***************************************************************** 04/04/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.81 ***************************************************************** 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 [DU-WATCH] The Uranium Munitions Pledge of Resistance 2 Guardian Unlimited: Bush and Blair made secret pact for Iraq war 3 BBC: US sets sanctions on Iran partners 4 Hi Pakistan: More uranium found in Iran - diplomats 5 Hi Pakistan: Iran insists it has no secret nuclear sites 6 Mehr News: Russia Will Deliver Fuel to Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant T 7 Mehr News: ElBaradei to Visit Tehran at His Own Request Tuesday 8 Mehr News: Tehran Strongly Denies Allegations that New Traces of Ura 9 TehranTimes: European Big Three Influenced by Iran-U.S. Conflict - M 10 US: Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: U.S. Mulled Nuclear Strikes On NK Arm 11 JoongAng Daily: Ministry looks askance at North's nuclear offer 12 Khaleej Times: N. Korea willing to give up all nuclear facilities 13 [DU-WATCH] US Low Intensity Nuclear War vs. the whole world... 14 US: HeraldNet: On science, Bob Newhart and the 'butterfly effect' 15 Boston Globe: US prods UN for a nuclear export rule 16 Brazil Blocks Nuclear Inspect 17 Las Vegas SUN: Whistleblower Drops Israeli Citizenship 18 AU SMH: The priest and his 18-year promise to whistleblower - 19 WorldNetDaily: Our newest 'ally' 20 New Nation: Imperatives of nuclear deterrence 21 Daily Times: US let Pakistan go nuclear due to Afghanistan 22 Hi Pakistan: India, US hold talks on N-issue 23 Khaleej Times: Brazil refuses to let UN inspectors to nuclear facili NUCLEAR REACTORS 24 US: Free Lance-Star: Nuclear power dangerous, expensive 25 US: North County Times: San Onofre violations draw fine 26 Mainichi Interactive: Morning quake shuts down nuclear reactors 27 US: North County Times: SDG says it won't help pay for San Onofre ov 28 Xinhuanet: Company for nuclear power engineering set up in Shenzhen 29 CBW: Guangdong plans biggest nuclear power plant 30 Guardian Unlimited: Report adds to doubts on Ł5bn BE aid 31 US: Monroe Evening: Fermi leak sole setback during 2003 - 32 US: PittsburghLIVE: Hearings review FirstEnergy reliability - 33 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Panel backs diluted VY resolution 34 TehranTimes: Russia Will Deliver Fuel to Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant 35 TehranTimes: Europe Recognizes Iran’s Right to Nuclear Energy NUCLEAR SAFETY 36 [DU-WATCH] a holocaust survivor visits Palestine 37 [DU-WATCH] real scientists & this humane being rejects the 38 US: [DU-WATCH] Depleted Uranium Casualties: Care Denied 39 The Uranium Munitions Pledge of Resistance 40 [DU-WATCH] there are no words...radiation in Iraq=250,000 41 US: [DU-WATCH] Warning: Kentucky DUF6 transport 42 US: Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Following too close on nuclear highw 43 US: New York Daily News Investigation: Soldiers demand to know healt 44 US: BBC: Terror attack booklet considered 45 Sunday Herald: MoD hid radioactive leaks for years 46 Coastal Post: Gulf War II Syndrome? Military Equipment and "Pneumoni 47 US: Hawk Eye: Energy officials resign jobs 48 US: lamonitor.com: CDC readies new contract for contaminant study 49 asahi.com: `Nuclear' ship plan alarms Yokosuka NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 50 Spain Like Bombings Of Nuke Waste Trains Coming? 51 US: AU SMH: Uranium drinkers say mine cut them loose - 52 AU SMH: Lula shuts door on nuclear inspectors - 53 Las Vegas RJ: LETTER: Move the waste away from populous areas 54 Las Vegas RJ: EDITORIAL: Sen. Reid joins the watchdogs 55 Las Vegas RJ: YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Ex-NTSB official discusses shipping is 56 Times: Windscale to be clean 30 years early NUCLEAR WEAPONS 57 [DU-WATCH] The man Who Knew Too Much by Robert Fisk US DEPT. OF ENERGY 58 Seattle Times: 'The Hutch' claims data from tax-funded research is p 59 Tri-City Herald: 2 DOE officials resign amid criticism 60 Tri-City Herald: Opinions Raising nuclear alarm 61 Rocky Mountain News: Top DOE officials quit 62 Carlsbad Current-Argus: Senators want study of DOE plan OTHER NUCLEAR 63 Google News Alert - nuclear 64 [DU-WATCH] U.S. Takes First Step Towards Weapons in Space 65 Google News Alert - nuclear 66 AU SMH: Wind farms feel the chill of public rejection - 67 petroleumworld: The Rise of Complex Terrorism 68 Boston MOS: ''Einstein'' will be on display until June 6. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 [DU-WATCH] The Uranium Munitions Pledge of Resistance Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 01:32:19 -0600 (CST) The Uranium Munitions Pledge of Resistance An Action Proposal With Footnoted Analysis To: Veterans for Peace, Traprock Peace Center, Dan Fahey, Robert Gould, All Others Interested --by John Lewallen 1. Please accept this humble offering from my winter's work. I look forward to being in groups with you to lovingly work for an end to war on Earth. I'm proposing a worldwide campaign of nonviolent resistance to the use of uranium munitions. Please sign and circulate the URANIUM MUNITIONS PLEDGE OF RESISTANCE: "I WILL NOT USE, NOR ORDER THE USE OF, URANIUM MUNITIONS." I believe the strategy of person-by-person nonviolent resistance is the best way to speed the end of uranium munition use on Earth. It's something each of us can do now to start out. Organized, it could be a powerful way of encouraging nonviolent noncooperation with war itself. Many other strategies--legal, political, ecucational--are urgently needed to counter the Big Institutional Lie that uranium munitions are no big problem. With Major Doug Rokke, I IMPLORE YOU TO ACT1 Below I have tried to summarize the amazing set of factors that today have made uranium the state-of-the-art deep-penetration munition metal for U.S. armed forces worldwide, dooming U.S. troops using it to a highly toxic and mutagenic battlefield environment filled with uranium vapor, which has been known as a chemical and radiological warfare agent since 1943. This means that, based on what happened to Gulf War 1991 vets, at least one out of three soldiers sent to Iraq today will be disabled by the toxins encountered there within ten years. The strategy of nonviolent resistance is required because the fastest conceivable effective ban on uranium munitions is several years away at best. The absolute Pentagon commitment to a weapon that is creating millions of human casualties worldwide by poisoning the environment with uranium oxide particles has created a Big Institutional Lie with tentacles everywhere, all focused on one thing: keep using uranium munitions! Stop Using Uranium Munitions Now! I begin my report on the health effects of uranium munitions with a heartfelt personal appeal: stop using uranium munitions now! If you are the President of the United States, or under the President's command, you are commiting a war crime by using, or ordering the use, of uranium munitions. If you are a soldier about to use a uranium bullet, missile or bomb, don't do it. The uranium oxide vapors unleashed when you pull the trigger put both you and your target in a battlefield gas environment of tiny, deadly, mutagenic uranium oxide particles. These tiny uranium oxide particles made when up to seventy per cent of the uranium projectile you shoot burns on friction and impact will stay in the environment as long as the Earth exists, bringing death, a host of diseases, and mutation to many living creatures. Summary: Uranium is the leading deep-penetration metal used today in United States military munitions worldwide. Uranium combines superior density with the tendency to sharpen and burn on impact. The first wartime use of uranium munitions was in 1991, when United Nations forces used an estimated 320 tons of uranium munitions in Iraq, primarily in anti-tank munitions in desert warfare. 2. These munitions contributed to the complete neutralization of the Iraqi tank forces, so much so that during the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, many Iraqi tanks were abandoned unused. All commentary on uranium munitions is colored by the fact that U.S. armed forces worldwide are fully committed to the use of uranium munitions. The official U.S. military position is that uranium munitions pose no toxic or radioactive health danger to anyone. 3. In fact, as has been known by the U.S. military since 1943, when the inventors of the atomic bomb described uranium vapor as an agent of chemical and radiological warfare, breathable uranium is a horrific weapon with both chemical and radiological toxicity. 4. Extensive testing of uranium munitions show that from ten to seventy per cent of the uranium vaporizes on impact, in particle sizes ranging down to the microscopic. 5. Today in 2004, thirteen years after the first massive use of uranium munitions, countless thousands or millions of its victims cry in vain for relief as the United States and other military forces continue to use uranium munitions. Anyone seeking to end this suicidal chemical and radiological gas warfare is confronting one of the biggest institutional lies in history, the lie that uranium munitions pose no long-term or widespread health hazard. This lie is so huge, and has so many tentacles and subtleties, that it has become institutional orthodoxy in the United States. The truth, as it is being pieced together by dedicated, disciplined, peer-reviewed scientists worldwide, is too horrifying for most people to contemplate. The vaporized, ceramic uranium oxides which billow as smoke from an impacting uranium munition have poisoned the human environment with minute, undetectable uranium oxide particles which will remain radioactive and toxic for the lifetime of Earth. Unlike natural uranium, which is soluble, breathed uranium oxide particles are insoluble, and become lodged in the human body if breathed, remaining there for many years, causing a host of diseases. Uranium oxides are mutagenic, attacking the genetic code which allows the human race to reproduce without crippling mutation. 6. Today the United States military forces are fully committed to a munition metal which, based on U.S. Veterans Affairs disability statistics on veterans of the 1991 Gulf War, will, along with the effects of other toxins in Iraq, disable one out of three battlefield troops who use uranium munitions within a decade of their exposure. To repeat: ONE-THIRD OF THE VETERANS OF THE 1991 GULF WAR ARE DISABLED TEN YEARS AFTER THE WAR. 7. THE AGES-OLD CLASH OF SPEAR AND SHIELD "Briefing on Depleted Uranium," Colonel James Naughton, U.S. Army Materiel Command, March 14, 2003: (Image of burned, blackened, and shattered Iraqi tank on screen) "Why do we use it (depleted uranium)? This is the result. What we want to be able to do is strike the target from farther away than we can be hit back, and we want the target to be destroyed when we shoot at it. We don't want to see rounds bouncing off. We don't want to put our soldiers in the position that you see, if you watch 'Kelly's Heroes,' where they load tank rounds with paint in order to blind the target. And I'm sure everybody in here has probably seen 'Kelly's Heroes' once, because in World War II we faced a problem of not having the overreach we have today. "We don't ever want to go back to that. And we don't want to fight even. Nobody goes into a war and wants to be even with the enemy. We want to be ahead, and depleted uranium gives us that advantage. We can hit, and they can't hit us." 8. The story of how uranium munitions, and uranium armoring, became today's state-of-the-art metal of war worldwide begins with the ages-old desire of military forces to have superior spears and shields: spears that will fly farther than the enemy's and penetrate the opponent's best armor, and armor that will stop any spear the enemy can throw. In the 1960s tungsten carbide was the primary metal used by the U.S. armed forces for armor-piercing projectiles. Tungsten carbide could not reliably penetrate the double-and triple-plated armor developed in the 1960s, touching off a scramble to invent a better armor penetrator. That decade the military began experimenting with uranium as an armor-piercing metal. Tungsten carbide continued to be favored over uranium, for two reasons: problems in developing a consistent alloy, and penetration tests that failed to show clear superiority of uranium over tungsten carbide against older-model Soviet tanks. In the early seventies, it became clear that the latest-generation armors would be impenetrable by tungsten carbide. Also, tests by the Air Force and Navy using small-caliber uranium rounds (20-,25-, and 30mm) clearly showed the penetration superiority of uranium rounds. Extensive Army testing for a better tank round metal for the 105mm M68 tank gun led to the XM774 Cartride Program in 1973, which used an alloy of uranium and titanium in an improved design that allowed the uranium core to withstand high acceleration without breaking up. In the words of John Pike of : "Since the selection of depleted uranium for the XM774 cartridge, all major developments in tank ammunition have selected depleted uranium, including the 105mm M833 series and the 120mm M829 series (the latter being the primary anti-armor round used in the Gulf War). This pattern continues today, with the latest generation of the 105mm M900 series and the 25mm M919 for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle." 9. When a uranium round is fired, friction and impact vaporize from ten to seventy per cent of the uranium, depending on what the round hits. Uranium is pyrophoric, meaning it burns on friction and impact. Also, unlike tungsten which dulls when it penetrates, uranium rounds shatter and burn as they penetrate armor, sharpening the round as it goes. In 1991, uranium munitions turned Iraqi tanks into hellish crematoria thick with breathable, burning particles of uranium. Today very few people know the full extent of the use of uranium, depleted or fully radioactive uranium, as a metal of penetration by the world's armed forces. A cloak of secrecy and web of deception make it impossible for an ordinary soul to know when, where, and how much uranium has been used on bullets, artillery rounds, bombs and missiles worldwide. The Groves Memo: Gas Warfare With Uranium Vapor In 1943, the Manhattan Project scientists, racing to beat Hitler in inventing the atomic bomb, realized the Germans might use vaporized uranium as a gas warfare agent, or that U.S. forces might want to use it. Here is a quote from the "Groves Memo" written by Drs. James B. Conant, A.H. Compton, and H.C. Urey to General L.R. Groves on October 30, 1943 (the "material" referred to is uranium): "As a gas warfare instrument the material would be ground into particles of microscopic size to form dust and smoke and distributed by a ground-fired projectile, land vehicles, or aerial bombs. In this form it would be inhaled by personnel. The amount necessary to cause death to a person inhaling the material is extremely small. It is estimated that one millionth of a gram accumulating in a person's body would be fatal. There are no known methods of treatment for such a casualty. "Two factors appear to increase the effectiveness of radioactive dust or smoke as a weapon. These are: 1) It cannot be detected by the senses; 2) It can be distributed in a dust or smoke form so finely powdered that it will permeate a standard gas mask filter in quantities large enough to be extremely damaging. An off-setting factor in its effectiveness as a weapon is that in a dust or smoke form the material is so finely pulverized that it takes on the characteristic of a quickly dissipating gas and is therefore subject to all the factors (such as wind) working against maintenance of high concentrations for more than a few minutes over a given area.... "Areas so contaminated by radioactive dusts and smokes, would be dangerous as long as a high enough concentration of material could be maintained...they can be stirred up as a fine dust from the terrain by winds, movement of vehicles or troops, etc., and would remain a potential hazard for a long time.... "Particles larger than 1 micron in size are likely to be deposited in nose, trachea or bronchi and then be brought up with mucus on the walls at the rate of 1/2-1 cm/min. Particles smaller than 1 micron are more likely to be deposited in the alveoli where they will either remain indefinitely or be absorbed into the lympatics or blood." 10. The Clouds of Hell: Baghdad, October 1, 2003 The Uranium Medical Research Centre, a nonprofit research group, sent a bold team of sample-collectors into Baghdad in the fall of 2003 to collect soil, water and urine samples for uranium contamination testing. Here is part of their report on the U.S. battlefield cleanup effort in Baghdad, October, 2003: "The most disturbing circumstance was observed in the U.S. occupied base in south-western Baghdad in the Auweirj district. It is close to the International Airport and hosts one of the largest Coalition bases around Baghdad....The area was subject to considerable aerial bombing and rocket fire prior to the Coalition ground forces' arrival followed by several ground skirmishes along the main routes to the International Airport and western entrances to the city. "Leaving the downtown core for Auweirj requires crossing one of the elevated bridges over the Tigris Rover. The raised bridge provides a long view towards the south/southwest. On October 1, the team's third day in Baghdad, this view was interrupted by an enormous dust cloud hovering over a several hectare area, rising upwards of 300 meters (1000 ft.). The cloud slowly traversed Auweirj...Auweirj contains a wealthy residential neighbourhood...Some of the highest overall ambient air and ground surface radioactivity readings were measured in Auweirj... "As the team's vehicle approached Auweirj, the cloud was blanketing the Coalition-occupied base, depositing a layer of fresh dust on people, houses, automobiles, and the highway. We had to turn on the windshield wipers. Departing the Coalition-occupied base was a long, steady stream of tandem-axle dump trucks carrying full loads of sand, heading south away from the city. Returning from the south was a second stream of fully loaded dump trucks waiting to enter the base....The soil removal was lofting tonnes of fine, light dust into the local environment, which was then falling back to inundate square kilometores of residential neighbourhoods and Coalition occupied facilities." 11. A Deadly Pack of Pentagon Lies: Michael Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. (Econ.) Representing the U.S. Department of Defense Iraq Deployment Health Support Directorate, Dr. Michael Kirkpatrick made the following statements on March 14, 2003: "Depleted uranium is 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium around us. And so when it's outside the body it's just not an issue. It's only when it's internalized--either by inhaling the dust, the oxide, as Colonel Naughton said when there is penetration of armor, it does self-sharpen and it does create an oxide dust. And there are people who were in or on the vehicles that were struck in friendly fire, who did inhale that oxide, and we have not seen any medical consequence from that.... "When DU does strike armor and that oxide is created, it falls to the ground very quickly--usually within about a 50-meter range. As Colonel Naughton said, it's heavy. It's 1.7 times as heavy as lead. So even if it's a small dust particle, it's still very heavy. And it stays on the ground.... "Our studies in the United States over 15 years have not shown depleted uranium going from the soil into the groundwater. It just does not move from the round that is in the soil. And the bottom line is there is going to be no impact on the health of the people in the environment, or people who were there at the time it was shot."12. The Vanishing Urine Samples In 1991 the victorious Gulf War veterans returned outwardly unscathed from the Iraqi battlefields, having taken only small numbers of visible casualties. However, they had been exposed to a staggering array of toxins, including rushed vaccinations and breathable vapors from uranium munitions. That same year Dr. Asaf Durakovic, who at the time was also a Colonel in the U.S. Army, became aware that Major Doug Rokke, who had been doing cleanup work to remove U.S. military vehicles destroyed by "friendly fire" in Kuwait and Iraq, was seeking medical treatment for several U.S. and British soldiers who were showing a wide array of symptoms which suggested the possibility of poisoning by inhaled uranium vapors. Both Maj. (also Dr.) Rokke and Col. Durakovic were under specific orders to protect U.S. troops from the health hazards of uranium munitions. Dr. Durakovic, Director of Nuclear Medicine at a VA hospital, immediately agreed to treat the sick troops. An expert in the toxicology of uranium and other radioactive materials, Dr. Durakovic took urine samples from the sick soldiers, and sent them by registered mail to a lab in Aberdeen, Maryland for analysis of uranium content, broken down into the different uranium isopopes, which could indicate the source of the contamination. "The urine samples never arrived in Aberdeen," Dr.Durkovic recalled in a 2003 interview. "All my inquiries were futile. Patients had renal surgeries, they were very sick, and some died." Dr. Durkovic then had to endure constant verbal attack from many quarters to continue his work of protecting U.S. troops from battlefield uranium vapor contamination. The same thing happened to Major Rokke. Then began an internal struggle of the soul within the United States military establishment, as the impulse to find out the truth and protect human health gave way first to the deeper military instinct to cling to the superior metal of penetration at all costs, and now also to the chilling knowledge that everyone in a responsible position who has claimed that uranium munitions pose no significant chemical or radiologcal hazard to human or environmental health is potentially liable for damages and guilty of crimes under U.S. and international law. Today, Dr. Asaf Durakovic and Major Doug Rokke, are two leaders of an international movement to stop the use of uranium munitions. As Director of the Uranium Medical Research Center, Dr. Durakovic brings his lifelong expertise in the medical effects of radiation to the field study of the leavings of uranium munitions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Every serious student of the health and environmental effects of uranium munitions is well-advised to read Dr. Durakovic's two key articles, "Medical Effects of Internal Contamination With Radiation," and "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare." 14. These two scientific, peer-reviewed articles thick with references to actual research studies offer an ordinary person the best basis for sorting out the truth about the health effects of uranium munitions from the multitude of misunderstandings, lies and distortions. Doug Rokke has become "The Flying Squirrel," his nickname as a B52 pilot in Vietnam, a short and very energetic speaker hopping, shouting and gesticulating in an Oct. 2,2003 speech before the Humboldt County, California, Veterans for Peace. Major Rokke believes a lot of his superior officers are lying war criminals who should be brought to prosecution, and he read written, signed orders and statements to lie and cover-up the horrible toxicity of uranium munitions. 15. The Disappearing Medical Records In 1995, Congressman Christopher Shays (R-CT), contacted his friend Robert Newman, a retired journalist, to help him investigate a strange new disease, or diseases, sweeing through Gulf War veterans. "The Congressman was receiving a disturbing number of letters and e-mails from sick veterans in his district complaining that, when trying to get treatment at veterans hospitals, they were told, 'It's all in your head.' They weren't getting any help," Mr. Newman recalled in a 2001 interview. 16. Congressman Shays held fifteen hearings on what came to be called "Gulf War Syndrome" for the committe he chaired, the Subcommittee on Security, Veterans Issues, and International Relations, beginning March, 1996. After interviewing veterans and experts in various fields, the subcommittee concluded that Gulf War Syndrome was caused by radiation and/or chemical substances they encountered during their military service in Iraq, such as PB and untested vaccines they were forced to take. "We learned that the medical records of nearly all the veterans had disappeared," Newman said. "For the five years or so it took Congress to launch this investigation, the Defense Department and Veterans Administration took their time responding to veterans who sought treatment or compensation. In the end, the requests were refused. At best, they took folks in but insisted the symptoms were just due to stress.." 17. Disability Compensation Without Investigating Cause In October, 1998, Congress passed two laws based on the findings of the 14 bipartisan members of Congressman Shay's subcommittee. "The gist of those laws," Robert Newman explained, "is this. One stipulates that even without medical records, the illneses of Gulf War veterans must be recognized as due to their service in the Middle East, and the Defense Department and the Veterans Administration are required to offer prompt and appropriate treatment and compensation. The other one...prohibits the administration of any experimental drugs to soldiers without their consent." This law opened the way for the Veterans Administration to award full disability to 221,000 Gulf War veterans with a host of symptoms by September, 2002, with thousands of cases still pending. It also diverted attention away from any scientific inquiry into the causes of Gulf War Syndrome. When Hiroshima newsman Akira Tashiro interviewed Robert Newman in 2001, he was still devoted to monitoring the Veterans Administration for just treatment and compensation for Gulf War Syndrome victims. "The laws are absolutely inadequate," Robert Newman said, because full treatment and compensation would cost an impossibly large sum of money. Based on what he had learned about the probable long-term medical effects of breathing battlefield uranium vapors, Newman expressed worries that, for the next ten years, cancer and neurological disorder will increase among Gulf War veterans. 18. Mutant Science: The 1998 Rand Report A prime example of what one might call "Mutant Science" --truth chopped up and spliced with lie to make the Big Institutional Lie--is the 1999 Rand Report which concluded, and I quote, "Although any increase in radiation to the human body can be calculated to be harmful from extrapolation from higher levels, there are no peer reviewed published reports of detectable increases of cancer or other negative health effects from radiation exposure to inhaled or ingested natural uranium at levels far exceeding those likely in the Gulf. This is mainly because the body is very effective at eliminating ingested and inhaled natural uranium and because the low radioactivity per unit mass of natural uranium and DU means that the mass of uranium needed for significant internal exposure is virtually impossible to obtain....Large variations in exposure to radioactivity from natural uranium in the normal environment have not been associated with negative health effects." 19. The 1999 Rand Report on Depleted Uranium, prepared by a research think-tank on contract with the U.S. Department of Defense, provides the "scientific basis" for the Pentagon's claim that uranium munitions pose no hazard to human health or the environment. It is a review of the literature, brushing aside such evidence as Major Rokke has gained by doing actual clean-up and testing of uranium munitions as not being "peer-reviewed published reports." It says first, "any increase in radiation to the human body can be calculated to be harmful from extrapolation from higher levels." In reality, since 1991, worldwide evidence of horrific casualties with multiple symptoms has been found wherever uranium munitions have been used. The lack of "peer-reviewed published reports" linking negative health effects to inhaled battlefield uranium vapors is a flat-out lie; see Dr. Durkavoic's two key studies referred to above. "...the mass of uranium needed for significant internal exposure is virtually impossible to obtain." This is blatantly untrue, both because battlefield concentrations of uranium vapor are massive, and because even one minute particle of uranium oxide lodged inside a person's body can cause the destruction of dna in adjoining cells. Toxic Forever, Radioactive for The Expected Lifetime of Earth As the armies of the United States range across the Earth showering bullets, artillery rounds, bombs and missiles, it is known only to insiders what type of uranium is being used, how much, or where. Quoting the Rand report, "The material generally used by the U.S. Department of Defense is 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium." 20. However, Uranium Medical Research Center field investigations found that natural uranium bombs and munitions had been used by the United States in Afghanistan during 2002, heavily contaminating the population and environment. 21. Even the March, 2003 Pentagon briefing on uranium munitions noted that some reactor-generated "transuranics" are used in uranium munitions, indicating that nuclear reactor waste is used in uranium munitions. 22. Whether the munition is natural or so-called "depleted uranium", the tons of breathable, alpha-emitting uranium oxides being generated as I write will penetrate throughout the entire environment and remain, virtually undetectable, chemically and radioactively toxic for the lifetime of Earth. The Big Lie is Institutional Truth, The Truth is Heresy: Dan Fahey and Dr. Robert Gould Anyone seeking to rescue the human race from this ongoing suicide mission to permeate the biosphere with breathable uranium oxide particles is confronting one of the most elaborately constructed institutional lies in history. Consider the work of Dan Fahey, "an independent policy analyst on the uses and effects of depleted uranium munitions." 23. Dan Fahey's credentials are similar to mine: I am also an independent policy analyst studying the health and environmental effects of using uranium munitions. I have a record of military analysis writing going back to my book "Ecology of Devastation: Indochina" (Penguin Books, 1972), an ecological analysis of the U.S. war in Indochina, including early information on the effects of the herbicide Agent Orange. Today I finance my research and writing with my cottage industry, the Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company. I do not know how Dan Fahey finances his work. Today Dan Fahey is the leading critic of "depleted" uranium munitions informing the U.S. Congress and mainstream press. Dr. Robert Gould, President of Physicians for Social Responsibility, recommended Dan Fahey as an authoritative expert on uranium munitions to me. In a phone conversation with me, Dr. Gould rejected the idea that uranium munitions pose a major danger to the human race. "It's not Hiroshima," he said. (In fact, the 320 tons or more of uranium munitions used in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War constituted the greatest environmental release of vaporized radioactivity in human history until the recent hostilities in Afghanistan and Iraq, much greater than Hiroshima. 24.) At an October, 2003, meeting of activists which I facilitated in Philo, California, Dr. Gould heard information brought by Humboldt County Veterans for Peace, who had just heard a speech and received information about uranium munitions from Dr. Doug Rokke. Dr. Gould sent me this email message on November 19, 2003: "As I mentioned at the teach-in, I believe that DU is a toxic material because of its heavy-metal and radioactive qualities, and I think it should be banned as a weapon, that there should be good studies of civilians and soldiers and that clean-up should proceed without waiting for the results of these studies. But I don't believe that DU is the most toxic material around (compared with highly radioactive waste, for example), and I think that much of the material presented at the teach-in is overstated based on available evidence and knowledge of the chemistry, and when so presented, obscures other significant potential contributors to observed health effects (oil fires and leaks, release of CW agents from warfare, the legacy of dirty Iraqi industrialization, immunization of troops, nutritional effects of sanctions, etc.) Particularly since most of 'us' will agree on 'what needs to be done,' I remain puzzled by the apparent need for many in the progressive movement to put out such limited monocausal 'science' to convince people, since there are abundant credible arguments (as in the Dan Fahey material I sent you prior to the meeting) that better make the points." Dan Fahey is a leading critical authority on uranium munitions in the United States today. Reading Dan Fahey's initial assessment on uranium munitions used in Iraq during 2003, this researcher has concluded that I am witnessing the Big Institutional Lie being used to delude, and to keep the uranium munitions reform movement from making any serious efforts to stop the use of uranium munitions. Dan Fahey's assessment begins by noting that although "there is little known about the actual quantities of DU released or the locations of contamination, it appears approximately 100 to 200 netric tons was shot at tanks, trucks, buildings and people in largely densely populated areas." As Tedd Weyman noted in the "Iraq Gulf War II Field Investigation Report," "there is a significant discrepancy between the independent reports that rely on official government and defence department numbers (i.e. 100-200 metric tonnes) and the 1000 to 2000 metric tonnes of DU attributed to estimates by unnamed United Nations Environment Program and Pentagon sources." 26. Mr. Fahey denounced the "pre-war propaganda" of lies used by the White House and Pentagon early in 2003 "to justify the use of DU munitions as a military necessity, and to dismiss concerns about the health and environmental effects of the use of DU munitions." Quoting a January 2003 White House report which stated that "scientists working for the World Health Organization, the UN Environmental Program, and the European Union could find no health effects linked to exposure to depleted uranium," Dan Fahey noted that "scientists from these organizations never looked for health effects linked to exposure in DU in any post-combat environment." Fahey went on to document several of the lies used by Dr. Michael Kilpatrick at the March 14, 2003 press conference on uranium munitions, which, he wrote, "perhaps reflected an urgency to deflect criticism and concern about DU on the eve of war."27. Mr. Fahey's vigorous critique of the Big Pentagon Lie that uranium munitions pose no major hazard to human or environmental health is followed by an equally vigorous assertion of that lie. Mr. Fahey does not want to see uranium munitions banned, or use of uranium munitions stopped. Dan Fahey's policy recommendations are limited to better informing U.S. troops about uranium munitions, bioassays of U.S. troops with extreme battlefield exposure, revelation of when and where uranium munitions have been used, cleanup of "DU sites," and more studies of the problem. Mr.Fahey urges a health assessment of all the troops who, in his estimate, were extremely exposed to uranium munitions in 1991, who, he wrote, are just 900 in number. 28. Then Dan Fahey's report attacks "anti-DU activists and people using the DU issue to further other political agendas or raise money." First, Mr. Fahey quotes an unnamed source from the "UK Green Party" making various unfounded claims about uranium munitions. Then he tars Drs. Doug Rokke and Asaf Durakovic with the same brush, to discredit and dismiss their devoted life's work to discover and reveal the true health effects of uranium munitions. Dan Fahey accuses Doug Rokke of making "exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims." 29. Then comes this blood-chilling paragraph by Dan Fahey, independent researcher on depleted uranium munitions: "The old myth that large quantities of DU are used in missiles and bombs has taken a new twist with the claim that 'non-depleted uranium' is being secretly used in hard target, deep penetration, and DBHT (deeply buried hard target) weapons that combine uranium with high explosives. Citing unspecified 'government reports and independent research,' the Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC) claims these new warheads contain '100s to1000s of kilograms' of uranium that is 'extracted from the nuclear fuels and nuclear weapons production cycles prior to the uranium enrichment phase.' UMRC claims that secret use of uranium is responsible for illnesses in Afghanistan, but this assertion is undermined by the lack of any evidence that any missiles or bombs used in Afghanistan contain any natural or depleted uranium." 30. Is The United States Military Using Uranium in Bombs and Missiles? The full scope of U.S. military use of uranium munitions is secret. So how the hell does Dan Fahey, an independent researcher like me, know that it is an unsubstantiated "myth" that uranium is used by the U.S. in bombs and missiles? The Uranium Medical Research Centre discovery that non-depleted uranium was used in bullets and bombs in Afghanistan is based on field work and sophisticated urine analysis for the different isotopes of uranium. First the UMRC found that the isotope content indicated natural uranium contamination in Afghanistan, not depleted uranium. Testing further, the UMRC found ceramic uranium in the urine of Afghans, indicating that the extreme heat of burning munitions had produced the uranium. This, according to Dr. Durakovic, has made some Afghan valleys permanently uninhabitable. 31. Dr. Doug Rokke also is sure there is uranium in many of the bombs and missiles used by US armed forces today. The basic evidence he cites is the burning, glowing metal clearly visible on CNN views of the 2003 "shock and awe" attack on Baghdad: uranium, according to Dr. Rokke, is the only penetration metal which burns on impact. 32. A Call to Action: Stop Using Uranium Munitions Now! In today's competition for attention to issues, the issue of uranium munitions is easily buried and forgotten. Dr. Robert Gould, President of the Physicians for Social Responsibility, advised me to worry about something more dangerous like "high-level radioactive waste" in the email quoted above. In order to cause effective change, groups such as Veterans for Peace and Physicians for Social Responsibility will need to focus on uranium munitions, and organize long-term, relentless campaigns to end the use of uranium munitions. Is this going to happen? The only Congressional bill dealing with the hazards of uranium munitions--the "Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act of 2003" (HR 1483, sponsored by Rep. McDermott)--is, in my view, not worthy of support. In calling only for studies of the problem and cleaup of US uranium munitions test sites, it deludes and defuses the worldwide effort to halt the ongoing catastrophe of uranium munition use. How likely is it that the U.S. military, fully committed to uranium munitions and uranium armor as state-of-the-art, involved in shooting wars in several nations worldwide now--how likely is it that they are going to drop their radioactive munitions and be like "Kelly's Heroes" again, with the second-best metal of war in the world? I actually dropped the topic in despair last fall, until I heard that my future son-in-law was about to be deployed to Iraq with his private company. Now we're talking about the genetic integrity of my bloodline! So I tossed off a brief piece, "Do Not Force Our Children to Breathe Uranium!" My daughter's fiance quit that job and stayed out of Iraq. It is time for everyone on Earth to stop using uranium munitions now! A campaign of nonviolent noncooperation, informed by group effort, seems the most effective strategy. The Big Institutional Lie is going to keep uranium munitions poisoning people and environments for some time, but we can, in small and big ways, refuse to pull the trigger on uranium munitions. Notes 1.John Lewallen is a writer and peace activist focused in 2004 on uranium munitions and their health and environmental consequences. His published books include "Ecology of Devastation: Indochina" (Penguin Books, 1972), and "High-Altitude Nuclear War" (NuclearPress.com, 2002), an analysis of today's great-power nuclear weapons confrontation available from Amazon.com Books. He supports himself with income from his cottage industry, the Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company, and maintains the website . 2. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium," Colonel James Naughton, March 14, 2003 . The use of 320 tons of uranium munitions in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War is a U.S. Department of Defense estimate. An authoritative Iraqi estimate is that 800 tons of uranium munitions were used by the U.S. and allied forces during the 1991 war, with more than 300 tons used in western Basra, Iraq (Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, Director of the Oncology Center, Basra, Iraq, "Effects of wars and the use of depleted uranium on Iraq," Japan Peace Conference, Naha, Okinawa, Jan.29-Feb.1, 2004 . 3."Briefing on Depleted Uranium," March 2003. 4. "Memorandum to:Brigadier General L.R. Groves, from Drs. Conant, Compton, and Urey," Oct. 30, 1943, declassified June 5, 1974, supplied by Major Doug Rokke , hereinafter referred to as the "Groves Memo." 5."RAND Report on Depleted Uranium," RAND, 1999, p.4, hereinafter referred to as the "RAND Report" . 6. Durakovic, Asaf, "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare," Croatian Medical Journal, Vol.44, No.5, 2003, pps. 520-532. 7. See the National Gulf War Resource Center website for the latest Veterans Affairs disability statistics . 8. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium, 2003." 9. John Pike, , page on "Depleted Uranium," is my source for this thumbnail history of uranium munitions as a super-metal. 10. Groves Memo. 11. Weyman, Tedd, Iraq Field Team Lead, "Abu Khasib to Ah'qua: Iraq Gulf War II Field Investigation Report" , p. 14. 12. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium, 2003." 13. Dr. Asaf Durakovic, audio interview, 2003 . 14. Durakovic, Asaf, "Medical Effects of Internal Contamination With Uranium," Croatian Medical Journal, Vol. 40, No. 1, March, 1999; and "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare," Croatian Medical Journal, Vol.44, No.5, 2003, pps. 520-532. 15. Major Doug Rokke, Oct. 2,2003 speech for Veterans for Peace, Humboldt County, California, on video. 16. Tashiro, Akira, "Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium," published 2001 in Hiroshima, Japan, by The Chugoku Shimbun, p. 34. 17. Ibid., p. 35. 18. Ibid. 19. Rand Report, Chapter 3, p. 1. 20. Rand Report, p. 2. 21. Durakovic, Asaf, "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare," section on "Afghanistan Uranium Studies." 22. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium," March, 2003. 23. Fahey, Dan, "The Use of Depleted Uranium in the 2003 Iraq War: An Initial Assessment of Information and Policies," June 24, 2003, available at . 24. Durakovic, Asaf, "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare." 25. Fahey, Dan, op. cit., p.1. 26. Weyman, Tedd, op. cit., p.11. 27. Fahey, Dan, op. cit., p.2. 28. Ibid., pp.8-10. 29. Ibid., p.11. 30. Ibid., p.12. 31. Dr.Asaf Durakovic, audio interview, 2003, available at . 32. Major Doug Rokke, October 2, 2003 speech. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/Sj.0lB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> [Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 2 Guardian Unlimited: Bush and Blair made secret pact for Iraq war [UP] · Decision came nine days after 9/11 · Ex-ambassador reveals discussion David Rose Sunday April 4, 2004 The Observer President George Bush first asked Tony Blair to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power at a private White House dinner nine days after the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001. According to Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to Washington, who was at the dinner when Blair became the first foreign leader to visit America after 11 September, Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the war on terror's initial goal - dealing with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Bush, claims Meyer, replied by saying: 'I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.' Regime change was already US policy. It was clear, Meyer says, 'that when we did come back to Iraq it wouldn't be to discuss smarter sanctions'. Elsewhere in his interview, Meyer says Blair always believed it was unlikely that Saddam would be removed from power or give up his weapons of mass destruction without a war. Faced with this prospect of a further war, he adds, Blair 'said nothing to demur'. Details of this extraordinary conversation will be published this week in a 25,000-word article on the path to war with Iraq in the May issue of the American magazine Vanity Fair. It provides new corroboration of the claims made last month in a book by Bush's former counter-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke, that Bush was 'obsessed' with Iraq as his principal target after 9/11. But the implications for Blair may be still more explosive. The discussion implies that, even before the bombing of Afghanistan, Blair already knew that the US intended to attack Saddam next, although he continued to insist in public that 'no decisions had been taken' until almost the moment that the invasion began in March 2003. His critics are likely to seize on the report of the two leaders' exchange and demand to know when Blair resolved to provide the backing that Bush sought. The Vanity Fair article will provide further ammunition in the shape of extracts from the private, contemporaneous diary kept by the former International Development Secretary, Clare Short, throughout the months leading up to the war. This reveals how, during the summer of 2002, when Blair and his closest advisers were mounting an intense diplomatic campaign to persuade Bush to agree to seek United Nations support over Iraq, and promising British support for military action in return, Blair apparently concealed his actions from his Cabinet. For example, on 26 July Short wrote that she had raised her 'simmering worry about Iraq' in a meeting with Blair, asking him for a debate on Iraq in the next Cabinet meeting - the last before the summer recess. However, the diary went on, Blair replied that this was unnecessary because 'it would get hyped ... He said nothing [was] decided, and wouldn't be over summer.' In fact, that week Blair's foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, was in Washington, meeting both Bush and his National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, in order to press Blair's terms for military support, and Blair himself had written a personal memorandum to the President in which he set them out. Vanity Fair quotes a senior American official from Vice-President Dick Cheney's office who says he read the transcript of a telephone call between Blair and Bush a few days later. 'The way it read was that, come what may, Saddam was going to go; they said they were going forward, they were going to take out the regime, and they were doing the right thing. Blair did not need any convincing. There was no, "Come on, Tony, we've got to get you on board". I remember reading it and then thinking, "OK, now I know what we're going to be doing for the next year".' Before the call, this official says, he had the impression that the probability of invasion was high, but still below 100 per cent. Afterwards, he says, 'it was a done deal'. As late as 9 September, Short's diary records, when Blair went to a summit with Bush and Cheney at Camp David in order to discuss final details, 'T[ony] B[lair] gave me assurances when I asked for Iraq to be discussed at Cabinet that no decision [had been] made and [was] not imminent.' Later that day she learnt from the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, that Blair had asked to make 20,000 British troops available in the Gulf. She still believed her Prime Minister's assurances, but wrote that, if had she not done so, she would 'almost certainly' have resigned from the Government. At that juncture her resignation would have dealt Blair a very damaging blow. But if Blair was misleading his own Government and party, he appears to have done the same thing to Bush and Cheney. At the Camp David meeting, Cheney was still resisting taking the case against Saddam and his alleged weapons of mass destruction to the UN. According to both Meyer and the senior Cheney official, Blair helped win his argument by saying that he could be toppled from power at the Labour Party conference later that month if Bush did not take his advice. The party constitution makes clear that this would have been impossible and senior party figures agree that, at that juncture, it was not a politically realistic statement. Short's diary shows in the final run-up to war Blair persuaded her not to resign and repeatedly stated that Bush had promised it would be the UN, not the American-led occupying coalition, which would supervise the reconstruction of Iraq. This, she writes, was the clinching factor in her decision to stay in the Government - with devastating consequences for her own political reputation. Vanity Fair also discloses that on 13 January, at a lunch around the mahogany table in Rice's White House office, President Chirac's top adviser, Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, and his Washington ambassador, Jean-David Levitte, made the US an offer it should have accepted. In the hope of avoiding an open breach between the two countries, they said that, if America was determined to go to war, it should not seek a second resolution, that the previous autumn's Resolution 1441 arguably provided sufficient legal cover, and that France would keep quiet if the administration went ahead. But Bush had already promised Blair he would seek a second resolution and Blair feared he might lose Parliament's support without it. Meanwhile, the Foreign Office legal department was telling him that without a second resolution war would be illegal, a view that Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, seemed to share at that stage. When the White House sought Blair's opinion on the French overture, he balked. A Downing Street spokesman said last night: 'Iraq had been a foreign policy priority for a long time and was discussed at most meetings between the two leaders. Our position was always clear: that we would try to work through the UN, and a decision on military action was not taken until other options were exhausted in March last year.' What do you think? Email your comments for publication to politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk Guardian Newspapers Limited ***************************************************************** 3 BBC: US sets sanctions on Iran partners Last Updated: Saturday, 3 April, 2004 US sets sanctions on Iran partners The United States says it has imposed sanctions against 13 foreign companies that have sold equipment or technology to Iran that could be used for making nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. A State Department spokesman said the sanctions mean the companies will not receive any business or assistance from the US government, and that US companies are banned from dealing with them for two years. The companies are based in China, Macedonia, Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates. The spokesman said that sanctions against a number of Russian companies and institutes had been lifted as they were no longer breaching the act. From the newsroom of the BBC World Service ***************************************************************** 4 Hi Pakistan: More uranium found in Iran - diplomats April 05 2004 VIENNA: The UN atomic watchdog has found traces of bomb-grade uranium in Iran at sites other than the two already named, but diplomats said on Friday it was unclear if this boosted US claims that Tehran wants an atom bomb. "They found highly-enriched uranium at more sites than Kalaye and Natanz," a Western diplomat said. The diplomat did not specify how many sites, where they were or when the traces were found. Last year, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported finding traces of uranium that had been enriched to a point where it contained about 90 per cent of the fissile uranium atom U-235 at the Natanz enrichment plant and a workshop at the Kalaye Electric Company. Uranium with such a high concentration of U-235 has few civilian uses but is the ideal purity level for a nuclear bomb. Vienna-based sources who follow the IAEA's work confirmed the U.N. watchdog had discovered traces at other sites, but the agency would not comment. Tehran has said the traces at Natanz and Kalaye came from contaminated centrifuge components purchased abroad. The new traces could still support this explanation. "One would expect to find traces of uranium everywhere these components were moved or stored," a second diplomat said. But several diplomats said the further discoveries raised the question of whether Tehran has been engaging in more undeclared nuclear activities at sites it has been hiding from the IAEA. Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 Hi Pakistan: Iran insists it has no secret nuclear sites (16:30 PST) --> April 05 2004 TEHRAN: Iran insisted Sunday that it was not hiding any of its nuclear facilities from UN inspectors, and that its resumption of work on a key part of the nuclear fuel cycle was not a violation of its commitment to suspend uranium enrichment activities. There is no nuclear site that the (International Atomic Energy) Agency is not aware of and that we have hidden from IAEA inspectors, foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters ahead of a key visit by the UN watchdog's director, Mohammed ElBaradei. Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 Mehr News: Russia Will Deliver Fuel to Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant This Year TEHRAN, April 4 (Mehr News Agency) – The managing director of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Nasser Shariflou, said here Saturday that environmental concerns about the storage of the fuel in Russia is the main cause for the delay in the transfer of nuclear fuel from Russia to Iran. Shariflou told the Mehr News Agency that the delay was not related to financial issues, stressing that Russia would deliver fuel to Bushehr sometime in the next six months. He went on to say that there is no hindrance in the way of completing the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, adding that Russia is still actively cooperating with Iran in the project. Shariflou stated that the power plant would come on stream in early 2006. He said that Russia is providing all the requirements of the plant, adding that international sanctions would not affect the construction project. HL/MS/HG End MNA ***************************************************************** 7 Mehr News: ElBaradei to Visit Tehran at His Own Request Tuesday TEHRAN, April 4 (Mehr News Agency) -- Mohammad ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is scheduled to visit Tehran on Tuesday at his own request. An informed source told the Mehr News Agency that Iran’s representative to the IAEA has made the necessary arrangements for ElBaradei’s trip to Iran. The source added that Holli Heinonen, the director of the IAEA Division of Safeguards, who is responsible for Iran’s nuclear dossier, will be accompanying ElBaradei on the visit. He went on to say that the IAEA director general will probably meet and hold talks with President Mohammad Khatami, Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Secretary Hassan Rowhani, Vice President Reza Aqazadeh, who is also the director of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO), and Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi. Asked whether ElBaradei’s trip to Iran was necessary before the IAEA Board of Governors closed Iran’s nuclear dossier, he said that the trip was not totally useless or insignificant. “I agree, however, that the performance of the agency, and specifically Mr. ElBaradei, has made the general public indifferent and hopeless about his trip to Iran,” the source added. He said that the IAEA director general had held discussions with some officials of Western countries before deciding to make the trip to Iran. IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told the Mehr News Agency last week that ElBaradei would be arriving in Tehran on Tuesday, April 6 for a one-day visit for talks with Iranian officials on the continuation of Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA. Fleming said that issues relevant to the IAEA’s verification of Iran’s safeguards agreement would be on the top of the agenda of the talks. She added that Mark Gwozdecky, the director of the IAEA Division of Public Information, would also be part of the IAEA delegation visiting Iran. This will be ElBaradei’s fifth visit to Iran. During his four previous trips, the IAEA director visited Iran’s nuclear sites in Bushehr and Natanz. HL/HG End MNA ***************************************************************** 8 Mehr News: Tehran Strongly Denies Allegations that New Traces of Uranium Found in Iran TEHRAN, April 4 (Mehr News Agency) – Iran Sunday strongly denied a report that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have found traces of uranium at sites other than those formerly declared to UN inspectors. “Such reports are naĂŻve, baseless, and unrealistic,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamidreza Asefi told a regular news conference at the start of the New Year in Iran. In a recent visit by IAEA inspectors to Iran which ended some two days ago no report has been received in this regard and as Iran has already announced, the origins of some contaminants are from the imported equipment, Asefi added. Reuters had quoted an unnamed Western diplomat as saying that the UN atomic watchdog had found traces of highly-enriched uranium at sites, allegedly not known to the IAEA. He said in the upcoming visit to Iran by IAEA inspectors scheduled for later this month, those issues regarding the P2 centrifuges and suspension of nuclear enrichment will be discussed. He added the visit to Iran by the IAEA director, Mohamed ElBaradei on Tuesday is important toward solving the remaining issues between the two sides. Asefi said Iran has been quite transparent in its dealings with the UN body and all the issues between Iran and the IAEA are solvable if each side observes its commitments. Asefi hit out at a report stating Iran has hidden some nuclear sites from the inspectors, saying Iran has no secret nuclear program. Tehran, which is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has signed to the snap inspection of its atomic facilities. Iran says its nuclear program is in accordance with the country's bid to produce 7,000 megawatts of electricity in the next 20 years, when the country's oil and gas reserves become overstretched. MS/DWN End MNA ***************************************************************** 9 TehranTimes: European Big Three Influenced by Iran-U.S. Conflict - MP April 4, 2004 TEHRAN (Mehr News Agency) – MP Hassan Qashqavi said here Saturday that the statement issued by the three European countries on Wednesday concerning the starting of a uranium conversion plant in Isfahan was a propagandistic and political skirmish that marked a new era of serious conflict between Iran and the United States. Qashqavi told the Mehr News Agency that the concerns of Britain, Germany and France on Iran’s nuclear research activities were baseless. “Their concerns are basically related to the old conflict between Iran and the U.S. and the three countries are similarly influenced by the issue just like Canada, Australia and Japan,” he said. Member of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission said that the U.S. has comprehensive information about Iran’s peaceful nuclear program and it tries to mislead the world public opinion in this regard. He added that Washington’s measures toward Iran are similar to those it made against Iraq, saying that the U.S. does not intend to give up its excuses against Iran before long. The MP said that various researches on converting uranium oxide concentrate into uranium hexafluoride gas are to be carried out in the plant, adding that this is a completely scientific procedure. The inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were constantly monitoring the Isfahan site, Qashqavi mentioned “Even IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei made positive remarks about this nuclear site in his strongly-worded statement that led to the agency’s unfair resolution on Iran’s nuclear program,” he said. Even IAEA spokesman Melissa Fleming has referred to the site as an uncontroversial issue which is under full scrutiny and unconnected to a commitment by Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, he said in conclusion. Send your questions and comments to: webmaster@tehrantimes.com ***************************************************************** 10 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: U.S. Mulled Nuclear Strikes On NK Army in 1978 Updated Apr.4,2004 17:27 KST (Joo Yong-jung, midway@chosun.com ) WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Nautilus Institute in California reported Friday that in March 1978, during the Carter administration, the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA), an affiliated organization of the U.S. National Defense Ministry, was examining how to use tactical nuclear weapons to coerce North Korea on the battlefield. The institute announced a study by Science Applications Inc. concluding that the use of tactical nuclear weapons would be most effective against DPRK armored units attacking south of the DMZ. The study suggested that at least 30 airburst nuclear weapons would be used in an area only nine miles from Seoul and some 15 miles south of the DMZ. The Nautilus Institute indicated that around the time the DNA was looking into the use of tactical nuclear weapons, the Carter administration was struggling with its withdrawal policy for U.S. forces in Korea. ***************************************************************** 11 JoongAng Daily: Ministry looks askance at North's nuclear offer A government official here said yesterday that North Korean officials told the visiting Chinese foreign minister, Li Zhao-xing that it was ready to included its "peaceful" nuclear program in a proposed freeze of its nuclear activities. Mr. Li visited Pyeongyang on March 23-25. The Foreign Ministry, however, was unimpressed. The official said, "As far as I know, North Korea told Minister Li that if the nations participating in the six-party talks undertake corresponding measures such as energy aid, it would be willing to undertake a freeze of its nuclear activities, and this includes nuclear activities for peaceful purposes." The official added, "In order for North Korea's recent position to have any meaning, all nuclear activities, including the 5-megawatt reactor, must be included as part of the freeze." That reactor is reportedly now in operation. A Foreign Ministry statement over the weekend noted, however, "In talks, North Korea has not made it clear if they would include nuclear activities for peaceful purposes as part of a freeze or dismantlement, and they have not shown a consistent position on this issue." In a Dec. 15 commentary in the Rodong Shinmun, North Korea's government organ, Pyeongyang said it was willing to halt its "peaceful nuclear power industry." By early March, however, Pyeongyang was saying it was "not possible to give up nuclear activities for peaceful purposes." by Oh Young-hwan, Choi Jie-ho jieho@joongang.co.kr> 2004.04.04 ***************************************************************** 12 Khaleej Times: N. Korea willing to give up all nuclear facilities (AFP) 4 April 2004 MOHAMMED A. R. GALADARI SEOUL - North Korea has told China the communist state was willing to give up all its nuclear facilities in return for undislosed “corresponding measures”, South Korean reports said on Sunday. Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed South Korean official as saying North Korea disclosed its position when Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing visited Pyongyang last month. “I learned the North said it had an intention to give up its ’nuclear power industry’ as well as its nuclear weapons, if corresponding measures are appropriately provided to them,” he was quoted as saying. South Korea and its allies have urged North Korea to halt all its nuclear facilities. North Korea has made a vague offer to freeze its nuclear facilities in return for concessions from the United States such as security guarantees andeconomic aid. Two rounds of six-nation talks bringing together the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States have failed to narrow differences over a key US demand for the complete dismantling of Pyongyang’s nuclear programs. At the last meeting in February in Beijing, participants agreed to set up working groups ahead of new six-way talks scheduled to take place before the end of June. “The success of the six-party nuclear talks hinges on how to agree on measures corresponding to a nuclear freeze and dismantlement by the North,” the official told Yonhap. © 2003 Khaleej Times All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 [DU-WATCH] US Low Intensity Nuclear War vs. the whole world... Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 01:22:02 -0600 (CST) .that persists like forever--US's highest crime yet...let's pray, scream act that it's the last such crime ever. and not because they close the curtain on creation as they're pushing for. we people must turn things around and can only do so together: this is a response to another denier of the ecocidal reality of Depleted Uranium. the deniers of course wont debate, not in earnest, anyway, as they haven't a leg to stand on. then below that is the article, LOW INTENSITY NUCLEAR WAR and other good sites: a friend writes: ..What makes you write "final" comment? I wonder if you want to make your point and then close the case, as if there is no room for learning more about DU? If you have the stomach for viewing photos of what DU does to the next generation, go to http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/extremedeformities.html http://www.benjaminforiraq.org/contaminazioneitaly.htm Government officials recommend that the topsoil and people be removed from areas where DU has been used. They don't really want people to know that. And I wonder how that can be done. Doug Rokke is a fine source of information, thank you for recognizing that. I respectfully suggest you read more than Fahey, there are many fine articles, well resourced. Why limit yourself to Fahey? For example, http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du_iraq.htm http://www.firethistime.org/guntheressay.htm Check out http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/pandora/low_war.html If you view the article at the source, you will see a few pictures. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) convey the illusion (contrary to scientific evidence) that the health risks of depleted uranium can easily be dealt with by cordoning off and "cleaning up" the "affected areas" targeted by the US Air Force's A-10 "anti-tank killers." What they fail to mention is that the radioactive dust has already spread beyond the 72 "identified target sites" in Kosovo. Most of the villages and cities including Pristina, Prizren and Pec lie within less than 20 km. of these sites, confirming that the whole province is contaminated, putting not only "peacekeepers" but the entire civilian population at risk. LOW INTENSITY NUCLEAR WAR by Michel Chossudovsky Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa, author of "The Globalization of Poverty", second enlarged edition, Common Courage Press, 2001. The death from leukemia of eight Italian peacekeepers stationed in Bosnia and Kosovo sparked an uproar in the Italian Parliament, following the leaking of a secret military document to the Italian newspaper La Republicca. In Portugal, the Defense Ministry was also involved in what amounted to a deliberate camouflage of "the cause of death" of Portuguese peacekeeper Corporal Hugo Paulino. "'Citing "herpes of the brain', the army refused to allow his family to commission a postmortem examination."1 Amidst mounting political pressure, Defense Minister Julio Castro Caldas advised NATO Headquarters in November that he was withdrawing Portuguese troops from Kosovo: "They were not, he said, going to become uranium meat". 2 As the number of cancer cases among Balkans "peacekeepers" rises, NATO's cover-up has started to fracture. Several European governments have been obliged to publicly acknowledge the "alleged health risks" of depleted uranium (DU) shells used by the US Air Force in NATO's 78- day war against Yugoslavia. The Western media points to an apparent "split" within the military alliance. In fact there was no "division" or disagreement between Washington and its European allies until the scandal broke through the gilded surface. Italy, Portugal, France and Belgium were fully aware that DU weapons were being used. The health impacts --including mountains of scientific reports-- were known and available to European governments. Italy participated in the scheduling of the A-10 "anti- tank killer" raids (carrying DU shells) out of its Aviano and Gioia del Colle air force bases. The Italian Defense Ministry knew what was happening at military bases under its jurisdiction. Washington's European partners in NATO including Britain, France, Turkey, Greece have DU weapons in their arsenals. Canada is one of the main suppliers of depleted uranium. NATO countries share full responsibility for the use of weapons banned by the Geneva and Hague conventions and the 1945 Nuremberg Charter on war crimes. 3 Since the Gulf War, Washington launched a "cover-up" on the health impacts of DU toxic radiation known as the "Gulf War Syndrome", with the tacit endorsement of its NATO partners. While NATO had until recently denied using DU shells in the 1999 war against Yugoslavia, it now admits that although it did use DU ammunition, the shells "have negligible radioactivityIand [a]ny resulting debris posing any significant risk dissipates soon after the impact." 4 While casually denying "any connection between illness and exposure to depleted uranium", the Pentagon nonetheless concedes - -in an ambiguous statement-- that "the main danger posed by depleted uranium occurs if it is inhaled." 5 And who inhales the radioactive dust, which has spread across the Land? The shrouded statements from European governments convey the uncomfortable illusion that only peacekeepers "might be at risk", -- i.e. radioactive particles are only inhaled by military personnel and expatriate civilians, as if nobody else in the Balkans were affected. The impacts on local civilians are not mentioned. In docile complicity, a new media consensus has unfolded: the mainstream press concurs without further scrutiny that only "peace- keepers" breathe the air. "But what about everybody else."6 In Kosovo some 2 million civilian men, women and children have been exposed to the radioactive fallout since the beginning of the bombing in March 1999. In the Balkans, more than 20 million people are potentially at risk: "The risk in Kosovo and elsewhere in the Balkans is augmented by the uncertainty of where DU was dropped in whatever form and what winds and surface water movements spread it further. Working the fields, walking about, just being there, touching objects, breathing and drinking water are all risky. A British expert predicted that thousands of people in the Balkans will get sick of DU. The radioactive and toxic DU-oxides don't disintegrate. They are practically permanent." 7 Keep in mind that the heavily armed "peacekeepers" together with United Nations staff and civilian personnel of "humanitarian" organisations entered Kosovo in June 1999. The spread of radioactive dust from DU, however, started on "day one" of the 78 day bombing of Yugoslavia. With the exception of NATO Special Forces --who were assisting the KLA on the ground-- NATO military personnel was not present on the battlefield. In other words, there was no radioactive exposure to NATO troops during a "push button" air war, which the Alliance forces waged from the high skies. Yugoslav civilians are, therefore, at much greater risk because they were exposed to radioactive fallout throughout the bombings as well in the wake of the war. Yet the official communiqus suggest that only KFOR troops and expatriate civilians "might be at risk" implying that local civilians simply do not matter. Only servicemen and expatriate personnel have been screened for radiation levels. CHILDHOOD CANCERS The first signs of radiation on children, including herpes on the mouth and skin rashes on the back and ankles have been observed in Kosovo.8 In Northern Kosovo --the area least affected by DU shells (see Map at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/targetmap.html) -- 160 people are being treated for cancer.9 The number of leukemia cases in Northern Kosovo has increased by 200 percent since NATO's air campaign, and children have been born with deformities.10 This information regarding civilian victims --which the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) has been careful not to reveal--- refutes NATO's main "assumption" that radioactive dust does not spread beyond the target sites, most of which are in the Southwestern and Southern regions close to the Albanian and Macedonian borders. These findings are consistent with those from Iraq, where the use of depleted uranium weapons during the 1991 Gulf War resulted in "increases in childhood cancers and leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, lymphomas, and increases in congenital diseases and deformities in foetuses, along with limb reductional abnormalities and increases in genetic abnormalities throughout Iraq."11 Pedriatic examinations on Iraqi children confirm that: "childhood leukemia has risen 600% in the areas [of Iraq] where DU was used. Stillbirths, births or abortion of fetuses with monstrous abnormalities, and other cancers in children born since [the Gulf War in] 1991 have also been found." 12 COVER-UP The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have tacitly accepted NATO-Pentagon assumptions concerning the health impacts of depleted uranium. When UNEP conducted its first assessment of DU radiation in Kosovo in 1999, NATO refused to provide the mission with maps indicating the locations of "affected areas" (points of impact where DU shells had fallen). On the pretext that "there was insufficient data available to comprehensively address the issue of the impacts of depleted uranium ordnance," UNEP produced an inconclusive and noncommittal "desk study" which was appended to the 1999 Balkans Task Force Report (BTF) on the environmental impacts of the War. 13 UNEP's desk study pointed to the "possible use of DU" thereby implying that it was still unsure as to whether DU shells had actually been used. UNEP's evasiveness -claiming lack of sufficient data-- contributed, in the wake of the bombings, to temporarily dissipating public concern. More generally, the UNEP-UNCHS Balkans Task Force report tends to downplay the seriousness of the environmental catastrophe triggered by NATO. Amply documented, the catastrophe was the deliberate result of military planning.14 NATO maps (indicating where DU shells had been targeted) were not required for UNEP and the WHO to conduct an investigation on the health impacts of depleted uranium radiation. A study of this nature - -inevitably requiring a team of medical specialists in pedriatics and cancer working in liaison with experts on toxic radiation-- was never carried out. In fact, UNEP's stated "scientific" assumption precluded from the outset a meaningful assessment of the health impacts. According to UNEP: "the effects of DU are mainly localized in the places DU has been used and the affected areas are likely to be small". 15 See the 1999 desk study, op. cit.) This proposition (which is presented without scientific proof) is shared by UNEP's sister organization, the WHO: "You would have to be very close to a damaged tank and be there within seconds of it being hitIThese soldiers were very unlikely to have been exposed.'' 16 These statements by UN bodies (quoted by NATO and the Pentagon to justify the use of DU weapons) are part and parcel of the camouflage. They convey the illusion that the health risks to peacekeepers and local civilians can easily be dealt with by cordoning off and "cleaning up" the "targeted areas." The WHO has warned, in this regard, that depleted uranium could affect children playing in these areas "because childrenI tend to pick up pieces of dirt or put their toys in their mouth."17 What the WHO fails to acknowledge is that the radioactive dust has already spread beyond the affected areas, implying that children throughout Kosovo are at risk. This tacit complicity of specialized agencies of the UN is yet another symptom of the deterioration of the United Nations system, which now plays an underhand role in covering up NATO war crimes. Since the Gulf War, the WHO has been instrumental in blocking a meaningful investigation of the health impacts of depleted uranium radiation on Iraqi children, claiming "it had no data to conduct an indepth investigation" 18 UNEP AND NATO WORKING HAND IN GLOVE Amidst the public outcry and mounting evidence of cancer among Balkans military personnel, UNEP conducted a second assessment in November 2000 which included field measurements of beta and gamma particle radiations in 11 so-called "affected areas" of Kosovo.19 Despite NATO's earlier refusal to collaborate with UNEP, the two organizations are currently working hand in glove. The composition of the mission was established in consultation with NATO. The representative from Greenpeace (involved in the 1999 study) had been dumped. NATO maps were readily available; the investigation was to focus narrowly on the collection of soil, water samples, etc. in 11 selected sites ("affected areas") out of a total of some 72 sites within Kosovo (see NATO map below, at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/targetmap.html ). The broader health issues were not part of the mission's terms of reference. The two medical researchers dispatched by the WHO in 1999 (as part of the desk study mission) had been replaced with experts from the US Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (see http://chppm-www.apgea.army.mil/default.htm) and AC Laboratorium Spiez (ACLS), a division of the Swiss Defense Procurement Agency. AC Laboratorium Spiez (ACLS) has actively collaborated in chemical weapons inspections in Iraq. Under the disguise of Swiss neutrality, ACLS constitutes an informal mouthpiece for NATO. ACLS has been on contract with NATO's "Partnership for Peace" financed by the Swiss government's contribution to the PfP.20 Although the November mission was still under UNEP auspices, the Swiss government was funding most of fieldwork with ACLS --a division of the Swiss military-- playing a central role. The mission -- integrated by representatives linked to the Military establishment-- was working on the premise (amply reviewed on ACLS's web page) that DU radioactive dust does not (under any circumstances) travel beyond the "point of release." 21 The results of the report to be published in March 2001 are a foregone conclusion. They focus on radiation levels in the immediate vicinity of the target sites . According to the mission's "back to office report" (January 2001): "I [A]lready at this stage the Team can conclude that at some of the DU locations, the radiation level is slightly higher above normal at very limited spots. It would therefore be an unnecessary risk to the population to be in direct contact with any remnants of DU ammunition or with the spots where these have been found." 22 DOUBLE STANDARDS If radioactivity were confined to so-called "very limited spots", why then have KFOR troops been instructed by their governments "not to eat local produceI have drinking water flown in Iand that clothes must be destroyed on departure and vehicles decontaminated."23 According to Paul Sullivan, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, depleted uranium in Yugoslavia could affect "agricultural areas, places where livestock graze and where crops are grown, thereby introducing the specter of possible contamination of the food chain." (In November 2000, Gulf War veterans affected by DU launched a class action law-suit against the US government). CONTAMINATION OVER A LARGE GEOGRAPHICAL AREA According to NATO sources (communicated to UNEP), some 112 sites in Yugoslavia (of which 72 are in Kosovo) were targeted during the war with depleted uranium antitank shells. Between 30,000 and 50,000 DU shells were fired. Scientific evidence amply confirms that the DU radioactive aerosol spreads from "the point of release" over a large geographical area suggesting that large parts of the province of Kosovo are contaminated. "[R]adioactive derivatives can linger in the air for monthsI ''Just one particle in the lungs is enoughI a single particle could travel to the lymph nodes, where the radioactivity would lower the body's defenses against lymphomas and leukemia'' 24 According to World renowned radiologist Dr. Rosalie Bertell: When used in war, the depleted uranium (DU) bursts into flame [and] releasing a deadly radioactive aerosol of uranium, unlike anything seen before. It can kill everyone in a tank. This ceramic aerosol is much lighter than uranium dust. It can travel in air tens of kilometres from the point of release, or be stirred up in dust and resuspended in air with wind or human movement. It is very small and can be breathed in by anyone: a baby, pregnant woman, the elderly, the sick. This radioactive ceramic can stay deep in the lungs for years, irradiating the tissue with powerful alpha particles within about a 30 micron sphere, causing emphysema and/or fibrosis. The ceramic can also be swallowed and do damage to the gastro-intestinal tract. In time, it penetrates the lung tissue and enters into the blood stream. ...It can also initiate cancer or promote cancers which have been initiated by other cancinogens". 25 The targeted sites within Kosovo (see NATO map at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/targetmap.html) although concentrated on the South-western border are scattered throughout the province. Most of the villages and cities including Pristina, Prizren and Pec lie within less than 20 km. of the 72 DU target sites confirming that the entire province is contaminated. NATO WAR CRIMES The bombing of Yugoslavia is best described as a "low intensity nuclear war" using toxic radioactive shells and missiles. Amply documented, the radioactive fall-out potentially puts millions of people at risk throughout the Balkans. In March 1999, NATO launched the air raids invoking broad humanitarian principles and ideals. NATO had "come to the rescue" of ethnic Albanian Kosovars on the grounds they were being massacred by Serb forces. The forensic reports by the FBI and Europol confirm that the massacres did not occur. In a cruel irony, Albanian Kosovar civilians are among the main victims of DU radiation. To maintain the cover-up, NATO is now prepared to reveal a small fraction of the truth. The military Alliance --in liaison with NATO member governments-- wants at all cost to maintain the focus on "peacekeepers" and keep local civilians out of the picture, because if the entire truth gets out, then people might start asking questions such as "how is it that the Kosovar Albanians, the people we were supposed to rescue are now the victims?" In both Bosnia and Kosovo, the UN has been careful not to record cancer cases among civilians. The narrow focus on "peacekeepers" is part of the cover- up. It distracts public opinion from the broader issue of civilian victims. The primary victims of DU weapons are children, making their use a "war crime against children." The use of depleted uranium munitions is only one among several NATO crimes against humanity committed in Iraq and the Balkans According to official records, some 1800 Balkans peacekeepers (Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo) suffer from health ailments related to DU radiation.26. Assuming the same level of risk (as a percentage of population), the numbers of civilians throughout former Yugoslavia affected by DU radiation would be in the tens of thousands. British scientist Roger Coghill suggests, in this regard, that "throughout the Balkan region, there will be an extra 10,150 deaths from cancer because of the use of DU. That will include local people, K-FOR personnel, aid workers, everyone."27 Moreover, according to a report published in Athens during the War, the impacts of depleted uranium are likely to extend beyond the Balkans. Albania, and Macedonia but also Greece, Italy, Austria and Hungary face a potential threat to human health as a result of the use of radioactive depleted uranium shells during the 1999 War. While no overall data on civilian deaths have been recorded, partial evidence confirms that a large numbers of civilians have already died as result of DU radiation since the war in Bosnia: "DU radiation and an apparent use of defoliants by US/NATO troops against Serbian land and population [in Bosnia], have caused many birth defects among babies born after the US/NATO bombing and occupation; the magnitude of this problem has stunned Serbian medical experts and panicked the population." 28 A recent account points to several hundred deaths of civilians solely in one Bosnian village: The village is empty, the cemetery full. Soon there will be no more room for the dead. Among refugee families who moved to Bratunac from Hadzici [in the outskirts of Sarajevo] there is a hardly a household not cloaked in mourningIOn them are fresh wreaths, some with flowers that have not yet wilted. On the crosses the years of death 1998, 1999, 2000 and the grave of a 20 year-old woman at the end of the rows. She died a few days agoI No one could even imagine that in only one or two years the part of the cemetery set aside for civilians would be doubly fullI It happens often that one of the natives of Hadzici will suddenly die. Or they will go to see the doctor in Belgrade and when they come back their relatives will tell us that they are dying of cancerI [C]hief doctor Slavica JovanovicIconducted an investigation and proved that in 1998 the mortality rate far exceeded the birth rate. She showed that it wasn't just a question of fate but something far more seriousI 'Zoran Stankovic, the renowned pathologist from the Military Medical Academy (VMA) determined that over 200 of his patients from this area died of cancer, most probably due to the effects of depleted uranium in dropped NATO bombs five years ago. But someone quickly silenced the public and everything was hushed up. 'You see, our cemetery is full of fresh graves while the people from Vinca [Nuclear Institute] claim that uranium isn't dangerous. What other kind of evidence do you need if people are dying?I' The refugees from Hadzici arrived in Bratunac in a sizeable number. There were almost 5,000 of them. There were 1,000 just in the collective centers. Now, says Zelenovic, 'there are about 600 of them left. And they certainly had nowhere else to go' I Someone dies of cancer every third day; there is no more room in the cemeteries."29 * * * The NATO "Map Of Sites As Being Targeted By Ordnance Containing Depleted Uranium during the 1999 Kosovo Conflict" is attached. The Map can also be consulted at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/targetmap.html Selected photographs of Iraqi children affected by DU radiation attached. Complete list of photos at: http://www.web-light.nl/VISIE/extremedeformities.html. If unable to access the document, go first to http://www.web- light.nl/ and follow the link to "Depleted Uranium" and then to "Extreme Deformities in Iraqi Children". Some of these photographs are by renowned scientist and expert on DU radiation Dr. Siegfried Horst Guenther. * * * ENDNOTES 1 The Independent, London, 4 January 2001. 2 See Felicity Arbutnot, "It Turns out that Depleted Uranium is Bad for NATO" Troops, Emperors Clothes, http://emperors- clothes.com/articles/arbuth/port.htm. 11 October 2000. See also interview with F. Arbutnot. 3 In all, some 17 countries including Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia and South Korea are known to have DU weapons in their arsenal. See Vladimir Zajic, Review of Radioactivity, Military Use, and Health Effects of Depleted Uranium, 1999 at http://vzajic.tripod.com/. See John Catalinotto and Sara Flounders, Is the Israeli Military using Depleted Uranium Weapons against the Palestinians? International Action Center, http://www.iacenter.org/, New York, 2000 4 Agence France Presse, 4 January 20001. 5 United Press International, 5 January 2001. 6 See Felicity Arbutnot, op cit. 7 Piot Bein, "More on Depleted Uranium", Emperors Clothes at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/arbuth/port.htm.11 October 2000. 8 According to Dr. Siegfried Horst Guenther, "Uran Geschosse: Schwergeschndigte Soldaten, missgebildete Neugeborene, sterbende Kinder, Ahriman Verlag, http://www.ahriman.com/guenther.htm, Freiburg, 2000. See also International Action Center, "Metal of Dishonor, How the Pentagon Radiates Soldiers and Civilians with DU Weapons", Second Edition, International Action Center, http://www.iacenter.org/, New York, 2000. 9 Beta News Agency, Belgrade, 13.50 GMT, 10 Jan 2001, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 12 January 2001. 10 Ibid. 11 See Rick McDowell, "Economic Sanctions on Iraq", Z Magazine, November 1997. 12. Carlo Pona, "The Criminal Use of Depleted Uranium", International Tribunal for U.S./NATO War Crimes in Yugoslavia, International Action Center, http://www.iacenter.org/, New York, June 10, 2000. See also "Metal of Dishonor", op. cit. 13 See UNEP/UNCHS Balkans Task Force Final Report "The Kosovo Conflict -Consequences for the Environment & Human Settlements" at http://balkans.unep.ch/fry/fry.html; see the "desk study" on "The Potential Effects on Human Health and the Environment of the Possible Use of Depleted Uranium (DU)" at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/du.html; see also "UN considers New Data on Depleted Uranium in Kosovo", UNEP, Geneva, 20 September 2000. 14 See Michel Chossudovsky, NATO Willfully Triggered an Environmental Disaster, at www.emperors-clothes.com. 15 See the 1999 UNEP "desk study", op. cit. 16 According to a toxicologist at the International Agency for Research on Cancer which is a division of the WHO, Associated Press, January 5 2001. 17 According to WHO specialist, quoted in the Boston Globe, January 10, 2001. 18 Boston Globe, June 27 2000, statement of Mark Parkin, an expert with the International Agency for Research on Cancer. 19 See UNEP Press Release at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/missions.html). 20 See AC Laboratorium Spiez (ACLS) website at http://www.vbs.admin.ch/internet/gr/acls/e/index.htm). 21 Ibid 22 See UNEP Press Release at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/missions.html; see also UNEP, "Advisory Note on Current work on DU by UNEP" at. http://balkans.unep.ch/press/press010111.html. 23. Arbuthot, op cit. 24 According to British radiologist Roger William Coghill, quoted in Associated Press, 5 January 2000. 25 Rosalie Bertell, Email Communication, May 1999. 26 RTBF, Belgian French Language Television, 9 January 2001 27 Calgary Herald, 4 January 2001. 28 Tika Jankovitch, "Chemical/Nuclear Warfare in Bosnia: Eyewitness To Hell" Comments by Jared Israel, Emperors Clothes at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/tika/hell.html., 9 January 2001. 29 Dubravka Vujanovic "Someone Dies of Cancer every Third Day; There is no More Room in the Cemeteries" , Nedelni Telegraf, Belgrade, 10 January 2001. On the same subject see Robert Fisk, "I see 300 Graves that could bear the Headstone: 'Died of Depleted Uranium', The Independent, London, 13 January 2001 (C) Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky, Ottawa, January 2001. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to post this text on non- commercial community internet sites, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To publish this text on commercial internet sites, in printed and/or other forms (including excerpts) contact the author at chossudovsky@v..., fax: 1-514- 4256224, voice box: 1-613-5625800, ext. 1415. --------------------------------- Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals ***************************************************************** 14 HeraldNet: On science, Bob Newhart and the 'butterfly effect' Published: Sunday, April 4, 2004 James McCusker Editor's note: This is the first of two parts on how scientific research, even when it doesn't make headlines, can have a powerful effect on our lives and our economy. Comedian Bob Newhart's career really took off after someone stole one of his routines and performed it on Steve Allen's television show (the predecessor to the "Tonight Show"). Essentially a shy individual, Newhart had done some stuff on radio for a DJ friend, and he says that when he saw Allen's show he figured the only way to protect his material was to perform it himself. It was a chance occurrence that Newhart happened to be watching when the stolen routine was performed. There were no home video recorders in those days, so if you missed a broadcast, you missed it. It's quite possible that if Newhart hadn't seen the performance, he would not have been "pushed into stand-up," as he describes it. His career, and decades of television, would have been very different, changed in ways that we can only guess at. Like Newhart's decision to turn on the TV, seemingly inconsequential events, chance meetings and trivial decisions have been the stuff of dramas for centuries. But it is only recently that they have become the stuff of science. In 1972, Edward Lorenz gave a talk to the American Association for the Advancement of Science titled "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?" It launched chaos theory into prominence, not only in popular media but in science itself. Actually, re-launched would be more accurate, since the basics of chaos theory were described by physicist and mathematician Henri Poincare in the early 20th century. According to Poincare, chaos theory has two essential parts. The first is that large, complex systems have an underlying order. They don't defy the laws of physics. The second is that very small events can cause very significant effects -- something called a "sensitive dependence on initial conditions." The result is the appearance of disorder, or unpredictability. Poincare's theory was interesting, but had been pretty much left behind in dust-bunny land as scientists rushed to understand new things. Years later, Lorenz discovered just how sensitive systems could be when he was using a computer to solve a set of differential equations in a large, complex weather model. Like any good scientist, he decided to rerun his stuff on the computer to check the accuracy of the calculations. Thinking that he could save some computer time, when he re-entered one of the numbers he rounded it off from .506,127 to .506. No big whoop, as we might say. But the difference in the results was huge, leading Lorenz to the conclusion that the model was extremely sensitive to the initial conditions, which in turn led him -- and an entire generation of scientists -- to embrace the idea of dynamic instability and the "butterfly effect." Most things that involve differential equations never make it to public consciousness, but Lorenz was a weatherman, and that gave us something to which we could relate. No wonder the weather forecasts are so often wrong if some fool butterfly 5,000 miles away can wreck the computer model. Today, nearly everyone has heard the term chaos theory, and even though we may not understand it with scientific precision, the butterfly effect is part of our pop culture. There is a recent movie, in fact, called "The Butterfly Effect," which, fortunately, contains no differential equations. But it is the effects on science that chaos theory and the butterfly effect have had the most impact. And for the reason, we have to go back to Bob Newhart. The comedy routine that was stolen from Newhart involved a monologue where he was supposedly a U.S. submarine commander. As it opens, he is addressing his crew over the public address system: "I've just been notified that we'll be surfacing in just a moment, and you will be happy to know that you'll be gazing on the familiar skyline... of either New York City or Buenos Aires." The idea that the submarine skipper wouldn't know where they were was very funny, of course, but anchored to a new reality of submarine navigation. The advent of nuclear power had made it possible for submarines to travel submerged for thousands of miles. How could they tell where they were? Something called the submarine inertial navigation system, or SINS, was developed. It was manufactured by the Boeing Co. and used gyroscopes to calculate differences in speed and direction from the sub's starting point. James McCusker is a Bothell economist, educator and consultant. He also writes "Business 101," which appears monthly in The Snohomish County Business Journal. The Daily Herald Co.: Contact the newspaper | Advertising Copyright © 2003 The Daily Herald Co., Everett, Wash. ***************************************************************** 15 Boston Globe: US prods UN for a nuclear export rule Farah Stockman 4/4/2004 Measure sought to halt the spread of weapons data By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff, 4/4/2004 WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is pressing for a UN resolution demanding that all countries pass strict laws on nuclear exports, according to a draft of the resolution being circulated to the Security Council. The initiative is taking shape as US officials acknowledge that no members of an international nuclear-smuggling network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist, have been brought to justice. Some members, the officials said, are free to continue operating their businesses months after being exposed. In many cases, inadequate laws do not even make their activities illegal. At least four of nine suspects identified as part of Khan's network had prior connections to illicit sales, but none are facing prosecution, according to interviews with authorities and information from documents around the world. Some details came from a Malaysian police report that identifies business executives who worked with Khan on Libya's nuclear weapons program. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, confessed in February to selling nuclear secrets to Libya, North Korea, and Iran. He was pardoned by Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf. In Washington, US officials touting the proposed UN resolution say outdated domestic laws and lax attitudes toward proliferation in parts of Asia and Europe have frustrated efforts to bring Khan's network to justice. They say the passage of the UN resolution would close a loophole in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which addresses the actions of states, not of individuals. US officials began working on the resolution in September, as President Bush made a speech at the United Nations calling for stricter nuclear export laws. At the time, Khan's network was not publicly known, but it was known to the president and it bolstered his decision to push the resolution, according to a Washington-based administration official who said it was his office's policy to request that his name be withheld. Another Washington-based US official, who also asked not to be identified, said the resolution was part of a push to persuade countries to tighten export laws in part because of what had been learned in the Khan case. "There are a number of countries that recognize that laws that might have been appropriate a decade or two decades ago aren't going to work in the 21st century," the official said. The resolution, which directs countries to pass domestic laws criminalizing the export and manufacture of nuclear components and other weapons of mass destruction, could have considerable teeth: The draft cites Chapter VII of the UN charter, which gives the power to invoke sanctions and the use of force to require countries to comply, although such measures are not stated explicitly. Security Council diplomats said they expected the resolution to pass, perhaps with modifications that might weaken it. Specialists said the move did not tackle the most abused loophole in the Non-Proliferation Treaty -- that countries are given access to nuclear technology if they promise to use it for peaceful purposes. But some said the resolution was unexpectedly sweeping. "Strange as it may seem, there is no international prohibition today against having a group of terrorists move into a country and set up shop to make nuclear bombs, nor is there a prohibition against a group of entrepreneurs doing the same thing to make money," said Arthur Shulman, a research associate at the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. A look at the evidence against the businessmen who allegedly worked with Khan reflects the uphill battle that investigators face. Buhary Seyed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan businessman whom Bush identified as Khan's "chief financial officer and money launderer" set up a factory in Malaysia to produce components for nuclear centrifuges to be shipped to Libya. When US and British intelligence officials brought the case to the Malaysian special branch in November, Tahir was questioned by Malaysian police, who compiled an extensive report. But police released him, concluding that his actions did not violate Malaysian law. Malaysia is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which regulates the government's activities in the nuclear field. But the country's export laws do not regulate a private individual's manufacture of technology such as the nuclear centrifuge components that Tahir was selling, according to the report, which Malaysian authorities released. Tahir, who became friends with Khan in the 1980s while selling air-conditioning parts to Khan's laboratory in Pakistan, had been suspected in 1999 for involvement in the sale of nuclear technology to Khan. He was never arrested. Urs Tinner, a Swiss consultant, was also identified by the Malaysian police report, which indicates that Tinner allegedly set up the factory in Malaysia and outfitted it with imported machine tools. Tinner is being investigated by Swiss authorities for possible violations of a 1998 law that prevents Swiss citizens from aiding in the production of a nuclear weapon, according to Othmar Wyss, head of export control at the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs. Tinner will not be prosecuted unless Swiss authorities can prove he knew what was being produced at the factory. He has denied knowing anything. "It is very difficult for us to prove that he knew," Wyss said in a telephone interview. Tinner was investigated in 1991 when valves he sent to Singapore were routed to Iraq, but Swiss authorities could not prove he knew their final destination, Wyss said. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Europe, Tinner said he did not know that the factory he helped set up was meant to make centrifuge parts for Libya's nuclear weapons program. "I had no idea what was going on," he was quoted as saying. "If I had been working in the final production, where one could see the final product, then I would be guilty. But I didn't know what we were making." Gotthard Lerch, a German man identified in the police report as having tried to supply pipes to the Libyan nuclear program, had served time for proliferation, according to an official at the German Embassy. It was unclear if Lerch's jail sentence was a result of the activities mentioned in the Malaysian report. No telephone number for Lerch could be found. Two Turkish nationals who also allegedly supplied Libya's nuclear program are being scrutinized by investigators, but have not been arrested, according to Tolga Ucak, an attache at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Turkey. Peter Griffin, a British businessman, allegedly supplied a furnace and a floor plan to Libya's nuclear weapons program, according to the police report. It said he was active as late as 2001, supplying a lathe machine and arranging for Libyan technicians to travel to Spain to learn how to use it. Griffin, former owner of Gulf Technical Industries in Dubai, has not been arrested, according to a British official in Washington, D. C., who declined to comment further on his case. Attempts to reach him at the business were unsuccessful. Griffin's son, Paul, who took over the company, told the newspaper The Guardian, "We have been framed." But Shulman, a research associate at the Wisconsin Project, which tracks more than 3,700 companies and individuals suspected of involvement in proliferation, said Griffin was exposed in the 1980s, so long ago that the group stopped sending out warnings about him, thinking he had been forced into retirement. "Our impression was that known people like Griffin would have been put out of commission a long time ago," Shulman said. "We certainly didn't think that they were still out there doing this. If they are still involved, it's alarming, and it should a wake-up call to these governments." Farah Stockman can be reached at fstockman@globe.com © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 16 Brazil Blocks Nuclear Inspect Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 18:14:46 -0500 (CDT) Who else is blocking access to nuclear inspections? How many American nuclear plants are off limits to inspectors? April 4, 2004 Brazil blocks nuclear inspectors (CNN) -- The Brazilian government and U.N. nuclear inspectors are at odds over inspections of an under-construction, uranium-enrichment facility near Rio de Janeiro, sources close to the International Atomic Energy Agency said Sunday. The sources confirmed a report in The Washington Post that Brazil was refusing to allow IAEA inspectors to see the facility's equipment in order to protect proprietary information. The Brazilians say their plant's production will be limited to low-enriched uranium for power plants and will not produce the much higher-enriched uranium used for nuclear weapons. The sources said the agency and Brazil's government are still "working on" the matter. The Post report said IAEA inspectors arrived at the plant but found large parts of it behind walls and coverings. Representatives of the agency would not comment on the report. Brazil renounced its nuclear weapons program in 1990 and signed the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean in 1994. Brazil has also ratified -- but not signed -- the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and ratified and signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The Latin American treaty calls for the IAEA to monitor nuclear facilities to confirm none are capable of building nuclear weapons. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman and co-author of the Nunn-Lugar bill supporting non-proliferation efforts in the former Soviet Union, said he "didn't understand" why Brazil might refuse to allow the inspectors. "It is not just a bilateral issue between the United States and Brazil, but rather a worldwide feeling that we want to know as a world about people who have uranium, particularly ideas of refining that uranium," he said. "I can remember very well, two decades ago talking to Brazilians in Brazil about the possibilities of their working on a nuclear program, which finally they've renounced as a bad idea," he added. "I think they were correct." IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei is expected to deliver a report on Brazil to the agency's board of governors in June. In March, the board adopted a U.S.-backed resolution expressing "serious concern" with Iran's lack of candor about its uranium enrichment facilities. http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/04/04/brazil.nuclear/ ***************************************************************** 17 Las Vegas SUN: Whistleblower Drops Israeli Citizenship April 03, 2004 By JASON KEYSER ASSOCIATED PRESS JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu has formally asked to renounce his citizenship as a way to prevent the government from confining him to the country after his release from prison, Israel's Channel Two TV reported Saturday. On April 21, Vanunu is to be freed from a prison in the southern city of Ashkelon after serving 18 years for treason and espionage. Israel's Mossad spy agency captured him in Europe in 1986 after he disclosed details and photos of Israel's top-secret nuclear plant and the country's reputed nuclear weapons arsenal to The Sunday Times of London. Israeli officials say Vanunu might still possess information that could harm Israeli security and are taking steps to limit his freedom of movement after his release, possibly confiscating his passport. Vanunu denies having any more secrets to spill. The TV report said that Vanunu, 50, has sent a letter from prison to the Interior Ministry formally asking to give up his citizenship. A ministry spokeswoman declined to comment. Vanunu's brother, Meir, told The Associated Press on Saturday night that he hadn't spoken to his brother in several weeks and wasn't aware of the letter. He said his brother wants to go abroad and live with a Minnesota couple who adopted Vanunu in 1997 thinking that doing so would entitle the man to U.S. citizenship. But only adoptees under age 16 are allowed to receive U.S. citizenship. "I know that for years he has been trying to renounce his citizenship," Meir Vanunu said. "I don't know if he has recently sent a letter to the ministry of interior." Vanunu, who was a technician at the nuclear plant in the desert town of Dimona, served more than a decade in solitary confinement after being convicted in an Israeli court. Vanunu has become a hero of anti-nuclear weapons activists during his years in prison and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Based partly on photographs that Vanunu provided the British newspaper, it is widely believed Israel has a large stockpile of nuclear weapons. The CIA recently estimated Israel has 200-400 nuclear weapons. Israel has an official policy of "nuclear ambiguity," saying only that it will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. -- ***************************************************************** 18 AU SMH: The priest and his 18-year promise to whistleblower - www.smh.com.au [Sydney Morning Herald Online] By Connie Levett April 5, 2004 Existentialist friendship . . . Mordechai Vanunu, right, with Reverend Dave Smith in 1986. As the days tick down to Mordechai Vanunu's release, the Reverend Dave Smith, the Sydney pastor who has kept faith with the Israeli nuclear whistleblower for 18 years, has a recurring nightmare. "I see the prison doors opening and I walk towards him, some sniper shoots at him from a rooftop and by the time I reach him he's dead. I've never been able to see beyond that . . . I can't go beyond the day of his release," said the rector of Holy Trinity Anglican church at Dulwich Hill. Mr Smith, known as Father Dave, has written to his friend "Morde", 49, month in, month out, and promised he would be there on his release. They never thought it would take this long. "For 18 years I have seen my role as letting him know he is loved and supported. He let me know from an early stage that it was helpful to have the contact," Mr Smith said. He leaves for Israel next week. Their friendship was forged in 1986 when the pair discussed the work of Christian existentialist Soren Kierkergaard. In Sydney Vanunu converted to Christianity and adopted the name John Crossing. The former technician at Israel's top-secret Dimona Nuclear Research Centre discussed his momentous decision to reveal all he knew of Israel's secretive nuclear weapons program with Mr Smith. He travelled to Britain to tell his story but before it appeared in London's Sunday Times, he had been lured to Italy, kidnapped by Mossad and taken to Israel to face trial for espionage and treason. After 18 years, 11 in solitary confinement, and more than 200 letters from Mr Smith, Vanunu is due for release on April 21. The time in solitary took its toll. There were paranoid episodes when he thought the paint colours in his cell were messages from Mossad. For three years in the early 1990s he made no contact with anyone outside the prison. Mr Smith thought he had died. Then, on February 5, 1995, Vanunu wrote to say he was "no longer interested in faith and religion". But as his release date has neared, his hope, faith and spirit have returned. In his final letter to Mr Smith from prison he spoke of his plan "to find my partner . . . and have a normal life with job, work". What happens next for Vanunu is not clear. He has applied to renounce his Israeli citizenship to avoid confinement in the country after his release, Israeli TV reported on Saturday. But it is unlikely this will be granted. Security sources have said Israel would ban him from travelling abroad after his release. Mr Smith said he had a "sobering expectation" that Vanunu would not be allowed out of Israel. "My hope is they will eventually let him out and he'll go to England and then here. I've got a campsite. I want to take him there and introduce him to the kangaroos and the wide open spaces near Wombeyan Caves." with Reuters Copyright © 2004. The Sydney Morning Herald. ***************************************************************** 19 WorldNetDaily: Our newest 'ally' APRIL 3 2004 © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Perhaps you're wondering what Pakistan has in common with Israel. Well, last week, Pakistan joined Israel as an officially designated "Major Non-NATO Ally" of the United States. Now, such "allies" do not enjoy the same mutual defense and security guarantees afforded bona-fide members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. We are not obligated to regard an attack on Israel or Pakistan as an attack on the United States. But, under U.S. law, MNNAs are eligible for participation in U.S. cooperative research and development programs – such as the U.S.-Israeli Arrow anti-ballistic missile program – as well as priority sales or grants of "excess" U.S. weapons and associated equipment – such as the TOW missiles provided Israel during the Iran-Contra Affair. Furthermore, MNNAs can take advantage of the Defense Export Loan Guarantee program, which provides loan guarantees for foreign purchasers of U.S. defense products – such as the F-16s that destroyed that Iraqi reactor back in 1981 – in much the same way the Export-Import Bank provides guarantees for U.S. commercial products. However, the most significant consequence of the MNNA designation may be our implicit blessing of the continuing refusal by Israel and Pakistan to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and subject themselves to the International Atomic Energy Agency Safeguards regime. When Israel destroyed the French-built nuclear power plant in Iraq – which was subject to the IAEA Safeguards regime – the neo-crazies rejoiced, but at least we officially voted for U.N. Security Council Resolution 487, which strongly condemned the Israeli violation of the U.N. Charter. But when Israel recently threatened similar pre-emptive strikes against the Iranian nuclear power plant at Bushehr – also subject to the IAEA Safeguards regime – high-level Bush-Cheney administration officials suggested (on condition of anonymity) that if the Israelis didn't take out the Iranian facilities, we might do it for them. These U.S.-Israeli threats were taken seriously by Russia and members of the European Union, so they made a deal with the Iranians: Sign the IAEA Additional Protocol and adhere to the NPT, and we'll protect you. So far, the IAEA has found no evidence that Iran has violated either the letter or the spirit of the NPT. For example, there are no NPT prohibitions on Iran importing equipment capable of making weapons-grade uranium. Iran is merely required to subject any such equipment – once operational – to the IAEA Safeguards regime. The IAEA has concluded that Iran has not fully complied with its Safeguards Agreement obligations in the past. But there are no indications that the Iranians have ever attempted to develop a nuke. Frustrated by our inability to get the IAEA to do our bidding, we have attempted to prohibit – unilaterally – what the NPT doesn't prohibit. For example, Russia had agreed to construct nuclear power plants at Bushehr and to construct an Iranian gas-centrifuge uranium-enrichment facility. Both – of course – to be subject to IAEA Safeguards. Under enormous pressure by President Clinton, Russia did cancel the uranium-enrichment facility, but, under even more pressure by President Bush, Russia refuses to cancel construction of the power reactors. And the IAEA – as it did a year ago with respect to Iraq – refuses to give the neo-crazies an excuse to destroy those plants. What to do? Well, that's easy. Get our newest "ally" – Pakistan – to sandbag its Islamic brother, Iran. Pakistan not only has dozens of sophisticated nukes in its arsenal, but has developed a complete nuke infrastructure, including weapons-grade uranium enrichment, plutonium and tritium production facilities. Pakistan manufactures very pure reactor-grade graphite and has its own heavy-water production plant. Hence, Pakistan is evidently willing and able to produce uranium-enrichment equipment and plutonium-tritium production reactors for export. And since Pakistan is not a Non-Proliferation Treaty signatory, there is no international prohibition on their doing so. So, have metallurgist A.Q. Khan – the "father" of Pakistan's "nuke" programs – sandbag Iran. Have him "confess" to – and immediately be "pardoned" for – selling uranium-enrichment equipment to Iran for use in a nuke program the Iranians swear on a stack of Qurans they don't have. Now, Pakistani dictator Musharraf has known since coming to power in 1999 what Khan may have "exported" and did nothing about it. Furthermore, Musharraf told President Clinton what Khan may have exported, and Clinton did nothing about it. Finally, Clinton told Bush, and Bush did nothing about it. Until now. So do the neo-crazies finally have the "green light" for invading Iran? Maybe not. You see, in Khan's "confession" – given in English on Pakistani TV – he never even mentioned Iran. Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. [WorldNetDaily.com] webmaster@worldnetdaily.com ***************************************************************** 20 New Nation: Imperatives of nuclear deterrence Last Updated: Apr 4th, 2004 - 12:57:13 By Momin Iftikhar Apr 4, 2004, 12:56 BY the mid 70s the advanced nature of India's nuclear programme and her overbearing militaristic posture vis-a-vis Pakistan, had led to the realisation that her security concerns would only be addressed by acquisition of a comparable nuclear capability. This desperate race for survival reached its conclusion in a tit for tat detonation of nuclear devices by Pakistan in Chaghis hills on 28th May 1998. The fact that India had earlier surprised the world on 11 May by making her weapon capability overt and followed it up with Jingoistic sloganeering against Pakistan, justifies to a great extent the effort and resources spent by Pakistan in retaining the fine balance of deterrence in the sub continent. Ever since September Eleven, the paradigm of US Security has undergone a radical change. The threat of attack with Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) by terrorists now constitutes a cornerstone of her foreign policy pursuits. The fact that US was prepared to launch a costly military campaign in Iraq over the unfounded suspicion that Iraq was harbouring WMD, speaks volumes of her sensitivity to this perceived vulnerability. It also manifests the US proclivity to selectively use the issue for aggressively pursing its foreign policy objectives. Given this environment the propaganda tirade spearheaded by the US media alleging that Pakistan indulged in proliferation of nuclear technology rings with nasty overtones. Repeated and categorical assurances by the highest level of authority in Pakistan that notwithstanding standing the involvement of some individuals, centred around Dr A Q Khan, State of Pakistan was never involved in any clandestine transfer of nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea have barely dulled the vituperating edge of this media tirade. Vested quarters at home and abroad, for well-known reasons, continue to challenge this stance. These detractors expostulate that it was impossible for Dr Khan alone to engage in proliferation activities since the tight security at Kahuta made it impossible for the scientists to have free access to various facilities much less have the ability to transport huge consignments of nuclear related hardware. This is good propaganda stuff and to understand the spin one has to evaluate the conditions under which Pakistan's nuclear programme was hatched. Pakistan's choice of resorting to Uranium enrichment process was a most difficult one. Only a few of the major industrialized nations had ever built their own Uranium enrichment plants and its technology was a closely guarded secret. The process involved utilization of thousands of ultra centrifuges made of accurately machined high-strength steel alloys which would spin a gas of uranium hexa-fluoride at incredible speeds; as fast as 100,000 revolutions per minute- The process would separate the two isotopes found in the natural uranium - the heavier Uranium 238 from the lighter, very rare and highly fissionable Uranium 235. The process would then recombine the separated streams of uranium, but with a higher enrichment of Uranium 235. The procedure calls for highest levels of precision because natural Uranium contains only 0.7% of U-235; meaning that out of 140 atoms of natural Uranium only one atom is Uranium 235. Production of Uranium as fuel for nuclear power reactors requires an enrichment to 3% of the Uranium 235, whereas research reactors and also nuclear weapons require an enrichment of up to 93%. The process might appear simplistic in theory but designing and production of centrifuges and establishing a functional industrial plant, technically, is a Herculean task. In the fall of 1975, when Dr Khan made an appearance on the nuclear scene in Pakistan, the situation was desperate to say the least. Following the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971, India had already exploded a nuclear device in May 1974. Pakistan's efforts to acquire reprocessing plant from France was beginning to be strongly resisted and her efforts to keep operational the PINSTECH research facilities in Nilour and the KANUPP power Plant in Karachi almost came to a standstill due to Canadian refusal to provide fuel, heavy water and spares for the plant. Though Pakistan had contracted with France in 1975 for supply of a reprocessing plant at Chashma to eliminate dependence on import of nuclear fuel from abroad , it was becoming evident that US led Western pressure would not let the project to proceed. Given these circumstances. Khan's impeccable credentials made him a godsend for Pakistan's fledgling efforts to retain nuclear parity with India. He had the potential to kick-start the project with his unique blend of technical knowledge, expertise and contacts. Not only was he an expert in the use of exotic metals needed to build high-speed centrifuges but was conversant with the top-secret use of ultra centrifuges in the enrichment process of Uranium. More crucially he knew the places and the contacts through which he could procure components to complete the project that would make him a national hero, a household name in Pakistan. In such desperate circumstances he, along with a small team of scientists was given the mission to set out on a crash course to build up a small ultracentrifuge pilot plant in the town of Kahuta. It was a moment calling for resourcefulness, imagination, initiative and audacity. Al plugs had to be pulled out, official and bureaucratic controls thrown to winds, access to information restricted to the barest few and a total shroud of secrecy maintained to keep the project safe from the hostility of the outside world. The major components of a Uranium enrichment plant were classified and subject to export regulations in most of the technology holding countries. But the loopholes were available because individual parts constituting the complicated components were not classified and could be procured from the firms concerned through legal means. This left the door open for systematically buying the essential items part by part from dozens of companies that spread across five different West European countries. In these environments, to speed up the pace of operationalisation of Kahuta Research Laboratories, Dr A Q Khan was given total liberty of action to proceed with his plans, independence to make contacts to procure vital technical resources from outside and autonomous administrative charge of the Laboratories, including the security related to the project. Special Works Organisation was created to speed up the construction proceedings and to help with expeditious purchases of vital and sensitive stores. These extraordinary measures stand justified since the pressure was increasing on Pakistan to accelerate efforts as the small window of opportunity was closing rapidly and the threat of physical aggression against the KRL was growing. The New York Times on August 12, 1979, published a story, which suggested that the use of covert operation, including paramilitary attack to disable the KRL was under consideration by the US Administration. The State Department immediately denied the story, but the threat was perceived to be real and present. All-out efforts had to be undertaken to deter possibility of any impending attacks by American, Indian or the Israelis. Such fears were not unfounded since only a few years later, on 7 June 1981, Israeli strike on Iraq's Orsirak Reactor disabled and destroyed her quest for nuclear technology. The buying campaign that started in earnest in 1976 virtually meant that Dr Khan had complete freedom in deciding his destinations and making contacts with the persons whom he chose to meet. The constraints of secrecy also dictated that all imports and exports meant for KRL remained outside the purview of any control regimes. While outsiders may fault such a carte blanche, the unprecedented independence of action remain perfectly Justifiable given the now or never race for acquisition of nuclear capability. Western countries and US also need to realize that it was the compulsion of keeping the capability undeclared by Pakistan that led to leakage of information from Dr Khan. Thanks to the Indian detonations that enabled Pakistan to make the capability overt, a National Command Authority has been instituted in February 2000, which is for policy formulation as well as for exercising employment and development control over all strategic forces and organisations. It also takes care of the security of information as well personnel ensuring that any leakage bearing possibility of proliferation is never committed. © Copyright 2003 by The New Nation ***************************************************************** 21 Daily Times: US let Pakistan go nuclear due to Afghanistan Monday, April 05, 2004 By Khalid Hasan WASHINGTON: The US allowed Pakistan to go nuclear because it needed Islamabad on its side to win the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, according to a former Senate official. Leonard Weiss, a former Senate staff director who worked on non-proliferation issues for 20 years, writes in the April 5 issue of the New Yorker magazine that he was involved in many investigations into Pakistan’s evolution as a nuclear power. He argues that “to stop Pakistan from acquiring the bomb itself, which, according to the best accounts, it has had since 1987, the US would have had to be willing to put non-proliferation in South Asia ahead of the Cold War policy of sending arms to the mujahideen to fight the Russians in Afghanistan”. According to Mr Weiss, “This we were not prepared to do. There were legislative initiatives designed to stop, or at least, slow, the Pakistani bomb, using tough sanctions as a lever. They never got a chance to work because the Reagan and the first Bush administrations, along with a feckless Congress, prevented them from being implemented via a series of waivers. Much of the support given to the mujahideen, with Pakistan’s cooperation, benefited the Taliban and, by extension, Osama Bin Laden. It was only when the Russians left Afghanistan in 1990 that sanctions were imposed, too late to prevent the bomb or affect the supply network.” Mr Weiss regrets that after 9/11, sanctions were lifted “so that we could get Pakistani support for the war on terror”. He finds it to be a “supreme irony” that “not getting tough with Pakistan over its nuclear activities in the 80s has led to the heightened risk of nuclear terrorism that is the reason given by the present administration that we can’t get tough with Pakistan now”. Daily Times - All Rights Reserved Site developed and hosted by WorldCALL Internet Solutions ***************************************************************** 22 Hi Pakistan: India, US hold talks on N-issue April 05 2004 WASHINGTON, April 3: A high-level Indian delegation is currently visiting Washington for talks on nuclear and strategic issues, diplomatic sources told Dawn on Saturday. The delegation is led by two senior members of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, Sheel Kant Sharma, who heads the disarmament section of the ministry and Sujata Mehta, who heads the Americas division. Mr Sharma is holding talks on President Bush's proliferation security initiative that he announced last May in Krakow, Poland, the sources said. Under this initiative, the Bush administration is seeking new agreements with allied nations for searching and seizing planes and ships carrying weapons of mass destruction or weapons technologies. In October, US and British agents seized a German-flagged ship - BBC China - that was carrying parts to build a nuclear bomb from a Persian Gulf country to Libya. The seizure is believed to have influenced Tripoli's decision to suspend its weapons programme in December. The diplomatic sources said that India has some reservations about entering into this arrangement with the United States and Mr Kant has come with a set of questions which he wants US officials to answer before New Delhi could sign an agreement with Washington. "In principle, the Indians are not against reaching such an agreement with the United States. They know that already more than a dozen countries have joined this growing club of international monitors but they need certain clarifications first," said a senior South Asian diplomat in Washington. "They are particularly concerned about the legal status of the proliferation security initiative and how it may affect India's own nuclear programme,"said the diplomat. "After all, India is not a member of the nuclear club and any tightening of control over nuclear materials could also affect India and Pakistan, two declared but unrecognized nuclear powers." The other senior member of the Indian delegation - Sujata Mehta - is holding talks with US officials on further enhancing the newly formed strategic partnership between India and the United States. The strategic partnership agreement was announced on Jan 12, in two separate statements issued in Washington and New Delhi by President Bush and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 23 Khaleej Times: Brazil refuses to let UN inspectors to nuclear facility report (AFP) 4 April 2004 WASHINGTON - The Brazilian government has refused to allow UN inspectors to examine a facility for enriching uranium under construction near Rio de Janeiro, The Washington Post reported on Sunday. Citing unnamed Brazilian officials and diplomats in Vienna, the newspaper saidthe International Atomic Energy Agency and Brazil were at an impasse over the inspections. Brazil maintains that the facility in Resende will produce low-enriched uranium for use in power plants, not the highly enriched material used in nuclear weapons, according to the report. Nonetheless, Brazil refuses to let IAEA inspectors see equipment in the plant, citing a need to protect proprietary information, the paper said. The diplomatic standoff plays into fears that a new type of nuclear race is underway, marked not by the bold pursuit of atomic weapons but by the quiet and lawful development of sophisticated technology for nuclear energy production, which can be quickly converted into a weapons program, The Post said. Brazil’s project also poses a conundrum for US President George W. Bush, who has called for tighter restrictions on enrichment of uranium as part of a new strategy to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, the report said. Non-proliferation specialists also say that if the United States and the United Nations do not act to curtail Brazil’s program, or at least insist on inspections, it could undermine White House calls for Iran and North Korea to halt their efforts to enrich uranium, according to The Post. The plant in Resende belongs to a program considered legal under international treaties, but it remains subject to UN inspections aimed at making sure it is not used for producing weapons-grade material. According to the paper, the IAEA has sent inspectors to Resende in recent months, only to find significant portions of the facility and its contents shielded from view. © 2003 Khaleej Times All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 24 Free Lance-Star: Nuclear power dangerous, expensive [fredericksburg.com] Date published: 4/3/2004 I take issue with Dominion Power's claim ("Alliance fights reactor plans," March 17) that it is acting responsibly in submitting an Early Site Permit application to build two or more new nuclear reactors at North Anna. It is extremely irresponsible to build additional nuclear units when the disposal of highly radioactive spent fuel remains unresolved. Yucca Mountain, the designated federal repository for commercial nuclear waste, is unlikely to open as scheduled in 2010 or for years after. Spent fuel rods are multiplying at North Anna and continue to be stored in water pools (with some dry-cask storage) exacerbating the terrorist threat. Two new nuclear units at Lake Anna would have adverse effects on the ecosystem, drastically reducing the level of the lake. Lakefront real-estate values are likely to suffer. After the last three-year drought, safeguarding our water resources has become a priority. Has Dominion studied the health impacts associated with an increase in "legal" or "permissible" radiation releases from two additional nukes? Has Dominion adequately projected population trends to plan for evacuation in case of accident? Given that the nuclear-waste issue remains unresolved, that nuclear power is expensive, government/ratepayer subsidized, and fraught with radiation risks, Dominion should drop the nuclear option altogether and base our energy future on safer and sustainable sources--i.e, conservation and renewables. Elena Day Charlottesville Date published: 4/3/2004 The Free Lance-Star (through 3/2001). Fredericksburg.com, 605 William Street, Fredericksburg, VA 22401 Comments? Send us Feedback, Phone: 540-368-5055 To contact all other newspaper departments, please call 540-374-5000. Copyright 2004, The Free Lance-Star Publishing Co. of Fredericksburg, Va. ***************************************************************** 25 North County Times: San Onofre violations draw fine North San Diego and Southwest Riverside County columnists Archives Last modified Friday, April 2, 2004 12:58 PM PST By: Wire Reports - SAN CLEMENTE - Southern California Edison will pay $210,000 for failing to have funds available for closure of the hazardous waste facility at the San Onofre nuclear plant and potential liability, regulators said today. The California Department of Toxic Substances Control reports the settlement stems from SCE's failure to set up and demonstrate "financial assurance" from Jan. 16, 2001 through March 12, 2002. State law requires that assurance funds be available to pay for closure of the hazardous waste facility at the proper time, and to pay for third-party claims that may arise from the facility's operation. The agency said $139,506 of the money is a penalty, and $23,992 is to reimburse its costs. The remaining $46,502 will help pay for environmental enforcement and training programs for regulators, prosecutors, firefighters and law enforcement, according to the CDTSC. CNS-04-2-2004 11:38 © 1997-2004 North County Times - ***************************************************************** 26 Mainichi Interactive: Morning quake shuts down nuclear reactors MITO -- A fairly strong earthquake jolted Ibaraki Prefecture and neighboring areas Sunday morning, slightly injuring a woman and causing two nuclear reactors to stop working, local government officials said. The temblor that struck at 8:02 a.m. registered 4 on the 7-point Japanese intensity scale in Mito, Taiyo, Uchihara, the town of Ibaraki, Gozenyama and Tomobe in Ibaraki Prefecture as well as in the Tochigi Prefecture town of Mashiko, according to the Meteorological Agency. It also measured 3 on the Japanese scale in Kasama, Ibaraki Prefecture, Oyama, Tochigi Prefecture, Ogawara, Miyagi Prefecture, Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, Numata, Gunma Prefecture, Kasukabe, Saitama Prefecture, Sawara, Chiba Prefecture, and Adachi-ku, Tokyo, among other areas. In Naka, Ibaraki Prefecture, a 53-year-old woman fell down because of the impact of the quake and suffered slight injuries, local government officials said. Two experimental nuclear reactors in the prefecture automatically stopped following the quake. The focus of the earthquake, estimated to have measured 5.6 on the open-ended Richter scale, is located about 40 kilometers below the seabed off Ibaraki Prefecture. (Mainichi and wire reports, Japan, April 4, 2004) © 2003 The Mainichi Newspapers Co. Under the ***************************************************************** 27 North County Times: SDG says it won't help pay for San Onofre overhaul North San Diego and Southwest Riverside County columnists Archives Last modified Friday, April 2, 2004 11:14 PM PST By: PAUL SISSON - Staff Writer SAN ONOFRE ---- San Diego Gas &Electric Co. and Southern California Edison disagree on who should pay the nearly $1 billion cost of replacing four steam generators at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. SDG spokesman David Johnson said the utility's 1.2 million San Diego County customers shouldn't have to help pay for San Onofre's largest-ever overhaul because the company is obligated under its operating agreement with Edison to pay for only routine maintenance. "We don't, at this time, feel that it's a proper investment of the ratepayers' dollars," Johnson said. Edison, San Onofre's majority owner, filed plans in late February with the California Public Utilities Commission to replace the plant's four steam generators by 2009. Edison estimates that the operation will cost $680 million and an additional $149 million in financing costs for a total of $829 million. Edison spokesman Ray Golden said that replacing the steam generators is critical for San Onofre's continued operation. He said there is a 25 percent chance that cracks developing in the plant's four steam generators could exceed federal guidelines by 2009. Golden said Edison did a cost/benefit analysis showing that fixing San Onofre would be cheaper than replacing the plant's 2,254 megawatts of electricity ---- enough to power 2.75 million homes ---- with gas-fired or renewable power plants. "Our economic analysis shows that it would be between $1.5 (billion) and $1.8 billion cheaper to replace the steam generators than to replace that capacity with some other kind of generation," Golden said. A steam generator releases heat from the reactor's core without also releasing radiation. The generator circulates 560-degree radioactive water through a series of 9,350 thin pipes. Cold water is pumped around those pipes, creating steam, which spins the plant's turbines to generate electricity. The radioactive water does not come in physical contact with the steam. The thin pipes inside the generators crack over time, forcing Edison to install plugs that reduce their efficiency and will eventually lead to replacement or shutdown. The San Diego utility owns 20 percent of the San Onofre plant and is entitled to 20 percent of its power production, or about 430 megawatts. The utility's operating agreement with Edison requires it to help pay for routine plant maintenance at San Onofre. In this case, 20 percent of the steam generator replacement cost would be about $165 million. But the utility says it shouldn't have to help pay for any of the cost because replacing the steam generators isn't routine maintenance. Johnson noted that the plant's four steam generators, each measuring 66 feet tall and 25 feet in diameter and weighing 750 tons, were supposed to last throughout the plant's 40-year life span, which ends in 2023. He said the utility's agreement with Edison allows the company to reduce its ownership stake in San Onofre rather than help pay for the replacement. "It would drop from 20 percent to about 17 percent," Johnson said. The utility's plans to "opt out" of helping pay for the generator replacement hinges on its determination that replacing the steam generators is not routine maintenance. Edison could take the utility to court and ask a judge to rule on the matter, possibly providing a different interpretation of what is routine maintenance and what is not. Johnson said the decrease in ownership would equal up to 100 fewer megawatts coming from San Onofre to San Diego County electricity customers. He said San Diego Gas &Electric could replace the lost generation capacity by purchasing power from other non-nuclear sources, including two new natural gas-fired power plants in Escondido and Otay Mesa. "Those two plants are due to come on-line soon," Johnson said. Electricity generation stations generally sell power to whatever utility needs it using common distribution lines. Golden said Edison's 4.3 million customers ---- not including any of the San Diego utility's customers ---- would see less than 1 cent per kilowatt hour in increased electricity costs if the California Public Utility Commission grants permission to perform the upgrades in 2009. A hearing date for the utility commission's decision has not yet been set. Contact staff writer Paul Sisson at (760) 901-4087 or psisson@nctimes.com. webmaster@nctimes.com © 1997-2004 North County Times - Lee Enterprises editor@nctimes.com ***************************************************************** 28 Xinhuanet: Company for nuclear power engineering set up in Shenzhen www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2004-04-04 09:43:50 SHENZHEN, April 4 (Xinhuanet) -- China Guangdong Nuclear Power Engineering Co. Ltd. has been established in Shenzhen, a boomtown in south China's Guangdong Province, to improve management over existing nuclear power plants and speed up construction of new ones in the province. It is the first professional administrative company in China's nuclear power plant construction sector. A spokesman for the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group said the new engineering company was brought into being so that all resources of the conglomerate are made good use of. The conglomerate now operates four nuclear power generating units at Daya Bay and Ling'ao. A corporate executive of the newly established company vowed they would work harder to make things ready to start construction of the second phase at Ling'ao Nuclear Power in late 2005. In the meantime, the preparations for construction of a new nuclear power plant in Yangjiang have been carried out in a swift manner. It is expected that building of the new nuclear power plant will get started in 2007, said the corporate executive. There are now four nuclear power plants operating in China. Besides Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant and Ling'ao Nuclear Power Plant, Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant is situated in east China's Zhejiang Province, and Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant is being built in Lianyungang City of Jiangsu Province. The four have a combined installed capacity up to 8.7 million kilowatts. Enditem Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 29 CBW: Guangdong plans biggest nuclear power plant (China Business Weekly) Updated: 2004-04-04 09:55 Officials in South China's Guangdong Province are speeding up preparations for the construction of the country's biggest nuclear power plant. The facility will be located in Yangjiang, one of the province's coastal cities. Construction of the facility's nuclear reactor will begin before 2006, said Qian Zhimin, general manager of Guangdong Nuclear Power Co Ltd. Infrastructure construction at the site, in Shahuai Township in Yangjiang's Yangdong County, is under way, Qian said on Tuesday. Foreign companies from the United States, Japan, Russia, Canada and France are competing against domestic firms to design the project, Qian said. Yangjiang's nuclear power plant is expected to help stem the chronic power shortages along the nation's prosperous Pearl River Delta, which includes the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, Qian added. Guangdong Province's demand for electricity has exceeded supply for several years. That has forced the province to purchase electricity from Hong Kong. This year, the gap between supply and demand is expected to reach 10 per cent. Qian said Yangjiang Nuclear Power Co Ltd was formed, by his firm, to construct and operate the nuclear facility. Hu Wenquan was appointed general manager of Yangjiang Nuclear Power Co Ltd late last year. The nuclear plant, located in western Guangdong, will have six electricity generating units. Each will have a production capacity of 1 million kilowatts. The first two units will begin generating power by 2010. The remaining units will be operational within 15 to 20 years. The plant will be capable of generating more than 45 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually when all six units are operational. The plant, which will cover 472,485 square metres, will cost more than US$8 billion to construct. Guangdong Nuclear Power plans to begin constructing another nuclear power plant in 2006. It will be located in Shenzhen's Daya Bay and it will support the Pearl River Delta area's rapid economic growth. The Lingdong Nuclear Power Plant, also referred to as the second phase of the Ling'ao Nuclear Power Plant, will have two generating units. Each has an installed capacity of 1 million kilowatts. When the two nuclear plants are operational, Guangdong will have a nuclear power production capacity, or installed capacity, of more than 12 million kilowatts. Nuclear power plants will produce more than 20 per cent of the electricity generated in the province. Qian said his company is considering building another nuclear power plant. Construction could begin in 2010. Initial plans for the Yaogu Nuclear Power Plant in Taishan, another coastal city in western Guangdong, call for three units, each with an installed capacity of 1 million kilowatts. Qian, however, refused to provide further details about the proposed plant. Yangjiang's plant is very important to Guangdong's economic growth, especially to the economic development of the Pearl River Delta's western region, Qian said. The plant will also reinforce Guangdong's status as China's largest nuclear power production base. China has another major nuclear power production base in Qinshan, a city in East China's Zhejiang Province. Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant, China's first nuclear power plant, began operations in 1991. China by 2020 will have nuclear power capacity in excess of 36 million kilowatts. Elsewhere, Sanmen, in Zhejiang Province, and Lianyungang, in Jiangsu Province, plan to begin constructing nuclear power plants within two years. Guangdong at present has two nuclear plants in operation - Daya Bay and Ling'ao. The plants combined have four units. Each has a production capacity of 1 million kilowatts. The two plants, situated in the eastern region of the Pearl River Delta, began operations in 1994 and 1995, respectively. Most of the equipment and technologies at the Daya Bay and Ling'ao plants, including the reactors, were imported from France, which is one of the world's leading nuclear power producers. The US$4 billion Daya Bay plant is one of the largest Sino-foreign joint ventures in the Chinese mainland. Guangdong Province holds 75 per cent of the Daya Bay plant while its partner, Hong Kong Nuclear Power Investment Corp Ltd, holds the remaining 25 per cent. chinadaily.com.cn ***************************************************************** 30 Guardian Unlimited: Report adds to doubts on Ł5bn BE aid David Gow Monday April 5, 2004 The Guardian The government's Ł5bn rescue package for stricken nuclear operator British Energy, already declared by the European Union to be unlawful state aid in an initial ruling, has been dealt another blow. An independent consultants' report for Greenpeace has backed the EU's preliminary findings and challenged the legality of the support under European law. The report comes three months before the EU reaches its final verdict. Greenpeace seized on the report, by Professor Gordon MacKerron of Nera Economic Consulting, to demand the closure of BE's eight nuclear power stations, which supply a fifth of electricity in Britain, and of state-owned British Nuclear Fuels' Thorp reprocessing plant at Sellefield. Prof MacKerron, who is head of the government's committee on the management of radioactive waste, questions the commerciality of an important element of the government-backed restructuring: the contract worth up to Ł1.42bn for BNFL to buy at less than market prices spent fuel from BE, enabling it to keep unviable plants open. Nera argues that the EU competition authorities should examine the impact on BE's operating ("avoidable") costs of paying BNFL Ł150,000 per tonne of spent fuel when the market rate, according to Harvard economists, is closer to $200,000 or Ł110,000 at current exchange rates. Prof MacKerron says the contract price ignores the cost of final disposal of spent fuel after storage - a further $400,000 a tonne, according to the Harvard economists, or double the cost of storage. "The suggestion in the package is therefore that BNFL is offering a fixed price contract for the spent fuel storage at slightly above international storage prices but will then assume all the costs and risks of final disposal ... without any apparent further financial compensation," his report says. Commission officials, he suggests, should ask whether such behaviour would credibly meet a key test of legal state aid: that the terms are the equivalent of those on offer by a commercial operator. "BNFL would only be likely to make such a concession if it believed that without it, its financial position would be even worse." The EU should question whether BNFL's approach was influenced by knowledge that its responsibility for spent fuel will eventually pass into the hands of the new nuclear decommissioning authority. [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ***************************************************************** 31 Monroe Evening: Fermi leak sole setback during 2003 - 04/3/2004 n The Nuclear Regulatory Commission found only one concern that needed checking. BY CHARLES SLAT Evening News staff writer When last summer's big electrical outage hit, a backup generator helped power safety systems at the Fermi 2 nuclear plant even though it had a potentially serious oil leak. Detroit Edison Co. eventually found and fixed the leak on the generator, but federal officials plan to inspect the plant during the week of April 19 to make sure the problem won't develop again. The oil pressure tube leak on one of the four emergency diesel generators at the plant was the only issue the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) cited in what was otherwise a problem-free year of Fermi operation. In itself, the leak wasn't significant, NRC officials said. But had there been an earthquake, the oil tube could have broken loose and kept the generator from operating properly and providing needed backup electrical power to plant systems. During a public review Thursday, the NRC said the utility did a very good job of identifying the root cause of the problem and remedying it. NRC officials otherwise gave the power company a good review for its operations of the nuclear plant during the year. "In summary, Detroit Edison operated Fermi 2 in a manner that preserved public health and safety," said Steve Campbell, the NRC's senior resident inspector at the plant. William O'Connor, Edison's vice president of nuclear generation, said the utility was pleased with the NRC's overall assessment of plant operations. "The assessment the NRC performed on us last year was right on target," he said. Mr. O'Connor later explained that the oil leak surfaced when operators noticed oil pressure on the generator was slightly lower than normal. Crews found a leak on an exterior fitting. But when they repaired and tightened it, they unknowingly loosened an interior fitting that they were unaware of because of inadequate schematics supplied by the manufacturer. Now all work orders for such repairs will include instructions to take into account the presence of the internal fitting. "I can assure you it has been corrected and will not stand in the way of our performance," Mr. O'Connor told the NRC. The upcoming NRC inspection is designed to confirm that. Fermi is a 1,100-megawatt power plant that began operating in January, 1988. Copyright © 2004 Monroe Publishing Company. All Rights ***************************************************************** 32 PittsburghLIVE: Hearings review FirstEnergy reliability - By The Associated Press Saturday, April 3, 2004 HARRISBURG -- The reliability of three companies owned by FirstEnergy Corp. will be the subject of public hearings this month, from Easton to Erie, as Pennsylvania regulators look into whether electricity service to 1.2 million homes and businesses has been substandard. If the investigation finds that the reliability of the utilities -- Pennsylvania Power Co., Metropolitan Edison Co. and Pennsylvania Electric Co. -- has slipped below standards, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission will set up a corrective plan. Any customer who wants to testify can show up before the meeting and sign up, said utility commission spokesman Eric Levis. The hearings begin Tuesday and run through April 15. The state's Office of Consumer Advocate is encouraging customers of the three companies to testify about their experiences with the length of power outages, the companies' response to restoring power, and any problems with the maintenance of power lines, poles or trees growing around them. "There have been problems in much of the FirstEnergy territory, so it's important -- to the extent that people can -- to let the commission know what their experience has been," said Irwin "Sonny" Popowsky, the state's consumer advocate. At each hearing, the president of the power company that serves the area will give a short opening statement, and then be on hand with some members of the operations staff to listen to testimony and speak with customers, said Scott Surgeoner, a spokesman for the Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy. The FirstEnergy companies are working to improve reliability, Surgeoner said. He cited the replacement of a 1.5-mile underground cable near Reading that has been the source of some outages. "We have made improvements in reliability over the past couple years, but still have a ways to go," Surgeoner said. "We're tackling (problems). Some of this isn't an overnight kind of thing. It takes time. Work with us and bear with us." The territory of the three utilities stretches to each state border, including some of the state's medium-sized cities, such as Altoona, Erie, Reading and York, and many rural areas, including along the state's northern tier. FirstEnergy acquired Metropolitan Edison and Pennsylvania Electric when it merged with New Jersey-based GPU Inc. in 2001. It also owns several power plants in Pennsylvania, including Bruce Mansfield Station, a huge, coal-fired plant in Beaver County, and the nearby Beaver Valley nuclear power plant. Last year, FirstEnergy was implicated in the nation's largest power outage ever. A U.S.-Canadian task force investigating the Aug. 14 outage that affected 50 million people pointed to the failure of a FirstEnergy computer system that monitors electricity flow in causing the blackout. It also said the company allowed trees underneath transmission lines to grow too tall, triggering several outages when the lines sagged. That led to a series of transmission-line failures that knocked out more than 263 power plants across the Midwest, Northeast and Ontario, the report said. FirstEnergy has criticized the report as incomplete and maintains that it shouldn't be singled out because there were other problems in the Midwest power grid. Pennsylvania was largely protected from the cascade of blackouts when systems run by the Mid-Atlantic grid operator, PJM Interconnection, shut down connections along Pennsylvania's borders. Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This copyright © 2004 by The Tribune-Review ***************************************************************** 33 Brattleboro Reformer: Panel backs diluted VY resolution Article Published: Saturday, April 03, 2004 - By CAROLYN LORIÉ Reformer Staff BRATTLEBORO -- An amended version of a House resolution calling on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to do an independent engineering assessment of Vermont Yankee was approved by the Committee of Natural Resources and Energy on Friday. The original resolution, which was sponsored by 83 members, was identical to the one unanimously passed in the Senate on March 16. The resolution was first amended by Rep. Phil Bartlett, R-East Dover, who suggested the removal of five major points that made reference to safety at the plant. Among the items removed was the request that the NRC "assess the facility's operational safety performance giving risk perspective where appropriate," and "determine the root cause(s) of safety-significant findings and draw conclusions on overall performance...." The final resolution included a second amendment that made reference to the Public Service Board letter of March 15, that was sent to NRC chairman Nils Diaz. In it the board requested that the NRC conduct an independent engineering assessment of the plant prior to the proposed 20 percent "uprate." The assessment was a condition of issuing Vermont Yankee the certificate of public good that it needs to do the power boost. The second amendment referred specifically to three points in the board's letter: First, that the assessment be done by experts not associated with Vermont Yankee; that it include a vertical slice review of two safety-related systems and two non-safety systems; and that the assessment be reviewed by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards. Rep. Sarah Edwards, P-Brattleboro, said she was disappointed that the resolution didn't pass as originally submitted. "This is not a Public Service Board resolution. It's a House resolution. I think many people are confusing our power with the Public Service Board's powers," said Edwards. Because the NRC is the only body that can regulate radiological safety, the board could not base its decision on safety issues. The House, however, has no such limitations in formulating resolutions. According to Bartlett, who sits on the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Committee (VSNAP), the resolution should not differ from what the board and VSNAP were calling for. On Wednesday, VSNAP unanimously voted to support the board's request. The resolution was sent to committee by House Speaker Walter Freed, R-Dorset, in a move that some legislators said was political. Rep. Steve Darrow, D-Putney, was among those who believed the move was an attempt to stop the resolution. "With 83 signers, sending it to committee was definitely political. It reflects the new corporate governance in Montpelier," said Darrow. There are 11 members on the committee, six Republicans, four Democrats and one Progressive. Freed strongly denied the charge, saying that it was routine to send "controversial" resolutions to committee. He said that he was supportive of Vermont Yankee and "all the jobs they provide." Freed called Reps. Darrow and Edwards anti-Vermont Yankee, which he said made him "suspicious" of any resolution they introduced regarding the plant. Rep. Ernest Shand, D-Windsor, said that there was disagreement over removing the language dealing with safety. "It went right down party lines," he said, adding that he was prepared to reject the resolution until the second amendment was made. Entergy was said to have lobbied strongly against the original resolution. According to Sen. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange, who attended the Wednesday night public NRC meeting, when he returned to Montpelier on Thursday, many of his colleagues believed that the meeting was dominated by out-of-state residents. MacDonald, who is a member of VSNAP, said he believed Entergy's lobbyist Jerry Morris was responsible for the misinformation. "Entergy has never been in favor of any sort of inspection," said MacDonald, who was one of the original sponsors of the Senate resolution. Rob Williams, spokesman for Vermont Yankee, said that Entergy was not opposed to the board's order for an independent engineering assessment. In addition to lobbying against the resolution, Morris was accused by Edwards of making an "off-color, unflattering" remark directed at members of the Senate, while testifying before the committee. Edwards would not divulge Morris's comment but called it "not very complimentary of anybody who voted in favor of the resolution." Shand supported Edwards' claim. "I didn't make any such remarks," said Morris. He characterized the resolution process in the Senate as a "long, hard political fight," but added that is the nature of politics in the Statehouse. The commissioner of the Department of Public Service, David O'Brien, and state nuclear engineer, Bill Sherman, also testified before the committee. MacDonald charged the two with trying to block passage of the resolution. "They don't want this resolution to pass in the House and they worked against it," said MacDonald. O'Brien and Sherman maintained that their role was to provide the committee with information regarding the board's order and to clarify the difference between a safety assessment and an engineering assessment. "We really didn't have a position. If the House wants to express itself in a certain way, that's fine," said O'Brien. Ray Shadis of the New England Coalition, however, echoed MacDonald's charge. "O'Brien and Sherman know that this resolution will be without teeth or effect. The things that they took out are the things that give it teeth. What they are doing is Entergy's work," said Shadis. Many have called for an assessment of Vermont Yankee similar to the one that was done at Maine Yankee in 1996. That assessment was much more comprehensive than what the NRC is currently expected to do during its uprate review process at the Vernon plant. The assessment at Maine Yankee uncovered so many safety violations that the owners elected to shut it down instead of making the costly repairs. While neither the House nor the Senate has the authority to mandate any action by the NRC, many feel that the resolutions are important in that they send a clear message about the concerns felt by many area residents. Not only does the state Legislature not have the power to require an independent safety assessment but, pointed out Edwards, a resolution is a non-binding act. "I think its good that people have consensus about the Public Service Board ruling, but I think we could have strengthened it," said Edwards. ***************************************************************** 34 TehranTimes: Russia Will Deliver Fuel to Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant This Year April 5, 2004 TEHRAN (Mehr News Agency) – The managing director of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Nasser Shariflu, said here Saturday that environmental concerns about the storage of the fuel in Russia is the main cause for the delay in the transfer of nuclear fuel from Russia to Iran. Shariflu told the Mehr News Agency that the delay was not related to financial issues, stressing that Russia would deliver fuel to Bushehr sometime in the next six months. He went on to say that there is no hindrance in the way of completing the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, adding that Russia is still actively cooperating with Iran in the project. Shariflu stated that the power plant would come on stream in early 2006. He said that Russia is providing all the requirements of the plant, adding that international sanctions would not affect the construction project. Send your questions and comments to: webmaster@tehrantimes.com ***************************************************************** 35 TehranTimes: Europe Recognizes Iran’s Right to Nuclear Energy April 4, 2004 German Ambassador TEHRAN (Mehr News Agency)— The German ambassador to Iran said on Saturday that as the German foreign minister Joschka Fischer has said and as confirmed by other European states, Iran has the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes according to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Paul Von Maltzahn said the difference is that the U.S. doesn’t even want Iran to have a civilian nuclear program. Maltzahn said that Germany is capable of having sanctions against the Islamic Republic scrapped if Iran renounces its past nuclear brinkmanship. "If it is proven that Iran has abandoned its past nuclear activities we can have sanctions against Iran waived," Maltzahn told PIN in an interview. "The Tehran Declaration incorporates different phases. If Iran abides by its commitments the European Union will launch a new phase of cooperation with the Islamic Republic," he said, adding: "Europe is willing to come closer to Iran and resume its Trade and Cooperation Agreement with Iran." Iran has dismissed European criticism of Iran's uranium-conversion activities and reaffirmed its commitment to nuclear cooperation with France, Germany and Britain -- known under the Tehran Declaration. The European Union's "Big Three" powers said in a strongly worded statement that Iran's announcement it was starting up a uranium conversion plant near its central city of Isfahan sent the wrong signal and would make it harder for the country to regain international confidence. Tehran promised the Europeans last October it would suspend uranium enrichment and accept tougher inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog in exchange for peaceful nuclear technology. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said the conversion process was not included in a list of enrichment-related activities Iran has agreed to suspend. The German ambassador said: "The IAEA has urged Iran to prove more clarification and we hope that Iran will do so by end-May. In that case we will enter the second phase of cooperation." "Iran should demonstrate to the United States that there is no matter of concern," he said. Maltzahn gave an upbeat assessment of cooperation between Tehran and Berlin. He said: "We have been long involved in petrochemical cooperation with Iran and it is also important that Germany is the top importer of non-oil products from Iran." Iran has always insisted that the enrichment suspension was temporary and that it would eventually restart the program. webmaster@tehrantimes.com ***************************************************************** 36 [DU-WATCH] a holocaust survivor visits Palestine Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 01:09:25 -0600 (CST) wrote: [The short article below is a very powerful statement by Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, who just returned from a trip to Israel and Palestine. As a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, Epstein witnessed the degradation of the Occupation and the daily oppression of Palestinians. She experienced the Israeli military and government's attempts to silence and terrify peace activists, too, through live-fire attacks on nonviolent protesters and humiliating strip-searches at Ben Gurion airport. The primary message of Holocaust education for the last few decades has been "Never Forget." Epstein, and others, add to that lesson, showing us by example that memory is the means, not the end: the goal must be to learn. No people on earth should face systematic oppression - and certainly not at the hands of Jews. -- SAM] The Saint Louis Post- Dispatch February 17, 2004 http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/Editorial / Commentary/0522E30D086B418686256E3D003CD8EE?OpenDocument THE MIDDLE EAST: KNOW RESPECT, KNOW PEACE - NO RESPECT, NO PEACE By HEDY EPSTEIN Violence, humiliation only aggravate the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. In 1939, I left the village of Kippenheim, Germany, on a Kindertransport - a small group of children allowed to go to England - thus surviving the Holocaust. In December, I went to Israel to honor the memory of my parents, Ella and Hugo Wachenheimer, who did not survive the war against the Jews. At a monument near Jerusalem, I lit candles for my parents and for the other 80,000 Jews deported from France to the death camps. It is impossible to visit Israel these days without being aware of the constant threat posed by terrorists. Suicide bombs kill and maim innocent persons riding in buses or taking a meal in a restaurant. We Jews who survived the Shoah know all too well that the intentional targeting of civilians is illegal and immoral. So I grieve the loss of life in Jerusalem from the suicide bombs. But I also grieve the loss of life in Palestine, which occurs almost on a daily basis. So I went to Palestine as a member of the International Solidarity Movement to observe the difficult conditions of daily life under military occupation. It would have been enough to reach out and touch just one Palestinian and place my hand on her shoulder and tell her that I was with her in her pain. But I saw and did much more. In Bethlehem, I saw a Caterpillar bulldozer ripping up centuries-old olive trees to clear a path for rolled razor wire and antitank trenches dividing the town where Jesus was born. In Qalqilia, I was dwarfed by Israel's separation wall rising more than 25 feet. In President George W. Bush's phrase, it "snakes in and out of the West Bank." It keeps farmers from their fields and hems in 50,000 residents on all sides. In Masha, I joined a demonstration against this wall. I saw a red sign warning ominously of "MORTAL DANGER" to any who dare cross this fence. Then I saw Israeli soldiers aiming at unarmed Israeli and international protesters. I saw blood pouring out of Gil Na'amati, a young Israeli whose first public act after completing his military service was to protest against this wall. I saw shrapnel lodged in the leg of Anne Farina, one of my traveling companions from St. Louis. And I thought of Kent State and Jackson State, where National Guardsmen opened fire in 1970 on protesters against the Vietnam War. Near Der Beilut, I saw the Israeli police turn a water cannon on our nonviolent protest. And I remembered Birmingham, Ala., in 1963 and wondered why a democratic society responds to peaceable assembly by trying literally to drown out the voice of our protest. At the end of the journey I had a shocking experience. I knew that what I had said and done was viewed by some as controversial but surely not as threatening. So I did not imagine that the Israeli security force that guards Ben-Gurion Airport would abuse a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor, holding me for five hours and performing a completely unnecessary strip search of every part of my naked body. The only shame these security officials expressed was to turn their badges around so that their names were invisible. The only conceivable purpose for this gross violation of my bodily integrity was to humiliate and terrify me. Of course, I felt humiliated by this outrage, but I refuse to be terrified by cowards who hide their identity while engaging in such unnecessary disrespect. It is a cruel illusion that brute force of this sort provides security to Israel. Degrading me cannot silence my small voice. Similarly, humiliating Palestinians cannot extinguish their hopes for a homeland. Only ending this utterly unnecessary occupation will bring peace to the region. Hedy Epstein of St. Louis is a Holocaust survivor, Holocaust educator and longtime civil rights and peace activist. Her story is featured in the Academy Award winning documentary, "Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport." Nina --------------------------------- Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals ***************************************************************** 37 [DU-WATCH] real scientists & this humane being rejects the Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 01:24:48 -0600 (CST) Major Brad Lowell CentCom, US Military Command for Central Europe and Asia Dear Major Lowell, Thank you for responding to my previous email, expressing concern about the exposure of Iraqi civilians to sites containing depleted uranium. I regret that you rejected my suggestion that such sites be posted with warning signs, on the grounds that DU poses no hazard. I understand that this is the standard Pentagon line. The following collection of articles show that there is much evidence suggesting that DU is very harmful, and precautions should be taken. The British Royal Society, and America's Physicians for Social Responsibility are working to alert the public to the danger. I feel it is negligent on the part of the US military not to take the simple step of warning the Iraqi people away from these sites. Sincerely, Carol S. Wolman, MD Member, Physicians for Social Responsibility To: ; Subject: [NucNews] anti-DU bill; Scientists reject Pentagon line on depleted uranium; etc. 1) McDERMOTT INTRODUCES DEPLETED URANIUM BILL 2) Scientists reject Pentagon line on depleted uranium 3) Death by DU 4) Scientists debate depleted uranium weapons' possible contamination of Iraq, civilians America's High Tech Dirty Bombs by Abraham Tuesday April 22, 2003 at 06:03 PM abraham_94064@y... http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/1603008.php The Depleted Uranium shells and bombs are dirty bombs. We're afraid the terrorists would use dirty bombs on us, but it's okay for us to sell and detonate our high tech DU bombs on other nations. The radio active dusts as a result of the detonated DU bombs not only will harm the environment, but will harm all human, plants, live stocks come into contact FOREVER. We must ban all DU weapons immediately. Contact your local newspapers, radio, TV stations, politicians and demand them to make the dangerous effects of DU be known to the public. For more information, go to http://traprockpeace.org/index.html April 22 Update: HR 1483 now has 10 co-sponsors - Rep. Tammy Baldwin - [D-WI-2]; Rep. Julia Carson, - [D-IN-7]; Rep. John Conyers - [D-MI-14]; Rep. Samual Farr - [D-CA-17]; Rep. Robert Filner - [D-CA-6]; Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones - [D-OH-11]; Rep. Dale Kildee. - [D-MI-5]; Rep. Barbara Lee - [D-CA-9]; Rep. Edward Markey - [D-MA-7]; Rep. Charles Rangel - [D-NY-15]. CONTENTS Press Release (below) also available as pdf file H.R. 1483 - Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act of 2003 (Introduced in House) (also available as a pdf. file) See Rep. McDermott's letter to colleagues This letter attached the Major Doug Rokke interview with Sunny Miller - Director of Traprock Peace Center (published by YES! magazine.) (The entire interview was originally a radio interview (mp3 file). Press Release from Representative JIM McDERMOTT 7th District, Washington 202-225-3106 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 27, 2003 Contact: Eric Lutz McDERMOTT INTRODUCES DEPLETED URANIUM BILL HR 1483 Washington, DC-Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) today introduced legislation requiring studies on the health and environmental impact of depleted uranium (DU) munitions, as well as cleanup and mitigation of depleted uranium contamination at sites within the United States where DU has been used or produced. McDermott, a medical doctor, has been concerned about this issue since veterans of the Gulf War started experiencing unexplained illnesses. His concern deepened, he said, after visiting Iraq, where Iraqi pediatricians told him that the incidence of severely deformed infants and childhood cancers has skyrocketed. "Depleted uranium is toxic and carcinogenic and it may well be associated with elevated rates of birth defects in babies born to those exposed to it," said McDermott. "We had troops coming home sick after the Gulf War, and depleted uranium may be one of the factors responsible for that." Because of its density, the military uses depleted uranium as a protective shield around tanks. It is also part of munitions like armor-piercing bullets. Because it tends to spontaneously ignite upon impact, it is used to cause explosions. But depleted uranium, a by-product of the uranium enrichment process, is also linked to grave health concerns because of its chemical toxicity and low-level radioactivity. When depleted uranium explodes, soldiers are exposed to DU in the form of alpha-emitting airborne particles that are inhaled and shrapnel that gets embedded in the body. They are also exposed through unprotected contact with equipment. About 300 metric tons of depleted uranium was used in the Iraq during the Gulf War, and many citizens of Iraq as well as veterans of the Gulf War have experienced terrible health problems-many say as a consequence of depleted uranium. Increased rates of cancers, leukemia and birth malformations are among the health problems that may be linked to DU. The Pentagon has sent mixed signals about the effects of depleted uranium, at times claiming DU is not a health hazard, and at other times acknowledging the need for sophisticated protective gear and safety training regarding exposure to DU. "The need for these studies is imperative and immediate," said McDermott. "We cannot knowingly put the men and women of our armed forces in harm's way." The Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act of 2003 has several original co-sponsors, including Reps. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), Edward Markey (D-Mass.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.). add your comments - http://sf.indymedia.org/comment.php?top_id=1603008 Scientists reject line on depleted uranium April 19 2003 By Paul Brown, UK Guardian London http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/17/1050172706047.html Hundreds of tonnes of depleted uranium used by Britain and the US in Iraq should be removed to protect the civilian population, the Royal Society - Britain's premier scientific institution - says, contradicting Pentagon claims it is not necessary. The society's statement fuels the controversy over the use of depleted uranium, which is an effective tank destroyer and bunker-buster but is believed by many scientists to cause cancers and other severe illnesses. The society was incensed because the Pentagon had claimed it had the backing of the society in saying depleted uranium was not dangerous. In fact, the society said, both soldiers and civilians were in short and long-term danger. Depleted uranium is left over after uranium is enriched for use in nuclear reactors and after reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. Thousands of tonnes of it are stored in the US and Britain. Because it is effectively free and 20 per cent heavier than steel, the military experimented with it and discovered it could penetrate steel and concrete much more easily than convential weapons. It was adopted as a standard weapon in the first Gulf War despite its radioactive content and toxic effects. It was used again in the Balkans and Afghanistan by the US. Depleted uranium has been suspected by many campaigners of causing the unexplained cancers among Iraqis, particularly children, since the previous Gulf War. Chemicals released in the atmosphere during bombing could equally be to blame. Among those against its use is Professor Doug Rokke, a one-time US army colonel who is also a former director of the Pentagon's depleted uranium project. He has called on the US and Britain to "recognise the immoral consequences of their actions and assume responsibility for medical care and thorough environmental remediation". The UN Environment Program has been tracking the use of depleted uranium in the Balkans and found it leaching into the water table. It has recommended the decontamination of buildings where depleted uranium dust is present. Up to 2000 tonnes has been used in the Gulf, a large part of it in cities such as Baghdad, far more than in the Balkans. UNEP has offered to go to Iraq and check on the quantities of still present and the danger it poses to civilians. Professor Brian Spratt, chairman of the Royal Society working group on depleted uranium, said a recent study by the society had found that the soil around the impact sites of depleted uranium penetrators might be heavily contaminated. "We recommend that fragments of depleted uranium penetrators should be removed, and areas of contamination should be identified and, where necessary, made safe," he said. Death by DU Depleted uranium: A deadly tool in the U.S. arsenal by Beth Hawkins 4/23/03 City Pages http://www.citypages.com/databank/24/1168/article11197.asp Last week as the U.S. began pulling troops out of the Middle East, the Pentagon announced that it did not intend to tally the Iraqi civilian death toll. After weeks of boasting that the precision of our increasingly high-tech arsenal actually spares civilian lives, Pentagon officials admitted that they don't have the time, or the inclination, to assess collateral damage. "We really don't know how many civilian deaths there have been," Colin Powell told the BBC. "And we don't know how many of them can be attributed to coalition action, as opposed to action on the part of Iraqi armed forces as they defended themselves." If at first Powell's statement seems more candid than past rhetoric surrounding the war's toll on Iraqi civilians, consider that no one involved in the discussion--not the secretary of state, not the generals, and not Congress's fair-weather humanitarians--has been willing to confront the idea that the civilian death toll may not be evident for years, or generations. Many of those high-tech munitions, you see, contain depleted uranium, a radioactive metal associated with a long list of rare and gruesome illnesses and birth defects. For the last month, we've pelted Iraqis with literally tons of the stuff. And while the precision with which we sent the warheads smashing into their targets did make it seem at times as if we could indeed excise a despot and his evil minions relatively cleanly, the truth is that we've also salted a wide swath of the cradle of civilization with a dust that will be toxic for some 4.5 billion years. Just like their DOD cohorts, executives at Alliant Techsystems, based in Edina, like to suggest that their "smarter" bombs make war a more humane enterprise. Alliant is the U.S. Army's leading supplier of munitions, and has sold millions of DU penetrators to the Army and Air Force. Many were manufactured in New Brighton and stored in Elk River; depleted uranium is one of the toxins currently being scoured from the company's now-shuttered Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant, a Superfund site. >From a military standpoint, depleted uranium is the holy grail of raw materials. Forged from the waste generated by nuclear power plants, it's incredibly heavy--1.7 times as heavy as lead--and especially well suited to making warhead penetrators, the sheaths that allow bombs and other ordnance to pierce heavily armored tanks or thick-walled bunkers. As a lethal bonus, this extraordinary density gives the metal peerless kinetic energy: DU penetrators ignite on impact, creating a burning, radioactive cloud. Used as armor, it makes our tanks virtually impervious. The M1 Abrams tank is the ultimate DU success story; it is protected by a sheath of depleted uranium armor and fires only DU-tipped shells. Depleted uranium made its combat debut during the first Gulf War, when we spent some 320 tons of armor-piercing bullets and shells in both Iraq and Kuwait. The warheads worked so well that they were employed in smaller quantities in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Independent weapons experts are convinced we used far more of it this time around in Iraq--and in far larger weapons, including 2,000-pound air-to-ground cruise missiles and the so-called bunker busters. Tungsten and titanium, the only metals even close to being effective substitutes, don't penetrate their targets with nearly as much strength. And their sky-high cost is prohibitive. By contrast, upwards of a billion pounds of depleted uranium is just lying around in piles that we can't figure out how to get rid of. The U.S. government is happy to give it away. Given the metal's military uses, it's not hard to understand how the Pentagon brass can continue to keep straight faces while insisting that DU isn't toxic. Yet since Gulf War I a slow, steady accretion of evidence has begun to suggest that it is in fact a very indiscriminate killer. For starters, even in its "depleted" state, DU is still 40 percent as radioactive as regular uranium and has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. When it ignites, it leaves behind microscopic radioactive oxides--a nasty dust that settles in soil, in the water table, or, most tragically, in people's lungs. Unexploded DU penetrators are offenders in their own right: The material is highly corrosive, and buried shells lose 25 percent of their mass within seven years of impact. Iraqi health officials have claimed that the number of cancer cases among Iraqi children has risen fivefold since 1990, while the overall cancer rate is up 38 percent. Birth defects and leukemia have tripled. It's hard to know whether Iraq's complaints are credible: The International Atomic Energy Agency has supposedly refused to allow Iraq to acquire the radiology equipment necessary to study DU, arguingthat the technology might aid in the development of nuclear weapons. Kuwait was pelted with the warheads, too, but can't provide many clues: DU was not dropped in its cities and following the first war Kuwaitis launched a massive, well-funded cleanup. But it's not just an Iraqi problem. A growing number of U.S. veterans believe it is the cause of their Gulf War Syndrome, the controversial cluster of symptoms which scientists now believe was caused by battlefield exposure to numerous toxins during the first Gulf War. Also, similar illnesses, including clusters of unusual cancers, have been reported in Bosnia and Kosovo. Following the deaths of several peacekeepers, many NATO member nations mounted an unsuccessful campaign to outlaw DU weapons. The U.S. military seems to have taken a two-pronged approach to hanging on to its bunker-busters. The first tack is to blame the enemy. In a Pentagon briefing held in the days before the start of the war, Col. James Naughton of the U.S. Army Materiel Command insisted claims that Iraqis are suffering a variety of bizarre cancers and other illnesses traceable to DU are nothing more than propaganda. "They want it to go away because we kicked the crap out of them," he said. The military's second strategy appears to be to refuse to do any research into DU's toxicity and--in a charmingly Orwellian touch--to justify this decision by insisting that there's no evidence of a problem. To date the feds have taken just one formal look at DU, by tracking the health of several dozen Gulf War vets who were hit by depleted uranium shrapnel when their DU-armored tanks were hit by friendly fire. But most non-U.S. experts agree that the toxin's real potential for injury is via inhalation or ingestion. And most Defense Department and Veterans Administration researchers who wanted to press the matter have found themselves out of jobs. Last month, even as the U.S. was pelting Baghdad with the latest generation of DU weapons, a United Nations Environment Programme report found that depleted uranium from weapons used in Bosnia and Herzegovina can still be found in that country's drinking water and in dust particles suspended in the air. The research was funded not by > > the United States but by the governments of Italy and Switzerland. But let's return to the topic of the civilian death toll for a moment, because there's a lesson here as to how we got desensitized to our own weapons of mass destruction. It's quite simple, really: The higher the number, the less able Americans are to muster any outrage. For the first week after the U.S. invaded Iraq, we were treated to compelling accounts of the deaths of individual Iraqis or small groups, such as the seven women and children killed at a Marine checkpoint. But as the collateral damage mounted, we lost interest.... By the time U.S. troops took Baghdad, some 1,250 civilians had been killed, according to what remained of Iraq's public health apparatus. As a statistic, it's curiously meaningless. Does anyone remember how many civilians died during the first Gulf War? In Afghanistan? In Vietnam, even? Of course not, it's the really big numbers we can't seem to face. Little wonder, then, that we have no interest in determining how many people have become victims of that conflict in the intervening years and how many will die slow, untelevised deaths in the years to come. > > Scientists debate depleted uranium weapons' possible contamination of > > Iraq, civilians > > > > By Joseph B. Verrengia, Associated Press, 4/21/2003 14:46 > > >http://www.boston.com/dailynews/111/nation/Scientists_debate_depleted_ur > a%3A > .shtml > > http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/04/23/sprj.nilaw.uranium.ap/ > > http://www.msnbc.com/news/903272.asp?cp1=1 > > > > As soon as it's safe, the United Nations and international scientists > > plan to fan out over Iraq's smoking battlegrounds to investigate > > whether the leftovers of American firepower pose serious health or > > environmental threats. > > > > Thousands of rounds containing tons of depleted uranium were fired in > > Iraq over the past four weeks. Fragments of the armor-piercing > > munitions now litter the valleys and neighborhoods between the Tigris > > and Euphrates rivers. That's where most of the combat occurred and > > where most of Iraq's 24 million people live. > > > > Wounded fighters and civilians also may carry depleted uranium > > shrapnel in their bodies. > > > > Many medical studies have failed to show a direct link between DU > > exposure and human disease, though a study of rats linked > > intramuscular fragments with increased cancer risk. Test-tube > > experiments also suggest DU may trigger potentially dangerous changes > > in cells. > > > > The munitions are conventional and do not generate a nuclear blast. > > Depleted uranium, a very dense metal fashioned from low-level > > radioactive waste, allows them to easily pierce armor and buildings > > that would deflect other projectiles. > > > > The Pentagon vigorously defends the decisive battlefield advantage > > that the super-hard metal provides and says the munitions do not > > create pollution or health hazards. Tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles > > and A-10 attack jets all fire depleted uranium rounds. Some missiles > > also contain the material. > > > > ''There's going to be no impact on the health of people in the > > environment or people who were there at the time,'' said Dr. Michael > > Kilpatrick, a top Pentagon health official. > > > > ''You would really have to have a large internalized dose,'' > > Kilpatrick said. ''You are not going to get that with casual > > exposure.'' > > > > However, experts differ as to what qualifies as casual exposure. > > > > Some worry that it could affect civilian populations especially > > children if it enters groundwater used for drinking water and > > irrigation. > > > > ''The soil around the impact sites of depleted uranium penetrators > > might be heavily contaminated,'' said Brian Spratt, chair of the > > depleted uranium committee of the Royal Society, England's scientific > > academy. ''We recommend the fragments should be removed.'' > > > > Some experiments suggest DU may cause serious illness even if tiny > > particles are inhaled or ingested. > > > > Critics complain that studies so far have not been nearly large or > > long enough to conclude the munitions pose no long-term risks. > > > > Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., has introduced legislation requiring > > broader federal research. > > > > ''Depleted uranium is toxic and carcinogenic and it may well be > > associated with elevated rates of birth defects in babies born to > > those exposed to it,'' said McDermott, who is a physician. > > > > Before the current war, Iraqi doctors were blaming high rates of > > cancer and birth defects in Basra and other southern cities on U.S. > > munitions fired 12 years ago when fighting was concentrated along the > > southern border with Kuwait. Iraqi officials claim their number of > > cancer patients has risen 50 percent in 10 years, although complete > > medical surveys have not been conducted. > > > > Some U.S. veterans also blame certain mysterious symptoms of Gulf War > > Syndrome on DU exposure. > > > > To many, the issue could mushroom into a controversy similar to that > > involving Agent Orange spraying during the Vietnam War. Exposure to > > the herbicide has caused catastrophic health problems even to > > generations born after the war. > > > > ''The fact that most of the fighting in Iraq has been in population > > centers is of great worry to me,'' said geochemist Vala Ragnarsdottir > > of the University of Bristol in England. Ragnarsdottir was one of 17 > > scientists from five European nations who conducted DU field > > assessments for the U.N. in the Balkans in 2000. > > > > That investigation, the first of its kind, found no direct link > > between DU munitions and current disease rates in Serbia, Kosovo and > > Montenegro. However, the study was limited to 11 combat sites. About > > 12 metric tons of depleted uranium ordnance was used in the Balkans; > > that compares with 300 metric tons during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, > > and far more in the current campaign. > > > > In Iraq, Ragnarsdottir said, ''many hard targets were hit and > > therefore DU dust was produced, which still could be blowing around.'' > > > > ''I think that DU water pollution is likely to occur with time,'' she > said. > > > > The U.N. inquiry would sample DU residues in soil, air, water and > > vegetation throughout the battle theater, as well as measure for > > radiation hotspots. > > > > Investigators will need information from the Pentagon to calculate how > > > much DU ordinance was used and the coordinates of specific Iraqi > > targets. > > > > ''An early study in Iraq could either lay these fears to rest or > > confirm there are potential risks which then could be addressed,'' > > said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the U.N. Environmental > > Program, which will manage the investigation. > > > > Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the industrial process in national > > weapons labs that enriches the energy content of nuclear fuel rods and > > > warheads by adding more of the fissionable U-235 isotope. What's left > > is a concentrated metal waste that is about twice as dense as lead, > > but 40 percent less radioactive than uranium in its natural form. > > > > A DU-hardened projectile can bore straight through an enemy tank. DU > > shrapnel also ignites, engulfing the target in fire. > > > > What happens then has been studied by several government labs and > > international agencies with varying conclusions. > > > > The Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., and > > > other labs suggest that DU fragments embedded in the muscle of > > laboratory rats cause cancerous tumors. > > > > But do the animal trials really mimic battlefield exposures? Studies > > of human patients and health records by the World Health Organization > > and others found no direct link to cancer rates and other illnesses. > > > > Studies by the RAND Corp. and others suggest the radiation danger from > > > handling the munitions is low. > > > > A 2002 study by the Royal Society concluded that most battlefield > > soldiers won't be at risk. But dangerous vapors are generated when the > > > weapons are fired or explode. If the particles are inhaled or > > ingested, they might settle in the kidneys and skeleton of some > > soldiers, or raise the risk of lung cancer. > > > > But at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Baltimore, more than 500 > > > urine samples from veterans concerned about DU exposure were evaluated > > > by toxicologists. The VA reported 20 samples showed elevated uranium > > levels, but those could be attributed to natural uranium in food and > water. > > > > Urine provided by patients carrying DU shrapnel in their bodies from > > friendly fire during the Persian Gulf War also showed elevated uranium > > > levels, but the higher levels were not tied to disease. > > > > DU critics complain the VA studies have examined fewer than 100 > > veterans of the 1991 conflict. > > > > ''The military's policy is don't look, don't find,'' said Dan Fahey, a > > > Navy veteran in the Persian Gulf who now works for a San Francisco > > environmental group. > > > > Fahey said: ''If they don't do proper studies of veterans, they can > > say there is no evidence of adverse health effects.'' > > > >> Note- Physicians for Social Responsibility is working on the McDermott Bill.- see following: Hi Carol > > We have endorsed the bill and we are building a DU section for the > website to support. After discussions with Mr McDermott's staff we > understand that the aim is to collect a good number of co-sponsors this > year, and then to reintroudc the bill next year with a chance of it > being adopted as an amendment to defense authroization. PSR Washington > is working with McDermoot too. Now that Defense Authorization for this > year is out of the way, we can look to getting the website up and > sending out an alert to members on this. > > thanks > > Martin Butcher > > Martin Butcher > Director of Security Programs > Physicians for Social Responsibility > 1875 Connecticut Avenue NW #1012 > Washington DC 20009 > Tel: 202 667 4260 > Fax: 202 667 4201 > Email: mbutcher@p... > Website: www.psr.org > > > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor > > ---------------------~--> Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online > > Answer To Life's Important > Questions. > > http://us.click.yahoo.com/Z_CBYA/vB5FAA/AG3JAA/6XSolB/TM > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------~ > > -> > > > > * See also: NucNews Links and Archives (by date) at http://nucnews.net > > > * > (Posted for educational and research purposes only, in accordance with > Title 17 U.S.C. section 107) * > > > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to > > http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > > --------------------------------- Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals ***************************************************************** 38 [DU-WATCH] Depleted Uranium Casualties: Care Denied Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 03:00:30 -0500 (CDT) From: Dlind49@aol.com [mailto:Dlind49@aol.com] Sent: April 1, 2004 9:42 PM To: anthony.principi@mail.va.gov Subject: Please post to all web sites and distribute to the world "Depleted Uranium Casualties: Care Denied" Dr. Doug Rokke, Ph.D. Major (retired) United States Army Reserve Former Director U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project April 1, 2004 Although published U.S. Army regulations and "Medical Management of Unusual Depleted Uranium Exposures" (Headquarters, Department of the Army, October 14, 1993) require that military medical treatment facility personnel provide a radio-bioassay within 24 hours of depleted uranium contamination exposure and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs directives also specify completion of a radiobioasay followed by relevant medical care for all individuals who were exposed to uranium contamination via inhalation, ingestion, absorption, or wound contamination while: "a. Being in the midst of smoke from DU fires resulting from the burning of vehicles uploaded with DU munitions or depots in which DU munitions are being stored. b. Working within environments containing DU dust or residues from DU fires. c. Being within a structure or vehicle while it is struck by DU munitions." medical care has been willfully denied to the majority of DU casualties who are supposed to receive care. Gulf War Review (Volume 12, No. 1, and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs) states that as of September 2003, only two hundred and sixty two (262) veterans had been tested for depleted uranium exposures. This is only a fraction of the 424 Gulf War 1 depleted uranium friendly fire and recovery team veterans who were exposed to uranium contamination during Gulf War 1 according to a September 28, 1998 briefing provided to President William Clinton's Presidential Special Oversight Board under Senator Warren Rudman by Office of Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses officials under the U.S. Secretary of Defense. However the 424 number of exposed individuals is only a fraction of the thousands of U.S. and U.S. coalition forces who were exposed and it does not include thousands of Iraqi military personnel and none of the thousands of civilians and non-combatants who were exposed during combat operations, DU weapons manufacturing, or DU weapons testing. While a small fraction of confirmed U.S. DU casualties have received medical care, all other confirmed or suspected DU casualties have been and still are being denied medical care. This required medical care must be provided to all exposed individuals independent of whether they are combatants or non-combatants. They must be provided immediate medical care now! The excuses must stop! THE DENIAL OF MEDICAL CARE MUST STOP! But even when very limited medical care has been provided to veterans, including myself, with U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs service-connected disabilities they are billed for their medical care and prescriptions. Then when they refuse to pay the illegal bill they have received formal letters from U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs officials threatening garnishment of their disability check to pay for service connected medical care. This practice must stop. In addition, the confirmed mismanagement and loss of individual military service medical records and personnel records that has occurred at the U.S Department of Defense National Records and ARPERSCOM / HSC under the command of Colonel Debra Cook, U.S. Army, located in St. Louis Missouri must cease. As the confirmed Gulf War 1 casualty count that including our nation's finest sons and daughters exceeds 221,000 injured and/or ill with over 10000 dead and the confirmed Gulf War 2 casualty count exceeds 18,004 and over 600 dead as of March 30, 2004 it is time for President George W. Bush, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi, and Secretary of Defense William Rumsfeld to solve the problems of denied, delayed, and ineffective medical care. It is time for them to stop the billing of our nation's heroes for medical care they earned while serving our nation! WE MUST TAKE CARE OF OUR NATION'S VETERANS AND NOT CONTINUE THEIR ABANDONMENT [Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 39 The Uranium Munitions Pledge of Resistance Date: Sat, 03 Apr 2004 16:49:47 -0800 The Uranium Munitions Pledge of Resistance An Action Proposal With Footnoted Analysis To: Veterans for Peace, Traprock Peace Center, Dan Fahey, Robert Gould, All Others Interested --by John Lewallen 1. Please accept this humble offering from my winter's work. I look forward to being in groups with you to lovingly work for an end to war on Earth. I'm proposing a worldwide campaign of nonviolent resistance to the use of uranium munitions. Please sign and circulate the URANIUM MUNITIONS PLEDGE OF RESISTANCE: "I WILL NOT USE, NOR ORDER THE USE OF, URANIUM MUNITIONS." I believe the strategy of person-by-person nonviolent resistance is the best way to speed the end of uranium munition use on Earth. It's something each of us can do now to start out. Organized, it could be a powerful way of encouraging nonviolent noncooperation with war itself. Many other strategies--legal, political, ecucational--are urgently needed to counter the Big Institutional Lie that uranium munitions are no big problem. With Major Doug Rokke, I IMPLORE YOU TO ACT1 Below I have tried to summarize the amazing set of factors that today have made uranium the state-of-the-art deep-penetration munition metal for U.S. armed forces worldwide, dooming U.S. troops using it to a highly toxic and mutagenic battlefield environment filled with uranium vapor, which has been known as a chemical and radiological warfare agent since 1943. This means that, based on what happened to Gulf War 1991 vets, at least one out of three soldiers sent to Iraq today will be disabled by the toxins encountered there within ten years. The strategy of nonviolent resistance is required because the fastest conceivable effective ban on uranium munitions is several years away at best. The absolute Pentagon commitment to a weapon that is creating millions of human casualties worldwide by poisoning the environment with uranium oxide particles has created a Big Institutional Lie with tentacles everywhere, all focused on one thing: keep using uranium munitions! Stop Using Uranium Munitions Now! I begin my report on the health effects of uranium munitions with a heartfelt personal appeal: stop using uranium munitions now! If you are the President of the United States, or under the President's command, you are commiting a war crime by using, or ordering the use, of uranium munitions. If you are a soldier about to use a uranium bullet, missile or bomb, don't do it. The uranium oxide vapors unleashed when you pull the trigger put both you and your target in a battlefield gas environment of tiny, deadly, mutagenic uranium oxide particles. These tiny uranium oxide particles made when up to seventy per cent of the uranium projectile you shoot burns on friction and impact will stay in the environment as long as the Earth exists, bringing death, a host of diseases, and mutation to many living creatures. Summary: Uranium is the leading deep-penetration metal used today in United States military munitions worldwide. Uranium combines superior density with the tendency to sharpen and burn on impact. The first wartime use of uranium munitions was in 1991, when United Nations forces used an estimated 320 tons of uranium munitions in Iraq, primarily in anti-tank munitions in desert warfare. 2. These munitions contributed to the complete neutralization of the Iraqi tank forces, so much so that during the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, many Iraqi tanks were abandoned unused. All commentary on uranium munitions is colored by the fact that U.S. armed forces worldwide are fully committed to the use of uranium munitions. The official U.S. military position is that uranium munitions pose no toxic or radioactive health danger to anyone. 3. In fact, as has been known by the U.S. military since 1943, when the inventors of the atomic bomb described uranium vapor as an agent of chemical and radiological warfare, breathable uranium is a horrific weapon with both chemical and radiological toxicity. 4. Extensive testing of uranium munitions show that from ten to seventy per cent of the uranium vaporizes on impact, in particle sizes ranging down to the microscopic. 5. Today in 2004, thirteen years after the first massive use of uranium munitions, countless thousands or millions of its victims cry in vain for relief as the United States and other military forces continue to use uranium munitions. Anyone seeking to end this suicidal chemical and radiological gas warfare is confronting one of the biggest institutional lies in history, the lie that uranium munitions pose no long-term or widespread health hazard. This lie is so huge, and has so many tentacles and subtleties, that it has become institutional orthodoxy in the United States. The truth, as it is being pieced together by dedicated, disciplined, peer-reviewed scientists worldwide, is too horrifying for most people to contemplate. The vaporized, ceramic uranium oxides which billow as smoke from an impacting uranium munition have poisoned the human environment with minute, undetectable uranium oxide particles which will remain radioactive and toxic for the lifetime of Earth. Unlike natural uranium, which is soluble, breathed uranium oxide particles are insoluble, and become lodged in the human body if breathed, remaining there for many years, causing a host of diseases. Uranium oxides are mutagenic, attacking the genetic code which allows the human race to reproduce without crippling mutation. 6. Today the United States military forces are fully committed to a munition metal which, based on U.S. Veterans Affairs disability statistics on veterans of the 1991 Gulf War, will, along with the effects of other toxins in Iraq, disable one out of three battlefield troops who use uranium munitions within a decade of their exposure. To repeat: ONE-THIRD OF THE VETERANS OF THE 1991 GULF WAR ARE DISABLED TEN YEARS AFTER THE WAR. 7. THE AGES-OLD CLASH OF SPEAR AND SHIELD "Briefing on Depleted Uranium," Colonel James Naughton, U.S. Army Materiel Command, March 14, 2003: (Image of burned, blackened, and shattered Iraqi tank on screen) "Why do we use it (depleted uranium)? This is the result. What we want to be able to do is strike the target from farther away than we can be hit back, and we want the target to be destroyed when we shoot at it. We don't want to see rounds bouncing off. We don't want to put our soldiers in the position that you see, if you watch 'Kelly's Heroes,' where they load tank rounds with paint in order to blind the target. And I'm sure everybody in here has probably seen 'Kelly's Heroes' once, because in World War II we faced a problem of not having the overreach we have today. "We don't ever want to go back to that. And we don't want to fight even. Nobody goes into a war and wants to be even with the enemy. We want to be ahead, and depleted uranium gives us that advantage. We can hit, and they can't hit us." 8. The story of how uranium munitions, and uranium armoring, became today's state-of-the-art metal of war worldwide begins with the ages-old desire of military forces to have superior spears and shields: spears that will fly farther than the enemy's and penetrate the opponent's best armor, and armor that will stop any spear the enemy can throw. In the 1960s tungsten carbide was the primary metal used by the U.S. armed forces for armor-piercing projectiles. Tungsten carbide could not reliably penetrate the double-and triple-plated armor developed in the 1960s, touching off a scramble to invent a better armor penetrator. That decade the military began experimenting with uranium as an armor-piercing metal. Tungsten carbide continued to be favored over uranium, for two reasons: problems in developing a consistent alloy, and penetration tests that failed to show clear superiority of uranium over tungsten carbide against older-model Soviet tanks. In the early seventies, it became clear that the latest-generation armors would be impenetrable by tungsten carbide. Also, tests by the Air Force and Navy using small-caliber uranium rounds (20-,25-, and 30mm) clearly showed the penetration superiority of uranium rounds. Extensive Army testing for a better tank round metal for the 105mm M68 tank gun led to the XM774 Cartride Program in 1973, which used an alloy of uranium and titanium in an improved design that allowed the uranium core to withstand high acceleration without breaking up. In the words of John Pike of <www.GlobalSecurity.org>: "Since the selection of depleted uranium for the XM774 cartridge, all major developments in tank ammunition have selected depleted uranium, including the 105mm M833 series and the 120mm M829 series (the latter being the primary anti-armor round used in the Gulf War). This pattern continues today, with the latest generation of the 105mm M900 series and the 25mm M919 for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle." 9. When a uranium round is fired, friction and impact vaporize from ten to seventy per cent of the uranium, depending on what the round hits. Uranium is pyrophoric, meaning it burns on friction and impact. Also, unlike tungsten which dulls when it penetrates, uranium rounds shatter and burn as they penetrate armor, sharpening the round as it goes. In 1991, uranium munitions turned Iraqi tanks into hellish crematoria thick with breathable, burning particles of uranium. Today very few people know the full extent of the use of uranium, depleted or fully radioactive uranium, as a metal of penetration by the world's armed forces. A cloak of secrecy and web of deception make it impossible for an ordinary soul to know when, where, and how much uranium has been used on bullets, artillery rounds, bombs and missiles worldwide. The Groves Memo: Gas Warfare With Uranium Vapor In 1943, the Manhattan Project scientists, racing to beat Hitler in inventing the atomic bomb, realized the Germans might use vaporized uranium as a gas warfare agent, or that U.S. forces might want to use it. Here is a quote from the "Groves Memo" written by Drs. James B. Conant, A.H. Compton, and H.C. Urey to General L.R. Groves on October 30, 1943 (the "material" referred to is uranium): "As a gas warfare instrument the material would be ground into particles of microscopic size to form dust and smoke and distributed by a ground-fired projectile, land vehicles, or aerial bombs. In this form it would be inhaled by personnel. The amount necessary to cause death to a person inhaling the material is extremely small. It is estimated that one millionth of a gram accumulating in a person's body would be fatal. There are no known methods of treatment for such a casualty. "Two factors appear to increase the effectiveness of radioactive dust or smoke as a weapon. These are: 1) It cannot be detected by the senses; 2) It can be distributed in a dust or smoke form so finely powdered that it will permeate a standard gas mask filter in quantities large enough to be extremely damaging. An off-setting factor in its effectiveness as a weapon is that in a dust or smoke form the material is so finely pulverized that it takes on the characteristic of a quickly dissipating gas and is therefore subject to all the factors (such as wind) working against maintenance of high concentrations for more than a few minutes over a given area.... "Areas so contaminated by radioactive dusts and smokes, would be dangerous as long as a high enough concentration of material could be maintained...they can be stirred up as a fine dust from the terrain by winds, movement of vehicles or troops, etc., and would remain a potential hazard for a long time.... "Particles larger than 1 micron in size are likely to be deposited in nose, trachea or bronchi and then be brought up with mucus on the walls at the rate of 1/2-1 cm/min. Particles smaller than 1 micron are more likely to be deposited in the alveoli where they will either remain indefinitely or be absorbed into the lympatics or blood." 10. The Clouds of Hell: Baghdad, October 1, 2003 The Uranium Medical Research Centre, a nonprofit research group, sent a bold team of sample-collectors into Baghdad in the fall of 2003 to collect soil, water and urine samples for uranium contamination testing. Here is part of their report on the U.S. battlefield cleanup effort in Baghdad, October, 2003: "The most disturbing circumstance was observed in the U.S. occupied base in south-western Baghdad in the Auweirj district. It is close to the International Airport and hosts one of the largest Coalition bases around Baghdad....The area was subject to considerable aerial bombing and rocket fire prior to the Coalition ground forces' arrival followed by several ground skirmishes along the main routes to the International Airport and western entrances to the city. "Leaving the downtown core for Auweirj requires crossing one of the elevated bridges over the Tigris Rover. The raised bridge provides a long view towards the south/southwest. On October 1, the team's third day in Baghdad, this view was interrupted by an enormous dust cloud hovering over a several hectare area, rising upwards of 300 meters (1000 ft.). The cloud slowly traversed Auweirj...Auweirj contains a wealthy residential neighbourhood...Some of the highest overall ambient air and ground surface radioactivity readings were measured in Auweirj... "As the team's vehicle approached Auweirj, the cloud was blanketing the Coalition-occupied base, depositing a layer of fresh dust on people, houses, automobiles, and the highway. We had to turn on the windshield wipers. Departing the Coalition-occupied base was a long, steady stream of tandem-axle dump trucks carrying full loads of sand, heading south away from the city. Returning from the south was a second stream of fully loaded dump trucks waiting to enter the base....The soil removal was lofting tonnes of fine, light dust into the local environment, which was then falling back to inundate square kilometores of residential neighbourhoods and Coalition occupied facilities." 11. A Deadly Pack of Pentagon Lies: Michael Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. (Econ.) Representing the U.S. Department of Defense Iraq Deployment Health Support Directorate, Dr. Michael Kirkpatrick made the following statements on March 14, 2003: "Depleted uranium is 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium around us. And so when it's outside the body it's just not an issue. It's only when it's internalized--either by inhaling the dust, the oxide, as Colonel Naughton said when there is penetration of armor, it does self-sharpen and it does create an oxide dust. And there are people who were in or on the vehicles that were struck in friendly fire, who did inhale that oxide, and we have not seen any medical consequence from that.... "When DU does strike armor and that oxide is created, it falls to the ground very quickly--usually within about a 50-meter range. As Colonel Naughton said, it's heavy. It's 1.7 times as heavy as lead. So even if it's a small dust particle, it's still very heavy. And it stays on the ground.... "Our studies in the United States over 15 years have not shown depleted uranium going from the soil into the groundwater. It just does not move from the round that is in the soil. And the bottom line is there is going to be no impact on the health of the people in the environment, or people who were there at the time it was shot."12. The Vanishing Urine Samples In 1991 the victorious Gulf War veterans returned outwardly unscathed from the Iraqi battlefields, having taken only small numbers of visible casualties. However, they had been exposed to a staggering array of toxins, including rushed vaccinations and breathable vapors from uranium munitions. That same year Dr. Asaf Durakovic, who at the time was also a Colonel in the U.S. Army, became aware that Major Doug Rokke, who had been doing cleanup work to remove U.S. military vehicles destroyed by "friendly fire" in Kuwait and Iraq, was seeking medical treatment for several U.S. and British soldiers who were showing a wide array of symptoms which suggested the possibility of poisoning by inhaled uranium vapors. Both Maj. (also Dr.) Rokke and Col. Durakovic were under specific orders to protect U.S. troops from the health hazards of uranium munitions. Dr. Durakovic, Director of Nuclear Medicine at a VA hospital, immediately agreed to treat the sick troops. An expert in the toxicology of uranium and other radioactive materials, Dr. Durakovic took urine samples from the sick soldiers, and sent them by registered mail to a lab in Aberdeen, Maryland for analysis of uranium content, broken down into the different uranium isopopes, which could indicate the source of the contamination. "The urine samples never arrived in Aberdeen," Dr.Durkovic recalled in a 2003 interview. "All my inquiries were futile. Patients had renal surgeries, they were very sick, and some died." Dr. Durkovic then had to endure constant verbal attack from many quarters to continue his work of protecting U.S. troops from battlefield uranium vapor contamination. The same thing happened to Major Rokke. Then began an internal struggle of the soul within the United States military establishment, as the impulse to find out the truth and protect human health gave way first to the deeper military instinct to cling to the superior metal of penetration at all costs, and now also to the chilling knowledge that everyone in a responsible position who has claimed that uranium munitions pose no significant chemical or radiologcal hazard to human or environmental health is potentially liable for damages and guilty of crimes under U.S. and international law. Today, Dr. Asaf Durakovic and Major Doug Rokke, are two leaders of an international movement to stop the use of uranium munitions. As Director of the Uranium Medical Research Center, Dr. Durakovic brings his lifelong expertise in the medical effects of radiation to the field study of the leavings of uranium munitions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Every serious student of the health and environmental effects of uranium munitions is well-advised to read Dr. Durakovic's two key articles, "Medical Effects of Internal Contamination With Radiation," and "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare." 14. These two scientific, peer-reviewed articles thick with references to actual research studies offer an ordinary person the best basis for sorting out the truth about the health effects of uranium munitions from the multitude of misunderstandings, lies and distortions. Doug Rokke has become "The Flying Squirrel," his nickname as a B52 pilot in Vietnam, a short and very energetic speaker hopping, shouting and gesticulating in an Oct. 2,2003 speech before the Humboldt County, California, Veterans for Peace. Major Rokke believes a lot of his superior officers are lying war criminals who should be brought to prosecution, and he read written, signed orders and statements to lie and cover-up the horrible toxicity of uranium munitions. 15. The Disappearing Medical Records In 1995, Congressman Christopher Shays (R-CT), contacted his friend Robert Newman, a retired journalist, to help him investigate a strange new disease, or diseases, sweeing through Gulf War veterans. "The Congressman was receiving a disturbing number of letters and e-mails from sick veterans in his district complaining that, when trying to get treatment at veterans hospitals, they were told, 'It's all in your head.' They weren't getting any help," Mr. Newman recalled in a 2001 interview. 16. Congressman Shays held fifteen hearings on what came to be called "Gulf War Syndrome" for the committe he chaired, the Subcommittee on Security, Veterans Issues, and International Relations, beginning March, 1996. After interviewing veterans and experts in various fields, the subcommittee concluded that Gulf War Syndrome was caused by radiation and/or chemical substances they encountered during their military service in Iraq, such as PB and untested vaccines they were forced to take. "We learned that the medical records of nearly all the veterans had disappeared," Newman said. "For the five years or so it took Congress to launch this investigation, the Defense Department and Veterans Administration took their time responding to veterans who sought treatment or compensation. In the end, the requests were refused. At best, they took folks in but insisted the symptoms were just due to stress.." 17. Disability Compensation Without Investigating Cause In October, 1998, Congress passed two laws based on the findings of the 14 bipartisan members of Congressman Shay's subcommittee. "The gist of those laws," Robert Newman explained, "is this. One stipulates that even without medical records, the illneses of Gulf War veterans must be recognized as due to their service in the Middle East, and the Defense Department and the Veterans Administration are required to offer prompt and appropriate treatment and compensation. The other one...prohibits the administration of any experimental drugs to soldiers without their consent." This law opened the way for the Veterans Administration to award full disability to 221,000 Gulf War veterans with a host of symptoms by September, 2002, with thousands of cases still pending. It also diverted attention away from any scientific inquiry into the causes of Gulf War Syndrome. When Hiroshima newsman Akira Tashiro interviewed Robert Newman in 2001, he was still devoted to monitoring the Veterans Administration for just treatment and compensation for Gulf War Syndrome victims. "The laws are absolutely inadequate," Robert Newman said, because full treatment and compensation would cost an impossibly large sum of money. Based on what he had learned about the probable long-term medical effects of breathing battlefield uranium vapors, Newman expressed worries that, for the next ten years, cancer and neurological disorder will increase among Gulf War veterans. 18. Mutant Science: The 1998 Rand Report A prime example of what one might call "Mutant Science" --truth chopped up and spliced with lie to make the Big Institutional Lie--is the 1999 Rand Report which concluded, and I quote, "Although any increase in radiation to the human body can be calculated to be harmful from extrapolation from higher levels, there are no peer reviewed published reports of detectable increases of cancer or other negative health effects from radiation exposure to inhaled or ingested natural uranium at levels far exceeding those likely in the Gulf. This is mainly because the body is very effective at eliminating ingested and inhaled natural uranium and because the low radioactivity per unit mass of natural uranium and DU means that the mass of uranium needed for significant internal exposure is virtually impossible to obtain....Large variations in exposure to radioactivity from natural uranium in the normal environment have not been associated with negative health effects." 19. The 1999 Rand Report on Depleted Uranium, prepared by a research think-tank on contract with the U.S. Department of Defense, provides the "scientific basis" for the Pentagon's claim that uranium munitions pose no hazard to human health or the environment. It is a review of the literature, brushing aside such evidence as Major Rokke has gained by doing actual clean-up and testing of uranium munitions as not being "peer-reviewed published reports." It says first, "any increase in radiation to the human body can be calculated to be harmful from extrapolation from higher levels." In reality, since 1991, worldwide evidence of horrific casualties with multiple symptoms has been found wherever uranium munitions have been used. The lack of "peer-reviewed published reports" linking negative health effects to inhaled battlefield uranium vapors is a flat-out lie; see Dr. Durkavoic's two key studies referred to above. "...the mass of uranium needed for significant internal exposure is virtually impossible to obtain." This is blatantly untrue, both because battlefield concentrations of uranium vapor are massive, and because even one minute particle of uranium oxide lodged inside a person's body can cause the destruction of dna in adjoining cells. Toxic Forever, Radioactive for The Expected Lifetime of Earth As the armies of the United States range across the Earth showering bullets, artillery rounds, bombs and missiles, it is known only to insiders what type of uranium is being used, how much, or where. Quoting the Rand report, "The material generally used by the U.S. Department of Defense is 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium." 20. However, Uranium Medical Research Center field investigations found that natural uranium bombs and munitions had been used by the United States in Afghanistan during 2002, heavily contaminating the population and environment. 21. Even the March, 2003 Pentagon briefing on uranium munitions noted that some reactor-generated "transuranics" are used in uranium munitions, indicating that nuclear reactor waste is used in uranium munitions. 22. Whether the munition is natural or so-called "depleted uranium", the tons of breathable, alpha-emitting uranium oxides being generated as I write will penetrate throughout the entire environment and remain, virtually undetectable, chemically and radioactively toxic for the lifetime of Earth. The Big Lie is Institutional Truth, The Truth is Heresy: Dan Fahey and Dr. Robert Gould Anyone seeking to rescue the human race from this ongoing suicide mission to permeate the biosphere with breathable uranium oxide particles is confronting one of the most elaborately constructed institutional lies in history. Consider the work of Dan Fahey, "an independent policy analyst on the uses and effects of depleted uranium munitions." 23. Dan Fahey's credentials are similar to mine: I am also an independent policy analyst studying the health and environmental effects of using uranium munitions. I have a record of military analysis writing going back to my book "Ecology of Devastation: Indochina" (Penguin Books, 1972), an ecological analysis of the U.S. war in Indochina, including early information on the effects of the herbicide Agent Orange. Today I finance my research and writing with my cottage industry, the Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company. I do not know how Dan Fahey finances his work. Today Dan Fahey is the leading critic of "depleted" uranium munitions informing the U.S. Congress and mainstream press. Dr. Robert Gould, President of Physicians for Social Responsibility, recommended Dan Fahey as an authoritative expert on uranium munitions to me. In a phone conversation with me, Dr. Gould rejected the idea that uranium munitions pose a major danger to the human race. "It's not Hiroshima," he said. (In fact, the 320 tons or more of uranium munitions used in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War constituted the greatest environmental release of vaporized radioactivity in human history until the recent hostilities in Afghanistan and Iraq, much greater than Hiroshima. 24.) At an October, 2003, meeting of activists which I facilitated in Philo, California, Dr. Gould heard information brought by Humboldt County Veterans for Peace, who had just heard a speech and received information about uranium munitions from Dr. Doug Rokke. Dr. Gould sent me this email message on November 19, 2003: "As I mentioned at the teach-in, I believe that DU is a toxic material because of its heavy-metal and radioactive qualities, and I think it should be banned as a weapon, that there should be good studies of civilians and soldiers and that clean-up should proceed without waiting for the results of these studies. But I don't believe that DU is the most toxic material around (compared with highly radioactive waste, for example), and I think that much of the material presented at the teach-in is overstated based on available evidence and knowledge of the chemistry, and when so presented, obscures other significant potential contributors to observed health effects (oil fires and leaks, release of CW agents from warfare, the legacy of dirty Iraqi industrialization, immunization of troops, nutritional effects of sanctions, etc.) Particularly since most of 'us' will agree on 'what needs to be done,' I remain puzzled by the apparent need for many in the progressive movement to put out such limited monocausal 'science' to convince people, since there are abundant credible arguments (as in the Dan Fahey material I sent you prior to the meeting) that better make the points." Dan Fahey is a leading critical authority on uranium munitions in the United States today. Reading Dan Fahey's initial assessment on uranium munitions used in Iraq during 2003, this researcher has concluded that I am witnessing the Big Institutional Lie being used to delude, and to keep the uranium munitions reform movement from making any serious efforts to stop the use of uranium munitions. Dan Fahey's assessment begins by noting that although "there is little known about the actual quantities of DU released or the locations of contamination, it appears approximately 100 to 200 netric tons was shot at tanks, trucks, buildings and people in largely densely populated areas." As Tedd Weyman noted in the "Iraq Gulf War II Field Investigation Report," "there is a significant discrepancy between the independent reports that rely on official government and defence department numbers (i.e. 100-200 metric tonnes) and the 1000 to 2000 metric tonnes of DU attributed to estimates by unnamed United Nations Environment Program and Pentagon sources." 26. Mr. Fahey denounced the "pre-war propaganda" of lies used by the White House and Pentagon early in 2003 "to justify the use of DU munitions as a military necessity, and to dismiss concerns about the health and environmental effects of the use of DU munitions." Quoting a January 2003 White House report which stated that "scientists working for the World Health Organization, the UN Environmental Program, and the European Union could find no health effects linked to exposure to depleted uranium," Dan Fahey noted that "scientists from these organizations never looked for health effects linked to exposure in DU in any post-combat environment." Fahey went on to document several of the lies used by Dr. Michael Kilpatrick at the March 14, 2003 press conference on uranium munitions, which, he wrote, "perhaps reflected an urgency to deflect criticism and concern about DU on the eve of war."27. Mr. Fahey's vigorous critique of the Big Pentagon Lie that uranium munitions pose no major hazard to human or environmental health is followed by an equally vigorous assertion of that lie. Mr. Fahey does not want to see uranium munitions banned, or use of uranium munitions stopped. Dan Fahey's policy recommendations are limited to better informing U.S. troops about uranium munitions, bioassays of U.S. troops with extreme battlefield exposure, revelation of when and where uranium munitions have been used, cleanup of "DU sites," and more studies of the problem. Mr.Fahey urges a health assessment of all the troops who, in his estimate, were extremely exposed to uranium munitions in 1991, who, he wrote, are just 900 in number. 28. Then Dan Fahey's report attacks "anti-DU activists and people using the DU issue to further other political agendas or raise money." First, Mr. Fahey quotes an unnamed source from the "UK Green Party" making various unfounded claims about uranium munitions. Then he tars Drs. Doug Rokke and Asaf Durakovic with the same brush, to discredit and dismiss their devoted life's work to discover and reveal the true health effects of uranium munitions. Dan Fahey accuses Doug Rokke of making "exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims." 29. Then comes this blood-chilling paragraph by Dan Fahey, independent researcher on depleted uranium munitions: "The old myth that large quantities of DU are used in missiles and bombs has taken a new twist with the claim that 'non-depleted uranium' is being secretly used in hard target, deep penetration, and DBHT (deeply buried hard target) weapons that combine uranium with high explosives. Citing unspecified 'government reports and independent research,' the Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC) claims these new warheads contain '100s to1000s of kilograms' of uranium that is 'extracted from the nuclear fuels and nuclear weapons production cycles prior to the uranium enrichment phase.' UMRC claims that secret use of uranium is responsible for illnesses in Afghanistan, but this assertion is undermined by the lack of any evidence that any missiles or bombs used in Afghanistan contain any natural or depleted uranium." 30. Is The United States Military Using Uranium in Bombs and Missiles? The full scope of U.S. military use of uranium munitions is secret. So how the hell does Dan Fahey, an independent researcher like me, know that it is an unsubstantiated "myth" that uranium is used by the U.S. in bombs and missiles? The Uranium Medical Research Centre discovery that non-depleted uranium was used in bullets and bombs in Afghanistan is based on field work and sophisticated urine analysis for the different isotopes of uranium. First the UMRC found that the isotope content indicated natural uranium contamination in Afghanistan, not depleted uranium. Testing further, the UMRC found ceramic uranium in the urine of Afghans, indicating that the extreme heat of burning munitions had produced the uranium. This, according to Dr. Durakovic, has made some Afghan valleys permanently uninhabitable. 31. Dr. Doug Rokke also is sure there is uranium in many of the bombs and missiles used by US armed forces today. The basic evidence he cites is the burning, glowing metal clearly visible on CNN views of the 2003 "shock and awe" attack on Baghdad: uranium, according to Dr. Rokke, is the only penetration metal which burns on impact. 32. A Call to Action: Stop Using Uranium Munitions Now! In today's competition for attention to issues, the issue of uranium munitions is easily buried and forgotten. Dr. Robert Gould, President of the Physicians for Social Responsibility, advised me to worry about something more dangerous like "high-level radioactive waste" in the email quoted above. In order to cause effective change, groups such as Veterans for Peace and Physicians for Social Responsibility will need to focus on uranium munitions, and organize long-term, relentless campaigns to end the use of uranium munitions. Is this going to happen? The only Congressional bill dealing with the hazards of uranium munitions--the "Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act of 2003" (HR 1483, sponsored by Rep. McDermott)--is, in my view, not worthy of support. In calling only for studies of the problem and cleaup of US uranium munitions test sites, it deludes and defuses the worldwide effort to halt the ongoing catastrophe of uranium munition use. How likely is it that the U.S. military, fully committed to uranium munitions and uranium armor as state-of-the-art, involved in shooting wars in several nations worldwide now--how likely is it that they are going to drop their radioactive munitions and be like "Kelly's Heroes" again, with the second-best metal of war in the world? I actually dropped the topic in despair last fall, until I heard that my future son-in-law was about to be deployed to Iraq with his private company. Now we're talking about the genetic integrity of my bloodline! So I tossed off a brief piece, "Do Not Force Our Children to Breathe Uranium!" My daughter's fiance quit that job and stayed out of Iraq. It is time for everyone on Earth to stop using uranium munitions now! A campaign of nonviolent noncooperation, informed by group effort, seems the most effective strategy. The Big Institutional Lie is going to keep uranium munitions poisoning people and environments for some time, but we can, in small and big ways, refuse to pull the trigger on uranium munitions. Notes 1.John Lewallen is a writer and peace activist focused in 2004 on uranium munitions and their health and environmental consequences. His published books include "Ecology of Devastation: Indochina" (Penguin Books, 1972), and "High-Altitude Nuclear War" (NuclearPress.com, 2002), an analysis of today's great-power nuclear weapons confrontation available from Amazon.com Books. He supports himself with income from his cottage industry, the Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company, and maintains the website <www.NuclearPress.com>. 2. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium," Colonel James Naughton, March 14, 2003 <www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2003/t03142003_t314depu.html>. The use of 320 tons of uranium munitions in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War is a U.S. Department of Defense estimate. An authoritative Iraqi estimate is that 800 tons of uranium munitions were used by the U.S. and allied forces during the 1991 war, with more than 300 tons used in western Basra, Iraq (Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, Director of the Oncology Center, Basra, Iraq, "Effects of wars and the use of depleted uranium on Iraq," Japan Peace Conference, Naha, Okinawa, Jan.29-Feb.1, 2004 <www.afsc.org/newengland/pesp/effects-of-wars.ppt>. 3."Briefing on Depleted Uranium," March 2003. 4. "Memorandum to:Brigadier General L.R. Groves, from Drs. Conant, Compton, and Urey," Oct. 30, 1943, declassified June 5, 1974, supplied by Major Doug Rokke <www.mindfully.org/Nucs/Groves-Memo-Manhattan30oct43.htm>, hereinafter referred to as the "Groves Memo." 5."RAND Report on Depleted Uranium," RAND, 1999, p.4, hereinafter referred to as the "RAND Report" <www.gulflink.osd.mil/library/randrep/du/index.html>. 6. Durakovic, Asaf, "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare," Croatian Medical Journal, Vol.44, No.5, 2003, pps. 520-532. 7. See the National Gulf War Resource Center website for the latest Veterans Affairs disability statistics <www.ngwrc.org>. 8. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium, 2003." 9. John Pike, <www.GlobalSecurity.org>, page on "Depleted Uranium," is my source for this thumbnail history of uranium munitions as a super-metal. 10. Groves Memo. 11. Weyman, Tedd, Iraq Field Team Lead, "Abu Khasib to Ah'qua: Iraq Gulf War II Field Investigation Report" <www.umrc.net>, p. 14. 12. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium, 2003." 13. Dr. Asaf Durakovic, audio interview, 2003 <www.traprockpeace.org>. 14. Durakovic, Asaf, "Medical Effects of Internal Contamination With Uranium," Croatian Medical Journal, Vol. 40, No. 1, March, 1999; and "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare," Croatian Medical Journal, Vol.44, No.5, 2003, pps. 520-532. 15. Major Doug Rokke, Oct. 2,2003 speech for Veterans for Peace, Humboldt County, California, on video. 16. Tashiro, Akira, "Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium," published 2001 in Hiroshima, Japan, by The Chugoku Shimbun, p. 34. 17. Ibid., p. 35. 18. Ibid. 19. Rand Report, Chapter 3, p. 1. 20. Rand Report, p. 2. 21. Durakovic, Asaf, "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare," section on "Afghanistan Uranium Studies." 22. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium," March, 2003. 23. Fahey, Dan, "The Use of Depleted Uranium in the 2003 Iraq War: An Initial Assessment of Information and Policies," June 24, 2003, available at <www.GlobalSecurity.org>. 24. Durakovic, Asaf, "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare." 25. Fahey, Dan, op. cit., p.1. 26. Weyman, Tedd, op. cit., p.11. 27. Fahey, Dan, op. cit., p.2. 28. Ibid., pp.8-10. 29. Ibid., p.11. 30. Ibid., p.12. 31. Dr.Asaf Durakovic, audio interview, 2003, available at <www.traprockpeace.org>. 32. Major Doug Rokke, October 2, 2003 speech. ***************************************************************** 40 [DU-WATCH] there are no words...radiation in Iraq=250,000 Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2004 23:42:17 -0600 (CST) PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE WIDELY! http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Nichols0327.htm There Are No Words ... Radiation in Iraq Equals 250,000 Nagasaki Bombs by Bob Nichols www.dissidentvoice.org March 27, 2004 As a writer I do not have a set of words to describe what 142 Degrees in the shade is like. I've seen 120 D. in Phoenix and 110 D in the spa's sauna I use. One hundred forty-two degrees leaves me speechless. Try to imagine 142 D temperature while wearing a helmet, long sleeve shirt, long pants, a bullet proof vest, boots, and carrying a 70 pound pack. By contrast the Inuit of Alaska and Canada have thirty-seven words to precisely talk about different kinds of snow. So, since the temperature is heating up in Iraq it seemed like a good time to float this story to different Internet sites and news publications. There was one story in 2003 of one 19 year old British soldier whose military job was to work in a British tank. In Iraq. In the summer. Word is, from London, that he forgot to drink enough water and he literally cooked in his tank. But, this story is not about the temperature in Iraq. You can bet, though, the weather will be really important for those Americans unfortunate enough to still be in Iraq this summer. This story is about American weapons built with Uranium components for the business end of things. Just about all American bullets, 120 mm tank shells, missiles, dumb bombs, smart bombs, 500 and 2,000 pound bombs, cruise missiles, and anything else engineered to help our side in the war of us against them has Uranium in it. Lots of Uranium. In the case of a cruise missile, as much as 800 pounds of the stuff. This article is about how much radioactive uranium our guys, representing us, the citizens of the United States, let fly in Iraq. Turns out they used about 4,000,000 pounds of the stuff, give or take. That is a bunch. Now, most people have no idea how much Four Million Pounds of anything is, much less of Uranium Dust (UD), which this stuff turns into when it is shot or exploded. Suffice it to say it is about equal to 1,333 cars that weigh three thousand pounds per car. That is a lot of cars; but, we can imagine what a parking lot with one thousand three hundred and thirty three cars is like. The point is: this was and is an industrial strength operation. It is still going on, too. No sir-ee, putting Four Million Pounds of Radioactive Uranium Dust (RUD) on the ground in Iraq was a definitely "on-purpose" kind of thing. It was not "just an accident." We, the citizens of the United States, through our kids in the Army, did this on purpose. When the uranium bullets, missiles, or bombs hit something or explode most of the radioactive uranium turns instantly to very, very small dust particles, too fine to even see. When US Troopers or Iraqis breathe even a tiny amount into their lungs, as little as One Gram, it is the same as getting an X-Ray every hour for the rest of their shortened life. The uranium cannot be removed, there is no treatment, there is no cure. The uranium will long outlast the Veterans' and the Iraqis' bodies though; for, you see, it lasts virtually forever. But, it gets worse. Seems an Admiral who is the former Chief of the Naval Staff of India wanted to know how much radiation this represented. He also wanted to express the amount in a figure that the world, especially the non American world, could easily understand. The Admiral decided to figure out how many Nagasaki Atom Bombs it would take to deliver the equivalent of the total amount of radiation deployed in Iraq in 2003 in Four Million Pounds of uranium. The Admiral also wanted to figure out how much radiation the United States Military Forces have deployed in the last Five American Wars, the so-called Five Nuclear Wars. That is a simple enough task for somebody like the Naval Chief of Staff for a country that is a member of the Nuclear Club. Using the Nagasaki bomb for the measuring stick is a particularly gruesome twist, though. For those of you in the States who do not know it, the United States Military Forces dropped two nuclear Bombs on Japan at the close of World War II. The whole world remembers that. One Atom Bomb was dropped by Americans on the city of Hiroshima, the other on the city of Nagasaki three days later. About 170,000 people were incinerated immediately. It was a really big deal. It is a measuring stick that plays very well in the rest of the world; but, not very well on Fox News (Fair & Balanced) (c) or the rest of the Fox-like American media. The Department of Energy still lists the Hiroshima and Nagasaki detonations as "tests." The admiral released the data months ago at a scientific conference in India. This article is the first report of the data in the United States. It will first be released on the Internet. The admiral in India calculated the number of radioactive atoms in the Nagasaki bomb and compared it with the number in the 4,000,000 pounds of uranium left in Iraq from the 2003 war. Now, believe me, it is a lot more complex than that; but, that is essentially what the experts in India did. How many Nagasaki Nuclear Bombs equal the Radiation loosed in the 2003 Iraq war? Answer: About 250,000 Nuclear Bombs. How many Nagasaki Nuclear Bombs equal the Radiation loosed in the last Five American Nuclear Wars? Answer: About 400,000 Nuclear Bombs. Who would do something like this? We would. The only people in the history of the world to engage in Nuclear Wars are Americans, citizens of the United States. Allegedly, the Germans and Japanese of WWII also wanted to engage in nuclear wars, except the American Military beat them to the draw, so to speak. Respected academic scholars could debate forever whether or not Herr Hitler, Fuhrer of Germany, would have deployed uranium munitions in the Sudetenland if the weapons had been available. Certainly the Germans knew just as much about uranium wars as we did at the time. It seems doubtful that Adolph Hitler would have ordered the use of uranium munitions there because the Sudetenland was so close to the Fatherland, Nazi Germany. An American General named Leslie Groves was in charge of the bomb making operation called The Manhattan Project. In 1943 The War Department knew exactly what uranium bullets and bombs were good for. If the nuclear weapons did not detonate in Japan, the use of uranium bullets and bombs were the fall back position. It was not till Ronald Reagan was President in 1980 did the re-named Defense Department resurrect the deadly radioactive uranium bullets, bombs, and missiles. No wonder his popular nick-name was Ronnie Ray-Guns. The American Military knew the symptoms of radiation poisoning in 1943 too; starting with the irritated sore throat through to an agonizing death from being cooked from the inside out. President Bush promised to invade twelve countries in the 2003 State of the Union speech. I believe the man. For some reason, some misguided Americans do not believe him, or think he was "exaggerating." The rest of the world has every reason to believe him, though. Not to worry, the President has plenty of raw material for radioactive uranium munitions left. There are more than 77,000 Tons stored at the 103 nuclear waste plants and the several Nuclear Weapons Labs in the US. Each one makes another 250 pounds of radioactive material a day for radioactive bullets, bombs, and missiles. Not to put too fine a point on it; but, that is enough for 40.5 more gloriously successful campaigns like the 2003 Nuclear War in Iraq. Every year about this time the Southern winds leave a fine desert sand on the windshields of cars parked outside in Continental Europe and Britain. Soon this sand dust will carry a surprise. Thanks to the Americans. Thanks to us. We did this to the world. And, we wonder why they hate and despise us so. These uranium weapons' indiscriminate killing effect gives a whole new meaning to the age old term: cannon fodder. In Iraq, what goes around, comes around. If not the uranium munitions themselves, the uranium dust will be in the bodies of our returning armed forces, time bombs slowly ticking away the lives of the gullible and the ignorant with their very own internal radiation source, the cannon fodder of the 21st Century American Nuclear Wars. Put your ending to this article next. A lot of people have done everything we can think of to stop these nuclear wars. Even more specifically to stop the use of uranium as a munition and shut down the nuclear power plants. We have tried and failed for years. Why don't you give it a try? Can't hurt anything! Write what steps you would take to turn this situation around. Contact me at: bobnichols@c.... Bob Nichols writes in Oklahoma City and is the Editorial writer for DemoOkie.com. Bob Nichols is a contributing writer for LiberalSlant, Democratic Underground, OnlineJournal, AmericaHeldHostage, and other online dot com publications. Mr. Nichols is a frequent contributor to The Oklahoma Observer and other print publications. He lives and works in Oklahoma. He is a member of CASE -- Citizens' Action for Safe Energy, and President of the Carrie Dickerson Foundation. CASE has successfully killed two serious, well funded attempts to build Nuclear Power Plants in Oklahoma and several attempts to site what is now known as the "Yucca Mountain Reactor Dump" in Oklahoma. All these efforts to build nuclear facilities have failed. CASE won every time. Copyright 2004, Bob Nichols. All rights reserved. Permission for reposting is allowed provided the complete text and attribution are kept intact. --------------------------------- Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals ***************************************************************** 41 [DU-WATCH] Warning: Kentucky DUF6 transport Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2004 23:49:39 -0600 (CST) Must we sit idly by--or how I spent the peace vigil, March 20: Attention once more, recipients in KY, coming soon through your neighborhood, 2,900 of these: http://web.ead.anl.gov/uranium/guide/prodhand/sld038.cfm between now and Sept 30/2004 and another 3,000 in FY2005, from Oak Ridge [K-25 facility], TN to Portsmouth/Piketon, OH. Their HazMat placard code would be [0650, thank you Craig] [every one knows what a HazMat placard is now, right?] as UF6 is insoluable--though highly reactive is exposed to water and air. If shipments follow the "Representative truck route" listed on DOE "Transporttions Impact Assessment for Uanium Hexaflouride (UF6) Cylinders...." the route will take these cylinders through KY for 262 out of the 373 miles of the total trip, mostly on I-75 & I-64. We don't know for sure they will follow that route--but the other possibilities? There's a reason KY has one of the highest car insurance rates in the USA. Another possible method of shipment is rail and KY would get 211 out of 427 of those miles. It is planned that cylinders will be in transit no more then 10 hours. To paraphrase a hit song: "they'll drive all night--is that alright?" Only one accident, one ruptured cylinder [this HAS happened at Postsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant] could be a serious disaster for central/eastern KY. If we know this, don't potential terrorists know it as well? It is a simplistic perspective to say that the cylinders contain Depleted Uranium Hexaflouride [DUF6]. The cylinders have been in storage for over 6 months, which means they contain Thorium234 [Th234] [half-life of 24+ a little bit days], Protactinium234 [Pa234] [half-life of less than 2 minutes], Uranium234 [the longest lived daughter of U238] plus some Uranium 235 and all the progeny of U235. When one atom of U238 undergoes radioactive decay [alpha emission] it is transmuted to Th234. Thorium cannot combine with 6 atoms of Fluorine, only 3 or 4 atoms of Fluorine, thus F2 gas will be released inside the container. The daughter of Th234 is Pa234, which can bond with either 4 or 5 fluorine atoms. Due to short half-lives, both Th and P [both are beta emitters] are considered highly radioactive . Thus the cylinders actually contain some sort of corrosive strange brew. In addition, if I understand the radio-physical chemistry going on inside those 2,900 cylinders, the inner walls will be radioactive, due to constant bombardment by alpha, beta and gamma radiation. Because of the corrosive effect of the contents, there will also be some other molecules, from material from cylinder wall, as well. One more factor, that to date I've had no one respond to address my questions , is the secondary radiation that I believe is associated with those cylinders and ANYTHING else containing U/DU. That secondary radiation would be x-rays: the bremsstrahlung effect--when heavy molecules are bombarded by accelerated electrons [beta emission] x-rays are produced [your color TV for example--though less now then old sets, my CRT for computer, too]. I, just one more voice in the wilderness, don't know how to mobilize folks to prevent the transport of cylinders of DUF6, ThF#?, PaF#?, etc etc. through KY. Do you, or must we sit idly by? Elaine Rev. Elaine A. Hunter, D.Sc., D.Ac., Fellow Royal Complementary Practioners [King Buddhadasa - Sri Lanka] (Medicina Alternativa) http://www.worldisround.com/articles/2025/index.html That the Creator intends for us to be well is evidenced by the myriad of healing ways inspired in the minds, hearts and hands of Her creations. ***************************************************************** 42 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Following too close on nuclear highway [seattlepi.com] [OPINION] Sunday, April 4, 2004 MARK TRAHANT SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST There's something about a highway that launches memories. I think back, recalling a purple storm cloud raining down on a distant landmark. Or a warm, gooey biscuit discovered at a remote boxcar restaurant. There's also the thrill of chasing a hydrogen bomb down Interstate 40. That happened about 15 years ago. I convinced my editors -- I then worked in Phoenix -- that we ought to follow a hydrogen bomb from the production facility near Amarillo, Texas, as the device was transported along Southwest highways. It took a bit of luck because the U.S. Department of Energy wasn't keen on pictures or stories about nuclear materials traveling on public highways. When we finally found the convoy -- called a Safe Secure Transport -- we followed it at 70-plus mph from Texas toward the New Mexico border and eventually Albuquerque, where the bombs were probably transferred to an aircraft. The trucks that carried the material were non-descript (other than a communications' antenna and U.S. government license plates) but were followed by vehicles with enough weaponry to launch a small war. Because I know what to look for, every so often somewhere out in the West, I see a convoy that's probably carrying something nuclear. What brought back these memories was news that the Energy Department was rethinking its plans for sending high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain in Nevada. "It's possible that we won't have a rail line when we are ready to ship, and so we have to have a contingency," Energy Department and Yucca Mountain spokesman Allen Benson told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "You have to be prepared, and that's what this is." The government's plan is to build a rail line to the facility but the Las Vegas Review-Journal came up with documents that said the government had a contingency plan for a 330-mile truck route that could be used in case the rail line isn't completed in time. I am still hoping that Yucca Mountain will never open. This project, burying some 77,000 tons of fuel rods and other high-level radioactive waste, has always struck me as a folly of human arrogance. For this scheme to work, the tomb must last 10,000 years, a time frame longer than any project ever built by humans. Of course, we residents of Washington are supposed to like Yucca Mountain because it's not here. Indeed, the whole design of the facility wasn't based as much on science as it was that Nevada doesn't have a lot of sway in Congress. (Hanford was one of the original sites to be studied for suitability in 1982.) A 1987 bill that set up Yucca Mountain for "study" (read this: prepare for its opening) also said other states would have to store the waste temporarily. I also wonder about moving nuclear waste on public highways. Critics will tell you that both the commercial nuclear industry and the military have been doing this for years -- and quite safely. But few vehicles carry nuclear materials on the roads now. If Yucca Mountain opens,, according to a state of Nevada study, "there would be more than 108,500 cross-country truck shipments of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste over 38 years." And what if? Imagine the catastrophe of even a small accident. One environmental impact statement predicts that more than 10 million to 16 million people will live within a half-mile of the transportation route. And, if something does go wrong, are the towns and cities along those routes prepared for the consequences? This seems particularly relevant in this age of terrorism. Another study found that specific high-energy explosive devices could breach the containers carrying the deadly nuclear material. Of course terrorists won't bother attacking a truck convoy. Then again, these shipments won't be hidden; nuclear convoys don't look like grocery trucks. The day I chased H-bombs, I found I couldn't keep up because the truck and its escorts traveled faster than the speed limit. I knew the security folks were watching -- at one point they even took a picture -- so it would have been easy enough for them to radio for a state trooper. I slowed and let the convoy go on ahead. I had seen enough -- and was ready for a warm, gooey biscuit at the next off-ramp. Mark Trahant is editor of the editorial page. E-mail: marktrahant@seattlepi.com Back to top [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 98119 (206) 448-8000 Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com ***************************************************************** 43 New York Daily News Investigation: Soldiers demand to know health risks By JUAN GONZALEZ DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center recently told Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos that a biopsy revealed his rash comes from leishmaniasis, a disease spread by sandflies and contracted by hundreds of G.I.s in Iraq. Until last week, however, Army doctors refused requests by Ramos and a few others in the 442nd Military Police to have their urine analyzed for depleted uranium, a procedure that can cost up to $1,000. Three of the nine tested in the Daily News investigation — Sgt. Herbert Reed, Spec. William Ruiz, and Spec. Anthony Phillip - also were tested by the Army in November. But the results were withheld for months despite repeated inquiries. Last week, after Army officials received press inquiries about the 442nd and discovered that a group from the company had sought independent testing, an administrator at Walter Reed told Reed and Phillip that their tests from November had come back negative for depleted uranium. The News' tests also showed negative results for Reed and Phillip, but Ramos tested positive. The soldiers of the 442nd are not the only ones to raise questions about depleted uranium in Samawah. In August, a contingent of Dutch soldiers arrived in the town to replace the Americans. Press reports in the Netherlands revealed that Dutch authorities questioned the U.S. beforehand about the possible use of DU ammunition in Samawah. According to Sgt. Juan Vega, senior medic for the 442nd, the Dutch swept the area around the train depot with Geiger counters and their medics confided to him they had found high radiation levels. The Dutch unit refused to stay in the depot, Vega said, and pitched camp in the desert instead. And in February, after Japanese troops moved into the same town, a Japanese journalist equipped with a Geiger counter reported finding radiation readings 300 times higher than background levels. "There'd been a lot of fighting in Samawah before we got there," said Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos, 41. "The place was dusty as hell, and the sandstorms were hitting us pretty good." Felled at first by what he thought was the sweltering Iraqi heat, Ramos expected to recover quickly. "My health just kept getting worse," he said. "I tried to work out each day to get through it but I kept getting weaker. A numbing sensation hit my hands and my face, and the migraine headaches became constant. I was afraid I was having a stroke." He was sent first to a Baghdad hospital for treatment, but with no neurologist available, he was shipped out to Germany and eventually to the U.S. "I had rashes on my stomach for four months," Ramos said. "And now, whenever I [lie] down, my hands fall asleep." Doctors at Walter Reed have been stumped. They've given Ramos braces to wear on his arms at night to try to prevent his hands from falling asleep, and they've prescribed a host of muscle relaxants and painkillers, but nothing seems to work. "I have four kids. What happens to them now if I can't work?" said Ramos, who was looking forward to a transfer from the NYPD Housing Bureau to the robbery unit in Brooklyn's 75th Precinct once he returns from active duty. "I need them to investigate what's going on with my body." Cpl. Anthony Yonnone, 35, a cop with the Veterans Administration in Fishkill, N.Y., has the highest DU levels of the four soldiers who tested positive, said Dr. Asaf Duracovic, who performed the testing funded by The News. Yonnone said his nausea, skin rashes and migraines began in Samawah. "The headaches are constant and they don't want to stop," he said. "The rashes seem to come and go. "We were always passing blownout tanks when we were out doing patrols." He recalled that American units in the town burned trash and waste each night in big drums near the train depot. "The combination of smoke and sand when we lit those fires covered everybody," he said. Evacuated from Iraq in August for minor surgery, Yonnone was sent first to Germany. "They gave us a questionnaire. I marked that I wasn't exposed to depleted uranium because nobody had even told us what it was back in Iraq," he said. Originally published on April 3, 2004 All contents © 2004 Daily News, L.P. ***************************************************************** 44 BBC: Terror attack booklet considered Last Updated: Saturday, 3 April, 2004 [Civil defence leaflet 1980] Advice issued in 1980 was criticised An instruction booklet on how to cope in a terror attack could be sent to every home in Britain in a plan being considered by the government. A Home Office spokeswoman said the idea was among many "communication" options. In 1980 the Conservatives produced a booklet called Protect and Survive, on what to do in a nuclear attack. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens said a terror attack in London was "inevitable" but ministers have played down fears. Concerns increased after last month's Madrid bombing, which killed 191 people, and the arrest of eight men on Tuesday under anti-terrorism laws. PROTECT AND SURVIVE (1980) [Nuclear attack] Designate a fall-out room in the centre of your house Stock 7 gallons of water for drinking and washing per person for 14 days Use a large table for shelter and weigh down with heavy furniture filled with sand or books Source: Civil defence leaflet In response, the Home Office has been considering ways of getting information to the public. A spokeswoman said the idea for a terror booklet was in the "melting pot". She said: "We always keep an eye on the best way to communicate with the public. It is one of the options that governments have used in the past." But she added there was no decision yet and would not be for a few weeks. The Conservatives booklet by the Civil Defence on coping in a nuclear attack went on sale in 1980. It was widely criticised and lampooned at the time. It included survival ideas such as a fall-out room and stocking food for 14 days. It advised on fall-out sirens, how to find cover in the event of an attack and what types of food to stock. People living in bungalows and caravans were advised to shelter with a neighbour and home owners were told to take down net curtains and paint windows to reflect heat flashes. ***************************************************************** 45 Sunday Herald: MoD hid radioactive leaks for years Secret documents reveal catalogue of contamination at Western Isles base By Rob EdwardsEnvironment Editor Public health was put at risk by more than 100 leaks of radioactivity over 13 years at a military base in the Western Isles, according to a report just declassified by the Ministry of Defence. Details of one of Scotlands most serious series of radiation accidents at a firing range on South Uist have been kept secret for 25 years. High levels of cobalt-60, put in the nose cones of missiles to measure their accuracy, contaminated the ground, buildings and vehicles far in excess of todays safety limits. Encased in magnesium and designed to dissolve in water, cobalt-60 was fired out to sea on thousands of missiles between 1967 and 1979. Unfortunately a large number were also left out in the open at the base, ensuring that they got wet, fizzed and leaked. Whoever was in charge of looking after them was shockingly inept, said Calum MacDonald, the MP for the Western Isles. Its quite a staggering story. In February, he asked the Ministry of Defence to release an official summary of the contamination. As a result, last week a 1981 report by the Institute of Naval Medicine at Alverstoke in Hampshire was placed in the library of the House of Commons. All the names in the report, including those of its authors, clean-up workers and other officials, have been crudely blacked out by pen. This report was filed away and kept hidden. It should have been made available to the public, argued MacDonald. The report is a damning indictment of the lax safety standards at the time. After a visit to the Royal Artillery range in April 1979, experts condemned as very unsatisfactory the safety arrangements for the storage, transportation and use of the cobalt-60 devices, known as Radioactive Miss Distance Indicators (RAMDI). Both the ammunition technicians at RA Range Hebrides and possibly the local general public were being placed at unnecessary radiological risk by the inadvertent consequences of the RAMDI operations, the report stated. This stemmed principally from the lack of awareness of the contamination potential of the RAMDI sources and hence the failure to provide appropriate control procedures during routine range operations. Experts from the Naval Radiological Protection Service became concerned about safety at the South Uist range after they were informed about an incident in March 1979. Approximately five RAMDI sources were seen to be effervescing following wetting by rain or sea spray, the report recounted. As a result of this occurrence the launch area, source handling tools and the hands and clothing of one of the ammunition technicians had become badly contaminated. But when they came north to inspect the site the following month, the experts discovered that this was far from an isolated incident. As well as measuring widespread contamination where the incident had occurred, they found that the RAMDI store, compound and transport vehicles were also seriously contaminated. They calculated that the total amount of radioactivity that had leaked was equivalent to that from 26 RAMDI sources. Since it is most unlikely that the entire contents of a leaking source are lost during any single incident, it is clear that a large number of sources possibly 100 or more have been involved in leakage incidents over the years of RAMDI operations, the report said. The Naval Radiological Protection Service paid another visit to South Uist a year later in April 1980, but found little improvement. Progress made in the previous year was regarded as disappointing, particularly in view of the need for urgency, the report commented. The range was cleaned up over two weeks in September 1980 but not without a considerable number of operational difficulties. Supplies of a toxic chemical used to dissolve contaminated concrete ran out. An industrial vacuum cleaner used to suck up the dissolved concrete failed because its bearings corroded. The same fate befell a back-up pump, leaving workers the unenviable task of shovelling the toxic slurry into polythene bags. The number of 40-gallon steel drums provided to package up the radioactive waste turned out to be totally inadequate. In the end 71 drums had to be found to contain the waste, before it was sent to Britains only licensed radioactive dump at Drigg, near Sellafield in Cumbria. 04 April 2004 © newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 46 Coastal Post: Gulf War II Syndrome? Military Equipment and "Pneumonia" April, 2004 By Stan Goff To understand the official military response to the mysterious "pneumonia" breaking out among American troops in Iraq, we have to understand that troops are equipment. To the unremitting vexation of Donald Rumsfeld and his "network-centric" techno-groupies, troops are articles of equipment whose preparation and maintenance prove troublesome. They have to be coaxed into "service" with Army-of-One-style Madison Avenue pitches and educational bribes, enculturated to discipline and punctuality, taught how to perform their various functions, then kept in the job through a system of economic and psychological rewards. Troops are the only part of the "tables of organization and equipment" (TO&E is the military's term to describe its units, not mine) that have to be indoctrinated. There are a couple of troublesome aspects to this for the politicians who control the military. First, troops are not equipment. Second, indoctrination narratives are perishable as circumstances change. I tend to harp about this, having been military for so long and now being a very politically active leftist, but no member of the armed forces is ever transformed into the unthinking, unfeeling, lethal robot that thrills the right and haunts the left. These men and women start and end as human beings exactly like all of us. They experience the same range of emotions, desire the same outlets for their creativity, seek the same human companionship, and are driven by the same intellectual curiosity. They are not computers that can be programmed. They feel loneliness, awe, pain, lust, confusion, mirth, dread, appetites, and obsessions just like every last one of us, and they exist in the same uncontrollable mix of potentially subversive facts that we do. They are the same combination of goal-directed willfulness and unmanaged acting-out as the rest of us. They are part of the same system as you and me, in which Wal-Mart workers and soldiers are both necessary and expendable. Like the rest of us, they can also get mad when they find they've been had. They have to be given a special status, reinforced by popular media, that equates their subservience to heroism. They are dressed up in crisp uniforms so they can be properly recognized and adored, and rewarded with colorful medals and badges that hang like fetishes all over those uniforms, and convinced that they are serving some sacred purpose even when they are only slaking Wall Street and the Dollar with their blood and sweat. Troops might be bewildered, as we all are, by ideologies of chauvinism, consumerism, gender, and so on, but they're still exposed to all that contradictory stuff that life presents them. In fact, troops are often exposed more directly to the charlatan character of official horseshit than the rest of us. As middle class white America comforts itself with the cake-and-ice-cream of 'liberation' in Iraq, for example, the troops who are the instruments of this wretched folly are confronted each day with the generalized hostility of an occupied people, and with the glaring fact that their senior officers-whom they've been told to trust as leaders-are now professional hucksters assisting with the sale of war to voters and taxpayers. What troops often haven't had yet, and what many don't have until after their tours of duty, is the epiphany that they are equipment. Equipment with an expiration date. The Department of Defense does not care if a soldier retires and dies three weeks later. In fact, the Veterans Administration bean counters would see that as positive. The Department of Defense does not care if a soldier who was getting out anyway, finishes his or her three or four year hitch, then comes down with mysterious and debilitating ailments, as long as that ailment can plausibly be denied as "service-connected." Note how many millions have been spent by the US government to deny that Gulf War Syndrome existed, and how hard they've fought liability for Agent Orange. Now there is a "pneumonia" breaking out among the troops, which may very well be related to inhalation of microscopic particles of the highly toxic and radioactive depleted uranium, a heavy-metal slag used in another bit of expendable military equipment, US anti-tank ammunition. The press, as per standing operating procedure, is collaborating with the Department of Defense in completely evading the possibility of DU as a causative agent for the respiratory malady that has already killed two perfectly healthy young men and has dozens of others hospitalized with some on ventilators. CNN's medical reporter, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, has made the claim that the morbidity rate is average for the population, a claim copied directly from the Defense Department playbook. This idiotic assertion, of course, accepts the premise that this is one of the communicable pneumonias we all know and love, in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. There are no disease clusters to indicate that an organism is responsible for the problem at all, but this doesn't stop the spin machine. Two of the over 100 cases have shown strep, and this is boldly emphasized while the fact that ONLY two have shown strep (which could very well be coincidental or opportunistic infections) is underplayed. And the boilerplate pre-emptive argument against toxic exposure as the source of this outbreak is that there is "no evidence of toxic or chemical exposure." What is not stated is that when the most obvious etiology is deliberately overlooked, the "evidence" is unlikely to appear on its own. The military made its mind up some time ago that DU is not toxic or carcinogenic-flying directly in the face of scientific fact as effortlessly as the military's political bosses stated the bogus case of al Qaeda-Iraq connections and WMD's. The target audience for this kind of chicanery is generally the US civilian population, but in this case it is also the troops themselves. They cannot be allowed to develop a preoccupation about the very dust they are relentlessly exposed to every day, because that might degrade their ability to perform their primary functions. Whether or not this deadly inflammation is the result of DU or some other environmental hazard, the troops are being exposed to DU and a lot more nasty shit every day, just like the troops from Desert Storm and its aftermath, and they will likely eventually be disabled at more or less the same rates-that would be upwards of 40 percent. Troops have become a target audience for the pneumonia spin, because their expiration dates are any time after Uncle Sam can extricate himself from this tar baby he has encountered in Iraq. Until then, just to cope with this arrogant overreach, Bushfeld is offering bribes all over the world for spare troops and activating the Individual Ready Reserve-a measure normally associated with direct defense of the nation or general war. In March the sandstorms dead-lined their helicopters. Now something is dead-lining the troops. But the troops are NOT equipment, in spite of what Donald Rumsfeld and his whole techno-fascist entourage might like. We can tell them-and I am telling them-you are being had. (This article originally appeared in Counterpunch, www.counterpunch.org - reprinted with permission, Stan Goff) Stan Goff is the author of "Hideous Dream: A Soldier's Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti" (Soft Skull Press, 2000) and of the upcoming book "Full Spectrum Disorder" (Soft Skull Press, 2003). He is a member of the BRING THEM HOME NOW! coordinating committee, a retired Special Forces master sergeant, and the father of an active duty soldier. Email for BRING THEM HOME NOW! is bthn@mfso.org. Goff can be reached at: sherrynstan@igc.org ***************************************************************** 47 Hawk Eye: Energy officials resign jobs Saturday, April 3, 2004, Site updated daily at 11 a.m. CST By MATTHEW LeBLANC mleblanc@thehawkeye.com The Energy Department announced the resignations Friday of two high–level officials involved in a much–criticized workers' compensation program. More than 570 former nuclear weapons workers at the Iowa Army Ammuntion Plant in Middletown have filed claims under federal program, but none have received payment. Undersecretary of Energy Robert G. Card and Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environment, Safety and Health Beverly A. Cook will resign by mid–April, citing "family reasons" for their decisions. The resignations come amid heavy criticism by lawmakers of a DOE–run workers' compensation program detractors have called ineffective. There is no indication criticism of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program led to the resignations. Card, who took office in 2001, will leave with about one year left in his term. "I had planned from the beginning to serve the full term, but pressing family issues overtook my plans early this year," he said in a prepared statement Friday. Cook leaves the DOE after two years with the department. She also cited family reasons for her decision to step down. "My family needs me now and this is where I need to be," she said. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said replacements for Card and Cook will be made soon. He did not give a timeline for appointment of their replacements in statements released Friday. EEOICP, the subject of two Senate Energy Committee hearings and numerous scathing remarks from lawmakers since September, helps former DOE employees who contracted various illnesses while working at facilities across the U.S. seek state and federal workers' compensation payments. A report by the General Accounting Office in October found that nearly 94 percent of compensatoin claims filed by injured workers were left unprocessed by DOE officials. Cook is the principal overseer of EEOICP. Sen. Charles Grassley, R–Iowa, one of the most outspoken critics of the compensation program, said the resignations mark an "opportunity to chart a new course" for the program. Grassley has pushed for a revamped compensation program since September. The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington Iowa 52601 319-754-8461 Front Desk · 319-754-6824 FAX · 1-800-397-1708 Toll Free ***************************************************************** 48 lamonitor.com: CDC readies new contract for contaminant study The Online News Source for Los Alamos ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor POJOAQUE - Researchers commissioned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported progress in their search for historical documents about contaminant releases at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Tom Widener of ChemRisk Inc. presented a draft Interim Report of the Los Alamos Historical Document Retrieval and Assessment Project Tuesday evening at the Cities of Gold Hotel. The multi-year project to understand the risks from radiological emissions and toxic chemicals is running out of money, short of its goals, but team members expressed optimism the work would continue. Phil Green, representing CDC, said a new procurement package has been prepared and a solicitation for a contract to finish the job is expected to go out within 30 days with the intent to award the contractor before the end of September. Participants outlined steps that have been taken to bring the current project to a close, including a database of bibliographic information and summaries of the content of documents located by the team, sets of copies that will be available at the Zimmerman Library at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and a key-word-searchable electronic collection of those documents, along with a chronology of incidents and unusual events that have been identified. Widener said the preliminary data on airborne releases of radiological material, particularly plutonium, beryllium and tritium, continue to raise questions about possible discrepancies between documented release estimates and residual evidence in contemporary soil tests. The tenor of the meeting contrasted sharply with the last public presentation in July 2003, when Charles Miller, the project officer of the radiation studies branch of CDC, said the project was threatened, not by a lack of funding, but by logistical complications of obtaining records from the laboratory. "Access to classified documents at Los Alamos has been more difficult than LAHDRA team members have experienced at any of the other DOE sites that have been subjects of dose reconstruction investigations," the draft report says, in a section entitled, "Challenges to Information Gathering at Los Alamos." As the CDC project sought to dig deeper into the records, LANL suffered a disaster (the Cerro Grande Fire) and a series of security crises (the missing hard-drives, Wen Ho Lee, and 9/11.) Each of those episodes caused heightened security requirements at the laboratory and further restricted the LAHDRA analyst's efforts to conduct their review, members of the board said. Despite a letter from DOE's top nuclear official attesting to the project's needs, whole areas of documents were placed off limits to them and their appeals to the Albuquerque area office went unanswered, the group reported. But then, as the project prepared to close and shifted toward capping off a reduced scope of work last year, renewed efforts began to resolve the bottlenecks that had denied and withheld access to potentially significant quantities of data, they reported at the meeting. "Three years now into the five-year contract," Widner said, "it's been like a roller coaster ride." For the last four or five months, Widener said the lab has stopped treating the project like an unfounded mandate to be handled routinely with available resources. "We went for a number of years without an effective level of support. We have encouraging signs as to the level of support," Widener said. "LANL has granted over $1 million this year to support the effort," said C.M. Wood of CDC. A new appeals process with DOE has been worked out, he said, adding, "We have not looked at a single document under the new treaty." Letters backing the continuation of the project have been sent to federal officials by Gov. Bill Richards and Sen. Jeff Bingaman. Bingaman's letter, dated March 26 to the director of the National Center for Environmental Health says, "I have requested additional funds from the subcommittee on energy and water appropriations for the Los Alamos staff to continue assisting you in this effort." The results of the study will be useful for dose reconstruction studies, involving nuclear workers claims, as well as for future environmental restoration programs, the team members emphasized. Comments are invited on the draft report, available at http://www.shonka.com/ReConstructionZone/default.htm © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 49 asahi.com: `Nuclear' ship plan alarms Yokosuka The Asahi Shimbun A U.S. admiral's remark spurs opposition to Kitty Hawk replacement. YOKOSUKA, Kanagawa Prefecture-It was what Yokosuka city officials and citizens had long hoped not to hear. As soon as word reached Japan on Thursday that the head of the U.S. Pacific Command had suggested a possible deployment of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to Yokosuka, they manned the battle stations. City officials scurried to phones to confirm the news, while a citizens group started a signature drive to protest the move. ``We could never accept a plan that is far more dangerous than hosting a nuclear power plant,'' said a member of the citizens group. The comment that shook the city, the location of a key U.S. naval base, was made by Adm. Thomas Fargo at the U.S. House's Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday. The commander said the U.S. Navy hoped to replace the conventionally powered USS Kitty Hawk, now based in Yokosuka, with ``one of our most capable aircraft carriers.'' The remark was widely interpreted as referring to a nuclear-powered vessel. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy headquarters in Japan told The Asahi Shimbun on Thursday that no decision has been made on the successor to the Kitty Hawk. The Kitty Hawk, deployed to Yokosuka in 1998, is to retire in 2008. Its predecessors at Yokosuka-the USS Midway, deployed in 1973, and the USS Independence, in 1991-were both conventionally powered. Each time an aircraft carrier was replaced, city officials worried that a nuclear-powered flattop might be a replacement. On learning of Fargo's comment, the city official in charge of naval base affairs called the Foreign Ministry for confirmation. The Yokosuka Naval Base, located at the mouth of Tokyo Bay, is close to the city's residential and commercial areas. An accident there involving a nuclear-powered vessel could be catastrophic for residents. Officials say, however, their concerns find no attentive ear in the U.S. military, whose position is that no such accidents will occur. Hence there seems to be no effective coordination in sight between the two sides to deal with emergencies. When Yokosuka first accepted the Midway in 1973, then-Mayor Kazuo Yokoyama asked the government to make sure no nuclear-powered vessel would replace it in future. The Foreign Ministry told the city on Thursday evening that the U.S. side had responded to its query by saying that no U.S. government decision had been made on a Kitty Hawk replacement. The ministry added, ``Any future decision will be made through a close cooperation of the Japanese and U.S. governments.'' Yokosuka Mayor Hideo Sawada commented later he believes the Japanese government would consult the city about any U.S. proposal in future. But the U.S. aircraft carrier lineup underlines the city's concerns. Out of the 12 carriers in service, 10 are nuclear-powered. Only the Kitty Hawk and the USS John F. Kennedy, based in Mayport, Florida, are conventionally powered. The latter is to stay at Mayport until it retires in 2018, according to a 2001 Navy report. Lawyer Masahiko Goto, who represents the citizens group, said berth extension work under way at the Yokosuka base might be part of preparations for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. He said his group will collect signatures to press the mayor, the Kanagawa governor and the central government to act against such a deployment.(IHT/Asahi: April 3,2004) (04/03) [Copyright Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 50 Spain Like Bombings Of Nuke Waste Trains Coming? Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2004 14:00:34 -0500 In light of the March 11, 2004 train bombings in Spain, the bomb discovered in Spain yesterday and the date of this story [February 17, 2004] it sounds "most interesting" to keep an eye open for one or more bomb and/or other attacks on train or truck or barge loads of nuclear waste, especially high level nuke waste as the proposed 77 tons that are to be shipped from reactor sites across the USA headed to Yucca Mountain while reactors are kept operating and more HLW generated. Sounds like the public interest and preventing nuclear terror are at the height of "Homeland Insecurity's" agenda and those of the Bush Coup De Etat "Administration.": Al Qaeda has deployed operatives to hijack planes and fly them into targets in an echo of the Sept. 11 attacks and is looking at derailing trains possibly carrying hazardous material, according to a top U.S. intelligence official. http://www.nytimes.com http://snipurl.com/4kfb http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-security-qaeda.html U.S. Intelligence Official: Qaeda Posed Plane Threat By REUTERS Published: February 17, 2004 Filed at 3:26 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda has deployed operatives to hijack planes and fly them into targets in an echo of the Sept. 11 attacks and is looking at derailing trains possibly carrying hazardous material, according to a top U.S. intelligence official. Robert Hutchings, chairman of the National Intelligence Council which reports to the CIA director, did not give details of the plots but provided the most recent public outline from an intelligence official of the al Qaeda threat. The network, blamed for the Sept 11, 2001, attacks that killed 3,000 people, seeks targets that would strike a blow to the U.S. economy, Hutchings said in a Jan. 14 speech to the International Security Management Association in Arizona, the text of which was posted on Feb. 4 on the NIC's Web site. ``Soft targets, including the U.S. stock market, banks, major companies, and tall buildings are a primary focus of active al Qaeda planning,'' he said. Those targets are seen as easier to hit than U.S. government buildings and major infrastructure, which have higher security, Hutchings said. Al Qaeda has looked at derailing trains, perhaps carrying hazardous materials, to attack U.S. interests, he said. Nuclear power plants, water treatment facilities, and other public utilities are high on al Qaeda's target list, he said. The U.S. government is concerned that al Qaeda will try to take its ability to build truck bombs as demonstrated by past attacks in Kenya, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, and marry it with toxic or radioactive material to increase the damage and psychological impact of an attack, Hutchings said. ``My biggest worry, however, is how far al Qaeda might have progressed in being able to deploy a chemical, nuclear, or biological weapon against the United States or its allies,'' he said. U.S. authorities have found several examples of al Qaeda adjusting its tactics to circumvent increased airline security, Hutchings said, without providing details. ``Although we have disrupted several airline plots, we have not eliminated the threat to airplanes,'' he said. ``There are still al Qaeda operatives who we believe have been deployed to hijack planes and fly them into key targets.'' The United States has beefed up security at airports and on airlines. There were a spate of flight cancellations since late December because of potential threats. U.S. authorities have succeeded in disrupting the network, Hutchings said. ``We have disrupted scores of plots at home and abroad -- plots that were audacious in terms of the numbers of attacks under consideration and their global scope,'' he said. ***************************************************************** 51 AU SMH: Uranium drinkers say mine cut them loose - www.smh.com.au [Sydney Morning Herald Online] By Lindsay Murdoch, in Darwin April 5, 2004 Australia's biggest uranium miner has gone into damage control 12 days after workers drank large quantities of water containing 400 times the legal limit of uranium following a leak at the Ranger mine in Kakadu National Park. Three of the men say they have been suffering from vomiting, diarrhoea and lethargy and were forced to pay their own way to leave the Northern Territory to seek medical treatment in their home state. The Ranger mine, a subsidiary of the British giant Rio Tinto, has now flown a doctor from England to examine 12 workers who drank or showered in water used for processing uranium ore. But one of the workers, Paul McDonald, told the Herald the doctor had told him he "basically cannot let me know I will be OK. He really doesn't know himself". The workers say that the mine owner, Energy Resources of Australia Ltd, initially refused to pay for their air fares home and had said any medical expenses would have to be channelled through their direct employer, Power Station and Marine Services. However, ERA has now compensated one worker for his fare and a spokeswoman said yesterday that information, support and counselling, including specialist medical information, is being provided for affected workers. Ben Newton, 28, who received $400 for his fare, said: "You can call it a bribe or whatever. But I can't just sit at home stewing. I have to get on with my life. And I don't want to be put on a work black list." The ERA spokeswoman confirmed that the leak happened when a pipe containing contaminated water was wrongly fitted to a drinking water pipe. The workers drank the tainted water nine hours after the leak of 150,000 litres of contaminated water at the mine. The mine managers had failed to tell the workers about the leak before they each drank three to four litres. Speaking publicly for the first time about the leak that closed operations at the long-troubled mine, three of the workers said Ranger's only action in the days immediately afterwards was to send them off the site. They say ERA failed in the days after the leak to provide them with basic information about the level of contamination or advice on what they should do. "What has happened to us is disgusting," Mr McDonald said. "We are sick but trying to carry on with our lives. But the implications for our future health scares the living daylights out of me." Michael Whiteman, 28, who has suffered a sore throat, headaches, diarrhoea and lethargy, said the hardest part was the stress of not knowing what will happen to his health. "You feel like a weirdo going to a doctor saying I have drunk uranium. You can imagine what it is like. And none of the doctors can give us answers because as far as I am aware nobody in the world has drunk this much of the stuff before." The ERA spokeswoman declined to comment on the men's claims, saying "we understand some people have sought legal advice" and that three inquiries were still underway. ERA has said publicly that the leak occurred about 10.30pm on March 23. Later, staff coming off night shift had noticed poor water quality while showering, it said on March 24. But Mr McDonald said that he and his workmates drank what they now know to be contaminated water at a drinking fountain inside the powerhouse during a break between 7.15am and 7.45am on March 24. Mr McDonald said that soon after they had drunk the water Ranger called a meeting of workers and told them the mine was closing because of the leak. "There is no doubt they knew about the contamination when we drank the water," he said. "We know that because ice machines had been emptied because we had been told they had been contaminated. But nobody told us the water had been contaminated before we drank from a fountain inside the powerhouse." Mr McDonald said the first he and his workmates had learnt that the water was contaminated was when they read a report in a newspaper on March 25. "I felt a bit sick when I drank the water, which was an unusual whitish colour. But I put that down to the change of climate and the heat." The men are waiting for blood and other medical tests. "I have put aside any thought of compensation," said Mr McDonald, who was visited by an ERA representative at the weekend. "My main concern is my health . . . one doctor told me that obviously my kidneys would be affected. We are not cowboys. We have a brain and we know that this is serious." Mr Whiteman said yesterday he still feels "shabby". "I am aching and all I want to do is sleep. I couldn't get off the couch yesterday. I just want to know whether I am going to be healthy. I have had an offer of another job but first I need a clean bill of health." The workers' revelations about the response of ERA may threaten the company's efforts to resume ore processing at the mine, which produces 10 per cent of the Western world's uranium. Meanwhile, mining in Ranger's open pit resumed on Thursday after the Federal Government's supervising scientist, Arthur Johnston, said the nearly 200-strong workforce could return subject to safety measures. But Dr Johnston said in a statement on April 1 that there were still a number of issues on which he needed to be satisfied before he could recommend the resumption of processing. A Senate report last year found that the Ranger mine had had more than 110 leaks, spills and incidents since it opened in 1981. The Sydney Morning Herald Copyright © 2004. The Sydney Morning Herald. advertise| ***************************************************************** 52 AU SMH: Lula shuts door on nuclear inspectors - World - www.smh.com.au [Sydney Morning Herald Online] By Peter Slevin April 5, 2004 The Brazilian Government has refused to allow United Nations nuclear inspectors to examine a uranium enrichment plant being built near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil and the International Atomic Energy Agency are at an impasse over the inspections, diplomats said. Brazil maintains that the plant will produce uranium for use in making power, not the highly enriched material used in nuclear weapons. But it refuses to let IAEA inspectors see equipment, citing a need to protect proprietary information. The diplomatic stand-off has triggered fears that a new type of nuclear race is under way, marked not by the pursuit of atomic weapons but rather by the lawful development of sophisticated technology for nuclear energy production, which can be converted into a weapons program. Brazil's project also poses a problem for the US President, George Bush, who has called for tighter restrictions on enrichment of uranium, even for nuclear power, as part of a strategy to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Non-proliferation specialists also say if the US and the UN do not act to curtail Brazil's program it could undermine US calls for Iran and North Korea to halt their efforts to enrich uranium. "If we don't want these kinds of facilities in Iran or North Korea, we shouldn't want them in Brazil," said a former US nuclear negotiator, James Goodby. "You have to apply the same rules to adversaries as you do to friends. I do not see that happening in Brazil." Brazil's technology at the Resende plant belongs to a program considered legal under international treaties, but remains subject to UN inspections. The IAEA inspectors recently found significant portions of the plant and its contents shielded from view, diplomats said. But Brazilian officials maintain the plant falls within rules allowing countries to develop the nuclear fuel cycle for peaceful uses. There has been no suggestion that the US plans to prevent Brazil from perfecting the plant, although US officials expect to push this month for better co-operation with the IAEA inspectors. Statements from Brazil about nuclear matters have worried the US and the IAEA. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in his election campaign, criticised the 1970 non-proliferation treaty as unfair. He later said Brazil had no plans to develop nuclear arms. But the science and technology minister, Roberto Amaral, said Brazil would not renounce its knowledge of nuclear fission, the principle behind the atomic bomb. Officials quickly said Mr Amaral was out of line, and he resigned. The Washington Post Copyright © 2004. The Sydney Morning Herald. | contact us ***************************************************************** 53 Las Vegas RJ: LETTER: Move the waste away from populous areas Sunday, April 04, 2004 We're safer in the long term if it's isolated To the editor: A recent letter to the Review-Journal (March 22) mischaracterized several issues involving Yucca Mountain, the U.S. Department of Energy and recent congressional hearings. I would like to correct the record. As noted in the letter, the state of Nevada and Nevada's congressional delegation called these hearings. The DOE was not involved in either advertising these hearings nor in setting their agenda. The statement that temperatures in the Baltimore fire could have breached a transportation cask is wrong. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission studied the fire and concluded that a spent fuel transportation cask, when subjected to similar fire conditions, would not release radioactive materials, and public health and safety would be protected. Regarding the concern about nuclear waste transportation, we will be safer in the long-term with the waste isolated from the human environment, deep underground at Yucca Mountain, than if it remains in temporary storage at 128 sites around the country. To that end, we are pursuing a common-sense funding proposal that will allow us to apply the fees that utility customers have already sent to Washington for Yucca Mountain to the proposed repository. This effort will allow us to accomplish our mission more expeditiously and move spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste away from populous areas where it is in temporary storage. ALLEN B. BENSON WASHINGTON, D.C. The writer is manager of public relations for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management and Office of Repository Development. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 54 Las Vegas RJ: EDITORIAL: Sen. Reid joins the watchdogs Sunday, April 04, 2004 It's a miraculous conversion on the slopes of Mount Yucca If you ever wondered what it would take to turn U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., into a nickel-pinching congressional watchdog, the answer appears to be ... Yucca Mountain. Recently, the federal Department of Energy, which is charged with developing Nevada's locally unpopular Yucca Mountain waste dump, hired the Richmond, Va., law firm of Hunton &Williams to shepherd the department's Yucca Mountain license application. Depending on how much time its lawyers decide to spend shuffling the government files, the Virginia gentlemen could be eligible to receive up to $45 million in tax money over the next five years. "Given the incredibly technical nature of the application, how is it possible for a bunch of attorneys, even ones with knowledge of the regulatory process, to add $45 million in value to the process?" Sen. Reid asked at a Senate budget hearing last week. "Having been a lawyer, I'll bet they are giving high fives every morning. Forty-five million for a license application? What a soft deal that is. And then they're paying a firm $4.5 million to do nothing," Sen. Reid added, referring to a separate $4.5 million the DOE has agreed to pay another firm -- LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene &MacRae -- to settle a related nuclear waste contract lawsuit. Sen. Reid is correct. Hunton &Williams will replace the Chicago-based Winston &Strawn, which worked on Yucca Mountain licensing matters for two years before leaving the program and its own $16.5 million contract in 2001 amidst conflict allegations. So the DOE decides the solution is to nearly triple its mouthpiece allocation? And all this merely to create the appearance the Yucca Mountain project is receiving diligent review, when the DOE and most of Congress -- having told the nuclear power industry decades ago "don't worry about the waste, we'll take care of it for you" -- is today about as likely to reject Yucca Mountain as Moammar Gadhafi's daughter would be to lose the Miss Tripoli beauty pageant. We happily welcome Sen. Reid to the ranks of those who would pare back extravagant government spending on matters which the Constitution fails to authorize Washington to meddle in, at all. He really has changed his spots, right? Presumably he'll join the Reagan Republicans in calling for the complete dismantling of the Energy Department, any day now. For instance, the newly minted fiscal conservative Sen. Reid is going to renounce and apologize for that $300,000 grant he strong-armed this same Department of Energy into issuing to ornithologist Donald Baepler at UNLV's Harry Reid Center for Environmental Studies back in 1998 ... to buy a fancy DNA analyzing machine ... to study bird migration ... right? Mr. Baepler's attempt to explain how his bird studies had anything to do with the mandate of the DOE was "gobbledygook," according to Larry Paulson, a limnologist who worked at UNLV research center from 1985 to 1989, but left the center after a falling out with Mr. Baepler. Under any other circumstances, "We would have sent (the application) back and said it was not relevant to our mission," explained David Thomassen, a program coordinator for the DOE's office of biological and environmental research, at the time. "We don't do bird research." But instead, the grant was OK'd under the category of "congressional earmarks" -- Washington code-talk for allocations OK'd for no purpose but to win favor with big-spending congressional porkmeisters ... like that old, big-spending Harry Reid, who used to figure, "What the heck, it's only tax money." Boy, thank goodness he's not around any more -- right? Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 55 Las Vegas RJ: YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Ex-NTSB official discusses shipping issues Saturday, April 03, 2004 Former chairman calls for shipment of oldest waste first By TONY BATT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- If and when nuclear waste is transported to Yucca Mountain, it would be safer to move the oldest waste first, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board said Friday. But Jim Hall, who served as NTSB chairman from 1994 to 2001, said the Energy Department's contracts with nuclear utilities allow the newest radioactive spent fuel to be moved first to avoid the construction of new storage facilities at power plants. Hall said the contracts should be amended. "I think anyone who has some knowledge in this area realizes the safest (spent nuclear) fuel at these (reactor) sites is the oldest fuel," he said. DOE plans to begin moving 77,000 tons of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, by 2010. Hall and John Vincent, a senior project manager for the Nuclear Energy Institute, spoke about the transportation of nuclear waste at a briefing for about 35 congressional staffers on Capitol Hill. Hall and Vincent agreed that when nuclear waste is shipped to Nevada, the preferred mode would be trains, which would not carry any other hazardous substances. "This is almost a no-brainer," Hall said. "A dedicated train can make a trip across the United States to Yucca Mountain in three to four days. A regular train would take seven to eight, obviously increasing the risk." Hall cited a July 2001 crash in Baltimore in which a train hauling hazardous material derailed in a tunnel, causing a fire that shut down part of the city for more than a week. However, Vincent noted that a Nuclear Regulatory Commission study concluded that if waste casks had been on the train in Baltimore, they would not have failed even if they had remained in the fire for 30 years. "The state of Nevada would propose that we test every new design of the nuclear casks," Vincent said. "The industry does not believe that's necessary. We've done a considerable amount of testing." But Hall pointed out that the Energy Department designated Yucca Mountain for nuclear waste storage more than two years ago and still doesn't have a transportation plan. "And I personally believe you have a right to know and a responsibility to your constituents to be sure that if this material is moved through your district, it is done in a safe fashion," Hall told the congressional aides. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 56 Times: Windscale to be clean 30 years early thetimes.co.uk April 05, 2004 By Angela Jameson, Industrial Correspondent THE Windscale nuclear reactor, site of Britain’s worst atomic accident, will be made safe almost 30 years earlier than planned, saving the taxpayer an estimated Ł4 billion. The UK Atomic Energy Authority has told ministers that it will return Windscale in Cumbria to a safe state by 2017, some 60 years after its fire, ranked as one of the world’s three worst nuclear accidents. The UKAEA, responsible for decommissioning some of the oldest nuclear reactors, plans to bring forward the clean-up timetable for its four main properties by about two thirds, The Times has learnt. The move will substantially reduce the Ł8.9 billion cost of cleaning up the nation’s crumbling nuclear inheritance. Decommissioning the entire civil nuclear legacy is likely to cost Ł50 billion. Dipesh Shah, chief executive of UKAEA, recently told the industry its aim should be to “halve the costs and halve the time” of decommissioning. Speeding up the timetable will help the nuclear industry to make the case for building reactors. No commercial reactors have begun operating for almost a decade because of the problem of cleaning up retired reactors. Mr Shah, who joined UKAEA from BP in November, said: “UKAEA has more experience in decommissioning nuclear sites than any other organisation in Europe. This is underlined by the commitments we have made to Government to shorten the timescales for decommissioning and reduce the costs while maintaining our high standards of safety and care for the environment.” The plan to accelerate the clean-up of some of the most infamous nuclear sites come as the Department of Trade and Industry prepares to set up the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which will take over managing the Ł50 billion of nuclear liabilities next April. Windscale, a prototype for seven gas-cooled reactors, is the first UK commercial nuclear reactor to be dismantled and one of only a few worldwide. The famous “golf ball” dome of the reactor will be demolished next year, after the removal of the graphite reactor core. The UKAEA had planned to leave the outer domed shell and concrete bioshield intact until 2040 to allow most of the contamination to decay. But engineers discovered that the graphite core was not damaged during the notorious 1957 fire, as previously thought, which meant that the decommissioning could proceed more quickly. The clean-up of other nuclear sites owned by UKAEA is also being accelerated. At Winfrith, in Dorset, the work is expected to be completed in 2020, some 30 years early. Nuclear material will be removed from the site in the next two years, a move that will mean the nuclear constabulary, which protects atomic supplies, can be replaced by commercial security guards. The east end of the Winfrith site has become a business park with many science and technology businesses that have spun out of the UKAEA. At Harwell, in Oxfordshire, the first site for nuclear research and development, reactors will be safe by 2015, five years earlier than planned. The decommissioning of the experimental reactor at Dounreay, in Caithness, will be completed in 2047. Contractors that stand to benefit from the accelerated decommissioning include British Nuclear Fuels Environmental Services, RWE Nukem, WS Atkins, Amec, Fromatome and Mitsui Babcock. Windscale’s decommissioning has already aroused strong overseas interest and UKAEA hopes that this field will be a big growth area for it in the years to come. SUNDAY TIMES Copyright 2004 Times Newspapers Ltd. ***************************************************************** 57 [DU-WATCH] The man Who Knew Too Much by Robert Fisk Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2004 23:02:54 -0600 (CST) The Man Who Knew Too Much By Robert Fisk 25 March, 2004 The Independent http://www.countercurrents.org/fisk250304.htm Any Israeli who bought the 16 February edition of the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth would have believed that a truly wicked man was about to be released from Ashkelon prison. Each time a suicide bomber blew himself up, the prisoner would celebrate. Worse still, said the paper, the inmate - once a keeper of Israel's nuclear secrets - wants to endanger his country further after his release. "He told me," a former prisoner was quoted as saying, "that he has additional material and that he will reveal secrets..." Should it be a surprise, then, that the very same prisoner, supposedly celebrating the slaughter of innocents while preparing to betray his country yet again, holds a clutch of awards from European peace groups, the Sean McBride Peace prize and an honorary doctorate from the University of Tromso? In 2000, the Church of Humanism told him: "You are honest, courageous and morally highly motivated, and may the great sacrifice you have made serve to protect not only those living in Israel but all the peoples of the Middle East and perhaps the world." The same man has also been put forward as a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. Mordechai Vanunu, it seems, can only be loved or loathed. Indifference to the former Israeli nuclear technician is impossible. For he is the man who, in 1986, took evidence to The Sunday Times of the full story behind Israel's secret nuclear weapons plant at Dimona in the Negev desert, complete with the total number of advanced fission bombs there - 200 at the time - and, even more disturbingly, complete with pictures. He said that Israel had mastered a thermonuclear design and appeared to have a number of thermonuclear bombs ready for use. He was subsequently lured by a girl from London to Rome and then kidnapped, drugged and freighted back to Israel by Israeli secret policemen. But in just six weeks' time, after 18 years of imprisonment - 12 of them in solitary confinement - the world's most famous whistleblower is scheduled for release. Israel - not to mention the world - is holding its breath. Will he divulge further secrets of Dimona - always supposing he has any after 18 years of incarceration - or curse the country of which he is a citizen, albeit a citizen who converted to Christianity before his arrest and who wants to emigrate to the United States? Will he emerge a cowed man, anxious only to apologise for the terrible betrayal he inflicted upon his country? Or will he, as his friends and supporters and his adopted American parents hope, become an apostle of peace, one of the greatest of this generation's prisoners of conscience, the man who tried to rid the world of the threat of nuclear annihilation? The Israeli government is still uncertain how to confront Vanunu's release on 21 April. They are known to be considering - perhaps have already decided upon - "certain supervisory means" and "appropriate measures" to shut Vanunu up. In the second half of January, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with Menachem Mazuz, Israel's attorney general, and the defence minister, Shaul Mofaz, and discussed whether Vanunu should be refused a passport. Vanunu would be free to sunbathe on the beaches of Tel Aviv but could not tour the world advertising Israel's nuclear power. It's a sign of how fearful the Israeli administration has become at the prospect of this one man's release that Sharon also summoned to this conference Yehiel Horev's so-called "Defence Ministry Security Unit", the country's internal and external intelligence services - Shin Beth and the equally overestimated Mossad - and a representative of the Israeli Atomic Energy Committee. Horev, it is now known, wanted to go much further than Sharon. He proposed clapping an administrative detention order on Vanunu - Israel's usual way of dealing with Palestinians whom they regard as "terrorists" - although the meeting apparently came to the conclusion that this would only enhance Vanunu's reputation as a martyr for world peace. There's another way of shutting Vanunu up, of course. He can be publicly freed and then - the moment he starts talking about his work as a nuclear technician - he can be tried again and thrown back into Ashkelon jail - or Shikma prison, as the Israelis call it now. But the real problem that Vanunu represents is that he will remind the world at a critically important moment in the history of the Middle East that Israel is a nuclear power and that its warheads stand ready to be fired from the Negev desert. He will also remind the world that the Americans, despite battering their way into Iraq to destroy Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, continue to give their political, moral and economic support to a country that has secretly amassed a treasure trove of weapons of mass destruction. How can President Bush remain silent on Israel's nuclear power when he has not only illegally invaded an Arab state for allegedly harbouring nuclear weapons and condemned Iran for the same ambitions, but also praised - along with Tony Blair's government - Colonel Gaddafi of Libya for abandoning his nuclear pretensions? If the Arab states are being "defanged" - always supposing they had any real fangs in the first place - why should Israel not be "de-nuclearised"? Why can't the United States apply the same standards to Israel as it does to the Arabs? Or why, for that matter, can't Israel apply the same standards to itself that it demands of its Arab enemies? This is the debate that the Israeli and the American governments wish to stifle. In the United States, where any discussion of the Israeli-American relationship that deviates from the benign is routinely condemned as subversive or "anti-Semitic", discussion of Israel's nuclear power is not something that Washington will want to hear on the Sunday talk shows. Vanunu, it should be said at once, is well aware of all this, of his own importance - infinitely greater than it was when he was a mere junior technician at Dimona - and of the role that tens of thousands of anti- nuclear campaigners expect him to play in the world. Many times, through friends and through his own brothers, Vanunu has said that he has no new nuclear secrets but has the right to oppose nuclear weapons in Israel or anywhere else. "All I want to do is to go to America, get married and start a new life," he says. No one can doubt Vanunu's conviction. Born in 1954 to a religious Jewish family in Morocco, he immigrated to Israel at the age of nine, performed his military service in the mid-Seventies and began work at Dimona in November 1976 while completing a graduate course in philosophy and geography. Perhaps it was during his travels in Thailand, Burma, Nepal and Australia in early 1986 that he decided he had a moral duty to talk about Israel's nuclear weapons. In the same year, he was baptised at an Anglican church in Sydney. Vanunu had clearly become deeply distressed at Israel's growing nuclear power when he walked into British newspaper offices in September of 1986 in the hope of telling the world the truth about Dimona. He had dropped by Robert Maxwell's Daily Mirror at first, handed over his photographs of the nuclear plant and waited for a reply. Unknown to Vanunu, Maxwell sent the pictures round to the Israeli embassy in London to "take a look at them", supposedly to "confirm" whether or not the story was true. It seems likely that Maxwell had motives other than journalistic integrity in this betrayal of Vanunu. After his death at sea in 1991, Maxwell, who had stolen millions in pensioners' funds, was given a state funeral in Israel at which Shimon Peres praised his "services" to the state. Maxwell's Daily Mirror ran a "spoiler" story on 28 September, belittling Vanunu and carrying the headline "The Strange Case of Israel and the Nuclear Con Man." The Sunday Times ran with the full story - but Vanunu had already disappeared. Entrapped by a female Mossad agent, he had been lured on to a British Airways flight to Rome and promptly kidnapped. It seems, in fact, that he was seized inside Rome's Fiumicino Airport. Unable to speak to journalists, he carefully wrote out details of his movements on the palm of his hand and pressed it to the window of his prison truck as it took him to court. "Rome ITL 30:9:86 2100 came to Rome by BA504," he had written. He had been kidnapped at 9pm on 30 September at Rome International. Were the Italian authorities involved in his kidnap? Were they present when he was seized? Perhaps Vanunu can tell us. He is certainly a man of endurance. Once, during his 12 years of solitary, the prison authorities accidentally freed him for exercise before Arab prisoners in the jail-yard had been returned to their cells. Vanunu immediately walked towards them. One of the Arabs, a Lebanese imprisoned for smuggling arms into the West Bank, was among the first strangers to bring word of Vanunu's appearance to the outside world. "Vanunu fell into step with us and smiled at us and it was a time before we realised who he was," the freed Lebanese later told The Independent. "He said it was good to be with us and we thought he was a brave man. Then the guards realised their mistake and we were pushed and shoved away from him, back to our cells." An Israeli journalist visiting another prisoner was amazed to see Vanunu. "For a short moment I saw a bucolic scene," he wrote, "as if taken from some other reality: a serene man, sitting on a bench in a garden and reading Nietzsche in English. I approached him and extended my hand. Pleased to meet you, my name is Ronen,' I said. I'm Motti,' the most confined prisoner in the State of Israel replied. Before we could continue to talk, screaming wardens rushed over and grabbed him away." A former prisoner, Yossi Harush, has provided another glimpse of the imprisoned Vanunu in the years after his solitary confinement ended. "During the day," Harush told Yedioth Ahronoth, "during walks, he meets people and talks with them. I spoke a lot with Vanunu. We were friends. He would come to my cell... He has good conditions. He is treated nicely in prison... He has no restrictions on leaving his cell, but he is restricted within the prison. I myself, as a working prisoner, painted a red line that he is forbidden to cross. I was ordered to do that, and afterwards our relationship cooled off." Vanunu has been regularly visited by an Anglican clergyman, Dean Michael Sellors. It was Sellors who pointed out to him that his release date coincided with the Queen's birthday. "He said that in that case, he'd better get a ticket and greet her himself." Vanunu has also taken heart in the actions of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, a normally conservative organisation, which has stated that, "any sanctions against Mordechai after release would be illegal and immoral." A chatline on the Hebrew website of the Israeli daily Maariv shows that a number of young Israelis regard Vanunu as a hero rather than a threat. Mary Eoloff, a retired American school teacher who, with her husband, adopted Vanunu in the hope that he could be given US citizenship and released, was the first to reveal that when Israeli security men offered to release him a year before the expiry of his 18 years in jail, Vanunu turned them down. "He believes in freedom of speech," she said. It remains to be seen if Israel will allow Vanunu the free speech he loves. Horev, the defence ministry security official who attended Sharon's meeting, has spoken of the threat that he believes the nuclear technician represents, which seems to be about ambiguity rather than state secrets. Horev compares this ambiguity to water in a glass. "My job is to ensure that the water doesn't spill over the glass," he said recently. "Up until the Vanunu affair, the water was at a very low level. The affair caused the water level to rise significantly and caused Israel great damage, but the water still didn't overflow. If we let certain people act in the matter, the water will spill." The Israeli journalist Raanan Shaked was a good deal more cynical when he spoke on the subject on Israel's Channel 10 TV. "Who is the main threat to Israel?" he asked. "Of course, Mordechai Vanunu! He is the big danger. Israeli democracy simply cannot withstand the impact of this one man saying what every child knows: we have nuclear weapons." On 21 April, when Vanunu is released, we shall find out if the water is going to overflow - and whether Vanunu will cross the red line painted so ominously on the floor at the instruction of the authorities. Copyright: The Independent. UK. ----------------------------------------------------------- "Power is not a "neutral" tool that you simply use for any purpose (whether good or evil), but always an unfair and oppressive type of relationship." -- Ezequiel Adamovsky --------------------------------- Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals ***************************************************************** 58 Seattle Times: 'The Hutch' claims data from tax-funded research is proprietary Saturday, April 03, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M. By The Associated Press SPOKANE — The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center is refusing to release data from a taxpayer-funded study of thyroid disease among people who lived downwind from the Hanford nuclear reservation, lawyers for plaintiffs suing Hanford contractors say. Attorneys for the thousands of people suing the contractors over radiation releases from the former nuclear-weapons production site recently issued a subpoena seeking information on how the 1999 study's radiation doses were calculated. The Seattle cancer center is fighting the subpoena, saying the numbers it crunched to study thyroid disease among Hanford downwinders are proprietary. In a March 24 memorandum to U.S. District Judge Frem Nielsen, filed in federal court in Spokane, lawyers for 2,322 plaintiffs objected to that stance. The judge has not ruled on the subpoena. The trial is scheduled for March 2005. Taxpayers paid $22 million for the Hanford Thyroid Disease Study and all the data should be public, the attorney said. Tobacco-industry scientists made similar claims of privilege to fight release of their data on the health impacts of cigarettes, but the courts rejected that stance, the Hanford lawyers said. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contracted with "The Hutch" for the thyroid study. Under the CDC contract, the release of much of the Hanford data isn't allowed because it would invade the privacy rights of study participants, said June Campbell, a lawyer representing the Hutch. The raw information "contains personal information about the participants. Under federal law, the participants are given an assurance of confidentiality," Campbell said. The Hutch's researchers also have an exclusive right to use the data in scientific papers they plan to publish, Campbell said. The plaintiffs want access to the study's "grid nodes," 36-square-mile geographic units in the inland Northwest used to locate where people lived in order to calculate individual radiation doses. They also want the calculated doses for the study's 3,440 participants and individual files for 11 "bellwether" plaintiffs, whose cases are the first scheduled for trial next year. Congress demanded the thyroid disease study in 1988, two years after the Energy Department released thousands of pages of documents showing that clouds of radioactive iodine 131 and other elements had been released from Hanford starting in the 1940s during the manufacture of plutonium for nuclear weapons. Iodine 131 lodges in the thyroid gland, where it can cause cancer and other abnormalities. In their study, the Hutch's researchers reported no verifiable link between the Hanford releases and increased thyroid disease downwind, a finding that researchers said surprised them. That angered many downwinders, who said the study dismissed their health problems. The CDC told the public that the study's inconclusive findings "do not prove that Hanford radiation had no effect on the health of the area population." Lawyers defending Hanford's Cold War-era contractors seized on the Hutch study, saying the results would make it difficult for the downwinders to prove their case in court. Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company More local news ***************************************************************** 59 Tri-City Herald: 2 DOE officials resign amid criticism This story was published Saturday, April 3rd, 2004 By Les Blumenthal Herald Washington, D.C., bureau WASHINGTON -- Two top officials at the Department of Energy resigned Friday, just days after the department was sharply criticized at a congressional hearing for its handling of a program to compensate workers who became sick from their jobs at federal nuclear defense sites. Undersecretary Robert Card, who held the No. 3 position at the department, and Beverly Cook, assistant secretary for environment, safety and health, submitted their resignations, both citing personal reasons. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham praised Card's performance, saying his "executive-level business management experience and long-term understanding of the department were vital assets for us in the accomplishments that we have achieved." Card was sworn in as undersecretary in June 2001. As undersecretary, he oversaw a number of programs, including the department's effort to accelerate the cleanup at Hanford and other nuclear sites, as well as various management improvement initiatives including safety and security and project management. Card also had responsibility for the department's workers' compensation program. He testified Tuesday before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, where he faced hostile questioning. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., called the program a "catastrophic failure," and other senators, including Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., also criticized the department's handling of the program. In defending the program, Card said progress was being made and the backlog of claims was shrinking. Congress created the program in 2000 to help workers who may have become sick because of their jobs at Hanford or other DOE nuclear sites. Several sources close to the department indicated Card's departure appeared to be linked, in part, to the hearing and the mounting criticism of the workers' compensation program. But Card, in a department news release, said he had been discussing his departure with Abraham and the White House for several weeks. "I had planned from the beginning to serve the full term, but pressing family issues overtook my plans earlier this year," Card said. Card, according to one of the sources, also may have sparred with Battelle, operator of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, over the cleanup of the 300 Area at the southern end of Hanford. A quarter of the lab's 3,800 employees work in 19 buildings in the 300 Area. The lab had expected to use 10 of the most important buildings through at least 2018. But as DOE moves to accelerate cleanup of the 300 Area and to tear down buildings, workers will have to move out of many of the buildings years earlier -- although there so far is nowhere to move. Lab officials are trying to be out of the 300 Area by 2010, but building new space may cost at least $250 million. A DOE spokeswoman, Jeanne Lopatto, said any speculation that Card may have been forced out was "totally wrong. We are sorry to see him go." Cook also was involved with the management of the workers' compensation program. The Office of Environment, Safety and Health advises the secretary on issues involving the health and safety of department workers, the public and on the environment near DOE facilities. Cook said she resigned because she wanted to be closer to her family in the Southwest. "My family needs me now and this is where I need to be," Cook said in a department news release. Prior to being sworn in as an assistant secretary, Cook had been manager of the department's Idaho field office. The White House said late Friday that it would nominate David Garman, the department's current assistant secretary for energy conservation and renewables, to replace Card. Before joining the department, Garman had been a top aide to former Sen. Frank Murkowski, D-Alaska, who was chairman of the Senate Energy Committee. "The undersecretary, although located in Washington, D.C., is absolutely critical to the future of Hanford cleanup, as well as the Pacific Northwest National Lab," said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., in a prepared statement. A predecessor to Card must be carefully chosen, he said. Personnel changes at the undersecretary level always create problems for projects in the planning and development stages, said Wanda Munn, a Hanford Advisory Board member. Work can be slowed as new officials learn about critical issues. "I hope we have more responsiveness on the part of (DOE's Office of Environment, Safety and Health) to the former workers' health and safety needs," said Dr. Tim Takaro of the University of Washington, also a HAB member. Although HAB did not discuss the resignations, an announcement of the changes was passed around during its meeting Friday. Takaro pointed out that a medical screening program he works on for former Hanford workers had more than 200 successful state worker compensation claims. In contrast, the federal program discussed in congressional hearings last week had helped just one claimant out of 23,000 receive state workers' compensation, one senator said. DOE has announced it plans to phase out the medical screening program Takaro works on. Paige Knight of Hanford Watch said she hoped the resignation of Card signaled an end to an era of poor decisions for Hanford and a "closed, secretive mindset of management." © 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 60 Tri-City Herald: Opinions Raising nuclear alarm This story was published Sunday, April 4th, 2004 Nothing is wrong with pointing out that the ground water under Hanford is polluted with byproducts of the nation's nuclear weapons program. The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability's recent report on ground water contamination at Hanford and other Department of Energy sites is certain to raise awareness about a widespread problem. And if the coalition of about 30 peace and environmental groups keeps pressure on the Energy Department, that's even better. The federal government must either clean up the water that it contaminated or convince regulators and the public that something less makes sense. But given all that, we couldn't help but be reminded how easy it is to make headlines by raising the radioactive alarm. No doubt, some folks in the Tri-Cities will get calls from worried relatives that will require reassurances that no one is glowing in the dark yet, and that Christmas newsletters reporting junior grew a foot meant only that he's getting taller, not adding a mutated appendage. It'll also mean explaining that, no, this isn't anything new. It's the same environmental mess that prompted the last frantic phone call in the wake of some other watchdog group's alert. But on balance, underplaying the problems posed by contamination at Hanford is even riskier than overstating the threat. The government's commitment to cleanup will likely falter without a continued sense of urgency. It's tempting to dismiss the familiar rants of activists as the cluckings of a nuclear Chicken Little, but the danger that these alarmists are responding to is more than a falling acorn. © 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 61 Rocky Mountain News: Top DOE officials quit Pair responsible for failing worker compensation plan By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News April 3, 2004 Two top Energy Department officials resigned Friday just three days after the Rocky Mountain News reported that a compensation program for sick atomic bomb plant workers had paid only one worker $15,000 - while spending $74 million on paperwork. Under Secretary of Energy Bob Card and Assistant Secretary of Energy Bev Cook were responsible for the compensation program called "a catastrophic failure" by one senator on Tuesday. Both Card and Cook said they were leaving in two weeks, citing a need to spend more time with their families. Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said the resignations had nothing to do with headlines nationally about workers with radiation-related illnesses who remain unpaid, or the disparity in spending reported by the News. Card, who previously ran the clean-up of the Denver area's Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant as president of contractor Kaiser-Hill, said he has no plans for a new job. Congress created the compensation program in 2000 for workers who risked their lives to turn radioactive and toxic chemicals into nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Many now are dying while they wait for action under the four-year-old compensation program. Card was subjected to withering criticism in a Senate Energy Committee hearing on the program on Tuesday. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told Card his program was "a catastrophic failure." Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa said, "Sick workers are getting shortchanged, taxpayers are getting gouged and Congress is getting taken for a ride." Most of the $74 million has gone to paperwork, but even so, DOE has completely finished work on only a few hundred of the 23,000 claims. Another five percent were rejected quickly. Congress is considering revamping the program, because even after gathering proof that their illnesses were caused on the job, workers are not paid. They only gain ammunition in a fight to win workers compensation from weapons contractors and their insurers. Card told the committee that his agency wanted another $76 million in 2004 and 2005, on top of the $74 million already spent. He said that amount would ensure that a few hundred more workers would be compensated by the end of 2004. About $30 million of the additional money is already moving through the appropriations process, Davis said. On Friday, Grassley said the personnel changes provide "an opportunity to chart a new course" for the compensation program. "It's important that the department find people who can now move this program forward and help compensate the former workers." An acting undersecretary was named within hours: David Garman, now the assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, including the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden. Bob Carey has been running the compensation program in recent months and will remain in that job, Davis said. Card also was in charge of the Yucca Mountain waste storage project, another subject of controversy in the Senate this week. Officials told the Senate the project is running late and Congressional delays in funding have cost an extra $1 billion. imsea@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5438 ***************************************************************** 62 Carlsbad Current-Argus: Senators want study of DOE plan currentargus.com By Victoria Parker-Stevens/Current-Argus staff writer Apr 2, 2004, 08:50 pm CARLSBAD — Sen. Jeff Bingaman has joined the call for further study of a federal Energy Department plan to reclassify some high-level nuclear waste for shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. On Friday, the Democratic senator sent a letter to the Energy Department urging a National Academy of Sciences report to review the science of reclassification. Earlier this week, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., also recommended an NAS study because of the “rather unclear definition of high-level waste” — which is based on how it’s generated, not how radioactive it is. The Energy Department has said the waste it would like to ship to WIPP meets radiation-level requirements for disposal at the site. But federal law prohibits disposing of “high-level” waste at WIPP, so the Energy Department wants to reclassify the waste — currently in tanks in Washington, South Carolina and Idaho — as lower level waste. In the letter sent Friday, Bingaman states an NAS study would help, “given the uncertainty associated with the Department’s proposed reclassification.” “An examination by the Academy, under rigorous peer review, would help resolve many of the issues between the DOE, the Congress, and the states which have cleanup operations underway,” he writes in the letter to Jessie Roberson, DOE assistant secretary for environmental management. “For New Mexico, such a study is essential to understand the impact that reclassification will have on WIPP operations.” Bingaman said the study should review the soundness of the Energy Department’s plans to determine whether the waste meets WIPP disposal requirements; to remove incompatible materials; and to package the waste, as well as alternative disposal plans, if needed. In addition to backing the study, Domenici said he had received a commitment from Roberson to begin including the state of New Mexico in discussions between the Energy Department and affected states. “There are a number of issues that will have to be resolved … (like) what is the process for removing … products that would meet the criteria for permanent disposal at WIPP,” Domenici states in a release. But state officials said they had no plans to participate, as Gov. Bill Richardson is opposed to reclassified high-level waste at WIPP. Bingaman is supportive of the state’s decision, said spokesman Jude McCartin. Previously, state officials and Bingaman had expressed displeasure that meetings had been occurring “behind closed doors,” including talks regarding proposed federal legislation. McCartin said that was before the state of New Mexico began a course of action. “He understands the state wants to see the issue resolved through the courts,” she said. The New Mexico attorney general recently joined a “friend-of-the-court” brief asking a federal appeals court to uphold a lower court ruling in Idaho that blocked the reclassification. Richardson has also begun the process to change the site’s state permit to try to keep the waste out of WIPP. Copyright © 2004 Carlsbad Current-Argus, a Gannett Co., Inc. ***************************************************************** 63 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Sat, 03 Apr 2004 12:52:52 -0800 (PST) REPORT: Nuclear whistleblower Vanunu seeking to leave Israel Ha'aretz - Israel Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu is seeking to renounce his citizenship as a way to prevent the government from confining him to the country ... See all stories on this topic: FEDERAL officials offer mostly good review of Fermi 2 nuclear ... Miami Herald - Miami,FL,USA ... a mostly good review of operations at the Fermi 2 nuclear plant near Newport, but plan an inspection this month to ensure an oil pressure tube leak won't ... See all stories on this topic: ONTARIO Power Paid C$40 Mln to Four Nuclear Experts, Globe Says Bloomberg - USA April 3 (Bloomberg) -- Ontario Power Generation Inc., the province-owned electricity generator, paid a team of four US nuclear experts hired to repair troubled ... See all stories on this topic: NUCLEAR power dangerous, expensive The Free Lance-Star - Fredericksburg,VA,USA ... fights reactor plans," March 17) that it is acting responsibly in submitting an Early Site Permit application to build two or more new nuclear reactors at ... See all stories on this topic: CONSORTIUM Wants to Build Nuclear Plant in Georgia or Alabama Miami Herald - Miami,FL,USA Apr. 1 - Southern Co. and six other companies said they will jointly apply for a license to build a new nuclear power plant, the first in nearly three decades. ... See all stories on this topic: EUROPE Recognizes Iran ’ s Right to Nuclear Energy : German ... Merh News Agency - Tehran,Iran ... Saturday that as the German foreign minister Joschka Fischer has said and as confirmed by other European states, Iran has the right to use nuclear energy for ... See all stories on this topic: `NUCLEAR' ship plan alarms Yokosuka Asahi Shimbun - Tokyo,Japan As soon as word reached Japan on Thursday that the head of the US Pacific Command had suggested a possible deployment of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to ... See all stories on this topic: KHAN ’ s nuclear network used military aircraft The Tribune - Chandigarh,India Abdul Qadeer Khan’s nuclear proliferation network, while using Pakistan military aircraft to ferry supplies, worked without the “approval” of the ... See all stories on this topic: REAGAN Feared Falklands War Might Go Nuclear NewsMax.com - USA ... On the 22nd anniversary of Argentina's invasion of the UK's Falkland Islands, tapes show President Ronald Reagan was concerned about the conflict going nuclear ... See all stories on this topic: NUCLEAR energy stymied by superstition Houston Chronicle - Houston,TX,USA By WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR. It was, to put it calmly, infuriating to be told by OPEC, at a moment when gasoline prices were rising ... See all stories on this topic: 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/ ***************************************************************** 64 [DU-WATCH] U.S. Takes First Step Towards Weapons in Space Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 03:00:05 -0500 (CDT) The US already has no match anywhere close necessitating seizing the highground of space. This is to give it first strike impunity. Which only instills terror in other nations causing a MAD rush of nuclear proliferation and ever-increasing terror alerts to pacify Americans and the whole world. Pacifying with terror or otherwise making people frozen in terror with terror is not real peace, in case you're wondering. This is also to give this unsustainable permanent war economy a never-ending apparatus for growth. as this insatiable pig of a crapitalist system needs something to feed on or it withers and dies. this is why we people just need to go ahead and together implement a sustainable system with all the better alternatives we know exist and are available. we do know that we don't always have to be gobbling up this and that and whatever 24/7, and that that in itself is suicidal. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/SciTech/US/space_weapons_040330.html Weapons in space may be the next frontier for the U.S. military. Digital Vision Shooting Stars U.S. Military Takes First Step Towards Weapons in Space By Marc Lallanilla ABCNEWS.com Mar. 30 For all of human history, people have looked at the stars with a sense of wonder. More recently, some U.S. military planners have looked skyward and seen something very different the next battlefield. While the military's presence in space stretches back decades, now there appears to be a new emphasis. Officials in the Bush administration and the Department of Defense are actively pursuing an agenda calling for the unprecedented weaponization of space. The first real step in that direction appears to be coming in the form of a little-noticed weapons program at the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. The agency has now earmarked $68 million in 2005 for something called the Near Field Infrared Experiment. The NFIRE satellite is primarily designed to gather data on exhaust plumes from rockets launched from earth, and defense officials claim it is therefore designed as a defensive, rather than offensive weapons. But the satellite will also contain a smaller "kill vehicle," a projectile that takes advantage of the kinetic energy of objects traveling through low-Earth orbit (which move at several times the speed of a bullet) to disable or destroy an oncoming missile or another orbiting satellite. As one senior government official and defense expert described the program, which has seen cost-related delays and increased congressional scrutiny: "We're crossing the Rubicon into space weaponization." Blueprint for Lasers Weapons, Rod Bundles "A lot of folks in the Air Force are leery of lobbing weapons into space, so they want to creep up on this issue," added the official, who asked to remain unnamed. "It's very hard to kill anything in the Missile Defense Agency budget it's politically protected." The missile agency was reborn from the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, with a mission to develop integrated missile defense systems, including the use of space-based platforms. But the agency's program is far from the only effort to bring weapons to space. A wide-ranging outline of possible weaponization came from the U.S. Air Force last November. That Transformation Flight Plan outlines planned weapons programs including air-launched anti-satellite missiles, laser strike weapons and metal projectiles called "hypervelocity rod bundles" to hit ground targets from space. The USAF weapons programs are, however, still in the conceptual phase and not yet budgeted for development. "There are two paths and we're at a crossroads now," warns one critic of such efforts. Says Laura Grego, space weapons expert at the Washington, D.C.-based Union of Concerned Scientists, "Space is a beautiful research laboratory above the atmosphere. Putting that in danger to fulfill a Star Wars fantasy doesn't make sense." 'A Space Pearl Harbor' The militarization of space is nothing new. After the former Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, the U.S. military began to develop and deploy satellites for communications and reconnaissance. By 1978, the military deployed the first global positioning system satellite, a technology now widely used for both military and commercial purposes. GPS which has provided for the military what Lt. Col. Peter Hays, USAF, and executive editor of Joint Force Quarterly, describes as a "radical improvement and a kind of quantum leap in the use of space" is but one example of how satellites are part of the daily lives of Americans, going far beyond satellite TV and weather forecasts. With that ubiquity in mind, the current administration has been building its emphasis on space-based weapons since even before President Bush took office. Shortly before his appointment as secretary of defense, for instance, Donald Rumsfeld chaired a blue-ribbon commission investigating the role of space in national security. It concluded in January 2001 the likelihood of an attack on U.S. space systems needed to be taken seriously to prevent another "space Pearl Harbor." Land, sea and air have seen conflict, the report noted, asserting space will be no different. "Given this virtual certainty, the U.S. must develop the means to both deter and to defend against hostile acts in and from space." The report remains consistent with the Defense Department's current position on weapons in space, a Defense spokesperson confirmed. Space as 'Public Good'? But the idea of weapons in space is greeted coldly by some. "Weapons in space are not inevitable. If it were, it would have happened already," argued the senior defense expert, adding, "We should instead be taking the lead to make [weapons] agreements with other countries." Indeed, other nations have moved for the non-militarization of space. As early as 1967, for example, the United Nations brokered the Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits the use of weapons of mass destruction in space. The United States is a signatory to the treaty. Summarizing the differences between the United States and European views on space was Jean-Jacques Dordain, head of the European Space Agency, who said in a recent interview: "For the U.S., space is an instrument of domination information domination and leadership. Europe should be proposing a different model space as a public good." Criticism of the U.S. plans to weaponize space is not limited to Europeans. The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Defense Information, a non-governmental organization founded by retired senior U.S. military offices, said in a 2002 report, "Space is already 'militarized' by both military and commercial satellites. The only practical place to draw the line today is space weaponization." Concluded the report: "The United States has and will continue to have more interests in space assets both civil and military than most countries, and it will retain a net benefit if no one [including the United States itself] has weapons in space." --------------------------------- Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals ***************************************************************** 65 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Sun, 04 Apr 2004 12:57:19 -0700 (PDT) SOURCES: Brazil blocks nuclear inspectors CNN - USA (CNN) -- The Brazilian government and UN nuclear inspectors are at odds over inspections of an under-construction, uranium-enrichment facility near Rio de ... See all stories on this topic: RUSSIA Will Deliver Fuel to Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant This Year Tehran Times - Tehran,Iran TEHRAN (Mehr News Agency) – The managing director of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Nasser Shariflu, said here Saturday that environmental concerns about ... See all stories on this topic: CDC looking at pollution caused by nuclear work at Los Alamos KRQE - Albuquerque,NM,USA ... of Energy and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working together to find out how much pollution has been created by nuclear weapons work at Los ... See all stories on this topic: NORTH Korea willing to give up all nuclear facilities Channel News Asia - Singapore SEOUL : North Korea has told China the communist state was willing to give up all its nuclear facilities in return for undislosed "corresponding measures ... See all stories on this topic: ISRAELI nuclear whistle-blower asks to give up his citizenship AZ Central.com - AZ,United States JERUSALEM - Israeli nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu has asked to renounce his citizenship as a way to prevent the government from confining him to the ... See all stories on this topic: COMPANY for nuclear power engineering set up in Shenzhen Xinhua - China SHENZHEN, April 4 (Xinhuanet) -- China Guangdong Nuclear Power Engineering Co. Ltd. ... There are now four nuclear power plants operating in China. ... MINISTRY looks askance at North's nuclear offer Joongang Ilbo - Seoul,South Korea ... yesterday that North Korean officials told the visiting Chinese foreign minister, Li Zhao-xing that it was ready to included its "peaceful" nuclear program in ... RAISING nuclear alarm Mid Columbia Tri City Herald - Mid-Columbia,WA,USA Nothing is wrong with pointing out that the ground water under Hanford is polluted with byproducts of the nation's nuclear weapons program. ... US prods UN for a nuclear export rule Boston Globe - Boston,MA,USA WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is pressing for a UN resolution demanding that all countries pass strict laws on nuclear exports, according to a draft of ... GUANGDONG plans biggest nuclear power plant China Daily - Beijing,China Officials in South China's Guangdong Province are speeding up preparations for the construction of the country's biggest nuclear power plant. ... 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/ ***************************************************************** 66 AU SMH: Wind farms feel the chill of public rejection - SpecialsEnvironment - www.smh.com.au [Sydney Morning Herald Online] By Renee Mickelburgh, Tony Paterson and Kim Willsher April 5, 2004 They introduced the world to "environmentally friendly" energy, but now some of Europe's "greenest" countries are under pressure to backtrack on wind farms as public anger grows over their impact on the countryside. Voters are outraged by the unsightly turbines, the loud, low-frequency humming noise that they create and the stroboscopic effects of blades rotating in sunshine. Opponents are dismayed at the proliferation of the turbines in some of the most beautiful areas of the continent. Conservationists complain that hundreds of birds are killed each month by the rotating blades. Several governments which once embraced the giant windmills as a way to generate "clean" power are showing signs of having second thoughts. In France, regional councils have started refusing permission for new turbine developments. Denmark, the world leader in wind technology, is preparing to scale down the number of windmills in the countryside, while Dutch government officials fear that public hostility will force them to shelve plans to expand the Netherlands' wind farms. The country had hoped to increase onshore windmill capacity to 1500 megawatts - enough energy for 1.5 million homes - by 2010. A Danish plan to scrap 900 existing turbines and replace them with 175 new windmills has also failed to placate the public. The debate over wind power is particularly fierce in Germany. The world's largest wind power producer, with 15,000 turbines, is committed to scrapping all of its nuclear power stations. Legislation to double the number of wind farms over the next 16 years, approved by the country's parliament last week, has provoked angry protests. Vast tracts of agricultural land are blanketed by huge wind turbines, many more than 120 metres tall. German residents whose nights are blighted by flashing red lights mounted on the turbine blades to alert aircraft complain about the so-called "disco effect". Resistance is also gathering strength in Britain. Last week Country Life magazine launched a campaign and petition against a relaxation of the planning law proposed by John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, to encourage the development of land-based wind farms in Britain. European governments, including Britain, have pushed the development of wind farms in an attempt to increase the proportion of power generated by renewable means. The European Union has set a target - which no country is likely to meet - of 22 per cent by 2010. The Sunday Telegraph reported last month that proposed Scottish windmills were threatening to push one of Britain's rarest birds, the golden eagle, into extinction. Other species are also said to be under threat. There are 1043 turbines on 84 sites throughout Britain, with plans for 959 more to be installed. A spokesman for the Department of Trade and Industry, which oversees energy production, said that Britain would not be deflected from its own aim of producing 10 per cent of power from renewable sources by 2010. The Telegraph, London Copyright © 2004. The Sydney Morning Herald. | contact us ***************************************************************** 67 petroleumworld: The Rise of Complex Terrorism By Thomas Homer-Dixon Modern societies face a cruel paradox: Fast-paced technological and economic innovations may deliver unrivalled prosperity, but they also render rich nations vulnerable to crippling, unanticipated attacks. By relying on intricate networks and concentrating vital assets in small geographic clusters, advanced Western nations only amplify the destructive power of terrorists—and the psychological and financial damage they can inflict. It's 4 a.m. on a sweltering summer night in July 2003. Across much of the United States, power plants are working full tilt to generate electricity for millions of air conditioners that are keeping a ferocious heat wave at bay. The electricity grid in California has repeatedly buckled under the strain, with rotating blackouts from San Diego to Santa Rosa. In different parts of the state, half a dozen small groups of men and women gather. Each travels in a rented minivan to its prearranged destination—for some, a location outside one of the hundreds of electrical substations dotting the state; for others, a spot upwind from key, high-voltage transmission lines. The groups unload their equipment from the vans. Those outside the substations put together simple mortars made from materials bought at local hardware stores, while those near the transmission lines use helium to inflate weather balloons with long silvery tails. At a precisely coordinated moment, the homemade mortars are fired, sending showers of aluminum chaff over the substations. The balloons are released and drift into the transmission lines. Simultaneously, other groups are doing the same thing along the Eastern Seaboard and in the South and Southwest. A national electrical system already under immense strain is massively short-circuited, causing a cascade of power failures across the country. Traffic lights shut off. Water and sewage systems are disabled. Communications systems break down. The financial system and national economy come screeching to a halt. Sound far-fetched? Perhaps it would have before September 11, 2001, but certainly not now. We've realized, belatedly, that our societies are wide-open targets for terrorists. We're easy prey because of two key trends: First, the growing technological capacity of small groups and individuals to destroy things and people; and, second, the increasing vulnerability of our economic and technological systems to carefully aimed attacks. While commentators have devoted considerable ink and airtime to the first of these trends, they've paid far less attention to the second, and they've virtually ignored their combined effect. Together, these two trends facilitate a new and sinister kind of mass violence—a "complex terrorism" that threatens modern, high-tech societies in the world's most developed nations. Our fevered, Hollywood-conditioned imaginations encourage us to focus on the sensational possibility of nuclear or biological attacks—attacks that might kill tens of thousands of people in a single strike. These threats certainly deserve attention, but not to the neglect of the likelier and ultimately deadlier disruptions that could result from the clever exploitation by terrorists of our societies' new and growing complexities. Weapons of Mass Disruption The steady increase in the destructive capacity of small groups and individuals is driven largely by three technological advances: more powerful weapons, the dramatic progress in communications and information processing, and more abundant opportunities to divert non-weapon technologies to destructive ends. Consider first the advances in weapons technology. Over the last century, progress in materials engineering, the chemistry of explosives, and miniaturization of electronics has brought steady improvement in all key weapons characteristics, including accuracy, destructive power, range, portability, ruggedness, ease-of-use, and affordability. Improvements in light weapons are particularly relevant to trends in terrorism and violence by small groups, where the devices of choice include rocket-propelled grenade launchers, machine guns, light mortars, land mines, and cheap assault rifles such as the famed AK-47. The effects of improvements in these weapons are particularly noticeable in developing countries. A few decades ago, a small band of terrorists or insurgents attacking a rural village might have used bolt-action rifles, which take precious time to reload. Today, cheap assault rifles multiply the possible casualties resulting from such an attack. As technological change makes it easier to kill, societies are more likely to become locked into perpetual cycles of attack and counterattack that render any normal trajectory of political and economic development impossible. Meanwhile, new communications technologies—from satellite phones to the Internet—allow violent groups to marshal resources and coordinate activities around the planet. Transnational terrorist organizations can use the Internet to share information on weapons and recruiting tactics, arrange surreptitious fund transfers across borders, and plan attacks. These new technologies can also dramatically enhance the reach and power of age-old procedures. Take the ancient hawala system of moving money between countries, widely used in Middle Eastern and Asian societies. The system, which relies on brokers linked together by clan-based networks of trust, has become faster and more effective through the use of the Internet. The Rise of Complex Terrorism Information-processing technologies have also boosted the power of terrorists by allowing them to hide or encrypt their messages. The power of a modern laptop computer today is comparable to the computational power available in the entire U.S. Defense Department in the mid-1960s. Terrorists can use this power to run widely available state-of-the-art encryption software. Sometimes less advanced computer technologies are just as effective. For instance, individuals can use a method called steganography ("hidden writing") to embed messages into digital photographs or music clips. Posted on publicly available Web sites, the photos or clips are downloaded by collaborators as necessary. (This technique was reportedly used by recently arrested terrorists when they planned to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Paris.) At latest count, 140 easy-to-use steganography tools were available on the Internet. Many other off-the-shelf technologies—such as "spread-spectrum" radios that randomly switch their broadcasting and receiving signals—allow terrorists to obscure their messages and make themselves invisible. The Web also provides access to critical information. The September 11 terrorists could have found there all the details they needed about the floor plans and design characteristics of the World Trade Center and about how demolition experts use progressive collapse to destroy large buildings. The Web also makes available sets of instructions—or "technical ingenuity"—needed to combine readily available materials in destructive ways. Practically anything an extremist wants to know about kidnapping, bomb making, and assassination is now available online. One somewhat facetious example: It's possible to convert everyday materials into potentially destructive devices like the "potato cannon." With a barrel and combustion chamber fashioned from common plastic pipe, and with propane as an explosive propellant, a well-made cannon can hurl a homely spud hundreds of meters—or throw chaff onto electrical substations. A quick search of the Web reveals dozens of sites giving instructions on how to make one. Finally, modern, high-tech societies are filled with supercharged devices packed with energy, combustibles, and poisons, giving terrorists ample opportunities to divert such non-weapon technologies to destructive ends. To cause horrendous damage, all terrorists must do is figure out how to release this power and let it run wild or, as they did on September 11, take control of this power and retarget it. Indeed, the assaults on New York City and the Pentagon were not low-tech affairs, as is often argued. True, the terrorists used simple box cutters to hijack the planes, but the box cutters were no more than the "keys" that allowed the terrorists to convert a high-tech means of transport into a high-tech weapon of mass destruction. Once the hijackers had used these keys to access and turn on their weapon, they were able to deliver a kiloton of explosive power into the World Trade Center with deadly accuracy. High-Tech Hubris The vulnerability of advanced nations stems not only from the greater destructive capacities of terrorists, but also from the increased vulnerability of the West's economic and technological systems. This additional vulnerability is the product of two key social and technological developments: first, the growing complexity and interconnectedness of our modern societies; and second, the increasing geographic concentration of wealth, human capital, knowledge, and communication links. Consider the first of these developments. All human societies encompass a multitude of economic and technological systems. We can think of these systems as networks—that is, as sets of nodes and links among those nodes. The U.S. economy consists of numerous nodes, including corporations, factories, and urban centers; it also consists of links among these nodes, such as highways, rail lines, electrical grids, and fiber-optic cables. As societies modernize and become richer, their networks become more complex and interconnected. The number of nodes increases, as does the density of links among the nodes and the speed at which materials, energy, and information are pushed along these links. Moreover, the nodes themselves become more complex as the people who create, operate, and manage them strive for better performance. (For instance, a manufacturing company might improve efficiency by adopting more intricate inventory-control methods.) Complex and interconnected networks sometimes have features that make their behavior unstable and unpredictable. In particular, they can have feedback loops that produce vicious cycles. A good example is a stock market crash, in which selling drives down prices, which begets more selling. Networks can also be tightly coupled, which means that links among the nodes are short, therefore making it more likely that problems with one node will spread to others. When drivers tailgate at high speeds on freeways, they create a tightly coupled system: A mistake by one driver, or a sudden shock coming from outside the system, such as a deer running across the road, can cause a chain reaction of cars piling onto each other. We've seen such knock-on effects in the U.S. electrical, telephone, and air traffic systems, when a failure in one part of the network has sometimes produced a cascade of failures across the country. Finally, in part because of feedbacks and tight coupling, networks often exhibit nonlinear behavior, meaning that a small shock or perturbation to the network produces a disproportionately large disruption. Terrorists and other malicious individuals can magnify their own disruptive power by exploiting these features of complex and interconnected networks. Consider the archetypal lone, nerdy high-school kid hacking away at his computer in his parents' basement who can create a computer virus that produces chaos in global communications and data systems. But there's much more to worry about than just the proliferation of computer viruses. A special investigative commission set up in 1997 by then U.S. President Bill Clinton reported that "growing complexity and interdependence, especially in the energy and communications infrastructures, create an increased possibility that a rather minor and routine disturbance can cascade into a regional outage." The commission continued: "We are convinced that our vulnerabilities are increasing steadily, that the means to exploit those weaknesses are readily available and that the costs [of launching an attack] continue to drop." Terrorists must be clever to exploit these weaknesses. They must attack the right nodes in the right networks. If they don't, the damage will remain isolated and the overall network will be resilient. Much depends upon the network's level of redundancy—that is, on the degree to which the damaged node's functions can be offloaded to undamaged nodes. As terrorists come to recognize the importance of redundancy, their ability to disable complex networks will improve. Langdon Winner, a theorist of politics and technology, provides the first rule of modern terrorism: "Find the critical but nonredundant parts of the system and sabotage … them according to your purposes." Winner concludes that "the science of complexity awaits a Machiavelli or Clausewitz to make the full range of possibilities clear." The range of possible terrorist attacks has expanded due to a second source of organizational vulnerability in modern economies—the rising concentration of high-value assets in geographically small locations. Advanced societies concentrate valuable things and people in order to achieve economies of scale. Companies in capital-intensive industries can usually reduce the per-unit cost of their goods by building larger production facilities. Moreover, placing expensive equipment and highly skilled people in a single location provides easier access, more efficiencies, and synergies that constitute an important source of wealth. That is why we build places like the World Trade Center. In so doing, however, we also create extraordinarily attractive targets for terrorists, who realize they can cause a huge amount of damage in a single strike. On September 11, a building complex that took seven years to construct collapsed in 90 minutes, obliterating 10 million square feet of office space and exacting at least $30 billion in direct costs. A major telephone switching office was destroyed, another heavily damaged, and important cellular antennas on top of the towers were lost. Key transit lines through southern Manhattan were buried under rubble. Ironically, even a secret office of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was destroyed in the attack, temporarily disrupting normal intelligence operations. Yet despite the horrific damage to the area's infrastructure and New York City's economy, the attack did not cause catastrophic failures in U.S. financial, economic, or communications networks. As it turned out, the World Trade Center was not a critical, nonredundant node. At least it wasn't critical in the way most people (including, probably, the terrorists) would have thought. Many of the financial firms in the destroyed buildings had made contingency plans for disaster by setting up alternate facilities for data, information, and computer equipment in remote locations. Though the NASDAQ headquarters was demolished, for instance, the exchange's data centers in Connecticut and Maryland remained linked to trading companies through two separate connections that passed through 20 switching centers. NASDAQ officials later claimed that their system was so robust that they could have restarted trading only a few hours after the attack. Some World Trade Center firms had made advanced arrangements with companies specializing in providing emergency relocation facilities in New Jersey and elsewhere. Because of all this proactive planning—and the network redundancy it produced—the September 11 attacks caused remarkably little direct disruption to the U.S. financial system (despite the unprecedented closure of the stock market for several days). But when we look back years from now, we may recognize that the attacks had a critical effect on another kind of network that we've created among ourselves: a tightly coupled, very unstable, and highly nonlinear psychological network. We're all nodes in this particular network, and the links among us consist of Internet connections, satellite signals, fiber-optic cables, talk radio, and 24-hour television news. In the minutes following the attack, coverage of the story flashed across this network. People then stayed in front of their televisions for hours on end; they viewed and reviewed the awful video clips on the CNN Web site; they plugged phone lines checking on friends and relatives; and they sent each other millions upon millions of e-mail messages—so many, in fact, that the Internet was noticeably slower for days afterwards. Along these links, from TV and radio stations to their audiences, and especially from person to person through the Internet, flowed raw emotion: grief, anger, horror, disbelief, fear, and hatred. It was as if we'd all been wired into one immense, convulsing, and reverberating neural network. Indeed, the biggest impact of the September 11 attacks wasn't the direct disruption of financial, economic, communications, or transportation networks—physical stuff, all. Rather, by working through the network we've created within and among our heads, the attacks had their biggest impact on our collective psychology and our subjective feelings of security and safety. This network acts like a huge megaphone, vastly amplifying the emotional impact of terrorism. To maximize this impact, the perpetrators of complex terrorism will carry out their attacks in audacious, unexpected, and even bizarre manners—using methods that are, ideally, unimaginably cruel. By so doing, they will create the impression that anything is possible, which further magnifies fear. From this perspective, the World Trade Center represented an ideal target, because the Twin Towers were an icon of the magnificence and boldness of American capitalism. When they collapsed like a house of cards, in about 15 seconds each, it suggested that American capitalism was a house of cards, too. How could anything so solid and powerful and so much a part of American identity vanish so quickly? And the use of passenger airplanes made matters worse by exploiting our worst fears of flying. Unfortunately, this emotional response has had huge, real-world consequences. Scared, insecure, grief-stricken people aren't ebullient consumers. They behave cautiously and save more. Consumer demand drops, corporate investment falls, and economic growth slows. In the end, via the multiplier effect of our technology-amplified emotional response, the September 11 terrorists may have achieved an economic impact far greater than they ever dreamed possible. The total cost of lost economic growth and decreased equity value around the world could exceed a trillion dollars. Since the cost of carrying out the attack itself was probably only a few hundred thousand dollars, we're looking at an economic multiplier of over a millionfold. The Weakest Links Complex terrorism operates like jujitsu—it redirects the energies of our intricate societies against us. Once the basic logic of complex terrorism is understood (and the events of September 11 prove that terrorists are beginning to understand it), we can quickly identify dozens of relatively simple ways to bring modern, high-tech societies to their knees. How would a Clausewitz of terrorism proceed? He would pinpoint the critical complex networks upon which modern societies depend. They include networks for producing and distributing energy, information, water, and food; the highways, railways, and airports that make up our transportation grid; and our healthcare system. Of these, the vulnerability of the food system is particularly alarming. However, terrorism experts have paid the most attention to the energy and information networks, mainly because they so clearly underpin the vitality of modern economies. The energy system—which comprises everything from the national network of gas pipelines to the electricity grid—is replete with high-value nodes like oil refineries, tank farms, and electrical substations. At times of peak energy demand, this network (and in particular, the electricity grid) is very tightly coupled. The loss of one link in the grid means that the electricity it carries must be offloaded to other links. If other links are already operating near capacity, the additional load can cause them to fail, too, thus displacing their energy to yet other links. We saw this kind of breakdown in August 1996, when the failure of the Big Eddy transmission line in northern Oregon caused overloading on a string of transmission lines down the West Coast of the United States, triggering blackouts that affected 4 million people in nine states. Substations are clear targets because they represent key nodes linked to many other parts of the electrical network. Substations and high-voltage transmission lines are also "soft" targets, since they can be fairly easily disabled or destroyed. Tens of thousands of miles of transmission lines are strung across North America, often in locations so remote that the lines are almost impossible to protect, but they are nonetheless accessible by four-wheel drive. Transmission towers can be brought down with well-placed explosive charges. Imagine a carefully planned sequence of attacks on these lines, with emergency crews and investigators dashing from one remote attack site to another, constantly off-balance and unable to regain control. Detailed maps of locations of substations and transmission lines for much of North America are easily available on the Web. Not even all the police and military personnel in the United States would suffice to provide even rudimentary protection to this immense network. The energy system also provides countless opportunities for turning supposedly benign technology to destructive ends. For instance, large gas pipelines, many of which run near or even through urban areas, have huge explosive potential; attacks on them could have the twin effect of producing great local damage and wider disruptions in energy supply. And the radioactive waste pools associated with most nuclear reactors are perhaps the most lethal targets in the national energy-supply system. If the waste in these facilities were dispersed into the environment, the results could be catastrophic. Fortunately, such attacks would be technically difficult. Even beyond energy networks, opportunities to release the destructive power of benign technologies abound. Chemical plants are especially tempting targets, because they are packed with toxins and flammable, even explosive, materials. Security at such facilities is often lax: An April 1999 study of chemical plants in Nevada and West Virginia by the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry concluded that security ranged from "fair to very poor" and that oversights were linked to "complacency and lack of awareness of the threat." And every day, trains carrying tens of thousands of tons of toxic material course along transport corridors throughout the United States. All a terrorist needs is inside knowledge that a chemical-laden train is traveling through an urban area at a specific time, and a well-placed object (like a piece of rail) on the track could cause a wreck, a chemical release, and a mass evacuation. A derailment of such a train at a nonredundant link in the transport system-such as an important tunnel or bridge—could be particularly potent. (In fact, when the U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, the U.S. railroad industry declared a three-day moratorium on transporting dangerous chemicals.) Recent accidents in Switzerland and Baltimore, Maryland, make clear that rail and highway tunnels are vulnerable because they are choke points for transportation networks and because it's extraordinarily hard to extinguish explosions and fires inside them. Modern communications networks also are susceptible to terrorist attacks. Although the Internet was originally designed to keep working even if large chunks of the network were lost (as might happen in a nuclear war, for instance), today's Internet displays some striking vulnerabilities. One of the most significant is the system of computers—called "routers" and "root servers"—that directs traffic around the Net. Routers represent critical nodes in the network and depend on each other for details on where to send packets of information. A software error in one router, or its malicious reprogramming by a hacker, can lead to errors throughout the Internet. Hackers could also exploit new peer-to-peer software (such as the information-transfer tool Gnutella) to distribute throughout the Internet millions of "sleeper" viruses programmed to attack specific machines or the network itself at a predetermined date. The U.S. government is aware of many of these threats and of the specific vulnerability of complex networks, especially information networks. President George W. Bush has appointed Richard Clarke, a career civil servant and senior advisor to the National Security Council on counterterrorism, as his cyberspace security czar, reporting both to Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. In addition, the U.S. Senate recently considered new legislation (the Critical Infrastructure Information Security Act) addressing a major obstacle to improved security of critical networks: the understandable reluctance of firms to share proprietary information about networks they have built or manage. The act would enable the sharing of sensitive infrastructure information between the federal government and private sector and within the private sector itself. In his opening remarks to introduce the act on September 25, 2001, Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah clearly recognized that we face a new kind of threat. "The American economy is a highly interdependent system of systems, with physical and cyber components," he declared. "Security in a networked world must be a shared responsibility." Preparing for the Unknown Shortly following the September 11 attacks, the U.S. Army enlisted the help of some of Hollywood's top action screenwriters and directors—including the writers of Die Hard and McGyver—to conjure up possible scenarios for future terrorist attacks. Yet no one can possibly imagine in advance all the novel opportunities for terrorism provided by our technological and economic systems. We've made these critical systems so complex that they are replete with vulnerabilities that are very hard to anticipate, because we don't even know how to ask the right questions. We can think of these possibilities as "exploitable unknown unknowns." Terrorists can make connections between components of complex systems—such as between passenger airliners and skyscrapers—that few, if any, people have anticipated. Complex terrorism is particularly effective if its goal is not a specific strategic or political end, but simply the creation of widespread fear, panic, and economic disruption. This more general objective grants terrorists much more latitude in their choice of targets. More likely than not, the next major attack will come in a form as unexpected as we witnessed on September 11. What should we do to lessen the risk of complex terrorism, beyond the conventional counterterrorism strategies already being implemented by the United States and other nations? First, we must acknowledge our own limitations. Little can be done, for instance, about terrorists' inexorably rising capacity for violence. This trend results from deep technological forces that can't be stopped without producing major disruptions elsewhere in our economies and societies. However, we can take steps to reduce the vulnerabilities related to our complex economies and technologies. We can do so by loosening the couplings in our economic and technological networks, building into these networks various buffering capacities, introducing "circuit breakers" that interrupt dangerous feedbacks, and dispersing high-value assets so that they are less concentrated and thus less inviting targets. These prescriptions will mean different things for different networks. In the energy sector, loosening coupling might mean greater use of decentralized, local energy production and alternative energy sources (like small-scale solar power) that make individual users more independent of the electricity grid. Similarly, in food production, loosening coupling could entail increased autonomy of local and regional food-production networks so that when one network is attacked the damage doesn't cascade into others. In many industries, increasing buffering would involve moving away from just-in-time production processes. Firms would need to increase inventories of feedstocks and parts so production can continue even when the supply of these essential inputs is interrupted. Clearly this policy would reduce economic efficiency, but the extra security of more stable and resilient production networks could far outweigh this cost. Circuit breakers would prove particularly useful in situations where crowd behavior and panic can get out of control. They have already been implemented on the New York Stock Exchange: Trading halts if the market plunges more than a certain percentage in a particular period of time. In the case of terrorism, one of the factors heightening public anxiety is the incessant barrage of sensational reporting and commentary by 24-hour news TV. As is true for the stock exchange, there might be a role for an independent, industry-based monitoring body here, a body that could intervene with broadcasters at critical moments, or at least provide vital counsel, to manage the flow and content of information. In an emergency, for instance, all broadcasters might present exactly the same information (vetted by the monitoring body and stated deliberately and calmly) so that competition among broadcasters doesn't encourage sensationalized treatment. If the monitoring body were under the strict authority of the broadcasters themselves, the broadcasters would—collectively—retain complete control over the content of the message, and the procedure would not involve government encroachment on freedom of speech. If terrorist attacks continue, economic forces alone will likely encourage the dispersal of high-value assets. Insurance costs could become unsupportable for businesses and industries located in vulnerable zones. In 20 to 30 years, we may be astonished at the folly of housing so much value in the exquisitely fragile buildings of the World Trade Center. Again, dispersal may entail substantial economic costs, because we'll lose economies of scale and opportunities for synergy. Yet we have to recognize that we face new circumstances. Past policies are inadequate. The advantage in this war has shifted toward terrorists. Our increased vulnerability—and our newfound recognition of that vulnerability—makes us more risk-averse, while terrorists have become more powerful and more tolerant of risk. (The September 11 attackers, for instance, had an extremely high tolerance for risk, because they were ready and willing to die.) As a result, terrorists have significant leverage to hurt us. Their capacity to exploit this leverage depends on their ability to understand the complex systems that we depend on so critically. Our capacity to defend ourselves depends on that same understanding. Thomas Homer-Dixon is associate professor of political science and director of the Centre for the Study of Peace and Conflict at the University of Toronto. He is the author of, most recently, The Ingenuity Gap: How Can We Solve the Problems of the Future? (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000). It views are not necessarily those of Petroleumworld. This article was originally published on the January/February 2002 issue of Foreing Policy Magazine. Shorting out electrical grids or causing train derailments would be small-scale sabotage compared with terrorist attacks that intentionally exploit psychological vulnerabilities. One key vulnerability is our fear for our health—an attack that exploits this fear would foster widespread panic. Probably the easiest way to strike at the health of an industrialized nation is through its food-supply system. Modern food-supply systems display many key features that a prospective terrorist would seek in a complex network and are thus highly vulnerable to attack. Such systems are tightly coupled, and they have many nodes—including huge factory farms and food-processing plants—with multiple connections to other nodes. The recent foot-and-mouth disease crisis in the United Kingdom provided dramatic evidence of these characteristics. By the time veterinarians found the disease, it had already spread throughout Great Britain. As in the United States, the drive for economic efficiencies in the British farming sector has produced a highly integrated system in which foods move briskly from farm to table. It has also led to economic concentration, with a few immense abattoirs scattered across the land replacing the country's many small slaughterhouses. Foot-and-mouth disease spread rapidly in large part because infected animals were shipped from farms to these distant abattoirs. Given these characteristics, foot-and-mouth disease seems a useful vector for a terrorist attack. The virus is endemic in much of the world and thus easy to obtain. Terrorists could contaminate 20 or 30 large livestock farms or ranches across the United States, allowing the disease to spread through the network, as it did in Great Britain. Such an attack would probably bring the U.S. cattle, sheep, and pig industries to a halt in a matter of weeks, costing the economy tens of billions of dollars. Despite the potential economic impact of such an attack, however, it wouldn't have the huge psychological effect that terrorists value, because foot-and-mouth disease rarely affects humans. Far more dramatic would be the poisoning of our food supply. Here the possibilities are legion. For instance, grain storage and transportation networks in the United States are easily accessible; unprotected grain silos dot the countryside and railway cars filled with grain often sit for long periods on railway sidings. Attackers could break into these silos and grain cars to deposit small amounts of contaminants, which would then diffuse through the food system. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB)—easily found in the oil in old electrical transformers—are a particularly potent group of contaminants, in part because they contain trace amounts of dioxins. These chemicals are both carcinogenic and neurotoxic; they also disrupt the human endocrine system. Children in particular are vulnerable. Imagine the public hysteria if, several weeks after grain silos and railway cars had been laced with PCBs and the poison had spread throughout the food network, terrorists publicly suggested that health authorities test food products for PCB contamination. (U.S. federal food inspectors might detect the PCBs on their own, but the inspection system is stretched very thin and contamination could easily be missed.) At that point, millions of people could have already eaten the products. Such a contamination scenario is not in the realm of science fiction or conspiracy theories. In January 1999, 500 tons of animal feed in Belgium were accidentally contaminated with approximately 50 kilograms of PCBs from transformer oil. Some 10 million people in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Germany subsequently ate the contaminated food products. This single incident may in time cause up to 8,000 cases of cancer. Copyright © Foreign Policy 2004, All rights reserved Petroleumworld News 04 04 04 Send this story to a friend Your feedback is important to us! We invite all our readers to share with us their views and comments about this article. Write to editor@petroleumworld.com material.www.petroleumworld.com-Editor:Elio Ohep /Publisher-Producer:Elio Ohep. Contact Email: editor@petroleumworld.com Legal Information. CopyRight© 2002, Elio Ohep.- All rights reserve ***************************************************************** 68 Boston MOS: ''Einstein'' will be on display until June 6. Saturday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Fridays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. mos.org. ''Einstein,'' a touring exhibition that opened at Boston's Museum of Science on March 13, is touted by organizers as the most comprehensive collection ever presented on the life and theories of the man whose name is synonymous with genius. The exhibit uses interactive displays, a learning lab and computer simulations to help children and adults understand Einstein's theories. But it's not necessarily a fun-and-games exhibit. ''It takes some effort,'' said Professor Hanoch Gutfreund, chairman of the Einstein collection at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which loaned many of the items for the exhibit. ''You have to give yourself some time to read [the documents in the exhibit] and think about his theories,'' Gutfreund said. ''Afterward, you will have a sense of his basic ideas and what is new, what he has changed with respect to our previously accepted view of the physical world.'' Visitors can use an interactive blackboard to help them understand Einstein's famous mathematical equation, E=mcĄ, and a kinetic light sculpture to visualize Einstein's theories on light. But visitors are also invited to get to know the man behind the scientific theories. Through handwritten letters, photographs and other artifacts, the exhibit traces Einstein's life, from his birth in 1879 to his complicated love life to his years as a pacifist and political activist. Einstein was born in Germany and became a U.S. citizen in 1940. He died in 1955. Visitors can see Einstein's final report card from high school -- on which he received outstanding grades in physics, algebra and history, but a poor grade in French -- and his 1919 divorce decree from his first wife, in which he agrees that she will receive the proceeds from the Nobel Prize he will receive. ''Not 'if,' but 'when' he receives the Nobel Prize,'' notes Gutfreund. Two years later, in 1921, Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics. There is also a 1939 letter Einstein wrote to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt warning him that the recent discovery of uranium fission could lead to the building of an atomic bomb by Nazi Germany. In his letter, Einstein urged the president to speed up experiments and secure uranium for the United States. Einstein's famous mathematical formula, E=mcĄ, expressed his theory that a large amount of energy could be released from a small amount of matter. The atomic bomb later proved this. After the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945, Einstein regretted sending the letter to Roosevelt. He later told Newsweek magazine that, ''had I known that the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, I would have done nothing.'' The exhibition chronicles Einstein's rise to prominence in physics, from his first scientific paper at age 16 to his legendary paper on the theory of relativity. The exhibition also shows how Einstein used his fame to advocate on political issues, including the establishment of a Jewish homeland. There is a facsimile of a 1952 letter from Israel's ambassador to the United States, Abba Eban, offering Einstein the presidency of Israel, and Einstein's reply declining the offer. The exhibition also features Einstein's humorous side, including a famous photograph of him sticking his tongue out when reporters asked him to pose for his 72nd birthday. A 1951 letter from a 6-year-old girl illustrates the public perception of him as an unconventional, wild-haired scientist. ''Dear Mr. Einstein ... I saw your picture in the paper. I think you ought to have your hair cut, so you can look better.'' The exhibition, which will be in Boston through June 6, drew large numbers of schoolchildren during earlier runs in New York City and Chicago, Gutfreund said. (The Field Museum in Chicago hosted the display from mid-October through late January.) Carmen Moore, a retired teacher from Lafayette, La., attended the exhibition while visiting friends in Boston. ''It's just so fascinating, to see the things he wrote about and how it opened up our whole universe and our thinking about time,'' she said. 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