own weapons programs. "I think we've done the right thing," Blair told lawmakers, "not just because Iraq was a dangerous place under Saddam but also because the rest of the world needs to know that this issue will be tackled with firmness." But Tony Baldry of the opposition Conservative Party retorted that Blair had "abandoned the United Nations." He said members of Parliament would not have voted for war in March if they had had a true picture of Iraq's weapons capabilities. "If you really do believe that if colleagues had known then what they know, that they'd still have supported you," Baldry told Blair, "then I think you're more out of touch than you really know." Blair appointed a five-member bipartisan panel to be led by Robin Butler, a retired senior civil servant. It will meet behind closed doors and will evaluate the accuracy of intelligence reports received before the war began in March and determine how and why those reports differed from what Kay's group has discovered. Blair ordered the panel to work closely with its U.S. counterpart, which President Bush announced Monday. The U.S. commission is expected to look at wider issues of nuclear weapons proliferation and is not expected to issue its report until 2005, but the British inquiry has been ordered to issue findings by the mid-summer parliamentary recess. While the Conservatives endorsed the Blair panel, the minority Liberal Democrats refused to go along, arguing that the probe would not be broad enough to satisfy public concerns because it would scrutinize only the intelligence and not the politics behind the decision to go to war. "It deals neither with the workings of government nor with the political decision-making based on intelligence," Menzies Campbell, the party's foreign affairs spokesman, told the House of Commons, adding that "an inquiry which excludes politicians from scrutiny is unlikely to command public confidence." Until this week, Blair had resisted establishing a new panel, arguing that an independent judicial inquiry headed by a former judge, Brian Hutton, was sufficient. In findings issued last week, that inquiry cleared Blair and his top aides of allegations they had falsified or exaggerated intelligence reports to make the case for war. But opinion polls over the weekend showed that a majority of people surveyed did not believe Hutton's findings and still suspected that Blair had lied to the public about Iraq. The prime minister's political troubles were compounded when Kay reported that no stockpiles of unconventional weapons had been discovered and said they probably did not exist. On Monday, after Bush announced the U.S. commission, Blair reversed his position as well, leading critics to argue that Britain was being caught up in the wake of American decision-making. "This government has had to flip-flop rather dramatically because of decisions arrived at in Washington and not arrived at in London," the Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy, told the BBC. But Blair insisted that he did not want "a rerun" of the Hutton inquiry and that the new commission should confine itself to intelligence matters. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's acknowledgment in a Washington Post interview that he did not know whether he would have supported going to war if he had been told there were no weapons stockpiles is certain to cause further political discomfort for Blair, who insisted to the parliamentary chairmen that he had no doubt about the decision to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein. "I have to accept that David Kay has said he has not found large stockpiles of weapons," Blair said. "But he's found ample evidence both of breaches of U.N. resolutions on weapons of mass destruction programs and that Iraq was possibly a more dangerous place than we thought, that the conflict was justified." © 2004 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 12 Guardian Unlimited: Intelligence chiefs 'ignored WMD warnings' [UP] Staff and agencies Wednesday February 4, 2004 Intelligence chiefs ignored warnings from their own leading experts that they could not be certain Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, a former intelligence official who gave crucial evidence to the Hutton inquiry claimed today. In comments likely to increase pressure on the government over the issue of weapons of mass destruction, Dr Brian Jones, a former branch head in the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS), said that the most senior intelligence officials may have "misinterpreted" key evidence on Iraq's weapons programmes. Dr Jones laid out his claims in the Independent newspaper, which said he suggested that not a single defence intelligence expert backed Tony Blair's most contentious claims on WMD, although there is no unequivocal proof of this. The expert claimed that a large part of the DIS was unhappy with the way raw WMD intelligence was being used without "careful caveats". In the article, Dr Jones said he and a DIS colleague formally complained about the Iraq dossier because they feared that they would be made "scapegoats" after the war when no weapons were found. His claims came as MPs were preparing to debate in the Commons Lord Hutton's findings from his inquiry into the death of weapons specialist Dr David Kelly, and appeared certain to raise the temperature in the chamber. Hutton's report largely exonerated the government over the death of Dr Kelly and cleared it of "sexing up" the dossier. Some critics subsequently condemned it as a "whitewash". Dr Jones's claims also followed the prime minister's announcement yesterday of an inquiry into the Iraq intelligence. The article gives an account of the extraordinary tensions within the intelligence services in the run-up to the publication of the government's Iraq weapons dossier in September. It also casts new doubt on the role played by the Joint Intelligence Committee - which includes the heads of all the intelligence agencies - and its chairman, John Scarlett. At the time, Dr Jones headed the branch within the DIS scientific and technical directorate, which was responsible for analysing all intelligence on nuclear, chemical and biological warfare. He described his team as the "foremost group of analysts in the west" on the subject. But he said that, when they warned that the dossier had overstated the case on Iraq's chemical weapons (CW) and biological weapons (BW) capabilities, they were overruled. The DIS was told that the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, had other intelligence to back up the claims but it was considered to be so sensitive that it was "compartmented" and not shown to the other agencies. Dr Jones said that did not satisfy the experts in the DIS, however. "My belief is that right up to the publication of the dossier there was a unified view amongst not only my own staff but all the DIS experts that, on the basis of the intelligence available to them, the assessment that Iraq possessed a CW or BW capability should be carefully caveated," he said. Dr Jones said he was concerned that the small number of very high level intelligence officials who did have access to the "compartmented" intelligence may have misinterpreted the evidence. "I considered who might have seen this ultra-sensitive intelligence and reached the conclusion that it was extremely doubtful that anyone with a high degree of CW and BW expertise was among the exclusive group," he said. "It is the intelligence community leadership at the level of the membership of the JIC and the upper echelons of the DIS - those who had access to and may have misinterpreted the compartmented intelligence - that had the final say on the assessment presented in the dossier." He said that the agency chiefs and other senior officials who sat on the JIC were mostly very busy officials and may have had neither the time nor the expertise to analyse the intelligence before them properly. He said: "When they take it upon themselves to overrule experienced experts they should be very sure of their ground and, if a decision to do so is based on additional sensitive intelligence unknown to the experts, it must be incontrovertible." Dr Jones said that he and his DIS colleague had taken the rare step of setting out their concerns in writing because they feared they would be blamed if no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. Dr Jones's article is likely to raise fresh concerns that Mr Scarlett became too close to the Downing Street "magic circle" around the prime minister and his then communications director, Alastair Campbell. Although Lord Hutton cleared No 10 of improper interference in the production of the dossier, he acknowledged that Mr Scarlett and other intelligence officials may have been "subconsciously" influenced by Mr Blair's call for the dossier to be as strong as possible. The article may also reflect concerns within the agencies over where the blame will fall when Lord Butler - the former cabinet secretary appointed by Mr Blair to head the inquiry into to the Iraq intelligence - finally reports. Commenting on the remarks made by Dr Jones, the Conservative leader, Michael Howard, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think that this is very serious, very important indeed." He said he agreed with Dr Jones's call for Mr Blair to now publish the intelligence behind the government's claims that Iraq was actively producing chemical weapons and could launch an attack within 45 minutes. Mr Howard said people could then "form their proper opinion of the extent to which it was taken into account and of the extent to which it was turned into something else [which], in Dr Jones's words, ... was misleading". Mr Howard also defended his decision to cooperate with the Butler inquiry, which the Liberal Democrats have refused to do on the grounds that its scope is too narrow. Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell said Dr Jones's comments were a new blow for Mr Blair. Useful links Brian Jones - 'Lack of substantive evidence' - Independent The Hutton inquiry Foreign affairs select committee Intelligence and security committee What do you think? politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk Guardian Newspapers Limited ***************************************************************** 13 Mirror.co.uk - PILGER: BLAIR'S MASS DECEPTION Feb 3 2004 By John Pilger IN THE wake of the Hutton fiasco, one truth remains unassailed: Tony Blair ordered an unprovoked invasion of another country on a totally false pretext, and that lies and deceptions manufactured in London and Washington caused the deaths of up to 55,000 Iraqis, including 9,600 civilians. Consider for a moment those who have paid the price for Blair's and Bush's actions, who are rarely mentioned in the current media coverage. Deaths and injury of young children from unexploded British and American cluster bombs are put at 1,000 a month. The effect of uranium weapons used by Anglo-American forces - a weapon of mass destruction - is such that readings taken from Iraqi tanks destroyed by the British are so high that a British Army survey team wore white, full-body radiation suits, face masks and gloves. Iraqi children play on and around these tanks. British troops, says the Ministry of Defence, "will have access to biological monitoring". Iraqis have no such access and no expert medical help; and thousands are now suffering from a related catalogue of miscarriages and hair loss, horrific eye, skin and respiratory problems. Neither Britain nor America counts its Iraqi victims, and the fact, let alone the extent of the human carnage and material devastation is not even acknowledged by a government that says it is "vindicated" by Lord Hutton, whose report most British people clearly regard as a parody worthy of the Prime Minister's resignation. Blair has now announced an inquiry into the "failure of intelligence" that has mysteriously denied him evidence of weapons of mass destruction, which he repeatedly said were his "aim" in attacking Iraq. Just as the brawl with the BBC and the Hutton inquiry were quite deliberate distractions, so this latest inquiry is another panic measure. It is clear that George W Bush, as one American journalist put it, "is now hanging Tony Blair out to dry". Blair has, as ever, followed Bush. In announcing at the weekend his own inquiry into an "intelligence failure", Bush hopes to cast himself as an innocent, aggrieved member of the public wanting to know why America's numerous spy agencies did not alert the nation to the fact, now confirmed by Bush's own weapons inspector, David Kay, that there were no weapons of mass destruction and probably weren't any since before the 1991 Gulf War, and that the premise for going to war was "almost all wrong". "It was", Ray McGovern told me, "95 per cent charade". McGovern is a former high-ranking CIA analyst and one of a group of ex-senior intelligence officers, several of whom have described how the Bush administration demanded that intelligence be shaped to comply with political objectives, and the role of Britain in the charade. "It was intelligence that was crap," a former intelligence officer told the New Yorker, "...but the brits wanted to plant stories in England and around the world". He described how "inactionable" (unreliable) intelligence reports were passed on to British intelligence, which then fed them to newspapers. Former chief UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter says this false information was spread systematically by British intelligence. The clue to this secret operation was given by the weapons expert David Kelly the day before his suicide and which Hutton later ignored. Kelly told the Prime Minister's intelligence and security committee: "I liaise with the Rockingham cell." As Ritter reveals, this referred to the top secret "Operation Rockingham" set up within British intelligence to "cherry pick" information that might be distorted as "proof" of the existence of a weapons arsenal in Iraq. It was an entirely political operation, whose misinformation, says Ritter, led him and his inspectors "to a suspected ballistic missile site. We...found nothing. However, our act of searching allowed the US and the UK to say that the missiles existed." RITTER says Operation Rockingham's bogus intelligence would have been fed to the Joint Intelligence Committee. The committee was behind the two "dossiers" in which Blair government claimed Saddam Hussein was a threat. Ritter says that Rockingham officers were acting on political orders "from the very highest levels". How high? Right up to Blair himself? It was Blair, after all, who made such a personal "mission" of finding weapons of mass destruction. The question of how high needs urgently to be answered. Will Scott Ritter be called to Blair's inquiry? And will Blair explain to the inquiry why the February 2003 British "arms dossier", which Hutton chose to ignore, was so bogus that it plagiarised an American student's theses, lifting it word for word including the spelling mistakes? The truth is that the Blair government has known, almost from the day it came to office in 1997, that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were almost certainly destroyed following the 1991 Gulf War - just as Bush's weapons expert, David Kay, has now confirmed. What else did Blair know? In February last year, a transcript of a leaked United Nations debriefing of Iraqi general Hussein Kamel, revealed that both the US and British governments must have known that Saddam Hussein no longer had weapons of mass destruction. General Kamel was no ordinary defector; he was Bush and Blair's star witness in their governments' case against Saddam. A son-in-law of the dictator, he had overall authority for Iraq's weapons' programmes, and defected with crates of documents. When Secretary of State Colin Powell made the Anglo-American case for an attack on Iraq before the UN Security Council, he relied on and paid tribute to the reliability of General Kamel's evidence. What he did not reveal, as the transcript of the general's debriefing reveals, was this categorical statement by Kamel: "I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons -biological, chemical, missile, nuclear - were destroyed." The CIA and Britain's MI6 of course knew about this; and it beggars belief that Bush and Blair were not told. But neither of them let on - just as Colin Powell suppressed his informant's most sensational information, which would have contradicted all his spurious claims. General Kamel (who was later murdered by Saddam Hussein) corroborated Scott Ritter's statement that Iraq had been disarmed "90 to 95 per cent". Iraq was attacked so that the United States and Britain could claim its oil and its assets. Only Mary Poppins would believe otherwise. For the latest in a catalogue of evidence, turn to the Wall Street journal, the paper of America's ruling elite, which has obtained copies of the Bush administration's secret plan to privatise the country by selling off its assets to western corporations while establishing vast military bases. The plan was drafted in February last year, just as Tony Blair was assuring the British people that the only reason was Saddam Hussein's "threat". THE Bush/Blair attack on Iraq has brought death, destruction and great bitterness to Iraq. Every indication is that most Iraqis now regard their lives as immeasurably worse than during Saddam Hussein's rule. More than 13,000 people are held in concentration camps in their own country. This is many more than were incarcerated in Saddam's political prisons in recent years. None has been charged; most cannot see their families; the allegations of torture and brutality by the occupiers grow by the day. As the US-based Human Rights Watch reported last week, the worst atrocities were in the 1980s - when he was backed by America and Britain. The uprising in Iraq has accelerated and almost certainly strengthened since the capture of Saddam. Drawn from 12 different groups, including those that were always anti-Saddam, the resistance is well organised and will not stop until the "coalition" leaves. The setting up of a puppet "democracy" will merely increase the number of targets. As Blair's knowledge of imperial history will tell him, this is precisely what happened in Britain's other colonies before they threw out their occupiers, and in Vietnam. One piece of intelligence which was true and which we know Blair received is a report that warned him that an attack on Iraq would only increase worldwide terrorism, especially against British interests and citizens. He chose to ignore it. Two weeks ago a panel of jurists called on the International Criminal Court to investigate the British government for war crimes in Iraq. Whether or not that succeeds, it is clear the Prime Minister will need to find another Hutton, and quickly. Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programme is active, detailed and growing. The intelligence picture is extensive, detailed and authoritative SEPT 24 2002 Not only do we know that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, we also know he is capable of using them. Saddam must disarm or face the consequences NOV 30 2002 The biological agents we believe Iraq can produce include anthrax, botulinum, toxin, aflatoxin and ricin. All eventually result in excruciatingly painful death. FEB 25 2003 We are asked now to accept that in the last few years - contrary to all intelligence -Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd MAR 18, 2003 The UN weapons inspectors say vast amounts of chemical and biological poisons, such as anthrax mustard gas and VX nerve agent remain unaccounted for in Iraq MAR 20, 2003 Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a little bit. I remain confident that they will be found APRIL 28, 2003 There is no doubt about the chemical programme, the biological programme, indeed the nuclear weapons programme. All that is well documented by the United Nations MAY 30, 2003 If we are wrong, we will have destroyed a threat that at its least is responsible for inhuman carnage and suffering. That is something I am confident history will forgive JULY 18, 2003 ***************************************************************** 14 english.eastday: Iraqi children -- between agonizing past and dream of bright future dreams are nightmarish...because I always dream of warplanes bombing my house and killing dad and mam!" said Fatima, an eight-year schoolgirl. According to a latest study, whose findings were published in local Iraqi media recently, most Iraqi children used to draw tanks and warplane. When Mustafa, a 12-year-old boy, was asked why he drew tanks with Iraqi flag and not trees, he said quotsoon after I began to sense the outside world, I used to see tanks on TV more than anything else." Asked about now, Mustafa said, see more US tanks, but no Iraqi ones." Psychiatrist Abdul Majeed believed that Iraqi children needed many years to free themselves from the agony of wars and violence and help them forget all about the bitter experience of their country in the past two decades. Dr. Abdul Majeed added quothowever the current troubled situation in Iraq is unhelpful to raise normal kids!!" Meanwhile, the UN figures indicate that almost 25 percent of Iraqi students have left their classes to help their families make a living. A visitor of the Iraqi capital nowadays could see thousands of underage children selling cigarettes, or dealing in black market, or doing some jobs at a time when the per capita of most Iraqis has dropped to US$360 nowadays from US$2,500 per annum in 1989, the last year before UN sanctions. The three successive wars experienced by Iraq left hundreds of thousands of orphan children and divided families, with street children who are often exposed to sexual abuse. Iraqi children, due to the troubled situation in their country in the past two decades are considered among the most agonized children in the world. In the past two decades, Iraqis experienced three wars and 13 years of harsh UN sanctions which took a heavy toll from these children, who have been denied even the opportunity to dream of a bright future. According to UN figures more than half a million Iraqi children under 5 had died between 1990 and 2000 as a result of malnutrition or shortage of medicine. Iraq was subjected to UN sanctions in punishment for invading oil-rich Kuwait in August 1990 by order of its former President Saddam Hussein. Saddam, who was captured last month, had been ousted from power by US-led coalition forces last April. The use of depleted Uranium Ammunition against Iraq in 1991 US- led war, which resulted in the eviction of Iraqi army from Kuwait, had resulted in the birth of thousands of children with congenital deformations. The fear of giving birth to such deformed children made thousands of newly-married Iraqi women refuse pregnancy. The sound of explosions during the three wars experienced by Iraq in the past two decades spread horror among Iraqi children. Dr. Abdul Majeed said quotIraqi children have the right, like any other normal children in the world, to dream of a better future." The only thing remains to be seen, he added, when this will come true." Xinhua news Copyright (C) 2000 www.eastday.com. All ***************************************************************** 15 MSNBC: Tenet to speak on Iraq intelligence Feb. 04, 2004 WASHINGTON - CIA Director George Tenet plans to try to correct what he considers “misperceptions” about prewar intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction in his first public appearance since fresh controversy erupted over the issue, an intelligence official said Wednesday. In a speech at Georgetown University on Thursday, Tenet will “correct some of the misperceptions and downright inaccuracies concerning what the intelligence community reported and did not report regarding Iraq,” the U.S. intelligence official said on condition of anonymity. “He will point out it is premature to reach conclusions,” the official added. The furor over whether Iraq possessed banned weapons before the U.S.-led war flared again recently after former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay said he believed there were no large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. Kay, who was appointed by Tenet, had led the hunt since June for evidence of banned weapons and an active program to build nuclear weapons — the centerpiece for the U.S. decision to launch a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq last year. After resigning in late January, Kay said the WMD search team had found probably 85 percent of what there was to find in Iraq. His blunt comments that prewar intelligence on Iraq had been wrong bolstered calls for an independent inquiry and prompted the White House to agree to set up a commission to investigate the intelligence. Expected to reject criticisms Tenet is expected to reject some of the criticisms that have been leveled at the intelligence agencies. “People who have leaped to the conclusion that the intelligence was all wrong simply aren’t right,” the intelligence official said. “Those who say the search for WMD is 85 percent finished are 100 percent wrong.” Tenet plans to echo what other administration officials and congressional Republicans have been saying — that it is premature to reach firm conclusions. “He’s going to make the point that in the search for WMD, there is still plenty of work that needs to be done on the ground before any conclusions should be reached,” the intelligence official said. Rumsfeld to the defense Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended the war in testimony to congressional committees on Wednesday and held out the possibility that the team still hunting for banned weapons in Iraq eventually might find them. He said the intelligence agencies had a “tough assignment” trying to crack closed societies and avoid surprises from threats that can emerge suddenly. Rumsfeld noted that when the intelligence agencies fail, “the world knows it. And when they succeed, as they often do to our country’s great benefit, their accomplishments often have to remain secret.” Rumsfeld said he hoped Tenet would make some of the recent successes public “so that the impression that has and is being created of broad intelligence failures can be dispelled.” Tenet is expected to talk about the “difficulties and complexities” of intelligence work, where it is unusual to have a complete picture but fragments of information must be pieced together. He also plans to discuss proliferation issues in other countries, the intelligence official said.Copyright 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. © 2004 MSNBC.com ***************************************************************** 16 Las Vegas SUN: Australia Doesn't Plan Weapons Inquiry February 02, 2004 ASSOCIATED PRESS SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Australia has no need for a special inquiry into its intelligence on Iraq because it is sure Saddam Hussein had illicit weapons, Defense Minister Robert Hill said Tuesday. Australia received its intelligence from Britain and the United States, whose leaders both plan to name special panels to investigate the intelligence they used for going to war in Iraq. But Hill said he had confidence in the intelligence Australia received and there was no doubt Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. "There were weapons. That is not in dispute," Hill told reporters in Sydney. "The issue is what happened to those weapons." Australia contributed 2,000 troops to the Iraq war tha toppled Saddam and stood by the U.S. administration's assertions the war was justified. President Bush decided on the investigation after David Kay resigned as the head of the U.S. mission to find banned weapons in Iraq, saying he thought Saddam likely had no such arms. British Prime Minister Tony Blair will also appoint a commission to investigate faulty intelligence, Blair's spokesman said Monday. Hill said Australia had already conducted a parliamentary inquiry to which Australian intelligence agencies had given evidence, and it was "difficult to see what benefit would flow from yet another Australian inquiry." The earlier inquiry has not completed its report and will not present its findings until March. In a speech to Parliament before fighting broke out in Iraq, Prime Minister John Howard justified the war by saying intelligence sources showed Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction and could give them to terrorists. Opposition lawmakers then used their control of the parliament's upper house, the Senate, to start an inquiry into Howard's claims. Some opposition lawmakers have raised the possibility of another inquiry depending on the outcome of the U.S. probe. On Monday, Howard said Australia's intelligence on Iraq came largely from the United States and Britain. "It didn't come from our own independent sources, obviously it was independently assessed and so forth, but it was primarily British and American intelligence," Howard said. -- ***************************************************************** 17 UK Independent: Ex-cabinet secretary to head WMD intelligence inquiry By Ben Russell, Political Correspondent 04 February 2004 Five senior figures from Whitehall and Westminster will determine whether the intelligence services gave an accurate picture of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in the approach to war, Jack Straw announced yesterday. The six-month inquiry, chaired by the former cabinet secretary Lord Butler of Brockwell, will meet in private. It will also examine the intelligence on weapons held by other "countries of concern" and recommend reforms of how the Government gathers, evaluates and uses intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. The Foreign Secretary said the Government would publish its report before the parliamentary recess in July, but warned that sensitive parts of the conclusions and recommendations would stay private. The committee of inquiry, the fourth to examine the run-up to war, will include Ann Taylor, Labour chairman of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), and Michael Mates, a senior Conservative member of the ISC. But Alan Beith, the Liberal Democrat representative on the all-party ISC, will not join the inquiry after Charles Kennedy, the party leader, refused to sign the remit laid down by Tony Blair. The remaining two places on the panel go to Sir John Chilcot, a career diplomat and staff counsellor for the security and intelligence services, and Lord Inge, a former chief of the defence staff. Under the remit announced to MPs yesterday the inquiry will be modelled on the Franks inquiry after the Falklands War. It will investigate the intelligence "coverage" on weapons of mass destruction in rogue states. It will look at the accuracy of intelligence on Saddam Hussein's arsenal and examine discrepancies between the intelligence "gathered, evaluated and used by the Government before the conflict". Mr Straw and Mr Blair insisted that the investigation would not repeat the work of the Hutton inquiry and would not examine the political judgement to take Britain to war. Conservatives, who have been pushing for an inquiry for weeks, welcomed yesterday's announcement but anti-war Labour backbenchers said the investigation did not go far enough. Michael Ancram, the shadow Foreign Secretary, said: "It is gratifying to see that the Prime Minister who has no reverse gear can still execute impressive U-turns. There can be few more spectacular examples than this one. Even after Lord Hutton reported, senior ministers, including the Lord Chancellor on Sunday were still insisting that an inquiry was not needed." The turnround follows the statement in Washington made by David Kay, former head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), admitting that intelligence about Saddam's weapons had been wrong. Mr Straw defended the decision to go to war, but told MPs that Mr Kay's testimony raised "wider and entirely legitimate concerns" about the intelligence basis for war. He paid tribute to the work of the intelligence services and added: "This inquiry is emphatically not a challenge to that vital work, but what it should do is help the Government better to evaluate and to assess the information they provide." He said the decision to go to war was justified. "That is a decision for which we, as elected representatives, took responsibility and will continue to take responsibility. We cannot sub-contract that to any inquiry however distinguished." Mr Blair, giving evidence to the Commons Liaison Committee of senior backbenchers yesterday, also said the inquiry would not examine the political decision to go to war. "We can't end up having an inquiry into whether the war was right or wrong," he said. "That is something we have to decide. We are the politicians." He added: "I think it is right, as a result of what David Kay has said - and the ISG now probably won't report in the very near term its final report - that we have a look at the intelligence we received and whether it was correct. But whatever is discovered as a result of that inquiry, I do not accept that it was wrong to remove Saddam Hussein or the world is not a safer or better place for that." Mr Straw said the inquiry would work closely with the US investigation ordered by President George Bush and would liaise with the Iraq Survey Group still searching for evidence of Saddam's arsenal in Iraq. It will have access to all intelligence reports and assessments of the time and call witnesses to give evidence behind closed doors. The Butler inquiry has been closely modelled on the Franks inquiry set up as the response of Margaret Thatcher to months of claims that government misjudgment and incompetence led Britain into a short, bloody and ultimately avoidable conflict. With a committee of senior Privy Councillors, Lord Franks spent six months investigating how Britain had been caught unawares by the Argentinian invasion of its dominions in the south Atlantic. Like the inquiry to be led by Lord Butler into the reliability of the intelligence that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq, the Franks committee sat largely in private, due to the "highly sensitive" nature of the evidence it was considering. Lady Thatcher was asked to testify before the peer and his fellow inquisitors, who included a former chancellor of the exchequer and a former home secretary. While the advice and information provided by intelligence services came under his remit, Lord Franks also looked into the probity of the political decisions that led to the war. When the report of Lord Franks, a former ambassador to Washington and head of an Oxford College, was published in 1983 it was derided by the then Labour leader, James Callaghan, as "chucking a bucket of whitewash" over the truth. In words which echo concerns raised last week about the Hutton report, Mr Callaghan said of Lord Franks: "For 338 paragraphs he painted a splendid picture, delineated the light and the shade, and the glowing colours in it, and when Franks got to paragraph 339 he got fed up with the canvas he was painting, and chucked a bucket of whitewash over it." UK Independent Ltd. ***************************************************************** 18 UK Independent: Frantic calls behind Kennedy's 'political' decision to stay out By Marie Woolf and Ben Russell 04 February 2004 Long before the inquiry was announced yesterday, deep disquiet about its remit and scope was being expressed behind the scenes at Westminster. The phone calls between the Prime Minister and the opposition leaders, Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy, about the terms of reference of the Butler committee were frantic. As the private negotiations continued on Monday evening, a planned announcement about its terms by the Foreign Secretary had to be postponed. MPs expressed concern that the inquiry, led by Lord Butler, an "establishment" former Whitehall mandarin, could be a "whitewash" in the way some have portrayed the Hutton report. Would it include the reasons the Government went to war and its interpretation of intelligence or would politicians escape scrutiny and censure, MPs were asking each other. In one phone call between Mr Kennedy and Tony Blair on Monday night the Prime Minister was told in no uncertain terms that the terms of the inquiry he was offering were inadequate. The Liberal Democrat leader told Mr Blair that his party would boycott the Butler inquiry because it would not scrutinise the role played by the Prime Minister and other members of the Cabinet in interpreting intelligence material. "It was a political decision not to take part," said a Kennedy aide. "It was Charles's decision that we could not play ball." The Liberal Democrats' decision is a setback for Mr Blair in his attempts to end the damaging row over the existence of WMD in Iraq. It will give the party the freedom to criticise the inquiry and its conclusions because it has played no part. Mr Howard believes he succeeded in broadening the terms of the inquiry in his discussions with the Prime Minister, and he agreed to a place on the committee for Michael Mates, the former Conservative Northern Ireland minister. The terms of reference outlined to MPs yesterday included investigating "the accuracy of intelligence on Iraqi WMD up to March 2003, and to examine any discrepancies between the intelligence gathered, evaluated and used by the Government before the conflict". The reference to the intelligence "used" was crucial in allowing Mr Howard to maintain that the investigation would extend to the way ministers that presented assessments by the Joint Intelligence Committee. At Westminster yesterday the exact terms of the inquiry and whether politicians' decisions would be scrutinised appeared ambiguous. Mr Blair, in his evidence to a committee of senior MPs, implied that the scope could include government decision-making, while insisting it could not be an inquiry into why Britain had gone to war. "I think there are issues to do with intelligence, to do with intelligence gathering and evaluation and use by government which we can look at," he said. But in the Commons yesterday Jack Straw said the Hutton inquiry had already dealt with the charge that that the Government had "acted improperly or dishonestly in using the intelligence available to it". He told MPs: "Echoing the conclusions of the earlier reports, and in categorical terms, Lord Hutton made emphatic last week that such allegations were unfounded. This new inquiry will obviously not be revising the issues so comprehensively covered by Lord Hutton." Unlike the inquiry ordered by President George Bush, which will not reveal its findings until after the US presidential election in November, the committee established by Mr Blair has been given until July to report, a tight time-scale designed to avoid overshadowing a possible election in spring 2005. Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, suggested that Mr Blair had been bounced into offering an inquiry after repeatedly refusing Liberal Democrat calls for one, because President Bush announced an investigation on Monday. "The Government has performed a welcome volte-face on the principle of an inquiry for which we must give President Bush full credit," he said. "But there is still time to have an inquiry which will truly satisfy the public interest. The Government should take that opportunity." There were claims last night that not all Liberal Democrat MPs supported the move to opt out of the inquiry. But Mr Kennedy insisted it was the unanimous decision of his MPs. The Prime Minister's official spokesman conceded there had been a "major difference of view" with the Liberal Democrats over the inquiry. Mr Kennedy, who opposed the war on Iraq, said the remit for the inquiry was "unacceptable" and would be "unlikely to command public confidence". He said he wanted the "fundamental question, 'Did you go to war on a false premise'?" to be examined. "There is now widespread disbelief about the stated reasons for our participation in the war in Iraq," he said. "That disbelief is undermining public trust in the office of the Prime Minister. The way to re-establish that trust would be to have an inquiry which addresses the key questions directly and openly. It does not seem to me that this inquiry will be able to do that." THE PANEL MEMBERS SIR JOHN CHILCOT A career diplomat, who is a staff counsellor for the security and intelligence services and for the National Criminal Intelligence Service. He joined the Home Office from Cambridge University, working with ministers such as Willie Whitelaw and Merlyn Rees. In 1990, he moved to the Northern Ireland Office as permanent secretary, and acted as a link-man between the IRA and John Major's government, helping to pave the way for the Good Friday Agreement. In 2002, Sir John, 64, was called in to investigate the IRA break-in at the government buildings at Castlereagh in which Special Branch files were stolen. He is understood to have recommended that MI5 be given control of security, eroding the role of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. LORD INGE Aformer chief of the defence staff (1994-1997) whose service record includes postings in Germany, Libya, Malaya and Hong Kong. The 68-year-old peer is highly regarded in the Lords as a fair-minded and decisive figure with "masses of common sense". The field marshal, who was a senior serving officer during the Falklands War, may prove the most independent member of the committee and unlikely to kowtow to the Government. One colleague described him as "very, very direct" and "not easily impressed by waffle". "They will not pull the wool over his eyes," said another. "He may ask pretty pointed questions." He is a former deputy chairman of the Historic Royal Palaces and was made acrossbench peer in 1997. He sits on a parliamentary committee on the European Union. LORD BUTLER OF BROCKWELL An establishment figure who is unlikely to rock the Government's boat. He is a former head of the Home Civil Service, serving five prime ministers including Edward Heath and Harold Wilson, and was principal private secretary to Margaret Thatcher from 1982 to 1985. Lord Butler, 66, who was educated at Harrow and Oxford, served Tony Blair during the first year of his premiership. He told the 1996 Scott inquiry into "arms to Iraq that "half the picture can be true". As a former Whitehall mandarin, he is well qualified to examine the minutiae of advice given by the intelligence services. But his appointment has raised questions about whether he would be inclined to criticise his political masters. When he was Cabinet Secretary in the early 1990s, his investigation of the former cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken, who was later jailed for perjury, was considered cursory. He also told the Scott inquiry: "While ministerial heads of departments must always be accountable for the actions of their departments and its staff, neither they nor senior officials can justly be criticised for shortcomings of which they are not aware." MICHAEL MATES A veteran Tory backbencher and former Northern Ireland minister, Mr Mates, 69, is well versed in intelligence matters. He has been a member of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee since 1994 and also chairs the all-party Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs. He has also chaired the Commons Defence Committee. He was forced to resign as a minister in 1993 after giving the fugitive tycoon Asil Nadir a watch inscribed with the message: "Don't let the buggers get you down". A former military intelligence officer and lieutenant-colonel in the Queen's Dragoon Guards, he has been an MP since 1974, first for Petersfield and later East Hampshire. He comes from the left wing of the Tory party and campaigned for Michael Heseltine and Kenneth Clarke in their leadership battles of 1990 and 1997. ANN TAYLOR A trusted Blair loyalist, Ms Taylor went from Westminster enforcer to scrutinising the intelligence and security services. The 56-year-old MP for Dewsbury was chosen by Tony Blair to chair the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee after being dropped as Chief Whip after the last general election. She presided over a major inquiry into the use of intelligence in the approach to war in Iraq, which cleared Alastair Campbell of "sexing up" the Government's dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Ms Taylor has been an MP since 1974, representing Bolton West until 1983 and the West Yorkshire constituency of Dewsbury thereafter. She served in the Cabinet as Mr Blair's first Leader of the Commons in 1997 before being moved to the Whips Office in 1998. UK Independent Ltd. ***************************************************************** 19 UK Independent: Intelligence chief's bombshell: 'We were overruled on dossier' By Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor 04 February 2004 The intelligence official whose revelations stunned the Hutton inquiry has suggested that not a single defence intelligence expert backed Tony Blair's most contentious claims on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. As Mr Blair set up an inquiry yesterday into intelligence failures before the war, Brian Jones, the former leading expert on WMD in the Ministry of Defence, declared that Downing Street's dossier, a key plank in convincing the public of the case for war, was "misleading" on Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological capability. Writing in today's Independent, Dr Jones, who was head of the nuclear, chemical and biological branch of the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) until he retired last year, reveals that the experts failed in their efforts to have their views reflected. Dr Jones, who is expected to be a key witness at the new inquiry, says: "In my view, the expert intelligence analysts of the DIS were overruled in the preparation of the dossier in September 2002, resulting in a presentation that was misleading about Iraq's capabilities." He calls on the Prime Minister to publish the intelligence behind the Government's claims that Iraq was actively producing chemical weapons and could launch an attack within 45 minutes of an order to do so. He is "extremely doubtful" that anyone with chemical and biological weapons expertise had seen the raw intelligence reports and that they would prove just how right he and his colleagues were to be concerned about the claims. Downing Street was triumphant last week when Lord Hutton ruled that Andrew Gilligan's claims that the dossier was "sexed up" were unfounded, but Dr Jones's comments are bound to boost the case of the BBC and others that the dossier failed to take into account the worries of intelligence officials. Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, said yesterday that he might not have supported military action against Baghdad if he had known that Iraq lacked weapons of mass destruction. Acutely aware of the American inquiry into the war, Mr Blair said that a committee of inquiry would investigate "intelligence-gathering, evaluation and use" in the UK before the conflict in Iraq. Lord Butler of Brockwell, the former cabinet secretary, will chair the five-strong committee, which will meet in private. The Liberal Democrats refused to support the inquiry because they said that its remit was not wide enough. Dr Jones was the man whose decision to give evidence electrified the Hutton inquiry as he disclosed that he had formally complained about the dossier. The Government attempted to dismiss his complaints as part of the normal process of "debate" within the DIS and claimed that other sections of the intelligence community were better qualified to assess the 45-minute and chemical production claims. But today Dr Jones makes clear that he was not alone and declares that the whole of the Defence Intelligence Staff, Britain's best qualified analysts on WMD, agreed that the claims should have been "carefully caveated". Furthermore, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which allowed the contentious claims to go into the dossier, lacked the expertise to make a competent judgement on them. Dr Jones makes clear that it was John Scarlett, the chairman of the JIC, who was responsible for including the controversial claims in the executive summary of the dossier that was used to justify war. It was Mr Scarlett's strong assessment that allowed Alastair Campbell to "translate a probability into a certainty" in Mr Blair's foreword to the document, Dr Jones adds. He says he foresaw at the time of the Government's dossier in September 2002 that no major WMD stockpiles would be found. He made a formal complaint about the dossier to avoid himself and his fellow experts being cast as "scapegoats" for any such failure. In his article, Dr Jones warns that intelligence analysts should not be blamed for the lack of any significant finds in Iraq and points out that it was the "intelligence community leadership" ­ the heads of MI6 and MI5 and Mr Scarlett ­ who were responsible for the dossier. It would be a "travesty" if the DIS was criticised over the affair, he says. Dr Jones complains that he and others were not allowed to see vital intelligence supporting the 45-minute and chemical production claims. He reveals, however, that he has discovered from a colleague that the reports from the ground did not meet his and others' concerns about the wording of the JIC's assessments. Also, he says, the Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence, Tony Cragg, did not see the supposedly clinching intelligence and took on trust assurances from MI6 that it was credible. The Government yesterday finally slipped out its response to the Intelligence and Security Committee's report last autumn on the intelligence case in the approach to war. For the first time ministers conceded that they "understand the reasoning" for the committee's criticism that the presentation of the 45-minute claim in the dossier "allowed speculation as to its exact meaning", including the firing of WMD on long-range missiles. But the Government said it had not linked the claim to ballistic missiles. It also rejected the MPs' call for complaints such as that of Dr Jones to be sent direct to the JIC chairman. "It is important to preserve the line management authority of JIC members," it said. UK Independent Ltd. ***************************************************************** 20 Las Vegas SUN: North Korea Prepares for Nuclear Talks Today: February 04, 2004 at 3:45:11 PST By SOO-JEONG LEE ASSOCIATED PRESS SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea on Wednesday demanded compensation from the United States for freezing its nuclear weapons programs as a first step in resolving a 15-month standoff, as preparations began for key nuclear talks later this month. The comments came during high-level talks in Seoul between North and South Korean officials. "The United States has not at all changed its demand that we first give up our nuclear programs," the North's chief negotiator Kim Ryong Song said, according to pool reports. "What is important is resolving the issue through our proposal of simultaneous action." A South Korean delegate at the Cabinet-level inter-Korean talks in Seoul said North Korea's offers didn't go far enough and asked North Korea to be more flexible. "We urged North Korea to take a more progressive position on the dismantlement of the nuclear programs in general because it will be difficult to resolve the nuclear issue in the near future just with North Korea's offer of a freeze in exchange for compensation," delegate Shin Eon-sang said during a break in the meetings. South Korea's Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon also said the government hopes the six-nation talks will generate an outcome in which North Korea "publicly declares" it will dismantle its nuclear programs in a "complete, verifiable and irreversible" way. "If the North Koreans do this, it will provide a very important turning point in peacefully resolving the nuclear issue," Ban told reporters. Ban added that South Korea and Japan share Washington's view that North Korea has a secret uranium-based weapons program in addition to a plutonium-based one. Washington has demanded North Korea dismantle both, but North Korea has denied possessing any uranium-based program. "If North Korea has intentions to give up its nuclear programs, it must also give up HEU (highly enriched uranium) programs as well as plutonium," Ban said. Outside the venue, Seoul's Shilla Hotel, about 20 South Korean protesters shouted slogans such as "Stop all South-North Korean exchanges until North Korea dismantles its nuclear programs!" About 50 police officers were on hand, but no clashes were reported. Six-nations talks on settling the issue had faltered for months over disagreements on the ground rules for negotiations. A first round between the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas ended in August in Beijing without much progress. North Korea agreed Tuesday to hold a second round Feb. 25. North Korea has insisted it needs a nuclear "deterrent" against a possible U.S. attack. But it has said it would suspend its nuclear programs as a first step in easing tensions if Washington lifts sanctions, resumes oil shipments and removes North Korea from its list of countries sponsoring terrorism. The United States has said North Korea must first begin dismantling its nuclear programs. U.S. officials believe the North already has one or two nuclear bombs and could make several more within months. South Korea's Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun, Kim's counterpart, called for mutual understanding from participants in the nuclear talks to "remove the stone blocking the way to the gold." The South Korean minister also said inter-Korean projects meant to promote reconciliation on the divided Korean Peninsula would gain further momentum if the nuclear standoff is eased. The North-South meetings are the highest-level regular contacts between the rival Koreas. This week's talks, scheduled to run through Friday, are the 13th round since the historic June 2000 summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. -- ***************************************************************** 21 Las Vegas SUN: Koreas Wrangle Over Nuclear Crisis Today: February 04, 2004 at 9:05:13 PST By SANG-HUN CHOE ASSOCIATED PRESS SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea and North Korea argued Wednesday over how to end the crisis over the communist North's atomic weapons programs, a day after the North agreed to resume six-nation talks on the nuclear standoff. During a Cabinet-level inter-Korean meeting in Seoul, South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun urged the North to commit to a complete dismantling of its nuclear programs during an upcoming six-nation meeting scheduled to begin Feb. 25 in Beijing. Unless nuclear tensions ease significantly, Jeong said, South Korea cannot push ahead with tourism and industrial projects that would bring badly needed investment to impoverished North Korea. Jeong's North Korean counterpart, Kim Rayon Song, blustered at Jeong's overture, accusing South Korea of succumbing to U.S. pressure to regulate economic exchanges between the two Koreas according to progress in nuclear negotiations. "The two sides could hold 100 rounds of talks but would resolve nothing for the nation, as long as the South subjects matters between the two Koreas to interference and pressure from outside forces," said Kim, according South Korean pool reports. North Korea agreed Tuesday to resume talks Feb. 25 with the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia on ending a 15-month nuclear standoff. The six-nation talks have stalled since the first meeting ended in August without much progress. North Korea says it would freeze its nuclear programs as a first step in resolving the dispute, only if the United States provides economic aid and other concessions. Washington demands that North Korea first start dismantling its nuclear facilities. "The United States has not at all changed its demand that we first give up our nuclear programs," said Kim, the North's chief negotiator. "What is important is resolving the issue through our proposal of simultaneous action." Kim said "if the South side truly wants a peaceful solution to the nuclear issue, it will support our just proposal so as to be realized and work hard to make the United States respond to it," according to the North's official news agency, KCNA. He urged the South to "promote inter-Korean economic cooperation in a responsible manner from the stand of national cooperation." South Korea said the North's offer was not enough. "We urged North Korea to take a more progressive position on the dismantlement of the nuclear programs in general because it will be difficult to resolve the nuclear issue in the near future just with North Korea's offer of a freeze in exchange for compensation," South Korean delegate Shin Eun-sang said. South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon also said the government hopes the six-nation talks will generate an outcome in which North Korea "publicly declares" it will dismantle its nuclear programs in a "complete, verifiable and irreversible" way. Ban added that South Korea and Japan share Washington's view that North Korea has a secret uranium-based weapons program in addition to a plutonium-based one. Washington has demanded North Korea dismantle both, but North Korea has denied possessing any uranium-based program. "If North Korea has intentions to give up its nuclear programs, it must also give up HEU (highly enriched uranium) programs as well as plutonium," Ban said. Outside Seoul's Shilla Hotel, the venue of Cabinet-level talks, 20 South Korean protesters shouted slogans such as "Stop all South-North Korean exchanges until North Korea dismantles its nuclear programs!" U.S. officials believe the North already has one or two nuclear bombs and could make several more within months. North Korea has insisted it needs a nuclear "deterrent" against a possible U.S. attack. But it has said it would suspend its nuclear programs as a first step in easing tensions if Washington lifts sanctions, resumes oil shipments and removes North Korea from its list of countries sponsoring terrorism. The North-South meetings are the highest-level regular contacts between the rival Koreas. This week's talks, scheduled to run through Friday, are the 13th round since the historic June 2000 summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. The last meeting was in October. -- ***************************************************************** 22 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Boucher: ˇ®NK Nuclear Freeze to Be Discussed in Six-party Updated Feb.4,2004 14:15 KST US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. Washington is willing to discuss Pyeongyang's proposal to freeze its nuclear pursuit in the next round of six-nation talks, slated to begin on February 25th in Beijing, China. U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Tuesday that the United States will see where North Korea's offer leads to but that Washington is not interested in a temporary nuclear "freeze" rather in the complete elimination of nuclear weapons programs. Mr. Boucher went on to say although the U.S. is not considering financial compensation to get North Korea back into the agreements, there will be "some benefit or frill effect for North Korea" if it chooses to change its stance. The State Department spokesman added the participating nations are also hoping to provide necessary safety guarantees to push North Korea toward a verifiable dismantlement of its nuclear power. In Beijing, the foreign ministry's spokesperson echoed that view, saying the upcoming round will be an important step to resolving the nuclear crisis following the first round which ended inconclusively in August last year. China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said that ˇ°all the parties believe that the conditions for a second round of six-party talks have been prepared and we believe that they will demonstrate the sincerity and flexibility of cooperation based on the spirit of mutual respect and mutual consultation, and make substantial progress in the second round of six-party talks." North Korea's surprise announcement to resume multilateral talks on the nuclear dispute came after a flurry of diplomatic activity among the five other nations, South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the United States. Arirang TV ***************************************************************** 23 Daily Yomiuri: Koizumi happy 6-way talks to reopen Yomiuri Shimbun Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has praised an agreement to hold a second round of six-party talks without preconditions in Beijing on Feb. 25 on North Korea's nuclear arms program. Koizumi said Tuesday that Pyongyang should face up to the prevailing international situation and realize that it could not afford to remain isolated from the rest of the international community. "I want these talks to be a significant step in welcoming North Korea into the international community," he said. The government has opposed the advance compilation of a joint document on North Korea's nuclear program by China on the grounds that Pyongyang may use its participation in the talks to negotiate on its nuclear development program. At a bureau chief meeting in late January, Japan, South Korea and the United States agreed not to reward North Korea with economic assistance in exchange for freezing its nuclear program. Copyright 2004 The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 24 Daily Yomiuri: Pyongyang's N-ambitions paving way for sanctions Yomiuri Shimbun A second round of six-nations talks on North Korea's nuclear program is scheduled to be held Feb. 25 in Beijing. Although the talks are to be resumed after a six-month hiatus, the current situation warrants little or no optimism. The North Korean regime under its leader Kim Jong Il has agreed to the resumption of the talks probably because it has concluded it would be unwise to continue to refuse to hold the talks. Doing so would only reinforce the resolve of the international coalition against North Korea's nuclear development program. One year has passed since North Korea resumed its nuclear development program, yet so far there have been no prospects for a peaceful settlement of the issue. The current deadlock has been primarily due to North Korea, which is moving ahead avowedly to arm itself with nuclear weapons, while breaking the promise it made under an 1994 accord with the United States. === Rattling plutonium saber Last month, North Korea invited an unofficial delegation of U.S. experts to inspect a key nuclear complex in Yongbyong. Saying they had recently completed reprocessing spent fuel, North Korean officials showed the delegation a 200-gram piece of plutonium made from spent nuclear fuel rods. The officials also let the delegation view the operation of a five-megawatt nuclear reactor. If we take what Pyongyang has claimed at face value, that nation has extracted enough plutonium to produce five or six nuclear weapons. It also has acquired the technology to produce nuclear weapons at a rate of one a year. It is obvious that North Korea is showing off its nuclear development capability in a bid to win concessions from the United States. North Korea is demanding that it be taken off the U.S. list of "rogue states" that assist terrorism, while at the same time calling for international assistance in the supply of heavy oil and electricity, in exchange for freezing its nuclear development program. However, Japan, the United States and South Korea are not demanding a mere freeze of the nuclear program, but the complete, irreversible and verifiable abandonment of it. We must not accept such a self-serving demand from Pyongyang as a moratorium on its nuclear program, which is an attempt to win rewards without surrendering the fruits of its nuclear development program. === N. Korea's fate in own hands In addition, North Korea also has denied that its nuclear development program utilizes highly enriched uranium (HEU), the issue that rekindled international concern over North Korea's nuclear program. But components of a centrifugal separator, needed for enriching uranium, were discovered by German authorities on board a ship in the Mediterranean Sea in transit from Germany to North Korea. A Pakistani scientist who was in charge of developing an HEU-type nuclear weapon has admitted he was involved in transferring nuclear technology to North Korea. These are serious issues that cannot be overlooked, and Pyongyang needs to clear itself of these suspicions. Should North Korea abandon its nuclear ambitions, the way can be opened for it to receive such international assistance as economic cooperation. But should it insist on going ahead with nuclear development, it cannot avoid facing sanctions. Japan is consolidating legislature so that it can unilaterally impose sanctions on North Korea. The planned revision of the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Law is just the first step. In order to pressure North Korea to resolve the issue of its nuclear weapons and missile development as well as its abduction of Japanese, the international coalition needs to be further solidified. Japan, for its part, needs to assume a suitable role. (From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Feb. 5) Copyright 2004 The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 25 BBC: N Korea sticks to talks demands Last Updated: Wednesday, 4 February, 2004 [North Korean spent nuclear fuel rods in Yongbyon] The row centres on North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear plant North Korea has repeated an offer to freeze its nuclear facilities in return for US compensation, ahead of six-nation talks expected next month. But Washington has again insisted a freeze was not enough, suggesting the two sides remain far apart. China, which will host the talks, has cautioned that resolving the nuclear stand-off will be a slow process. Talks involving the US, China, Japan, Russia and North and South Korea are due to begin in Beijing on 25 March. "We demand the United States take corresponding measures in return for a (nuclear) freeze as a first step," said Kim Ryong-song, North Korea's chief negotiator, who is in Seoul for inter-Korean ministerial talks. "Based on this 'reward-for-freeze' principle, the (nuclear) issue must be settled at the coming six-way talks," he said. But US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, speaking on Tuesday, reiterated that a freeze was not enough. "What we have made clear is that a freeze is not our goal. A freeze is not elimination," he said. "If they want to talk about a freeze, they can talk about a freeze and we'll see if the discussion leads anywhere," he said. The US agreed to a North Korean freeze in 1994, an agreement which Washington claims the North did not adhere to. The substance of any new agreement is not the only sticking point, since the timing of each sides' moves and concessions are also disputed. The BBC's Seoul correspondent says few analysts expect a breakthrough at the talks. Nuclear 'evidence' The new round of talks come after North Korea last month said it had shown its "nuclear deterrent" to an unofficial delegation from the United States. The US team confirmed they had seen the secret nuclear complex that Washington believes is being used to develop nuclear weapons. They were the first group from outside North Korea to visit the Yongbyon facility since the North forced UN inspectors to leave at the end of 2002. In 1994, North Korea agreed to halt activities at Yongbyon, 90 kilometres (50 miles) north of the capital, Pyongyang, under a deal with the United States. But after that agreement broke down in late 2002, North Korea claimed to have finished reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods being stored at Yongbyon - enough to help it build up to six more nuclear weapons. The stand-off was triggered when the US said Pyongyang had admitted to harbouring a separate, enriched uranium programme. ***************************************************************** 26 Washington Post: N. Korea And U.S. Have Plenty To Discuss (washingtonpost.com) Differences Are Wide Before Nuclear Talks By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, February 4, 2004; Page A17 TOKYO, Feb. 3 -- A fresh round of six-nation talks addressing North Korea's nuclear weapons program was agreed to despite the fact that the two key players -- the United States and North Korea -- still hold widely divergent positions, officials close to the negotiations said Tuesday, as they sought to lower expectations for a quick breakthrough in the standoff. After weeks of intensive diplomatic efforts, North Korea announced earlier in the day that it would return to Beijing for a new round of talks starting Feb. 25. The first round, held in August among North Korea, the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, ended with virtually no progress. Since then, China has tried to lay the groundwork for a speedy resolution by narrowing the gap between the Bush administration, which is seeking the complete and verifiable dismantling of the Pyongyang government's nuclear program, and the North Koreans, who have offered to freeze their program in exchange for a number of requests, including economic aid and oil shipments. In Washington, where the North Korean crisis has often split the Bush administration, officials said key issues needed to be resolved, both internally and with allies, before the talks. Among the questions are how to define a freeze, whether it will include the highly enriched uranium program that U.S. intelligence says exists in North Korea and what level of verification will be required. Attempts to bridge the differences between Washington and Pyongyang have met with little success, according to diplomats from three of the nations involved. Now, the parties appear to be shooting for a more modest goal of simply advancing the dialogue. "We're not bringing any agendas," said Lee Soo Hyuck, South Korea's deputy foreign minister. "The agenda is resolving the North Korean nuclear issue. It may be difficult to hold big expectations for a breakthrough from the talks, but the position of each party would become clearer." Russia's deputy foreign minister, Alexander Losyukov, echoed those sentiments. "The difference of stances between Washington and Pyongyang is very great," he told the Russian Tass news agency, saying that what is required is "not a breakthrough, but an understanding in what direction to develop the negotiating process." But Asian diplomats say the North Koreans may be prepared to take an important first step -- offering not only to freeze their nuclear program, but also to allow the return of weapons inspectors expelled more than a year ago from the Yongbyon nuclear facility. The Pyongyang government claims to have reprocessed 8,000 spent fuel rods at the plant into weapons-grade plutonium. In exchange, the sources said, North Korea is likely to insist on at least one of its demands: the quick resumption of international oil shipments that were cut off under U.S. pressure after what U.S. officials say was North Korea's admission in late 2002 that it had a uranium enrichment program. The sources said North Korea is likely to be pressed on several other issues. These include a broad agreement to hold regular nuclear talks and a commitment to negotiations with Japan aimed at fully resolving disputes stemming from North Korea's admitted abduction of Japanese citizens during the 1970s and 1980s. "Our agreement to the six-party talks is a product of our efforts to resolve the nuclear issue peacefully," the chief North Korean negotiator, Kim Ryong Song, said in Seoul, where he was participating in cabinet-level talks on Korean economic cooperation. "It also means that our position is right and just." U.S. officials say they believe the recent disclosures in Pakistan, indicating that North Korea's alleged uranium enrichment program was developed with the aid of A.Q. Khan Laboratories, will strengthen their negotiating position. North Korea has denied having such a program, and its position had recently won support from China. "A.Q. Khan has saved our bacon on this," one official said. China, traditionally an ally of North Korea but now seeking to quell its nuclear ambitions, played a major role in getting the North Koreans back to the table, even threatening to move the talks out of Beijing, sources familiar with the talks said. They said China's growing frustration with the North Koreans is likely to be a key incentive for Pyongyang to cooperate. Of equal weight, the sources said, will be whether the Bush administration is willing to bend. "We think [Washington's] position has become somewhat more flexible," said one Asian diplomatic source familiar with the talks. "But we have to see what the North Koreans are really willing to offer first. The fact that we are going back to the bargaining table is an essential first step." Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report. © 2004 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 27 Xinhuanet: Nuclear issue tops agenda of Wednesday's inter-Korean talks www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2004-02-04 16:21:06 SEOUL, Feb. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- Nuclear issue topped the agenda of the first plenary session of the 13th Inter-Korean Ministerial Meeting which is going on here Wednesday, the South Korean Yonhap News Agency reported. Delegations from South Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) held the first plenary session of the high-level inter-Korean talks in downtown Seoul on Wednesday, one day after Pyongyang announced the second round of six-party nuclear talks would be held on Feb. 25 in Beijing. South Korea's chief negotiator, Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun, said at the session the Korean Peninsula should remain nuclear-free. He urged the DPRK to "take more forward-looking position on dismantling the nuclear program beyond freezing it," Shin Eon-sang, a spokesman and member of the South Korean delegation, said after the conclusion of the first plenary session. In response, chief DPRK delegate Kim Ryong Song called for compensation as the first step in return for DPRK's freeze of its nuclear program if the United States cannot fully carry out a simultaneous solution. Kim urged the United States to "lay down guns together." "We cannot trust the American words that they will lay down theirs if the DPRK drops its guns first," he said. Kim Ryong Song, DPRK's State Counsilor, underscored that DPRK's proposals should be addressed at the forthcoming second round of nuclear talks. Pyongyang in January this year offered to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for economic, political and other concessions from the United States, which the latter has rejected. The United States is asking the DPRK to dismantle its nuclear program in a "complete, verifiable and irreversible way." During the 110-minute meeting, the South Korean side also proposed holding another inter-Korean defense meeting to ease tension and build military confidence between the two countries, according to Shin Eon-sang, but the DPRK team did not respond. Enditem Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 28 Straits Times: N. Korea insists on US compensation for N-freeze - FEB 5, 2004 SEOUL - North Korea yesterday stuck to its demand for compensation from the United States in return for freezing its nuclear arms programme, rebuffing South Korean calls that it work for a compromise at six-way talks later this month. South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se Hyun (above, right) joking with his North Korean counterpart Kim Ryong Song during a visit to a museum in Seoul yesterday. -- REUTERS The South said that such an approach would make it difficult to resolve quickly the nuclear crisis on the peninsula and urged Pyongyang to go beyond its stated position. A North Korean delegation arrived here on Tuesday for three days of talks, just hours after Pyongyang's announcement that it had agreed to a second round of multiparty negotiations on the impasse from Feb 25 onwards in Beijing. At the opening session of the Cabinet-level talks, South Korea urged the North to commit to making progress at the upcoming meeting, which includes both Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia. 'We urge the North to take specific measures to resolve the nuclear issue,' South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se Hyun said. In response, North Korean delegation chief Kim Ryong Song reiterated Pyongyang's proposal, first issued in December, that the United States give it energy assistance and security guarantees in return for freezing its nuclear programmes. 'The important thing is for us to begin resolving the problem on the principle of simultaneous actions. 'What we are saying is that both of us put down our arms and live on good terms. That's the meaning of simultaneous actions,' he told Mr Jeong at the start of talks in a Seoul hotel. 'If that is difficult for the US to do, the first stage should be a freeze for compensation.' But analysts say the biggest stumbling block to progress at the talks will be North Korea's alleged uranium enrichment programme. Pyongyang continues to deny that it is pursuing a uranium programme, which Washington says must be declared. It was a tension-filled scene outside the venue of the 13th Inter-Korean Ministerial Talks, where a protestor trying to burn the North Korean flag splashed petrol on the police as they tried to detain him. -- REUTERS According to the United States, North Korea confessed to running the uranium programme when confronted with evidence by US envoy James Kelly in Pyongyang 15 months ago. And recent admissions by Pakistani nuclear scientists that they had passed nuclear secrets to Pyongyang bolster the US charges. Most analysts say that the chances of a breakthrough at the talks are slim and that North Korea is merely playing for time in a crucial election year in the United States. 'North Korea will play for time until the end of the US presidential election and seek new negotiations from scratch,' said Mr Lee Chul Ki of Dongguk University. -- Reuters, AFP The Straits Times ***************************************************************** 29 Las Vegas SUN: Tauzin May Become Pharmaceutical Lobbyist Today: February 04, 2004 at 9:55:14 PST By H. JOSEF HEBERT ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - Rep. Billy Tauzin of Louisiana is stepping down as chairman of one of the most powerful committees in Congress, and is considering an offer to become the top lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry. Tauzin, who has spent nearly 24 years in Congress, informed House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Tuesday that he would give up his chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee, effective Feb. 16. He does not plan to seek re-election in November and may leave Congress before then, said Ken Johnson, Tauzin's spokesman, adding that the Republican congressman has yet to decide what he will do next. But Tauzin, 60, is widely expected to accept a job as head of the Washington lobbying operation of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, which represents big drug manufacturers such as Eli Lilly and Co. and Merck &Co. The job offer has raised eyebrows since Tauzin's committee deals with critical legislation affecting the pharmaceutical industry. For example, Tauzin last year guided through his committee and the House a new Medicare law that prevents the government from negotiating lower prices from drug companies. Congress passed the legislation, which includes a prescription drug plan for the elderly, in December. "It doesn't look good," said Mary Boyle, a spokeswoman for Common Cause, a private political watchdog group. But Johnson said Tauzin has agreed from here on to step aside from considering any committee matters involving the pharmaceutical lobby. "Absolutely no one in the leadership, not a single person, asked him to step down as chairman," said Johnson. Tauzin said he was leaving the chairmanship to allow a smoother transition. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, on Tuesday met with Hastert to press his desire for the chairmanship. Barton, a former oil industry engineer and chairman of the Commerce energy and air quality sub committee, is viewed and the most likely successor to Tauzin. "I am now actively seeking to be (Tauzin's) successor ... and I'm flattered to have his endorsement," Barton said in a statement Wednesday. Barton said he had "positive" meetings with Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas about the chairmanship. Tauzin's likely departure from Congress has been rumored for months - ever since it became known that he had been offered the motion picture industry's top lobbying job, replacing Jack Valenti, 82, as president of the Motion Picture Association of America. Last week, Tauzin said he was not interested in the motion picture industry job. A colorful and loquacious lawmaker who can shift with ease from English to Cajun, Tauzin was first elected to the House in 1980 as a Democrat. He switched to the Republican Party in 1995, seven months after the GOP took control of the House. Six years later he was given the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee and quickly showed a knack for working with both Republicans and Democrats. Tauzin prided himself as being a dealmaker with a down-home congeniality that belied his fierce competitiveness and political acumen. During 24 years in Congress, Tauzin frequently played up his Cajun heritage, dubbing himself the Cajun ambassador to Congress. Back in Louisiana, some call him the "Swamp Fox" - a tribute to his political skills. An avid deer hunter, Tauzin for years has operated a hunting club on Maryland's Eastern Shore and has been planning another one in the wilds of Texas. Some of Washington's most powerful lobbyists - many longtime Tauzin friends - have been his guest at the hunting retreats. -- ***************************************************************** 30 DOE: U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force: Interim Report: FR Doc 04-2229 [Federal Register: February 4, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 23)] [Notices] [Page 5330-5331] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04fe04-59] Causes of the August 14th Blackout in the United States and Canada AGENCY: Office of Electric Transmission and Distribution, Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice of availability and opportunity for comment. SUMMARY: The Department of Energy announces the availability of proposed recommendations that have been submitted to the U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force, and announces the deadline for submission of public comments on those recommendations. DATES: Comments must be received on or before 5 p.m. eastern standard time, February 11, 2004. ADDRESSES: The document entitled ``Interim Report: Causes of the August 14th Blackout in the United States and Canada,'' public comments on the Report, and proposed recommendations submitted by the public may be reviewed, and recommendations and comments may be submitted, at http://www.electricity.doe. gov/news/blackout.cfm?section=news& level2=blackout. Comments also may be submitted by any of the following means: by e-mail to blackout.report@hq.doe.gov; by mail to James W. Glotfelty, Director, Office of Electric Transmission and Distribution, TD-1, Room 6H-050, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585; or by facsimile to (202) 586-1472. This notice is available on the Web at http://www.regulations.gov. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: David Meyer, Office of Electric Transmission and Distribution, U.S. Department of Energy, TD-1, Room 6H-050, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585, (202) 586- 1411. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On August 14, 2003, large portions of the Midwest and Northeast United States and Ontario, Canada, experienced an electric power blackout. The outage affected an area with an estimated 50 million people and 61,800 megawatts (MW) of [[Page 5331]] electric load in the states of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey and the Canadian province of Ontario. The blackout began a few minutes after 4 p.m. eastern daylight time (16:00 e.d.t.), and power was not restored for two days in some parts of the United States. Parts of Ontario suffered rolling blackouts for more than a week before full power was restored. On August 15, 2003, President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chr[eacute]tien directed that a joint U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force be established to investigate the causes of the blackout and how to reduce the possibility of future outages. Since the Task Force was formed, it has been investigating the causes of the outage and is currently engaged in developing recommendations concerning how to reduce the possibility of future outages and to minimize the scope of any outages that do occur. In November 2003, the Task Force issued an Interim Report, which is available on the Web at the Internet address identified in the ADDRESSES section of this notice. The Interim Report presented the facts that the bi-national investigation had found regarding the causes of the August 14, 2003, blackout. When it issued the Interim Report, the Task Force requested that the public submit comments on any aspect of the Report. The Task Force also called for interested parties to submit proposed recommendations for the Task Force's consideration. Subsequently, three public meetings were held at which Task Force representatives received public comments and proposed recommendations. Those meetings were held on December 4, 2003, in Cleveland, Ohio, on December 5, 2003, in New York, New York, and on December 8, 2003, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Numerous parties also have submitted written comments and recommendations, all of which are available for public inspection at the Internet address identified in the ADDRESSES section of this notice. All persons interested in submitting comments on the Interim Report, proposed recommendations, and/or comments on proposed recommendations, must submit their comments to the Task Force by the date specified in the DATES section of this notice; after that date, no further submissions will be entertained. Comments must be submitted to one of the addresses listed in the ADDRESSES section of this notice. The Task Force will consider recommendations and comments received by the specified deadline when preparing the Task Force's final report. Issued in Washington, DC, on January 29, 2004. James W. Glotfelty, Director, Office of Electric Transmission and Distribution. [FR Doc. 04-2229 Filed 2-3-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 31 NYT: Rep. Tauzin Likely to Pass on a 13th Term By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG Published: January 31, 2004 [W] ASHINGTON, Jan. 30 — Representative Billy Tauzin, the Louisiana Republican who has been courted in recent weeks for lobbying positions with the motion picture and pharmaceutical industries, expects to leave public life this year, his spokesman said Friday. "He has pretty much closed the door on the idea of running for re-election," said the spokesman, Ken Johnson, confirming a report first published in The New Orleans Times-Picayune. "He has left it open a crack, just to see how he feels in the coming weeks, but he has pretty much decided in his own mind to move on." As chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Tauzin, 60, was a force in pushing last year's Medicare and energy bills through. He has long hinted he would resign, and many on Capitol Hill expected him to accept an offer to run the Motion Picture Association of America, the trade group representing the movie industry. But health issues, including a bleeding ulcer that sent him to the hospital twice in the past two months, persuaded Mr. Tauzin to turn down the motion picture job, and also to leave Congress, Mr. Johnson said. Recent reports that Mr. Tauzin is entertaining an offer to run Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, known as Pharma, have prompted criticism from House Democrats, who are calling it a conflict of interest. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home| ***************************************************************** 32 Internetnews: Tauzin Resigns Key Technology Committee internetnews.com February 4, 2004 By Roy Mark U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-LA), one of the most influential players on Internet and technology issues in Congress, is resigning his chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee effective Feb. 16 and will not seek re-election in November. Tauzin's office confirmed Wednesday that the 12-term Congressman hand delivered his resignation letter to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) Tuesday night. The Energy and Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over the telecommunications and entertainment industries. The panel also sets the congressional agenda on energy, transportation and health-care issues. Rep. Joseph Barton (R-TX), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality, is considered the leading candidate to replace Tauzin. Throughout last year, it was widely rumored Tauzin would resign to take over Jack Valenti's $1 million a year position as president of the Motion Picture Association of America. Prior to that, political observers thought he would quit Congress to take the chief lobbying job with the Recording Industry Association of America, a position eventually filled by Mitch Bainwol, former chief of staff for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN). Several news reports now say Tauzin has been offered more than a $1 million a year to head the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a rumor that gained traction last week when Tauzin recused himself on several votes involving health care. Under Tauzin's leadership, the committee launched several initiatives to deregulate the Baby Bells, strongly supported Hollywood's efforts to stop online music and movie piracy, and started a probe into the troubled e-Rate program that subsidizes Internet technologies in public schools. It has recently begun lobbying the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to take a light approach to regulation regarding the emerging Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) industry. One of the most controversial bills backed by Tauzin was the 2002 Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act (H.R. 1542) that sought to allow regional Bell companies to enter the broadband market, limit access of their DSL circuits to competitors and impose a ban on FCC or state regulation of the rates, conditions for, or entry into high-speed Internet service. Widely known as the Tauzin-Dingell bill (the co-author was Democratic Rep. John Dingell of Michigan), the legislation passed the House on a 271-158 vote after a long afternoon of often rancorous debate. The bill never gained support in the Senate, where Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest "Fritz" Hollings (D-SC) proved to be an implacable foe to deregulating the Bells. Much of what Tauzin and Dingell sought in their bill was eventually enacted by the FCC last year. Although many of the FCC's provisions are now being contested in court. While Tauzin and Dingell cooperated on efforts to deregulate the Bells, they split last year on legislation designed to curb the flow of spam. Dingell, who supported an opt-out regime, said Tauzin's anti-spam proposal would create a new category of legal spam that would be exempt from state regulation. Tauzin's version ultimately prevailed in the Can Spam Act signed by President Bush last December. Tauzin has also been a leading critic of the E-Rate program, the nation's $2.25 billion initiative to help schools and libraries connect to the Internet. After a year-long investigation, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on its findings later this month. Tauzin, 60, was first elected to Congress in 1980 as a Democrat, but switched to the Republican Party in 1995. Shortly after changing parties, he was appointed as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. internetnews.com Copyright 2004 Jupitermedia Corporation All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 33 Las Vegas SUN: Tauzin's resignation won't help Nevada's Yucca fight SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS WASHINGTON -- A leadership change in the House Energy and Commerce Committee will not make Nevada's fight against Yucca Mountain any easier, one member of Nevada's Congressional delegation said this morning. Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., is stepping down as chairman of one of the most powerful committees in Congress, and is considering an offer to become the top lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry. Tauzin, who has spent nearly 24 years in Congress, informed House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Tuesday that he would give up his chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee, effective Feb. 16. He has been a strong supporter of the Energy Department's plan to store 77,000 tons of nuclear waste at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, voting in favor of the project and various related legislation numerous times, said Amy Spanbauer, spokeswoman for Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, on Tuesday met with Hastert to press his desire for the chairmanship. Barton, a former oil industry engineer and chairman of the Commerce energy and air quality subcommittee, is viewed as the most likely successor to Tauzin. Barton now heads the House Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee and introduced the House Resolution in April 2002 that eventually allowed the Yucca project to move forward to the licensing phase. "Joe Barton was at the President's side in the Oval Office when he signed the bill approving Yucca Mountain, and he has helped lead the charge in Congress to bury nuclear waste in Nevada," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said. "The Bush administration, has called for large increases in nuclear power and has looked to congressional allies like Joe Barton to help accomplish this goal. As chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, I assume that he will play an even greater role in pushing ahead with Yucca Mountain." Spanbauer said Congress still has oversight on the project but the main fight now is in the budget, which does not go through this committee. "It's still going to be the same uphill fight we've faced before," she said. "It's still 49 states against one." Tauzin does not plan to seek re-election in November and may leave Congress before then, said Ken Johnson, Tauzin's spokesman, adding that the Republican congressman has yet to decide what he will do next. But Tauzin, 60, is widely expected to accept a job as head of the Washington lobbying operation of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, which represents big drug manufacturers such as Eli Lilly and Co. and Merck &Co. The job offer has raised eyebrows since Tauzin's committee deals with critical legislation affecting the pharmaceutical industry. ***************************************************************** 34 TOMPAINE.com - The CIA Ate My Homework Robert Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Virginia, who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is currently working on a book about America's policy toward political Islam over the past 30 years. Can President Bush, Vice President Cheney and the Pentagon neoconservatives get away with blaming the Central Intelligence Agency for the mess in Iraq? They’re trying. In the year and half before the war began in March, Cheney and the neocons constantly disparaged the CIA for underestimating the threat posed by Iraq. In public and in private, they lambasted the agency for overcautiousness. Behind the scenes, they pressured analysts—not to mention George Tenet, the CIA director, whose spine seems made of soft clay—to find more, more, more evidence of Iraq’s WMD and of Iraq’s (nonexistent) connections to Al Qaeda. They created a mini-intelligence unit inside the Pentagon, staffed by neoconservative ideologues such as Abram Shulsky and David Wurmser, to scour mounds of intelligence tidbits and extract incriminating evidence to prove what wasn’t provable. They treated Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress as a virtual Oracle of Delphi, giving credence to the lying defectors and bogus intelligence he produced, even as the CIA warned that Chalabi was a fraud. They gave credence to the cockeyed theories of Laurie Mylroie, who believed not only that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 but that he was the mastermind behind Tim McVeigh’s Oklahoma City bombing, too. And, disregarding CIA warnings, they convinced Bush to say that Iraq was secretly trying to buy uranium for A-bombs in West Africa, even though the documents they cited were forged. Now, believe it or not, they want you to think that it was the CIA that got it wrong. That it was the CIA that presented the White House with alarmist intelligence about the supposed threat from Iraq. And that—acting on the CIA’s conclusions—the White House and Pentagon went to war. David Kay, who helped lead the snark hunt in Iraq that failed to find a thing, now says that the CIA owes Bush an apology, that he could find no evidence of political pressure on the CIA, and that it was all just a big mistake. “Sorry, world,” says Kay. “It was the CIA’s fault.” Yet Bush isn’t quite ready himself to go to war with the CIA—don’t expect him to demand an apology anytime soon. That’s the secret behind the White House’s decision to support an investigation into the Iraq intelligence mess. Faced with the nonexistence of WMD in Iraq, the White House finally realized that it couldn’t keep saying, in effect, “Wait a little longer. We’ll find them.” (Or, as Bush actually did say last summer, “We found them.”) But the president couldn’t attack the CIA himself. Not only would that look silly and unpresidential, but it would probably unleash a flood of resignations, op-eds by former CIA officials, leaks to the media by current ones, and more. The CIA may not be very good at covert operations, but they’d manage to run an effective one against the White House. So, aided by the malleable Kay, the White House decided to punt, calling for one of those Kissingeresque blue-ribbon commissions that will report back in, oh, say, 2005. And though its scope is supposedly undecided as yet, you can count on it picking apart years of CIA reports on Iraq while avoiding an inquiry into Cheney’s office and the Pentagon’s Shulsky-Wurmser Office of Special Plans. Same in Congress: the GOP-led intelligence committees have no intention of investigating the politically explosive Cheney-OSP nexus, and they’re resisting Democratic demands for a wider inquiry. The only important question doesn’t have anything to do with the commission the White House wants—whose conclusions will probably end up on President Kerry’s desk, anyway—or with the weak-kneed congressional panels. That question is: do the Democrats have the courage to make the Bush-Cheney lies and exaggerations over Iraq a campaign issue? Stay tuned. TomPaine.com Published: Feb 03 2004 ***************************************************************** 35 TOMPAINE.com: Chutzpah, Thy Name Is Perle Jim Lobe writes for Inter Press Service, an international newswire, and for Foreign Policy in Focus, a joint project of the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studiesand the New Mexico-based Interhemispheric Resource Center. Chutzpah—a Yiddish word that the dictionary defines as "unmitigated effrontery or impertinence, gall"—is best illustrated by a much-cited anecdote. "Chutzpah is when a man kills his mother and his father and then throws himself on the mercy of the court on the grounds that he is an orphan." In the last few days in Washington, however, prominent neoconservatives, particularly arch-hawk Richard Perle, are giving new meaning to the word. It wasn't enough that Perle, author of a new book titled An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terrorism, gave the keynote speech last week at a rally at the Washington Convention Center in solidarity for an Iranian rebel group officially listed by the State Department as a "foreign terrorist organization." (A self-described terrorism expert, Perle later pleaded ignorance about the rally's purpose, despite the fact that the Red Cross and the La Leche League had figured out the connection and withdrawn their own association with the event.) No, now Perle and his fellow neoconservatives are hailing chief U.S. weapons-of-mass-destruction hunter, David Kay. On resigning from his post last week, Kay charged that the intelligence community, and particularly the CIA, clearly exaggerated the size and scope of Saddam Hussein's alleged WMD programs. "I don't think they existed," he said, insisting that he himself, as well as the intelligence community, "were almost all wrong" about Iraq's alleged WMD stockpiles and reconstitution of Iraq's nuclear-arms program. "I have always thought our intelligence in the Gulf has been woefully inadequate," Perle, former chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board (DPB), confided to The New York Times after Kay disclosed his findings. You would think from that remark that Perle had spent the run-up to the Iraq invasion warning Congress and the public that the intelligence community had hyped the WMD threat posed by Saddam Hussein. But, if you thought that, of course, you would be dead wrong. No, Perle and his close associates—such as Center for Security Policy president Frank Gaffney and former CIA director James Woolsey—said quite the opposite: their single-minded message, repeated endlessly in op-ed columns, television interviews and Congressional testimony, was that the intelligence community was consistently underestimating the Iraqi threat in a deliberate effort to undermine the drive to war. Their campaign now—and there is an orchestrated campaign underway, make no mistake—is to blame the CIA for exaggerating the Iraqi threat must rank right up there with parenticidal orphans. It was Gaffney, a long-time Perle protégč who worked under him in Sen. "Scoop" Jackson's office and later at the Pentagon during the Reagan administration, for example, who was raising alarms over Hussein's non-existent "atomic and perhaps even thermonuclear weapons" even before 9/11. Hawking The War "He (Hussein) has weapons of mass destruction," Perle stated unequivocally as early as November 2001—even as his friends in the Pentagon were setting up their Office of Special Plans (OSP), an informal intelligence unit whose job it was to mine raw intelligence to find and disseminate the most threatening possible evidence of Iraq's WMD programs and alleged ties to Al Qaeda that the neoconservatives thought the CIA or even the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency had not given adequate credence. Perle even used his good offices as DPB chairman to ensure that "defectors" handled by his good friend Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC)—such as Khidir Hamza, a former nuclear scientist who stoked totally unfounded fears that Hussein was reconstituting his nuclear-weapons program—were given the widest possible exposure to policy-makers. Senior intelligence officials have since identified the INC's defectors as the source of a great deal of the mis-, if not dis-information, that skewed its assessments. For Perle, Hussein's WMD program was simply a given. "If (Hussein) eludes us and continues to refine, perfect and expand his arsenal of chemical and biological weapons," he testified to Congress in the fall of 2002, "the danger to us, already great, will only grow." The problem, of course, was that the arsenal whose existence was never subject to the slightest doubt by Perle and his friends didn't exist. Indeed, just two weeks before his friend Kay acknowledged there were simply no weapons to be found, Perle insisted to an audience at his home base, the American Enterprise Institute, "I don't think that you can draw any conclusion from the fact that stockpiles were not found." While Perle clearly assumed the existence of a massive WMD threat as described by his INC sources, he was even more expansive in the run-up to the war about Hussein's alleged operational ties to Al Qaeda, a notion for which only the political appointees at OSP could ever find even the slightest, but almost always uncorroborated, evidence. Perle, for example, has always insisted that 9/11's operational mastermind, Mohammed Atta, met with an Iraqi intelligence official, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, at a Prague cafe five months before the suicide hijackings, despite the fact that the CIA and the FBI have both concluded that Atta was in Florida at the time of the alleged meeting. When al-Ani was captured by U.S. forces last July, Perle declared that his version of events would soon be confirmed, but then, in a suggestion that the CIA could not be trusted, added, "a lot depends on who is doing the interrogating." By all accounts, al-Ani has steadfastly denied ever meeting Atta, a problem Perle has not addressed lately. An Axe To Grind Against The CIA Perle and his fellow-neocons' contempt for the CIA dates to the 1970s when he and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused the agency of being naive about Soviet strategic capabilities and intentions. That set the pattern. To Perle, the CIA, like the State Department, has long been a haven for naive and foolish "liberals" incapable of understanding just how dangerous and threatening the enemy—any enemy—really is. "Over time, it has become an agency with very strong, mostly liberal policy views, and these views have again and again distorted its analysis and presentation of its own information," Perle wrote in An End to Evil, which was co-authored by former White House speechwriter, David Frum. "The CIA is blinded, too, by the squeamishness that many liberal-minded people feel about noticing the dark side of third world cultures," he continued, arguing that this is especially true of the Arab world. "The CIA's reports on the Middle East today are colored by similar ideological biases—exacerbated by poor understanding of the region's culture and a politically correct disinclination to acknowledge unflattering facts about non-Western peoples." "(D)ata yields useful information only if it is analyzed without ideological prejudices or institutional biases," according to Perle's book. "A good intelligence analyst must constantly question his own ideas about the phenomena he studies." Good advice. Now, if only Perle and his fellow-neocons had applied it to themselves, their own assessments might not have been so much worse than the CIA's. Published: Feb 03 2004 ***************************************************************** 36 Washington Post: Deficit Spurs GOP To Trim Energy Bill (washingtonpost.com) $24 Billion in Tax Breaks Under Fire By Dan Morgan and Juliet Eilperin Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, February 4, 2004; Page A04 A far-reaching energy bill pending in Congress fell victim yesterday to rising Republican concerns about the budget deficit, as the Senate's chief sponsor announced he was abandoning efforts to pass it in its present form. Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), a key advocate of the bill who chairs the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, said it was "necessary, in light of current deficit numbers, to trim spending every way we can." He said he was ordering his staff to draw up a "leaner" version. It will have to pass muster with the White House and GOP fiscal conservatives, who have objected to the $24 billion in tax breaks and $7 billion in other incentives. The legislation is the most comprehensive piece of energy legislation since 1992. It would provide benefits to oil and gas drillers, utilities, the coal industry, producers of wind power, and, through subsidies for corn-based ethanol fuel, farmers in the upper Midwest. An effort to bring it up for a vote last year was narrowly defeated by a bipartisan group of senators who objected to its costs and other provisions. But in the last few weeks, rising GOP worries about the political fallout from soaring deficit numbers has chilled efforts to pass the legislation. The sudden shadow cast by the deficit was evident yesterday as Republican leaders pledged to support President Bush's call to rein in spending in the 2005 budget and indicated they might go further than the president. GOP leaders said, for example, that they might try to freeze nonmilitary programs at this year's level, for an additional savings of $2 billion. But even as senior GOP officials lined up behind the administration's budget proposal, there were hints of the budget battles that lie ahead. Republican lawmakers acknowledged the deficit could not be cured simply by holding the line on the non-defense programs that they control in annual spending bills. In the administration's $2.4 trillion budget for 2005, these programs account for $386 billion. "Everything needs to be on the table," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). Some GOP moderates, meanwhile, expressed deep misgivings about Bush's spending plan. Rep. Michael N. Castle (R-Del.) suggested Republicans should reconsider their drive to make Bush's tax cuts permanent. Citing testimony by U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker, Castle said economic growth would not get the government out of its fiscal hole, nor could the budget ever be balanced if the GOP insisted on leaving untouched defense and homeland security spending -- not to mention the Bush tax cuts and entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare. "You have to put everything on the table -- tax cuts, mandatory spending, discretionary spending," Castle said. "You can't balance the budget dealing with 17 percent of the budget. You just can't do that." House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) said his panel "will be carefully scrutinizing the administration's new initiatives and proposed funding increases to see if we can afford them in a lean budget year. . . . They will have to be reconciled with proven programs and traditional congressional priorities." The Bush budget rescinds some $12 billion worth of programs but adds $14 billion in new spending. While sharply increasing spending on Bush priorities -- such as defense and research that benefits the utility and coal industries -- it cuts or eliminates several favorite congressional programs. Funding for highly popular local law enforcement programs, for example, was slashed or eliminated. Domenici called the administration's decision to "decimate" funding for nuclear research "shortsighted" and indicated he would work to restore the funding. Some conservatives have coalesced around a plan to impose a freeze on Bush's 0.5 percent spending increase on discretionary, nonmilitary domestic spending. Saving $2 billion, they say, will send an important message to Americans. "It sends the signal we're now serious about this deficit," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). Some lawmakers also are exploring how to restrain mandatory spending. "Most members across our conference are hearing from people at home that they're sick of the spending," said Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), who chairs the conservative Republican Study Committee. Republican jitters over the deficit have spilled into the debate on a six-year transportation bill needed to reauthorize highway and transit programs. Negotiations continued yesterday in the House aimed at resolving sharp differences between GOP leaders and Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), chairman of the transportation committee. Fiscal conservatives have called for a deep cut in Young's proposed $375 billion, six-year bill, which would be financed in part by an increase in the gasoline tax. "There will be a much lower figure," said one senior GOP aide. Staff writer Jonathan Weisman contributed to this report. © 2004 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 37 Las Vegas SUN: Pakistan Scientist Said to Seek Reprieve Today: February 04, 2004 at 2:00:12 PST By MUNIR AHMAD ASSOCIATED PRESS ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - The founder of Pakistan's nuclear program asked President Gen. Pervez Musharraf for forgiveness Wednesday for spreading weapons secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, the government said. Abdul Qadeer Khan requested the meeting with Musharraf that was held in Rawalpindi, a city near the capital Islamabad where the Pakistani leader has his office, the government said in a statement. Khan requested he be forgiven in a "mercy petition" to Musharraf, considering the services he had rendered to Pakistan's nuclear program, the government said. The president told him the "entire nation had been severely traumatized" by the revelations of proliferation. Khan "accepts full responsibility for all the proliferation activities, which were conducted by him during the period in which he was at the helm of affairs at Khan Research Laboratories," the government said. Khan founded the lab in the 1970s and headed it until retiring in 2001. Khan told state-run PTV in an interview that Musharraf had been "extremely kind and understanding." "We discussed this ongoing affair, the international campaign against Pakistan about nuclear matters," Khan said. "I explained ... the background on what was happening and what had happened, and he appreciated the frankness with which I gave him the details." It was the first public statement by Khan since the investigation into the proliferation allegations began more than two months ago. Khan was sacked as a government adviser Saturday, and officials say he has confessed in a written statement to selling nuclear technology. A friend of the scientist said Tuesday that Khan told him he gave nuclear weapons technology to other countries with the full knowledge of top army officials, including Musharraf. Khan has been told by authorities to stay at his Islamabad home where he is guarded with tight security. A leading Islamic party said Tuesday Khan told its leader that he didn't sign a confession. A government statement issued after the meeting with Musharraf said Khan realized his proliferation activities, "which were in clear violation of different Pakistani laws, could have seriously jeopardized Pakistan's nuclear capability and put the nation at risk." "Khan expressed his regrets and said that he is likely to make a statement to the nation," the government said. The statement said that the president would consult with the National Command Authority that controls Pakistan's nuclear assets before taking a final decision on Khan's plea for mercy. Musharraf was due to address the nation in the coming days to announce what action will be taken against Khan and six other suspects in the case. Previously, the government has promised to take legal action against anyone proved of wrongdoing. However, analysts say a public prosecution could prove embarrassing to the government if it implicates top military figures. Khan's alleged admissions have shocked many in Pakistan, and raised questions about how he could have spread nuclear technology without the consent of the military - which has often ruled Pakistan since the country gained independence from Britain in 1947. Two retired army chiefs have told investigators they didn't authorize nuclear transfers. Musharraf and other government officials have repeatedly ruled out official involvement in proliferation. Pakistan began its probe into allegations of nuclear proliferation in November after Iran and Libya gave information to the U.N. nuclear watchdog. -- ***************************************************************** 38 PRAVDA.Ru: Russian Defense Ministry to conduct first big military exercise in 25 years - [PRAVDA.RU] Last updated: 02/04/04 13:17 MSK 02/04/2004 13:17 Strategic military exercise is in this year plan of military training and is scheduled for mid-February under supervision of Commander-in-Chief, President Vladimir Putin. The exercise will resemble the scenario of that in 1982 called "7-hour nuclear war" by Western countries. Currently General Staff Commander, Army General Mikhail Kvashnin is checking the readiness of Privolzhsko - Uralski Military District for the exercise. One of the exercise elements will be training practical skills of commanding troops in "special period" - the military uses this name for the period preceding the war. The exercise will resemble the scenario of that in 1982 called "7-hour nuclear war" by Western countries. After that military exercise President Reigan initiated Strategic Defense Initiative - Star Wars Program. In 1982 the USSR conducted the biggest exercise for its nuclear missile military force. On June 18 in 7-hour-period two inter-continental UR-100 ballistic missiles from shafts and RSM-50 ballistic missile from the 667BD nuclear-powered submarine were launched. The UR-100 missile warheads were intercepted by two A-350R counter-missiles, and RSM-50 hit the target in Kura ground in Kamchatka. In addition, intermediate-range 15ZH45 missile was launched from Kapustin Yar ground in the South of Russia. Also, in 2-hour period three space devices were lunched: IS-P (Kosmos-1379) intercepting satellite, Zenit-6 (Kosmos-1380) spy satellite from Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan, and Parus navigating satellite from Plesetsk Space Center in the North of Russia. Kosmos-1379 satellite intercepted Lira special target imitating US navigating Transit satellite. This time Moscow notified Washington in advance about the scheduled military exercise to avoid negative reaction of the> USA. According to Russian official version, the exercise is conducted within the framework of fighting the terrorist threat for the country. This year strategic exercise will be on smaller scale than that of 1982, but the biggest one since that time. More military units will be involved in it, including long-range strategic aviation and the command of frontier and interior troops. First all 14 TU-160 strategic bombers of Heavy Bombers Division 22 in Engels, Volga area, will take off after alert signal. Part of the air squadron will fly to the North Atlantic area and will practice shooting cruise missiles there, and another part will fly to Arctic and Siberia. On the way back the bombers will be refueled by Il-78M refueling planes of Air Squadron 203 in Ryazan area. Other Tu-22MZ long-range strategic bombers of Air Squadrons 52 and 840 will hit the grounds in Vladimirovka (Astrakhan region) with missiles and bombs. Simultaneously Topol inter-continental ballistic missile will be launched at Kura ground in Kamchatka. Then 667BDRM strategic missile submarine will launch RSM-54 ballistic missile from the Barents Sea area. Also, Space Force will launch military satellites from Plisetsk and Baiconur space stations. In this way the General Staff plans to imitate the replacement of the satellites lost during the hypothetic military action. Launching Topol and RSM-50 missiles and Molnia-M and Zenit-2 space rockets is going to be detected by Moscow A-135 ant-missile defense system which will be put on high military alert during the exercise. After the exercise completion, Commander-in -Chief Vladimir Putin will analyze and sum up the performance of the Defense Ministry and General Staff, the commanders of Moscow, Leningrad and Privolzhsko - Uralski Military Districts, Northern Fleet, strategic missile and space military forces. Source: Read the original in Russian: (Translated by: Andrey Nesterov) L1999-2002 "PRAVDA.Ru". When reproducing our materials in ***************************************************************** 39 Guardian Unlimited: Threat to British Energy rescue 'Fog of war' plan to protect N-plants Heather Tomlinson Wednesday February 4, 2004 The Guardian US vulture fund Appaloosa is understood to have retained advisers to investigate whether the rescue package for nuclear generator British Energy could be challenged in court. Appaloosa has retained Bingham McCutchen, a US law firm that has restructuring expertise in the UK, to see if there are ways to challenge the deal, according to sources close to the situation. Neither party would comment, but it was revealed that Appaloosa bought 28m shares last week. It has a reputation for aggression, after taking leading roles in the restructuring of telecoms firms Marconi and NTL. British Energy, its creditors and the government signed a rescue deal in October that gives bondholders almost complete ownership of the company, following its financial difficulties. The government will take on Ł3.9bn of liabilities associated with the future dismantling of nuclear power stations. However, the market for wholesale electricity has since improved and the bonds are trading at well above their face value, indicating shareholders have received a raw deal. The agreement must get European approval which will not come before the summer. Shareholders will then vote on it, although sources close to the company say that if it was not approved investors would get nothing as it would go bust. If Appaloosa decides to challenge the deal it could use the threat of a no-vote as leverage. However, company advisers are confident that there is no way of challenging the deal. Appaloosa bought into the shares for about 4p last week to gain a 4.6% stake. The subsequent rise to yesterday's close of 7.9p could stop any further action by Appaloosa, as it would need to buy a bigger stake to influence the situation. It could have sold in the past couple of days and made a profit, hedge fund specialists said yesterday, after looking at the level of trading in the shares. British Energy and its advisers have not yet been contacted by Appaloosa, sources close to the situation said. Guardian Newspapers Limited ***************************************************************** 40 Daily Times: Op-ed: Reinforcing nuclear secrecy —M V Ramana February 05, 2004 There is little technical basis for classifying the potential problems listed in the AERB report. Knowledge of such deficiencies would not reveal the “nuclear programme potential” or be in any way detrimental to national security On January 6, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that information relating to nuclear installations in India could not be made public. Justifying its decision, the Court said that the citizen’s fundamental right to information was subject to restrictions in the interest of national security. The judgment reinforces the widespread secrecy imposed on nuclear activities in the country. As the Indian Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) stated, the “verdict bodes ill for Indian democracy.” The genesis of the case is as follows. In 1995, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), which oversees the safe running of all civilian nuclear facilities in the country, initiated an evaluation of the safety status of all nuclear installations. The resulting report identified about 130 safety issues, of which about 95 were considered “top priority.” Many of these problems had been identified in earlier Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) evaluations in 1979 and 1987. But the DAE had not acted on these problems and they were again identified as dangerous in the 1995 AERB report. Not surprisingly the DAE kept the AERB report a secret. When news of the report came out, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) filed a public interest petition in the Bombay High Court calling for the contents of the AERB report to be made public. The Sarvodaya Mandal of Mumbai, a Gandhian organisation, also filed a supporting petition. Their primary argument was that safety dangers in nuclear plants constituted a challenge to people’s “right to life” and that the people also had the “right to know.” In response, R Chidambaram, then the head of the DAE, filed an affidavit claiming that if the AERB report was “required to be published, then it will cause irreparable injury to the interests of the State and will be prejudicial to national security.” Other senior officials in the nuclear establishment also submitted affidavits assuring the Court that all nuclear plants were safe. As B K Subba Rao, the lawyer who represented PUCL and a trained nuclear engineer himself, noted: “To assure nuclear safety through affidavits is a unique invention of our nuclear establishment.” On the basis of the affidavits submitted by the pro-nuclear establishment, the Bombay High Court dismissed the petition from PUCL and the Sarvodaya Mandal. The two citizens groups then appealed to the Supreme Court to overturn the judgment. A Gopalakrishnan, who headed the AERB when the 1995 report was prepared, was also a petitioner. He contended that “serious nuclear accidents” could take place at some nuclear plants. It is this petition that the Supreme Court rejected last month. Attorney-general Soli Sorabjee, who represented the government and the DAE, claimed that the AERB report would reveal to “enemies” data containing “inventories, spent fuel, waste, etc, facilitating the calculation of the country’s nuclear programme potential.” Its contents, therefore, should not be revealed even in the name of “fundamental right to information.” The Court appears to have essentially accepted this line of reasoning without subjecting these contentions to careful scrutiny. It is worth examining what is publicly known about the problems listed in the AERB report. Some of these have been discussed by Gopalakrishnan in various articles in magazines and journals. One of the lacunae related to serious deficiencies in the emergency core cooling systems in some of the operating power reactors. Another related to certain system components or internals that were either cracked or structurally weakened over the years, needing repairs or replacement. Other problems involved the reactor instrumentation and protection systems, which had degraded the reliability and safety of the reactors. These examples are illustrative of the problems identified by the AERB as likely to lead to serious accidents. There is little technical basis for classifying the potential problems listed in the AERB report. Knowledge of such deficiencies would not reveal the “nuclear programme potential” or be in any way detrimental to national security. However, revealing the details of this problem could provoke understandable and justifiable concern among citizens who live in the vicinity of such power plants. It is that outcome that is perhaps most feared by the establishment. There is also no reason for keeping the “nuclear programme potential” a secret. It appears that most, if not all, of the reactors addressed in the AERB report are purportedly only for the purpose of producing electricity and not for military purposes. The capacity and broad design features of these reactors are publicly available at a number of places including the Internet sites of the DAE and the Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC). The NPC site itself features technical articles on the safety of nuclear reactors. Again, this is an argument for why the AERB report be made publicly available. In fact, the DAE should have been ordered to correct any safety related problems promptly or close down the nuclear facility. There are precedents for such decisions. In 2000 the Supreme Court ordered that polluting industries in New Delhi’s residential areas be shut down. The blanket censorship of the entire AERB report on account of purported national security considerations points to how deeply nuclear thinking has permeated elite consciousness. The legal community in India had a significant role in shaping India’s submission to the World Court as it considered the question of the legality of nuclear weapons. The Indian submission argued eloquently against nuclear deterrence and that “the use of nuclear weapons even by way of reprisal or retaliation appears to be unlawful”. A couple of years later, in March 1996, the Indian Foreign Secretary Salman Haider stated, “We do not believe that the acquisition of nuclear weapons is essential for our national security and we have followed a conscious decision in this regard.” The Supreme Court decision, on the other hand, goes far in the opposite direction in arguing that even maintaining secrecy at nuclear reactors and other facilities is essential for India’s national security. Such secrecy and the likely resultant safety lapses are more likely to prove a threat to the security and well-being of Indians and perhaps even those living in other countries in the region. M V Ramana is a physicist and research staff member at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security and co-editor of Prisoners of the Nuclear Dream Home | Editorial Daily Times - All Rights Reserved Site developed and hosted by WorldCALL Internet Solutions ***************************************************************** 41 Straits Times: Malaysian probe finds no Libyan nuclear links FEB 5, 2004 THU By Leslie Lau MALAYSIA has denied the existence of any plant here manufacturing parts for Libya's secret nuclear weapons programme. That is the outcome so far of on-going investigations into Malaysian-made centrifuge parts found aboard a cargo ship bound for Libya last October. Inspector-General of Police Datuk Seri Bakri Omar issued a statement yesterday revealing that a Sri Lankan named BSA Tahir had engaged a Malaysian firm, controlled by the only son of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, that produced the parts seized by Italian authorities. But investigations so far show the parts seized were for 'legitimate' purposes. Centrifuges are used for enriching uranium for nuclear reactors or fissile material for bombs. The five containers that were seized were marked with the name Scomi Precision Engineering (Scope), a subsidiary of Scomi Group. The group, controlled by Mr Kamaludin Abdullah, is involved in the oil and gas services industry. Malaysian police received American and British intelligence in November and began investigating Mr Tahir, said to be a businessman based in Dubai. 'In 2001, BSA Tahir offered a contract to Scope to supply components said by him to be for a legitimate business transaction,' said Datuk Seri Bakri. Initial investigations showed the parts could also be used for the petrochemical industry, for water treatment and for medical purposes. The Straits Times ***************************************************************** 42 New Straits Times: We lack know-how to make nuke parts -Malaysia News Online Thursday, February 05 2004, KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 4: Malaysia does not have the technological sophistication to produce components of nuclear weaponry, Inspector-General of Police Datuk Seri Moha-med Bakri Omar said. Police investigations show that no local company has produced, nor has the ability to produce, "uranium centrifuges" for making nuclear weapons. Bukit Aman's investigations revealed that highly specialised and sophisticated technology was required in the production of such components, and that foreign news reports alleging Malaysian companies' involvement in this were baseless. In a Press statement issued today, Bakri said a thorough and trans-parent investigation was being conducted and that they were working closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN agency responsible for monitoring compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Special Branch was contacted by CIA and British Intelligence Agency MI6 on Nov 10 concerning the confiscation of five containers of "centrifuges" from the cargo ship, BBC China, in Taranto, Italy, on Oct 4 last year. The ship was bound for Libya, with the components in crates bearing the name and logo of Scomi Precision Engineering Sdn Bhd (SCOPE), a subsidiary of Scomi Group Bhd, which fabricates and supplies specialised tooling equipment to the oil, gas, automotive and general components industries. Both the CIA and MI6 alleged that Sri Lankan B.S.A. Tahir and Dubaibased businessmen were middlemen in supplying the components from Malaysia for Libya's uranium enrichment programme. Initial investigations revealed that Tahir in 2001 had proposed a contract to SCOPE to prepare the components as a legitimate business deal, said Bakri. "SCOPE had received the proposal to produce the components at a factory in Shah Alam," he said. Police also found that the confiscated components could also be used in petrochemical, water treatment and medical equipment for protein spearation in molecular biology. "Nuclear experts also have difficulty determining positively that the confiscated components were part of the centrifuge unit." Both SCOPE and Tahir are cooperating fully with the authorities. Tahir has not been detained as alleged by the foreign media. In a separate statement, Scomi Group acknowledged that it had supplied 14 semi-finished components to Gulf Technical Industries (GTI), a Dubai-based corporation, without knowledge of their intended use. The contract was made public during Scomi's listing on the Second Board of the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange in May last year. The components were shipped in four consignments from December 2002 to August 2003, since when the company had not received any further orders from GTI. The total value of the contract was RM13 million, which accounts for 3.5 per cent of the group's turnover of about RM360 million over the period. Copyright © 2004 NST Online. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 43 Atlantic County News: Nuclear regulators scold Salem County N-facility February 4, 2004 By THOMAS BARLAS Staff Writer, (609) 272-7201, E-Mail SALEM COUNTY - The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC, citing a history of lax safety at the Salem nuclear facility, recently gave plant operators a scathing rebuke and 30 days to draft sweeping changes in safety procedures. The NRC told PSEG Nuclear in a recent letter to "address any situations that significantly detract from maintenance of a strong safety conscious work environment." NRC Regional Administrator Hubert Miller said regulators doubt PSEG Nuclear's ability to effectively address safety concerns. "While to this point, we have not identified any serious safety violations, collectively, information gathered has led to concerns about the station's work environment, particularly as it relates to the handling of emergent equipment issues and associated operational decision making," the letter said. The Lower Alloways Creek Township facility, the second largest in the nation, hosts the Salem I, Salem II and Hope Creek nuclear reactors nestled on one 292-acre site. The NRC gave PSEG Nuclear 30 days to conduct an internal analysis and issue a public report. Within two weeks of that report, Miller said, NRC regulators want to meet with PSEG Nuclear to settle all qualms. Inquiries into the safety at Hope Creek and Salem began in 2003; the recent letter to the electric provider comes as an interim update on that probe. E. James Ferland, chairman of the Public Service Enterprise Group, parent of PSEG Nuclear, said in a statement that it has started the review. The company has made several management changes to correct the situation and will enact any recommendations to come out of the report, according to Ferland. "The NRC's letter addresses workplace environment issues that we have been fully aware of for a period of time," he said in the written statement. "We must work diligently to continue this improvement in the workplace environment and believe we have the resources and organization to do so." Norm Cohen of the UNPLUG Salem campaign again called for the government to halt operations at the Salem reactors until all safety issues are resolved. OCEAN COUNTY Freeholders seek stormwater pollution control Ocean County's freeholders want local officials to join and develop a plan to reduce pollution carried into the rivers and bay by storm water. If the offer they made is accepted, the county's Environmental Joint Insurance Fund would lead the planning effort, and money already available from the Barnegat Bay Estuary Program, about $187,000, would help pay for it. Thirty-one towns are part of the Environmental Joint Insurance Fund. Berkeley Township and Mantoloking are not, but will be invited to take part in the planning effort. Planning and implementation will take five years, the freeholders said. NEW JERSEY State parks and forests need stable funding A state task force report suggests that a new stable funding source, training programs and renewed attention to natural resources protection are among solutions to long-standing problems in New Jersey's state parks and forests. With a projected need for $220 million in capital improvements, the starved Division of Parks and Forestry budget might benefit from corporate sponsorship, dedicated tax revenue or even using existing state public works bond funds, the report says. This year, the parks division aims to complete its restorations of the High Point Monument, a hilltop obelisk at 1,800 feet above sea level in the northwest corner of the state, and the Batsto village visitor center on the pine forest flatlands of Burlington County. But overall, the report portrays a frank picture of an agency behind on its mandate, and sorely hurt by years of tight budgets and short-staffing. The state parks task force got started in September, when state Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell called for a comprehensive review of the parks and forest system and its future needs. The project has since taken on a broader agenda, with suggestions to bring together the state's wildlife, forestry and ecosystem experts under a new Office of Natural Resources Management. According to the report, the parks workforce has lost many of its most experienced workers and managers through early retirement deals as state officials wrestled with the latest budget crisis. Despite those problems, parks workers have used "determination and ingenuity ... to do more with less" to serve park patrons, the report authors wrote. They recommend a "capacity analysis" to be performed for each state park to figure out what they need to function, and where expansions of recreation might work. The task force also called for training programs and minimal staffing levels to make sure that visitors get adequate service, and natural resources in the parks are protected. A substantial part of the report is dedicated to issues with park rangers, including training, command structures and workloads. CAMDEN COUNTY Route 42 I-295 interchange upgrade advances The original 26 alternatives for improving the intersection of Route 42 and Interstate 295 have been narrowed to a handful, according to the state Department of Transportation, or DOT. State and local officials have long acknowledged the interchange to be the worst traffic bottleneck in southern New Jersey. The interchange - located within Mount Ephraim, Gloucester City and Bellmawr - routinely clogs because it forces traffic from the two major highways to merge and interweave. The object of the improvements is to give I-295 its own alignment, so its traffic no longer has to weave in and out of Route 42 traffic before proceeding on its way. The DOT's tentative schedule calls for selecting an alternative and drafting an environmental impact statement by the end of next year, designing the improvements in 2006-07 and actually constructing sometime between 2008 and 2011. The cost has been placed at $100 million to $200 million, depending on the complexity of the alternative selected. BERGEN COUNTY Solar-powered business doing well Another business is taking advantage of the fertile legislative environment in New Jersey for solar-electric systems. Texas-based Whole Foods Market, an organic and natural foods supermarket, has introduced solar energy as a power source in its store in Edgewater, Bergen County, by installing solar panels made by BP Solar on the facility's roof. According to Whole Foods Market, the cost-effective approach to energy efficiency and sustainability reflects the company motto, "Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet," by highlighting the company's mission to find success in customer satisfaction and wellness, employee excellence and happiness, enhanced shareholder value, community support, and environmental sustainability. Whole Foods Market, BP Solar and SunEdison worked together to create a 120-kilowatt solar electric system to power the Edgewater store. The system will meet more than 20 percent of Edgewater store's needs. The solar array, composed of BP Solar panels covering 14,000 square feet on the store's roof, turns the sun's free energy into usable power. These solar panels are electrically interconnected to inverters, which feed high-quality AC power to the store's existing electrical system and the utility grid at large. New Jersey has made solar power more attractive by offering rebates for businesses interested in installing solar panels. The state's Clean Energy Program allocates approximately $35 million per year for homeowners and businesses to install solar and other renewable energy systems. To e-mail Thomas Barlas at The Press: TBarlas@pressofac.com ***************************************************************** 44 NRC: Decon fund changes RIN 3150-AH32 FR Doc 04-2240 [Federal Register: February 4, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 23)] [Rules and Regulations] [Page 5267-5268] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04fe04-5] Minor Changes to Decommissioning Trust Fund Provisions AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Direct final rule: Confirmation of effective date. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------ SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is confirming the effective date of December 24, 2003, for the direct final rule that was published in the Federal Register on November 20, 2003 (68 FR 65386). This direct final rule amended the NRC's regulations related to decommissioning trust fund provisions to correct typographical errors and make minor changes to a final rule promulgated by the NRC in December of 2002. EFFECTIVE DATE: The effective date of December 24, 2003, is confirmed for this direct final rule. ADDRESSES: Documents related to this rulemaking may be examined at the NRC Public Document Room, located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. These same documents may also be viewed and downloaded electronically via the rulemaking Web site [[Page 5268]] ruleforum.llnl.gov). For information about the interactive rulemaking Web site, contact Ms. Carol Gallagher (301) 415-6219, e-mail: CAG@nrc.gov. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Brian J. Richter, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555, Telephone (301) 415-1978, e-mail: bjr@nrc.gov. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On November 20, 2003 (68 FR 65386), the NRC published a direct final rule amending its regulations in 10 CFR part 50 related to decommissioning trust fund provisions to correct typographical errors and make minor changes to a final rule entitled ``Decommissioning Trust Provisions,'' promulgated by the NRC on December 24, 2002 (67 FR 78332). In the direct final rule, NRC stated that if no significant adverse comments were received, the direct final rule would become effective on December 24, 2003. The NRC did not receive any comments on the direct final rule. Therefore, this rule is effective as scheduled. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 29th day of January, 2004. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Michael T. Lesar, Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of Administration. [FR Doc. 04-2240 Filed 2-3-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 45 toledoblade.com: Reactor back to full power at Fermi II Wednesday, February 04, 2004 NEWPORT, Mich. - Detroit Edison Co. said yesterday that its Fermi II nuclear plant in northern Monroe County is back at full power. The plant was reduced to 60 percent of its normal capacity in late January after the company decided it needed to investigate two minor steam leaks it had found in the facility’s high-pressure turbine, one of several large pieces of equipment on the station’s non-nuclear generation side. The leaks were in the same instrument manifold used to monitor the flow and pressure of steam used to generate electricity. One of the two leaks was fixed. The other will be repaired either during the next reduced-power event or when the plant is taken off-line for refueling in the fall, John Austerberry, a spokesman for the utility, said. Fermi II was back at full power as of 2 a.m. Saturday, he said. © 2004 The Blade. The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660 , (419) 724-6000 ***************************************************************** 46 toledoblade.com: Davis-Besse gets vote of confidence from NRC Wednesday, February 04, 2004 Utility may be fined for 1998 deficiency By TOM HENRY BLADE STAFF WRITER The Nuclear Regulatory Commission now has "reasonable confidence" in FirstEnergy Corp. to provide complete and accurate information about Davis-Besse, a new agency report says. Even so, the utility faces the prospect of a fine for deficiencies cited in a 1998 report, the NRC said. It did not characterize the errors as intentional or unintentional. The trust issue surfaced following the near-rupture of Davis-Besse’s reactor head, a dangerously thin condition discovered on March 6, 2002. Years of uncontrolled reactor acid leakage caused the worst corrosion of its kind in U.S. nuclear history and put northern Ohio on the brink of the nation’s biggest nuclear accident since Three Mile Island in 1979. While criminal investigators continue their probe into what FirstEnergy may have known prior to the plant’s shutdown on Feb. 16, 2002, the NRC sought assurances that such problems would not happen again. On Jan. 28, 2003, the NRC’s oversight panel revised its restart checklist for Davis-Besse with a stipulation that FirstEnergy come up with a plan for ensuring that future submittals are complete and accurate. The delicate nature of the topic was addressed during the final day of last April’s annual NRC Regulatory Information Conference in Washington. "We do have a sensitivity, post-Davis-Besse, to complete and accurate information. We do need to get that trust. We’re going to validate and verify the information we get," Jim Dyer, then-chief of the NRC’s Midwest regional office, said. Now the agency’s nuclear reactor regulation chief, Mr. Dyer is part of the NRC’s inner-circle for deciding Davis-Besse’s restart proposal. The decision is ultimately to be made by his successor, James Caldwell, after Mr. Caldwell confers with Mr. Dyer and Sam Collins, NRC deputy director of operations. The NRC’s oversight panel signed off on the completeness and accuracy checklist item following a private exit meeting on Nov. 12 between an inspector and FirstEnergy officials. The utility was notified in writing via a Jan. 28 letter. "It really is an attempt to assess how the company is doing now and will do in the future [if they’re allowed to restart]," Viktoria Mitlyng, a NRC spokesman, said. Although FirstEnergy gave the agency the confidence it sought, the utility faces the prospect of a fine for deficiencies cited in a company report to the NRC on Nov. 11, 1998. In that report, the utility claimed it had used qualified coatings to paint the inside of Davis-Besse’s reactor containment area. The NRC said it learned those coatings were not qualified and likely would have chipped in the event of an accident, clogging the emergency core coolant system’s containment sump screen. Clogging the screen would have impaired the sump’s ability to collect coolant water off the floor to be re-circulated, to stave off a meltdown, officials said. The problem was fixed during the outage. The utility repainted the containment area with qualified coatings, redesigned the screen, and made other changes to the coolant system, such as refurbishing the reactor’s high-pressure injection pumps. Richard Wilkins, a FirstEnergy spokesman, said he’s not sure if the utility will contest the finding. He said the company was of the belief the previous coatings were qualified. For earlier stories on Davis-Besse, go to www.toledoblade.com/davisbesse © 2004 The Blade.The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660 , (419) 724-6000 ***************************************************************** 47 NRC: Regulatory Guide; Issuance, Availability FR Doc E4-178 [Federal Register: February 4, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 23)] [Notices] [Page 5377] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04fe04-113] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued a revision of a guide in its Regulatory Guide Series. This series has been developed to describe and make available to the public such information as methods acceptable to the NRC staff for implementing specific parts of the NRC's regulations, techniques used by the staff in its review of applications for permits and licenses, and data needed by the NRC staff in its review of applications for permits and licenses. Revision 13 of Regulatory Guide 1.147, ``Inservice Inspection Code Case Acceptability, ASME Section XI, Division 1,'' has been reprinted, with a January 2004 date, to correct page 14, which had incomplete and duplicative text. The electronic versions of this guide, on the NRC Web page and in the ADAMS system, have had the correct page 14 since they were posted, but the printed version had an incorrect page 14. No changes were made in this version except to change page 14 and the date of the guide. Comments and suggestions in connection with items for inclusion in guides currently being developed or improvements in all published guides are encouraged at any time. Written comments may be submitted to the Rules and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington DC 20555. Questions on the content of this guide may be directed to Mr. W.E. Norris, (301)415-6796; email wen@nrc.gov. Regulatory guides are available for inspection or downloading at the NRC's Web site at http://www.nrc.gov under NRC Documents and in NRC's ADAMS System at the same site. Single copies of regulatory guides may be obtained free of charge by writing the Reproduction and Distribution Services Section, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, or by fax to (301) 415-2289, or by e-mail to distribution@nrc.gov. Issued guides may also be purchased from the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) on a standing order basis. Details on this service may be obtained by writing NTIS at 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, VA 22161; telephone 1-800-553-6847; http://www.ntis.gov. Regulatory guides are not copyrighted, and Commission approval is not required to reproduce them. (5 U.S.C. 552(a)) Dated in Rockville, MD, this 20th day of January, 2004. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Ashok C. Thadani, Director, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research. [FR Doc. E4-178 Filed 2-3-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 48 ITAR-TASS: Russian n-plants will generate 230 bln KWh a year by 2020 [ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia] 04.02.2004, 19.22 MOSCOW, February 4 (Itar-Tass) - The Russian nuclear power plants are expected to generate 230 billion KWh a year by 2020, Director-General of Rosenergoatom Concern Oleg Sarayev told a news conference at Itar-Tass on Wednesday. “We can reach these targets by completing the construction of a number of new power-generating units, operating the plants at 80 percent of their design capacity and extending the life circle of the first-generation units at the Russian nuclear plants, he said. “After 2010, we shall begin to construct new power-generating units equipped with VVER-1000 and VVER-1500 reactors at the Leningrad nuclear plant,” Sarayev said. “We also plan to build a fast breeder reactor with a capacity of no less than 1000 MW," said he. Thus “The concern has technical capacities capable of raising the production target from 230 billion KWh to 300 billion KWh a year after 2020,” said he. In 2003, the Rosenergoatom nuclear plants generated 148.6 KWh of electrical energy,” Sarayev added. © ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy, ***************************************************************** 49 [du-list] Gulf veterans hail urnaium poisoning ruling Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 20:10:18 -0800 Gulf Veterans Hail Uranium Poisoning Ruling By Rod Minchin, Scottish Press Association A former soldier has become the first veteran to win a war pension appeal after suffering depleted uranium poisoning during the Gulf War, it emerged today. Kenny Duncan took the Ministry of Defence to the Pension Appeal Tribunal Service over his claim that he suffered depleted uranium poisoning during active service in Iraq. The National Gulf Veterans and Families Association (NGVFA) said the tribunal’s verdict added to its call for a full public inquiry into Gulf War illnesses. The father of three, from Clackmannanshire, served with the Royal Corps of Transport as a specialist tank transporter during the first Gulf War in 1991. Part of his job was to move Iraqi tanks destroyed by depleted uranium shells. The campaign group said the Edinburgh-based tribunal, which ruled in Mr Duncan’s favour yesterday, accepted his claims that he was poisoned from inhaling depleted uranium dust from the burnt-out tanks. The tribunal found that Mr Duncan’s exposure to the uranium was attributable to his service in the Gulf. Shaun Rusling, chairman of the NGVFA, said the verdict was “justice”. He said: “The finding by the Pensions Appeal Tribunal was absolutely tremendous and extremely significant for Kenny Duncan. “It proves that his ill health was due to depleted uranium poisoning and it is great news for Kenny and his wife to at long last have his condition recognised. “The National Gulf Veterans and Families Association is extremely pleased that justice has been done.” Mr Rusling, a former Parachute Regiment medical officer, said that prior to the Gulf War the use of depleted uranium was “extremely experimental”. He said: “Prior to the war the Ministry of Defence advised the Army, who were based in Saudi Arabia, of the dangers of depleted uranium but the information never made it down to the troops. “Troops should not be exposed to anything experimental ­ the Ministry of Defence knew this.” But he went on to again demand that the Government hold a public inquiry into Gulf War illnesses. “It is now 13 years since the Gulf War and no depleted uranium tests have been made available to former servicemen ­ this is despicable and unacceptable,” he said. “There should be a public inquiry into the ill health suffered by Gulf War veterans. “Mr Blair talks about social justice but he still refuses to give servicemen a public inquiry and depleted uranium tests.” According to the association, 606 Gulf servicemen have died from ill health and a further 5,933 have applied for a war pension due to disablement. In November a coroner ruled that the death of Major Ian Hill was linked to his service in the Gulf War. Lawyers for his family described the verdict as a “landmark decision”, saying it would give hope to around 2,000 other veterans. The 54-year-old from Knutsford, Cheshire, died in March 2001 from a heart attack. He blamed a decade of failing health on Gulf War Syndrome caused by vaccinations and tablets he was given upon enlisting. In June the High Court refused to overturn a landmark ruling recognising the existence of the syndrome for the first time. But the Government still does not recognise the syndrome although it does accept some veterans did become ill. ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping" your friends today! Download Messenger Now http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com/download/index.html 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 ---------------------~--> 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/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 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/ ***************************************************************** 50 EUpolitix - Nuclear struggle recommences Member states will on Thursday make a last ditch attempt to agree on controversial nuclear safety laws, but a deadlock over handing national powers to Brussels looks unlikely to be broken. A suggested compromise on three European Commission proposals known collectively as the â€nuclear package’ will come up for discussion at a committee of national officials this week, with a view to getting the nod at an EU ambassadors' meeting in March. Sources say that the compromise text on nuclear safety now represents a major improvement on the original, with for example the idea of having two different regulatory bodies overseeing nuclear safety replaced with a call for one regulatory committee. Any remaining inconsistencies, say the sources, are not insurmountable but simply down to the fact that this proposal has been redrafted so many times in an attempt to please all parties. Nonetheless some member states are expected still to have trouble with the fact that the proposals would be legally binding. The nuclear package is being blocked by objections from the UK, Germany, Sweden and Finland, who all feel that it compromises the powers of their national safety authorities. They also claim that there is no need to replace the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which has decades of experience in checking up on the safety of Europe’s nuclear power plants. The Irish, who currently hold the rotating EU presidency, are ambitious for EU ambassadors to pass the dossier at one of their weekly 'Coreper' meetings in March, before final ministerial approval soon after. Thursday’s meeting of the technical 'Atomic Questions Group' thus offers the last chance of finding a solution before the proposals go to more formal meetings. Industry sources concede that it will be “very surprising” if any countries can be turned around once the package gets to Coreper. Failure to adopt the proposals before a new commission is selected in November would be seen as a big personal defeat for energy commissioner Loyola de Palacio, who has been their strongest advocate. The four objecting countries believe that voluntary – that is, non-binding – agreements would be a happier solution than new laws. But they may be getting anxious to reach a compromise before ten new member states join the EU on May 1. They are unlikely to find much support from the new countries and so their minority will be reduced to a size at which it can no longer block the proposals. If however the package has to be dropped altogether the commission would produce new – and possibly even more cumbersome – legislation. New proposals might no longer be based on Europe’s nuclear treaty (Euratom) – a legal change which could delay approval still further by calling for the approval of both council and parliament, rather than just the council as is now the case. The nuclear package consists of three proposals: on nuclear safety (the most controversial), nuclear waste and funding for nuclear power plants. Published: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 15:35:15 GMT+00 Emily Smith ©2004 EUpolitix.com ***************************************************************** 51 Japan Times: Fears over depleted uranium lead to GSDF use of dosimeters February 5, 2004 By NAO SHIMOYACHI Staff writer Responding to concerns over the use of depleted uranium rounds by the U.S. military during the Iraq war, the Defense Agency is equipping Ground Self-Defense Force troops in the country with hundreds of radiation dosimeters. Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba stressed in a Diet session Wednesday that the dosimeters will "allow (the GSDF) to assess the danger" of radiation, if any. But some experts and nongovernmental organizations have cast doubt on the effectiveness of the devices. They claim the dosimeters that Japanese troops carry are designed to detect only gamma and X-rays, while the most likely danger is posed by alpha rays. Uranium emits alpha and beta particles and gamma and X-rays in the process of its decay. Yuko Fujita, a professor of physics at Keio University, conducted a field trip in May to Iraq, including southern parts of the country where GSDF members are now being deployed. Fujita said he was only able to detect gamma rays from heavily contaminated objects, such as a destroyed Iraqi tank that was heavily riddled with depleted uranium rounds. "To detect gamma rays, you need to have a large amount of radiation," he said. More threatening, he said, are minute alpha particles that can remain in the air. These particles, undetectable by the dosimeters that Self-Defense Forces personnel will carry, are easily inhaled and can spread into a person's internal organs via the circulatory system. "They are only microns in size and hardly detectable," he said. "But still they pose grave threats to human bodies." A Tokyo-based manufacturer won a Defense Agency contract last month to supply dosimeters for the Iraq mission. The agency has reportedly purchased 600 devices at a cost of 45,000 yen each. Makoto Yanagida, a member of the Depleted Uranium Center Japan, a nongovernmental research group, said the GSDF would need to use higher-grade devices to detect alpha rays emanating from depleted uranium. The dosimeters that "do not work" could "do harm by giving GSDF personnel a false sense of safety," Yanagida said. In March, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks of the U.S. Central Command said U.S. military forces had used a very small volume of depleted uranium projectiles during the invasion of Iraq. But some experts believe their use was more extensive. For example, Asaf Durakovic, director of the Uranium Medical Research Center, an independent organization with offices in the U.S. and Canada, estimates that 1,700 tons of depleted uranium rounds were used. Durakovic, a former military doctor for the U.S. Defense Department, made a three-week field trip to Iraq in September and October. He is now analyzing samples of substances such as soil, along with tissue from the corpses of Iraqi soldiers, as well as urine samples from civilian residents. The U.S. has admitted it used some 300 tons of depleted uranium during the Gulf War in 1991. The Japan Times: Feb. 5, 2004 (C) All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 52 ITAR-TASS: IAEA calls for stopping illegal trade in nuclear materials [ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia] 04.02.2004, 17.53 VIENNA, February 4 (Itar-Tass) - The “black market” of nuclear materials and technologies that could be used for nuclear weapons production should attract the world community’s closest attention, the secretariat of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement that it released in Vienna after the World Economic Forum had ended in Davos. IAEA General Director Muhammad ElBaradei who attended the gathering in Davos believes that the IAEA inspections in Iran and Lybia have revealed the extent of this problem. The IAEA general director finds it difficult to claim that the governments of particular countries are linked to illegal deliveries of nuclear materials and technologies. The fact that most of the suppliers are individuals doesn’t make the problem less urgent. ElBaradei has called on the world community to take the threat of nuclear proliferation seriously and to take steps to tighten up security measures. According to ElBaradei, the international underground network of “black marketers” who illegally trade in nuclear materials and technologies looks less complicated and tangled than that created by organized crime. The IAEA backed up by certain countries is actively trying to clarify some fragments of this enormous and complicated picture. Muhammad ElBaradei noted that it was extremely important to keep up efforts to struggle against this illegal business and to support them by preventing nuclear materials and technologies from falling into bad and unreliable hands. © ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy, ***************************************************************** 53 GN Online: IAEA to notify UN of violations "Gulf News Online Edition"> Dubai:Wednesday, February 04, 2004 Vienna |Reuters | 04-02-2004 The UN nuclear watchdog will almost certainly have to notify the Security Council of Libya's violation of the global pact against atomic wea-pons, even though Washington might prefer to put it all behind, diplomats said. Speaking on condition of anonymity, several Vienna-based Wes-tern diplomats said that Libya's December declaration that it had initiated an atomic weap-ons programme in violation of the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was a grave admission about which the council should be officially notified. Although the UN Security Council can impose economic and diplomatic sanctions, all of the diplomats said the 35-nation IAEA Bo-ard of Governors would only notify the council and not request punitive measures since Li-bya had agreed to come clean and rid itself of all banned weapons. "For the sake of good housekeeping, the Security Council should be notified of the facts," one diplomat said. He said the board would inform the council of Libya's past NPT breaches but also of its good co-operation. · Sharon vows to form new coalition if pro-settlers block his Gaza plan · IAEA to notify UN of violations · Yemen hopes 'Queen of Sheba' will boost tourism ***************************************************************** 54 Daily Utah Chronicle: Nuclear testing may cause thyroid cancer, U researchers find - By Ashley Engar Published: Tuesday, February 3, 2004 Exposure to radiation from nuclear testing may be a cause of thyroid disease, according to U researchers at the Department of Family and Preventative Medicine. An ongoing 40-year study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will begin Phase III in early February. Research leader Joseph Lyon, professor of public health, said, "Above-ground nuclear testing has forever impacted the lives of individuals in the Intermountain West and across the nation. The radioactive cloud resulting from Event Harry, detonated on May 19, 1953, continues to have adverse effects on the families, communities and individuals in its path." In the 1950s, the study states, nuclear weapons tested by the U.S. government exposed millions of people across the nation, and especially people in Washington County, Utah and Lincoln County, Nev. The study, officially named Epidemiologic Follow-Up of Thyroid Disease in Persons Exposed to Radiation Fallout from Atomic Weapons Testing at Nevada Test Site, is trying to find out whether exposure to radioactive fallout is linked to increased cases of thyroid disease and thyroid tumors. Also, the study will investigate the relationship between radiation and reproductive history, along with radiation and family history of thyroid disease. People involved in the study were born between 1946 and 1958 and lived in Washington or Lincoln counties for at least one year between 1951 and 1958. "The findings from this study will provide valuable information about the health effects of early childhood exposure to radioactive iodine," said Lyon. "Each study subject's participation in this phase is crucially important and greatly appreciated." Phase I of the study began in 1965. Doctors examined the same people being studied now. Researchers concluded in Phase II from 1985-1986 that exposure to radioiodines generated at the Nevada Test Site increased the risk of thyroid tumors. Lyon has been involved with the study since Phase I and is an eminent researcher, according to Steven Thiese, development officer for the department of family and preventative medicine at the U. Those participating in Phase III will receive $50, free medical tests and thyroid screenings. aengar@chronicle.utah.edu The Daily Utah Chronicle 200 S Central Campus Dr #236 Salt Lake City UT 84112 801-581-NEWS e-mail to: webmaster@chronicle.utah.edu ***************************************************************** 55 UK Independent: Veterans to abandon legal claims for 'Gulf war syndrome' By Chris Bunting 05 February 2004 The legal battle to gain compensation for veterans suffering from "Gulf war syndrome" has been abandoned because of a lack of scientific evidence. The Legal Services Commission, which is believed to have spent Ł4m on the case, is expected to withdraw legal aid this month after being told by veterans' lawyers the case had no realistic chance of success. The legal team representing more than 2,000 veterans of the 1990-91 Gulf war are reported to have made the decision after 10 years of research failed to establish a specific cause for the range of health problems suffered. To have succeeded in their case, the veterans would have had to have proved not only that their illnesses were caused by their service during the war but that the Ministry of Defence had been negligent. Many experts still believe there is a link between the conflict and ill health. British, American, Australian and Danish troops are reported to have about twice the incidence of illness than normal members of the public. They have reported headaches, depression, weakness, short-term memory loss, muscle pains, rashes and difficulty breathing. A wide range of causes have been suggested including depleted uranium fallout from allied munitions, vaccinations, tablets given to counter nerve agents, pesticides used to control flies, pollution from oil fires and undetected chemical attacks. The lack of a consensus on the cause or sufficient evidence of negligence has scuppered the claim; 2,000 of the veterans have already been awarded discretionary war pensions. Patrick Allen, a solicitor representing the victims, told The Guardian: "We hope that a cause will be found for Gulf war illnesses... and that effective treatment programmes can be instigated to help improve the health of the victims." UK Independent Ltd. ***************************************************************** 56 Malaysia Star: Firm under probe over sale of centrifuges thestar.com February 5, 2004 Firm under probe over sale of centrifuges By LOURDES CHARLES KUALA LUMPUR: A company listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange and a Sri Lankan are currently helping the police in their probe into allegations that a Malaysian firm had manufactured components for the making of centrifuges used in the production of nuclear weapons in Libya. Inspector-General of Police Datuk Seri Mohd Bakri Omar said initial investigations into the alleged manufacturing and shipment to Libya so far revealed that Scomi-Precision Engineering Sdn Bhd (Scope), a subsidiary of Scomi Group Bhd, did not posses the technology or the expertise to build a centrifuge. “In fact, nuclear experts were unable to determine positively that the seized components were part of centrifuge units. The allegations published in foreign media reports that a factory in Malaysia was capable of producing the centrifuges has no basis. “Investigations up to now show that no plant in Malaysia is capable of producing a complete centrifuge unit. “However, the relevant authorities here are working with the International Atomic Energy Agency as we want to be transparent in our investigations,” he said. In revealing details of their investigations to date, Mohd Bakri said investigations commenced on Nov 10 when representatives from the United State’s Central Intelligence Agency and the British MI6 met Special Branch officers and informed them that a Sri Lankan businessman identified as B.S.A Tahir based in Dubai, had been implicated as a middleman in the supply of certain components for centrifuge from Malaysia to Libya’s uranium enrichment programme. The information was derived following the seizure of five containers containing components allegedly used to make centrifuges from a ship in Taranto, Italy on Oct 4. The goods were seized from a ship called BBC China. On the wooden boxes was the name of the company that shipped them – it was Scomi-Precision Engineering Sdn Bhd. Mohd Bakri said that investigations here revealed that Tahir had in 2001, offered a contract to Scomi for the completion of semi-finished products after assuring them that it was a legitimate business deal. It was a one-off deal and was worth less than RM10mil and Scomi built a small factory in Shah Alam to do the threading and machining on the semi-finished product that came from a European country. The IGP said that investigations also revealed that the components for centrifuges could also be used for petrochemical, water treatment and equipment used in molecular biology for protein separation. On Tahir’s status, Mohd Bakri said the Sri Lankan was co-operating in the investigations and was not under arrest as reported by the foreign media. He said police would issue a full press statement on the outcome of their investigations upon completion of their investigation. Scomi in a statement yesterday said it had shipped these components to a customer in Dubai in four consignments commencing December 2002 and since the delivery of its last consignment in August 2003 the company had not received any new orders. It said the products manufactured for Gulf Technical Industries L.L.C were 14 semi-finished components. “The end-use of these components were never disclosed to Scope by GTI. The total services value of the contract was RM13mil over a period of two years. “This accounts for only 3.5% of Scomi group Bhd consolidated turnover amounting to approximately RM360mil over the same period and the contract with GTI was disclosed accordingly during the listing exercise of Scomi,” the statement said. Scomi also said that Tahir had arranged the contract. Police informed Scomi recently that Tahir was under investigation by American, British and Malaysian intelligence for alleged involvement in the supply of nuclear technology to Libya. Copyright © 1995-2004 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd (Co No 10894-D) Managed by I.Star. ***************************************************************** 57 Las Vegas SUN: Letter: Nuclear dump's huge risks, costs outweigh benefits It's not surprising that the report by UNLV citing the economic benefits of the proposed Yucca Mountain project for Southern Nevada should have concluded what it did. That's because the report was commissioned and paid for by the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain Project. Numerous studies done by the state of Nevada and Clark County have shown that the economic downside of Yucca Mountain has the potential to dwarf any economic benefits that might be associated with the project. Not surprisingly, the findings from state and county research were not factored into the UNLV study. As was correctly pointed out in your Feb. 2 article, impacts to economic diversification as well as to the Southern Nevada tourism industry could be substantial if Yucca Mountain goes forward. An accident in or near Las Vegas could result in billions of dollars in negative economic impacts, while impacts to property values along likely nuclear waste transportation routes could range between $5.6 billion and $8.8 billion in Clark County alone. The number of jobs and the amount of revenue Yucca would generate for Southern Nevada are small, almost insignificant, percentages of the overall Clark County labor market and overall Southern Nevada economy. Yet the risks posed by the project for Las Vegas and the state are mind-boggling. There's a reason why no other state in the nation wants the high-level nuclear waste repository and why the federal government is trying so hard to force it on Nevada. The costs and risks vastly outweigh any transitory benefits. JOSEPH C. STROLIN Editor's note: Joseph C. Strolin is the Planning Division administrator for the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. ***************************************************************** 58 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Mountain of danger Today: February 04, 2004 at 9:04:42 PST Silicosis is a fatal lung disease that's been known for centuries. A miner, sandblaster, mason, tunneler -- anyone who has prolonged exposure to dust containing crystalline silica is at risk unless they are properly protected. Fortunately, protections have been developed that make silicosis entirely preventable. Unfortunately, however, the Energy Department is now admitting that protections may not have been up to date or even enforced at Yucca Mountain -- one of the world's largest drilling operations -- from 1992 to 2000. The admission came after word that some former workers at Yucca Mountain may have contracted the disease while drilling tunnels. In response, the Energy Department set up a program to screen current and former workers to determine if they have the disease. In our view, the screening program, an after-the-fact response, is a testament to the danger inherent in the whole Yucca Mountain project. All along the Energy Department has been telling the world that Yucca Mountain will be a safe place to bury high-level nuclear waste for the next 100 centuries. Yet during those years Yucca Mountain hadn't even been safe for the Energy Department's own employees and contractors. What after-the-fact responses will be necessary if the dump is allowed to open? ***************************************************************** 59 RGJ: DOE seeks $189 million to plan routes to Nevada nuke waste dump RGJ.com ASSOCIATED PRESS 2/3/2004 11:51 pm LAS VEGAS — The Energy Department wants to spend $186 million to study transporting the nation’s most highly radioactive waste from 39 states to a national nuclear waste repository in Nevada. Yucca Mountain project director Margaret Chu said Monday that if the DOE gets all the money it is seeking, it will spend $163 million planning a transportation program to get the waste to Nevada and another $23 million to plan moving it across the state. The allocation would be more than 2 1/2 times the $69 million the agency budgeted for transportation in 2004. Chu told a budget briefing in Washington, D.C., the 2005 Yucca Mountain budget request covers a critical year for the repository, because it will integrate plans for repository readiness, transportation and nuclear waste storage. U.S. Reps. Jim Gibbons, R-Reno, Jon Porter, R-Henderson and Shelley Berkley, D-Las Vegas, criticized the funding request. Porter called it “irresponsible and premature,” since a federal court has not yet ruled on Nevada’s legal challenges against the Yucca Mountain project. Oral arguments were last month. The Energy Department has not identified truck or rail routes to Nevada or preferred trucking routes to Yucca Mountain. In December, it picked a preferred rail route and said it wants to build a 319-mile rail line that would avoid Las Vegas and skirt the Nevada Test Site. Much of the 2005 Yucca Mountain funding would be used to award contracts for transportation casks and rail infrastructure, Chu said. Some would go toward environmental studies on the new Nevada rail line and finding ways to include local governments in planning. The Bush administration and Congress in 2002 approved the Energy Department’s plan to entomb casks containing 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel in tunnels beneath Yucca Mountain. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Chu and other department officials said they had no doubt Monday they could meet their December deadline for submitting a Yucca Mountain license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission if the DOE gets the money it seeks. The agency plans to open the repository in 2010. Documents showed a $21 million request for county and local government oversight and Payment Equal to Tax funds, a $10 million increase from 2004. The department said it would use $749 million from an account that nuclear utilities pay to support the Yucca Mountain project and $131 million from the Defense Department for its $880 million budget request. © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett ***************************************************************** 60 AP Wire: MOX plant construction delayed until 2005 | 02/04/2004 | [thestate.com - The thestate home page] Associated Press COLUMBIA, S.C. - A facility that would convert weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear power plants won't begin construction in 2004 after all. Disagreements between Russia and U.S. contractors have delayed the construction of the mixed-oxide facility until at least May 2005, a federal official said. The United States and Russia have committed to disposing of 68 metric tons of plutonium in parallel programs. Construction of the MOX facility at the Savannah River Site near Aiken was scheduled to begin as early as this spring. "Because the Russian facility is delayed, so it the U.S. facility," said Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, a division of the Department of Energy. "I can't emphasize enough that this delay does not in any way diminish the U.S. commitment for proceeding with plutonium disposition." The roughly $3.8 billion plant, expected to create about 500 jobs, has been criticized by anti-nuclear activists who favor encasing excess plutonium in glass and burying it in Nevada. And the delay didn't please former Gov. Jim Hodges, who had vowed to lie down in front of plutonium shipments headed to SRS because he feared the material would be stored there indefinitely. Hodges took the U.S. Energy Department to court to stop the shipments, but ultimately lost. "If these delays continue or, God forbid, they shelve the project, then SRS has moved into the status of a long-term storage facility for plutonium, which is dangerous," Hodges said recently. Congress has been committed to spending money on the program, giving it about $400 million last year to start building the plant. President Bush has proposed $368 million for the plant next year. There also are penalties if the Energy Department fails to begin producing the fuel by 2011. Sen. Lindsey Graham's spokesman Kevin Bishop said a law approved in 2002 requires the government to finish the project, process the plutonium and ship it out of South Carolina. The plutonium-blended fuel will be burned in two Duke Energy power plants near Charlotte, N.C. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission also must approve a construction license for the MOX plant, but the license has been slowed because the DOE wants its chief contractor to move a radiation boundary closer to the plant's site. Tom Clements with Greenpeace said the delay could make it harder for Energy Department to get additional funding from Congress. "They will have an extremely difficult time justifying to Congress why they need construction money for fiscal year 2005 when they were not able to spend all the money Congress gave them in 2004," Clements said. The disagreement with Russia is over liability issues. U.S. contractors want legal protection in the event the American-designed Russian plant encounters problems. TheState.com ***************************************************************** 61 NWTRB: Calendar [U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board] NWTRB Calendar Updated February 4, 2004 Agendas will be posted approximately 1 week prior to each meeting. Panel on the Engineered System January 20, 2004 Contact: Carl Di Bella Topics: + Project Update + Repository Design Update Agenda Location: Crowne Plaza Hotel 4255 S. Paradise Road Las Vegas, NV 89109 1-702-369-4400 Panel on the Waste Management System January 21, 2004 Contact: Dan Fehringer Topic: + Transportation Strategic Planning Considerations Agenda Location: Crowne Plaza Hotel 4255 S. Paradise Road Las Vegas, NV 89109 1-702-369-4400 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Panel on the Natural System March 9-10, 2004 Contact: David Diodato Topics: + Unsaturated zone + saturated zone water flow + Radionuclide transport Location: Crowne Plaza Hotel 4255 S. Paradise Road Las Vegas, NV 89109 1-702-369-4400 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Panel on the Engineered System March 16-17, 2004 Contact: Carl Di Bella Topic: + Board's letter on corrosion during the thermal pulse (October 21, 2003) and the technical bases for the letter (November 25, 2003). Location: Crowne Plaza Hotel 4255 S. Paradise Road Las Vegas, NV 89109 1-702-369-4400 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Spring 2004 Board Meeting May 18-19, 2004 Contact: TBD Topics: TBD Location: Washington, DC ***************************************************************** 62 NRC: Notice of Intent To Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement FR Doc E4-179 [Federal Register: February 4, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 23)] [Notices] [Page 5374-5375] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04fe04-111] for the Proposed LES Gas Centrifuge Uranium Enrichment Facility ACTION: Notice of Intent (NOI). SUMMARY: Louisiana Energy Services (LES) submitted a license application on December 12, 2003, that proposes the construction, operation and decommissioning of a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility to be located near Eunice, New Mexico. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and its regulations at 10 CFR part 51, announces its intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The EIS will examine the potential environmental impacts of the proposed LES facility. DATES: The public scoping process required by NEPA begins with publication of this NOI and continues until March 18, 2004. Written comments submitted by mail should be postmarked by that date to ensure consideration. Comments mailed after that date will be considered to the extent practical. The NRC will conduct a public scoping meeting to assist in defining the appropriate scope of the EIS, including the significant environmental issues to be addressed. The meeting date, times and location are listed below: Meeting date: March 4, 2004. Meeting location: Eunice Community Center, 1115 Avenue I, Eunice, NM. Scoping meeting time: 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ADDRESSES: Members of the public are invited and encouraged to submit comments to the Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Mail Stop T6-D59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Please note Docket No. 70-3103 when submitting comments. Due to the current mail situation in the Washington, DC area, commentors are encouraged to send comments electronically to or by facsimile to (301) 415-5398, ATTN.: Melanie Wong. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For general or technical information associated with the license review of the LES application, please contact: Tim Johnson at (301) 415-7299. For general information on the NRC NEPA process, or the environmental review process related to the LES application, please contact: Melanie Wong at (301) 415-6262. Information and documents associated with the LES project, including the LES license application (submitted on December 12, 2003), are available for public review through our electronic reading room: . Documents may also be obtained from NRC's Public Document Room at U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Headquarters, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 1.0 Background LES submitted a license application and an environmental report for a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility to the NRC on December 12, 2003. The NRC will evaluate the potential environmental impacts associated with LES enrichment facility in parallel with the review of the license application. This environmental evaluation will be documented in draft and final Environmental Impact Statements in accordance with NEPA and NRC's implementing regulations at 10 CFR part 51. 2.0 LES Enrichment Facility The LES facility, if licensed, would enrich uranium for use in manufacturing commercial nuclear fuel for use in power reactors. Feed material would be natural (not enriched) uranium in the form of uranium hexafluoride (UF6). LES proposes to use centrifuge technology to enrich isotope [[Page 5375]] uranium-235 in the uranium hexafluoride to up to 5 percent. The centrifuge would operate at below atomospheric pressure. The capacity of the plant would be up to 3 million separative work units (SWU) (SWU relates to a measure of the work used to enrich uranium). The enriched UF6 would be transported to a fuel fabrication facility. The depleted UF6 would be stored on site until it can be sold or disposed of commercially, or by the Department of Energy. 3.0 Alternatives To Be Evaluated No-Action--The no-action alternative would be to not build the proposed LES gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility. Under this alternative, the NRC would not approve the license application. This serves as a baseline for comparison. Proposed action--The proposed action involves the construction, operation, and decommissioning of a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility located near Eunice, NM. The applicant would be issued an NRC license under the provisions of 10 CFR parts 30, 40, and 70. Other alternatives not listed here may be identified through the scoping process. 4.0 Environmental Impact Areas To Be Analyzed The following areas have been tentatively identified for analysis in the EIS: Land Use: Plans, policies and controls; Transportation: Transportation modes, routes, quantities, and risk estimates; Geology and Soils: Physical geography, topography, geology and soil characteristics; Water Resources: Surface and groundwater hydrology, water use and quality, and the potential for degradation; Ecology: Wetlands, aquatic, terrestrial, economically and recreationally important species, and threatened and endangered species; Air Quality: Meteorological conditions, ambient background, pollutant sources, and the potential for degradation; Noise: Ambient, sources, and sensitive receptors; Historical and Cultural Resources: Historical, archaeological, and traditional cultural resources Visual and Scenic Resources: Landscape characteristics, manmade features and viewshed; Socioeconomics: Demography, economic base, labor pool, housing, transportation, utilities, public services/facilities, education, recreation, and cultural resources; Environmental Justice: Potential disproportionately high and adverse impacts to minority and low-income populations; Public and Occupational Health: Potential public and occupational consequences from construction, routine operation, transportation, and credible accident scenarios (including natural events); Waste Management: Types of wastes expected to be generated, handled, and stored; and Cumulative Effects: Impacts from past, present and reasonably foreseeable actions at, and near the site(s). This list is not intended to be all inclusive, nor is it a predetermination of potential environmental impacts. The list is presented to facilitate comments on the scope of the EIS. Additions to, or deletions from this list may occur as a result of the public scoping process. 5.0 Scoping Meeting One purpose of this NOI is to encourage public involvement in the EIS process, and to solicit public comments on the proposed scope and content of the EIS. The NRC will hold a public scoping meeting in Eunice, New Mexico, to solicit both oral and written comments from interested parties. Scoping is an early and open process designed to determine the range of actions, alternatives, and potential impacts to be considered in the EIS, and to identify the significant issues related to the proposed action. It is intended to solicit input from the public and other agencies so that the analysis can be more clearly focused on issues of genuine concern. The principal goals of the scoping process are to: Ensure that concerns are identified early and are properly studied; Identify alternatives that will be examined; Identify significant issues that need to be analyzed; Eliminate unimportant issues; and Identify public concerns. The scoping meeting will begin with NRC staff providing a description of the NRC's role and mission. A brief overview of the licensing process will be followed by a brief description of the environmental review process. The bulk of the meeting will be allotted for attendees to make oral comments. 6.0 Scoping Comments Written comments should be mailed to the address listed above in the ADDRESSES section. The NRC staff will make the scoping summaries and project-related materials available for public review through our electronic reading room: . The scoping meeting summaries and project-related materials will also be available on the NRC's LES Web page: (case sensitive). 7.0 The NEPA Process The EIS for the LES facility will be prepared according to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and the NRC's NEPA Regulations at 10 CFR part 51. After the scoping process is complete, the NRC and it's contractor will prepare a draft EIS. A 45-day comment period on the draft EIS is planned, and public meetings to receive comments will be held approximately three weeks after distribution of the draft EIS. Availability of the draft EIS, the dates of the public comment period, and information about the public meetings will be announced in the Federal Register, on NRC's LES Web page, and in the local news media when the draft EIS is distributed. The final EIS will incorporate public comments received on the draft EIS. Signed in Rockville, MD this 16th day of January, 2004. For The Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Lawrence E. Kokajko, Chief, Environmental and Performance Assessment Branch, Division of Waste Management, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. [FR Doc. E4-179 Filed 2-3-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 63 NRC: Private Fuel Storage, L.L.C.; Notice of Reconstitution FR Doc E4-181 [Federal Register: February 4, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 23)] [Notices] [Page 5374] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04fe04-110] Pursuant to 10 CFR 2.721, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board chaired by Administrative Judge Michael C. Farrar in the above captioned Private Fuel Storage, L.L.C. proceeding is hereby reconstituted by appointing Administrative Judge Paul B. Abramson in place of Administrative Judge Jerry R. Kline. In accordance with 10 CFR 2.701, henceforth all correspondence, documents, and other material relating to any matter in this proceeding over which the Licensing Board chaired by Administrative Judge Farrar has jurisdiction should be served on Administrative Judge Abramson as follows: Administrative Judge Paul B. Abramson, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Issued at Rockville, Maryland, this 29th day of January, 2004. G. Paul Bollwerk, III, Chief Administrative Judge, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel. [FR Doc. E4-181 Filed 2-3-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 64 ITAR-TASS: Dump for nuclear waste to be built at Ignalina nps [ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia] 04.02.2004, 16.39 VILNIUS, February 4 (Itar-Tass) - The Lithuanian government has endorsed the plan to build an underground complex for the processing and storage of solid nuclear waste in the territory of the lgnalina nuclear power plant. The ministerial decree says that work to dismantle the Ignalina nuclear station cannot be started without building such an entombment. It is to be completed in 2007. The international fund of the European Union to support the stoppage of the operation of the lgnalina nps will finance the entombment’s construction. Nearly 80 million euro is allocated for the purpose. An international tender to design and build the entombment will shortly be announced. The European Union suggested the closure of the Lithuanian nps as one of the conditions on which Lithuania can accede to the EU. The station’ s first reactor will be shut down on December 31, 2004, the second in 2009. The Ignalina nuclear power plant accounts for 85 percent of electricity generated in Lithuania. The biggest part of its output goes to Russia, Belarus, Poland, and Baltic countries. © ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy, ***************************************************************** 65 Albuquerque Tribune: Nuke landfill isn't good for health - or for business [Hal Rhodes] V.B. Price When Albuquerque Realtors get up in arms over a radioactive waste dump for sound business reasons, you know environmentalism has finally reached the mainstream in American economic life. Last year, top-selling Realtors sent a letter to Gov. Bill Richardson citing their concerns over the mixed waste landfill at Sandia National Laboratories and its potentially disastrous effect on the Mesa del Sol development. Sandia contends the landfill can't be moved, because it would be too dangerous and too costly. The Realtors wrote: "Knowing that independent studies suggest that there are cost-effective ways for . . . (the lab) . . . to clean up this site, we collectively urge you to do all in your power to get this mixed waste landfill cleaned up for the health and safety of our community." To Richardson's credit, the New Mexico Environment Department refuses to buckle under in its effort to have the site moved. It will have public hearings on the landfill in the late summer this year. Democrat Richardson has taken a highly public stand against nuclear pollution in New Mexico. His position includes frequent confrontations with Sen. Pete Domenici, an Albuquerque Republican. When Richardson's Environment Department tried to get Sandia to post financial assurances that it would monitor and clean up the mixed waste landfill, Domenici blocked the department's efforts with a rider in the national spending legislation prohibiting bonding or trust requirements. The department responded with something close to outrage, as it should, complaining Sandia has to play by the same rules as everyone else. The Realtors are right to question Sandia. Who would want to buy a house close to a nuclear and toxic waste dump that the federal government won't allow to be insured by normal bonding procedures? The mixed waste landfill is just one of a number of major environmental issues that threaten not only the health of our citizens but also the economic development of our state. Richardson has promised to "play hardball" over the U.S. Department of Energy's new proposal to review old agreements with states and cut back regulations and funding to clean up nuclear waste sites. Richardson and Domenici recently clashed over the DOE's withholding of some $43 million for the ongoing cleanup at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In essence, the DOE and the senator are holding the health of New Mexico's residents hostage, until Richardson agrees to DOE's new plans, which would overlook many of the highly dangerous historic nuclear waste dumps on the Pajarito Plateau. Richardson says he won't agree. And he's not alone. Governors from across the nation see DOE's new plans as a political and fiscal betrayal. It's clear now that environmental hazards, from groundwater contamination in the South Valley and air pollution in Corrales to radioactive waste at the national labs, are becoming major threats, not only to our physical health but to our financial well-being. How can business, big and small, thrive in a dangerously polluted landscape? It cannot. Price is an Albuquerque free-lance writer, author and longtime commentator. His column runs on Saturdays. © The Albuquerque Tribune. ***************************************************************** 66 Knox News: Workers evacuated, sent home after alarm in K-25 building By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com February 4, 2004 OAK RIDGE — About 250 workers were evacuated Wednesday from a nuclear cleanup project after a "criticality alarm" sounded, indicating a possible accident. However, an investigation team dispatched to the Oak Ridge scene found no evidence of a problem in the section of the K-25 building where the alarm sounded. "We think it's a malfunction with the alarm," Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co., said late Wednesday. "They detected no radiation." The investigation was continuing Wednesday night. Bechtel Jacobs is the U.S. Department of Energy's environmental manager in Oak Ridge. The evacuated workers were sent home after the alarm sounded in mid-afternoon, and it was not clear if they would be allowed to return today. The alarms are a serious matter because they are intended to alert workers to a possible criticality accident, which involves an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction and dangerous release of radiation. The alarms are located in the K-25 building because the World War II-era facility contained deposits of enriched uranium, which is capable of nuclear fission. The mile-long, U-shaped building was the original facility used to enrich uranium with a process called gaseous diffusion. The enriched material was used in atomic bombs and as fuel for nuclear reactors. Bechtel Jacobs and its subcontractors are in the early phases of cleaning up the mammoth K-25 building, which eventually will be demolished. Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329. Copyright Clearance] Copyright 2004, Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 67 Daily Camera: Funding gone for cleanup coalition Udall vows to help keep money for Rocky Flats By Laura Morsch, For the Enterprise February 4, 2004 U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., vowed Monday to help keep federal funding for a local government group that oversees the cleanup of Rocky Flats. Federal funding for the Rocky Flats Coalition of Local Governments, made up of representatives from seven local governments surrounding the former nuclear weapons plant just north of Broomfield, has been rescinded for the current fiscal year without explanation, said David Abelson, executive director of the coalition. "On top of that, the (Bush) administration has decided not to ask for any money for organizations like the coalition for 2005," he said. Abelson said each year, the coalition expects to receive about $300,000 from the Department of Energy, and it cannot survive without that funding. "We will be out of business some time within the next year," he said. But Udall said he will not let the coalition go without a fight, according to Lawrence Pacheco, spokesman for the congressman. Udall will do what he can to make sure the coalition "has the money it needs to carry out its mission," Pacheco said, adding that it is still early in the budget process. The group was founded in 1999 for local governments to work with residents and officials to help ensure a timely cleanup of radioactive waste at Rocky Flats. The cleanup is expected to be finished in 2006. Hank Stovall, a former Broomfield City Councilman and an ex-officio member of the coalition, said it was "outrageous" to cut off funding to the coalition just two years before the completion of the cleanup. "If the budget stands as it is right now, the ability for the Rocky Flats Coalition of Local Governments to continue its oversight role would come to an end much sooner than we'd like," Broomfield City Councilman and coalition representative Gary Brosz said. Brosz said not only would oversight suffer but so would decisions involving its long-term future — both environmentally and as the site moves to a new life as a wildlife refuge. "Right now with this new budget, that all gets zeroed out," he said. Steve Gunderson, Rocky Flats project coordinator for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said losing the coalition may not slow down the cleanup efforts, but it would mean the loss of important dialogue between local communities and the cleanup regulators. "The process works best when the communities have been actively engaged," he said. But Gunderson said it may be possible for the coalition to secure money from other federal departments. "There may be other mechanisms for financial support," he said. Brosz said officials also said during the annual lobbying trip to Washington, D.C., by the coalition's staff in March, the issue would be "front and center." Copyright 2004, The Daily Camera and the E.W. Scripps ***************************************************************** 68 Tri-City Herald: Cleanup report details trench use This story was published Wednesday, February 4th, 2004 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer The final draft of an environmental report on burying radioactive waste at Hanford calls for building a large, lined trench in the center of the nuclear reservation, according to the Department of Energy. The trench would be used for low-level radioactive wastes and similar wastes mixed with chemicals after it's completed and opened in 2006. However, after getting a first look at the final report on solid waste, Heart of America Northwest questioned DOE's commitment to stop burying radioactive wastes in unlined trenches at Hanford. The watchdog group also raised questions on whether more transuranic wastes -- typically barrels of highly radioactive contaminated junk -- would be brought to Hanford. DOE rushed to release the report Tuesday ahead of schedule after the environmental group released comments on it. Some advance copies of the report were given late last week to congressional members. At the close of business Tuesday, DOE was just starting to post the thousands of pages of the report on the Internet, and few people had seen it to comment. Earlier drafts of the study were criticized as being too light on information. The final study looks at more alternatives for disposing of some treated waste from Hanford's underground tanks and expands information on possible effects on ground water, according to DOE. It also includes more information on how wastes would be moved through Washington and Oregon. The study is expected to be published Feb. 13 in the Federal Register, then can be adopted in 30 days. A 2000 decision based on a nationwide study identified Hanford and Yucca Mountain in Nevada as recipients of the nation's low-level and mixed low-level wastes, said Colleen Clark, a DOE spokeswoman in Richland. The study of Hanford released Tuesday looked only at how to manage low-level wastes that might be shipped here for burial based on the earlier study, she said. Heart of America said the report proposes burial of 70,000 truckloads of radioactive waste at Hanford. The organization also was concerned that the report discusses transuranic waste shipments from more sites than previously known, said Gerald Pollet of Heart of America. DOE's plan has been to treat the wastes at Hanford, then ship them to New Mexico for permanent storage. The report could revive a lawsuit over transuranic wastes that resulted in a judge halting shipments in May, Pollet said. Heart of America also is concerned that the report released Tuesday does not include a plan for closing unlined burial trenches. Clark said DOE already has begun to phase out use of unlined trenches and has begun planning the lined trench to be built in central Hanford. It's no surprise that the final study identified lined trenches as the best way to bury low-level waste, according to a statement from the office of Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash. "Everyone has the shared goal of moving toward lined trenches and today we're one step closer to reaching that goal," said Jessica Gleason, a spokeswoman for Hastings. © 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 69 kgw.com: News for Oregon and SW Washington | AP Wire 02/04/2004 By SHANNON DININNY / Associated Press The U.S. Department of Energy released its final environmental impact statement Tuesday for treating and disposing of radioactive solid waste at the Hanford nuclear reservation. The environmental impact statement is intended to support agency decisions on the construction of new treatment and disposal facilities for Hanford's waste and waste from other Energy Department sites that might be sent to Hanford. The state, Indian tribes and environmental groups have raised concerns that highly radioactive and hazardous waste will be shipped from other states and buried at Hanford. The final statement, nearly 4,000 pages long, addressed the comments and concerns made by those groups and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Energy Department said. "This document looks at alternatives for managing solid waste on the Hanford site," said Colleen Clark, an Energy Department spokeswoman. "Could some types of waste ultimately come here? Yes. But a whole lot more waste is leaving the site now or will leave in the future." The kind of waste that could be shipped to Hanford also is less radioactive or hazardous than much of the waste already on the site, she said. Among the preferred alternatives are construction of a large, lined landfill to dispose of mildly radioactive waste and radioactive waste mixed with hazardous materials, and modifying an existing Hanford building to treat the latter mixed waste. The state Department of Ecology last year said a revised version of the draft environmental impact statement needed more work. In a 44-page report to the Energy Department, the state then said the environmental impact statement still needed to include: _Adequate analysis of the effects of transporting radioactive and hazardous waste to Hanford from other locations. _Complete projections for how much waste may be treated, stored and disposed of at Hanford. _More information about how contaminants move through the soil and groundwater for analyzing the long-term spread of contamination. _Further analysis of how to compensate for environmental harm done by contaminated groundwater. _More analysis of the environmental risks posed by some waste. Sheryl Hutchison, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Ecology, said it would take a week or more for state officials to review the latest document and see if their concerns were addressed. "We knew where it was deficient before, and we'll be looking in those areas to see if it measures up," she said Tuesday. The equivalent of about 75,000 55-gallon barrels of radioactive waste are buried at Hanford. The material can take thousands of years or more to decay to safe levels. The state and federal governments recently agreed on a long-term schedule for cleaning up the waste. In the meantime, the federal government started shipping radioactive and hazardous waste from other sites to Hanford for packaging before sending the material to a New Mexico plant for disposal. Hanford currently accepts and disposes of lower-level waste from other nuclear plants around the country. The state has a lawsuit pending in U.S. District Court, contending that the Energy Department failed to adequately study the effects of trucking the waste in from other states and failed to involve the public in making that decision. A judge has temporarily banned out-of-state shipments of waste to Hanford until the case is resolved. "It is very clear that thousands of comments and lots of impact to the environment haven't changed the Department of Energy's plan to use Hanford as a national radioactive waste dump. That's the bottom line," said Gerald Pollet, executive director of the Hanford citizen watchdog group Heart of America Northwest. Pollet said the only way to prevent that is support of his Initiative 297. The measure would block the federal government from sending radioactive waste from other states to Hanford until all of the existing waste at the site is cleaned up. Secretary of State Sam Reed certified the initiative last week, which means the Legislature must now enact it or send it to the November ballot. Leaders in the Legislature have said it's unlikely lawmakers will approve the measure. The measure has been endorsed by environmental groups, the state Democratic Party and the League of Women Voters. Critics question its constitutionality and argue that such a policy could make it difficult to ship Hanford's existing wastes to other states, such as Nevada and New Mexico, for proper burial. This text is invisible on the page, but this text is affected by the invisible item's flow. This text is invisible on the page, but this text is affected by the invisible item's flow. ***************************************************************** 70 Oak Ridger: USEC's net income around $10.7 million Story last updated at 12:30 p.m. on February 4, 2004 By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff USEC Inc.'s net income for last year was around $10.7 million, compared to a loss of $3.3 million in 2002. The company, which operates a facility in Oak Ridge, expects net income this year to be in the range of $6 million to $8 million, according to a news release. Revenue for 2003 was $1.46 billion, up from $1.39 billion in 2002, the news release stated. USEC expects revenue to be around $1.4 billion this year. Last month, USEC chose Piketon, Ohio, as the site for its state-of-the-art uranium enrichment plant, which is referred to as the American Centrifuge. The Ohio facility will use a process known as "gas centrifuge" to enrich uranium - a critical step in transforming natural uranium into nuclear fuel used by commercial power plants to produce electricity. USEC has completed refurbishment of the Centrifuge Technology Center in Oak Ridge, where key components of centrifuge machines have been fabricated and are undergoing testing in preparation for the demonstration that begins in Piketon in 2005. USEC's American Centrifuge plant will be located at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio. The facility is expected to cost up to $1.5 billion, employ up to 500 people and reach an initial annual production level of 3.5 million work units by 2010. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Department of Energy built thousands of centrifuge machines, some of which operated for thousands of hours at performance levels superior to today's best commercially available centrifuge machines. In 2002, USEC entered into a research agreement with Oak Ridge National Laboratory pertaining to the uranium enrichment technology. ***************************************************************** 71 Oak Ridger: Waste facility now up and running Story last updated at 11:57 a.m. on February 4, 2004 By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff Foster Wheeler Environmental Corp. has started processing low-level radioactive waste. Steve McCracken, the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge environmental chief, confirmed Tuesday that the Transuranic Waste Processing Facility is operational. He also said at least two waste shipments of low-level radioactive waste have been made from Oak Ridge to the Nevada Test Site, located 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nev. In 1998, DOE inked a contract with Foster Wheeler Environmental to construct and operate the waste processing facility. Much of the waste to be treated is currently stored in Melton Valley near Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Processing began last week after DOE completed a comprehensive readiness review of the facility. In addition to the low-level radioactive waste, the facility will also process transuranic waste. Transuranic waste is produced during nuclear fuel assembly and during nuclear weapons-related work. This waste generally consists of protective clothing, tools, glassware, equipment, soils and sludge that have been heavily contaminated with high concentrations of manmade radioactive elements, including plutonium, neptunium, americium, curium and californium. The treated transuranic waste will be disposed of at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M., while the low-level waste will be disposed of at the Nevada Test Site. Processing waste is the third of four phases in Foster Wheeler Environmental's contract with DOE. The first and second phases pertained to the design and construction of the facility while the fourth phase will involve the decontamination and decommissioning of the facility once the waste processing phase is completed. Foster Wheeler Environmental invested capital in design, engineering and construction of the facility under the DOE "privatization" program. DOE will reimburse Foster Wheeler for this capital investment during the third phase of operations, officials said. "The approval by DOE of this processing phase at our Oak Ridge waste facility is a significant milestone for Foster Wheeler and for DOE," said Bernard H. Cherry, president and chief executive officer of Foster Wheeler Environmental Corp. According to officials with Foster Wheeler Environmental, the company expects to receive net cash in excess of $40 million in 2004 during this initial phase of process operations. Although a figure was not available, Judy Penry, DOE's chief financial officer in Oak Ridge, said Tuesday that it's likely Foster Wheeler has already received payment for the initial shipments. The fiscal year 2005 budget request pertaining to DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office includes a category with proposed funding of $176 million. Funds to pay Foster Wheeler will be taken out of this category. ***************************************************************** 72 Oak Ridger: DOE's proposed Oak Ridge budget totals $1.9B for FY 2005 Story last updated at 12:24 p.m. on February 4, 2004 FIGURES: Oak Ridge National Laboratory in line to get $697 million while Bechtel Jacobs Co. could snag around $514 million. By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff If you dissect the Department of Energy's $24.3 billion proposed budget request for fiscal year 2005, the federal agency's Oak Ridge Operations office portion of the pie is nearly $1.9 billion. That figure includes funding for all of DOE's local facilities except the Y-12 National Security Complex, which falls under the purview of the National Nuclear Security Administration - the quasi-independent agency within DOE that oversees the nuclear weapons complex. Marie Moffitt/Staff Gerald Boyd, manager of the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Operations office, discusses his budget for fiscal year 2005 during a press conference Tuesday afternoon at the Oak Ridge Federal Building. Gerald Boyd, manager of DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office, said there were no surprises in the proposed FY 2005 budget and indicated that he was proud of the funding requests. The FY 2004 figure for Oak Ridge was nearly $1.8 billion. "There is a bit of an increase," Boyd said. According to Boyd, proposed funding for Oak Ridge National Laboratory in FY 2005 is $697 million, which is the same as the FY 2004 figure. The Spallation Neutron Source research facility, which is being managed by ORNL, is on target to get around $113.6 million. DOE's proposed Oak Ridge cleanup budget for FY 2005 is around $657 million. Bechtel Jacobs Co., which oversees cleanup work for DOE, could snag around $514 million, according to Boyd. Proposed funding for the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education is around $103 million for FY 2005. Managed by Oak Ridge Associated Universities, ORISE provides operational capabilities and conducts research, education and training in the areas of science and technology, national security, environmental safety and health, and environmental management. Looking at the various programs throughout the Oak Ridge Operations office, the FY 2005 funding request includes $109 million for nuclear nonproliferation work, which is up from $105 million in FY 2004; $20 million for weapons activities - a slight increase over the previous fiscal year; $46 million for nuclear energy work, which is up from $36 million in FY 2004; and $436 million - the same as last fiscal year - for an account labeled "science." Judy Penry, DOE's chief financial officer in Oak Ridge, said proposed funding for Y-12 in FY 2005 is around $814 million as compared to $751 million in FY 2004. Penry said she could not breakdown how much of the FY 2005 request went to specific projects, including security upgrades and modernization work. "There's no doubt that Congress expects security upgrades to be made at Y-12," said U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District. The congressman said Oak Ridge's budget looks good, especially since other areas in President Bush's budget were subject to "belt tightening and cuts." Wamp also said he's ready to begin the appropriations hearings for the budget in March. "We need to know where every dime will be spent before we appropriate this money," Wamp said. ***************************************************************** 73 Oak Ridger: FY 2004 cleanup program facing at least $29.2M in cuts Story last updated at 12:30 p.m. on February 4, 2004 CONGRESSMAN: 'While there is a reduction floating around, we believe we can mitigate it.' By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff The Department of Energy is facing a loss of cleanup funds for fiscal year 2004, which began Oct. 1. Steve McCracken, DOE's Oak Ridge environmental chief, said the so-called shortfall is "a little less than $35 million," with around $29.2 million actually impacting missions. When asked by The Oak Ridger what programs would be affected, McCracken was adamant that the fund reduction would not impact the Transuranic Waste Processing Facility in Melton Valley or the Toxic Substances Control Act Incinerator, which is located at the Oak Ridge K-25 site. The incinerator resumed waste operations Saturday, following a shutdown in September for a routine maintenance outage. Because of the reduction in funds, some environmental management observers said they were concerned that operations at the toxic waste incinerator could cease sooner than the expected shutdown date at the end of fiscal year 2006. McCracken said that's not the case. The environmental chief also said DOE will make sure that major cleanup milestones won't be impacted. He said he should know within a couple of weeks what areas would be impacted. In describing the reason for the funding reduction, U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District, said money not spent from the previous year was counted against the funds appropriated for this fiscal year. However, the congressman said he has talked with Jessie Roberson, DOE's assistant secretary for Environmental Management, regarding a "reprogramming request" to get some of the money back. "While there is a reduction floating around, we believe we can mitigate it," Wamp said. According to figures provided by DOE's Oak Ridge operations office, the local environmental management budget was $567 million for FY 2004 while the proposed FY 2005 budget is $657 million. Local officials were also unsure how DOE's Office of Legacy Management and the federal agency's Office of Future Liabilities would inevitably impact the Oak Ridge cleanup program. The Office of Legacy Management was created to manage the department's long-term environmental and human commitments and associated activities at sites where the DOE mission is complete. The Office of Future Liabilities will fund and manage environmental liabilities not assigned to the Office of Environmental Management or other organizations within the department. ***************************************************************** 74 Oak Ridger: Contaminated South Knoxville site subject of $2.8M contract Story last updated at 12:28 p.m. on February 4, 2004 By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff Bechtel Jacobs Co. has awarded a $2.8 million contract for the first of a two-phase cleanup project in South Knoxville. Under the terms of the contract, DEMCO will be responsible for decontaminating and demolishing buildings and removing debris from a portion of the David Witherspoon site. DEMCO is headquarted in West Seneca, N.Y. David Witherspoon Inc. operated three sites on Old Maryville Pike in South Knoxville, where it accepted scrap metal and other materials. The recently awarded contract pertains to the site at 901 Old Maryville Pike. There are two other sites located at 1630 Old Maryville Pike. Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co., said work on the first phase of the cleanup project at 901 Old Maryville Pike could start by early spring. The project is expected to take a year to complete. The second phase of the project will involve the removal and disposal of contaminated soil in addition to some environmental sampling work. This phase could take about a year and a half to complete, according to Hill. Regarding the sites at 1630 Old Maryville Pike, Hill said work on this cleanup project could begin next year. The Witherspoon area as well as the Atomic City Auto Parts site in Oak Ridge are two state Superfund sites being tackled under the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge cleanup program. A Superfund site is any land in the United States that has been contaminated by hazardous waste and identified by the Environmental Protection Agency as a candidate for cleanup because it poses a risk to human health and/or the environment. DOE is listed as a potential responsible party under state Superfund regulations because a major portion of the contaminants of concern at the Witherspoon site came from material purchased from a DOE contractor. The contaminants of concern include heavy metals, uranium, thorium, radium and polychlorinated biphenyls. ***************************************************************** 75 Oak Ridger: Hydrogen- related facility coming to OR Story last updated at 11:43 a.m. on February 4, 2004 By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff paul.parson@oakridger.com A Canadian energy company is moving forward on a local facility. On Tuesday, Alternate Energy Corp. announced that it had retained GT Designs Inc. to make operational its Product Development Center near Oak Ridge. Officials could not confirm this morning an exact location for the facility. The center is expected to manage the product development, and manufacturing and certification of Alternate Energy Corp.'s hydrogen production units. According to company officials, Alternate Energy Corp.'s goal is to deliver innovative, practical and environmentally responsible fuel and power solutions to consumer, commercial and government markets. "We chose to locate our Product Development Center in the Oak Ridge, Tenn., area based on the expertise and depth of available resources that exist there, which will best support the mass deployment of our product," Blaine Froats, Alternate Energy Corp.'s chairman, said in a news release. Alternate Energy Corp. owns a hydrogen production process that company officials said should expedite the transition from fossil fuels to a hydrogen economy. According to the company, the production system leverages a proprietary chemical process that yields fuel-cell-quality hydrogen from fresh or salt water, with no known harmful byproducts. Officials said Alternate Energy Corp. plans to work with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Department of Energy to certify and develop the optimal design of the company's hydrogen production system and its applications. Alternate Energy Corp. expects to begin shipment of products by October 2004 to the U.S. Coast Guard for certification and approval. The company is located in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. ***************************************************************** 76 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 15:39:06 -0800 (PST) ONOFRE'S retired nuclear reactor won't be shipped San Diego Union Tribune Amid growing concerns and delays, Southern California Edison has abandoned plans to ship a retired nuclear reactor from San Onofre around South America to a ... 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.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20040204-9999_1mi4reactor.html IRAN: Nuclear Fears and Political Instability Center For American Progress 20 parliamentary elections threatens to destabilize a country at the core of international concern about nuclear proliferation. ... 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.americanprogress.org/site/lookup.asp%3Fc%3DbiJRJ8OVF%26b%3D26305 PAKISTAN crackdown expected to hurt nuclear black market Stuff.co.nz WASHINGTON: The public confession of Pakistan's top scientist to leaking nuclear secrets is a significant blow to the illicit nuclear trade but serious ... 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.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2805873a12,00.html EXPERTS Doubt Pakistani Scientist Acted Alone in Spreading ... Voice of America Pakistan's top nuclear scientist says he acted alone in exporting sensitive nuclear technology abroad. But the confession leaves many questions unanswered. ... See all stories on this topic: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm%3FobjectID%3DF5FF9F14-681E-4438-89FDBFC11C3556C3 NUCLEAR Bowl: Cal vs. Texas Wired News Two of the country's biggest universities are headed for a multi-billion dollar showdown over who runs the nation's most important nuclear lab. ... 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.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,62165,00.html%3Ftw%3Dwn_tophead_1 N Korea seeks US reward for nuclear freeze Financial Times (subscription) North Korea has demanded compensation from the US in return for freezing its nuclear weapons programme, exposing differences between Pyongyang and Washington ... See all stories on this topic: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer%3Fpagename%3DFT.com/StoryFT/FullStory%26c%3DStoryFT%26cid%3D1073281557362 OP - ed : Reinforcing nuclear secrecy — MV Ramana Daily Times Knowledge of such deficiencies would not reveal the “nuclear programme potential” or be in any way detrimental to national security. ... PAK Govt. Not Involved In Nuclear Proliferation, Says Armitage IndoLink ... the issue, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on Wednesday said that only individuals, and not the government in Islamabad, were involved in 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.indolink.com/displayArticleS.php%3Fid%3D020404123649 NUCLEAR proliferators to be dealt in accordance with Pakistani ... PakTribune.com ISLAMABAD, February 05 (Online): President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Mir Zaffarullah Khan Jamali reaffirming their commitment to the 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.paktribune.com/news/index.php%3Fid%3D53642 MUSH, Khan strike deal to bury nuclear hatchet Times of India WASHINGTON: Backed by the United States , Pakistan’s military leader Pervez Musharraf has evidently arrived at a deal with renegade nuclear scientist AQ.Khan ... See all stories on this topic: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow/475440.cms 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/ ***************************************************************** 77 PRN: International Isotopes Inc Acquires Exclusive Patent Technology For Production of Ultra Pure Fluorine Gas Products High Purity Fluorine Gases Are Used For High Speed Silicon Chip Manufacturing; Conference Call/Web Cast Set For Tuesday, February 3, 2004 at 3:15 PM Eastern Standard Time IDAHO FALLS, Idaho, Feb. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- International Isotopes Inc (OTC Pink Sheets: INIS), a manufacturer of nuclear medicine calibration and reference standards and radioisotopes for medical devices and clinical research, announces the acquisition of all patent technology and intellectual property for a Fluorine Extraction Process (FEP) from International Machine Design (IMD), Boston, MA. The FEP patents and intellectual property will be used for production of several high purity fluorine products and International Isotopes Inc will be establishing a new fluorine products division to capitalize upon the FEP patent technology and establish commercial scale production capacity of these gases. High purity fluorine gases are in ever-increasing demand for ion- implantation or chemical vapor deposition processes for microelectronics components and high-speed silicon chip manufacture. Fluorine production is an entirely new product line for the Company. However, International Isotopes Inc feels it is uniquely well suited in several respects to pursue the FEP market. First, handling the raw material (uranium tetra fluoride) requires an operating permit and safety management programs specifically licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Although this type of regulation presents a major barrier to entry to most businesses, International Isotopes Inc already has the staff, safety programs, and the infrastructure necessary to support NRC licensing for the new FEP facility. A second advantage is the Company is located relatively close to an approved disposal site for the uranium oxide waste product resulting from FEP production. A third advantage is the Company's existing quality assurance program that ensures the pedigree and consistent quality standards of the FEP products just as it has for the various medical devices and nuclear medicine reference and calibration standards currently manufactured by the Company. To support the start-up of FEP, International Isotopes Inc has entered into a marketing and technology consulting agreement with individuals knowledgeable and experienced with the processing technology and market applications for FEP products. Also in support of FEP start-up, the Company has leased an additional industrial facility for production of FEP gases that is located adjacent to the existing production building in Idaho Falls, ID. By locating the new FEP facility in close proximity to the existing operations the Company will be able to reduce costs through effective use of some existing staff and infrastructure. Steve Laflin, President and CEO said, "The purity of FEP products is an order of magnitude better than commonly available fluorine gas products and makes them ideally suited to specialty applications such as microelectronics, where ultra high purity gases are required. In addition, the production costs of FEP products are low in comparison with ultra pure fluorine products manufactured by other commercial methods. The Company expects to effectively compete with existing high purity fluorine product suppliers." Mr. Laflin continued, "I am very excited about this new opportunity and the prospects of working hand-in-hand with the original developers of the technology and markets. We believe the market size and growth outlook for these high purity fluorine products is excellent and should provide the Company an opportunity to grow our revenue substantially. At this point we anticipate the start of production process design and initiation of our permitting activities in the first quarter of 2004. Ultimately I believe we will have some production capacity in place and be able to provide our initial product qualification samples to prospective customers before the end of calendar year 2004 and FEP product revenues commence in 2005." In conclusion, Mr. Laflin emphasized, "The launch of the FEP products division does not mean we are de-emphasizing or reducing the planned growth of our existing products or business areas. Most of our products continue to have positive growth, and the Company continues to plan product expansion in this area. The Company recently completed an agreement under which several of the Company directors and key principal shareholders made a $650,000 investment in the form of a two year convertible note, primarily to support further expansion of the Company's radioisotope products." The Company plans a shareholder conference call/web cast with demonstrations on Tuesday, February 3 at 3:15 PM Eastern Standard Time to discuss this new project and answer any related shareholder questions. What: International Isotopes Inc conference call/web cast with demonstration When: Tuesday, February 3 at 3:15 PM Eastern Standard Time How: Live via phone by dialing 800-936-4602. Code: International Isotopes Inc. Participants to the conference call should call in at least 5 minutes prior to the start time. Participants should access this site: http://209.126.203.20/ipnexus/InternationalIsotopesInc.html while listening to the conference call. About International Isotopes Inc International Isotopes Inc manufactures a full range of nuclear medicine calibration and reference standards and provides a selection of radioisotopes and radiochemicals for medical devices, calibration, clinical research, life sciences, and industrial applications. The Company also provides a host of analytical, measurement, and processing services on a contract basis to clients. International Isotopes Inc Safe Harbor Statement Statements in the press release may constitute forward-looking statements and are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, including the ability to meet time schedules, the need to raise additional capital, the development of competitive products by others and other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company disclaims any obligation to update statements in this press release. For More Information, Contact: Steve Laflin, President and CEO (208) 524-5300 SOURCE International Isotopes Inc Web Site: http://www.intisoid.com Copyright © 1996-2004 PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************