***************************************************************** 02/05/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.30 ***************************************************************** 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 [EMMAS] Rumsfeld: 2002 Iraq WMD Remark May Have Been Misleading 2 Tenet Exposes Bush's Misleading on WMD 3 Pilger: Blair's New Weapon Of Mass Deception 4 Las Vegas SUN: Report: Aznar Nixes Inquiry Into Iraq WMD 5 AU SMH: Powell may have blown lid off debate over war - 6 BBC: Howard calls for Blair to resign 7 Guardian Unlimited: Blair caught in Iraqi arms row 8 US: Washington Post: Rumsfeld: More Time Needed for WMD Search 9 Guardian Unlimited: Hoon 'didn't see' incorrect 45-min headlines 10 Washington Post: Alleged Nuclear Offer to Iraq Is Revisited 11 Washington Post: Tenet to Defend CIA's Role In Prewar Iraq Intellige 12 San Francisco Chronicle: The Wheels of Washington / Groupthink and I 13 UK Independent: We were overruled, says former intelligence chief, 14 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Kelly to Lead U.S. Delegation to Multilat 15 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: NK Reportedly Moving Towards Nuke Program 16 AU ABC: North Korea could be rewarded for nuclear promise: South 17 US: More On Ongoing Cover Up Of Entire Commercial Nuclear Power Ind 18 US: [NukeNet] Appeals Court rejects mitigation - we win one! 19 US: Las Vegas SUN: Tauzin Considers Lobbyist Position 20 US: DOC: LEU from France 21 US: Tri-City Herald: Nation wants truth in intelligence probe 22 US: Washington Post: Some Pet Programs Are Targeted for Cuts 23 SF Chronicle: Nuclear guru takes fall for arms sales 24 US: Valley Advocate: Into the Valley of Dry Bone Dreams 25 US: Valley Advocate: Updates: Facelifts for Aging Nukes 26 IPS-English POLITICS-SOUTH ASIA: New Moves Underway in Nuclear 27 Las Vegas SUN: Nuke Agency Head Vows Black Market Probe 28 Las Vegas SUN: Pakistani Leader Pardons Nuke Scientist 29 BBC: Analysis: Pakistan's nuclear shame 30 BBC: Pakistan pardons 'father of bomb' 31 BBC: Malaysia PM's son in nuclear link 32 BBC: War on terror: Is Pakistan doing 33 BBC: What nuclear secrets were leaked? 34 Haaretz Ex-Mossad chief: option of killing Vanunu was on our minds 35 Washington Post: Pakistan's Nuclear Crimes 36 Washington Post: Musharraf Pardons Pakistani Scientist 37 FT: Malaysian PM's son linked to nuclear probe NUCLEAR REACTORS 38 US: NRC: Entergy Operations, Inc.; Notice of Consideration of Issuan 39 US: NRC: Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Diablo Canyon Power Plant 40 US: North County Times: Fish kill reported at San Onofre nuclear pla 41 The Sun News: Reactor vessel won't sail past Cape Horn 42 US: AP Wire: Small water leak shuts down one nuclear reactor at plan 43 Green Clippings: Parliament to host Nuclear Energy Summit 44 US: Valley Advocate: Time Bomb? 45 US: Valley Advocate: Hidden Exemptions 46 Engineering News: Environmentalists prepare to continue PBMR legal b 47 Guardian Unlimited:BE investors look for better deal 48 The Telegraph - Calcutta: Site search for nuclear plant NUCLEAR SAFETY 49 [du-list] Depleted uranium bullets pose threat to Japanese 50 [du-list] Legal case for Gulf war syndrome to collapse in UK : 51 First Award For Depleted Uranium Poisoning Claim 52 Guardian Unlimited: Gulf war syndrome: the legal case collapses 53 Mainichi Interactive: Depleted uranium bullets pose threat to Japane 54 The Herald: Fewer than 10 Gulf war troops had uranium poisoning 55 Agenzia Giornalistica Italia: SOLDIER MELIS DIES OF URANIUM POISONIN 56 US: courier-journal: Nuclear workers exposed to metal NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 57 US: deseretnews: Waste bill splits House, Senate 58 US: Tri-City Herald: Vit plant construction progresses 59 Nevada Appeal: Backing Yucca funding into a corner 60 US: Knox News: Contract made for radioactive cleanup in South Knoxvi 61 US: Saskatoon StarPhoenix: Mine cleanup aid lauded Decommissioning o 62 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Utah may gain say-so on N-waste 63 Whitehaven News: BNFL FINED £30,000 OVER DIVER DANGER 64 Whitehaven News: MORE N-WASTE=MORE RISK 65 Whitehaven News: NEW UKAEA CHIEF VISITS WINDSCALE PILE 66 Whitehaven News: ALLEGATIONS OF VICTIMISATION AT SELLAFIELD FIRE STA NUCLEAR WEAPONS 67 ManchesterOnline: Reliving the horror of Hiroshima 68 GN Online: Plea to make Mideast WMD-free US DEPT. OF ENERGY 69 DOE: Golden Field Office; Development and Maintenance of Testing 70 ABC News 4 Charleston: Savannah Free From Plutonium For Another Year 71 El Paso Times: Bid to manage Los Alamos lab could benefit UTEP 72 Rocky Mountain News: Rocky Flats coalition in peril 73 CNN.com - Tenet defends CIA on Iraq intelligence - Feb. 5, 2004 74 Oak Ridger: K-25 alarm could have been tampered with 75 Oakland Tribune: Texas may wrestle UC for lab contract OTHER NUCLEAR 76 Google News Alert - nuclear ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 [EMMAS] Rumsfeld: 2002 Iraq WMD Remark May Have Been Misleading Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 11:49:07 -0600 (CST) >>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.<< >>He also said he isn't ready to conclude that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before U.S. troops invaded to depose Saddam Hussein last year.<< ============ http://framehosting.dowjonesnews.com/sample/samplestory.asp?StoryID=20040204 18410004&Take=1 4 Feb 2004 18:41 GMT DJ US Rumsfeld: 2002 Iraq WMD Remark May Have Been Misleading WASHINGTON (AP)--Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld acknowledged Wednesday that remarks he made in 2002 claiming to know where Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were stored may have been misleading. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Rumsfeld was reminded by Sen. Edward Kennedy and other Democrats on the committee that in September 2002 he had claimed "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," Rumsfeld said. He also said he isn't ready to conclude that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before U.S. troops invaded to depose Saddam Hussein last year. (END) Dow Jones Newswires ========= *** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.*** ################################################################# " Social and economic well-being will become a reality only through the zeal, courage, the non-compromising determination of intelligent minorities, and not through the mass." Emma Goldman To SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE to the emmasdance list send email to with the message subscribe/unsubscribe emmasdance. [No subject is needed.] "If I can not dance, I want no part in your revolution." Emma Goldman ################################################################# ***************************************************************** 2 Tenet Exposes Bush's Misleading on WMD Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 13:26:38 -0600 (CST) =============================== THE DAILY MIS-LEAD < http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1435098&l=17043 > =============================== TENET EXPOSES BUSH'S MISLEADING ON WMD In a stunning blow to the president's credibility, CIA Director George Tenet said this morning that intelligence "analysts never said there was an imminent threat" from Iraq before the war. His comments are consistent with various warnings sent to the White House from the intelligence community that specifically told the president his claims that Iraq definitely had chemical/biological and nuclear weapons were unsubstantiated. Tenet's comments call into question whether the Bush Administration was knowingly ignoring intelligence and misleading the country by claiming definitively that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was therefore an "imminent," "immediate," "urgent" and "mortal" threat to the American people. Though the White House has claimed it never said Iraq was an imminent threat, the record proves otherwise. When White House communications director Dan Bartlett was asked before the war whether Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat, he responded, "Of course he is." When White House spokesman Scott McClellan was asked why NATO (and thus the United States) should support Turkey's request for defensive troops, he responded, "This is about an imminent threat." When White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was asked whether the invasion of Iraq was because Iraq was an imminent threat, he responded, "Absolutely." The president also used other language aimed at misleading Americans into thinking that U.S. intelligence definitively knew Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that threatened America - even though the intelligence community told the president it had no such evidence. The president said before the war that Iraq was an "urgent threat" and a "grave threat" to "any American." In his speech informing Americans that the invasion had started, the President said Iraq "threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder." These comments were echoed by other top Administration officials. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on September 19, 2002 that "no terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq." And Vice President Cheney called Iraq a "mortal threat," and said "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction...to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." And Secretary of State Colin Powell, in pressing for U.N. support, said definitively that Iraq possessed "deadly weapons programs" that "are real and present dangers to the region and to the world." Visit Misleader.org for more about Bush Administration distortion. --> < http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1435098&l=17044 > =========================================================== 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. ***************************************************************** 3 Pilger: Blair's New Weapon Of Mass Deception Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 15:48:20 -0600 (CST) February 05, 2004 ZNet --------- Blair's New Weapon Of Mass Deception 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 radiationsuits, 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 contradictedall his spurious claims. General Kamel (who was later murdered by Saddam Hussein) corroborated Scott Ritter's statement thatIraq 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. -------------- http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=4932 ------------ ***************************************************************** 4 Las Vegas SUN: Report: Aznar Nixes Inquiry Into Iraq WMD Today: February 05, 2004 at 5:35:12 PST By MAR ROMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS MADRID, Spain (AP) - Spain has ruled out an official inquiry into why the government believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before last year's U.S.-led invasion, the newspaper El Pais reported Thursday. The government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar drafted a three-page internal document justifying its support for invading Iraq based on reports by United Nations' weapons inspectors, U.N resolutions and the national interest of Spain. "The government never used as an argument any statement from any report of any secret service," El Pais quoted the document as stating. A spokesman for the prime minister's office declined to confirm the document exists. President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair earlier this week authorized examinations of controversial military intelligence that claimed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, or weapons programs. That such weapons posed a threat to other countries was Bush's and Blair's main argument for a war that millions of people worldwide opposed. An exhaustive, post-conflict search has turned up no such weapons, and David Kay, former U.N. chief weapons inspector in Iraq, recently said he doubted they exist. In his speech Wednesday, Aznar did not refer directly to growing doubts that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, but said "we cannot stand by and do nothing" if there was a risk that such weapons exist and could be used by terrorists. Socialist and other opposition parties that opposed the invasion keep demanding that Aznar explain the government's reasons for supporting the invasion in light of the subsequent failure to find dangerous weapons. Eleven Spaniards in the U.S.-led coalition have died in Iraq since August, including seven intelligence agents killed in an ambush in late November. -- ***************************************************************** 5 AU SMH: Powell may have blown lid off debate over war - SpecialsWarOnIraq - www.smh.com.au [Sydney Morning Herald Online] By Marian Wilkinson, Herald Correspondent in Washington February 5, 2004 The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has lit the fuse on what may prove to be one of the most explosive political debates in the American election. Have more than 500 US soldiers died in Iraq, thousands more been maimed and US taxpayers been hit with a massive bill because of an intelligence failure? It began with a simple question during a meeting of Mr Powell and The Washington Post's editorial board on Monday. If the CIA director, George Tenet, told him a year ago what we now know, that there were no stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq, would he have advised President George Bush to go to war? "I don't know," Mr Powell said. "I don't know because it was the stockpiles that presented the final piece that made it more of a real and present danger." And, he added: "The absence of a stockpile changes the political calculus." Democrats were stunned by Mr Powell's blunt response and even some Republicans on Tuesday accused him of trying to walk away from Mr Bush's decision to go to war. Within hours of the paper hitting the streets, Mr Powell was anxiously clarifying his answer, insisting he fully backed the President's decision, even though Iraq was not an imminent threat to the US or any other country. "There should be no doubt we have done the right thing and history certainly will be the test of that," said Mr Powell after meeting with United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, in Washington to discuss the present Iraqi political crisis. But in his interview with The Washington Post, Mr Powell went "off script" for one brief moment, conceding the obvious point. If Iraq was not a threat, it is now debatable whether the war, and its enormous cost to America was necessary or whether Saddam Hussein could have been contained. Until now, Mr Bush, his National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice and the whole Administration have insisted the war was justified even though no weapons of mass destruction have been found because Saddam was guilty of "intent" to rebuild his weapons. Mr Powell also pushed this justification with The Washington Post. And the US public, so far, has backed Mr Bush's handling of the war by a small margin. But Mr Powell's remarks have given many Americans pause and it seems we are now at a critical turning point in the debate over the war. When the hawkish former chief US weapons hunter in Iraq, David Kay, conceded before the US Congress that there were no stockpiles of WMD and admitted "We were all wrong, probably", Mr Bush was suddenly put on the defensive. When Dr Kay, with the support of a leading Republican senator, John McCain, called for an outside inquiry into the prewar intelligence, a shell-shocked Mr Bush and Dr Rice took several days to respond. The White House eventually agreed Mr Bush would sign an executive order setting up an "independent" inquiry. Mr Bush has insisted the inquiry will not report until after voters go the polls in November to prevent it becoming "politicised". But the idea that Americans will not want to know the facts before they decide whether to re-elect Mr Bush is implausible. And neither the Democrats or the US media will find this acceptable. It is clear that many people who supported the war are now demanding some answers. Copyright © 2004. The Sydney Morning Herald ***************************************************************** 6 BBC: Howard calls for Blair to resign Last Updated: Thursday, 5 February, 2004 [Geoff Hoon in the Commons on Thursday] Mr Hoon answered questions from MPs Prime Minister Tony Blair should resign because he failed to ask "basic questions" on claims made in his Iraq dossier, Michael Howard has said. The Tory leader seized on Mr Blair's admission he did not know the claim Iraq could use weapons within 45 minutes referred to battlefield arms. Cabinet minister Margaret Beckett branded his criticisms as "nitpicking". "What matters is what they [the weapons] can do, not how they are delivered," she told BBC Radio 4's PM. Mrs Beckett said wartime prime minister Winston Churchill had not wasted time trying to find out what munitions the enemy had. [From top left: Sergeant Simon Alexander Hamilton-Jewell; Corporal Russell Aston; Corporal Paul Graham Long; Corporal Simon Miller; Lance-Corporal Benjamin Hyde; Lance-Corporal Thomas Keys.] Hoon met relatives of the military police officers killed in Iraq in June Mr Blair's official spokesman accused the media of trying to "re-write history" by exaggerating the importance of the claim in the Iraq dossier that Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes. Downing Street says it never claimed Iraq could fire long-range chemical or biological missiles within 45 minutes. On Wednesday, the prime minister caused surprise with his admission he had not known the details of the 45 minute claim when he urged MPs to vote for the war in March 2003. 'Dereliction' Former Commons leader Robin Cook has said he knew before his pre-war resignation that the intelligence referred only to battlefield arms and it was difficult to believe that Mr Blair had not been told too. Tory leader Mr Howard said it was a "grave dereliction of duty" for Mr Blair to fail to ask such a basic question when he was sending troops to war. Calling on the prime minister to resign, he told BBC Radio 4's World At One: "I cannot imagine a more serious failure to carry out his duty as prime minister." But Liberal Democrat defence spokesman Paul Keetch said Mr Howard's criticisms rang hollow because of Tory "cheer-leading" for the war. The day after the Iraq dossier was published, the Sun newspaper suggested Iraqi missiles could hit British forces in Cyprus. Grilled by the Commons defence committee on Thursday morning, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said he only became aware of such headlines later and in any case it was very difficult to get the media to correct inaccuracies. Mr Hoon said he had discovered the 45 minutes claim referred to battlefield weapons before the war when he asked one of his officials - but that was after the September 2002 dossier was published. Asked why he had not told Mr Blair of his discovery, he said: "Since this was not a big issue at the time, it was not a matter we discussed." Indeed, Mr Blair had not mentioned the claim in his eve-of-war Commons speech and it had only become controversial many months later, he added. Kit worries The Butler Committee, set up to examine the pre-war intelligence on Iraq's weapons, met for the first time on Thursday afternoon to discuss its remit. On Thursday, the Commons defence committee questioned Mr Hoon about claims that inadequate or missing kit led to some soldiers' deaths Mr Hoon said equipment shortages had been more widespread and serious than previously thought but the operation had been an overall success. He later met relatives of six Royal Military Police officers who were killed by a mob in Iraq last June. They asked him about claims the men were left exposed in a dangerous place without back-up, heavy weaponry or radio communications. Tony Hamilton-Jewell, whose brother Simon was one of the victims, said Mr Hoon had promised to look at whether a public inquiry into the deaths could be held. The Army has already begun its own investigation. ***************************************************************** 7 Guardian Unlimited: Blair caught in Iraqi arms row Guardian Newspapers Limited Sarah Hall, Patrick Wintour and Richard Norton-Taylor Thursday February 5, 2004 Tony Blair's credibility over his use of intelligence before the Iraq invasion came under fresh assault yesterday when he said that at the time of the war he was personally unaware that Saddam Hussein did not have the ability to fire long-range chemical and biological weapons. The prime minister's admission came in a day-long debate on the Hutton report yesterday and provoked heated exchanges. Mr Blair made clear that at the start of the war he had had no knowledge of the fact that the government's infamous claim that Iraq could mobilise its banned weapons within 45 minutes of an order referred only to battlefield, as opposed to long-range, arms. Yesterday's claim surprised MPs on both sides of the house and drew incredulous responses from opponents of the war. Robin Cook, the former cabinet minister, directly challenged the claim. He said it conflicted with conversations he held with the prime minister, notably one on March 5, recorded in Mr Cook's diary, published under the title The Point of Departure. The entry says: "The most revealing exchange came when we talked about Saddam's arsenal. I told him: 'It's clear from the private briefing that I have had that Saddam has no weapons of mass destruction in a sense of weapons that could strike at strategic cities. But he probably does have several thousand battlefield chemical munitions. Do you never worry that he might use them against British troops?' " According to Mr Cook's book, Mr Blair's reponse was: 'Yes, but all the effort he has had to put into concealment makes it difficult for him to assemble them quickly for use.' " Mr Cook notes: "There is logic to that response, but it is a logic that does not make a case for war but for a process for containment that prevents him from holding weapons in usable mode." Mr Cook yesterday called on the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, to qualify the prime minister's remarks "because I find it difficult to reconcile what I know and what I am sure the prime minister knew at the vote in March". Downing Street last night declined an opportunity to correct the remarks. The 45-minute claim was made a key element in the government's September 2002 dossier on Iraq's chemical and biological weapons capability. In his preface to the document, Mr Blair said the intelligence contained in it "discloses that his [Saddam's] military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them". The published dossier, and media coverage of it, implied that Iraqi forces could deploy long-range chemical and biological weapons against British interests, including its bases in Cyprus. Well-placed Whitehall sources said last night that the intelligence community - including Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI6, and John Scarlett, chairman of the joint intelligence committee - assumed that the source of the 45-minute claim was referring to short-range battlefield weapons as soon as they read his report at the end of August 2002. The question is why this was apparently not made clear to Mr Blair. Under pressure during the Hutton inquiry, Sir Richard acknowledged for the first time that the reference to 45 minutes had been poorly written and referred to short-range weapons. The defence secretary, challenged last night on the prime minister's ignorance, replied: "The prime minister will speak for himself, but ... in details of government activity the responsibilities that I carry out are inevitably going to provide me with a great deal more detailed information than is necessarily available at all times." That led the Tory leader, Michael Howard, to ask: "Is he seriously suggesting he had this information but didn't pass it on to the prime minister?" Mr Howard queried how Mr Hoon, together with the then leader of the house, Mr Cook, and the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, could have been in the know, but not Mr Blair. Mr Hoon replied he had asked about the range "out of curiosity". [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ***************************************************************** 8 Washington Post: Rumsfeld: More Time Needed for WMD Search (washingtonpost.com) Defense Secretary Defends Iraq War in Senate Testimony By William Branigin Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, February 4, 2004; 3:31 PM Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld held out the possibility today that U.S. investigators would eventually find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and said he doubted the "theory" of a former chief weapons inspector that Iraq did not possess stockpiles of such weapons before U.S. forces invaded last year. Addressing the Senate Armed Services Committee for the first time since David Kay told the same panel last week that intelligence analysts were "almost all wrong" about banned weapons in Iraq, Rumsfeld defended President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq, and he denied that administration officials had manipulated the intelligence to justify the invasion. But under Democratic questioning, he backed away from his assertion before the war that the administration knew former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein possessed banned weapons in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion. "Intelligence will never be perfect," Rumsfeld said. "We do not, will not and cannot know everything that's going on in this world of ours." He added: "I'm convinced that the president of the United states did the right thing in Iraq; let there be no doubt." Rumsfeld spoke to the Senate panel in the chamber normally used by the House Armed Services Committee because the discovery of the toxin ricin in a suite of offices used by the Senate majority leader had resulted in the closure of three Senate office buildings yesterday. The defense secretary also defended the U.S. intelligence community, saying they could be excused for concluding that Hussein was pursuing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. "He did not behave like someone who was disarming and wanted to prove he was doing so," Rumsfeld said. "The Congress [and] the national security teams of both the Clinton and the Bush administrations looked at essentially the same intelligence, and they came to similar conclusions that the Iraqi regime posed a danger and should be changed." Rumsfeld put forward several "alternative views" on why nothing has been found in Iraq so far to confirm the prewar estimates of weapons of mass destruction, known as WMD. "First is the theory that WMD may not have existed at the start of the war," he said. "I suppose that's possible, but not likely." He said other possibilities were that chemical or biological weapons did exist in Iraq, but were moved to one or more other countries; that the banned weapons were "dispersed and hidden throughout Iraq;" that the country's WMD was destroyed before the war; that Iraq had only small quantities of biological or chemical weapons with a "surge capability for a rapid buildup;" and that the whole WMD program was "a charade by the Iraqis," with Hussein either fooling the world or being fooled himself by subordinates. Rumsfeld did not say which view, if any, he believed. But he suggested that chemical or biological weapons could still be hidden in Iraq. "Think, it took us 10 months to find Saddam Hussein," he told the committee. "The reality is that the hole he was found hiding in was large enough to hold enough biological weapons to kill thousands of human beings. . . . And unlike Saddam Hussein, such objects, once buried, can stay buried. In a country the size of California, the chances of inspectors finding something buried in the ground without their being led to it by people knowledgeable about where it was is minimal." While U.S. investigators have not proven that Hussein had the weapons that intelligence analysts said he did, they also have "not proven the opposite," Rumsfeld said. When the work of the 1,300-member Iraq Survey Group is complete, he said, "we will know more." Rumsfeld came in for some sharp questioning by Democrats on the committee, notably Sens. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who cited U.S. intelligence studies that said there was no reliable evidence of Iraq's production and stockpiling of chemical weapons before the war. Kay's conclusion that Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction when the war began "is a devastating refutation of the Bush administration's case for war in Iraq and, I think, seriously undermines our credibility in the world," Kennedy told Rumsfeld. The Massachusetts Democrat also blasted the Bush administration's proposal for an "independent, bipartisan" inquiry into the intelligence failure. What the government was offering, he said, was an "investigation by a committee hand-picked by the administration, with findings to be made only after the 2004 election." Under questioning from Kennedy, Rumsfeld backed away from his September 2002 Senate testimony in which he said "we know" that Hussein continues to hide large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. "I could be wrong," Rumsfeld said today. "I'm asked a lot of questions. I use a lot of words, and I'm sure, from time to time, I say something that, in retrospect, I wish I hadn't." He recalled another occasion on which he had expressed such certainty, after U.S. forces had invaded Iraq and he was asked where the weapons of mass destruction were. "And I may have said -- I think I said -- 'We know where they are. They're up north. They're not down here.' And I was referring to the suspect sites. And you're quite right; shorthand, 'We know where they are,' probably turned out not to be exactly what one would have preferred in retrospect." © 2004 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 9 Guardian Unlimited: Hoon 'didn't see' incorrect 45-min headlines Howard: Blair should resign over WMD claim Tom Happold, Matthew Tempest and agencies Thursday February 5, 2004 Michael Howard today called on Tony Blair to resign, accusing him of failing to ask basic questions before committing Britain to war. The Tory leader's comments come after Mr Blair revealed to MPs yesterday that he was unaware that the intelligence that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes referred only to battlefield munitions, not any missile capability. Speaking in Portsmouth, Mr Howard said: "I am accepting what the prime minister told us at face value. He said he never knew, he never bothered to ask this question. "If I were prime minister and I had failed to ask that basic question before committing our country to war I would be seriously considering my position." Mr Howard's comments shift the debate over the pre-war intelligence about WMD from questions about Mr Blair's integrity to ones about his competence. This morning, Mr Blair's spokesman and the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, both played down the significance of the so-called 45-minute claim, which appeared in the government's September 2002 dossier on Iraq's weapons capacity. Appearing before the defence select committee Mr Hoon said that the claim "was not a big issue at the time", and it was "only after unfounded claims by the Today programme" that it became one. He also said that he did not see wildly inaccurate headlines about the 45-minute claim in the Sun and Evening Standard because he been in Ukraine and Poland at the time. The Sun and the Evening Standard both carried banner headlines on the 45-minute claim, but Mr Hoon insisted he had not even had access to press cuttings while away on Nato business for two days during the furore. He added: "I didn't know they were misleading because I didn't see them at the time because I was out of the country". He said he had "hugely sensitive" meetings with the leader of the Ukraine and in Warsaw from 9am on September 24 until 6pm on the 26th and "my concentration was on that." Under questioning Mr Hoon said: "I can't say precisely when I was aware such stories were written." Mr Hoon was grilled by MPs, as he was by the Hutton inquiry, as to why neither he nor the Ministry of Defence had tried to correct the misleading assumption that the 45-minute claim, now widely discredited anyway, applied to strategic missiles rather than battlefield munitions. He did reveal that he thought "battlefield" munitions could, in any case, travel 40km. Mr Hoon's comments were echoed at this morning's lobby briefing, where Downing Street warned against exaggerating the importance of the 45-minute claim. Mr Blair's spokesman told reporters: "The 45-minute point played little part subsequent to the dossier in the discussion about Iraq. There were two questions in 38,000 written parliamentary questions about it. "The prime minister did not draw attention to it in his statement to the house in March. "We never claimed that Saddam Hussein could attack the UK in 45 minutes or within any time scale. "The prime minister and the government believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was able to deploy them both in a tactical and strategic way. We never claimed in the dossier that the 45 minutes referred to ballistic missiles in this way." The spokesman went on: "The dossier did not say that Iraq could deliver ballistic missiles within 45 minutes. "We are in danger of making this 45-minute point some sort of totemic trigger for military action which it never was." Earlier in the questioning, Mr Hoon admitted "more widespread and serious than expected" equipment shortages among British troops during the Iraq war. He conceded to MPs that the "system struggled to cope", and that the logistics broke down tracking pieces of equipment through the theatre of war. And he volunteered that the well-known shortage of boots, in particular, had had "an impact on morale". But he warned that a change in balance between "holding" stores of equipment, and "generating" supplies during warfare would have "major resource implications". [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ***************************************************************** 10 Washington Post: Alleged Nuclear Offer to Iraq Is Revisited (washingtonpost.com) Memos Indicate Attempt to Sell Pakistani Bomb Plans, Equipment on Eve of '91 War By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, February 5, 2004; Page A16 The confession yesterday by scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan that he provided Pakistan's nuclear secrets to other countries has rekindled interest in one of Khan's alleged ventures: an attempt to sell designs for a nuclear bomb to Iraq on the eve of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Reports of the alleged attempted deal have circulated since the late 1990s, when U.N. weapons inspectors discovered Iraqi documents describing a business proposition from a man claiming to represent Khan. The proposal allegedly offered nuclear weapons blueprints and uranium enrichment equipment for an upfront price of $5 million. The Pakistani government and Khan have long denied any knowledge of the deal. But recent disclosures of Khan's assistance to other countries give the Iraqi documents new credibility, according to a report released yesterday by a nuclear research group in Washington that has studied the matter. "These documents provide additional indicators that Pakistani scientists may have offered a range of countries both uranium enrichment and nuclear weapons designs," says the report by the Institute for Science and International Security. Khan's alleged offer was described in an October 1990 memo by Iraq's intelligence service, the Mukhabarat. According to a U.N. translation of the document obtained by the institute, a man identified as Malik relayed an offer from Khan to help Iraq in making enriched uranium and nuclear weapons. "He is prepared to give us project designs for a nuclear bomb," the Iraqi memo states, referring to Khan. The Iraqis were initially suspicious, thinking the offer was a scam, said David Albright, president of the institute and co-author of the report with Corey Hinderstein. Still, Iraqi officials decided to seek samples from the middleman, the documents show. No such samples were delivered, the institute's report says, and three months later the outbreak of war essentially ended Iraq's nuclear program. The Iraqi documents -- combined with the recent discovery of weapons designs in Libya -- raise new concerns about whether Khan's other clients also received bomb plans. "The big question is whether bomb designs were also sold to Iran," Albright said. Iran has denied having the designs for building a nuclear bomb or the intention to do so. © 2004 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 11 Washington Post: Tenet to Defend CIA's Role In Prewar Iraq Intelligence (washingtonpost.com) By Walter Pincus and Dana Priest Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, February 5, 2004; Page A01 CIA Director George J. Tenet plans today to deliver a spirited and highly unusual public defense of his agency's prewar conclusions that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and to disclose previously secret success the CIA had in uncovering weapons programs in Libya and Pakistan, senior intelligence officials said yesterday. The speech at Georgetown University is a response to former U.S. weapons inspector David Kay and others who are criticizing the CIA for misjudging Iraq's weapons threat, President Bush's main rationale for going to war with Iraq. Officials said the speech was Tenet's decision and did not go through the usual White House vetting process. The White House "had no role whatsoever in the drafting of the speech," one administration official said. "It's likely Tenet will give them a copy as a courtesy and say, 'This is the speech I'm going to give.' " Tenet's speech will coincide with the circulation of a 300-page, classified draft report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which will be seen only by members of the panel. Congressional and intelligence officials said the draft criticizes the CIA and Tenet for relying on outdated and circumstantial information and unreliable informants in concluding that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and had an advanced nuclear program. Associates of Tenet have said that the director, who has served for nearly seven years, will not criticize the White House's decision to go to war, as Democrats and other critics would like, but also will not let himself or his agency become what a friend called "a scapegoat" for that decision. Tenet has always prided himself on maintaining good morale at the CIA, and he sees part of his job as standing up for mid-level collectors and analysts who contributed to the overall assessment on Iraq. Several current and former CIA officers said agency employees are feeling particularly besieged recently by the attacks on their work. "People are just down in the dumps," one CIA officer said. "They feel used. They felt at least the president was on their side." Now, the officer said, all the caveats they included in the assessment of Iraq's weapons have been forgotten in the whirlwind of accusations over how the intelligence was used by the Bush administration to make the case for war. On Capitol Hill yesterday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld staunchly defended the intelligence community and said it is far too early to conclude that biological or chemical weapons will not be found in the country. "It took us 10 months to find Saddam Hussein," Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "The reality is that the hole he was found in was large enough to hold enough biological weapons to kill thousands of human beings. . . . And unlike Saddam Hussein, such objects can stay buried." Tenet is expected to make the same point in the speech, to be delivered this morning at Georgetown University, his alma mater. Tenet will say that anyone who asserts the weapons-hunting Iraq Survey Group has accomplished "85 percent" of its mission, as Kay has said, "is 100 percent wrong," said a senior administration official familiar with the prepared text. Tenet also plans a response to Kay and others who have said the agency was not only wrong in Iraq but also was caught unaware by recent revelations about weapons programs in other countries. Kay singled out such intelligence "surprises" in Iran, Libya and Pakistan in an interview with National Public Radio on Jan. 25. "We've had Iran, and we've had Libya," Kay said. "The Iranian program was not found either by the international inspection agencies or by domestic intelligence services. It was Iranian defectors, Iranian opposition groups outside of Iran, that brought that to the world's attention." CONTINUED 1 2 Next > Print This Article © 2004 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 12 San Francisco Chronicle: The Wheels of Washington / Groupthink and Iraq Thursday, February 5, 2004 A year ago, President Bush's State of the Union address made specific claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction: "500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent; mobile biological weapons labs"; and "a design for a nuclear weapon." This week, Bush called for an investigation of intelligence failures about such weapons preceding the invasion of Iraq. Many Americans are surprised at the vast failure of intelligence that led the United States into war. In fact, Bush's decision to go to war based on erroneous facts is part of a long tradition of decision-making at the White House. Psychologist Irving Janis popularized the term groupthink in the 1970s to describe the dynamic that afflicted the Kennedy administration when the president and a close-knit band of advisers authorized the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba in 1961. The president's view was that the Cuban people would greet the American-backed invaders as liberators who would replace Castro's dictatorship with democracy. The reasons for the consensus are easy to understand. Kennedy and his advisers largely relied on testimony from Cuban exiles coupled with a selective reading of available intelligence. As is natural, the president and his advisers searched for information to support their point of view. Those supporting the group's views were invited into the discussion. In contrast, dissenters were seen as not team players and had difficulty in getting a hearing. Some dissenters feared to speak loudly, wanting to maintain political influence. As the top team became more selective in gathering information, the bias of information that reached the president became ever more pronounced. In fact, no Cubans greeted the American-backed force as liberators and Cuba rapidly defeated the invaders. A few years later, the Johnson administration became mired in Vietnam. The historical record shows that, once again, few voices at the very top levels of the administration gave the president the information he needed to make unbiased decisions. Johnson was frequently told the United States was winning the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese, but rarely informed that most Vietnamese viewed the Americans as occupiers, not liberators. The result was another presidential example of groupthink, with the president repeatedly surprised by military failures. As with Kennedy and Johnson, the Bush administration has undertaken a bold attempt to overthrow a foreign government. The goals are laudable: stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction, fighting terrorism and replacing a heinous dictatorship with democracy. The question is whether President Bush and his top advisers, like his predecessors, have fallen prey to groupthink. The United States went to war largely because the president and most of his top advisers believed Iraq possessed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. As is now obvious, there are no large stashes of such weapons. How could the president, a generation after the debacles at the Bay of Pigs and in Vietnam, once again fall prey to the well-documented problem of groupthink? The answer, in the language of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, is that Vice President Dick Cheney and his allies formed "a praetorian guard that encircled the president" to block out views they did not like. Unfortunately, filtering dissent is associated with more famous presidential failures than spectacular successes. One force that can fight against groupthink is independent analysis. For example, the CIA's core competence is finding the well-supported arguments within vast amounts of noise and rumor. Before the decision to invade Iraq, however, these safeguards were short-circuited. The Pentagon established its own intelligence agency largely to bypass the more independent CIA. Under pressure from the White House, the CIA then abandoned some of its independence and delivered a partial view of the information it held. The resulting reports gave credence to sources the CIA had historically (and apparently correctly) discounted, and downplayed cautions the CIA had (correctly) emphasized in the past. Groupthink can often be combated by including a devil's advocate in the group -- someone who points out the weaknesses in the group's accepted wisdom. Secretary of State Colin Powell and the many top military officials who had served with him defeating Saddam Hussein a decade earlier were well suited for this role. They consistently argued for caution. Unfortunately, the pro-war forces around Bush presented a united front against such arguments. Echoing claims about the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam, Cheney declared, Americans will be viewed as liberators. As in Cuba and Southeast Asia, the president did not discuss and perhaps was never warned that most Iraqis would view Americans with resentment. It is tragic, but unavoidable, that a president will sometimes make mistakes in distant regions. It is equally tragic, but much more avoidable, when a president makes mistakes in managing his own staff. David I. Levine is a professor of economics and organizational behavior at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. [graphical line] Page A - 23 ©2004 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ ***************************************************************** 13 UK Independent: We were overruled, says former intelligence chief, and the result was a dossier that was misleading about Iraqi WMD 04 February 2004 In his statement to the Commons on the Hutton report last week, Tony Blair declared that "we can have a debate about the war, about WMD and about intelligence". Yesterday, he made clear an independent investigation would finally go ahead. In the Commons and in his evidence to MPs yesterday, the Prime Minister referred to my own concerns about the Government's assessment of the Iraqi threat. Now that the Hutton report has been published, I feel able to speak on what is in the public domain and on the issues that I believe should be examined by any investigation into "intelligence failure". It is clear from the evidence to the Hutton inquiry that the experts of the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) who dealt with chemical and biological warfare, including those working directly with me, had problems with some aspects of what was being said in various drafts of the dossier that was published on 24 September 2002. The problem was that the best available current evidence that Saddam actually had chemical and biological weapons (CW and BW) was the inference that this must be so from the claim of an apparently unproven original source that such weapons could be "deployed" within 45 minutes. Although the information was relayed through a reliable second source, there was no indication the original or primary source had established a track record of reliability. Furthermore, the information reported by the source was vague in all aspects except, possibly, for the range of times quoted. I believe the DIS experts who worked for and with me were the foremost group of analysts in the West on nuclear, biological and chemical warfare intelligence. It is their job to consider all other related evidence. What was missing was, for example, strong evidence of the continuing existence of weapons and agents and substantive evidence on production or storage. There was no indication that the Iraqi military had practiced the use of CW or BW weapons for more than a decade. But it was known that Iraq had previously possessed CW and BW capabilities and used chemical weapons. Further, Saddam had failed to satisfy the UN that the capability had been eliminated. On balance the DIS experts felt it should be recorded that a CW or BW capability at some level was a probability, but argued against its statement in stronger terms. Despite pointing this out in comments on several drafts, the stronger statements did eventually appear in the executive summary, the part of the dossier "owned" by the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee. Without such a strong summary, the translation of a probability into a certainty that occurred in the foreword drafted by Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister's former director of communications, would have been more noticeable. My recollection is that the disagreement of the experts in the DIS was not so much resolved as finessed. 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. But we were told there was other intelligence that we, the experts, could not see, and that it removed the reservations we were expressing. It was so sensitive it could not be shown to us. It was held within a tight virtual "compartment", available only to a few selected people. The two DIS representatives on the dossier-drafting group were told at the last drafting meeting on 17 September that the compartmented intelligence would be shown by the SIS (MI6) to only the two most senior members of the DIS, the Chief of Defence Intelligence (CDI) and his deputy (DCDI). At a subsequent DIS meeting on that day, the DCDI ruled that he was satisfied by the SIS reassurance and that no further objections on the contentious issues should be raised with the Cabinet Office Assessment Staff. It transpired from evidence to the Hutton inquiry that the clinching intelligence was never seen by the DCDI. By the time I returned from leave on 18 September to a very disgruntled team the deadline for production of the dossier was fast approaching. I examined the relevant reports and discussed them with my experts and decided they were right to be concerned. My experience of the intelligence process made me suspicious of what was happening. I was not reassured when my boss said he had been assured by a representative of the SIS that the new sensitive material was reliable and negated our concerns. My boss was brand new to the intelligence business, unfamiliar with the assessment process and not in the compartment. 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 intelligence expertise was among the exclusive group. It was becoming clear that it was very unlikely we could achieve the balance we desired in the dossier and it was important to register our misgivings formally. Earlier in my intelligence career, I and others in my branch had not taken similar precautions and suffered for it. We believed that no large stockpiles of chemical weapons, such as those present in 1990/91, existed because if they did they would probably have been detected by intelligence. The smaller quantities of chemical weapons that might exist would be hard to find, as would small but significant amounts of BW agents and delivery systems. I foresaw that after the likely invasion and defeat of Iraq, it was quite possible that no WMD would be found. If this happened scapegoats would be sought, so I decided that we should record our concerns about the dossier in order to protect our reputation. But this is a big step to take and I wanted to be as sure of my ground as possible. The UK intelligence community is not large and you can usually find your way to someone "in the know." They need not stray beyond the limits of what they are allowed to reveal, but they can still be of assistance. I eventually found someone who was in the relevant compartment. Information was not volunteered and I did not ask about the detailed content of these reports. I explained the reservations that we had about the draft dossier and asked whether the compartmented intelligence resolved any of these concerns. I was advised they did not. A draft of the dossier arrived on the 19 September. We were told this was the "final" version for proof-reading and no substantive comment would be considered. In any case the DCDI had ruled that no further objections should be made. I arranged the short meeting with David Kelly and others that I have described in testimony to Lord Hutton to satisfy myself that the basis of Dr Kelly's view that the dossier was "good" did not contradict our own position. By the end of the day I was confident of my ground and I sent a memorandum to my director and copied it to the DCDI, who, as a member of the JIC, could still intervene if he chose to do so. Once my initial memo was in, my deputy, who was also the CW expert in my branch, was able to contribute a more detailed and direct explanation of our concerns in the light of yet another "final" draft that had appeared. Neither memo produced a direct response. We could only suppose that the compartmented intelligence seen by the CDI was clear and unambiguous for him to disregard, without discussion, the recorded views of two senior analysts who, although only of middle rank were, like the late Dr Kelly, the UK's foremost experts in their field. During the course of their own inquiry, the Intelligence and Security Committee was given sight of the relevant intelligence and, despite the fact that they are not expert intelligence analysts, they reported rather enigmatically that they could "understand the basis on which the CDI and the JIC took the view they did". But with all that has and has not happened since, I believe the advice I received in September 2002 about the compartmented intelligence was valid. Now that it is being so widely suggested that Britain went to war on the back of an "intelligence failure", it is important that the nature of that failure is understood. An intelligence failure can be the result of many things. The absence of significant "raw" intelligence would be a collection failure. There was a self-inflicted dearth of information on Iraq following the withdrawal of Unscom inspectors before Operation Desert Fox in 1998 and an additional degree of uncertainty once their constraining influence was lost. A failure can result if the significance of a piece of "raw" intelligence is not recognised, or its analysis is flawed, or its context misunderstood. This would be an assessment failure. The failure of policy-makers to accept or act on information can also be called an intelligence failure because of the inadequacy of its presentation by the intelligence community. Whether or not there was a failure of intelligence assessment should be judged, not on the dossier, but on relevant JIC papers. Similarly, whether or not there was a failure in intelligence collection should be judged on the reports the collectors issued. Arguably, the dossier revealed more about the top end of the process and the fashioning of a product that has hitherto been alien to the UK intelligence community. 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. It would be a travesty if the reputation of the DIS and its dedicated people was besmirched and the organisation as a whole undermined. The DIS includes the only significant body of dedicated professional intelligence analysts in the UK intelligence community and they are a much under-valued and under-resourced national asset. 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. Lord Hutton describes the JIC as, "the most senior body in the Intelligence Services charged with the assessment of intelligence". But this is misleading. The members of the JIC are mostly extremely busy officials. Some are effectively the chief executives of large organisations with large budgets and all that goes with that responsibility. Others have a wide range of other responsibilities. All will have a limited time to study personally intelligence reports and the related archives in detail. Most will have had quite limited experience of analysing intelligence. From my perspective the JIC's function is to oversee the assessment of intelligence and question and challenge the experienced and dedicated analysts and intelligence collectors on issues where they, the JIC, might understand the broader relevance and significance of a particular assessment. 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. Events have shown that we in the DIS were right to urge caution. I suggest that now might be a good time to open the box and release from its compartment the intelligence that played such a significant part in formulating a key part of the dossier. I recognise this could possibly be one of a few exceptional circumstances that means the content of the compartmented intelligence remains sensitive even after the fall of Saddam. If this is the case it should be clearly stated. Otherwise the simple act of opening this box and explaining who had the right to look into it before the war could increase the transparency and hasten the progress of the new inquiry. Dr Brian Jones was formerly head of the branch within the Scientific and Technical Directorate of Defence Intelligence Staff that was responsible for the analysis of intelligence from all sources on nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. He retired in January 2003 UK Independent Ltd. ***************************************************************** 14 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Kelly to Lead U.S. Delegation to Multilateral Nuke Talks Updated Feb.5,2004 13:25 KST U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs James Kelly will lead the U.S. delegation to the second round of six-nation discussions over North Korea's atomic program late this month in Beijing. According to U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, the decision was widely expected as Kelly had played a significant role in weeks of diplomacy led by China aimed at jump-starting another round of multilateral dialogue. Mr Kelly had led the U.S. team to the first set of nuclear talks last August also involving China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas. Negotiations back then ended with little progress as participants were unable to bridge the gap over differences in opinion. Arirang TV ***************************************************************** 15 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: NK Reportedly Moving Towards Nuke Program Dismantlement Updated Feb.5,2004 19:29 KST by Joo Yong-joong (midway@chosun.com) Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer/AFP WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Washington Times and the LA Times reported Wednesday that North Korea¡¯s offer to freeze its nuclear program and re-enter into six party talks on Feb. 25 might be a first step towards a decision to dismantle its nuclear program. According to the Washington Times, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, discussing a meeting between a delegation he sent to North Korea and North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Yong-il, is quoted as saying, ¡°[Mr. Kim] also confirmed that North Korea's offer to 'freeze' its nuclear activities in return for certain 'reciprocal measures' was only the first step in a process which would lead to the eventual dismantlement of its nuclear-weapons program.¡± Last month, a delegation sent by Downer and led by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's North Asia division head, Murray McLean, visited North Korea from Jan. 31 to Feb. 3 and met with a number of high-ranking officials, including Vice Foreign Minister Kim, broadly discussing the re-opening of six-party talks and other issues related to the nuclear issue. The LA Times reported that North Korea¡¯s rejoining of the six-party talks could suggest a decision to give up its nuclear development plans, leading some to hope that Kim Jong-il's regime has decided to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. Meanwhile, the Asahi Shimbun reported Thursday that North Korea was likely to announce that it would freeze its nuclear development facilities in Yongbyon during the next round of six-party talks. Quoting an American official connected to the talks, the Asahi said that the planned freeze would include stopping operations at its 5,000 kilowatt graphite-moderated nuclear reactor and reprocessing facilities. It also said that North Korea is prepared to re-admit IAEA inspectors into the country and allow them to reinstall cameras in the reactor, reprocessing facilities and used fuel rod storage facilities, and allow them to seal such facilities. ***************************************************************** 16 AU ABC: North Korea could be rewarded for nuclear promise: South South Korea's foreign minister, Ban Ki-Moon, says North Korea could be rewarded simply for promising to scrap its nuclear weapons ambitions at six-party talks later this month. Pyongyang says it wants the February 25 talks in Beijing to focus on its offer to suspend its nuclear activities in return for significant benefits from the United States. However, Washington says it has no plans to reward Pyongyang unless it sees a complete, irreversible, and verifiable elimination of North Korea's atomic ambitions. North Korea's freeze offer concerns only its plutonium producing plant at Yongbyon, north of the capital, Pyongyang, and does not cover its suspected uranium-enrichment scheme that triggered the current nuclear crisis. Mr Ban says while Pyongyang's offer does not go far enough, an agreement to dismantle its nuclear programs could lead to unspecified benefits for the North. 05/02/2004 22:55:27 | ABC Radio Australia News ***************************************************************** 17 More On Ongoing Cover Up Of Entire Commercial Nuclear Power Industry In USA & Possible International Implications Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 10:08:01 -0500 If anyone has any insights re any implications or potential implications pertaining to how the statements below MIGHT pertain to commercial reactors outside of the USA anywhere in the world please e-mail me privately at smirnowb@ix.netcom.com . Thanks. On the ongoing cover up of the entire commercial nuclear power industry in the USA see: 1. http://www.mothersalert.org/rickover.html 2. http://www.mothersalert.org/bertell.html 3. http://www.mothersalert.org/blanche.html [ From former nuclear engineer of the year] From: Kali Z. To: Westcan@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2004 1:02 AM Subject: [westcan] National Geographic 3 Mile Island TV show http://www.nationalgeographic.com http://www.nationalgeographic.com/channel/ http://www.google.com National Geographic TV has a website Greetings my stalwart friends, This evening the National Geographic Channel (on cable TV) showed an hour-long "documentary" about the disaster at 3 Mile Island nuclear plant in 1979. It was pretty graphic and suitably frightening, showing the total confusion and outright lies of the NRC, the local staff, etc. However, while it did show the plant's neighbors stating that the air "smelled strongly of metal" the morning the crisis began, and showed the feeble evacuation attempted, only after days of dithering by the authorities, it did not admit of the real and dangerous radiation released from the plant. It showed President Carter & wife courageously visiting the plant when most scientists thought it was about to blow totally. It showed the NRC bickering amongst themselves for days while radiation was released, the public was uninformed, and the plant threatened the entire East Coast of the US. While this film does have its shortcomings, and at the end we are assured that "the public was not exposed to any dangerous radiation", just like the clearly lying authorities said at the outset, it does inspire fear, and should be shown more to the public, especially those near IP, which is all of us in the Northeast. It might well help to refresh people's minds about what REALLY DID HAPPEN, AND CAN HAPPEN AGAIN SO EASILY. National Geographic TV has a website, and they usually replay their shows, so you can probably find out when. ***************************************************************** 18 [NukeNet] Appeals Court rejects mitigation - we win one! Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2004 17:08:08 -0800 APPEALS COURT REJECTS EPA RULE ON POWER PLANT COOLING Date: 040205 From: http://www.newsday.com/ By Michael Virtanen, Associated Press Writer, February 4, 2004 Albany, NY - An appeals court rejected a federal rule that allows new power companies to compensate for killing fish. New power plants and factories that kill fish with their cooling systems [must] restock fish or create new habitats to make up for the loss. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said that the "restoration programs" benefit the environment but do not meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act. The court said the act requires industrial plants to use technology that does not kill wildlife in the first place. "Every day, power plants and factories around the nation withdraw more than 279 billion gallons of water to cool their industrial facilities," the three-judge panel wrote in a ruling Tuesday. "The environmental impact of these systems is staggering: A single power plant might impinge a million adult fish in just a three week period." The 2002 Environmental Protection Agency rules generally require "closed-cycle" cooling for new systems that draw at least 10 million gallons of water daily from lakes or rivers. Recirculating systems use a fraction of the water and kill a fraction of the fish compared to "once-through" cooling systems that take in water and release it. The EPA rules allow other technologies provided they reduce the environmental impact to "comparable" levels, including "restoration measures." The three-judge panel found that portion of the rules "plainly inconsistent" with the 1972 amendments to the Clean Water Act, noting that Congress a decade later rejected such an amendment. The court upheld other provisions of the EPA rules Tuesday, some that were attacked by environmental groups and others by utilities and manufacturers. "It's a tremendous victory for our nation's waters and will protect billions of fish from the needless slaughter by industrial facilities," said Reed Super, senior attorney for Riverkeeper, lead plaintiff among a dozen environmental groups. They will now ask the EPA to reconsider pending rules for existing cooling systems, he said, which also had been expected to allow so-called restoration measures. Calls to the EPA were not immediately returned Wednesday. About 500 power plants still use once-through cooling, Super said. Five are on the lower Hudson River. Closed-cycle cooling has become the industry standard over the past 20 years, he said. A call to the attorney for the plaintiff, Utility Water Act Group, was not immediately returned. * * * Copyright (c) 2004, The Associated Press Top ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Coalition for Peace and Justice (http://www.coalitionforpeaceandjustice.org); and the UNPLUG Salem Campaign (http://www.unplugsalem.org); 321 Barr Ave., Linwood, NJ 08221; 609-601-8583/37; ncohen12@comcast.net. The Coalition for Peace and Justice is a chapter of Peace Action (http://www.peace-action.org). "You can say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one" (Lennon). "Don't be late for your life" (Mary Chapin Carpenter). _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings at: http://chrome.nocdirect.com/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 19 Las Vegas SUN: Tauzin Considers Lobbyist Position February 04, 2004 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. Tauzin, R-La., does not plan to seek re-election in November and may leave Congress before then, said Ken Johnson, Tauzin's spokesman, adding that the lawmaker has not decided 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. The group represents large drug manufacturers such as Eli Lilly and Co. and Merck &Co. The job offer has raised eyebrows because Tauzin's committee deals with legislation affecting the pharmaceutical industry. For example, Tauzin last year guided through his committee and the House a 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. Tauzin's record drew praise from President Bush. "Billy Tauzin has always been a friend to American consumers and seniors," the president said in a statement released Wednesday night. "He is a strong leader and a good friend, and we will miss his experience and sense of humor. Johnson said Tauzin has agreed 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 energy and air quality subcommittee, 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. -- ***************************************************************** 20 DOC: LEU from France FR Doc 04-2523 [Federal Register: February 5, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 24)] [Notices] [Page 5502-5505] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr05fe04-33] DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE International Trade Administration [C-427-819] Preliminary Results of Countervailing Duty Administrative Review: Low Enriched Uranium from France AGENCY: Import Administration, International Trade Administration, Department of Commerce. ACTION: Notice of Preliminary Results of Countervailing Duty Administrative Review. SUMMARY: The Department of Commerce (the Department) is conducting an administrative review of the countervailing duty order on low enriched uranium from France for the period May 14, 2001 through December 31, 2002\1\. For information on the net subsidy for the reviewed company, please see the ``Preliminary Results of Review'' section of this notice. Interested parties are invited to comment on these preliminary results. (See the ``Public Comment'' section of this notice). ----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- \1\ Consistent with the Department's practice, for the purposes of these preliminary results, we have analyzed data for the period January 1, 2001 through December 31, 2001 to determine the subsidy rate for exports of subject merchandise made during the period in 2001 when liquidation of entries was suspended. In addition, we have analyzed data for the period January 1, 2002 through December 31, 2002 to determine the subsidy rate for exports during that period. Further, we are using the 2002 subsidy rate to establish the cash deposit rate for entry of subject merchandise subsequent to the issuance of the final results of this administrative review. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- EFFECTIVE DATE: February 5, 2004. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Carrie Farley at (202) 482-0395 or Tipten Troidl at (202) 482-1767, Office of AD/CVD Enforcement VI, Group II, Import Administration, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Room 4012, 14th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20230. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Background On February 13, 2002, the Department published in the Federal Register the countervailing duty order on low enriched uranium from France. See Amended Final Determination and Notice of Countervailing Duty Orders: Low Enriched Uranium from France, 67 FR 6689 (February 13, 2002). On February 3, 2003, the Department published an opportunity to request an administrative review of this countervailing duty order. See Antidumping or Countervailing Duty [[Page 5503]] Order, Finding, or Suspended Investigation; Opportunity to Request an Administrative Review, 68 FR 5272 (February 3, 2003). We received a timely request for review of Eurodif S.A. (Eurodif), by both respondents and petitioners.\2\ On March 25, 2003, the Department published the initiation of the administrative review of the countervailing duty order on low enriched uranium from France, covering the period of review (POR) May 14, 2001 through December 31, 2002. See Initiation of Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Administrative Reviews and Revocation in Part, 68 FR 14394 (March 25, 2003). ----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- \2\ USEC Inc., its wholly owned subsidiary, United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) and the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union, AFL-CIO, CLC, and Local 5-550 and Local 5-689 (the petitioners) ----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- On May 2, 2003, the Department issued a questionnaire to the Government of France (GOF) and Eurodif. On June 19, 2003, the Department received questionnaire responses from the GOF, and Eurodif. On October 23, 2003, the Department published in the Federal Register an extension of the deadline for the preliminary results. See Low Enriched Uranium from France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom: Extension of Preliminary Results of Countervailing Duty Administrative Reviews, 68 FR 60643 (October 23, 2003). On October 14, 2003 and November 3, 2003, we issued supplemental questionnaires to respondents. On October 31, 2003 and November 7, 2003, we received supplemental responses from respondents. From November 11 through November 14, 2003, we conducted verification of the responses of Eurodif and the GOF. In accordance with 19 CFR 351.213(b), this review covers only those producers or exporters for which a review was specifically requested. The company subject to this review is Eurodif. This review covers 2 programs. Scope of Order For purposes of this order, the product covered is all low enriched uranium (LEU). LEU is enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF[bdi6]) with a U[bds2][bds3][bds5] product assay of less than 20 percent that has not been converted into another chemical form, such as UO[bdi2], or fabricated into nuclear fuel assemblies, regardless of the means by which the LEU is produced (including LEU produced through the down- blending of highly enriched uranium). Certain merchandise is outside the scope of this order. Specifically, this order does not cover enriched uranium hexafluoride with a U[bds2][bds3][bds5] assay of 20 percent or greater, also known as highly enriched uranium. In addition, fabricated LEU is not covered by the scope of this order. For purposes of this order, fabricated uranium is defined as enriched uranium dioxide (UO[bdi2]), whether or not contained in nuclear fuel rods or assemblies. Natural uranium concentrates (U[bdi3]O[bdi8]) with a U[bds2][bds3][bds5] concentration of no greater than 0.711 percent and natural uranium concentrates converted into uranium hexafluoride with a U[bds2][bds3][bds5] concentration of no greater than 0.711 percent are not covered by the scope of this order. Also excluded from this order is LEU owned by a foreign utility end-user and imported into the United States by or for such end-user solely for purposes of conversion by a U.S. fabricator into uranium dioxide (UO[bdi2]) and/or fabrication into fuel assemblies so long as the uranium dioxide and/or fuel assemblies deemed to incorporate such imported LEU (i) remain in the possession and control of the U.S. fabricator, the foreign end-user, or their designed transporter(s) while in U.S. customs territory, and (ii) are re-exported within eighteen (18) months of entry of the LEU for consumption by the end- user in a nuclear reactor outside the United States. Such entries must be accompanied by the certifications of the importer and end user. The merchandise subject to this order is classified in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) at subheading 2844.20.0020. Subject merchandise may also enter under 2844.20.0030, 2844.20.0050, and 2844.40.00. Although the HTSUS subheadings are provided for convenience and customs purposes, the written description of the merchandise is dispositive. Period of Review The POR for which we are measuring subsidies is May 14, 2001, through December 31, 2002. Company History Eurodif was formed in 1973 by French and foreign government agencies to provide a secure source of LEU, in order to facilitate the development of nuclear energy programs in participating countries. During the POR, Eurodif was 44.65 percent-owned by COGEMA, which itself is principally owned by a subsidiary of the Commissariat d'Energie Atomique (CEA), an agency of the GOF. Further, Eurodif was 25 percent- owned by SOFIDIF, a French company 60 percent-owned by COGEMA, thereby effectively placing COGEMA's ownership of Eurodif during the POR at approximately 60 percent. The remaining major shareholders of Eurodif during the POR were ENUSA, an entity of the Spanish government, SYNATOM, an entity of the Belgian government, and ENEA, an entity of the Italian government. Programs Preliminarily Determined To Confer Subsidies 1. Purchase at Prices that Constitute ``More Than Adequate Remuneration'' Eurodif provides low enriched uranium to EdF. EdF is a wholly-owned French government agency that supplies, imports and exports electricity. EdF is regulated by the Gas, Electricity and Coal Department of the Ministry of Industry (DIGEC) and the Budget and Treasury Departments of the Ministry of France. EdF is the major supplier of electricity in France and EdF's nuclear facilities account for approximately 85 percent of the power supplied by EdF in 2002. To date, EdF has entered into three long-term contracts with Eurodif to secure LEU. The first contract was negotiated in 1975; Eurodif began enrichment at its Georges-Besse gaseous diffusion facility in 1979. In the Final Affirmative Countervailing Duty Determination: Low Enriched Uranium from France, 66 FR 65901 (December 21, 2001) (1999 LEU) we found this program to be countervailable. The facts on which this determination was made have not changed. EdF is still owned by the GOF, and because EdF is purchasing a good from Eurodif a financial contribution is being provided under section 771(5)(D)(iv) of the Act. In addition, because this program is available only to Eurodif, we continue to find that this program is specific under section 771(5A)(D)(i) of the Act. Next, we must determine whether a benefit is provided to Eurodif under this program. Under section 771(5)(E)(iv) of the Act, a countervailable benefit may be provided by a government's purchase of a good for ``more than adequate remuneration.'' Under section 771(5)(E)(iv) of the Act, the adequacy of remuneration will be determined in relation to the prevailing market conditions for the goods being purchased in the country which is subject to investigation. Therefore, in order to determine whether the prices paid by EdF constitute ``more than adequate remuneration,'' we must compare the prices paid by EdF to Eurodif with the prices paid by EdF to its other suppliers. [[Page 5504]] Due to the difference in the pricing structure between Eurodif and EdF, as compared with the pricing between EdF and its other suppliers, it is important to make certain adjustments to our comparison. Unlike most other customers, EdF provides its own energy for Eurodif to use when producing LEU for EdF. In 2001, Eurodif paid EdF for the energy it used and re-billed EdF an identical amount. In 2002, Eurodif and EdF changed their billing practice so that EdF now pays Eurodif in energy for the energy Eurodif uses to produce EdF's LEU. For both years, Eurodif charged EdF for the operational costs associated with the production of its LEU. As EdF does not supply electricity to its other LEU suppliers, these suppliers charge EdF a single price per separative work unit (SWU). Thus, we have used this single price per SWU as our benchmark price. In order to make a proper comparison between the benchmark price and the government price (i.e., the price paid by EdF), the Department has included both operational and energy prices paid by EdF to Eurodif. As part of the arrangement for obtaining LEU, customers often provide an amount of natural uranium equal to that which theoretically went into the LEU they are purchasing. The record does not contain information on the value of the natural uranium provided by EdF or other customers to Eurodif. In the ``Issues and Decision Memorandum from Bernard T. Carreau, Deputy Assistant Secretary for AD/CVD Enforcement II to Faryar Shirzad, Assistant Secretary for Import Administration concerning the Final Affirmative Countervailing Duty Determination: Low Enriched Uranium from France - Calendar Year 1999'' (Decision Memorandum) dated December 13, 2001, we assumed that the value of all natural uranium is the same. See Decision Memorandum at 5. In making the comparison in this review we have continued to assume that the value of all natural uranium is the same in instances where EdF supplied its own feed material for enrichment. Thus, we have not included a value for the natural uranium component of the LEU delivered to EdF by Eurodif . In order to determine whether a benefit was provided to Eurodif during the POR, we calculated a per-SWU price for both the energy and operational components of the LEU purchased by EdF from Eurodif based on the price for the component divided by the quantity of SWU. To derive the per-SWU energy component cost under the new billing arrangement in 2002 where we did not have a euro price, we multiplied the MwH/SWU rate paid by EdF to Eurodif by Eurodif's cost of electricity from EdF. After adding these two components together, we compared the per-SWU price paid to Eurodif by EdF during each calendar year with the per-SWU price paid by EdF to its other LEU suppliers during each calendar year. Based on our analysis, we preliminarily determine that prices paid by EdF to Eurodif were higher than prices EdF paid to its other suppliers. Therefore, in accordance with section 771(5)(E)(iv) of the Act, we preliminarily determine that this program conferred countervailable benefits to Eurodif during both 2001 and 2002. Because EdF's purchases of this product from Eurodif are not exceptional but, rather, are made on an ongoing basis from year to year, we determine that the benefit conferred under this program is recurring under section 351.524(c) of the Department's Regulations. Therefore, the benefit is expensed in the year of receipt, i.e., the year in which the purchases are made. To calculate the benefit conferred to Eurodif, we multiplied the calculated price differential by the quantity of SWU component of the LEU purchased from Eurodif by EdF during each calendar year. Although the cash component of EdF's LEU purchases from Eurodif was paid on a ``per-SWU'' basis, the contracts also contained provisions for the natural uranium component of the LEU as well as the electricity used by Eurodif in the production of EdF's LEU. As stated above, we have determined that the value of the natural uranium component of the LEU produced by Eurodif from EdF's feed material is equal to that produced by EdF's other suppliers from EdF's feed material. Therefore, we did not need to calculate a price differential for the natural uranium component of the LEU. Rather, the natural uranium components of the LEU cancelled each other out. Also, we calculated an additional benefit from sales pursuant to the contract listed in Exhibit 16 J of Eurodif's June 19, 2003 questionnaire response. For a more detailed discussion, see Memorandum on ``Eurodif's sales pursuant to the contract provided in Exhibit 16J of the June 19, 2003 questionnaire response,'' dated January 29, 2004, in the case file in the Central Records Unit, main Commerce building, room B-099 (the CRU). Next, we multiplied the benefit amount by the sales of subject merchandise to the United States, divided by total sales, and divided the result by sales that entered U.S. Customs during calendar years 2001 and 2002 respectively. Thus, we have calculated the ad valorem rate for this program using the following formula: A = B * (C/D) [dash1][dash2][dash3][dash4][dash5][dash6] E Where: A = Ad Valorem Rate B = Subsidy Benefit C = Sales of Subject Merchandise to the United States During the Calendar Year D = Total Sales During the Calendar Year (including COGEMA sales on behalf of Eurodif) E = Sales That Entered U.S. Customs During the Calendar Year On this basis, we preliminarily determine a net countervailable subsidy under this program of 6.20 percent ad valorem for 2001 and 1.40 percent ad valorem for 2002 for Eurodif. 2. Exoneration/Reimbursement of Corporate Income Taxes Under a specific governmental agreement entered into upon Eurodif's creation, Eurodif is only liable for income taxes on the portion of its income relating to the percentage of its private ownership. Eurodif is fully exonerated from payment of corporate income taxes corresponding to the percentage of its foreign government ownership and is eligible for a reimbursement of the amount of corporate income taxes corresponding to its percentage of French government ownership. Based on this governmental agreement, Eurodif was exonerated from a portion of its 2000 and 2001 corporate income taxes filed during calendar years 2001 and 2002. This tax exemption constitutes a financial contribution within the meaning of section 771(5)(D)(ii) of the Act. Further, because the tax exemption is limited to Eurodif, the benefit is specific in accordance with section 771(5A)(D)(i) of the Act. In 1999 LEU, we found this program to be countervailable. See Decision Memorandum at 7. As noted above, Eurodif was also eligible for a reimbursement of the amount of income taxes corresponding to its percentage of French government ownership. Eurodif reported that the portion of its taxes attributable to French government ownership was paid in 2000 and 2001, and was reimbursed in 2001 and 2002. In 1999 LEU, we found this program to be countervailable. See Decision Memorandum at 7. No new information has been provided in this review to warrant reconsideration of these determinations. To calculate the benefit conferred upon Eurodif from both parts of this program, we divided the amount of [[Page 5505]] exonerated and reimbursed taxes in each calendar year by Eurodif's total sales during that calendar year. We adjusted Eurodif's sales denominator using the methodology described in the ``Purchase at Prices that Constitute ``More Than Adequate Remuneration'' section, above. On this basis, we preliminarily determine a net countervailable subsidy to Eurodif from this program of 0.34 percent ad valorem in 2001 and 1.63 percent ad valorem in 2002. Verification In accordance with section 782(i) of the Act, we conducted verification at Eurodif and the GOF on November 11 through November 14, 2003. Preliminary Results of Review In accordance with section 703(d)(1)(A)(i) of the Act, we have calculated an individual rate for Eurodif, the only company under review, for 2001 and 2002. We preliminarily determine that the total estimated net countervailable subsidy rate is 6.54 percent ad valorem for 2001 and 3.03 percent ad valorem for 2002. If the final results of this review remain the same as these preliminary results, the Department intends to instruct the U.S. Customs and Border Protection(CBP), within 15 days of publication of the final results of this review, to liquidate shipments of low enriched uranium from France by Eurodif entered, or withdrawn from warehouse, for consumption from May 14, 2001 through September 11, 2001 at 6.54 percent ad valorem and from February 13, 2002 through December 31, 2002 at 3.03 percent ad valorem of the f.o.b. invoice price. The Department also intends to instruct CBP to collect cash deposits of estimated countervailing duties at 3.03 percent ad valorem of the f.o.b. invoice price on all shipments of the subject merchandise from the reviewed company, entered, or withdrawn from warehouse, for consumption on or after the date of publication of the final results of this review. Because the URAA replaced the general rule in favor of a country- wide rate with a general rule in favor of individual rates for investigated and reviewed companies, the procedures for establishing countervailing duty rates, including those for non-reviewed companies, are now essentially the same as those in antidumping cases, except as provided for in section 777A(e)(2)(B) of the Act. The requested review will normally cover only those companies specifically named. See 19 CFR 351.213(b). Pursuant to 19 CFR 351.212(c), for all companies for which a review was not requested, duties must be assessed at the cash deposit rate, and cash deposits must continue to be collected, at the rate previously ordered. As such, the countervailing duty cash deposit rate applicable to a company can no longer change, except pursuant to a request for a review of that company. See Federal-Mogul Corporation and The Torrington Company v. United States, 822 F.Supp. 782 (CIT 1993) and Floral Trade Council v. United States, 822 F.Supp. 766 (CIT 1993) (interpreting 19 CFR 353.22(e), the antidumping regulation on automatic assessment, which is identical to 19 CFR 351.212(c)(ii)(2). Therefore, the cash deposit rates for all companies except those covered by this review will be unchanged by the results of this review. We will instruct CBP to continue to collect cash deposits for non- reviewed companies at the most recent company-specific or country-wide rate applicable to the company. Accordingly, the cash deposit rates that will be applied to non-reviewed companies covered by this order will be the rate for that company established in the most recently completed administrative proceeding. See Notice of Amended Final Determination and Notice of Countervailing Duty Order: Low Enriched Uranium from France, 67 FR 6889 (February 13, 2002). These rates shall apply to all non-reviewed companies until a review of a company assigned these rates is requested. Public Comment Pursuant to 19 CFR 351.224(b), the Department will disclose to parties to the proceeding any calculations performed in connection with these preliminary results within five days after the date of the public announcement of this notice. Pursuant to 19 CFR 351.309, interested parties may submit written comments in response to these preliminary results. Unless otherwise indicated by the Department, case briefs must be submitted within 30 days after the date of publication of this notice, and rebuttal briefs, limited to arguments raised in case briefs, must be submitted no later than five days after the time limit for filing case briefs, unless otherwise specified by the Department. Parties who submit argument in this proceeding are requested to submit with the argument: (1) a statement of the issue, and (2) a brief summary of the argument. Parties submitting case and/or rebuttal briefs are requested to provide the Department copies of the public version on disk. Case and rebuttal briefs must be served on interested parties in accordance with 19 CFR 351.303(f). Also, pursuant to 19 CFR 351.310, within 30 days of the date of publication of this notice, interested parties may request a public hearing on arguments to be raised in the case and rebuttal briefs. Unless the Secretary specifies otherwise, the hearing, if requested, will be held two days after the date for submission of rebuttal briefs, that is, thirty-seven days after the date of publication of these preliminary results. Representatives of parties to the proceeding may request disclosure of proprietary information under administrative protective order no later than 10 days after the representative's client or employer becomes a party to the proceeding, but in no event later than the date the case briefs, under 19 CFR 351.309(c)(ii), are due. The Department will publish the final results of this administrative review, including the results of its analysis of arguments made in any case or rebuttal briefs. This administrative review is issued and published in accordance with sections 751(a)(1) and 777(I)(1) of the Act (19 U.S.C. 1675(a)(1) and 19 U.S.C. 1677f(I)(1)). Dated: January 29, 2004. James J. Jochum, Assistant Secretary Import Administration. [FR Doc. 04-2523 Filed 2-4-04; 8:45 am] ***************************************************************** 21 Tri-City Herald: Nation wants truth in intelligence probe This story was published Wednesday, February 4th, 2004 The mood of the public rather than a change of heart is likely what led President Bush to authorize an independent commission to investigate "intelligence failures" behind the invasion of Iraq. The public mood has come home to the White House in recent polls. They indicate the current president's popularity is beginning to follow the slide experienced by his father, the first President Bush, after he ended Desert Storm with Saddam Hussein still in power. The elder Bush saw his approval ratings plummet from the 90 percent range to 15 percent. No such catastrophic slide has occurred to the current President Bush, but his approval rating is well down from its high during the war in Afghanistan, for which he had almost universal approval in this country. Various polls now indicate he could have a real fight on his hands to get re-elected. Of course, the economy plays a role in those findings, too. Bush rejected an independent investigation of the handling of intelligence on Iraq before he changed his mind Monday. That's happened before. He also was opposed to extending the investigation of 9/11 failures, and the White House fought against giving the members of that commission all the data they asked for. It was as though the effort was to politicize the findings. Americans are entitled to know the truth about what happened to prompt the revered (at least, at the time) Secretary of State Colin Powell to declare before the United Nations his certainty about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- weapons that did not exist. There are members of both parties who think that intelligence agencies failed in their jobs. And some skeptics believe the hard core at the center of the administration insisted that intelligence reports be skewed to support a war the administration was committed to wage since 9/11 and even before. Adding to the suspicion, Bush's rationale for going to war in Iraq keeps shifting. When he fails to explain why, Bush risks losing the support of people who chose him in 2000 for his candor. Former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay was the first high-level official to state openly that the long-sought weapons do not exist, leaving the president open to charges he was playing politics instead of being straight with the American people. The public will no doubt welcome the lifting of the administration's opposition to a nonpolitical investigation of what went wrong with either the gathering or interpretation of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. Anything done in the name of defending America should be above politics. © 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 22 Washington Post: Some Pet Programs Are Targeted for Cuts (washingtonpost.com) By Dana Milbank and Dan Morgan Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, February 5, 2004; Page A11 President Bush's new budget proposes to cut numerous programs that he and others in his administration have previously hailed as successes or top priorities. Among the dozens of programs marked for elimination or reductions in a list the White House issued this week are programs in homeland security, housing, education, the environment and international aid that the administration had previously labeled important. Examples include an early-childhood education program praised by the White House, an arts program celebrated by Laura Bush, an industrial cleanup program highlighted at a presidential event, an AIDS fund championed by the administration, and funds for emergency workers and bioterrorism preparedness. In some cases, the proposed cuts are continuations of long-standing battles with Congress; in other cases, the administration has expanded related programs. But the wide range of cuts Bush has proposed, even for causes he favors, is a sign of the difficult position he is in as he seeks to restrain spending and rein in the deficit. White House spokesman Trent Duffy said the budget reflects better ways to achieve Bush's priorities rather than a change in priorities. "This president wants to fund what works," Duffy said. "In many cases, there's a better way, or a higher priority for the funds." Bush has often vowed "to make sure that our first responders, the brave police and firefighters and emergency management teams, get resources necessary to do the job you expect them to do." But he proposed an 18.4 percent cut in funds or first responders, an $805 million reduction the administration says is justified because it does not believe those funds are "targeted" to homeland security capabilities. Similarly, the administration has cited help for states and cities to "improve their public health and medical infrastructures" as a key achievement in "winning the war on terrorism." But Bush proposed a 10 percent, or $144 million, cut in grants to help state, local and hospital bioterrorism efforts, saying the money will be shifted in part to a new biosurveillance initiative. In the environmental area, the president proposed eliminating $25 million in Department of Housing and Urban Development grants to rehabilitate "brownfield" industrial sites; the Office of Management and Budget said other programs are "more effective." But two years ago, when Bush went to Pennsylvania to highlight his administration's commitment to brownfields, the White House issued a press release celebrating the fact that his 2003 budget "includes $25 million in funding for urban redevelopment and brownfields cleanup through" HUD. Likewise, the president has again proposed eliminating the $149 million spent on the HOPE VI program that demolishes distressed public housing. In 2002, Bush flew to Atlanta to hail the success of a public housing complex that received HOPE VI grants. The president's budget also sets a different tone on some international aid issues. In 2001, he held a Rose Garden event to herald the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis. This year, he proposed $200 million for the fund. The White House said that fulfills Bush's promise to spend $1 billion over five years and notes that he is increasing AIDS spending in other areas. But the amount for the global fund would be a 64 percent cut from current spending of $550 million. Likewise, the Labor Department boasts that it supports international efforts to end child labor. "These projects rescue children from trafficking and exploitative work situations," a 2003 White House fact sheet says. But the president's budget proposed cutting the Labor Department's Bureau of International Affairs by 73 percent, or $80 million, saying this "reverses the previous administration's policy" in favor of "a modest grant program for child labor." Bush proposed cutting some previously cherished education programs. The budget eliminated the $35 million Arts in Education program, saying it has "limited impact." But a year ago, Laura Bush singled out the program for praise in New York. The president proposed eliminating the $247 million Even Start literacy program, calling it ineffective. But previously, the White House praised Even Start, saying it "improves the educational opportunities of children and their parents in low-income areas." Beyond those cuts the White House identified, congressional aides have identified a number of apparent cuts in the homeland security budget that seem at odds with the administration's stated priorities. Discretionary spending on the U.S. citizenship and immigration services, for example, was reduced from $236 million this year to $140 million in 2005, despite the president's plan to create a guest worker program. A White House budget office official said the shortfall would be made up by collecting $150 million more from visa applicants. Congressional aides said a $125 million port security account in the 2004 budget had been eliminated, despite the administration's acknowledgment in a foreword to the budget that "port security is a top priority of the Department of Homeland Security." The White House official said $1.9 billion would go to port security in 2005. In a different part of the budget, a proposed $11 million cut in nuclear energy research drew fire from Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He said this "could undermine" a shift to using more nuclear energy, a goal of Bush's National Energy Policy from May 2001. © 2004 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 23 SF Chronicle: Nuclear guru takes fall for arms sales TV apology alongside Pakistani president absolves government, arouses skepticism Thursday, February 5, 2004 Rawalpindi, Pakistan -- In an unprecedented mea culpa speech on national television, Pakistan's top nuclear scientist accepted full responsibility Wednesday for the passing of atomic secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea -- a scandal that has deeply embarrassed the government of pro-Western President Pervez Musharraf. "It is with the deepest sense of sorrow and regret that I come before you today," a contrite-looking Abdul Qadeer Khan, long considered a national hero, told millions of viewers. "I have much to answer for," said Khan, 66. "The investigations have established that many of the reported activities did occur, and these were inevitably initiated at my behest." Khan spoke in English, which analysts said indicates that his remarks were mainly intended for foreign consumption. They added that his statement appeared aimed at exonerating the government and military of involvement in the rogue nuclear sales. Khan had signed a 12-page confession Friday, but Wednesday's clearly orchestrated speech was a further step that the government apparently felt was necessary in view of Khan's high degree of public support. "I was confronted with the evidence and findings (of proliferation), and I have voluntarily admitted most of it is true," Khan said. "There was never ever any kind of authorization for these activities by the government, I take full responsibility for my actions and seek your pardon." Revered by all Pakistanis up until a few weeks ago, the man affectionately known as "the father of the bomb" has undergone a drastic reversal of fortunes. Pakistan launched an investigation into the activities of its nuclear scientists in November after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confronted Musharraf with evidence of the involvement of Pakistanis in the illegal trade of nuclear know-how. Agency investigators and U.S. officials said Pakistanis were at the center of an international black market network that had supplied crucial technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Khan's statement came shortly after a face-to-face meeting with Musharraf in Rawalpindi during which Khan reportedly submitted a "mercy petition" requesting forgiveness and leniency in view of the services he had rendered to Pakistan's national security. Video of that meeting released later showed a humbled Khan addressing a stern-faced, silent Musharraf. Khan, who is believed to have stolen the plans for a high-speed centrifuge used to produce enriched uranium from a Dutch company he worked for in the 1970s, oversaw the successful testing of Pakistan's -- and the Islamic world's -- first nuclear bomb in 1998. He led Pakistan's nuclear program for two decades until Musharraf relieved him of his post in early 2002 over concerns about his extramural activities. Khan is believed to have enriched himself substantially from his black market smuggling of nuclear plans and materials -- some of which were reportedly delivered on military cargo aircraft. Musharraf called for a late night meeting of the National Command Authority, which controls Pakistan's nuclear assets, to decide on Khan's plea for mercy and how to deal with the other six scientists and administrators implicated in the government's investigation. Musharraf is expected to address the nation on those subjects today. Khan's public admission came after weeks of growing speculation about the possible involvement of Pakistani political and military leaders in proliferation activities. Many believe Khan has struck a backroom deal with authorities that will allow him to retire quietly from public life and escape trial in exchange for Wednesday's speech and his future silence. A prosecution would risk public unrest and potentially damaging exposures on the extent of military involvement. Khan has been widely reported in the media to have claimed he acted on the indirect orders of former army chiefs Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg and Gen. Jehangir Karamat. Khan's admission on Wednesday made no mention of involvement of higher- ups, and he urged people "not to pursue speculation into the involvement of others." "I wish to place on record that those of my subordinates who have accepted their role in the affair were acting in good faith, like me, on my instructions," he said. Among Pakistanis across the nation who tuned in to hear Khan's words were people in Rawalpindi's Saddar market. "Those were not his words, they were Musharraf's," said clothing salesman Sohail Abbassi, who was convinced by the fact that Khan's prepared statement sounded remarkably like recent comments by the president. "He is being forced to clear the army of any wrongdoing." ©2004 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ ***************************************************************** 24 Valley Advocate: Into the Valley of Dry Bone Dreams Robert McNamara's war by John Boonstra - February 5, 2004 [*] The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara Directed by Errol Morris. Cast: Robert S. McNamara. (PG-13) The Fog of War Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara In his seven-year tenure as defense secretary for JFK and then Lyndon Johnson, McNamara was among the American leadership that stood on the very edge of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis. Most notoriously, he was one of the architects of the disastrous U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Yet there's been something of a turnaround in the historical assessment of McNamara, triggered by the publication of his 1995 memoir In Retrospect , in which, while steadfastly refusing to admit personal culpability, he painted a far more complicated picture of what went on behind the scenes in the White House. Through audiotaped interchanges between McNamara and the presidents he served, we are made privy to the secretary's attempts to set up a timetable for American troop withdrawal for Kennedy, then his frequent sparring with LBJ over the wisdom of escalating the conflict. For the purposes of this documentary, McNamara agreed to an interview with Morris, whose initial concern was that the secretary would provide familiar answers he'd already given throughout his lengthy public history. But a mere 20 minutes into the process, Morris begins to pry loose previously undisclosed tidbits. While discussing LeMay's devastating airstrikes on Japanese cities (with Morris providing a background visual comparing the devastation of the incendiary attacks with U.S. populations of similar size -- for example, one raid's destruction was the equivalent of wiping out 99 percent of a city the size of Chattanooga, Tennessee), McNamara mentions LeMay's previously unreported remark that "If this went the other way, we'd be tried as war criminals afterward." It's an undeniable truth, and it cuts to the heart of this film's issues. In his old age, this brilliant and reviled statesman grapples daily with his legacy, and with the conundrum of having to occasionally do evil in order to achieve a lasting good. Moral ambiguity is the shifting bedrock of McNamara's unsparing self-examination, and that lesson -- the underlying syllabus beneath each of the 11 chapters here -- comes at a painful cost. Human beings are fallible. Every military leader, if he's honest, will admit that he's made mistakes that have killed his own troops. People may learn, but they may have to repeat the same mistakes again and again before they do, if they ever do. The powerful pertinence of McNamara's message could not be more timely. The Fog of War has settled upon this nation once more, and our corporate-controlled, government-subservient media is much less likely now to offer opposition viewpoints to those presently in power. Many among us loathed McNamara and LBJ and their war machine back then, but there's a strange comfort in the understanding that these were men who agonized over the mistakes they feared, even then, that they were making. The real test of the extraordinary integrity of Morris' movie is this query: Is it possible to imagine anyone so centrally positioned in the current administration opening up so frankly at any point in the foreseeable future? Use our contact form to write to John Boonstra. Copyright © 1995-2004 New Mass Media. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 25 Valley Advocate: Updates: Facelifts for Aging Nukes by Stephanie Kraft - February 5, 2004 The nuclear electric industry got its start after World War II, when top government scientists thought they saw in the power that had leveled Hiroshima a new source of energy for the country and the world -- a power source that would produce a golden stream of electricity "too cheap to meter." Some experts recommended that nuclear research and power generation complex be built only in a few places, making quality control easier and ensuring that the transport of nuclear material over the nation's railways and highways could be avoided. But market forces took over and nuclear plants were built all over the country, spreading the hazards and necessitating the constant transport of nuclear material. In the 1970s, with the problem of nuclear waste disposal still unsolved, the public's honeymoon with the nuclear power concept began to chill. The incipient meltdown at Three Mile Island dealt a near-fatal blow to the general confidence in the safety of nuclear power plants. What little of that confidence the TMI operators managed to save by adroit management of that emergency was dissipated by the disaster at Chernobyl in the Ukraine in 1986. Since the 1970s no new nuclear power plant construction has been ordered in the U.S. The nuclear industry has been fighting off its own extinction by extending licenses for existing plants and using uprates to increase their power output. In that way it has gone on being able to produce 20 percent of the country's electricity without building new plants. But safety-minded activists are critical of uprates, which sometimes push plants to put out more power than their original design specs accommodated. The very large uprate requested for Vermont Yankee would bring into play several factors which together, experts say, add up to substantial risk. Yankee is 32 years old, and was built under less rigorous regulations than those in force today. It has a Mark I containment, a type of containment later declared unsafe and discontinued in newer reactors. Most recently, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has sent out warnings about drying and cracking of steam dryers in boiling water reactors operating with uprates; the agency noted that Vermont Yankee would be on the list of those reactors if it got an uprate. Steam dryers cleanse particles of water from the steam in a reactor so moisture doesn't corrode the piping system. Use our contact form to write to Stephanie Kraft. Copyright © 1995-2004 New Mass Media. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 26 IPS-English POLITICS-SOUTH ASIA: New Moves Underway in Nuclear Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2004 14:28:57 -0800 ROMAIPS AP IP WD POLITICS-SOUTH ASIA: New Moves Underway in Nuclear Poker Commentary - By Praful Bidwai NEW DELHI, Feb 5 (IPS) - Pakistan's government clearly seems to be moving toward putting on trial some of the individuals allegedly involved in clandestine transfer of nuclear weapons technology and components from Pakistan to North Korea, Iran and Libya. This is the signal that Islamabad is sending after the latest official disclosures about the detailed 'confession' signed by the 'Father of the Pakistani Bomb', Abdul Qadeer Khan, and the arrest of four of his colleagues. Khan has tried to turn the tables on his interrogators by alleging that top generals, including President Gen Pervez Musharraf, knew of and were party to the transfers. (He is also believed to have sent his daughter abroad with a tape naming names of his military accomplices.) On Saturday, Khan was sacked as scientific adviser to the government. Since then, more indications have emerged of the government's intentions from a two-and-a half hour presentation made at a special briefing on Sunday for journalists. Specific illicit activities on the part of personnel of Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) were detailed at that briefing. These point to one of the most complex, elaborate and successful operations to transfer nuclear weapons technology, undertaken anywhere since the Manhattan Project, which invented nuclear weapons. Going by the damning indictment of Dr Khan that emerges from the official briefing, the metallurgist would be guilty of serious proliferation-related offences and of selling Pakistan's nuclear secrets. According to military sources, quoted in the media, trying Khan is a "sensitive" issue, on which no decision has yet been taken. Khan's interrogation has been described as the "humiliation" of a "national hero" by the religious far right. Many Pakistanis have been led to believe Khan "saved Pakistan" from India by making the Bomb. Musharraf's government thus finds itself in a dilemma. On the one hand, it is under enormous pressure from the United States to punish those responsible for the illicit nuclear trade. On the other, a fair trial could produce embarrassing disclosures about the role of the military in the operation. As this mutual sparring between Khan and the government--or blackmail, depending on how one sees it--continues, the major actors are playing out roles designed not to rock the boat. The government claims that it was at no stage involved in, or aware of, the illicit activities of Khan and his colleagues. It attributes them solely to the "personal greed" of "individual scientists" lacking official sanction. There are serious doubts about this assertion. Yet, the U.S. government, which has been investigating the nuclear transfer allegations and which recently confronted Pakistan with evidence, has chosen to go along with this line. The State Department has even complimented Islamabad for its recent actions. Washington knows the Pakistan government is implicated in the clandestine commerce, but Musharraf is a far too valuable ally at the moment to be compromised. It needs him both for its Afghanistan operation and as a potential leader of a moderate Islamic state at a strategic location. Washington is driven more by its short-term tactical needs than the truth. The third player, India, has maintained uncharacteristic silence on the new disclosures. An Indian foreign ministry spokesman told IPS that no statement is due: "There is nothing in the pipeline." A year ago, by contrast, New Delhi impounded a North Korean ship on suspicion that it was carrying illicit nuclear and missile cargo. All three players have their own priorities and compulsions. Pakistan is keen to preserve its nuclear programme and its army's political supremacy--at any cost. It is willing to sacrifice some nuclear scientists by branding them culprits in the covert technology trade. New Delhi is keen not to upset the peace process launched in January after years of conflict with Pakistan. Privately, many Indian diplomats, like strategic analysts, gloat over Pakistan's predicament. But they will not go public. They are aware that underscoring Pakistan's culpability in matters nuclear could show India too in an uncomplimentary light: the world tends to equate India and Pakistan in respect of nuclear weapons and Kashmir. A Security Council resolution (No. 1172 of 1998) brackets the two while condemning their tests. Like Pakistan, India does not want world attention focused on its nuclear weapons. However, it is abundantly clear that Khan's nuclear transfers could not have occurred without the consent of Pakistan's security agencies, controlled by the military, which closely guard its nuclear facilities and personnel. The army has exclusive, unambiguous control over Pakistan's nuclear programme. No civilian leader has probably been allowed to enter facilities like the Kahuta enrichment plant, barring Ghulam Ishaq Khan, a former president trusted by the army. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has complained that she could never enter Kahuta. Khan & Co could not have removed whole centrifuges from Kahuta and put them into airplanes without the military's consent. Similarly, Pakistan reportedly used C-130 aircraft to lift missile components from North Korea. In August 2002, one such plane was photographed by a satellite. All this would have needed the government's approval. Unlike the transfers of centrifuge designs to Iran and Libya, the deals with North Korea seem like straightforward official barters. By the late 1980s, Pakistan had nuclear capability, but no missiles. To 'counter' India, it procured Nodong and Taepodong from North Korea. Personal corruption would seem to have been marginal in this transaction. The ramifications of the clandestine network cut across continents, with a factory making centrifuge components in Malaysia run by a Sri Lankan, middlemen from Germany and Holland, and hardware shipments routed through Dubai. Khan held meetings in Istanbul in Turkey and Casablanca in Morocco, and chartered aircraft to different destinations. His reported 'confessions' will reinforce International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed El Baradei's assessment, following disclosures by Libya and Iran to the Agency, that "international export controls have completely failed in recent years. A nuclear black market has emerged, driven by fantastic cleverness ... Nuclear businessmen, unscrupulous firms and perhaps also state bodies are involved. Libya and Iran made extensive use of this network." Khan was part of a gigantic illicit operation centred on the proliferation of mass-destruction weapons technology. The least this revelation demands is that the U.S government and Pakistan publish the list of clandestine suppliers and middlemen in different countries so that they can be prosecuted. Equally important are legal prohibitions on trade in nuclear materials. The existing IAEA framework is far too loose. Huge quantities of weapons-grade fissile material routinely pass through civilian nuclear facilities the world over. Plutonium, only five kilogrammes of which is enough to make a Nagasaki-type bomb, is traded in amounts such as tens of tonnes. There are large quantities of MUF (material unaccounted-for) in the world's reprocessing facilities. Above all, the world needs to devalue nuclear weapons as a currency of power. It must get down to negotiating their complete elimination. Unless the most powerful states summon up the will to disarm, they will not be able to plug proliferation by smaller nations. (END/IPS/AP/IP/WD/PB/JS/04) = 02050537 ORP003 NNNN ***************************************************************** 27 Las Vegas SUN: Nuke Agency Head Vows Black Market Probe Today: February 05, 2004 at 4:15:12 PST By GEORGE JAHN ASSOCIATED PRESS VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The head of the U.N. atomic agency promised further investigations Thursday into the nuclear black market that supplied Iran, Libya and North Korea following an admission from a Pakistani scientist that he was responsible for the leak in technology. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said experts need to overhaul export controls on nuclear components in light of the admissions by Abdul Qadeer Khan, who founded Pakistan's nuclear program. "Dr. Khan is the tip of an iceberg," ElBaradei said. "But we still have a lot of work to do." Khan has emerged as the head of a network that circumvented international controls to sell blueprints, hardware and know-how to countries running covert nuclear programs. In a public apology, Khan admitted the nuclear leaks and asked for forgiveness. "He was an important part of the process," ElBaradei said. "(But) Dr. Khan was not working alone. There's a lot of chain of activity that we need to follow through on." ElBaradei insisted that "an absolute overhaul of export controls" should take place because the present system "is not working at all." Khan has acknowledged he transferred nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, a Pakistani government official revealed Monday. Pakistan's Cabinet recommended a pardon Thursday for Khan, known as the father of the "Islamic bomb." Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf was to meet with the prime minister later Thursday to discuss the Cabinet's recommendation and make a final decision. ElBaradei's comments came just before he briefed the agency's members on the progress of dismantling Libya's nuclear weapons program after some diplomats complained the news media were better informed than they. -- ***************************************************************** 28 Las Vegas SUN: Pakistani Leader Pardons Nuke Scientist Today: February 05, 2004 at 6:10:11 PST By MATTHEW PENNINGTON ASSOCIATED PRESS ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - President Gen. Pervez Musharraf pardoned the father of Pakistan's nuclear program Thursday for giving technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. The Pakistani leader's pardon headed off a showdown with the political and religious groups which strongly opposed punishment for Abdul Qadeer Khan. Musharraf accepted the scientist's plea for mercy after he admitted the leaks in a televised apology. "There's a written appeal from his side and there's a pardon written from my side," Musharraf said at a news conference. Details of the pardon were not made public, including whether Khan would have to repay any of the money he received for selling Pakistan's nuclear secrets. Earlier Thursday, the Cabinet had sent a recommendation to Musharraf that Khan be pardoned for the proliferation to the three countries that make up what President Bush had termed the "Axis of Evil." In a televised apology Wednesday after meeting Musharraf, Khan accepted full responsibility for nuclear leaks he said were made without government knowledge or approval and asked for forgiveness. Two weeks ago, Musharraf vowed to move against proliferators he condemned as "enemies of the state," but a decision to prosecute Khan would have outraged many Pakistanis. On Thursday, Musharraf said he had sought to balance Pakistan's domestic interests and international demands that proliferation activities be brought to light. "Whatever I have done, I have tried to shield him," Musharraf said of Khan, a national hero. But the president said "one has to balance between international requirements and shielding." "You cannot shield a hero and damage the nation," the president said. Musharraf refused to give further details about the pardon, a decision that he said was made on the recommendation of the National Command Authority - which controls the country's nuclear assets - and the Cabinet. Asked about Khan's motives, Musharraf said: "What is the motive of people? Money, obviously. That's the reality." He said Pakistan wouldn't submit to any U.N. supervision of its weapons program, and that no documents would be handed over to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. He also ruled out an independent investigation of the military's role in proliferation. However, he said the IAEA was welcome to come and discuss the proliferation issue with Pakistan. "We are open and we will tell them everything," Musharraf said. Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters before the pardon was announced that it wasn't up to him to comment on "whether he (Khan) would be pardoned apprehended or decorated." A trial of Khan could have uncovered embarrassing revelations about top government and military officials - amid widespread skepticism about claims that they didn't authorize or know about proliferation of nuclear technology and hardware from tightly guarded facilities to countries where Pakistan had strategic interests. The president said again on Thursday there was no official involvement in proliferation. "The reality is that the government is not involved and that the military is not involved," Musharraf said. "It's only the media that are saying this." In order to become a nuclear power and address the imbalance of military power with rival India, Musharraf said Pakistan had needed people like Khan - who operated covertly from the 1970s until the country's first public nuclear test in 1998. "In the covert period there was autonomy," Musharraf said. Khan "was tasked to do something and he did it. One could not be that intrusive in case what you desired was not accomplished," he said. Pakistan began its investigation in November after Iran told the U.N. nuclear watchdog it obtained nuclear technology from Pakistan. In Vienna, IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei promised further investigations into the nuclear black market and said experts need to overhaul export controls on nuclear components in light of Khan's admissions. "Dr. Khan is the tip of an iceberg," ElBaradei said Thursday. "We still have a lot of work to do." "He was an important part of the process," ElBaradei said. "(But) Dr. Khan was not working alone. There's a lot of chain of activity that we need to follow through on." Also Thursday, Malaysia said it would investigate a company controlled by the prime minister's son for its alleged role in supplying components to Libya's nuclear program. That company has also been connected to the international nuclear black market tied to Pakistan. -- ***************************************************************** 29 BBC: Analysis: Pakistan's nuclear shame Last Updated: Thursday, 5 February, 2004 By Ahmed Rashid In Lahore Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's best-known nuclear scientist, shocked the nation on Wednesday, when he went on television and confessed to leaking nuclear secrets. He said he took full responsibility for proliferating nuclear weapons to Iran, Libya and North Korea. The nuclear National Command Authority, made up of the country's top military and civilian leaders, met after his confession and requested a pardon for Mr Khan from the cabinet. His admission of guilt and plea for mercy is an attempt by the army to put the biggest global scandal on nuclear weapons proliferation behind them as swiftly as possible. [Abdul Qadeer Khan (left) meeting President Pervez Musharraf] Mr Khan's case raises questions about the Pakistani military A trial, even held in camera, may implicate political and military leaders, which may destabilise President Pervez Musharraf's government. Opposition parties have threatened to mount street protests if Mr Khan goes on trial. Islamic fundamentalist and secular parties denounced General Musharraf for trying to make him a scapegoat whilst absolving the army of any responsibility. However, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, leader of the Islamic fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami, again insisted that Mr Khan had told him he had never signed a confession during their meeting on Tuesday. "I don't think people like Khan should be tried. He is a national hero. He has developed the nuclear programme," Mr Ahmed said. Choreography? The meeting between General Musharraf and Mr Khan - and the scientist's appearance on television - appeared to be carefully choreographed by the government. Mr Musharraf, dressed in his camouflage military uniform, looked grim throughout the meeting and spoke through pursed lips. Mr Khan, dressed in a tan Kashmir wool jacket, appeared to be bending towards him in supplication. Pakistani nuclear exper said that in exchange for not embarrassing Mr Musharraf, the US is now likely to insist that Pakistan allow some degree of international safeguards on its nuclear programme Wednesday's events also seem to have been closely co-ordinated with Washington, which is deeply anxious not to destabilise Mr Musharraf, who has sided with the US in the war against terrorism. "President Musharraf has assured us that Pakistan was not involved in any kind of proliferation and I am talking about the government of Pakistan," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. The international community still needs Pakistan's close co-operation in curbing the resurgent Taleban in Afghanistan and catching Osama Bin Laden and the remnants of al-Qaeda who are hiding out in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. Kashmir pressure The US and Britain have also expended much diplomatic capital in persuading India and Pakistan to begin peace talks on Kashmir. The first formal meeting between the two countries is due to start on 16 February. Undue international pressure on Mr Musharraf or domestic agitation could jeopardise that meeting. [Pakistani nuclear-capable missiles] Khan is credited with giving Pakistan a nuclear deterrent However Pakistani nuclear experts said that in exchange for not embarrassing Mr Musharraf, the US is now likely to insist that Pakistan allow some degree of international safeguards on its nuclear programme. The US is also likely to ask for greater controls on Pakistan's stockpile of nuclear weapons and vetting of the 6,000 scientists who work for the nuclear programme. Many of Pakistan's nuclear scientists are committed Islamic fundamentalists. Such negotiations are likely to be carried in secret. However, the fall-out of Pakistan's proliferation is likely to continue, with even greater international scrutiny on the nuclear programmes of North Korea and Iran, and the arrest of those middlemen in Europe, Africa and Dubai whom Khan has named. They allegedly helped him ship nuclear technology to these countries. ***************************************************************** 30 BBC: Pakistan pardons 'father of bomb' Last Updated: Thursday, 5 February, 2004 [Protester in Pakistan with portrait of Abdul Qadeer Khan] Khan is widely seen in Pakistan as a hero for his nuclear work Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has pardoned the disgraced founder of the country's nuclear programme. Abdul Qadeer Khan stunned the nation when he confessed on television to leaking nuclear weapons secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. "You cannot shield a hero and damage the nation," the president said. The head of the UN's atomic agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, described Mr Khan's revelations as just the "tip of the iceberg" of illegal trafficking. But General Musharraf said Pakistan would not hand over any documents to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or allow the United Nations to supervise Pakistan's nuclear programme. No supervision The nuclear scientist, a national hero, made his public confession on Wednesday after meeting General Musharraf. Mr Khan told the nation he had acted without authorisation and begged forgiveness. There was never ever any ki of authorisation for these activities by the government - I take full responsibility Abdul Qadeer Khan Khan's apology in full Abdul Qadeer Khan profile General Musharraf announced his final decision at a news conference following his cabinet's recommendation to grant clemency to the scientist. He said he had tried to balance Pakistan's domestic interests and international demands that proliferation activities be brought to light. "Whatever I have done, I have tried to shield him," Mr Musharraf said. But "one has to balance between international requirements and shielding". Speaking to the BBC, a spokesman for Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, Masood Khan, denied the decision was lenient, saying Mr Khan had "made a contribution to Pakistan's nuclear programme". Correspondents say there was huge public opposition to putting him on trial. They say pardoning him avoids the potential embarrassment that could result from a public prosecution - even though it could spark allegations of a cover-up. The BBC's Jim Fish says experts are deeply sceptical that Mr Khan's alleged proliferation network could have spread so far without the complicity of some in the government. [Abdul Qadeer Khan meeting President Musharraf] Khan said Musharraf was not to blame Raza Rabbani, a former government minister and acting secretary-general of Benazir Bhutto's opposition Pakistan People's Party, demanded more information about Mr Khan's activities. The secret network may not have been government-sponsored, he said, but "one could say maybe the ambit is slightly larger than a single individual. "That is why the opposition in Pakistan and particularly the People's Party has been demanding that there be a parliamentary inquiry into this whole episode," he told the BBC. But Mr Musharraf said no independent inquiry would be allowed. Urgent task Mr ElBaradei - the head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency - told reporters Mr Khan was "just the tip of the iceberg for us". He said Mr Khan was "not working alone". Later, an IAEA spokeswoman told the BBC urgent work was needed to cut off the so-called "end-users" of proliferated weapons information. Pakistan began an inquiry into possible illegal transfers late last year after the UN passed on information it had gathered about Iran and Libya's nuclear programmes. Officials say Mr Khan ran a network that systematically smuggled nuclear equipment to third countries using chartered planes. They say the network shared secret designs for centrifuges capable of producing weapons-grade uranium. Mr Khan, it is alleged, also secretly travelled abroad to explain to Iranian, Libyan and North Korean scientists how to make nuclear bombs. More than 15 people from the nuclear enrichment facility that Mr Khan used to run, Khan Research Laboratories (KRL), are still being questioned in the nuclear transfers investigation. Their relatives say they are innocent. Washington, which pressed Islamabad to investigate the suspected nuclear proliferation, may now exhort it to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, say correspondents. ***************************************************************** 31 BBC: Malaysia PM's son in nuclear link Last Updated: Thursday, 5 February, 2004 [PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi ] The probe could be embarrassing for Malaysia's Prime Minister A firm controlled by the son of Malaysia's prime minister is being investigated for allegedly supplying Libya's nuclear weapons programme. Police say foreign intelligence warned them that Malaysian centrifuge parts were on a Libyan-bound ship last year. The parts were reportedly in boxes with the name Scope, a subsidiary of Scomi Group, controlled by Kamaluddin Abdullah, son of PM Abdullah Badawi. Scomi said it had won a contract to ship parts to a customer in Dubai. The Malaysian Government has denied that the country in any way contributed to the spread of nuclear technology. KAMALUDDIN ABDULLAH Only son of PM Abdulla Badawi Educated at Cambridge University Owns controlling stake in Scomi, no management role "Investigations so far showed that not one company in Malaysia has the ability to manufacture a complete centrifuge unit," Malaysia's Inspector General of Police Mohammad Bakri Omar said in a statement. "Because this requires technological capability and high expertise in the field of nuclear weapons," Mr Bakri said. Analysts say the news of Scomi's involvement in the probe could be embarrassing to Mr Badawi, who was only appointed prime minister last October. Businessman investigated Mr Bakri said the tip-off was received by British and US intelligence services in early November. He said the CIA and MI6 claimed the parts had been found a month earlier on board a ship heading to Libya during a stopover in Italy. "The components were said to have been placed in wooden boxes labelled Scomi Precision Engineering Sdn Bhd (Scope). Scope is a subsidiary of Scomi Group Bhd," said a police statement. Scomi - a medium-sized oil and gas company - said Scope had been awarded a contract to provide tooling services to a Dubai-based firm. In a statement, the company said it shipped the components in four consignments to Dubai between December 2002 and August 2003. Scomi said the contract had been arranged by BSA Tahir, a Sri Lankan businessman who is currently under investigation in Malaysia. They were not told the "end-use" of the components. "The company was recently informed by the Malaysian police that Mr Tahir is currently the subject of an investigation by Malaysian, American and British intelligence authorities over his alleged involvement in the supply of nuclear technology to Libya," said Scomi. A high-level government source noted that any firm knowingly involved in the clandestine nuclear trade was unlikely to label its cargo with its own name. Mr Bakri said Mr Tahir was co-operating in the investigation and was not under arrest. He said the police would issue a statement on the outcome of their investigations once they are completed. ***************************************************************** 32 BBC: War on terror: Is Pakistan doing Last Updated: Thursday, 5 February, 2004 [Launch of nuclear missile at Kahuta Research Laboratories] Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has pardoned the disgraced founder of the country's nuclear programme. Abdul Qadeer Khan stunned the nation when he confessed on television to leaking nuclear weapons secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. On Wednesday the White House welcomed Pakistan's attempts to crack down on nuclear proliferation. However, Pakistan's opposition parties have criticised President Musharraf of bowing to American pressure. There have been claims that Khan was forced to make his statement and that it was a cover-up - something strenuously denied by the government. What do you think? Is Pakistan doing enough in the war on terror? What should the world do about Pakistan's leaking of secret nuclear technology? I fail to understand what all the fuss is about and I find it outrageous that people demand that Pakistan submits to UN inspections. Pakistan should only submit to inspections if all 8 nuclear powers of the world agree to do so. Sardar Nadir Khan Baloch, Bahawalpur, Pakistan I think the best course of action has been followed. Pakistan is not a rogue state. There were faults in nuclear exports as there have been in other countries but they have not been publicised. But now that the government has completed its investigations there is nothing more that can or should be done. Pakistan is the sixth largest country in the world and can't be brow beaten easily. It has leant from mistakes of the past and now it's time to move on. Saqib, London, UK How hypocritical is it for the countries who originally developed nuclear weapons and have them in their arsenal to prevent other countries from getting the technology? I am all for non-proliferation, but this is only appropriate if all countries with nuclear capabilities get rid of their nuclear facilities and weapons. Let's be fair! Rachel, California, USA I think it is very ignorant to say that it is ok for other countries to have nuclear weapons. Every day the world becomes a more dangerous place and no country should have nuclear weapons, including the USA. Mark Michaud, Boston, MA USA Why shouldn't the developing countries of the world have nuclear weapons? Is the fear that they will wave nuclear weapons as a big stick to threaten smaller and weaker states? Oh guess what? That already happens today. The only way to bring balance to power in the world is for all nations to have nuclear weapons. Ricky Ashton, Bonn, Germany In an ideal world t Pakistanis should be left to sort this on their own James, Fairfax, VA, USA This is an extremely delicate matter. Musharraf has been a solid ally of the US since the attacks on New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. It appears that majority of this took place previous to his seizing power. In an ideal world the Pakistanis should be left to sort this on their own. However the world that we live in is far from ideal. The two previous attempts on his life in December underscore the delicacy of the situation. With no clear order to succession and with the intelligence service loyalty in the air it would be best if we could get someone from outside to go in and secure Pakistan's nuclear facilities to ensure that their weapons do not fall into the hands of terrorists. James, Fairfax, VA, USA This is all part of a vicious circle. Pakistan has nuclear capability because India has it. India has it because China has the bomb. Pakistan has been accused of nuclear proliferation since the early 90's. I think that whole region should submit to IAEA and UN safeguards when it comes to nuclear facilities. The rules should be same for all. Loru Das, San Diego, CA, USA I fail to understand why the western media is only concentrating on the alleged involvement of Pakistani nuclear scientists. Investigations have also revealed the involvement of many other countries including Europeans. I think one must look at the whole picture instead of finger pointing a part of it. Manzoor Ul Haq, Calgary, Canada The lifting of US-led sanctions in September of 2001 was a good faith measure that has since proven a mistake. Their cooperation in the war on terror has been poor at best and the leaking of nuclear technology, presumably with governmental knowledge, is just another reminder of the corruption and dysfunction of this regime. Adam, Houston, USA Pakistan is a sovereign nation and has every right to acquire whatever technology and weapons it needs for its national interests, just as some of the superpowers of the world put their national interests on top of any ethical or moral compulsions. Naresh Singhal, California, USA The whole thing smells like B movie plot Dahesh Patel, Scotch Plains, New Jersey, USA I find it extremely unlikely that Pakistan's top scientist could divulge secrets about the country's most well secured program without knowledge of the government. The whole thing smells like a B movie plot. Dahesh Patel, Scotch Plains, New Jersey, USA Pakistan will not be the solution to terrorism, it is THE problem. All their lies and deceit, to which USA has always turned a blind eye, will come to haunt USA and its poodle UK, when a dirty radioactive bomb, which AK Khan has given Osama, will go off somewhere. Only then will they stop their hypocrisy - which is that they attacked the wrong country in Iraq. Sanjeev Chowdhury, Munich, Germany Pakistani scientist and the government have acted in a very honourable and graceful manner by publicly admitting of what happened. It was a very courageous thing to do in the circumstances and surely much better than trying to sweep things under the carpet as the other powers of the world may do in similar situations. After this incident clearly Pakistan stands out at as responsible nuclear power and the others should follow the example by ensuring transparency, (no matter what the reaction may be), in order to make the dangerous world, just a little bit safer? Mujahid Malik, London I can't understand how some can take leaking nuclear secrets so lightly. This is not a game but by some of the comments on this board I can see that a few of you are hoping for Armageddon. You might just get it. Brian Nann, New Jersey Nothing to worry about this news. One day each &every country will have Nuclear Capability as this is not a copyright product of specific country. The worry is, What safety measure is going to protect the world from the WMD? Badrudeen, Dubai, Indian in UAE. The damage might already ha been done Steven Cooper, St. Albans, UK The leakage of nuclear technology by Pakistan's top scientist to rogue states should be viewed in a very serious light, especially at a time when the world is increasingly endangered by the threats of terrorism. By allowing such a grave transfer to take place, Pakistan has proved itself to be incapable of handling its nuclear status with responsibility. The damage might already have been done. Steven Cooper, St. Albans, UK Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan is more dangerous than Osama Bin Laden and what Gen Mussharraf is doing now is all about managing international pressure. There is no true desire to halt the spread of nuclear technology. Pakistan is like a double edged sword, she is helping us now, she may help extremists later. Can Pakistan be trusted? David Chhetri, Canada This is a painful yet a necessary exercise in democracy and accountability. The Pakistani Government owes it to itself and the world community to clean house and remove the religious fundamentalists and mavericks out of the nuclear program. These people have caused Pakistan untold shame and disgraced the nation. Waqar, Gaithersburg, USA President Musharraf is taki very bold steps to bring long term stability to the region [ src=] Nargis, Toronto, Canada Pakistan has done and is doing more than enough in the war on terrorism. President Musharraf is taking very bold steps to bring long term stability to the region. For once, the Western media and governments should do the right thing and let him bring these bold initiatives to fruition. What we need is to strengthen President Musharraf's hands so that there can be lasting peace in the region and in the world. Is only the West and its allies allowed to survive or can the small and poor countries also have their share? So if the world wants to have lasting peace, the policies of the West will have to be more equitable and just. Nargis, Toronto, Canada I would think, Khan deserved the highest penalty as he leaked technology and he influenced others to do the same. It is good start and still long way to go.. S Rahman, Delaware, USA I don't see why peaceful countries like North Korea, Iran, Libya should not have nuclear weapons. And so what if the Pakistani supplied it? Odeko Zindabadwe, Lahore, Pakistan How can Dr Khan be pardoned when it isn't even known what he revealed and to what extent this information constitutes a threat? It stinks of a farce. Getting one man to say 'sorry' is not enough to repay the possible implications of selling nuclear information, even if the US is putting pressure on Musharraf. However, something clearly else lies behind this revelation and pardon - isn't it quite apparent that Dr Khan is just being used as a scapegoat (surely he wasn't alone in his actions)? What benefits are Pakistan enjoying from this farce? We all need to keep the whole context of US dominance in sharp focus, however distorted the presentation of the reality. Perry, Paris, France Suggestions that Pakistan's army and intelligence services were unaware of these deals defy credulity. Pakistan owes the world an apology and must submit to IAEA nuclear inspections ASAP. James Brickmeier, Columbus, OH, USA What we are seeing is cover-up of major proportions Mirek Kondracki, Alexandria, VA, USA Abdul Qadder Khan admitted that he had smuggled abroad not only documents but also devices for uranium enrichment process. Everybody in Islamabad says (off the record) that Khan could have smuggled abroad documents, but certainly not devices without knowledge and help of the military intelligence. The same people claim that the Musharraf's government was certainly involved in the proliferation, and that Gen. Musharraf agreed to pardon the "father of Pakistani atomic bomb" only after he had promised that he would take all the blame on himself and claim in public statements that he committed the crime without government's knowledge, let alone cooperation. What we are seeing is a cover-up of major proportions. Mirek Kondracki, Alexandria, VA, USA In 1999 I wrote an email to BBC News Online "Talking Point" about the coup in Pakistan. I stated that with an obscure general coming to power in a corrupt Islamic country, the implications for world peace would be very bad indeed. Now we witness their top scientist selling atomic secrets and getting off with a slap on the wrist. The war on terror should be waged on countries selling WMD technology. Instead Pakistan is rewarded. No wonder people are confused. Why not disarm Pakistan's WMD and put an end to this evil empire before it really is too late. abdulfez, Tokyo, Japan Did Pakistan invent the nuclear bomb? No. Did it get the technology from another country? Yes. Did that country get it from another country? Yes. Doesn't it all lead to an obvious question for all that there should be NO nuclear weapons in this world? If we agree to it, then all the countries should comply by getting rid of their nuclear weapons. If not, then I am afraid its not possible to stop the spread of this technology - be it used as a deterrent (like Pakistan does) or as a show of ultimate power. Imran Khan, Tampa, FL, USA The world has to deal wi Pakistan like a rogue nation Sam, New York, USA Pakistan is a rogue country. The US govt. is repeating the mistakes they made with Saddam Hussein in the 80's. Then, they supported and armed Hussein to 'rein in' Iran. Now they are doing the same thing with Pakistan (and Musharraf) - a nation that created Taliban, is very close to al-Qaeda and is now a known nuclear proliferator. The world has to deal with Pakistan like a rogue nation and not depend on empty and hollow words of Musharraf. Sam, New York, USA If with so much military security and tight intelligence scrutiny the scientists were able to smuggle such large pieces of nuclear production equipment without them noticing it missing; my fear is how many nuclear bombs have already gone missing and when and where are we likely to find them in future. John Wright, New York, USA Disarm Pakistan's nuclear capability. The episode of leaking nuclear secrets demonstrates that Pakistan is not trustworthy with nukes. Monirul, Bangladesh Technically, Dr A Q Khan has not committed any offence, as Pakistan is not a signatory to any international nuclear non-proliferation agreement. Nausherwan Lahori, Lahore, Pakistan I think there is more to this than meets the eye. I think Dr Khan has been made to say what he said on television to get the government out of an embarrassing position. Dr Khan has surely not acted alone. There is a government and military hand in this. Arvind, USA Why does the West wait for disaster to happen before it takes action? Miles, UK This confession all seems so convenient. It is obvious that North Korea is not an Islamic country and Pakistan benefited from its missiles, as a direct result of the exchange of nuclear technology. If any country should be punished it should be China, who proliferated its nuclear technology to Pakistan. Why does the West wait for a disaster to happen before it takes action? Miles, UK The origin of the story lies in the western and European countries itself. These countries encourage all illegal activities of the regimes in the areas of interest and supply them with every sort of equipment. The world community should tackle the issue right from the roots, from the countries capable of making the sensitive equipment. It is ironical to note that technology transfer from the west was completely unguarded and has been happening in the region which houses IAEA itself. As regards Dr Khan, he is the pride of the nation and his part in proliferation is far less than the developers of the technology. Shakoor, Islamabad, Pakistan The televised apology of Dr Khan simply suggests something more sinister going on in the background. It appears to be too facile to believe that the military did not have full control of a military state. M C Satish, Edison, USA The proper job for the international community is to subject Pakistan to arms and financial embargo for nuclear proliferation. The news that only four countries benefited from this is only a tip of the iceberg. It's only a matter of time before the terrorists will use it to their advantage. G K Mahadev, Altrincham, England I am quite satisfied that the Pakistani Government is a responsible nuclear power. The scientist has accepted that he acted alone and bears all responsibility and has agreed to smash the underground network dealing in the transfer of WMD. John, UK I don't think that t Pakistan government did it in relation to war on terrorism [ src=] Imran Ali, Melbourne I don't think that the Pakistan government did it in relation to war on terrorism. It's good, now nuclear countries must follow the same security measures what other nuclear states have done. This also proves that neither based on religious brotherhood nor friendship; a country should share such serious technical information. Imran Ali, Melbourne, Australia As long as the traditional nuclear powers (US, UK...) reserve themselves the right to maintain nuclear weapons while other countries can't, nuclear technology will continue to spread, and rightfully so. One country cannot claim to have more rights to nuclear weapons than others. David Van Gool, Leuven, Belgium One should assess all the facts before coming to a judgement. If you look back at Pakistan's program, it got the same kind of help from European countries. Similarly, how did Iraq get the chemical and biological weapons? Awan, Canada Mr Khan has been caught up in the middle of an atrocious inquiry. Obviously, Mr Musharraf has bowed down to US pressure, and decided to publicly humiliate the nation's hero. I now think that the general has had the last straw, he has taken it too far. Abdul Qadeer is a world renowned scientist, and his reputation has been put on the line. It is true that China also shared nuclear technology with Pakistan, but we don't hear any government outrage on this issue. Goga Ali, London, UK I can't imagine that the Pakistani Government were not aware of the actions of their top nuclear scientist. He must have been under close surveillance and protection for a number of years. However, it's better to find out late than never about the spread of nuclear weapons technology. Libya has already caved into US pressure, Iran can no longer deny that it has been working on a nuclear weapons project and we will know more about the capabilities of the North Koreans. The world isn't a safe place, but it's getting a little safer. Anthony, Germany/UK ***************************************************************** 33 BBC: What nuclear secrets were leaked? Last Updated: Thursday, 5 February, 2004 [President Pervez Musharraf] President Musharraf has pardoned Abdul Qadeer Khan It is not clear what exactly were the nuclear secrets handed over by Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan. But experts around the world agree that it included hardware, blueprints and designs. The material is thought to have been handed over to Libya, Iran and North Korea over a 10-year period. Some scientists argue that the material enabled all three countries to process their own uranium. According to Andy Oppenheimer, a nuclear weapons expert from Jane's Information Group, information handed over by Dr Khan would have included designs for making a nuclear bomb and information on how to make enriched uranium. Nuclear warheads But he says it is impossible to know exactly what was handed over because Dr Khan's dramatic television confession was vague on the subject. "The exact details of what was handed over are highly sensitive and have been kept a closely guarded secret by the Pakistani Government," he said. The consensus among experts is that Dr Khan handed over centrifuge designs and parts for the making of enriched uranium for nuclear warheads. Centrifuge is the process by which uranium is enriched for use in nuclear weapons. "The equipment used in centrifuge is very complicated and involves thousands of different components", said Mr Oppenheimer. "At this stage it is impossible to say what centrifuge parts Dr Khan is alleged to have leaked," he said. "What we do know is that the hardware and designs were shipped out of Pakistan in bits and pieces over a prolonged period of time. "It would have been impossible for Dr Khan to have done this single-handedly unless there are no export regulations in Pakistan whatsoever," said Mr Oppenheimer. The exact details of what w handed over are highly sensitive and have been kept a closely guarded secret by the Pakistani government Andy Oppenheimer, nuclear weapons expert from Jane's Information Group Journalist Kamran Khan - one of Pakistan's top nuclear experts - says that Dr Khan began leaking information and equipment 10 years ago using middlemen in Dubai. But he says it was not the latest technology: the warhead design information he supplied dates back to an early 1960s Chinese design. Tip of iceberg "In my view much of what Dr Khan handed over to the three countries was out of date information and equipment," he said, "but still it could still have helped them in their efforts to build a bomb." Dr Khan is believed to have supplied the equipment and know-how from his laboratories founded nearly three decades ago near Islamabad. [Pakistan-made Hatf series missiles ] Missile tests are often used to score diplomatic points The International Atomic Energy Agency have described Dr Khan's activities at the "tip of the iceberg in nuclear trafficking". But spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said there were doubts about the nuclear weapons capabilities of Libya, Iran and North Korea. "We think Libya received uranium conversion devices and nuclear designs," he said, "but its nuclear programme is still in its early stages and its unclear how much know-how and equipment came from Pakistan. "Likewise there is no concrete evidence that information received by Iran went towards nuclear weapons manufacture." North Korea is thought to have acquired information and nuclear components from Pakistan in return for ballistic missile technology. But in November President Musharraf said that all weapons deals with Pyongyang had been terminated following several visits to the Stalinist country by Dr Khan over the last 10 years. ***************************************************************** 34 Haaretz Ex-Mossad chief: option of killing Vanunu was on our minds News Updates Thu., February 05, 2004 Shvat 13, 5764 By Reuters JERUSALEM - Israel's spy agency considered killing nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu in 1986 before deciding to abduct him for trial on treason charges, a former Mossad director said on Thursday. Shabtai Shavit, who masterminded a "honey trap" for Vanunu after he told a British newspaper about his work at Israel's main atomic reactor, said he feared the ex-technician intends to spill more secrets upon his release from prison this April. "I would be lying if I said that thought (assassination) did not go through many of our minds," Shavit said, recalling Mossad debates after the Sunday Times interview that blew away Israel's policy of ambiguity over its nuclear capabilities. "But Jews do not do that to other Jews. He was a traitor, so in accordance with Jewish morality and Jewish law he paid for it with imprisonment," Shavit told Reuters. Vanunu, 49, embraced Christianity and anti-nuclear activism after being fired from the Dimona reactor. He spoke to the newspaper on the promise of undisclosed payment. In jailhouse letters he has vowed to keep campaigning to expose Israel's non-conventional capabilities. Vanunu's revelations, and 60 accompanying photographs, led independent experts to conclude Israel had between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads - making it a military superpower. Israel has adopted a policy of nuclear "ambiguity," not denying or confirming whether it has nuclear weapons. Absent from the interview were the names of Vanunu's former colleagues at Dimona and details on security precautions at the site. Fearing these could also become public knowledge when Vanunu winds up his 18-year jail term on April 21, Shavit has been calling for Vanunu to be legally silenced. "I propose gagging this man," said Shavit, who retired from Mossad in 1996 and now chairs the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center. "The main consideration should be his intent to go on causing damage to Israel. And who will guarantee that he will only speak the truth? What is to stop him imagining things?" According to security sources, the Justice Ministry might confiscate Vanunu's passport to prevent him leaving the country, subjecting any press interviews he gives to military censors. Attempts by him to discuss state secrets could mean a new trial. Former Mossad director Shabtai Shavit. (Archive photograph) © Copyright Haaretz. All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 35 Washington Post: Pakistan's Nuclear Crimes (washingtonpost.com) [Editorial] Thursday, February 5, 2004; Page A20 WHILE WASHINGTON has been debating the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, an extraordinary series of revelations has confirmed that Pakistan has been guilty of some of the worst crimes of nuclear weapons proliferation ever committed. For some 15 years it has been supplying atomic bomb technology to rogue states and sponsors of terrorism -- and it did so even after President Bush declared that governments that conducted such transfers could be subject to preemptive attack by the United States. Under pressure from the United Nations, Pakistani officials have acknowledged that nuclear designs and materials were given to Iran, Libya and North Korea, either directly or through an underground network involving middlemen in Germany and a secret factory in Malaysia. Officials claim the traffic was conducted solely by the country's chief weapons scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, and several associates. Hoping to avoid prosecution, Mr. Khan duly confessed on Pakistani television yesterday and absolved his government. But the scientist previously gave investigators a more plausible account: that President Pervez Musharraf and other senior military leaders approved the deals. For more than two years the Bush administration has embraced Mr. Musharraf as a strategic ally and overlooked his suppression of Pakistani democracy and his coddling of Islamic extremists. Now the administration must confront the reality that Pakistan's military leadership has done more to threaten U.S. and global security with weapons of mass destruction than either al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein. Were Pakistan not a professed ally of the United States, its behavior would meet the criteria for preemptive military intervention outlined in Mr. Bush's national security strategy. He is not contemplating such action, nor should he be. But the United States must ensure that Pakistan never again markets its nuclear weapons technology. That will require more than extracting further promises of good behavior from an unreliable general. Mr. Musharraf, who narrowly survived two recent assassination attempts, has made lots of promises to Washington since Sept. 11, 2001. Most have not been fulfilled. When asked about Pakistan's commerce with Iran and North Korea, he either denied that it occurred or implied that he put a stop to it. But Pakistani military cargo flights to North Korea took place as late as 2002. Last fall the United States arranged the interception of a Libya-bound shipment of industrial equipment for nuclear weapons. It turns out the goods were supplied by the network connected to Mr. Khan. Mr. Musharraf can be expected to go on denying responsibility for the illegal trafficking while promising to stop it. His word should not be enough. The Bush administration and its allies have insisted that other nations guilty of illegal nuclear weapons activity, including Iran and Libya, submit to strict international inspections. Pakistan is not a signatory to international nuclear arms agreements; no outside authority regulates its nuclear programs. That should change. If it is to remain a friend of the United States and receive the billions in aid promised by the Bush administration, Pakistan should be required to commit itself formally to stop proliferating -- and the United States or the United Nations should have the means to verify its compliance. © 2004 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 36 Washington Post: Musharraf Pardons Pakistani Scientist (washingtonpost.com) By John Lancaster, Kamran Khan and Fred Barbash Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, February 5, 2004; 8:54 AM Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf today pardoned nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan for transferring nuclear technology to other countries, a day after Khan delivered a televised address saying he had done so without authorization from the Pakistani government. Khan admitted providing nuclear weapons expertise and equipment to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Khan agreed to speak on television in return for assurances that he would not be prosecuted for transactions that Pakistani investigators say provided him millions of dollars over a period of almost two decades, according to a cabinet minister and an individual outside of the government who was involved in brokering the agreement. The deal appeared to eliminate the prospect of a public confrontation between the government and Khan that could prove uncomfortable for Musharraf if it led to disclosures that Pakistan's military played a role in Khan's activities. It also appears to mean that Khan will essentially go unpunished for presiding over what Pakistani officials now acknowledge, after years of denials, was a far-reaching scheme to peddle hardware, blueprints and design assistance by means of a thriving nuclear black market stretching from the Persian Gulf to Southeast Asia "My dear brothers and sisters,," he had said in the address Wednesday, "I have chosen to appear before you to offer my deepest regrets and unqualified apologies to a traumatized nation. . . . There was never ever any kind of authorization for these activities by the government," he added, speaking softly in English. "I take full responsibility for my actions and seek your pardon." In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: "We think that the process of investigation that's been undertaken by the Pakistani government does indeed demonstrate that President Musharraf and the government of Pakistan take seriously their commitments, their assurances that they were not going to allow their technology to be used to help other nations that might be trying to develop weapons of mass destruction. . . . The way this has been proceeding is evidence that Pakistan, too, is determined to meet those commitments." On Wednesday morning, Khan met with Musharraf to present a clemency petition based on his service to the nation. After Khan's televised speech, Musharraf chaired a meeting of the National Command Authority, a civilian and military body that oversees the nuclear arsenal, at which he recommended that Khan's plea be accepted, according to a participant. The recommendation was forwarded to the cabinet, where approval Thursday is considered a formality, the participant said. Musharraf has been under heavy public pressure to go easy on Khan, 67, a European-trained metallurgist who is considered a national hero for his pivotal role in developing nuclear weapons that helped redress a strategic imbalance with arch rival India. India tested its first nuclear device in 1974; Pakistan's first test was in 1998. Leaders of an alliance of hard-line Islamic parties, the Muttahida Majlis Amal, have promised to hold a nationwide protest Friday against the investigation of Khan and other scientists and officials associated with the Khan Research Laboratories. Khan founded the laboratories nearly three decades ago in Kahuta, about 20 miles from Islamabad, to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs. Partly in response to U.S. pressure, Musharraf forced Khan to retire from the lab in 2001. "Obviously you can't bring a man of his stature to trial," Sen. Mushahid Hussain, a Georgetown-educated newspaper columnist and member of the main pro-government party, said Wednesday. "He is someone who has made a tremendous contribution to Pakistan's national security, and he's highly respected for that achievement." Pakistan launched its investigation last year after the International Atomic Energy Agency produced evidence that Pakistani scientists had provided hardware and expertise to Iran for building high-speed centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs. The United States separately expressed concern that Pakistan had provided similar assistance to North Korea. Pakistani authorities subsequently widened their investigation after Libya admitted in December that it had a nuclear weapons program. Over the past two months, Pakistani investigators uncovered evidence that Khan had conducted transactions with all three countries and made millions of dollars in the process. They found he had spread his wealth among foreign bank accounts, palatial homes in Pakistan and properties abroad, including a hotel named for his wife, Hendrina, in the West African state of Mali. According to investigators, Khan said he provided the assistance to Iran, North Korea and Libya to deflect international attention from Pakistan's nuclear program. He also has maintained, according to a friend of Khan's and a senior investigator, that three army chiefs of staff, including Musharraf, were aware of the assistance he provided to North Korea in exchange for help with Pakistan's ballistic missile program. Khan's statement Wednesday contradicted that claim, however, and government officials, including Musharraf, have denied that military commanders knew Khan had sold nuclear secrets abroad. CONTINUED 1 2 Next > Print This Article © 2004 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 37 FT: Malaysian PM's son linked to nuclear probe By John Burton in Singapore Published: February 5 2004 12:09 | Last Updated: February 5 2004 12:09 Abdullah Badawi, Malaysia's new prime minister, faced political embarrassment Thursday after police revealed that they were investigating a company controlled by his son for supplying centrifuge parts for suspected use in Libya's recent nuclear weapons programme. Senior Malaysian officials last week repeatedly denied US media reports that suggested the country was a source of nuclear technology to Libya. But the Malaysian police revealed that they began the investigation in November after US and British intelligence informed them that components made by the Scomi group had been found on a ship seized last year while on its way to Libya. Scomi is a gas and oil services group controlled by Kamaluddin Abdullah, the prime minister's son, and two other investors. Shares in Scomi have risen by nearly 900 per cent since it was listed last May. Investors believed it would benefit from ties with the government in spite of Mr Abdullah's reputation for curbing patronage in Malaysian politics. Mr Abdullah, who will mark his 100th day in office on Sunday, is a moderate Muslim leader who has supported co-operation with the US on anti-terrorism measures. The probe was disclosed only hours after Mr Abdullah appointed a commission, including prominent human rights activists, to investigate allegations of corruption in the national police force. The centrifuge components made by a Scomi subsidiary could be used to enrich uranium, although they also have other dual-use civilian applications. The end-use of the components was never disclosed to the company, Scomi said. Scomi said it received a $3.4m contract arranged by BSA Tahir, a Dubai-based Sri Lankan businessman, to make "14 semi-finished components" for Gulf Technical Industries in Dubai. They were shipped between December 2002 and August 2003. "The company was recently informed by the Malaysian police that Mr Tahir is currently the subject of an investigation by Malaysian, American and British intelligence authorities over his alleged involvement in the supply of nuclear technology to Libya," Scomi said. Police said they were receiving full cooperation in the investigation from Scomi and Mr Tahir, who is said to be in Malaysia but not in custody. © Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2004. "FT" and "Financial Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times. Privacy ***************************************************************** 38 NRC: Entergy Operations, Inc.; Notice of Consideration of Issuance of FR Doc 04-2485 [Federal Register: February 5, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 24)] [Notices] [Page 5590-5591] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr05fe04-144] [[Page 5590]] Amendment to Facility Operating License and Opportunity for a Hearing The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) is considering issuance of an amendment to Facility Operating License No. NPF-38, issued to Entergy Operations, Inc. (the licensee), for operation of the Waterford Steam Electric Station, Unit 3, located in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana. The proposed amendment would increase the maximum authorized power level from 3441 megawatts thermal (MWt) to 3716 MWt. This change represents an increase of approximately 8 percent above the current licensed power. The proposed amendment would also change the operating license and the technical specifications appended to the operating license to provide for implementing uprated power operation. Before issuance of the proposed license amendment, the Commission will have made findings required by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (the Act), and the Commission's regulations. By March 8, 2004, the licensee may file a request for a hearing with respect to issuance of the amendment to the subject facility operating license, and any person whose interest may be affected by this proceeding and who wishes to participate as a party in the proceeding must file a written request for a hearing and a petition for leave to intervene. Requests for a hearing and a petition for leave to intervene shall be filed in accordance with the Commission's ``Rules of Practice for Domestic Licensing Proceedings'' in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) part 2. Interested persons should consult a current copy of 10 CFR 2.714, which is available at the Commission's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North, Public File Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland, or electronically on the Internet at the NRC Web site http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr. If there are problems in accessing the document, contact the PDR Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. If a request for a hearing or petition for leave to intervene is filed by the above date, the Commission or an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, designated by the Commission or by the Chairman of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel will rule on the request and/or petition; and the Secretary or the designated Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will issue a notice of hearing or an appropriate order. As required by 10 CFR 2.714, a petition for leave to intervene shall set forth with particularity the interest of the petitioner in the proceeding, and how that interest may be affected by the results of the proceeding. The petition must specifically explain the reasons why intervention should be permitted with particular reference to the following factors: (1) The nature of the petitioner's right under the Act to be made a party to the proceeding; (2) the nature and extent of the petitioner's property, financial, or other interest in the proceeding; and (3) the possible effect of any order that may be entered in the proceeding on the petitioner's interest. The petition must also identify the specific aspect(s) of the subject matter of the proceeding as to which petitioner wishes to intervene. Any person who has filed a petition for leave to intervene or who has been admitted as a party may amend the petition without requesting leave of the Board up to 15 days prior to the first prehearing conference scheduled in the proceeding, but such an amended petition must satisfy the specificity requirements described above. Not later than 15 days prior to the first prehearing conference scheduled in the proceeding, a petitioner shall file a supplement to the petition to intervene that must include a list of the contentions that the petitioner seeks to have litigated in the hearing. Each contention must consist of a specific statement of the issue of law or fact to be raised or controverted. In addition, the petitioner shall provide a brief explanation of the bases of each contention and a concise statement of the alleged facts or expert opinion that support the contention and on which the petitioner intends to rely in proving the contention at the hearing. The petitioner must also provide references to those specific sources and documents of which the petitioner is aware and on which the petitioner intends to rely to establish those facts or expert opinion. The petitioner must provide sufficient information to show that a genuine dispute exists with the applicant on a material issue of law or fact. Contentions shall be limited to matters within the scope of the amendment under consideration. The contention must be one that, if proven, would entitle the petitioner to relief. A petitioner who fails to file such a supplement that satisfies these requirements with respect to at least one contention will not be permitted to participate as a party. Those permitted to intervene become parties to the proceeding, subject to any limitations in the order granting leave to intervene, and have the opportunity to participate fully in the conduct of the hearing, including the opportunity to present evidence and cross- examine witnesses. A request for a hearing and petition for leave to intervene must be filed with the Secretary of the Commission, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff, or may be delivered to the Commission's PDR, located at One White Flint North, Public File Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland, by the above date. Because of continuing disruptions in delivery of mail to United States Government offices, it is requested that petitions for leave to intervene and requests for hearing be transmitted to the Secretary of the Commission either by means of facsimile transmission to 301-415- 1101 or by e-mail to hearingdocket@nrc.gov. A copy of the request for hearing and petition for leave to intervene should also be sent to the Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and because of continuing disruptions in delivery of mail to United States Government offices, it is requested that copies be transmitted either by means of facsimile transmission to 301-415-3725 or by e-mail to OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov. A copy of the request for hearing and petition for leave to intervene should also be sent to N.S. Reynolds, Esquire, Winston & Strawn, 1400 L Street NW., Washington, DC 20037-1128, attorney for the licensee. Nontimely filings of petitions for leave to intervene, amended petitions, supplemental petitions and/or requests for a hearing will not be entertained absent a determination by the Commission, the presiding officer, or the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that the petition and/or request should be granted based upon a balancing of the factors specified in 10 CFR 2.714(a)(1)(i)-(v) and 2.714(d). If a request for a hearing is received, the Commission's staff may issue the amendment after it completes its technical review and prior to the completion of any required hearing if it publishes a further notice for public comment of its proposed finding of no significant hazards consideration in [[Page 5591]] accordance with 10 CFR 50.91 and 50.92. For further details with respect to this action, see the application for amendment dated November 13, 2003, which is available for public inspection at the Commission's PDR, located at One White Flint North, Public File Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible electronically from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web site, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e- mail to pdr@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 28th day of January 2004. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Nageswaran Kalyanam, Project Manager, Section 1, Project Directorate IV, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. 04-2485 Filed 2-4-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 39 NRC: Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Diablo Canyon Power Plant, FR Doc 04-2486 [Federal Register: February 5, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 24)] [Notices] [Page 5591-5594] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr05fe04-145] Unit Nos. 1 and 2; Exemption 1.0 Background The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (the licensee) is the holder of Facility Operating License Nos. DPR-80 and DPR-82, which authorize operation of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant (facility or DCPP), Unit Nos. 1 and 2, respectively. The licenses provide, among other things, that the facility is subject to all rules, regulations, and orders of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC, the Commission) now or hereafter in effect. The facility consists of two pressurized water reactors located in San Luis Obispo County, California. 2.0 Request/Action Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR), part 50, Sec. 50.68(b)(1) sets forth the following requirement that must be met, in lieu of a monitoring system capable of detecting criticality events. Plant procedures shall prohibit the handling and storage at any one time of more fuel assemblies than have been determined to be safely subcritical under the most adverse moderation conditions feasible by unborated water. The licensee is unable to satisfy the above requirement for handling of the 10 CFR part 72 licensed contents of the Holtec HI-STORM 100 Cask System. Section 50.12(a) allows licensees to apply for an exemption from the requirements of 10 CFR part 50 if the regulation is not necessary to achieve the underlying purpose of the rule and other conditions are met. The licensee stated in the application that compliance with 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) is not necessary for handling the 10 CFR Part 72 licensed contents of the cask system to achieve the underlying purpose of the rule. 3.0 Discussion Pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12, the Commission may, upon application by any interested person or upon its own initiative, grant exemptions from the requirements of 10 CFR part 50 when (1) the exemptions are authorized by law, will not present an undue risk to public health or safety, and are consistent with the common defense and security; and (2) when special circumstances are present. Therefore, in determining the acceptability of the licensee's exemption request, the staff has performed the following regulatory, technical, and legal evaluations to satisfy the requirements of 10 CFR 50.12 for granting the exemption. 3.1 Regulatory Evaluation The DCPP Technical Specifications (TS) currently permit the licensee to store spent fuel assemblies in high-density storage racks in each spent fuel pool (SFP). In accordance with the provisions of 10 CFR 50.68(b)(4), the licensee takes credit for soluble boron for criticality control and ensures that the effective multiplication factor (keff) of the SFP does not exceed 0.95, if flooded with borated water. 10 CFR 50.68(b)(4) also requires that if credit is taken for soluble boron, the keff must remain below 1.0 (subcritical), if flooded with unborated water. However, the licensee is unable to satisfy the requirement to maintain the keff below 1.0 (subcritical) with unborated water, which is also the requirement of 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1). Therefore, the licensee's request for exemption from 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) proposes to permit the licensee to perform spent fuel loading, unloading, and handling operations related to dry cask storage, without being subcritical under the most adverse moderation conditions feasible by unborated water. Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, part 50, Appendix A, ``General Design Criteria (GDC) for Nuclear Power Plants,'' provides a list of the minimum design requirements for nuclear power plants. According to GDC 62, ``Prevention of criticality in fuel storage and handling,'' the licensee must limit the potential for criticality in the fuel handling and storage system by physical systems or processes. Section 50.68 of 10 CFR part 50, ``Criticality accident requirements,'' provides the NRC requirements for maintaining subcritical conditions in SFPs. Section 50.68 provides criticality control requirements which, if satisfied, ensure that an inadvertent criticality in the SFP is an extremely unlikely event. These requirements ensure that the licensee has appropriately conservative criticality margins during handling and storage of spent fuel. Section 50.68(b)(1) states, ``Plant procedures shall prohibit the handling and storage at any one time of more fuel assemblies than have been determined to be safely subcritical under the most adverse moderation conditions feasible by unborated water.'' Specifically, 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) ensures that the licensee will maintain the pool in a subcritical condition during handling and storage operations without crediting the soluble boron in the SFP water. The licensee has submitted a license application to construct and operate an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) at DCPP. The ISFSI would permit the licensee to store spent fuel assemblies in large concrete dry storage casks. In order to transfer the spent fuel assemblies from the SFP to the dry storage casks, the licensee must first transfer the assemblies to a Multi-Purpose Canister (MPC) in the cask pit area of the SFP. The licensee performed criticality analyses of the MPC fully loaded with fuel having the highest permissible reactivity, and determined that a soluble boron credit was necessary to ensure that the MPC would remain subcritical in the SFP. Since the licensee is unable to satisfy the requirement of 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) to ensure subcritical conditions during handling and storage of spent fuel assemblies in the pool with unborated water, the licensee identified the need for an exemption from the 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) requirement to support MPC loading, unloading, and handling operations, without being subcritical under the most adverse moderation conditions feasible by unborated water. The staff evaluated the possibility of an inadvertent criticality of the spent [[Page 5592]] nuclear fuel at DCPP during MPC loading, unloading, and handling. The staff has established a set of acceptance criteria that, if met, satisfy the underlying intent of 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1). In lieu of complying with 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1), the staff determined that an inadvertent criticality accident is unlikely to occur if the licensee meets the following five criteria: The cask criticality analyses are based on the following conservative assumptions: a. All fuel assemblies in the cask are unirradiated and at the highest permissible enrichment, b. Only 75 percent of the Boron-10 in the Boral panel inserts is credited, c. No credit is taken for fuel-related burnable absorbers, and d. The cask is assumed to be flooded with moderator at the temperature and density corresponding to optimum moderation. 2. The licensee's ISFSI TSs require the soluble boron concentration to be equal to or greater than the level assumed in the criticality analysis and surveillance requirements necessitate the periodic verification of the concentration both prior to and during loading and unloading operations. 3. Radiation monitors, as required by GDC 63, ``Monitoring Fuel and Waste Storage,'' are provided in fuel storage and handling areas to detect excessive radiation levels and to initiate appropriate safety actions. 4. The quantity of other forms of special nuclear material, such as sources, detectors, etc., to be stored in the cask will not increase the effective multiplication factor above the limit calculated in the criticality analysis. 5. Sufficient time exists for plant personnel to identify and terminate a boron dilution event prior to achieving a critical boron concentration in the MPC. To demonstrate that it can safely identify and terminate a boron dilution event, the licensee must provide the following: a. A plant-specific criticality analysis to identify the critical boron concentration in the cask based on the highest reactivity loading pattern. b. A plant-specific boron dilution analysis to identify all potential dilution pathways, their flowrates, and the time necessary to reach a critical boron concentration. c. A description of all alarms and indications available to promptly alert operators of a boron dilution event. d. A description of plant controls that will be implemented to minimize the potential for a boron dilution event. e. A summary of operator training and procedures that will be used to ensure that operators can quickly identify and terminate a boron dilution event. 3.2 Technical Evaluation In determining the acceptability of the licensee's exemption request, the staff reviewed three aspects of the licensee's analyses: (1) Criticality analyses submitted to support the ISFSI license application, (2) boron dilution analysis, and (3) legal basis for approving the exemption. For each of the aspects, the staff evaluated whether the licensee's analyses and methodologies provide reasonable assurance that adequate safety margins are developed and can be maintained in the DCPP SFP during loading of spent fuel into canisters for dry cask storage. 3.2.1 Criticality Analyses For evaluation of the acceptability of the licensee's exemption request, the staff reviewed the criticality analyses provided by the licensee in support of its ISFSI license application. Chapter 6, ``Criticality Evaluation,'' of the HI-STORM Final Safety Analysis Report (HI-STORM FSAR) contains detailed information regarding the methodology, assumptions, and controls used in the criticality analysis for the MPCs to be used at DCPP. The staff reviewed the information contained in Chapter 6 as well as information provided by the licensee in its exemption request to determine if Criterion 1 through 4 of Section 3.1 were satisfied. First, the staff reviewed the methodology and assumptions used by the licensee in its criticality analysis to determine if Criterion 1 was satisfied. The licensee provided a detailed list of the assumptions used in the criticality analysis in Chapter 6 of the HI-STORM FSAR. The licensee stated that it took no credit in the criticality analyses for burnup or fuel-related burnable absorbers. The licensee also stated that all assemblies were analyzed at the highest permissible enrichment. Additionally, the licensee stated that all criticality analyses for a flooded MPC were performed at temperatures and densities of water corresponding to optimum moderation conditions. Finally, the licensee stated that it only credited 75 percent of the Boron-10 content for the fixed neutron absorber, Boral, in the MPC. Based on its review of the criticality analyses contained in Chapter 6 of the HI- STORM FSAR, the staff finds that the licensee has satisfied Criterion 1. Second, the staff reviewed the proposed Diablo Canyon ISFSI TS. The licensee's criticality analyses credit soluble boron for reactivity control during MPC loading, unloading, and handling operations. Since the boron concentration is a key safety component necessary for ensuring subcritical conditions in the pool, the licensee must have conservative TS capable of ensuring that sufficient soluble boron is present to perform its safety function. The most limiting loading configuration of an MPC requires 2600 parts-per-million (ppm) of soluble boron to ensure the keff is maintained below 0.95, the regulatory limit relied upon by the staff for demonstrating compliance with the requirements of 10 CFR 72.124(a). Proposed TS 3.2.1, ``Dissolved Boron Concentration,'' requires the soluble boron concentration in the MPC cavity be greater than or equal to the concentrations assumed in the criticality analyses under a variety of MPC loading configurations. In all cases, the boron concentration required by the proposed ISFSI TS ensures that the keff will be below 0.95 for the analyzed loading configuration. Additionally, the licensee's proposed ISFSI TS contains surveillance requirements which ensure it will verify that the boron concentration is above the required level both prior to and during MPC loading, unloading, and handling operations. Based on its review of the proposed Diablo Canyon ISFSI TSs, the staff finds that the licensee has satisfied Criterion 2. Third, the staff reviewed the DCPP Final Safety Analysis Report (FSAR) Update and the information provided by the licensee in its exemption request to ensure that it complies with GDC 63. GDC 63 requires that licensees have radiation monitors in fuel storage and associated handling areas to detect conditions that may result in a loss of residual heat removal capability and excessive radiation levels and initiate appropriate safety actions. As a condition of receiving and maintaining an operating license, the licensee must comply with GDC 63. The staff reviewed the DCPP FSAR Update and exemption request to determine whether it had provided sufficient information to demonstrate continued compliance with GDC 63. Based on its review of both documents, the staff finds that the licensee complies with GDC 63 and has satisfied Criterion 3. Finally, as part of the criticality analysis review, the staff evaluated the storage of non-fuel related material in an MPC. The staff evaluated the potential to increase the reactivity of an MPC by loading it with materials other than spent nuclear fuel and fuel debris. Section 2.0, ``Approved Contents,'' of the proposed Diablo Canyon ISFSI TS limits the cask contents to spent nuclear fuel, fuel debris, and non-fuel hardware. [[Page 5593]] The Diablo Canyon ISFSI FSAR Tables 10.2-1 through 10.2-4 provide limitations on the materials that can be stored in the various MPC designs intended to be used at the Diablo Canyon ISFSI. The staff determined that the loading limitations described in Tables 10.2-1 through 10.2-4 will ensure that non-fuel hardware loaded in the MPCs will not result in a reactivity increase. Based on its review of the loading restrictions for non-fuel hardware, the staff finds that the licensee has satisfied Criterion 4. 3.2.2 Boron Dilution Analysis Since the licensee's ISFSI application relies on soluble boron to maintain subcritical conditions within the MPCs during loading, unloading and handling operations, the staff reviewed the licensee's boron dilution analysis to determine whether appropriate controls, alarms, and procedures were available to identify and terminate a boron dilution accident prior to reaching a critical boron concentration. At the staff's request, the licensee provided additional information describing the boron dilution analysis it performed. First, the licensee performed a criticality analysis to determine the DCPP critical boron concentration, 1720 ppm, during MPC loading, unloading, and handling operations. Therefore, the DCPP SPF boron concentration would have to decrease from the ISFSI TS limit of 2600 ppm to the critical boron concentration 1720 ppm before SPF criticality is possible. This analysis assumed that a fully loaded MPC-32 canister containing fresh fuel of the maximum permissible enrichment is uniformly diluted to the critical boron concentration. The licensee based the remainder of its boron dilution analysis and its preventive and mitigative actions on preventing the MPC from reaching this concentration. The licensee referenced a detailed analysis of the boron dilution event previously performed for DCPP and submitted to the NRC. In this analysis, the licensee determined all of the potential dilution pathways for adding makeup water to the DCPP SFP. The pathway with the maximum flowrate is from the demineralized water system to the SFP via valve 803, which can provide a maximum flowrate of 494 gallons per minute (gpm). Based on this maximum flowrate, the licensee calculated a time line for the boron dilution event, and determined that, starting from the SFP low level alarm setpoint, it would take 39 minutes to reach the SFP high level alarm. It would take an additional 10 minutes before the SFP began to overflow. Finally, approximately five hours after the SFP high level alarm setpoint was reached, the critical boron concentration would be achieved. To demonstrate that it has ample time and opportunity to identify and terminate a boron dilution event, the licensee described the alarms, procedures, and administrative controls it has in place. The licensee described the alarms available to operators to identify a boron dilution event. The SFP high level and low level alarms are annunciated in the control room and the operator response is described in a response procedure. Additionally, operators are trained to terminate any boron dilution source within one-half hour of receiving the high level alarm. In addition to the high level alarm, the operators would receive indication of a boron dilution event from the liquid waste systems alarms caused by the overflowing pool water ending up in the fuel handling building floor drains. As part of its pool monitoring program, operations personnel perform rounds in the SFP area once every shift where they check the level of the pool and the conditions around the pool. Also, while cask loading operations are in progress, numerous plant personnel would be working next to the SFP where they could easily identify any level changes. The licensee stated that during any delays where the SFP is not continuously monitored, exceeding those for normal shift changes and breaks, either trained personnel will be assigned to monitor the SFP or the frequency of operator rounds will be increased. The licensee stated that it will implement additional temporary administrative controls while the MPC is in the SFP to minimize the possibility of a boron dilution event. The licensee stated that except for the primary water station near the SFP, which is used for the decontamination process and rinsing dry cask storage equipment as it is removed from the SFP, at least one valve in each potential flow path of unborated water to the SFP will be closed and tagged out. As an additional precaution, the licensee will double isolate the flow path with the highest potential flowrate of 494 gpm. The licensee will close and tag out two valves in this flow path to minimize the potential that it can cause a boron dilution event. Finally, to ensure that operators are capable of identifying and terminating a boron dilution event during MPC loading, unloading, and handling operations, the licensee will incorporate the changes made to the operating procedures relating to the SFP boron dilution flow paths into the DCPP operator training program. The licensee stated that the training will emphasize the importance of avoiding any inadvertent additions of unborated water to the SFP, responses to be taken to alarms that may be indicative of a potential boron dilution event during cask loading and fuel movement in the SFP, and identification of the potential for a boron dilution event during decontamination rinsing activities. Based on the staff's review of the licensee's exemption request, the additional information it provided, and its boron dilution analysis, the staff finds the licensee has provided sufficient information to demonstrate that it satisfies Criterion 5. 3.3 Legal Basis for the Exemption Pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12, ``Specific Exemption,'' the staff reviewed the licensee's exemption request to determine if the legal basis for granting an exemption had been satisfied, and concluded that the licensee has satisfied the requirements of 10 CFR 50.12. With regards to the six special circumstances listed in 10 CFR 50.12(a)(2), the staff finds that the licensee's exemption request satisfies 50.12(a)(2)(ii), ``Application of the regulation in the particular circumstances would not serve the underlying purpose of the rule or is not necessary to achieve the underlying purpose of the rule.'' Specifically, the staff concludes that since the licensee has satisfied the five criteria in Section 3.1 of this exemption, the application of the rule is not necessary to achieve its underlying purpose in this case. 3.4 Staff Conclusion Based upon the review of the licensee's exemption request to credit soluble boron during MPC loading, unloading, and handling in the DCPP SFP, the staff concludes that pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12(a)(2) the licensee's exemption request is acceptable. However, the staff limits its approval to the loading, unloading, and handling of the components of the HI-STORM 100 dual-purpose dry cask storage system at DCPP. 4.0 Conclusion Accordingly, the Commission has determined that, pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12(a), the exemption is authorized by law, will not present an undue risk to the public health and safety, and is consistent with the common defense and security. Also, special circumstances are present. Therefore, the Commission hereby grants Pacific Gas and Electric Company an exemption [[Page 5594]] from the requirements of 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) for the loading, unloading, and handling of the components of the HI-STORM 100 dual-purpose dry cask storage system at DCPP. Any changes to the cask system design features affecting criticality or its supporting criticality analyses will invalidate this exemption. Pursuant to 10 CFR 51.32, the Commission has determined that the granting of this exemption will not have a significant effect on the quality of the human environment (69 FR 2012). This exemption is effective upon issuance. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 30th day of January 2004. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Ledyard B. Marsh, Director, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. 04-2486 Filed 2-4-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 40 North County Times: Fish kill reported at San Onofre nuclear plant News: Coastal Last modified Wednesday, February 4, 2004 10:30 PM By: PAUL SISSON - Staff Writer SAN ONOFRE ---- Tons of sardines learned the hard way that swimming too close to the San Onofre nuclear power plant's twin intake tunnels is a fatal mistake. On Wednesday, Southern California Edison, which owns and operates the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, roughly 17 miles north of Oceanside, reported a large fish kill to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. According to company spokesman Ray Golden, 13,590 pounds, or nearly 7 tons, of sardines were killed when they were sucked into the plant's cooling pipes late Monday night and early Tuesday morning. "They were large for sardines, between 8 and 12 inches," Golden said Wednesday. The nuclear plant has a never-ending thirst for salt water, driven by a need to cool two 1,100-megawatt reactors, which together generate enough electricity to power about 2 million Southern California homes. Two 3,200-foot pipes, each 18 feet in diameter, run from the plant out to sea, attaching to water intakes capable of sucking 1.6 million gallons of salt water to shore each minute. The salt water, which comes in at about 60 degrees Fahrenheit, is used only to condense steam generated by the reactor back into water. It never comes in contact with any radioactive material before being pumped back out to sea. Inevitably, fish, kelp and anything else that happens to drift by the intakes get slurped up along with the water. Edison has built a series of devices to separate its cooling water from the plants and animals that may come along for the ride. About 75 percent of the fish, mostly the larger ones, are sorted out by a specially designed "fish elevator" diversion system, which dumps its catch back into the ocean alive and swimming. But smaller fish like sardines often can swim through the fish elevator, eventually smacking up against a series of grates. The force is enough to kill the fish, and they are raked off automatically before being dropped in Dumpsters for eventual disposal in a landfill. On average, 200 pounds of fish and other marine animals are killed by the plant's cooling system each day, Golden said. Golden said Edison's on-site marine biologist believes the glut of sardines entering the intake was caused by rainstorms throughout Southern California early this week. "When we have a big storm, we generally see an increase," Golden said, though he did not specify why. Russ Vetter, supervising research geneticist for the Southwest Fisheries Science Center at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, said large sardines like the ones trapped at San Onofre generally school farther out to sea. He said that, while poor visibility caused by murky water could have been the reason the sardines swam too close to the intake, a storm does not explain why the fish came so close to shore. "That's darn interesting, but I can't say exactly what caused it," Vetter said. San Onofre's cooling system kills more than 50 tons of fish annually, according to a 15-year study by the California Coastal Commission's Marine Review Committee. To compensate for the power plant's negative effects on the marine environment, the state Coastal Commission ordered Edison to pay for several environmental projects, the largest of which is a $90 million restoration project that will restore 115 acres of tidal wetlands at the mouth of the San Dieguito River in Del Mar. After years of planning, the project is expected to begin in the summer of 2005. Contact staff writer Paul Sisson at (760) 901-4087 or psisson@nctimes.com. webmaster@nctimes.com County Times - Lee Enterprises editor@nctimes.com ***************************************************************** 41 The Sun News: Reactor vessel won't sail past Cape Horn | 02/05/2004 | [sunnews.com - The sunnews home page] By Seth Hettena The Associated Press Critics said the company was risking disaster by sailing the nuclear reactor vessel past Cape Horn, one of the world's most dangerous nautical passages. SAN DIEGO - Southern California Edison this week abandoned a plan to send a 600-ton decommissioned reactor vessel on what would have been the longest voyage ever for a piece of nuclear waste in U.S. history. Edison blamed delays that came as it finalized plans to send the vessel on a 15,500 mile trip around the icy tip of South America to a nuclear graveyard in Barnwell, spokesman Ray Golden said. The vessel will remain safely in place, wrapped in tons of steel and concrete, at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station next to the ocean between Los Angeles and San Diego. Edison will explore other options to get the vessel to the East Coast, including a domestic route. Edison has spent several million dollars getting the vessel ready for shipment and seeking approval from more than a dozen state and federal agencies since 1999. Plans had called for a truck to carry the decommissioned reactor vessel down a 17-mile stretch of the California coast. A barge was to take the vessel on a nonstop 90-day voyage past Cape Horn to the East Coast. Finally, a train was to haul the vessel to Barnwell. "It's good news from an environmental perspective because the reactor's much safer, in our opinion ... on site," said Tom Clements, senior adviser to Greenpeace International's nuclear campaign. "Plus, it avoids a diplomatic confrontation with Chile and Argentina." Critics said the company was risking disaster by sailing the vessel past Cape Horn, one of the world's most dangerous nautical passages. Daniel Hirsch, president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, a Los Angeles-based nuclear watchdog group, called it "the worst possible route from a safety standpoint you can come up with." Countries along the route had raised objections to the shipment, most notably Argentina, where a federal court last month banned the vessel from entering its 200-mile territorial waters. Continued delays would mean the passage around Cape Horn would occur closer to South America's winter, when the weather often turns treacherous, Golden said. The utility also had to avoid the March breeding season of the western snowy plover, a threatened species that nests on the beaches where the reactor would have passed. Edison's record-breaking route wasn't its first choice. A plan to get the vessel to South Carolina by rail and barge fell apart when Edison failed to reach terms with a railroad company. The Panama Canal refused to waive new weight limits for nuclear waste, forcing it to go around South America. The Barnwell site, operated by Chem-Nuclear Systems LLC, was the only site available to Edison for disposal of the reactor vessel. Barnwell is scheduled to close its doors to California's nuclear waste in 2008, unless South Carolina agrees to extend the date. The decommissioned reactor generated enough power for 450,000 homes from 1968 until it was shut down in 1992. Modifications that could have kept it running were deemed too expensive. ***************************************************************** 42 AP Wire: Small water leak shuts down one nuclear reactor at plant | 02/05/2004 | [startelegram.com - The startelegram home page] Associated Press PHOENIX - One of three reactors at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station has been shut down after radioactive water was discovered dripping from a drain line, a plant official said. The problem posed no danger to the public or workers at the plant located 55 west of downtown Phoenix in Wintersburg, said Jim McDonald, a spokesman for the utility company that operates Palo Verde. McDonald said Wednesday that the small leak of about 10 drops per minute in the reactor cooling system of the Unit 1 generator ceased once the reactor was shut down late Tuesday. The water was leaking onto the floor of the containment area that encloses that reactor, according to McDonald. It's unclear when the leak in the drain line began but McDonald said plant officials didn't believe it was for a long period of time. The 1,300-megawatt generator is expected to be back in service by Sunday and the shutdown is not expected to affect power supplies, McDonald added. Palo Verde, which began commercial operations in 1986 and is one of the nation's largest nuclear plants, supplies power to about 4 million customers in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California. ***************************************************************** 43 Green Clippings: Parliament to host Nuclear Energy Summit Date: Thu 05 February 2004 Category: Nuclear Issue No: 50 The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee for Environmental Affairs & Tourism will host a Nuclear Energy Summit on 16 & 17 February. This will be the first opportunity for stakeholders of this controversial issue to collectively meet and discuss the impact of nuclear energy in South Africa. Civil society groups have welcomed the summit, especially as Environmental Affairs & Tourism minister Valli Moosa is considering appeals against the environmental impact assessment of the experimental pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR). The summit will bring together delegates from NGOs, community organisations, labour, industry and government. The theme of the summit is "The future of Nuclear Energy in South Africa". ***************************************************************** 44 Valley Advocate: Time Bomb? With a higher power output, Vermont Yankee could be a disaster waiting to happen by Stephanie Kraft - February 5, 2004 Winds at the Vermont Yankee plant usually blow east and north. But on an atypical day, fallout from a spent fuel fire at the plant could irradiate New Hampshire, Massachusetts and northern Connecticut. (Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) A broken pipe could let vital coolant leak from Vermont Yankee's reactor core. In a terrorist attack or accident, an airplane could breach Vermont Yankee's containment and damage the reactor. Water in Vermont Yankee's torus may overheat and turn to steam just when it should be pumped in to cool the reactor core. To most people in Vermont, let alone Massachusetts, New Hampshire and southern Canada, the Vermont Public Service Board is not exactly a household word. Yet this agency holds the safety of people in this entire region in its hands as it prepares to render a decision on whether the owners of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant near Brattleboro can increase the plant's power output by 20 percent. Entergy Nuclear of Louisiana, the owner of Vermont Yankee, wants to hike the 32-year-old plant's power production from 524 megawatts to 634. Such an increase is called an uprate, and it's becoming more and more common now that no utilities are investing in new nuclear plant construction. Uprates typically increase a plant's output by 1 or 2 percent; the 20 percent uprate Entergy is asking for is the maximum allowable under federal rules. Only one other nuclear power plant has had an uprate approaching this magnitude approved. "This is a precedent-setting case. It has implications for the whole country," said Peter Alexander, director of the New England Coalition, which monitors safety issues at the plant. Uprates put stress on a nuclear power plant's systems. They increase the amount of spent fuel that must be stored at a plant. They put added strain on components of the all-important cooling systems that keep the reactor core from overheating and going into an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. Running the reactor at a new, higher level of power may raise the temperature of cooling water, bringing it nearer the point at which it could boil and compromise the entire reactor cooling system. Opponents of the uprate at Vermont Yankee have brought in expert consultants who say even a minor malfunction could lead to a loss of cooling water that might cause Vermont Yankee -- built before federal law required layer upon layer of backup safety systems -- to melt down. A nuclear engineer for the state of Vermont, working independently of the activists, has reached a similar conclusion. For the Public Service Board, the situation is not simple, since the PSB is not empowered to turn thumbs up or down on the project purely because of safety concerns. The last word about safety has to come from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But the PSB can ask the NRC for a thorough safety review of the plant, and make the agency feel the weight of public concern about that issue. Public concern can be enormously influential in such decisions; in the early 1990s, an application for a license extension for the Yankee Rowe plant in Franklin County took a u-turn that led the NRC to shut the plant down for good after hundreds of people expressed their worries about the extension in public hearings. The controversy over the uprate for Vermont Yankee puts the spotlight on the Public Service Board, which can give or withhold its approval of the project based on its economic and environmental impact on the state of Vermont, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In hearings held during January by the Public Service Board, an alarming picture emerged: Entergy operators are depending on a strategy experts believe to be flimsy and inadequate to deal with an accidental loss of coolant in the reactor core. If these warnings are true, Entergy's plan could lead to a disaster significantly worse than the one that occurred at Three Mile Island. T he New England coalition has assembled a group of experts with formidable credentials to help it assess safety issues associated with the uprate. Among them is Paul Blanch, who has spent over 30 years in the nuclear industry, first in the Navy's nuclear program and as a 25-year employee for Northeast Utilities. Blanch was among the whistleblowers who outed unsafe practices at NU's Millstone nuclear plants in Connecticut in the 1980s, and was also an expert witness in civil litigation following the incipient meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979. The Coalition has also enlisted David Lochbaum, a former nuclear industry executive who now serves as a consultant on nuclear power to the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Ray Shadis, a farmer and artist from Maine who is a part-time nuclear safety consultant. Shadis helped initiate the movement that got the Maine Yankee nuclear plant shut down, and has been invited several times to speak to the NRC on reactor oversight and safety issues. The three represent a range of positions on nuclear power. Blanch, who did a stint as a consultant for Entergy as recently as last year, still describes himself as a "supporter of safe nuclear power," a phrase that could fairly describe Lochbaum as well. Shadis is more generally critical of nuclear power and the NRC, whose latest methods of grading nuclear plant safety -- the methods that the agency would apply in a review of Vermont Yankee --he describes as "better [that the older methods] in some respects, but largely a fluff job." Blanch is not alone in his fear that the NRC may let Entergy take gambles with public safety as it pushes for an uprate to make the plant more profitable. "We're very afraid of the NRC," said Alexander. "We regard the Public Service Board as the last real line of defense." Here's the way the NEC and its consultants describe the scenario that worries them most. In Yankee's containment building sits a large doughnut-shaped vessel called the torus, which contains water that could be pumped into the reactor to cool it in the event that the reactor's cooling system fails. The torus would also receive steam from the overheated reactor. The danger is that if that water gets too hot -- if it reaches boiling temperature -- huge bubbles could form that would prevent the pumps from sucking the water in so it could be carried to the reactor. The water would also be unable to enter the pumps if it got so hot that it flashed to steam. The situation is further complicated by the fact that just activating the big pumps can cause a sudden lowering of pressure. Meanwhile, time would be critical because overheated fuel rods could bend and twist so that control rods could not be inserted between them. The placement of control rods between the fuel rods is the normal way of controlling the speed of the nuclear reaction. If the reactor loses coolant and the fuel rods burn out of shape so the control rods can't be accepted, the reactor's operators are looking at an out-of-control nuclear reaction called a China syndrome. A China syndrome is a worse scenario than the incipient meltdown that occurred at Three Mile Island. As former Northeast Utilities employee and whistleblower Paul Blanch told the Advocate , "Certainly an accident at Vermont Yankee does have the potential to be very much worse than TMI." The trick to keeping the water in the torus from boiling is related to something as commonplace as using a pressure cooker, or making tea or coffee on a hike up a high mountain: water boils at 212 degrees under normal atmospheric pressure, but can leap into a boil at a lower temperature under lower pressure. Entergy says its operators can carry out a complicated balancing act between water temperature and water pressure in the containment building that will keep the water from boiling up into enormous bubbles, or flashing to steam before it could be piped into the reactor. By keeping the pressure high in the containment, they say, they can keep the water from boiling. The proposal to use this precipitous tactic to manage a volatile situation has sparked a firestorm of debate and protest among activists in the Brattleboro area and the experts they have enlisted to scrutinize the uprate plan. "The NRC has in many technical documents said this is a bad idea. It's risky. If you must do it, don't do it for more than a few minutes," said Shadis. "In Vermont Yankee's plan they propose that they could do this up to 50 hours." But Entergy may squeak by with its plan. Two years ago the NRC proposed to allow increases in containment pressure to be used as a safety measure in loss of coolant accidents. The agency has allowed operators of at least two other nuclear power plants, Dresden and Quad Cities, to handle loss of coolant in that way. Blanch says it's not safe, however, and adds that the NRC is "to blame" for letting companies like Entergy think they can push the envelope on safety considerations. NEC staff and other opponents of the uprate have also pointed out that a breach of the containment building by terrorists or by a more commonplace accident would disperse the pressure, possibly sending the water to a boil. Under normal conditions, the temperature of the emergency cooling water is around 183 degrees. At 634 megawatts -- Entergy's proposed new output level -- that temperature would rise to 194 degrees, only 18 degrees below the 212-degree boiling point. With low pressure in the containment building, the water might boil at an even lower temperature. This plan by Entergy -- to deal with a cooling system failure by balancing off pressure against water temperature -- was discovered by Blanch and by Vermont state nuclear engineer William Sherman. The two men found the information independently of each other as they pored over thousands of pages of documents from Entergy. And those piles of information represent only a fraction of the paperwork that should be reviewed, Blanch said. "If Bill Sherman and I, who have spent maybe 150 hours going over these documents, can find major safety issues, what would happen if we had adequate time to review all the safety issues? What else would we find?" said Blanch. "This particular issue and the way they are addressing it clearly bring into question the NRC's most basic requirements for protecting the public." Blanch pointed out that because Vermont Yankee was built in 1967, before redundant safety systems were required in nuclear plants, parts of its cooling system have no backup. The possible failure of a system without backup -- called a "single failure" -- makes it crucial that the next layer of defense, such as the plan for dealing with a loss-of-coolant accident, leave nothing to chance. "In the event of one single failure, the emergency core cooling pumps will fail -- notice I said will, not may -- likely causing a meltdown," said Blanch. "They have to absolutely maintain a high presssure in the torus, which is extremely radioactive. If they lose that pressure, then they lose all their cooling when they need it the most." On Dec. 8, Sherman wrote the NRC about the risks involved in the company's plan for dealing with a loss of coolant. In the letter, he points out that using the plant's containment to maintain a safe level of pressure in case of a loss of coolant gives the containment itself a new status as a component of the safety system, and suggests that the containment should be pressure-tested to see if it is up to its new job. He also made the point that the agency used to be "unequivocal" in prohibiting containment pressure from being factored into the safety equation for loss-of-coolant accidents, and questioned the new rule allowing it. At press time the NRC had not responded. Shadis said the threat Entergy's plan poses to public safety is too clear to be obscured by arcane scientific jargon. "The emergency core cooling system is likely to be overheated, causing its pumps to fail under accident conditions," he said. "If they want to avoid a meltdown, they will have to send out for ice -- I figure, about 8 billion bags of it." Over the last 20 years, some 99 nuclear plants around the country have asked for and received uprates. When the Quad Cities plant in Illinois got a 17 .8 percent uprate in 2002, a large piece of metal in the reactor broke apart and crashed into other components. The operators were totally unprepared for the potentially disastrous incident, which Lochbaum described as "a wake-up call" for other companies seeking large uprates. In Vermont, concerned state officials have to walk a fine line, since federal law makes the NRC the final arbiter on safety issues. Entergy can't do the uprate unless it gets a so-called "certificate of public good" from the state Public Service Board, but the criteria for that certificate are, first, that the project have no negative environmental effects, and, secondly, that the people of the state realize some economic gain from it. The first criterion, Sherman admits, involves an irony. Because the plant already exists, and federal law assumes that nuclear power plants are safe barring abnormal incidents, the environmental question is somewhat nullified. In other words, for legal purposes the reactor is considered environmentally harmless -- unless it melts down and wipes out Vermont, western New Hampshire and a swatch of Canada. That would happen if an accident occurred when the prevailing winds, which move northeast over the reactor, were blowing. (That doesn't mean, however, that areas south and west of the reactor are safe. That would depend on the weather at the time of the accident, the duration of radioactive releases if the containment were breached, and other variables. In western Massachusetts, Bernardston, Leyden,Northfield, and parts of Gill, Warwick, Colrain and Greenfield are located within 10 miles of the reactor.) Entergy bought itself the points to meet the economic criterion by offering the state $20 million for a cleanup of Lake Champlain and other environmental amenities, a move that reportedly has Gov. James Douglas's administration squarely on the company's side. All that said, however, Sherman told the Advocate that the Public Service Board can refuse to support the uprate proposal if it isn't satisfied on the score of safety. The PSB's decision is expected in middle or late March. Meanwhile, in December, Entergy found itself with egg on its face when it was informed by the NRC that the information it had submitted to the agency in September, when it applied for the uprate, was inadequate. The company has still not supplied the necessary data to the NRC. Entergy spokesman Rob Williams said the company expects a decision from the NRC in less than a year, because the agency has already begun reviewing the application. But NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the decision won't come for a year after all the information is supplied. Still, the distrust Entergy's incomplete documentation has inspired in people living near the plant apparently isn't shared by the NRC -- or if it is, they aren't admitting it. When we asked Sheehan if the flawed documentation suggested that the company might be lax in its operations, Sheehan answered, "No, I mean it suggests to us that this is a complex, involved undertaking. I wouldn't read anything else into it at this point." Use our contact form to write to Stephanie Kraft. Copyright © 1995-2004 New Mass Media. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 45 Valley Advocate: Hidden Exemptions by Stephanie Kraft - February 5, 2004 Because Vermont Yankee was built in the very early 1970s, many features of it are "grandfathered," or exempted from construction and safety standards that govern the construction of nuclear plants built later. It would be one thing if a handy reference sheet listing the standards from which Yankee was exempt were available for everyone from Yankee's own operatives to safety-conscious area residents to peruse. Then at least information about the parts of the plant most likely to be stressed by an uprate would be instantly accessible. But that's not the case. Thirty-two years down the road, no one even has a consolidated list of the regs the plant didn't have to meet. Information about it is buried in thousands of pages of documentation and unavailable for ready reference. Upgrading the plant's power output by 20 percent is doubly dangerous if no one knows for sure what modern-day specs the plant fails to meet, said Paul Blanch, an engineer from West Hartford who worked in the nuclear industry for 30 years. "My very strong position is that before the Vermont Public Service Board can issue their approval, they should absolutely require Entergy to determine their compliance with today's regs," Blanch said. "Nobody, including the NRC, has any idea of what regs they are in compliance with and which ones they are not in compliance with." Use our contact form to write to Stephanie Kraft. Copyright © 1995-2004 New Mass Media. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 46 Engineering News: Environmentalists prepare to continue PBMR legal battle 06 February 2004 News Today 'PBMR' Long-standing legal proceedings surrounding South Africa’s proposed pebble-bed modular reactor (PBMR) could move ahead this week as environmental lobbyists anticipate responses from PBMR stakeholders. Earthlife Africa is opposing environmental authorisation for the construction of the country’s first PBMR at Koeberg, in the Western Cape, granted on June 25 last year, on two fronts. Firstly, the environmental group lodged an appeal against the environmental-impact assessment (EIA) decision with the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism within the prescribed 30-day period. A response to the appeal is still pending. Secondly, Earthlife Africa has also filed an application of review of the EIA decision with the Cape Provisional Division of the High Court, challenging the authorisation on grounds of procedural flaws. Earthlife Africa legal representative Adrian Pole told Engineering News Online yesterday that he expects answering affidavits from the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) and power utility Eskom by the end of this week to the environmental group’s court application. “If necessary, we, in turn, will respond to their affidavits and the matter will then be referred to the court, which will set a date to hear the case,†Pole explained. Last year, Earthlife Africa attempted to obtain an urgent interdict to stop the EIA decision from being issued, arguing that the group had not been allowed access to information on the economic and technical feasibility of the project or critical information dealing with the safety of this nuclear technology. “We were not allowed access to important documents, for example to know how much it would cost to construct one demonstration plant or to comment on them (the documents),†Earthlife Africa said in an earlier statement. The High Court rejected the application for an urgent interdict and placed the case on the court roll for September. Subsequently, however, the DEAT issued the EIA authorisation for the PBMR and Earthlife Africa had to withdraw its case. The latest round of legal action is based on the same premise, that the environmental decision was made in a ‘procedurally unfair manner’. Published: 2004/02/04 Printer friendly: [View this article in Author: Martin Czernowalow Portfolio: Senior Online Writer E-mail: newsdesk@engineeringnews.co.za ***************************************************************** 47 Guardian Unlimited:BE investors look for better deal Heather Tomlinson Thursday February 5, 2004 The Guardian Shareholder hopes for improved terms in the British Energy rescue package soared yesterday, boosting the share price. However, the higher price could threaten the prospects of any challenge to the deal. Yesterday the Guardian revealed that vulture fund Appaloosa retained restructuring lawyers at Bingham McCutchen to investigate whether the rescue package could be challenged by law. The deal gives bondholders control of the nuclear power company and leaves shareholders with 2.5% of the company. The advisers could be probing the viability of a court action, similar to that threatened by small shareholders in Rail track. However, British Energy and its bondholders are confident that the rescue package cannot be disrupted. Appaloosa bought a 4.6% stake last week, when the shares were trading at around 4p. Yesterday's closing price of 10p - 2.3p up on the day - threatens the viability of the vulture fund buying up enough shares to get leverage, it is understood. Legally challenging the rescue deal would not be advantageous unless the shares could be bought cheaply. Appaloosa declined to comment. Goldman Sachs was yesterday revealed as a 4.6% shareholder, although it is likely to be acting as custodian for the Appaloosa shares. Retail brokers are understood to be punting the stock to small investors, who have contributed to the price rise. British Energy said: "The company is not aware of any information relating to the British Energy group that explains the recent rise in the share price and the trading volumes." It is understood it has had no contact with Appaloosa or its advisers. Shareholders will vote on the deal later on this year, but if they voted against, they would get nothing under this package. But shareholders are looking at the improving prospects of British Energy, due to the rise in the price of electricity, and considering they have been treated unfairly. Bonds have been trading at more than their face value, indicating they have got a good deal. Guardian Newspapers Limited ***************************************************************** 48 The Telegraph - Calcutta: Site search for nuclear plant | Thursday, February 05, 2004 | Advertise with us - Mumbai officials await list to start reconnaissance mission RANJAN DASGUPTA Jamshedpur, Feb. 4: The ball has been set rolling for the state’s first 1,000-MW nuclear power reactor in East Singhbhum district. Authorities of the Mumbai-based Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCI) have sought details of the sites from deputy commissioner Sunil Kumar Burnwal. The state government has appointed Burnwal the nodal officer of the project for which the Centre has sanctioned Rs 400 crore. The functioning of the NPCI, a public sector undertaking, is supervised by the department of atomic energy (DAE). The public sector unit helps states set up nuclear power projects. The state government took the initiative to set up the nuclear power plant since uranium is found in abundance in the district. “A few days ago, NPCI officials called up Burnwal and discussed the modalities of the project. The latter was informed by NPCI officials that they would visit the district as soon as the authorities shortlist tentative sites for the project and give feedback about these sites,” a district official said. They hinted that the NPCI authorities have urged Burnwal to speed up the process of site selection. Burnwal said NPCI had directed him to select at least four sites for the project and submit the details at the earliest. “The unit has despatched a form to the district administration, which we have to fill up and return,” he added. The district authorities will have to furnish details like the topography of each of the four sites that the latter shortlists, the rock condition of the land, the distance of the land from the Uranium Corporation of India (UCIL) and provisions for waste disposal. They will also have to specify how far the sites will be from the Subarnarekha. “I will engage some district officials to select the site as soon as I receive the form. It is expected in the next couple of days,” Burnwal said. Based on the feedback that NPCI receives from the district authorities, they will decide on the final project site. “A joint team of officials from the DAE and NPCI will visit the district to take stock of the site,” district authorities said. They hinted that preliminary formalities would be completed by early March. According to the deputy commissioner, preference will be given to sites near the Jadugoda-based UCIL. “Since we will require uranium for power generation, we plan to set up a nuclear power plant where not much will be spent on the transportation of uranium,” Burnwal said. The district authorities said the state government will be consulted before sending the list of sites to NPCI. “Since it is a dream project, we shall be in touch with the senior officials of the government to seek their suggestions,” district officials added. Copyright © 2002 The Telegraph. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 49 [du-list] Depleted uranium bullets pose threat to Japanese Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2004 17:08:03 -0800 Depleted uranium bullets pose threat to Japanese troops in Iraq (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, Feb. 5, 2004) http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/20040205p2a00m0fp012000c.html THE HAGUE -- Depleted uranium bullets and asbestos pose potential threats to Japanese troops dispatched to Samawa, southern Iraq, a Dutch Parliament report obtained by the Mainichi Shimbun has suggested. The report on Dutch troops' activities in Samawa is likely to prompt Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) personnel deployed in the area to take measures to protect themselves from such threats. Critics of the dispatch of Self-Defense Force personnel have already pointed to the fear that Japanese troops could be the target of terrorist attacks. The report was compiled on the basis of the results of investigations that Dutch ruling and opposition legislators conducted there in late October last year. It cited depleted uranium bullets left in Samawa and its vicinity and cancer-causing asbestos used in buildings as potential threats to the health of Dutch soldiers. The report also warned of possible skin diseases and enteritis as well as heatstroke. The report also stated that Dutch troops and U.S. forces jointly cracked down on dealers of illicit weapons in a bid to ensure security in the area. According to the report, Dutch and U.S. soldiers used video cameras and taxis to monitor the secret market for illicit weapons. They raided the market after concluding that the dealers used children as messengers, and that some local residents were harboring the dealers. In the operation, Dutch and U.S. troops detained about 120 people including four former high-ranking officials of Saddam Hussein's regime, and confiscated some 100 weapons. Furthermore, Dutch troops asked local residents for information on terrorists' activities. Some 1,100 Dutch soldiers are designated to guard GSDF troops in Iraq. -- Posted for educational and research purposes only, ~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~ See NucNews Links and Archives - http://nucnews.net - Nuclear - Military - Police - Energy+ - Activists - (news stories that may have disappeared from the Web) To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 50 [du-list] Legal case for Gulf war syndrome to collapse in UK : Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2004 17:08:05 -0800 1- Legal case for Gulf war syndrome to collapse in UK : report 2- Fewer than 10 Gulf war troops had uranium poisoning -- Legal case for Gulf war syndrome to collapse in UK : report www.chinaview.cn 2004-02-05 19:53:51 (Xinhuanet) http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-02/05/content_1300677.htm LONDON, Feb. 5 -- An eight-year, multimillion pound legal battle by more than 2,000 British veterans for compensation for Gulf war syndrome has collapsed due to lacking enough scientific evidence to prove their case in court, a British newspaper reported on Thursday. The Legal Services Commission (LSC), which was estimated to have spent about 4 million pounds (about 7.3 million US dollars), was expected to withdraw legal aid this month after being told by the veterans' lawyers that the action has no real chance of success, the Guardian newspaper said. Taking the case to trial in the high court could cost a further4 million pounds in legal aid, it added. To succeed in their claim against the British Ministry of Defense (MoD), the veterans would have to produce scientific evidence not only that their illness was caused by service in the 1991 Gulf War, but that the MoD had been negligent, the paper said. But a trawl by scientists through 10 years of research worldwide, overseen by the veteran's lawyers and funded by the LSC, has found no evidence which establishes any specific cause for the range of health problems they suffer and there was also scant evidence of negligence on the part of the MoD, the paper added. Many of the 55,000 British troops who served in the Gulf have experienced a range of symptoms, including muscle weakness, neurological symptoms, headaches, depression, fatigue, short-term memory loss and difficulty in concentrating, joint and muscle pain, sleep disturbances, skin rashes and shortness of breath. The syndrome has been attributed to stress, smoke from oil-burning wells, injections, depleted uranium ammunition and other causes, although many believe the nebulous condition could be psychosomatic. The United States and Britain have refused to accept a direct link between the war and the syndrome, even though they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars researching possible causes. ---- Fewer than 10 Gulf war troops had uranium poisoning IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent, February 05 2004 UK Herald http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/9323-print.shtml FEWER than 10 of the 70,000 British troops involved in operations in Iraq over the past 11 months have tested positive for signs of depleted uranium (DU) contamination, according to figures obtained by The Herald. All of those affected were hit by shrapnel from DU tank or aircraft cannon shells during "friendly fire" incidents in the advance on Basra and have since received treatment for "very low-level" radiation poisoning. The news comes a day after a Scottish veteran of the 1991 Gulf conflict became the first British soldier to win a war pension for DU poisoning. Kenny Duncan, a father of three from Clackmannanshire, convinced a pensions tribunal that his subsequent ill health was directly attributable to inhaling uranium dust from burned-out armoured vehicles he was ordered to carry back from the front lines on his tank transporter 13 years ago. Successive governments have resisted calls for a public inquiry into the harmful effects of depleted uranium ammunition to avoid compensation claims, which could potentially cost them hundreds of millions of pounds. DU is the waste product of nuclear power stations and is 1.7 times as dense as lead, making it perfect for penetrating tank armour. Shaped into rods and fired from either tank guns or the rapid-fire cannon on American A10 "tankbuster" aircraft, it also produces intense heat on impact. Both the MoD and the US Defence Department still insist that the radioactive dust plume produced when a round strikes its target is only harmful if inhaled, swallowed or in wounds caused by shrapnel when the shell fragments. Veterans' organisations claim the dust, relatively harmless outside the body, can lodge in the lymph glands if ingested and cause cancer. Every serviceman or woman who took part in last year's Iraq campaign or has since been posted to Basra on garrison duty has been offered the chance of supplying a urine sample to determine whether there is DU in his or her body. An MoD spokeswoman said only 275 have submitted samples. All have tested negative for contamination. -- Posted for educational and research purposes only, ~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~ See NucNews Links and Archives - http://nucnews.net - Nuclear - Military - Police - Energy+ - Activists - (news stories that may have disappeared from the Web) To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 51 First Award For Depleted Uranium Poisoning Claim Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 05:02:38 -0600 (CST) http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/9272.html The Herald (Scotland) February 4, 2004 First award for depleted uranium poisoning claim MARTIN WILLIAMS -Dr Schott's research formed part of a study of 16 British veterans of conflicts in the Gulf, Bosnia, and Kosovo, which found that they had 14 times the usual level of chromosome abnormalities in their genes, raising fears that they will pass cancers and genetic illnesses to their offspring. A Scots ex-soldier has become the first veteran to win a pension appeal after being diagnosed with depleted uranium (DU) poisoning during the 1991 Gulf war. A Pension Appeal Tribunal Service hearing in Edinburgh accepted medical evidence provided by Kenny Duncan, of Clackmannan, previously dismissed by the MoD, which revealed he had become ill after service in the Middle East. Mr Duncan, 35, a driver with 7 Tank Transporter Regiment, helped move tanks destroyed by shells containing the poisonous dust. He says he has evidence that his children's health problems are linked to his service. Kenneth, 10, Andrew, eight, and six-year-old Heather, have symptoms similar to those suffered by some Iraqi children, including deformed toes, and low immune systems making them susceptible to asthma, hay fever and eczema. Mr Duncan has suffered increasing breathlessness and aching joints which he has linked to DU. During the conflict, US and British troops fired an estimated 350 tonnes of DU weapons at Iraqi tanks. Doctors in southern Iraq have reported a marked increase in cancers and birth defects, and suspicion has grown that they were caused by DU contamination from tank battles. DU has been linked to a leukaemia cluster around the MoD range at Dundrennan, near the Solway Firth. Communities close to the range show the highest rate of childhood leukaemia in the UK. Mr Duncan's appeal was launched after he was awarded only about #40 a week, half the full pension, when he retired from the Army through ill health in 1993 after nine years' service. His pension will now be reassessed. The National Gulf Veterans and Families Association (NGVFA) said the tribunal decision added weight to its call for a full independent inquiry into Gulf war illnesses and supported its view that the government should do more financially to help the victims. Mr Duncan's case relied on blood tests carried out by Dr Albrecht Schott, a German biochemist, which revealed chromosome aberrations caused by ionising radiation. Dr Schott's research formed part of a study of 16 British veterans of conflicts in the Gulf, Bosnia, and Kosovo, which found that they had 14 times the usual level of chromosome abnormalities in their genes, raising fears that they will pass cancers and genetic illnesses to their offspring. The test results were dismissed by the MoD as "neither well thought out nor scientifically sound". Mr Duncan said yesterday: "It is just a huge relief to have someone in authority say that you have been poisoned by this stuff and that you are not telling lies. It is now time for the MoD to tell us what went wrong. "For all those veterans who have been going to the doctor with these ailments and are being told there is nothing wrong with them, this is for them, and I hope it will help them. "I doubt that I will benefit much financially from this, but it wasn't about the money, it was about the principle of the thing." The ministry said yesterday: "Once we have seen the decision, we will consider the implications it might have on the MoD." ***************************************************************** 52 Guardian Unlimited: Gulf war syndrome: the legal case collapses Clare Dyer, legal correspondent Thursday February 5, 2004 The Guardian An eight-year, multimillion pound legal battle by more than 2,000 veterans for compensation for Gulf war syndrome has collapsed because there is not enough scientific evidence to prove their case in court. The Legal Services Commission (LSC), which is estimated to have spent around £4m on the case, is expected to withdraw legal aid this month after being told by the veterans' lawyers that the action has no real chance of success. Taking the case to trial in the high court could cost a further £4m in legal aid. The legal team - headed by Stephen Irwin QC, the chairman of the bar, and Patrick Allen, senior partner of solicitors Hodge Jones & Allen - last night called on the government to set up a public review of the issues surrounding Gulf war illness and to make ex gratia payments to veterans. To succeed in their claim against the Ministry of Defence, the veterans would have to produce scientific evidence not only that their illness was caused by their service in the 1991 Gulf war, but also that the MoD had been negligent. The burden of proof would be on them as claimants to prove their case. But a trawl by scientists through 10 years of research worldwide, overseen by the veterans' lawyers and funded by the LSC, has found no evidence which establishes any specific cause for the range of health problems they suffer. There is also little or no evidence of negligence on the part of the MoD, according to the legal opinion by Mr Irwin and the junior counsel Christopher Hough, which has gone to the LSC. The collapse of the case comes only months after litigation by parents who blame the MMR vaccine for their children's autism suffered a similar fate, also for lack of scientific evidence to back up their claims. Many of the 55,000 British troops who served in the Gulf have experienced a range of symptoms including muscle weakness, neurological symptoms, headaches, depression, fatigue, short-term memory loss and difficulty in concentrating, joint and muscle pain, sleep disturbances, skin rashes, and shortness of breath. Gulf war veterans, including British, American, Australian and Danish troops, have about twice the expected rate of ill health. But while experts worldwide accept that a Gulf war "health effect" exists, no hard evidence has emerged proving the veterans' problems were caused by anything encountered during the conflict. Among the causes suggested are depleted uranium fallout from munitions; multiple vaccinations administered before the conflict; tablets given to guard against nerve agents; chemical weapons used by Iraqi forces or destroyed by the allies after the war; organophosphates used to spray tents and equipment against flies; and pollution from oil well fires. More than 2,000 Gulf veterans have been awarded "no fault" war pensions, granted to those whose health has been affected by war service. This week the first war pension for the effects of depleted uranium was awarded to a former soldier, Kenny Duncan, who claimed he was poisoned from inhaling DU dust from burnt-out tanks. But winning a war pension is no pointer to success in a high court compensation claim. The burden of proof is reversed in pension cases, putting the onus on the MoD to prove the illness is not linked to Gulf service, and there is no need to prove negligence. "We very much regret that we have not been able to support these claims," Mr Allen said. "We have every sympathy for the plight of veterans and acknowledge that many suffer significant ill health which is linked to their service for their country. "We hope that a cause will be found for Gulf war illnesses in due course and that effective treatment programmes can be instigated to help improve the health of veterans." A spokesman for the LSC said: "We anticipate reaching a conclusion on the future public funding of this case in the next two to three weeks." [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ***************************************************************** 53 Mainichi Interactive: Depleted uranium bullets pose threat to Japanese troops in Iraq THE HAGUE -- Depleted uranium bullets and asbestos pose potential threats to Japanese troops dispatched to Samawa, southern Iraq, a Dutch Parliament report obtained by the Mainichi Shimbun has suggested. The report on Dutch troops' activities in Samawa is likely to prompt Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) personnel deployed in the area to take measures to protect themselves from such threats. Critics of the dispatch of Self-Defense Force personnel have already pointed to the fear that Japanese troops could be the target of terrorist attacks. The report was compiled on the basis of the results of investigations that Dutch ruling and opposition legislators conducted there in late October last year. It cited depleted uranium bullets left in Samawa and its vicinity and cancer-causing asbestos used in buildings as potential threats to the health of Dutch soldiers. The report also warned of possible skin diseases and enteritis as well as heatstroke. The report also stated that Dutch troops and U.S. forces jointly cracked down on dealers of illicit weapons in a bid to ensure security in the area. According to the report, Dutch and U.S. soldiers used video cameras and taxis to monitor the secret market for illicit weapons. They raided the market after concluding that the dealers used children as messengers, and that some local residents were harboring the dealers. In the operation, Dutch and U.S. troops detained about 120 people including four former high-ranking officials of Saddam Hussein's regime, and confiscated some 100 weapons. Furthermore, Dutch troops asked local residents for information on terrorists' activities. Some 1,100 Dutch soldiers are designated to guard GSDF troops in Iraq. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, Feb. 5, 2004) © 2003 The Mainichi Newspapers Co. Under the ***************************************************************** 54 The Herald: Fewer than 10 Gulf war troops had uranium poisoning Web Issue 1934 February 05 2004 IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent February 05 2004 FEWER than 10 of the 70,000 British troops involved in operations in Iraq over the past 11 months have tested positive for signs of depleted uranium (DU) contamination, according to figures obtained by The Herald. All of those affected were hit by shrapnel from DU tank or aircraft cannon shells during "friendly fire" incidents in the advance on Basra and have since received treatment for "very low-level" radiation poisoning. The news comes a day after a Scottish veteran of the 1991 Gulf conflict became the first British soldier to win a war pension for DU poisoning. Kenny Duncan, a father of three from Clackmannanshire, convinced a pensions tribunal that his subsequent ill health was directly attributable to inhaling uranium dust from burned-out armoured vehicles he was ordered to carry back from the front lines on his tank transporter 13 years ago. Successive governments have resisted calls for a public inquiry into the harmful effects of depleted uranium ammunition to avoid compensation claims, which could potentially cost them hundreds of millions of pounds. DU is the waste product of nuclear power stations and is 1.7 times as dense as lead, making it perfect for penetrating tank armour. Shaped into rods and fired from either tank guns or the rapid-fire cannon on American A10 "tankbuster" aircraft, it also produces intense heat on impact. Both the MoD and the US Defence Department still insist that the radioactive dust plume produced when a round strikes its target is only harmful if inhaled, swallowed or in wounds caused by shrapnel when the shell fragments. Veterans' organisations claim the dust, relatively harmless outside the body, can lodge in the lymph glands if ingested and cause cancer. Every serviceman or woman who took part in last year's Iraq campaign or has since been posted to Basra on garrison duty has been offered the chance of supplying a urine sample to determine whether there is DU in his or her body. An MoD spokeswoman said only 275 have submitted samples. All have tested negative for contamination. Copyright © Newsquest (Herald & Times) Limited. All Rights ***************************************************************** 55 Agenzia Giornalistica Italia: SOLDIER MELIS DIES OF URANIUM POISONING Friday February 6, 2004 h.02.29 (AGI) - Sassari, Italy, Feb. 5 - "The tragedy of Valery Melis is present within the Defense Ministry. The problem of Hodgkin's disease has not yet been solved. Unfortunately, we cannot give his life back, but we'll find a satisfying solution to the problem," said Defense Minister Antonio Martino, after a meeting with Sardinia governor Efisio Serrenti. Corporal Valery Melis, 29, got the disease in 1999, a few months after coming back from a peace mission in the Balkans. He died last night in Cagliari. In order to get economic support that might have saved his life, friends, relatives, and fans of the Cagliari soccer team had started looking for donations last week. A protest in front of the Sardinia military command risked degenerating, notwithstanding the reassurances of the military commander, General Giangabriele Carta, concerning the military's willingness to satisfy the family's requests to help Valery. - 051233 FEB 04 COPYRIGHTS 2002-2003 AGI S.p.A. [Invia questo articolo] ***************************************************************** 56 courier-journal: Nuclear workers exposed to metal Thursday, February 05, 2004 Beryllium results surprise manager of two plants By JAMES MALONE jmalone@courier-journal.com The Courier-Journal PADUCAH, Ky. At least 65 current and former workers at the Energy Department's gaseous diffusion plants in Kentucky and Ohio have been exposed to beryllium, a toxic metal that can be fatal. The industrial metal, noted for its strength and durability at high temperatures, might have been in equipment used in day-to-day production of enriched uranium, according to documents obtained by The Courier-Journal. BERYLLIUM Beryllium is a light, strong metal with a high melting point that makes it valuable for industrial uses as an alloy with other metals. When inhaled, beryllium dust can cause serious respiratory illness and even death. Exposure can leave scars in the lungs and other organs, and the time from exposure to symptoms of illness can be 40 years. Beryllium cases handled by the Department of Labor for all U.S. defense and nuclear industry sites, as of Jan. 15: + Sensitivity claims (blood test indicates a reaction to the metal): filed, 2,186; approved, 895 + Chronic disease claims (being treated): filed, 2,620; approved, 1,127 + Total paid: $133 million Health screenings at the Paducah plant have found one worker with chronic beryllium disease and five workers who have developed a sensitivity to it, meaning a blood test indicates their bodies have formed a reaction to the metal and could get the disease later, according to the Energy Department. Eight workers at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio, have chronic beryllium disease and 10 are sensitive to it. The Energy Department has never acknowledged the use of beryllium in production equipment at its Paducah and Ohio plants, but officials now say they're taking the discovery seriously. "This came as a surprise to us," said William Murphie, the department's manager of the two plants. Until now, the department has said the only contact at Paducah with beryllium was at least two decades ago when machinists milled the metal in a short-lived program to produce weapons parts for other government agencies, and that the metal was never used at Piketon. But at least 10 of the 44 Paducah workers with some level of beryllium exposure said they were never inside the building where the metal was milled. Government regulations call for tight controls and protection for workers from beryllium dust, which can lodge in the lungs, causing serious respiratory illness and, in severe cases, death. AT OHIO, internal records dated Jan. 23 show that unexpectedly high levels of beryllium were discovered in testing of aluminum blades in the giant 40-year-old compressors that force uranium gas through filters. The records show safety engineers cordoned off and posted danger signs on some metal refurbishing equipment in a machine shop after the beryllium was discovered Jan. 14. Mark Griffon, a health physicist working on the federally funded program to screen nuclear workers' health, said the discovery could be significant. "It means it could have exposed any number of people to beryllium," said Griffon, who has been investigating nuclear workers' exposure at Piketon and Paducah for more than a year. Griffon said he has never before seen records showing beryllium present in the day-to-day operations of enriching uranium and repairing equipment. AT PADUCAH, the compressor blades haven't yet been tested but are similar to those at the Ohio plant. The maximum amount of allowable beryllium exposure for workers over eight hours is 0.002 milligrams per cubic meter the equivalent of something about the size of a pencil point evenly distributed around a football field covered by a 6-foot-high box. The Energy Department called the beryllium in the blades at the Ohio plant a "trace contaminant" in the aluminum castings. Chuck Johnson, manager of environment, safety and health for the Aluminum Association, a trade group for the aluminum-manufacturing industry, conceded that beryllium could have been a natural trace contaminant in the blades. But Johnson said no beryllium was added to the aluminum alloy. The Ohio discovery has sparked calls for an expansion of the Energy Department's $300,000 beryllium testing program, which is scheduled to expire when the current federal budget ends Sept. 30. "That was one of the troubling things for us, trying to figure out how these workers who were never around the machine shop tested positive," said Jim Key, safety and health representative for Local 3-550 of the Paper, Allied Industrial, Energy and Chemical Workers Union at Paducah. Key estimates that expanding the testing in the machine shop at Paducah where beryllium was used will cost an additional $175,000. The union also wants testing in other Paducah buildings where compressor work has been done. Phillip Foley, the president of the Paducah union local, said the Energy Department "has never opened up and told us" about beryllium at the plant, despite Freedom of Information Act requests filed by the union more than a year ago. "WE HAVE been questioning this all along," Foley said. "I'm not convinced we have the answers yet." A memo obtained by the newspaper yesterday shows the union at the Ohio plant raised questions about beryllium in compressor blades as early as 1997, citing concern for workers who had to weld or grind compressor parts. But the U.S. Enrichment Corp., which manages the plant for the Energy Department, responded that the trace levels in blades were "of not much concern ... and would be considered as impurities." Murphie, meantime, said some buildings at Paducah have been tested, including a cleaning building. If the department determines it's "appropriate and necessary," more testing will be done, he said. The testing already done at Paducah found beryllium levels within acceptable workplace levels and did not find it in the air, according to a report on the beryllium monitoring at Paducah. The follow-up testing at Paducah hasn't found any airborne beryllium around maintenance machines, said Georgann Lookofsky, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Enrichment Corp., which also runs the Paducah plant. "As to whether it was a problem 10 years ago, I don't know," she said. Until about a decade ago, the compressors about the size of a compact car were repaired, cleaned and overhauled by workers throughout the plants. Now, faulty machines are replaced with spares. "All over the plant, you had compressors worked on, cleaned and washed off and there was dust and crap on the ground and it went down the sewer," said Herman Potter, who worked at the Ohio plant for 13 years and wrote the 1997 memo. BASED ON their answers to work history questions, only about half of the Paducah workers who were screened for health problems were also tested for beryllium exposure, Griffon said. "The question now is, should we go back and screen more?" he asked. Experts estimate only 10percent of the estimated 20,000 people who have worked at both plants over the past 50 years have had beryllium screening. One Ohio worker with beryllium disease is Garry Sexton, 54, a union safety and health representative. Sexton said he was diagnosed last year. "It was tremendously disturbing to me," said Sexton, who did not work in the plant's machine shop and said he was never told about danger from exposure to beryllium in his job as a chemical operator. Sexton, with three grown children, said he's able to work but wonders what the future holds. "The disease can take several different directions," he said. "You don't have a tremendous number of (treatment) options." Copyright 2003 The Courier-Journal. ***************************************************************** 57 deseretnews: Waste bill splits House, Senate [deseretnews.com] Thursday, February 5, 2004 By Donna Kemp Spangler and Jerry D. Spangler Deseret Morning News It wasn't supposed to be an issue this session, but the House and Senate are dealing with — and appear to be at odds over — a bill that would require political approval on certain types of radioactive wastes. HB145 dominated discussions during a Republican leadership meeting Tuesday when Sen. Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, and Rep. Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George — both of them co-chairmen of a legislative task force studying waste issues — presented different views of the legislation. "There's tension in deciding what's best for Utah citizens," Urquhart admitted. He, however, would not elaborate on the discussions other than to say he had hoped Bramble would co-sponsor his bill. Bramble, also, was reluctant to talk about the differences, but added, "We will find common ground." Bramble also said he would not characterize the rift as the Senate versus the House. "But there are very diverse opinions among leadership," he said. "I was asked to present my opinion and I did." Bramble is hoping the Legislature does nothing. Instead, lawmakers should wait until the two-year task force completes its studies later this year. At that time, lawmakers will have a much better idea where they want to go with legislation restricting radioactive and hazardous wastes hotter than what the state now accepts. But Urquhart has filed HB145, a bill that would require Envirocare of Utah or any other radioactive waste company to receive approval from the Legislature and governor before accepting any waste "hotter" in radioactivity than what is currently permitted under federal and state licenses. There is no disagreement among leaders that the Fernald, Ohio, waste should not come to Utah without legislative approval because it clearly falls outside of Envirocare's current license. "Outside of that, there is disagreement how far legislators should go to micromanage waste in this state," Bramble said. Envirocare, which has a powerful lobbying force on the Hill, has objected to Urquhart's bill because it would apply to two pending license amendments the company is seeking from the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. Urquhart has agreed to a compromise. He said he would support exempting Envirocare from the political approval process so the company could take "special nuclear material" in larger containers. But he's unwilling, at the moment, to "grandfather" a different license application, also pending, that would allow Envirocare to mix certain radioactive wastes with hazardous wastes. Currently Envirocare's landfill in Tooele County primarily handles Class A waste, which consists of mostly dirt that's slightly contaminated with radioactivity from government cleanup projects. It also has a "mixed waste" cell, which contains a mix of radioactive and hazardous materials. The Legislature has put a moratorium on so-called Class B and C wastes, which are byproducts of nuclear power plants that Envirocare wants to take and for which state regulators have given their approval. But current law requires them to get the approval of the Legislature and the governor before accepting that hotter waste. State law does not require the company to seek political approval on wastes lower in radioactivity than its current Class A license. Urquhart's bill was prompted when Envirocare sought federal approval to accept uranium mill tailings from a federal cleanup site in Ohio. The waste exceeded the radioactive limits under Envirocare's federal and state licenses. Opposition from Gov. Olene Walker and the public prompted Envirocare to back off. Still, Urquhart said he believes the public wants the Legislature to make those policy decisions over what types of radioactive waste enters the state. But what that policy is or will be remains murky. Senate Majority Whip John Valentine, R-Orem, has reserved a "boxcar" — a blank bill file where he can plug in the language at a later date — that he could use to formalize a more flexible state policy, or as he put it, a "counter-balance" to Urquhart's approach that mandates the Legislature approve all radioactive waste applications different from Envirocare's current license. "How much say should the Legislature have over waste issues? There are two sides," Valentine said. "The feeling in the Senate is we go with a more limited approach." E-mail: spang@desnews.com; ">donna@desnews.com © 2004 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 58 Tri-City Herald: Vit plant construction progresses This story was published Thursday, February 5th, 2004 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer Over the past 33 years, ironworker Ed Smith of Walla Walla has worked on projects from the Alaska pipeline to a San Francisco high-rise. But, he said, among the most interesting jobs he's had is the one he's been working on for the last five months. Wednesday, he was welding iron on the largest construction project in the nation this year, Hanford's waste vitrification plant. "It gives us the opportunity to do the best we can," he said. "They want quality work." The vit plant is being built to treat highly radioactive waste generated from producing plutonium at Hanford from 1944 to 1989. It's been sitting in underground tanks that were intended for temporary use. The size of the plant is deceptive. Surrounded by miles of sage-covered desert in the center of Hanford, there are few man-made structures to lend perspective. But if the finished pretreatment building were set down next to the Columbia Center mall, it would dwarf the shopping complex. The building will be about 15 stories high and the size of four football fields. It's just one of three main processing plants being built on the 65-acre site. After pretreatment separates radioactive waste into high-level waste and low-activity waste, the two kinds of waste will be sent to separate plants to be blended with molten glass and put in stainless-steel canisters for permanent disposal. The first concrete for the waste treatment project was poured in July 2002. Now, the processing buildings are taking shape. Nearby, the four largest of hundreds of tanks that will be used in the project are being built. They'll each hold 375,000 gallons of radioactive waste within stainless steel walls an inch thick. It makes the steel used in a car look like tin foil in comparison, said Jim Henschel, project director for the Hanford contractor building the plant, Bechtel National. The tanks will be moved into the pretreatment building with a crane when they're completed. Bechtel's strategy was to build them separately to speed construction. Workers were able to start building the tanks without waiting for the first floor to be completed. The low-activity waste building is the furthest along. On Wednesday, workers were putting up the walls of the first floor, above a basement and basement mezzanine level. Construction on the high-level waste plant is running on schedule, but about eight months behind the low-activity waste plant construction. The work is exacting. Once the vit plant starts operating in 2011, there will be areas called black cells that will be too radioactively hot for humans to ever enter again. Concrete walls in the high-level waste plant will be poured 5-feet thick to shield people from radiation. A few more than 900 construction workers are on site now, a part of a total work force of about 1,200 assigned to the project. The majority of construction workers are carpenters, ironworkers and laborers. So far, most have come from the Mid-Columbia, although there also are workers that commute for the work week from Spokane and Idaho, said George McClain, Bechtel's deputy site manager. Mike Corbett, a West Richland carpenter, has been working on the project for 11ÂŽ2 years. "We build the forms (for concrete walls), rig it to a crane and fly it into place," he said Wednesday at the low-activity waste building. Most recently, he worked on the Umatilla incinerator for nerve gas components. There's a certain similarity to the work on construction sites, he said. But he likes this one because he's part of a project that's been talked about in the Tri-Cities for years. "I think it's a great boon for the economy," he said. He and Smith praised Bechtel for its "safety first" attitude toward construction. Three of what may be the best jobs on the site are held by the men who operate the three tower cranes on site. When the cranes first went up, the workers had to climb staircases up to 200 feet into the sky to reach their cages high over the construction. Now they take an elevator up for four 10-hour shifts a week. Blue Porta Potties sit on the arms of the cranes so there's no reason to come down until the workday has ended. "The view is great," said Carrie Meyer, a Bechtel spokeswoman. And while workers on the buildings swelter in the summer heat and freeze in the winter cold, the tower crane operators look down in air-conditioned or heated comfort. Communication is by radio, as operators lift bundles of rebar and piping and "fly" it into the buildings. The number of construction workers is expected to peak in late 2005 and early 2006. By then, more of the workers will be pipefitters, electricians and millwrights. Earlier projections estimated that as many as 2,500 construction workers would be needed at the peak of construction. But better planning has evened out job projections so the top construction employment may be closer to 1,600, and more workers will be employed for longer periods of time. © 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 59 Nevada Appeal: Backing Yucca funding into a corner February 5, 2004 Nevada Appeal editorial board Nevada's congressional delegation has the Department of Energy backed into a corner when it comes to funding for a nuclear-storage project at Yucca Mountain. And that's right where they want it. One of the critical issues to be determined for Yucca Mountain remains exactly how to get tons of radioactive waste shipped from 39 states to the remote Nevada desert. When it comes to raising alarms among states and communities on those routes, the transportation plan may well prove to be one of Nevada's most effective arguments to swing public opinion. Yet the congressional delegation - Harry Reid, John Ensign, Jim Gibbons, Shelley Berkley and Jon Porter - will be fighting a $186 million appropriation for the Energy Department for planning the transportation routes. The DOE is damned if it does, damned if it doesn't. On a bigger scale, the Energy Department is racing a December deadline to submit an application to the Nuclear Energy Commission for the necessary permission to actually open and operate a nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain. So President Bush proposed a huge increase in the department's budget - more than double, to $880 million - to help it do the work needed for the application. DOE administrators say the project is behind schedule because - surprise! - it has been underfunded for many years, thanks in large part to the efforts of Reid and previous representatives. What is conveniently forgotten is how the purpose of the project changed. Instead of studying whether Yucca Mountain could safely store nuclear waste for thousands of years, it became an engineering assignment to determine how Yucca Mountain could store nuclear waste. Meanwhile, a study at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas showed the Yucca Mountain project in one year contributed $195.7 million to Nevada's economy and accounted for 3,650 jobs. That's a pretty good employer, although far from being among the state's leaders. If we were greedy, we would say Nevada has the perfect strategy going - string out the study of Yucca Mountain for as long as possible to reap the benefits of those paychecks to engineers and scientists, without actually seeing the repository built. But as long as the study goes on, there remains the chance Nevada will become the national nuclear dumping ground. We'd rather see that threat removed forever. Copyright Nevada Appeal. ***************************************************************** 60 Knox News: Contract made for radioactive cleanup in South Knoxville By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com February 5, 2004 After a decade of monitoring, sampling and short-term projects to minimize hazards, the government is ready to complete the cleanup of a radioactive scrap yard in South Knoxville. DEMCO Inc., a New York-based environmental company, has received a $2.8 million contract to demolish a series of contaminated buildings at the David Witherspoon site in the Vestal community. The contract also calls for removal of debris, which will be trucked to a nuclear landfill on the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge reservation. Work is set to begin in April. It is the first phase of a project that's expected to take a few years and ultimately cost more than $55 million. DOE is funding the project through its environmental manager, Bechtel Jacobs Co. DEMCO is a subcontractor for Bechtel Jacobs. Most of the contamination at the South Knoxville site is associated with radioactive scrap metal the Witherspoon recycling operation acquired years ago from nuclear facilities in Oak Ridge. "We view the property itself as a pretty significant hazard - at least part of it - and we're anxious to get it cleaned up," said Dan Hawkins, manager of the state Superfund office in Knoxville, who has been investigating the facility since the early 1990s. Some drums of waste and other materials were removed previously and sent to Oak Ridge for storage or disposal. Steps also were taken to keep pollution from seeping into local creeks. However, Hawkins acknowledged that the pace of cleanup has been a frustration to state officials and particularly to Vestal residents concerned about the environmental and health implications. With the federal government now a partner on the project, it's possible to proceed more quickly, he said. "These are very high-dollar cleanups, far beyond what our resources would allow," Hawkins said. "DOE is essentially footing 100 percent of the costs, and you can't argue with that. We're quite pleased. I think when the community starts seeing some visual symbols that things are happening - buildings coming down, debris being moved - that will be a positive." The initial activities will focus on decommissioning facilities once associated with the Witherspoon scrap operations. Later work will include excavating tons of contaminated dirt, which also will be trucked to Oak Ridge for disposal. Steve McCracken, the federal agency's environmental manager, said the Witherspoon project was given priority ahead of some Oak Ridge cleanups because the location was more accessible to the public. John Owsley, head of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation's Oak Ridge office, said state officials asked DOE to consider accelerating the work at Witherspoon and other "off-site'' projects because of the potential risks to humans. The state also pushed for cleanup of the Atomic City Auto Parts site in east Oak Ridge, which received contaminated materials from the government's nuclear operations, Owsley said. "DOE is a responsible party in that most of the materials in question came from the Oak Ridge operations," he said. Dennis Hill, a spokesman with Bechtel Jacobs Co., said the DEMCO project would involve demolition of eight buildings at the Witherspoon site, including facilities once used for incineration, compaction and baling. "The first phase will take about a year," Hill said. The initial work involves only the 10-acre operations at 901 Old Maryville Pike, where company offices and recycling operations were located. Later work will include excavation and cleanup activities at nearby, larger property that includes a five-acre landfill. The landfill's cap needs to be enhanced, said Chris Andel, an environmental specialist with the state. Besides radioactive materials, the Witherspoon sites also contain heavy metals, PCBs and other hazardous elements. Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329. Copyright Clearance] Copyright 2004, Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 61 Saskatoon StarPhoenix: Mine cleanup aid lauded Decommissioning of uranium mine sites part of throne speech - canada.com Murray Lyons The StarPhoenix Saskatchewan companies are anxious to see federal money flow to start the cleanup of long-abandoned uranium mines in the North. The provincial government reiterated its call for federal dollars Wednesday in the wake of a promise of cleanup action on contaminated sites made in the Liberal government throne speech this week. Saskatchewan Northern Affairs Minister Buckley Belanger welcomed the news, saying the province was committed to "participating cost effectively" in the decommissioning work. "What is needed immediately is for the federal government to accept its historical, moral, and current responsibilities, and to commit funding for the proposed work," Belanger stated. The province has filed an updated report with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) on what it says are the next steps that should be taken to ensure public safety and environmental protection at the many sites around the former town of Uranium City. Much of the work will concentrate on the two biggest sites. The Lorado uranium mine and mill, located about eight kilometres south of Uranium City, ceased operating in 1960. The Gunnar mine and mill site is about 25 kilometres southwest of Uranium City. The province has estimated a cost of $30 million to clean up the Lorado and Gunnar sites, plus another 40 smaller sites where uranium mining activity took place in the 1950s and beyond. Provincial reports have placed the land around the former Lorado mine as being more than 200 times more radioactive than the Canadian exposure limit, while the tailings at the former Gunnar mine are slowly seeping into the Lake Athabasca watershed. Greg Vogelsang, vice-president of Clifton and Associates in Regina, says that company and other Saskatchewan environmental engineering firms have the expertise to deal with old uranium tailings because of their ongoing contracts to do environmental work at today's uranium mines operated today by Cogema Resources or Cameco Corp. "I have no doubt in my mind that Saskatchewan has the expertise to do this work," he said. "It's been on a lot of people's radar for a long time. "We're ready to do something on it." While some of the work will be done by engineering companies with environmental remediation expertise, Vogelsang said some of the contracts will go to construction companies which will deal with issues such as knocking down and safely disposing of abandoned buildings. Belanger expressed a wish that northern residents get a chance at work on cleaning up the old mines and suggested a partnership company could be started to train northerners in remediation work and allow them to bid on opportunities on similar work elsewhere in Canada or globally. Vogelsang says provisions to hire northerners have been a requirement of Cameco and Cogema contracts and environmental engineering companies are used to hiring northern workers and firms. The Lorado mine was operated by a company called Encana West Ltd., but the province has found evidence that a former federal Crown corporation, Eldorado Mining and Refining Ltd., contributed to the mine tailings at Lorado. The Saskatchewan report recommends to CNSC that discussions be pursued with EnCana and the federal government on paying to clean up the Lorado site. About 150 residents remain in Uranium City, a community where nearly 5,000 once lived during its Cold War boom days. A landmark decision that evolved from recommendations in the 1970s Bayda Commission report was that the Uranium City situation not be repeated and that no communities should be allowed to grow up around future uranium mines. Uranium mines built in the last 25 years have operated by flying workers in and out on a weekly basis. The first mine to be approved under the post-Bayda rules, the Cluff Lake mine in northwest Saskatchewan, has recently been mined out and Cogema's decommissioning plan is being reviewed by CNSC. © Copyright 2004 The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) ***************************************************************** 62 Salt Lake Tribune: Utah may gain say-so on N-waste February 05, 2004 By Judy Fahys The day may be coming sooner than lawmakers expected when they, along with the governor, have the final word on the low-level radioactive waste coming to Utah. The details of Rep. Stephen Urquhart's "Don't-Dump-on-Us" bill that came out Wednesday would, in effect, force lawmakers to say "yes" or "no" on two new types of waste Envirocare of Utah wants to put in its landfill. The St. George Republican's legislation is structured to allow a broader definition of "special nuclear material," thereby expanding the type of waste the Tooele County landfill can accept. But Envirocare won't say how much more radioactivity will come to the site, where the waste would come from, or the number of shipments of special nuclear material that would be covered by the change, so lawmakers who vote on the bill won't know exactly what new waste the state might get. The momentum for increasing the control Utah political leaders have on waste policy increased last fall after the U.S. Energy Department, with an act of Congress, sought to exploit a loophole in federal waste law so that Envirocare could be used for disposal of highly concentrated radioactive sludge from government cleanup sites in Fernald, Ohio, and Niagara Falls, N.Y. The Tooele County landfill ultimately withdrew its application for that waste, but not before the public and lawmakers demanded more control over Utah's radioactive waste policy. Urquhart's bill, backed by the legislative task force on hazardous and radioactive waste, would allow expansion of radioactive waste disposal only if specifically approved by the Legislature and the governor. For years, Utah's radioactive waste policy has been set by state and federal bureaucrats. Employees of the state Division of Radiation Control have approved more than 18 amendments to Envirocare's license in 16 years. Bureaucrats at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have approved 48. According to the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, the amendments expanded the original three types of radioactive material first permitted at Envirocare to more than 200. Envirocare spokesman Tim Barney restated on Wednesday the company's contention that the special nuclear material is no "hotter" than the stuff currently permitted by the state. Urquhart's bill amounts to legislators "micromanaging" the waste company, he said. "For us, this is a matter of principle," Barney said. "You have to draw the line somewhere." Envirocare is unhappy with Urquhart's bill because it would force the company to come back to the Legislature and the governor to win approval of a second new waste type now under regulatory review -- "mixed" radioactive and chemical waste that has higher concentrations of radioactivity than now allowed in the mixed waste area of Envirocare. Community activists want the exception for special nuclear materials taken out of the bill. That waste contains plutonium and enriched uranium, they pointed out. "Given the security and health risks posed by these materials, they should immediately fix that portion of the bill," said Claire Geddes of Utah Legislative Watch, a consumer watchdog group. © Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 63 Whitehaven News: BNFL FINED £30,000 OVER DIVER DANGER Published in The Whitehaven News on 05/02/2004 BRITISH Nuclear Fuels was fined £30,000 with £20,000 costs at Carlisle Crown Court, last Friday, for an accident in which a Sellafield diver nearly drowned. Peter Whelan was trapped under a boat for almost half an hour in treacherous sea conditions. The company was fined after pleading guilty to failing to ensure the health, safety and welfare at work of Mr Whelan, a member of the plant’s 10-strong diving team. Simon Parrington, prosecuting on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive, said the firm’s failure to carry out an adequate risk assessment had resulted in a life-threatening situation. The court heard that Mr Whelan’s terrifying underwater ordeal happened on March 22 last year – the first day the dive team used the company’s new £338,000 specially-designed vessel, The Eagle, to inspect one of the Sellafield sealines. He had dived to the seabed, from the moving boat, when his umbilical breathing tube was sucked into the boat's power intake and tangled around the drive shaft. He was tugged violently 15ft up towards the vessel in a matter of seconds, and his helmet was banged repeatedly against the hull, where he was trapped. With no way of communicating with the crew, he switched to his emergency air supply but it was more than 25 minutes before he was finally cut free by the boat’s skipper, Ian McCaslin. A number of other divers had made desperate attempts to rescue him, but were beaten back by the rough seas, which had reached a 2ft to 3ft swell, and poor visibility. Miraculously, Mr Whelan survived the traumatic ordeal, suffering nothing more than bruising. The court heard that the last time a risk assessment had been carried out was five years previously, and that was for for a completely different vessel. BNFL was criticised for using a technique called live-boating, in which the boat is moving while the diver is underwater. Although not illegal, HSE guidelines advise against the practice. In mitigation, Simon Hilton, representing BNFL, said the company was genuinely unaware that live-boating was considered unacceptable. He said: “This was not a reckless or deliberate breach of the law. It was an oversight on the part of BNFL, rather than any intention to flout the law.” In sentencing, Judge Esmond Faulks said he had to consider how fortunate Mr Whelan had been in escaping serious injury. “Had his helmet been damaged, which was a considerable possibility in the circumstances, or had his reserve supply of air been exhausted, he might well have drowned,” he said. He used his unlimited powers of fining to order the firm to pay £30,000, plus £20,783 in court costs. After the hearing, Brian Watson, director of the Sellafield site, said he was satisfied with the outcome. “I think the judge reached a very balanced decision,” he said. “The event that happened here was a very serious event and we accept full responsibility for it.” He said no one would be held individually to account for the mistake: “It was a genuine oversight. Carrying out diving operations underwater is a high-risk activity, and I don’t believe this leaves anybody individually culpable.” Jim McCormick, a specialist inspector involved with diving operations for the HSE, said he felt the level of fine was appropriate. He said: “It reflects the gravity of the case. Although no-one was injured, the judge still took it seriously enough, so we are satisfied. “It is in our published guidance not to dive when a boat is underway.” ***************************************************************** 64 Whitehaven News: MORE N-WASTE=MORE RISK Published in The Whitehaven News on 05/02/2004 KEEPING more of the world’s nuclear waste at Sellafield, instead of sending it back overseas, will increase the risk of a terrorist attack on the site. This is one fear of anti-nuclear campaigners, as the government prepares to launch public consultations on BNFL proposals to return only the high-level waste to countries of origin. Under contracts, signed since 1976, BNFL has to return all levels of waste arising from reprocessing at Sellafield. However, in its consultation paper just published, the Department of Trade and Industry is asking the public whether substituting high-level waste for intermediate level should become government policy. The DTI’s independent consultants already seem to support the proposal by saying it will bring benefits to the UK in fewer and quicker shipments, as well as “environmental neutrality” and advantages to the international community. But Martin Forwood, for Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment, said: “Sellafield was never meant to be a waste dump, so if this goes through, I suspect if will be a good deal for BNFL and a bad one for the rest of us. “Stockpiling more and more intermediate level waste; it really will make Sellafield the world’s atomic dustbin. “Not only that, it raises the spectre of the underground waste dump to put it all in. “On top of this, as the intermediate level waste is dirty bomb material, we have to face up to the potential problem of terrorist action at Sellafield. “Why has BNFL never said anything about how they were going to send all this ILW back? I suspect it never crossed their mind that they were ever going to do it unless they were pushed. I also understand it was the government’s line that, while they were minded to agree to a change of policy, nothing would happen until we had an underground waste dump to properly look after all the ILW and, since Nirex pulled out of Sellafield, we are 30 or 40 years away from that happening. “All it means is that Sellafield will have to store the lot above ground, with all the problems it can bring, including terrorism. Everything should be sent back under the terms of the contracts,” Mr Forwood insisted. On claims that substitution will make Sellafield the world’s nuclear dustbin, BNFL’s Alan Hughes said: “I don’t think it’s fair to say that. We support the proposal, absolutely. Returning extra amounts of the more radioactive high-level waste, in a glassified form, is sensible, simplified, cheaper and more beneficial to the UK taxpayer.” The DTI consultation process closes on April 30. ***************************************************************** 65 Whitehaven News: NEW UKAEA CHIEF VISITS WINDSCALE PILE Published in The Whitehaven News on 05/02/2004 [New man at the top: Dipesh Shah, the new chief executive of UKAEA, meets the press in front of Windscale Pile 1 charge face, the scene of the 1957 fire. Picture: John Story] New man at the top: Dipesh Shah, the new chief executive of UKAEA, meets the press in front of Windscale Pile 1 charge face, the scene of the 1957 fire. Picture: John Story By David Siddall SCIENTISTS are still unsure of the exact way firefighters succeeded in putting out the 1957 Windscales fire. Because air fans were turned off at the same time as the blazing reactor was flooded with water, the experts still do not know exactly how Cumbria was saved from a major nuclear disaster. Details of the 1957 disaster were discussed as the new chief executive of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, Dipesh Shah, saw for himself the actual face of the reactor where workers frantically tried to fight the three day long nuclear fire. Mr Shah was introducing himself on Tuesday before an evening dinner with the Mayors of Copeland and Allerdale as he set out to build links with the local community. UKAEA are in charge of plans to decommission the Pile One reactor. Mr Shah, a former executive with BP, took up his top post last November. Mr Shah said UKAEA was “at the cutting edge” of expertise in decommissioning nuclear facilities. He accepted that the plans to return the Pile One reactor to a safely decommissioned state were “challenging”. He said remote control cameras would be used to look inside the remains of the reactor core to see “how the core is holding up and to accelerate the plans to restore the environment’’. Asked about the role of the NDA in the future and whether more and more work at Sellafield would be awarded to contracting agencies, Mr Shah said: “We at UKAEA have already been trail-blazers in the sort of beauty parades competing for work. UKAEA already sub-contracts some 80% of its work. We are used to using competition for projects based on value for money.’’ The media was introduced to Mr Shah on the charge hoist lift that was the scene of frantic activity on the days of the fire. He heard that the fire had blazed for over three days before experts decided to pump in water at the same time as turning off the massive air cooling blowers which blew the radioactive contamination out over the Cumbrian countryside at the height of the fire. Paul Worthington, safety manager at the Pile, was asked how the fire was extinguished. He said it was risky pumping water in because a reaction with the red hot graphite core could have released explosive hydrogen. He said: “But to this day we still don’t really know what put it out. It could have been the fact that the fans were turned off, or it could have been the water.’’ Remote cameras and expert study of the inside of the reactor may in the coming months uncover what happened as the fire was extinguished. The media passed through the steel reinforced blast doors behind which the man leading the fire fighters, Tom Tuohy, stood listening as the reactor was flooded with water back in 1957. Mr Worthington added: “This was where Mr Tuohy stood waiting to see if the reaction would set off hydrogen.’’ Steven Balmforth for UKAEA added that a conference in April would be looking at various possible strategies for dealing with the 15 tonnes of melted and burned nuclear fuel still left in the reactor after the 1957 fire was put out. Ironically Mr Shah’s previous role at BP was helping the company develop its renewable energy business in such areas as solar power. Mr Shah said he had also helped the government by serving on a committee that helped draw up a renewable energy strategy for the UK. ***************************************************************** 66 Whitehaven News: ALLEGATIONS OF VICTIMISATION AT SELLAFIELD FIRE STATION Published in The Whitehaven News on 05/02/2004 By Alan Irving ALLEGATIONS of victimisation and bullying have rocked Sellafield Fire and Accident Station, the nuclear site’s front-line service for dealing with emergencies. The situation centres on E Watch, one of the station’s five shifts, where it is claimed morale is at an all-time low. The issues are being investigated. From inside sources, The Whitehaven News understands that one firefighter has made an allegation of bullying and some colleagues claim they have been victimised. All the accusations are against a sub officer on the same Watch, sparking blazing rows, personality clashes and dissent. One Sellafield firefighter said: “If the lads can’t pull together on the station, what are they going to be like when it comes to responding to an emergency. The higher site management and the site’s regulators should be concerned.” The ill-feeling has festered since a cutlery-throwing incident on the station. There are also claims of favouritism, lack of communication, firemen being sent to Coventry and that a “culture of cronyism” has been allowed to develop in the Fire Station as a whole. There are 11 firefighters on disgruntled E Watch and on Monday night the station’s Chief Fire Officer Rick Lannigan interviewed most of them to try and find solutions to the problems. Most of the men asked for the sub officer concerned to be moved to another Watch but others spoke in support of the officer. “There has been massive unrest which has been going on for over 12 months, but no one has had the bottle to address the issues. Morale could not get any lower,” said The Whitehaven News source. BNFL admitted that there were problems in the Fire &Accident station but claimed that it was confined mainly to just two people. “We are currently considering an on-going personnel matter involving two members of the Sellafield Fire Station staff. The details of the issues must remain confidential for the benefit of the individuals,” said a BNFL spokesman. BNFL claims that no allegation of bullying is being investigated. The fire station operates round the clock on a five-shift system involving around 50 firefighters. ***************************************************************** 67 ManchesterOnline: Reliving the horror of Hiroshima Thursday, 5th February 2004 MEMORIES: Kyoko Gibson views pictures of post-bomb Hiroshima A GRANDMOTHER brought up amid the ruins of post-bomb Hiroshima came to Manchester to speak in public for the first time about her painful experiences. Kyoko Gibson was born just three years after the Japanese city was devastated by the world's first atom bomb, which killed 140,000 people. She, like many "Hibakusha" - second generation survivors - was beset by health problems as a child and witnessed terrible pain and suffering around her every day. But she pulled through to marry an Englishman she met in Japan and raise a family of her own. She was invited to Manchester to open a special exhibition at the town hall and central library depicting the ghastly effects of the explosions at Hiroshima and, a few days later, at Nagasaki. They include dramatic photos, film footage and drawings by survivors who did not realise that, though they had escaped the awesome blast, they were being fatally damaged by the lingering radiation. Kyoko said: "I am not a politician or a diplomat, but I can and will devote my life as a mother, grandmother and human being for world peace to the best of my ability." The exhibition, which also gives information on nuclear disarmament, runs until February 27. © Copyright 2003 GMG Regional Digital. ***************************************************************** 68 GN Online: Plea to make Mideast WMD-free Dubai:Thursday, February 05, 2004 Manama |By A Staff Reporter | 05-02-2004 The Gulf region should be free of weapons of mass destruction, stressed Bahrain's Defence Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa. He also urged the international community "to make the entire Middle East free of all such weapons." "We hope that Israel ratifies the agreement on the nuclear weapons and allows international inspectors to visit its nuclear sites, based on our conviction that such weapons present a great threat and danger to the other countries that do not possess them". ***************************************************************** 69 DOE: Golden Field Office; Development and Maintenance of Testing FR Doc 04-2399 [Federal Register: February 5, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 24)] [Notices] [Page 5528] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr05fe04-58] Standards for Solar Energy Systems AGENCY: Department of Energy. ACTION: Issuance of Funding Opportunity Announcement DE-PS36-04GO94005. SUMMARY: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is announcing its intention to seek applications for financial assistance for development and maintenance of standards for testing solar thermal energy systems. Through a single financial assistance award (Cooperative Agreement), DOE intends to provide financial support to advance the widespread application of solar energy technologies. Applications are sought from organizations, or teams of organizations, that are experienced in the development and maintenance of testing regimes, certification of results and performance, and the establishment of relevant performance standards, particularly concerned with thermal efficiency. DATES: The Funding Opportunity Announcement will be issued January 26, 2004. ADDRESSES: To obtain a copy of the announcement, interested parties should access the DOE Golden Field Office Home Page at http://www.go.doe.gov/funding.html , click on the word ``access.'' The link will open the Industry Interactive Procurement System (IIPS) Web site and provide instructions on using IIPS. The announcement can also be obtained directly through IIPS at http://e-center.doe.gov by browsing opportunities by Contract Activity, for those announcements issued by the Golden Field Office. DOE will not issue paper copies of the announcement. IIPS provides the medium for disseminating announcements, receiving financial assistance applications, and evaluating the applications in a paperless environment. The application may be submitted in the Industry Interactive Procurement System (IIPS) by the applicant or a designated representative that receives authorization from the applicant; however, the application documentation must reflect the name and title of the representative authorized to enter the applicant into a legally binding contract or agreement. The applicant or the designated representative must first register in IIPS, entering their first name and last name, then entering the company name/address of the applicant. For questions regarding the operation of IIPS, contact the IIPS Help Desk at IIPS_HelpDesk@e-center.doe.gov or at (800) 683-0751. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Beth H. Dwyer, DOE Golden Field Office, 1617 Cole Boulevard, Golden, CO 80401-3393 or via facsimile to (303) 275-4788, or electronically to beth.dwyer@go.doe.gov. Issued in Golden, Colorado, on January 26, 2004. Jerry L. Zimmer, Director, Office of Acquisition and Financial Assistance. [FR Doc. 04-2399 Filed 2-4-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 70 ABC News 4 Charleston: Savannah Free From Plutonium For Another Year Thursday February 05, 2004 7:16am Columbia (AP) - A facility to convert weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear power plants won't begin construction this year at the Savannah River Site near Aiken. A federal official says disagreements between Russia and US Russia have committed to disposing of 68 metric tons of plutonium. Construction of the MOX facility in South Carolina was scheduled to begin as early as spring. The nearly four billion dollar plant is expected to create 500 jobs. ***************************************************************** 71 El Paso Times: Bid to manage Los Alamos lab could benefit UTEP Borderland Thursday, February 5, 2004 Darren Meritz El Paso Times The University of Texas System regents on Wednesday approved planning for a potential bid to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory -- a move that could mean more research opportunities for the University of Texas at El Paso. The Los Alamos National Laboratory, in Northern New Mexico, is involved in researching a wide range of fields that includes biotechnology. It also pioneered nuclear research. Since its inception 60 years ago, the 43-square-mile, 7,600-employee facility has been managed by the University of California. "We consider the Los Alamos contract to be an exciting opportunity for the UT System, given the science and engineering strengths at the academic and health science institutions across the (UT) System," Chancellor Mark Yudof said. The University of California's contract with Los Alamos, which will expire in September 2005, has been criticized because of blunders that have brought the ire of the U.S. Department of Energy. Los Alamos has weathered investigations of espionage, missing computer disks with sensitive data and other security breaches in the past few years. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham wrote in an April memo that the University of California "bears responsibility for the systematic management failures that came to light in 2002." Among the allegations are that Los Alamos management has improperly disposed of hazardous waste and that the laboratory management has kept poor records of the whereabouts of classified information. University of California officials have not indicated whether they will pursue a renewal of their management contract of Los Alamos with the Department of Energy. The University of California System has implemented changes to its management, which include include 18 personnel changes and the resignation of the director of the laboratory. The University of California System also has hired outside accounting firms PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst and Young to review financial and business operations. Yudof is assembling a systemwide task force and has been given permission to spend $500,000 for consultants and industrial advisers on the potential bid. The UT System will make a formal decision on whether to seek the contract after the Department of Energy releases a request for proposals, which is expected within the next few months. Diana Kretzer, a first-year microbiology graduate student at UTEP, described the marketplace for research as changing and evolving. Kretzer currently is studying parasitology. If the UT System wins the Los Alamos contract, she may have to look more closely at biodefense research for her next grant. "In order to find something to research, you have to find the funding first," Kretzer said. Officials speculate that any management change at Los Alamos is unlikely to have a negative impact on New Mexico State University. "We will have some dialogue with the New Mexico universities if we get involved in the bidding process," said Dan Burck, special adviser to the chancellor. NMSU has fostered a longstanding relationship between the national laboratory and the university's astronomy, physics and physical science researchers. "I anticipate that any management changes that happen during the recompete, or even if they keep the existing management, will not in any way hurt our relationship with Los Alamos," said Richard Hills, interim vice provost for research at NMSU. The UT System is developing several research centers that are expected to attract research dollars and complement work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. In Galveston, the UT System is building the $150 million National Biocontainment Laboratory; UTEP is building the $27 million Biosciences Facility; and UT-Arlington has proposed the creation of the North Texas Defense Research Institute. "The UT System in the aggregate -- all the campuses together -- stand to gain a great deal from a relationship between the UT System and Los Alamos," UTEP President Diana Natalicio said. Efforts like UTEP's Biosciences Research Facility -- along with the ability to research highly dangerous substances -- would contribute because of the university's geographic location as well as its ability to contribute to research in preliminary stages, UT System officials said. Darren Meritz may be reached at dmeritz@elpasotimes.com;546-6127 Apartments| Jobs| Customer ServiceCopyright © 2004 El Paso Times, a Gannett Co., Inc. newspaper. ***************************************************************** 72 Rocky Mountain News: Rocky Flats coalition in peril Funding issue may end job of providing cleanup information By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News February 5, 2004 The U.S. Department of Energy wants to eliminate a group that keeps local officials informed about the Rocky Flats cleanup. The federal budget proposal released Monday includes no money for the Rocky Flats Coalition of Local Governments. The coalition, founded in 1999, receives about $300,000 a year. Local officials say it has provided a bridge between agencies cleaning up the defunct nuclear-weapons plant and the surrounding communities - a relationship that, in the past, was often fraught with fear and suspicion. "I think it's really disastrous," said Arvada City Councilwoman Lorraine Anderson of the cuts. "What has occurred in the few years the coalition has been in operation is we've built up some trust," Anderson said. "Now, at a very critical time, when they're looking at some of the worst contamination, they're pulling the money, and that creates suspicion about the motives." Michael Owens, the Energy Department's director of legacy management, said the coalition is funded through the same program that pays for worker retraining. But that program is being cut sharply, and what remains will go to the worker programs. "There's only so much you can do," Owens said. "You can only ask for so much money. Competing priorities, and the workers have to come first." About a dozen communities with nuclear facilities will lose funding for similar groups, Owens said. The coalition includes the cities of Arvada, Boulder, Broomfield, Superior and Westminster, as well as Boulder and Jefferson counties. The local officials meet monthly with Rocky Flats managers and engineers from Kaiser-Hill Co., the firm conducting the cleanup. The sessions produced a consensus on standards for the cleanup. The coalition will go out of existence in March 2005 if funding is not restored, said David Abelson, the coalition's executive director. Rocky Flats is scheduled to close on Dec. 15, 2006. It will become a federal wildlife sanctuary. U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Boulder, vowed Monday to work with other members of the Colorado delegation - as well as lawmakers from other communities with nuclear facilities - to restore the coalition funds. "You know how much this is a model for the rest of the country," Udall told coalition members Monday. Sean Conway, chief of staff for U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, a Loveland Republican, said: "Clearly, we're going to do what we can." He noted that the budget process has just begun and will go on for months. morsonb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5072 ***************************************************************** 73 CNN.com - Tenet defends CIA on Iraq intelligence - Feb. 5, 2004 + [Skip to main content] [CNN.com International] Click Here [ width=] [ width=] [ width=] [ width=] [ width=] The Web CNN.com Home Page World U.S. World Business Technology Science & Space Entertainment World Sport Travel Weather Special Reports ON TV What's on Business Traveller Global Office Music Room Talk Asia Services --------- E-mail Mobile AvantGo Make homepage Ad info About us How to get CNN Partner Hotels Languages --------- Spanish German Korean Arabic Japanese Click Here [ border=] [ border=] [Inside Politics] [ border=] [ border=] Tenet defends CIA on Iraq intelligence [ width=] [Tenet: ] Tenet: "We will always call it as we see it." ----------------------------------------------------------------- Story Tools ----------------------------------------------------------------- [more video] VIDEO [ vspace=] George Tenet summarizes CIA's pre-war intelligence on Iraq. 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[ width=] ***************************************************************** 74 Oak Ridger: K-25 alarm could have been tampered with Story last updated at 11:32 a.m. on February 5, 2004 Official said it appeared that all three fuses for the alarm system in question had been removed and partially reinserted. By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff Work has resumed in a building at the Oak Ridge K-25 site following an incident Wednesday afternoon where 250 workers were evacuated due to the sounding of a criticality alarm. Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co., said this morning that an equipment malfunction caused the alarm to sound in the mammoth U-shaped K-25 building. Hill said it appeared that all three fuses for the alarm system in question had been removed and partially reinserted. "There was no scheduled maintenance going on," Hill said. Hill declined to speculate whether or not the fuses were deliberately tampered with. "We don't know that," he said. "We're investigating how this happened." Bechtel Jacobs is under contract with the Department of Energy to oversee cleanup work at the K-25 site. The 250 people who returned to work today in the K-25 building consist of employees of Bechtel Jacobs and subcontractors for the company. The K-25 building was the original gaseous diffusion facility at the K-25 site. Since the K-25 building was used to enrich uranium initially for nuclear weapons and later for nuclear fuel, the building contains residual uranium and some other nuclear materials. In addition, the building, which is scheduled for demolition, still contains uranium processing equipment and hazardous materials such as asbestos. Cleanup crews are currently removing the asbestos and will soon begin removing the so-called "excess material" for the K-25 building. Hill said there are around 15 criticality alarms systems throughout the K-25 building. The alarm systems are designed to alert personnel if a nuclear criticality has occurred. According to Hill, a nuclear criticality is an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction. At 3:04 p.m. Wednesday, one of those criticality alarms was activated in a portion of the K-25 building at the K-25 site, which is also referred to as the East Tennessee Technology Park. Personnel in the K-25 building and other nearby facilities were immediately evacuated in accordance with established procedures. Emergency personnel trained in assessing and combating incidents involving nuclear material were dispatched to the scene. And, a management team immediately began investigating the incident, Hill said. "No personnel injuries or contamination were reported," said Hill, who added that evacuated personnel were sent home Wednesday. With the exception of the K-25 building, operations at the site returned to normal at 5 p.m., according to Hill. ***************************************************************** 75 Oakland Tribune: Texas may wrestle UC for lab contract Article Last Updated: Thursday, February 05, 2004 By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER Backed by powerful political friends and an endowment full of oil money, the University of Texas tossed its hat in the ring Wednesday to begin competing to run the birthplace of the bomb, Los Alamos National Laboratory. UT executives cast the chance to bid on the sprawling nuclear-weapons lab as "a very unusual and a very rare experience" that could catapult Texas into the major leagues of defense science, delivering a boon to its students, scientists and economy. "The payoff to Texas will be enormous if we are successful here," UT Chancellor Mark Yudof said. "We see this as an opportunity for our state. We see this as an opportunity to serve our country." After aborted attempts to host the world's most powerful high-energy physics machine and to bid for national labs, UT executives said they're pulling together a team of other universities and private contractors to go after the lab that designed more than 60 percent of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Texas' move fell shy of full commitment to a bid, awaiting a clearer indication of what the U.S. Department of Energy wants in a contractor. But UT's governing Board of Regent unanimously endorsed spending up to $500,000 preparing for a battle over Los Alamos. It is the most palpable challenge yet to University of California, operator of Los Alamos without competition since 1943, and the opening salvo in a fight for the nation's seminal defense lab. "We won't go into this unless we think we can win," said Charles Sorber, a former UT-Arlington president and a lead UT adviser on the Los Alamos bid. "We don't plan to come out second place." No longer is California's far-flung scientific outpost in New Mexico joking about cowboy physicists who don't know how to spell "chile." "People recognize there's people in Washington that have connections. People here are taking it seriously," said Chuck Montano, a Los Alamos employee advocate. He cheers the competition, however. "As long as people feel like they're getting a fair shake, it doesn't matter who's the one in charge," Montano said. But many Los Alamos employees favor the University of California in this contest, noting the benefit of UC's academic prestige, in-state tuition at its campuses and generous pension benefits. They worry the University of Texas has the political edge over UC, with a powerful congressional delegation led by House majority leader Tom DeLay and a White House full of Texas partisans, such as presidential political advisor and former UT lecturer Karl Rove. "We have been encouraged by our political leadership both here in Texas and in Washington to pursue this effort," Yudof said, carefully noting that UT hasn't tapped the White House yet for help. UT officials sought to reassure lab employees Wednesday. "Those employees are critical to the success of this lab, its current and future success," Yudof said. "When all is said and done it is the human capital at Los Alamos that is at least as important as the physical infrastructure." Los Alamos and the university that sent their predecessors for the Manhattan Project are emerging from management failures that led to opening of the contract to bidding, on top of an uneasy relationship with New Mexico's Latinos and American Indian pueblos. The lab only began reaching out to local businesses and colleges in the mid-1990s. Much as Los Alamos is an oddity in Northern New Mexico, a high-tech bastion of privilege in a land of farms and tourists, the prospect of Texans taking over 43 square miles in the heart of the state dredges up resentment. "We've had a big problem with Texas from the beginning," says historian Juan Jose Pena. "I imagine they're probably aware that New Mexico probably won't want Texans running a major institution here," Pena said. But UT is no tyro in the ways of science and politics. It already envisions a strategy of pairing up with one or more New Mexico universities. Both UT and UC are wooing the University of New Mexico for research collaborations or partnership. "The University of New Mexico is not committed to any potential bidders at this time," says UNM President Louis Caldera, a former vice chancellor at California State University. Caldera counts senior UC executives as friends but isn't shy about playing for the best deal among would-be Los Alamos contractors. "We believe that no bid can succeed that does not further the relationship between UNM, LANL, and the lab's managing partner institution," he said in a prepared statement Wednesday. Texas has been to the altar of big federal science before. In 1993, Congress killed money for the multibillion-dollar Superconducting Super Collider, leaving Texas with a huge hole in the ground near Waxahachie but without the ultimate matter-smashing machine. Twice in the last seven years, the University of Texas jockeyed for a shot at a national lab. But in the case of both Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., the U.S. Department of Energy elected to renew contracts with UC and Lockheed Martin. Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com . ***************************************************************** 76 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2004 18:46:23 -0800 (PST) NUCLEAR SPECIAL: Public support for Dr Khan remains undiminished Daily Times - Pakistan ISLAMABAD: Despite the recent scandal involving nuclear scientists, the public appears to still hold Dr Abdul Qadeer in high esteem and consider him the father ... 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.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp%3Fpage%3Dstory_6-2-2004_pg4_16 PAKISTAN will not allow UN nuclear searches Irish Times - Dublin,Ireland Pakistan's President has vowed never to allow the UN nuclear inspections agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, into the country despite admitting ... 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.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2004/0206/3829833761HM1NUKES.html PAKISTAN pardons famed nuclear scientist Minneapolis Star Tribune (subscription) - Minneapolis,MN,USA Pervez Musharraf, granted a full pardon on Thursday to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, who admitted sharing 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.startribune.com/stories/484/4361188.html DOUBTS that nuclear architect acted alone Daily Times - Pakistan ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s nuclear godfather must have had at the very least tacit state approval to export secrets abroad, analysts said on Thursday, dismissing ... 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.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp%3Fpage%3Dstory_6-2-2004_pg4_22 PML-N and PPP want in on nuclear, Kashmir debates Daily Times - Pakistan KARACHI: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan People’s Party have accused the government’s policies on nuclear and Kashmir issues of running ... 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.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp%3Fpage%3Dstory_6-2-2004_pg7_31 This daily-once News Alert is brought to you by Google News (BETA)... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Remove this News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts/remove?s=92d1672a1b037a07&hl=en Create another News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts?hl=en Try Google News: http://news.google.com/ ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************