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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 ITAR-TASS: North Korea has the right for peaceful nuclear programme 
2 US: DenverPost: Nuclear blast site raising new fears
3 US: ThisisLondon: Scarlett under fire as CIA bosses quit 
4 US: BBC: Second top official to quit CIA 
5 US: Cincinnati Enquirer: Speed up intelligence reform
6 US: Asia Times: More intrigue as 'slam dunk' Tenet quits
7 US: New York Times: U.S. to Make Deep Cuts in Stockpile of A-Arms
8 US: Newsday.com - Opinion: Tenet isn't the only one
9 US: Newsday.com - Opinion: Tenet leaves CIA's reputation in tatters
10 US: St. Petersburg Times Online: Opinion Slam-dunked
11 US: UK Independent: quit...
12 US: Las Vegas SUN: Bush Administration Looks Beyond Tenet
13 US: Las Vegas SUN: U.S. Plans Cut in Nuke Warhead Stockpile
14 CPOD: New Zealanders Review Nuclear Ban                       
15 Hi Pakistan: China cautious on India's nuclear doctrine     --> 
16 AFP: Musharraf ready for mutual reduction of nuclear arsenal with In
17 Indian Express: Doctrine and strategy under the N-umbrella
18 Channelnewsasia: PM Abdullah denies knowledge of Libyan nuclear tech
19 Las Vegas SUN: Officials: Nuke Experts Worked in Malaysia
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
20 US: NRC: NRC Staff Issues Bulletin to Nuclear Power Plants on Inspec
21 US: NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collecti
22 FT: Spent N-fuel returns to Japanese plant  
23 US: Lompoc Record: Public meetings planned on Diablo Canyon 
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
24 Germany: Ahaus waste trucking first week of June? 
25 Las Vegas RJ: Nuclear engineer resigns 
26 US: Tri-City Herald: Senate lets DOE reclassify nuclear waste 
27 Las Vegas SUN: Proposal on Yucca's budget gives little relief
28 Las Vegas SUN: Yucca documents might be missing
29 Las Vegas SUN: Without Congress, state won't get more Yucca funds
30 US: Las Vegas SUN: Nuclear waste vote divides Nevada senators
31 US: NRDC: Senate Passes Graham Amendment to Reclassify Radioactive W
32 US: Pahrump Valley Times: Casks could last only 200 years 
33 Pahrump Valley Times: Nevada prepares for Yucca document dispute 
34 Pahrump Valley Times: Nye's Yucca scientists explain responsibility 
35 Daily Press: COMMENTARY: Yucca Mountain and politics
36 Pahrump Valley Times: Key engineer resigns from review board 
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
37 Tri-Valley Herald: Bush to trim nuclear arsenal 
38 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Fears for Hanford as S.C. nuclear cleanu
39 Seattle Times: Senate eases tank-cleanup rules for radioactive waste
40 UPI: Senate backs nuclear weapon research - 
41 Las Vegas RJ: DOE denies state request for money 
42 Tri-City Herald: Opinions: Competition best policy for Hanford contr
43 The State: Senate OKs leaving waste at SRS
44 Reuters: Senate Backs Energy Dept. on Nuclear Waste
45 Times-News: Nuclear cleanup bill divides Idaho leaders
46 Daily Texan - Opinion: Los Alamos bid would help UT - 
47 Oak Ridger: Two government agencies to discuss Y-12 report 							 	
48 Pahrump Valley Times: Able to go 'toe to toe' with DOE 
49 Paducah Sun: Panel supports plant cleanup plan 
50 L.A. Daily News: DOE says radiation at field lab no threat
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
51 Google News Alert - nuclear
52 TheDay.com: Navy Will Soon Take Command Of New Super Sub
53 CounterPunch: Diane Rejman: Memorial Day is Not Just for the Dead
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 ITAR-TASS: North Korea has the right for peaceful nuclear programme -

Trubnikov 

04.06.2004, 13.03

TOKYO, June 4 (Itar-Tass) - North Korea’s has the right to
retain its nuclear programme for a peaceful use on condition of
fulfilling all requirements of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA), Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister Vyacheslav
Trubnikov told Itar-Tass. 

He leads a Russian delegation to the 3rd security conference of
defence ministers of Asia and the Pacific Rim opening in
Singapore on Friday. About 20 countries take part in it. 

Asked whether Moscow recognizes the right of North Korea to
pursue its peaceful atomic energy programme, Trubnikov said: “Of
course, but only in case the DPRK (North Korea) will meet all
conditions of the IAEA.” 

He added that North Korea “has a right understanding of the
matter of assistance to peaceful use of nuclear energy”. 
Trubnikov called for international security guarantees to North
Korea. 

“These should be guarantees with the participation of Russia,
the U.S., China and other countries-members of the six-party
talks,” he said. 

The third round of the six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear
programme, engaging North and South Korea, the U.S., Russia,
China and Japan, could begin in Beijing on June 23 after two-day
consultations. 

The U.S. and some other countries insist that the talks should
be on “full, irreversible and controllable liquidation” of North
Korea’s nuclear developments. 

Pyongyang in turn proposes freezing its nuclear programme, on
the provision of getting compensation. 

North Korea expresses readiness to consider allowing IAEA
inspections, but insists on retaining the nuclear programme for
peaceful uses. 

The deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s 1st
department for Asian affairs, Valery Sukhinin, led a Russian
delegation to a meeting of the six-party working group in
Beijing last month. 

He then told Itar-Tass that in the opinion of Moscow, “it would
be ideal if North Korea remained in the system of the treaty on
non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and developed its peaceful
activity in accordance with the provisions of this treaty”. 

Sukhinin said “according to the treaty, the right of any country
for the peaceful activity in the nuclear energy field is
recognized and, moreover, the nuclear powers must give
assistance to such peaceful activity of non-nuclear states”. 

© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
 2 DenverPost: Nuclear blast site raising new fears

Published: Friday, June 04, 2004                                                
	
Residents: Gas wells may become tainted

By Nancy Lofholm Denver Post Staff Writer
 			
 A nuclear explosion deep under the scrubby expanses of western 
Garfield County 35 years ago is causing another kind of shock 
wave today. Residents are fearful that gas wells edging closer to 
the site could tap into radioactive contamination. 

Officials with a number of government agencies that oversee 
drilling and monitor the former blast site 8 miles southeast of 
Parachute say the new wells in the vicinity of the explosion - 
called Project Rulison - will be safe. 

They say the federal government's unsuccessful attempt to use a 
40-kiloton nuclear device to free natural gas from the area's 
tight sandstone formations in 1969 should not result in 
contamination now outside a 40-acre off-limits zone around the 
blast site. 

But some area residents who have been dealing with other 
unrelated gas-well problems, including a recent gas seep into a 
creek, say assurances that the chance of contamination at Rulison 
is minuscule are not reassuring at all. 

Not enough study has been done to dispel their fears about 
drilling near the site, and not enough monitoring is being 
planned to satisfy them, they said. 

"We really don't understand what's underground out there," said 
Peggy Utesch, secretary of the grassroots Grand Valley Citizens 
Alliance. "And there is a high level of mistrust here." 

Brian Macke, deputy director of the Colorado Oil and Gas 
Conservation Commission, said testing and monitoring of water and 
existing gas wells within miles of the site have not measured any 
contamination beyond naturally occurring levels. 

The U.S. Department of Energy has prohibited excavation deeper 
than 6,000 feet in the 40 acres immediately around the explosion 
site. That is too shallow for oil and gas wells. The commission 
has set a half-mile radius around the blast site where wells 
can't be drilled without a hearing before the commission. And 
drilling within a 3-mile radius triggers notification to the 
Energy Department. 

Kevin Rohrer, spokesman for the Energy Department in the agency's 
Nevada office, said government regulators know where the core of 
radioactive contamination is contained and where groundwater is 
in the area. He acknowledged they do not know where every crack 
and fissure lie underground. 

"We don't know in detail what is underneath there, but we do know 
in general," he said. 

Rohrer said plans are being developed to conduct a thorough 
computer modeling study of the underground hydrology and 
geography of the area. 

The area has been controversial since the Department of Energy 
set off the explosion as part of the Plowshares program, designed 
to find peaceful uses for nuclear explosives. 

The Rulison explosion triggered at about 8,400 feet below ground 
created a supersonic shock wave and vaporized, melted and cracked 
rock. But it didn't release enough gas to be economically 
feasible. 

Nowadays, hydraulic fracturing of underground rock formations is 
allowing gas producers to access the natural gas that a nuclear 
device couldn't. 

That is why gas and oil companies are seeking new permits to 
drill there. Nine wells have been drilled within a 3-mile radius 
of the project. The closest so far is within 1 1/2 miles of the 
blast site. 

Presco Inc. of Woodlands, Texas, drilled that well last fall. The 
company set off the current upset when it applied for a permit to 
place wells on every 40 acres rather than the 640-acre limit that 
was on their land close to the project. That application was 
approved in February on Presco's mineral leases that encompass 
about 8,000 acres near Project Rulison. 

Kim Bennetts, vice president for exploration and production at 
Presco, said his company has no plans to drill within a half-mile 
radius of the site. But that could change depending on how 
profitable the company's other wells are in the area. 

"We're going to make sure to do everything to make sure citizens 
are safe and we're safe," Bennetts said. "We don't want anyone to 
be unsafe. The risk is infinitesimally small." 

Silt-area resident Oni Butterfly, who holds a master's degree in 
environmental science and once worked as a groundwater section 
chief for the Environmental Protection Agency, said there is no 
guarantee the risk is that low. 

She said residents were assured by another gas company, EnCana, 
that there would be no gas leaks into surface water sources on 
West Divide Creek south of Silt. 

But several months ago, improper concrete work in a new well 
allowed gas to seep out and bubble up in the creek. Now EnCana is 
facing a stiff fine from the oil and gas commission, and 
residents in the area still use drinking and stock water trucked 
in by EnCana. 

Some residents are linking that event to the potential for 
problems with Presco wells in the Rulison area. 

"We're coming at it from the perspective that if industry wants 
to make these blanket statements that it could never happen, that 
is wrong," Butterfly said. "We have seen it happen." 

Staff writer Nancy Lofholm can be reached at 970-256-1957 or .

All contents Copyright 2004 The Denver Post or other 
*****************************************************************
 3 ThisisLondon: Scarlett under fire as CIA bosses quit 

By Paul Waugh And James Langton, Evening Standard 

4 June 2004 

Pressure on British intelligence to admit failures over Iraq 
intensified today after a second CIA chief involved in the war 
resigned. 

Officials said the two resignations-were unconnected, but they 
pave the way for sweeping changes at the top of the spy agency. 

Labour opponents of the war seized on the resignations as proof 
that the US was acknowledging its intelligence failures in the 
run-up to the invasion of Iraq. In contrast to the American spy 
chiefs, John Scarlett, the Joint Intelligence Committee chairman, 
was promoted to head MI6 last month. 

Former Labour defence minister Peter Kilfoyle today said Mr 
Scarlett had shown as much ineptitude as Mr Tenet over claims 
about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. "This 
reflects a differencein the two cultures. One one side of the 
Atlantic people rightly or wrongly are held responsible for a 
tragic mess like Iraq. 

"But on our side of the Atlantic it seems as though the inner 
circle congratulate themselves and promote themselves," he said. 

Despite denials by Mr Tenet that he had been forced out, it 
emerged last night that the CIA will be 

heavily criticised by three reports into its failure to prevent 
the September 11 attacks and its handling of the Iraq war. 

The most damaging report, due this month from the Senate 
Intelligence Committee, is expected to single out the CIA for 
passing flawed information to the White House about weapons of 
mass destruction. It is said to be so critical that Mr Tenet may 
have had no alternative but to quit. 

An investigation by an independent commission into September 11 
is also said to highlight the CIA's failure to realise the threat 
posed by al Qaeda. A third report, from the CIA's weapons 
investigator in Iraq, is expected to say that there is no sign of 
Saddam's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. 

Friends of Mr Tenet say he is almost exhausted after steering the 
CIA through one of the most troubled periods in its history, and 
that he wants to spend more time with his wife and eldest son, 
who is entering his last year at school. 

Sources also say Mr Bush asked Mr Tenet to stay until after 
November's presidential election but he refused. However, the 
resignation diverts blame for intelligence blunders away from the 
White House at a critical time in Mr Bush's reelection campaign. 

Mr Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday praised Mr Tenet 
but kept the remarks noticeably brief. Senator Bob Graham, a 
former Democratic chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, 
said Mr Bush would be "at the crime scene as short as possible". 

Related stories " US marines jailed for electric shock torture of 
Iraqi " Transfer of power 'in a week' 
 
*****************************************************************
 4 BBC: Second top official to quit CIA 
 
  Last Updated: Friday, 4 June, 2004
 
[James Pavitt]                                  

Pavitt has been in charge of the CIA's spies for the past five 
years                                                             

A second top CIA official is to retire from his post, less than a 
day after the surprise resignation of the agency's director 
George Tenet. 

James Pavitt, deputy director for operations, is said to have 
made the decision some weeks ago. 

The departures come as the agency is braced for reports expected 
to criticise its conduct in the run-up to the 9/11 attacks and 
the war in Iraq. 

The CIA says Mr Pavitt's decision was unconnected with Mr Tenet's 
departure. 

But analysts say the move will mean more upheaval at a critical 
time for the agency. 

	

	
JAMES PAVITT                    Joined the CIA in 1973  Posts i 
Europe, Asia and Washington     Deputy director for operations 
since 1999      Identity secret since April     Appeared before 
9/11 commission US media react to resignation                                   
Analysis: Bad timing for Bush                 

	 	 

On Thursday Mr Tenet cited "personal reasons" for his decision to 
go, but he has faced months of criticism for not preventing the 
11 September 2001 attacks, and over the failure to uncover 
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. 

The BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington says the official 9/11 
inquiry is due to report soon and is likely to savage the CIA for 
failing to stop Osama Bin Laden. 

At the same time, another inquiry is investigating what the 
agency told President George W Bush about weapons of mass 
destruction in Iraq. 

Mr Bush accepted the CIA director's resignation and said he would 
miss the "strong and able" Mr Tenet as head of the US 
intelligence agency. 

Mr Tenet, 51, will leave the CIA on 11 July when Deputy Director 
John McLaughlin will take over temporarily. 

Department under fire 

James Pavitt has worked for the agency for 31 years, five as the 
deputy director of operations, in charge of the agency's spies. 

	 		

			
                                                        [World 
Trade Centre attacked]                           The CIA has been 
under pressure for not preventing 11 September                                                          

		 	 	 	 

His identity had been unknown until last April when, in an 
unprecedented move, he appeared publicly before the 11 September 
commission. 

At the time he said the failures that occurred before the attacks 
were due to woefully inadequate resources, not a lack of caring. 

The BBC's Ian Pannell, in Washington, says it is his department's 
record in gathering intelligence in Iraq that has come in for the 
strongest criticism. 

In particular they are criticised for not having enough good 
human intelligence on the ground, that they placed too much 
credence on badly sourced material. 

A spokesman for the CIA told the BBC that Mr Pavitt's decision to 
leave was a retirement not a resignation and that it was 
emphatically not related to the director's decision to retire. 

Still, the timing at the very least appears poor and many of the 
agency's critics will no doubt interpret this as a sign of crisis 
at the CIA, our correspondent says. 

Surprise announcement 

In a farewell speech to CIA employees, Mr Tenet said his 
resignation had "only one basis in fact: the well-being of my 
beautiful family". 

GEORGE TENET                    

Born 5 January 1953 in New Yor to Greek immigrants     
Studied at Georgetown and Columbia universities    
Served on Clinton's National Security Council 1992-95         
Deputy CIA director 1995-96     
Acting CIA director 1996-97 
Confirmed as CIA director 1997 

Full text: Bush on Tenet Reaction in quotes              

Choking back tears, he told his son Michael, a teenager who was 
sitting in the audience: "You've been a great son - and now I'm 
going to be a great dad." 

Correspondents say Mr Tenet, who has been in the post for seven 
years, had been widely expected to step down after the November 
presidential election. 

Unusually, Mr Tenet has served under two presidents from 
different parties, having been appointed by President Bill 
Clinton. 

Following Thursday's surprise announcement, the presumptive 
Democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry, said he wished Mr 
Tenet "the very best", but he said the Bush administration had to 
take responsibility for "significant intelligence failures". 

Mr Kerry, who has previously called for Mr Tenet to step down, 
said this was an opportunity to reform the US intelligence 
services. 

After the 11 September attacks, many commentators thought Mr 
Tenet's position was at risk - but President Bush stuck by his 
intelligence chief. 

Last July Mr Tenet accepted full responsibility for 
unsubstantiated allegations about Iraq's weapons programme being 
included in Mr Bush's State of the Union address. 
*****************************************************************
 5 Cincinnati Enquirer: Speed up intelligence reform
 
www.cincinnati.com

  Friday, June 4, 2004 

Editorial 

The end of CIA Director George Tenet's extraordinary seven-year 
run as a Washington political survivor should be viewed as an 
opportunity to speed reforms across the U.S. intelligence 
community. A permanent replacement needs to be found quickly, 
especially when Bush administration officials only a week ago 
were warning that al-Qaida is plotting a devastating attack on 
U.S. targets this summer or fall. 

But the appointment of one person cannot fix all that needs 
reforming in an intelligence apparatus that's been rocked by 
repeated failures before and after Sept. 11, 2001. 

Both Tenet and President Bush have been battered by revelations 
from the independent 9-11 commission. Secretary of State Colin 
Powell reportedly has been demanding an accounting from the CIA 
on how he was so misled before his February 2003 speech to the 
U.N. Security Council on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. 
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been humiliated by reports 
that Ahmad Chalabi, the Pentagon's favorite Iraqi leader and 
informant, tipped Iran that the United States had cracked Iran's 
secret communications code. 

The White House also admitted that the president consulted a 
private lawyer to represent him in the investigation into whether 
a high administration official publicly exposed the identity of 
an undercover CIA officer to punish her husband for exposing 
another intelligence failure. Tenet took responsibility for the 
discredited claim in Bush's 2003 State of the Union address 
alleging that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium in Africa. 

Bob Woodward's book Plan of Attack quoted Tenet as assuring Bush 
before the Iraq war that U.S. forces would find weapons of mass 
destruction in Iraq. "Don't worry, it's a slam dunk," Tenet was 
quoted as saying. 

His "resignation" in a presidential election year is remarkable 
even for a Clinton hold-over. In testimony last month before the 
9-11 commission, Tenet admitted mistakes, defended reforms under 
way and startled commissioners when he said, "It will take us 
another five years to have the kind of clandestine service our 
country needs." 

But his advice is still worth heeding, and his exit could help 
someone without his political baggage to rebuild. "Director of 
Central Intelligence" is more title than reality. Eighty percent 
of U.S. intelligence functions may be outside that official's 
control. 

Tenet warns against separating the head of the CIA from 
operations and creating a new intelligence gap. He advised: 
Organize around missions, build capabilities and integrate data 
flows across intelligence services. The new Counterterrorism 
Center and Terrorist Threat Integration Center have begun. 

Before 9-11, the CIA, FBI, Pentagon and State Department operated 
four separate terrorist databases and dozens of watch lists. 
Stronger congressional oversight should be part of intelligence 
reform. Sept. 11 showed the risk if we don't get it right. 

 The Cincinnati Enquirer Letters to the Editor 312 Elm Street 
Cincinnati, OH 45202 

[Cincinnati.Com]     
*****************************************************************
 6 Asia Times: More intrigue as 'slam dunk' Tenet quits

By Jim Lobe 

WASHINGTON - The abrupt resignation of Central Intelligence 
Agency (CIA) director George Tenet adds new grist to Washington's 
rumor mills, already churning at warp speed due to the ongoing 
prisoner-abuse scandal in Iraq and reports that the Bush 
administration's favorite in Baghdad turned over critical 
information to Iran. 

Whether Tenet, 51, who also served for seven years as the 
director of Central Intelligence (DCI) - a post that 
theoretically oversees all of Washington's 16 intelligence 
agencies - was pushed or decided to resign of his own accord is 
the question of the day. And, if he was pushed, why now, just 
five months before the presidential election? 

Tenet's resignation was followed by that of James Pavitt, deputy 
director for operations, who was in charge of the CIA's spies. He 
is said to have made the decision some weeks ago. The CIA says 
that Pavitt's decision is unconnected with Tenet's departure. 

In a speech to CIA employees at the agency's headquarters outside 
Washington, Tenet insisted on Thursday his decision was based 
exclusively on the "well-being of my wonderful family - nothing 
more, nothing less". 

That was echoed by Bush himself, albeit in rather curious 
circumstances. Just a few minutes after a routine photo 
opportunity on the White House lawn with visiting Australian 
Prime Minister John Howard, the president reappeared before 
reporters to say Tenet had informed him of his decision to leave 
"for personal reasons" on Wednesday evening. 

"I told him I'm sorry he's leaving," Bush, who appears to have 
had an unusually warm relationship with Tenet and had long 
resisted right-wing pressure to fire him, said haltingly. "He's 
been a strong leader in the war on terror, and I will miss him." 
As has become customary, Bush took no questions and simply walked 
away. 

But, as Tenet himself anticipated in his farewell, some observers 
suggested his decision may not have been entirely voluntary and 
could, in fact, mark the first of a series of high-level 
administration departures over the coming weeks as Bush's 
re-election campaign struggles to persuade voters to forget about 
setbacks in Iraq. 

"I think he's being pushed out," said former CIA director 
Stansfield Turner in an interview on CNN. "The president feels he 
has to have someone to blame." 

"They want to use him as a scapegoat for everything that's gone 
wrong," one congressional aide told IPS. "But I don't think 
that's going to work. While the CIA obviously fell down in major 
ways, everyone knows by now that the Pentagon has been at the 
heart of this whole mess." 

Even as Tenet was bidding good-bye, reports dominated newspaper 
headlines that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun 
interviewing - in some cases with lie detectors - senior Pentagon 
civilians close to former Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi to determine 
who told him that US intelligence had broken the codes Tehran 
uses to communicate with its spies. Those reports came in the 
wake of a New York Times article Wednesday that said Chalabi had 
informed Iran's top operative in Baghdad the codes had been 
broken. 

What with the administration deeply concerned about Iran's 
nuclear program, as well as its ability to disrupt Washington's 
efforts to stabilize neighboring Iraq, the information is 
considered a major security breach. Two weeks ago, Chalabi's own 
residence and headquarters were raided by Iraqi police and US 
agents and a US$340,000 monthly stipend that his group, the Iraqi 
National Congress (INC), had been receiving from the Pentagon for 
intelligence-gathering was cut off. 

Chalabi, who has heatedly denied the allegations, has blamed the 
report on the CIA which, after backing the INC with millions of 
dollars in covert assistance in the early 1990s, broke with him 
after an aborted coup d'etat launched by a rival exile group 
headed by Iyad Allawi, who last weekend was selected as Iraq's 
new prime minister. 

Allawi's emergence at the top was seen as a decisive victory of 
the CIA and State Department over their neo-conservative rivals 
at the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney's office, who have 
championed Chalabi since 1998. 

In recent days, Chalabi has lashed out against Tenet personally, 
accusing him of concocting the charges against him. 

Asked about Tenet's sudden resignation, Chalabi repeated those 
accusations, telling reporters that the CIA director's role in 
developing US-Iraq policy has "not been helpful to say the 
least". Tenet, he added, had provided "erroneous information 
about weapons of mass destruction to President Bush, which caused 
the government much embarrassment at the United Nations and his 
own country". 

The latter charge appeared particularly ironic in view of the 
growing consensus, both in the administration and in Congress, 
that "defectors" provided by Chalabi's INC were the most 
important source of faulty - and, in some cases, apparently 
fabricated - reports of Baghdad's pre-war weapons of mass 
destruction programs. 

While the CIA and other intelligence agencies were skeptical of 
many of these reports, they were fed directly into the White 
House via Chalabi's backers in the Pentagon and Cheney's office, 
according to numerous published reports. 

Nonetheless, in at least one case, Chalabi's charge about Tenet's 
own role in faulty weapons evidence appears to have been correct. 
According to journalist Bob Woodward's new book, Plan of Attack, 
a critical moment in the run-up to the war occurred when Bush 
himself expressed doubt that the public would be persuaded by the 
CIA's evidence of the threat posed by Iraq's weapons. 

"From the end of one of the couches in the Oval office, Tenet 
rose up, threw his arms in the air. 'It's a slam-dunk case'! the 
DCI said," Woodward reported, adding that Tenet repeated the 
phrase a second time when Bush asked whether he was confident 
about the evidence. 

That account, on which Tenet has not commented, has proved very 
damaging to his position among war critics, particularly moderate 
Republican and Democratic lawmakers, who until then had seen him 
as a restraining influence on Bush during the run-up to the war. 

Indeed, Tenet's loss of support from the war skeptics, as well as 
ongoing scandals around the performance of the CIA and even its 
use of interrogation techniques that amounted to torture and 
resulted in at least one death during the "war on terrorism", may 
have played a decisive role in his decision to resign now. 

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are very angry at recent CIA 
delays in clearing a pending report on the intelligence 
community's performance before the war, which is itself expected 
to be strongly critical of Tenet. The commission established to 
investigate the causes of the September 11 terrorist attacks on 
New York and Washington is expected to be similarly critical. 

In addition, Tenet, who has talked to friends about wanting to 
leave the agency for at least two years, had become a lightning 
rod for anger by Republican right-wingers in Congress and 
neo-conservatives, who have long agitated for his removal in part 
because of his status as the highest-ranking holdover from the 
administration of former president Bill Clinton. 

"By leaving now, Tenet will be depriving them of a highly visible 
target," said the Capitol Hill aide. "I'm sure people at the CIA 
appreciate that, because they don't like being in the middle of a 
highly-charged political debate." 

Another hint that it was Tenet himself who decided to leave now 
was suggested by the fact that his resignation will not take 
effect until July 11, the seventh anniversary of his swearing in. 
The timing bolsters the notion that he is leaving on his own 
terms, while Bush's failure to announce a successor, in the eyes 
of some analysts, indicates the White House was caught unawares 
by Tenet's departure. 

For now his successor will be John McLaughlin, the current deputy 
director of the CIA and a career intelligence officer who is 
generally well respected in Congress. 

Whether Bush will retain McLaughlin through the November 
elections or make a political appointment will be a critical 
decision. It was widely rumored six months ago, when Tenet last 
indicated he wanted to leave, that Deputy Defense Secretary Paul 
Wolfowitz would be moved to CIA, but Washington insiders now say 
that Wolfowitz, the administration's highest-ranking 
neo-conservative and Chalabi's most effective champion, would not 
survive Senate confirmation hearings. 

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has also expressed 
interest in the job in the past, but, as an unconditional ally 
and friend of Secretary of State Colin Powell, he would be a 
major target of right-wing Republican hawks and 
neo-conservatives, to the extent the latter retain much influence 
in the White House. 

If Bush were to decide not to stick with McLaughlin, the 
likeliest candidate is the head of the Intelligence Committee in 
the House of Representatives, Porter Goss of Florida. While a 
Republican loyalist, Goss, a former CIA officer himself, has had 
generally good relations with Democratic colleagues and is not 
considered particularly ideological. 

(Inter Press Service) 													   												 												
 													  
Jun 5, 2004                                                                                                                     
													   												 											
2003, Asia Times Online, 4305 Far East Finance Centre, 16 
Harcourt Rd, Central, Hong Kong                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
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 7 New York Times: U.S. to Make Deep Cuts in Stockpile of A-Arms
 
  By MATTHEW L. WALD"> 

Published: June 4, 2004

[W] ASHINGTON, June 3 - The United States will reduce its 
stockpile of nuclear weapons by nearly half over the next eight 
years, the Energy Department said Thursday.

The Bush administration made the decision last month and informed 
Congress on Tuesday in a classified report. 

Linton F. Brooks, administrator of the National Nuclear Security 
Administration, which is part of the Energy Department, said in a 
conference call with reporters that the reductions would leave 
the nation with "the smallest nuclear-weapons stockpile we've had 
in several decades." He called the decision historic.

Mr. Brooks would not discuss specific numbers for the cuts. "The 
numbers I'm prepared to use are 'almost in half' and 'smallest in 
several decades,' " he said.

 The decision by the administration followed an announcement by 
President Bushin November 2001 that the nation would reduce the 
number of "operationally deployed" strategic warheads by about 
two-thirds by 2012, leaving 1,700 to 2,200 warheads.

But that announcement did not commit the United States to reduce 
the total number of weapons in its inventory, only the number of 
strategic weapons that were ready to use immediately.

The new decision includes additional categories of weapons, 
including short-range weapons that are not considered strategic, 
weapons held in reserve and weapons in places like nuclear 
submarines that are in overhaul and "logistical spares," which 
are used to swap with weapons being recalled for overhaul.

When Mr. Bush promised in 2001 to cut the number of actively 
deployed strategic weapons to no more than 2,200, the United 
States had 6,100, according to Tom Cochran, an expert at the 
Natural Resources Defense Council, a group that specializes in 
nuclear weapons, among other environmental issues. The United 
States had 10,000 nuclear weapons in all categories, and the 
announcement made Thursday will cut that to 6,100, Mr. Cochran 
said, suggesting that the overall reduction would be somewhat 
less than Mr. Brooks's figure. 

Some of the weapons to be removed from the active category will 
be dismantled, and some will go into the reserve category, 
meaning that they could be returned to readiness quickly; some of 
the weapons now in the reserve will be decommissioned, Mr. 
Cochran said.

In practice, the weapons to be retired will join a long queue at 
an Energy Department plant in Amarillo, Tex., called Pantex, 
which is now busy with "life extension" of existing weapons, Mr. 
Brooks said. He said that President George Bush, who left office 
in 1993, decided to retire the nation's stock of nuclear 
artillery shells, "and we just finished dismantling the last one 
last year."

Mr. Brooks said in a letter to members of Congress that making 
the stockpile smaller would require more work on the remaining 
weapons. "We must continue the administration's efforts to 
restore the nuclear weapons infrastructure," he said in an 
unclassified cover letter to the memo describing the schedule for 
reducing arms from now to 2012.

In the conference call, Mr. Brooks said that the decision to 
reduce the stockpile meant that a new bomb plant that the 
administration wants to build, the Modern Pit Facility, could be 
smaller than it might have otherwise been, but that it would 
still be needed. Pits are the hearts of plutonium weapons, and 
the Energy Department lost most of its capacity to make pits when 
it closed the Rocky Flats, Colo., plant, near Denver, in the 
1990's, because of environmental and production problems. 

The plutonium in the pits in existing weapons is breaking down 
over time, Mr. Brooks said, and at some point the department will 
have to melt down and recast the pits. One reason for that the 
memo was issued Tuesday was to convince members of Congress that 
a new pit plant is needed, he said.

"We've not yet been able to convince some of our Congressional 
colleagues that the Modern Pit Facility is unrelated to any 
notion of future weapons development or future weapons growth," 
Mr. Brooks said.

In fact, the administration has shown intermittent interest in a 
new class of small nuclear weapons, an idea bitterly opposed by 
some members of Congress.

Mr. Brooks said the reduction was the largest in history in 
percentage terms. 

Mr. Cochran, at the Natural Resources Defense Council, agreed 
that the reduction was significant. But he said: "These cuts are 
over eight years. That's two presidential administrations. This 
is not a fast-paced reduction."

      	 Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home|
*****************************************************************
 8 Newsday.com - Opinion: Tenet isn't the only one

The CIA misread the threat from terrorism and Hussein's weaponry, 
but plenty of other people are responsible for Bush's mess in 
Iraq.
 
June 4, 2004

So somebody has finally had to walk the plank. It's about time.
 
CIA Director George Tenet resigned his post yesterday for 
"personal reasons." He is, by all accounts, an engaging person 
who gained the respect of Democrats - he served in the Clinton 
administration - and Republicans. But that's beside the point.
 
Tenet was the director of central intelligence who assured the 
president that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. 
According to Bob Woodward's latest book, Tenet told Bush "It's a 
slam dunk."
 
Oops.
 
Tenet's agency also has come in for blistering criticism over how 
it failed to anticipate the attacks on the World Trade Center and 
Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. The commission examining what went 
wrong is expected to be highly critical of the CIA in its final 
report. Tenet was its leader.
 
Former CIA Director Stansfield Turner yesterday mused that Tenet 
had been pushed to resign and that he would be made a scapegoat 
for the administration's failures in Iraq and before Sept. 11. 
Possibly true. What is undoubtedly correct is that Tenet is not 
the only person who made mistakes and that he shouldn't be solely 
blamed for the mess the Bush administration has made of the Iraqi 
invasion. There is plenty of blame to go around.
 
In fact, there were a lot of things that Tenet and the CIA got 
right, including warnings that the post-war period in Iraq would 
be much more difficult than the Pentagon's war hawks believed. 
But the policy makers didn't want to hear it.
 
Tenet was also in the unenviable position of having to fight off 
the war hawks when intelligence didn't conform to their views. 
Vice President Dick Cheney traveled to the agency himself to 
grill analysts who didn't share the view that Iraq was an 
immediate threat. That type of subtle political interference with 
intelligence information made Tenet's difficult job even more 
complex. It's a credit to him that he kept the respect of the 
agency and the administration through it all.
 
But, then again, he might have been better off resigning when the 
interference crossed the line of what is proper. The assertion 
that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear material on the black market 
in Niger was an example.
 
There are big, important issues about how the intelligence 
community must be reorganized now, especially whether the CIA 
director should have more authority over the entire intelligence 
community, of which the CIA is only a part and not the largest at 
that.
 
The president, until now, has stubbornly stuck by his team, even 
if they advised him poorly. Tenet had to go. But he's only the 
first. 

Copyright © 2004,  |  Article licensing and reprint options 	   
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 9 Newsday.com - Opinion: Tenet leaves CIA's reputation in tatters

INTELLIGENCE FAILURE     

Under his leadership the agency peddled misinformation that 
created false rationales for bad decisions
 
BY SCOTT RITTER

Scott Ritter, a former UN chief weapons inspector in Iraq, 
1991-1998, is author of "Frontier Justice: Weapons of Mass 
Destruction and the Bushwhacking of America."
 	 	
 	June 4, 2004

George Tenet's resignation as director of Central Intelligence 
has taken the political world of Washington by storm. And yet, it 
was an act that had been foreseen for some time.

 Consider what made Tenet's tenure at the CIA untenable: the 
combined weight of the 9/11 intelligence failures, the absence of 
Iraqi WMD and the post-occupation fiasco, as well as the 
unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information, whether it be 
the leaking of the identity and the affiliation of Ambassador 
Joseph Wilson's wife (a CIA covert operative) to the press, of 
Ahmed Chalabi's allegedly informing the Iranians (courtesy of a 
leak from the Pentagon) that the United States had broken Iran's 
diplomatic code.

 But, in reflecting on his passing, one should never forget that 
his troubles were, for the most part, of his own making.

 I was an intelligence officer for many years, and I had always 
been instructed to abide by the adage that "an intelligence 
officer tells his boss not what they want to hear, but rather 
what the facts are." George Tenet repeatedly violated that 
principle during his time as director - most egregiously on Iraq.

 In Tenet's haste to please his bosses in both the Clinton and 
Bush White House (he served both presidents as the CIA director), 
he oversaw the politicization of the intelligence process to the 
extent that today the CIA lacks credibility as an institution not 
only in the United States, but around the world as well.

 Perhaps the most glaring example of this can be found in Tenet's 
February 2004 speech at his alma matter, Georgetown University. 
In a rambling defense of the CIA's pre-war estimate on Iraqi WMD 
capabilities, Tenet hedged on his agencies' earlier assertions. 
For the most part, he provided little or no substance to back up 
his remarks. But midway through his presentation, Tenet mentioned 
the 1995 defection of Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, 
who had controlled Iraq's biological weapons program.

 "Only then was the world able to confirm that Iraq indeed had an 
active and dangerous biological weapons program," Tenet said. 
"Indeed, history matters in dealing with these complicated 
problems."

 The irony of this statement by Tenet is that he, of all people, 
should have known it to be false. During the course of Hussein 
Kamel's debriefings with the CIA, British MI-6 and with UNSCOM, 
he repeatedly talked about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction 
programs, and his role not only in their manufacture, but also in 
their destruction following the onset of UN weapons inspections 
in Iraq in the summer of 1991.

 "Nothing remained," Kamel told UN inspectors. "I ordered 
destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons - biological, 
chemical, missile, nuclear - were destroyed."

 Tenet knew this was the case. As deputy director of the CIA in 
August 1995, he was directly involved with the CIA's debriefing 
of Hussein Kamel.

 As director of the CIA in February 2004, he had total access to 
the debriefing documents in order to refresh his memory. That he 
chose to misrepresent the defection of Hussein Kamel during his 
presentation at Georgetown University only underscores the 
personal culpability that Tenet bears when it comes to deceiving 
the president, Congress and the people of the United States about 
the threat posed by Iraq's WMD.

 Tenet's visually defining moment as director of the CIA came on 
Feb. 5, 2003, when he was prominently seated behind Secretary of 
State Colin Powell during Powell's now discredited presentation 
to the UN Security Council on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. 
Tenet's positioning was deliberate, designed to reinforce the 
credibility of Secretary Powell's assertions by reminding those 
viewing the proceedings that the weight of the CIA backed the 
secretary of state's words. At the time, Powell's presentation 
was considered a tour de force. Today, sobered by the harsh 
reality that not only was almost every assertion made by Powell 
that day wrong, but for the most part drawn from data that many 
in the U.S. intelligence community at that time knew to be 
suspect.

 Today Colin Powell has tried to disassociate himself from the 
intelligence provided by George Tenet for that fateful briefing. 
Powell may want to distance himself from his words and deeds of 
that day, but Tenet will never be able to erase the public vision 
of him seated behind Powell, on the world stage, an empty suit 
peddling false information in support of a war that has so far 
proved to be a lost cause. 

Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc. |  Article licensing and reprint 
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 10 St. Petersburg Times Online: Opinion Slam-dunked
 		 		 		 	 	 		 			
www.sptimes.com

CIA director George Tenet may have become the fall guy for the
Bush administration's broader intelligence failures related to
al-Qaida and Iraq.

 A Times Editorial

 Published June 4, 2004
 
George Tenet survived a lot in seven years. The CIA director was 
one of the few high-level Clinton administration appointees who 
kept his job after President Bush took office. He survived 
embarrassments such as the CIA's failure to anticipate and head 
off the nuclear escalation between Pakistan and India. He 
survived years of tough infighting with ideological opponents at 
the Pentagon and in the vice president's office. And of course, 
neither Tenet nor anyone else in the Bush administration was held 
accountable - until now, at least - for the intelligence failures 
that preceded the 9/11 attacks and the war in Iraq.

 Tenet's tenure, the second-longest in the CIA's history, was the 
product of personal popularity and institutional loyalty. Tenet 
has many admirers on both sides of the aisle in Congress, where 
he led the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee before 
becoming CIA director. He also improved morale within the CIA and 
took important steps to move the agency beyond the risk-averse 
complacency of the post-Cold War years.

 Yet all of that will be overshadowed by the fact that the 9/11 
attacks took place on Tenet's watch. Unlike many other Clinton 
and Bush officials responsible for national security, Tenet was 
fully aware of the threat posed by al-Qaida. While the FBI and 
the national security adviser's office were disregarding signs of 
al-Qaida's plots, Tenet was running around "with his hair on 
fire," according to witnesses testifying before the 9/11 
commission. But Tenet's awareness of the threat did not translate 
into success in combating it. In particular, the CIA's paucity of 
human intelligence - a failing Tenet inherited but did not do 
enough to correct - frustrated efforts to penetrate al-Qaida and 
other terrorist organizations.

 Hair on fire or not, Tenet may have been doomed by another vivid 
image: In Bob Woodward's book, Plan of Attack, Tenet is portrayed 
as having assured a skeptical President Bush that the case for 
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was a "slam dunk." That 
description made Tenet a convenient fall guy for the White 
House's broader deceptions in the months leading up to the war. 
Secretary of State Colin Powell, usually an ally of Tenet's, also 
blamed the CIA for supplying much of the flawed intelligence on 
which Powell based his prewar case at the United Nations.

 Tenet must bear some responsibility for the White House's 
exaggerated charges against Iraq. In general, though, the CIA was 
cautious in assessing Iraq's suspected weapons programs - so 
cautious that Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary 
Donald Rumsfeld established separate intelligence-gathering 
operations that they could rely on to make a more compelling case 
against Iraq. Tenet has used up his nine lives at the CIA over 
the past seven years, but the people most responsible for 
underestimating the threat posed by al-Qaida and overestimating 
the threat posed by Iraq are still in power. Clarification 

A Thursday editorial on the Medicare discount drug program stated 
that a prescription for fluoxetine costs $84 with a Walgreen's 
discount card. That is the price charged by some network 
pharmacies that accept the Walgreens card. The editorial, 
however, should have made it clear that seniors who use the card 
at a Walgreens pharmacy would pay $25. We regret the omission. 
[Last modified June 3, 2004, 23:58:18]

 	 &copy; Copyright 2002-2004St.
*****************************************************************
 11 UK Independent: quit...
 
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
 
04 June 2004

George Tenet, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, 
resigned yesterday, the Bush administration's de facto scapegoat 
for the fiasco of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and the 
heavy loss of US credibility that followed. 

The timing of his departure, described as being "for personal 
reasons", stunned Washington. Mr Tenet, 51, is known to have 
wanted to step down before the presidential inauguration in 
January. 

But his going - amid continuing violence in Iraq and new official 
warnings about possible terrorist attacks - represents the first 
big shake-up in President George Bush's once-vaunted national 
security team. 

Mr Tenet will formally step down in mid-July, and his deputy John 
McLaughlin will take charge, almost certainly at least until 
early next year. The outgoing CIA director, who has held the post 
since 1997, told Mr Bush of his decision during an hour-long 
meeting at the White House on Wednesday evening. 

Yesterday, as Mr Bush left for his four-day trip to Europe, he 
heaped praise on Mr Tenet, calling him a "strong and able 
leader," who had done "a superb job" for the American people. "I 
told him I'm sorry he's leaving," the President said. 

Mr Tenet, once a senior aide at the Senate Intelligence 
Committee, was much liked on Capitol Hill. But for all 
yesterday's warm words, from Democrats as well as Republicans, 
the truth about his departure is almost certainly more 
complicated. Last night, it was not clear whether Mr Tenet was 
gently pushed, or whether he is going of his own volition. No 
warning appears to have been given to members of the Senate and 
House intelligence committees. 

In an address to staff at CIA headquarters, Mr Tenet insisted he 
made his decision solely for family reasons; "nothing more and 
nothing less," he said, his voice choking with emotion. But apart 
from the WMD embarrassment, the Agency is also likely to be 
strongly criticised in the forthcoming report by the bipartisan 
commission investigating the 11 September attacks and why they 
were not prevented. That too may have contributed to his going. 

"This is too important a decision at too important a time for 
this to be a personal decision," Stansfield Turner, a former CIA 
director, said. "He wouldn't pull the plug on the President in 
the middle of an election cycle without being asked by the 
President to do it. He's being pushed out; it's likely he's the 
scapegoat." 

Within minutes of the news, senior Democrats were already 
pointing the finger at Mr Bush. The Massachusetts senator John 
Kerry praised Mr Tenet for his "extremely hard work" on behalf of 
the country. But the US had suffered "significant" intelligence 
failures, the Democratic challenger for the White House added. 
"The administration has to accept responsibility for those 
failures." 

Mr Tenet, among the few holdovers from the Clinton 
administrations, was the second-longest serving director in the 
CIA's 57-year history, and served at a particularly gruelling 
time, as terrorism replaced the Soviet Union as the main threat 
to US national security. He is widely credited with restoring the 
morale and cohesion of the agency, and giving new teeth to the 
operations directorate, the CIA's clandestine arm. Mr Tenet also 
had a strong personal relationship with Mr Bush, whom he saw 
almost every day. 

But, despite the changes he initiated, he has presided over 
several massive intelligence failures. The CIA did not predict 
Pakistani and Indian nuclear tests in 1998, could not forestall 
the September 2001 attacks, and never managed to gather effective 
human intelligence in Iraq. Mr Tenet was also handicapped by 
long-standing jealousy and lack of co-operation between the CIA 
and the FBI. 

But the coup de grâce was the WMD fiasco. Mr Tenet did not 
succeed in keeping already discredited allegations about Saddam 
Hussein's efforts to buy uranium ore in Africa out of Mr Bush's 
State of the Union address in 2003. In Plan of Attack, the 
journalist Bob Woodward's book on the run-up to the Iraq war, in 
2002 Mr Tenet assured an allegedly unconvinced Mr Bush that the 
evidence Saddam Hussein possessed banned weapons was "a 
slam-dunk". 

Colin Powell the Secretary of State, made a case to the UN 
Security Council that proved totally false. General Powell 
demanded a full explanation from the CIA.Ahmed Chalabi, the 
leader of the Iraqi National Congress, now accused of working for 
Iranian intelligence and pushing America into invading Iraq, 
revelled in the departure of the man he accused of being the 
source of his troubles. Mr Tenet "provided erroneous information 
about weapons of mass destruction to President Bush which caused 
his government massive embarrassment in the United Nations and 
his own country", Mr Chalabi said. 

Mr McLaughlin is a highly esteemed career intelligence official 
with wide support within the agency, and is respected by 
Republicans and Democrats alike on Capitol Hill. 

* The head of the agency's clandestine service, James Pavitt, 
plans to announce his retirement today ? a decision the 31-year 
CIA veteran made several weeks ago before he knew of Mr Tenet's 
decision, a CIA official said.             


UK Independent Ltd.
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 12 Las Vegas SUN: Bush Administration Looks Beyond Tenet

June 04, 2004 

 By KATHERINE PFLEGER SHRADER ASSOCIATED PRESS 

WASHINGTON (AP) - 

With CIA Director George Tenet on the way out, the Bush
administration faces crucial questions over how to improve
America's intelligence gathering during a time of high terror
threats and continued finger-pointing over past failures. 

Surprising many in Washington, Tenet announced his resignation
Thursday in an emotional address to CIA staff, ending seven
years as the agency's head during two presidencies. President
Bush named Tenet's deputy, John McLaughlin, to temporarily lead
America's spy agency when Tenet steps down in mid-July. 

Tenet's decision comes just before the expected release of
several long-awaited and highly critical reports on intelligence
failures by the CIA and other agencies. 

Among them, the presidential commission investigating the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks soon will make its findings and
recommendations, after already strongly condemning the CIA for
pre-Sept. 11 failures. 

And a Senate Intelligence Committee report on faulty prewar
estimates of Iraq's weapons capabilities, expected soon, is "a
very stinging report of failure inside the CIA," said Sen. Carl
Levin, D-Mich., an Intelligence Committee member. 

It seems unlikely that Bush will send a nomination for a new CIA
director to the Senate before the fall - for what could be a
bitter confirmation battle - rather than wait until after the
election, should he win. 

Among names mentioned as a possible successor are the House
Intelligence Committee chairman, Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla.;
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; former Sen. Bob
Kerrey, D-Neb., and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose
spokeswoman discounted the speculation. 

In a hastily arranged announcement Thursday, Bush said he was
sorry to see Tenet go. "I will miss him," the president told
reporters just before departing for Europe. 

An emotional Tenet told CIA employees that his resignation was
the most difficult decision he's made. "It was a personal
decision and had only one basis in fact: the well-being of my
wonderful family, nothing more and nothing less." 

Tenet, a gregarious man described by some as a political animal,
was appointed by President Clinton. 

Under Tenet's command, the CIA saw its resources boosted and its
clandestine service grow. Among the agency's successes, the CIA
went into Afghanistan to help dismantle al-Qaida and, in Iraq,
the agency was involved in the capture of fallen Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein. 

But the failures were among the worst in the agency's history. 

First and foremost, Tenet and his agency were strongly
criticized for failing to predict and prevent the Sept. 11
attacks on the United States. 

The agency also came under blistering attacks for overestimating
Iraq's weapons capabilities. 

Likewise, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden remains at large. 

Traveling in Asia Friday, Secretary of State Donald H. Rumsfeld
told sailors and Marines aboard the USS Essex that the United
States would have stopped the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
if American intelligence had gotten better inside information on
those who planned and carried them out. 

Without directly assigning blame to the CIA, Rumsfeld posed the
question, "Is it a terrible failure that we did not" have
sufficiently good intelligence to stop the worst terrorist
attack ever on American soil? His answer was that it simply is
not possible to prevent every conceivable attack, and that is
why the United States has taken a more aggressive approach to
disrupting terrorists before they strike. 

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said
Thursday the intelligence community has to be held accountable
for its failings. 

"We need fresh thinking within the community," Roberts said
before learning of Tenet's decision. 

Some Democrats suggested Tenet was being made a scapegoat for
failures during Bush's term in office. 

"I did not lose confidence in his judgment," House Democratic
leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said. "I think there are many
more people who are responsible for the mess that the
administration has" created. 

Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., said Friday on CBS's "The Early Show"
the problems in the intelligence community go beyond Tenet. 

"Of course the buck ultimately stops at the Oval Office," he
said. "I think we missed a moment following 9-11 to break down
some of the bureaucratic barriers to get more coordination among
the 15 different intelligence entities." 

On the same show, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said Tenet found
himself locked into an impossible situation, trying to meet the
threats of the 21st century with an out-of-date intelligence
infrastructure. 

"It doesn't work. It can't work. That wasn't all his fault,"
Hagel said. 

Officials close to Tenet say the taxing job had taken a toll and
that he thought about resigning last summer. But some believed
he had wanted to see bin Laden's capture. 

For many reasons, it has been a tense final year for Tenet. 

Agency officials are upset over last summer's leak of a covert
CIA operative's name. Bush said Wednesday he was considering
hiring a private attorney for legal advice in a grand jury
investigation into that leak. 

The CIA also has been angered over recent allegations that
Defense Department civilians may have given highly classified
information on Iran to an Iraqi politician and former Pentagon
favorite, Ahmad Chalabi. 

The insurgency in Iraq remains strong, and al-Qaida threat
levels against American targets are high, with many U.S.
officials worried militants could try a strike to influence the
U.S. elections in November. 

Tenet's is not the only departure at the CIA. The head of the
agency's clandestine service, James Pavitt, plans to announce
his retirement Friday - a decision the 31-year CIA veteran made
several weeks ago, before he knew of Tenet's decision, a CIA
official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. 

Stephen Kappes, a 23-year agency veteran, is expected to take
over the agency's best-known division, responsible for foreign
intelligence gathering. 

-- 


 
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 13 Las Vegas SUN: U.S. Plans Cut in Nuke Warhead Stockpile

June 04, 2004 

 By H. JOSEF HEBERT ASSOCIATED PRESS 

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States plans to substantially
reduce its stockpile of nuclear warheads over the next eight
years to coincide with reductions in operational weapons, the
Energy Department told Congress. 

Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security
Administration, said in letter to Congress that a "major"
reduction in the number of warheads held in reserve is justified
because of a planned two-thirds cut in operational warheads by
2012 under a treaty already negotiated with Russia. 

President Bush in 2001 announced that the number of operational
warheads the United States will maintain will be reduced to
between 1,700 and 2,200 by 2012, from an estimated 6,000. 

As a result, the stockpile of reserve warheads will be reduced
and the total number of warheads cut by nearly half over the
next eight years, Brooks said in an interview Friday. Congress
had for months awaited the report detailing administration plans
for the reserve warhead stockpile. 

"This is a reduction in the total stockpile of just under a
half. It's the largest percentage reduction as far as we've been
able to determine in history. It will result in the smallest
total stockpile in several decades," said Brooks. 

The specific numbers are outlined in a classified report sent to
Congress. Brooks said he could not discuss specific numbers. But
he called the reductions "very significant and substantial." 

"We have to keep some weapons in reserve to hedge against the
international situation changing and also to hedge against
technical problems," said Brooks. 

In a cover letter to the classified Nuclear Posture Report sent
to Congress, Brooks wrote, "The president's decision to reduce
the number of operationally deployed weapons has laid the
groundwork for a major reduction in the size of the total
nuclear stockpile." 

The NNSA, a part of the Energy Department, is in charge of
maintaining the country's reserve nuclear stockpile. 

The inventory is supposed to be large enough to ensure military
readiness. It also is supposed to augment the operationally
deployed warheads - for both strategic ground-based missiles and
aircraft bombers - to allow for replacements that develop safety
or reliability problems. 

--- 

On the Net: 

National Nuclear Security Administration: http://www.nnsa.doe.gov

-- 


 
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 14 CPOD: New Zealanders Review Nuclear Ban                       

centre for public opinion and democracy.::
 	 	 	 	 	 	
June 4, 2004

(CPOD) Jun. 4, 2004 â€“ Residents of New Zealand would support 
changes in the countryâ€™s ban on nuclear propelled ships, 
according to a Digipoll published in the New Zealand Herald. 53.1 
per cent of respondents support easing the existing law.
 
Last year, United States commerce undersecretary Grant Aldones 
chided New Zealand for its anti-nuclear stance, claiming American 
warships must be allowed to fight terrorism all over the world. 

A report prepared by the opposition National party suggested a 
moderate "policy ban" on nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered ships, 
saying Denmarkâ€”a country that operates on a similar 
capacityâ€”maintains good diplomatic relations with the U.S.
 
Prime minister Helen Clark has said the proposal is "unworkable." 
According to disarmament minister Marian Hobbs, the current 
government has no plans to amend the 1987 law that establishes 
New Zealand as a nuclear-free area.
 
Polling Data
 
A National party taskforce report recently suggested easing the 
law that bans visits from nuclear-propelled ships in New Zealand, 
replacing it with a policy ban. Do you support or oppose this 
idea? 




  
Support 
    
53.1%
   
  
Oppose 
    
37.6%
  
Source: DigiPoll / The New Zealand Herald Methodology: Interviews 
to 712 New Zealand voters, conducted from May 27 to Jun. 1, 2004. 
Margin of error is 3.7 per cent.

All Content Â©2003 - 2004. The Center for Public 
Opinion and Democracy. All Rights Reserved.    
*****************************************************************
 15 Hi Pakistan: China cautious on India's nuclear doctrine     --> 
 
June 05 2004     
 
New Delhi: China has responded cautiously to Indian Foreign 
Minister Kunwar Natwar Singh's proposal that India, Pakistan and 
China work out a common nuclear doctrine to bring stability in 
the region , Press Trust of India (PTI) said on Thursday, quoting 
a foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing. 

Although PTI said that China was mum on New Delhi's surprise call 
for a "common" nuclear doctrine, there was little to suggest any 
disapproval either. Of course the move would imply China's 
recognition of New Delhi and Islamabad as legal nuclear powers. 

"China always stands for complete prohibition and thorough 
destruction of nuclear weapons," the Chinese Foreign Ministry 
spokesman said in a statement to PTI. The spokesman was asked to 
comment on Mr Singh's suggestion. 

"China is a close neighbour of India and Pakistan. We sincerely 
hope that peace and stability could be maintained with consistent 
growth of economy in South Asia," the spokesman said. 

The PTI saw the remark as a signal that Beijing does not want to 
be seen in the company of India and Pakistan, who barged into the 
nuclear club in 1998. Threat to India's security from China was 
one of the reasons cited by New Delhi while conducting the May 
1998 nuclear tests. 

This had resulted in a near-freeze in Sino-India relations. Mr 
Singh has questioned the wisdom of complaining to the United 
States about China and Pakistan to justify its nuclear tests. 

He thought the more honest way would have been to carry out the 
tests with the assertion that if five countries could have 
nuclear weapons, so could India. Mr Natwar Singh said that 
National Security Adviser J N Dixit would soon meet his Chinese 
counterpart, Dai Bingguo, in New Delhi. Mr Dixit was foreign 
secretary when India signed the treaty of peace and tranquillity 
on the borders in September 1993. 
					     							 				 				   				 				
      
Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 16 AFP: Musharraf ready for mutual reduction of nuclear arsenal with India

WAR.WIRE

DUBAI (AFP) Jun 04, 2004

 Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, in remarks aired Friday as 
Pakistan conducted a test of a nuclear-capable missile, said he 
was prepared to reduce his nuclear arsenal if India did the same.

"We don't have any worldwide military ambitions. We maintain a 
force for deterrence ... If there is a discussion or a 
deliberation (with India) on mutual reduction, we have been 
saying let's make South Asia a nuclear-free zone," he told 
Al-Arabiya news channel.

"If mutually there is an agreement of reduction of nuclear 
assets, Pakistan would be willing," Musharraf said.

The ballistic missile Hatf V, which can can carry nuclear 
warheads deep inside Indian territory with its range of 1,500 
kilometers (930 miles), was successfully test-fired early Friday, 
the Pakistani military said.

It was the second test of a nuclear-capable missile since India's 
new government took power a fortnight ago.

Pakistan and the new Indian government have vowed to carry 
forward a 14-month old peace process initiated by India's 
outgoing premier, Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Experts will meet in New Delhi on June 19-20 for talks on nuclear 
confidence building measures (CBMs). Foreign secretaries will 
then meet on June 27-28, also in New Delhi, to discuss the 
Kashmir dispute and security issues.

Commenting on the idea floated by India this week of a tripartite 
discussion among Islamabad, New Delhi and Beijing to evolve a 
common nuclear doctrine, Musharraf said these were "very serious 
issues" which require a lot of analysis and deliberation.

"When we are talking of nuclear CBMs between India and Pakistan, 
that itself is a difficult job. Now getting China involved, it 
involves many nuances which one has to consider," he told 
Dubai-based Al-Arabiya.

Musharraf said that while Indian-Israeli military cooperation was 
a matter of concern, he did not see Israel as a threat to 
Pakistan.

"Israel is very far away from us geographically, and under the 
present circumstances we don't see a threat emanating from 
Israel," he said.

"We do show concerns when Israel collaborates with India ... But 
if you are talking of (an) immediate threat coming from Israel, 
no, that is not in the immediate context," the Pakistani leader 
added.

  WAR.WIRE
*****************************************************************
 17 Indian Express: Doctrine and strategy under the N-umbrella
 
Analysis         Saturday, June 05, 2004             
                
  CRAFTING A CREDIBLE DEFENCE POLICY: PART-IV  
     
JASJIT SINGH                              

In the ultimate analysis, the way military power is structured 
and employed successfully would justify its existence and what 
the nation invests in it as its insurance policy. Money, machines 
and men for defence finally would have to be synergised into a 
fighting capability to apply destructive force for political 
ends. This makes the doctrine, in other words the principles and 
precepts that would guide the way military power would be 
employed, the critical foundation for capacity building and 
operational actions in war. 

It is also obvious that defence doctrines must flow from national 
political goals and objectives. At the apex, our primary national 
strategic objective must remain the human development of our 
people. Hence durable peace and prevention of war becomes the 
central principle for our strategic doctrine, with deterrence as 
the foundation of defence doctrine. 

This does not mean that military power would not be employed in 
an offensive role. But that should be in circumstances when 
deterrence has failed and either an adversary attacks us, or we 
need to apply military force to alter the negative and 
destructive thinking and policies of an adversary (the case after 
the terrorist attack on Lok Sabha in December 2001) and 
diplomatic measures fail. 

The one single factor that has had the most profound impact on 
our defence policy, and hence the employment of our military 
power, is the existence of nuclear weapons. At another plane, 
terrorism has come to be the favoured choice of Pakistan to apply 
violence for political-ideological ends. It is in the strategic 
space below nuclear exchange, where conventional military power 
has to be applied. At the upper end of conflict, only nuclear 
weapons can deter nuclear weapons. In view of the enormous costs 
implicit in any potential use of nuclear weapons, it is clear 
that we must ensure that nuclear weapons are not allowed to come 
into play in the use of military power. 

This imposes significant limitations on the conduct of war which 
did not exist till 1987. We need to ask ourselves whether we have 
evolved a credible doctrine to successfully counter Pakistan’s 
strategic doctrine of sub-conventional war (through terrorism) 
under the nuclear umbrella acquired by 1987? The answer 
unfortunately is no! The problem has been that while Pakistan put 
in place a well-planned strategy of sub-conventional war through 
terror under its nuclear umbrella, we stuck to ways of war 
outmoded by the presence of nuclear weapons. 

Continued use of military power in counter-terrorism in what can 
only be called strategically defensive role merely added to the 
perceptions in Pakistan that their nuclear weapons deter India 
from using its powerful military; and we lowered our sights to 
tactical responses to terrorism instead of pursuing a viable 
strategic response. Our doctrine seems to have got stuck to the 
traditional World War II model of war ‘‘by numbers’’, with 
ponderous three-weeks for initial mobilisation itself! 

Doctrinal baggage, according to then army chief General S 
Padmanabhan, crippled India’s early options once we mobilised for 
war to punish Pakistan after the terrorist attack on Parliament 
on 13th December 2001. And later on after March, heavy use of 
military power with three strike corps concentrated for a massive 
offensive in Rajasthan sector could not be employed because of 
risk of escalation across the nuclear threshold. And while 
Pakistan paid a much higher price than us, the conclusions of our 
strategic community were to the opposite. In the end Pakistan 
declared victory while we searched for words to explain the 
withdrawal. 

In short, defence strategy should be able to apply punitive 
(conventional military) force without inviting an excessive 
response like a credible nuclear threat or use. In a way 
Pakistani strategy has ensured that the war through terrorism 
does not go beyond a level where India might be tempted or forced 
to escalate (as it did after the Lok Sabha attack). But there is 
no guarantee that this would continue to be the choice for the 
future. The options for us based on this principle would be to 
either apply military power spaced out in time and concentrated 
in space, or stretched out in space and concentrated in time. Any 
rapid loss of its major force or large territory should be 
expected to raise the stakes closer to Pakistan’s nuclear 
threshold. 

A classical example of application of punitive force would be the 
two-year battle of attrition across the Suez Canal between Israel 
and Egypt with massive air and artillery duels between 1971-73, 
which did not push Israel to consider its nuclear weapons use; 
but it did so within 36 hours of the October 1973 War because of 
the rapid armour thrust by Egypt and Syria that had started to 
take a heavy toll of Israeli Air Force without success in 
stopping the Arab advance that led to unveiling of the nuclear 
threat as its response option. 

In other words, our defence doctrine and strategy must seek to 
apply calibrated force for punitive effect, which does not have a 
destabilising effect on the adversary. ‘Shock and awe’ strategy 
is workable only under special circumstances, where there are no 
nuclear weapons with the adversary. Thus sharp, swift small-size 
operations would need to be kept limited in time and space. 
Precision long-range air strikes on selected targets are another 
option as the US did over North Vietnam ensuring that the bombing 
was kept below the provocation level which might have brought the 
Soviets or the Chinese directly into the war. For example, air 
strikes in defined geographical areas like the Pakistan Occupied 
Kashmir could be spaced out in time. Conceptually this would not 
be different from Pakistan’s strategy of bleeding India with a 
thousand cuts, except a thousand cuts wouldn’t be needed with 
modern firepower. 

The key is that the onus of escalation should be placed on the 
adversary, but at every step he should find that we would block 
his choices and/or impose a higher level of punishment as 
compared to what he could inflict through escalation. 

© 2004: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
*****************************************************************
 18 Channelnewsasia: PM Abdullah denies knowledge of Libyan nuclear technicians in 
Malaysia 
 
Channelnewsasia.com
 
   Asia Pacific News »   

  Abdullah Ahmad Badawi   
  
 Posted: 04 June 2004 2032 hrs 

By Channel NewsAsia's Malaysia Correspondent Melissa Goh
 
KUALA LUMPUR : Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has denied 
any knowledge of nuclear technicians from Libya being trained in 
Malaysia.
 
This follows last week's arrest of Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, the 
alleged middleman in a nuclear black market scandal, under 
Malaysia's security law which allows for detention without trial.
 
Malaysian Deputy Internal Security Minister said it was because 
the Sri Lankan businessman posed a threat to Malaysia's national 
security.
 
Among his alleged crimes, the 44-year-old is said to have 
deceived SCOMI - the Malaysian oil and gas company controlled by 
Mr Kamaluddin Abdullah, the only son of the Malaysian Prime 
Minister - into manufacturing illegal parts for nuclear weapons.
 
And in 2002, Tahir reportedly brought in seven Libyan technicians 
into Malaysia secretly, to be trained in quality control 
operations related to nuclear centrifuges.
 
But a week after Tahir's arrest, Mr Abdullah who is also in 
charge of internal security, denied any knowledge of these 
Lybians.
 
"I am not aware of Lybians being trained to assist them or 
whatever," he said.
 
Asked about whether he would allow United Nations inspectors to 
question Tahir on the nuclear black scandal, Mr Abdullah was 
non-committal. 

"I do not want to give assurances of something which is a subject 
of discussion between the concerned authorities," he said.
 
The US has called Tahir the "chief financial officer and money 
launderer" of the network led by Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of 
Pakistan's nuclear bomb.
 
The US has hailed the arrest of Tahir as a breakthrough in global 
efforts to dismantle Abdul Qadeer's nuclear network. 

Tahir is currently being held at Kemunting detention centre in 
Malaysia and will be there for at least two years. - CNA 
  
Copyright © 2004 MCN International Pte Ltd 

Copyright © MCN International Pte Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 19 Las Vegas SUN: Officials: Nuke Experts Worked in Malaysia

June 04, 2004 

 By ROHAN SULLIVAN ASSOCIATED PRESS 

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - The alleged top financier of an
international nuclear trafficking network brought seven Libyan
technicians to Malaysia to train on machines used to make parts
for uranium-enriching centrifuges, officials said Friday. 

The Libyans' training, mentioned in documents used to justify
the alleged trafficker's arrest a week ago, widens Malaysia's
apparent involvement in the network. 

A government order to jail Sri Lankan businessman Buhary Syed
Abu Tahir says he secretly arranged for two groups of Libyans to
learn how to use machines that can make centrifuge parts,
security officials told The Associated Press on condition of
anonymity. 

The training occurred at a factory built by Scomi Precision
Engineering, or SCOPE, a Malaysian company that supplied parts
for Libya's nuclear program in 2002 and 2003 under a contract
arranged by Tahir. 

The first group of four Libyans came in June 2002 and the second
group of three came in September 2002, officials cited the order
as saying. 

SCOPE says it believed the parts were for the oil and gas
industry, and police in February cleared the company of any
wrongdoing. 

Police said Tahir had arranged for another alleged network
operative, Swiss engineer Urs Tinner, to be a consultant to
oversee the parts' production. But the police did not mention
the Libyans' visit. 

Tahir was arrested a week ago and sent to a prison camp for two
years under a security law that allows indefinite detention
without trial. Authorities had earlier cleared him of breaking
any Malaysian laws for arranging the SCOPE contract. 

When Tahir was arrested, security officials said it was for
using Malaysia as a base to organize the manufacture and for
bringing in the Libyan technicians. 

Such actions undermined Malaysia's security, and exposed it to
economic sanctions and threats of attack from unspecified "big
powers," officials said. 

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said security officials had
changed their minds about the threat Tahir allegedly posed since
the earlier investigation. 

Asked for comment Friday, Abdullah, who is also the Internal
Security minister, said he was not aware of Libyans being
trained in Malaysia. 

Abdullah was noncommittal about whether the International Atomic
Energy Agency would be allowed to question Tahir. 

"This is something that has already been talked about between
our people and the agency," he said. "It is up to them. I cannot
speculate on anything that has to do with issues of security." 

Deputy Internal Security Minister Noh Omar said last week that
Malaysia does not want any "foreign intervention" in the case. 

Tahir has given Malaysian police detailed information about
disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan selling nuclear
secrets to Libya and Iran, but he has not been questioned by
U.N. or U.S. authorities. 

Tahir is the most senior operative in Khan's network to be
arrested since it was exposed after the CIA and Britain's MI6
spy agency seized centrifuge parts made in Malaysia being
shipped to Libya. Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf
pardoned Khan after he apologized for selling nuclear secrets. 

Washington has expressed delight at Malaysia's arrest of Tahir. 

"They've thrown this man in jail, and we think that's exactly
where he ought to be," James Kelly, the assistant secretary of
state for East Asia and the Pacific, was quoted as telling a
congressional committee Thursday. 

Opposition and rights groups accuse Abdullah of using the
security law against Tahir to stop him from publicly making
incriminating or embarrassing statements about Abdullah's son,
who controlled the company that made the parts. Abdullah denies
a cover-up. 

Detention under the security law means Tahir need not be openly
tried, and the government strictly controls access to him. 

SCOPE was a subsidiary of Scomi Group, controlled by Abdullah's
son, Kamaluddin. Tahir, his Malaysian wife and Kamaluddin were
directors of Kaspadu, a privately held company that controls
Scomi. 

Kamaluddin has cut most ties with Tahir, although his wife still
owns a large parcel of Scomi shares. 

-- 


 
*****************************************************************
 20 NRC: NRC Staff Issues Bulletin to Nuclear Power Plants on Inspecting Certain Reactor Piping
                           Components
News Release - 2004-06
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION   
  Office of Public Affairs     Telephone: 301/415-8200   
  Washington, DC 20555-0001     E-mail: opa@nrc.gov  
  No. 04-066     June 3, 2004   
  

to companies licensed to operate pressurized water reactors in
the United States, requesting information on current inspection
methods of certain equipment so that NRC staff can determine if
supplemental measures are needed.
 
Some alloys used in components of nuclear reactors are
susceptible to cracking when exposed to coolant water during
normal operation. The inspections covered in the Bulletin
examine components made of those alloys that impact reactor
piping, such as the sleeves for heater elements in a reactors
pressurizer, a device which allows coolant to remain liquid at
higher temperatures. Experience with these components shows this
issue is not an immediate safety problem. 

The NRC wants to ensure licensee inspections identify any onset
of cracking in an effective and timely manner, said Bruce
Boger, Director of the Division of Inspection Program Management
in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. 

Inspections that detect through-wall leakage from the components
in question, conducted at a plants next refueling outage,
should help licensees determine the components structural
integrity. For example, a visual inspection of 100 percent of
each components circumference would be effective in finding
leakage and would satisfy the NRC. 

The Bulletin requests licensees to provide a written response by
July 28 on several areas of information, including:
 -- the materials from which the components in question were
fabricated;
 -- the inspections that have been and will be performed to
ensure any degradation of the components is identified, properly
characterized and repaired, and;
 -- an explanation why the inspection program is adequate for
maintaining the integrity of the reactors coolant pressure
boundary. 

Within 60 days of restarting after the next inspection of the
components described in the Bulletin, licensees must submit one
of two documents:
 -- a statement of the inspections performed, the conditions
found, any follow-up examinations of flaws in leaking
components, and corrective actions or repairs taken, or;
 -- if the licensee could not complete the inspections, a
summary of what inspections were performed and the methods used,
as well as the information required in the first option. 

Bulletin 2004-01, Inspection of Alloy 82/182/600 Materials Used
in the Fabrication of Pressurizer Penetrations and Steam Space
Piping Connections at Pressurized-Water Reactors, is available
on the NRC web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/bulletins/
2004/.   



  


 	Last revised Friday, June 04, 2004 	   
*****************************************************************
 21 NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; 
 
                        FR Doc 04-12670 
[Federal Register: June 4, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 108)] 
[Notices] [Page 31646-31647] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04jn04-99]                         
 
Comment Request AGENCY: U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
(NRC). ACTION: Notice of pending NRC action to submit an 
information collection request to OMB and solicitation of public 
comment.
 
SUMMARY: The NRC is preparing a submittal to OMB for review of 
continued approval of information collections under the 
provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 
Chapter 35). Information pertaining to the requirement to be 
submitted: 1. The title of the information collection: 10 CFR 
Part 70-- Domestic Licensing of Special Nuclear Material.
 
2. Current OMB approval number: 3150-0009. 3. How often the 
collection is required: Required reports are collected and 
evaluated on a continuing basis as events occur. Applications for 
new licenses and amendments may be submitted at any time. 
Generally, renewal applications are submitted every ten years and 
for major fuel cycle facilities updates of the safety 
demonstration section are submitted every two years. Nuclear 
material control and accounting information is submitted in 
accordance with specified instructions.
 
4. Who is required or asked to report: Applicants for and holders 
of specific NRC licenses to receive title to, own, acquire, 
deliver, receive, possess, use, or initially transfer special 
nuclear material.
 
5. The estimated number of annual respondents: 372. 6. The number 
of hours needed annually to complete the requirement or request: 
89,465 (81,765 reporting hours + 7,700 recordkeeping hours) or an 
average of 125 hours per response (81,765 reporting burden hours/ 
655 responses) and an average of 13 hours per recordkeeper (7,700 
recordkeeping burden hours/601 recordkeepers).
 
7. Abstract: Part 70 establishes requirements for licenses to 
own,
 
[[Page 31647]] acquire, receive, possess, use, and transfer 
special nuclear material. The information in the applications, 
reports, and records is used by NRC to make licensing and other 
regulatory determinations concerning the use of special nuclear 
material. The revised estimate of burden reflects the addition of 
requirements for documentation for termination or transfer of 
licensed activities, and modifying licenses.
 
Submit, by August 3, 2004, comments that address the following 
questions: 1. Is the proposed collection of information necessary 
for the NRC to properly perform its functions? Does the 
information have practical utility? 2. Is the burden estimate 
accurate? 3. Is there a way to enhance the quality, utility, and 
clarity of the information to be collected? 4. How can the burden 
of the information collection be minimized, including the use of 
automated collection techniques or other forms of information 
technology? A copy of the draft supporting statement may be 
viewed free of charge at the NRC Public Document Room, One White 
Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Room O-1 F21, Rockville, MD 
20852. OMB clearance requests are available at the NRC worldwide 
Web site: 
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comment/omb/index.html. The 
document will be available on the NRC home page site for 60 days 
after the signature date of this notice.
 
Comments and questions about the information collection 
requirements may be directed to the NRC Clearance Officer, Brenda 
Jo. Shelton, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, T-5 F52, 
Washington, DC 20555-0001, by telephone at 301-415-7233, or by 
Internet electronic mail to infocollects@nrc.gov. Dated at 
Rockville, Maryland, this 27th day of May 2004.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Brenda Jo. Shelton, NRC Clearance Officer, Office of the Chief 
Information Officer.
 
[FR Doc. 04-12670 Filed 6-3-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 22 FT: Spent N-fuel returns to Japanese plant  
  
By David Pilling  

  Published: June 4 2004 5:00 | Last Updated: June 4 2004 5:00  
     
The first shipments of spent nuclear fuel began arriving at the 
Rokkasho reprocessing plant in northern Japan after a suspension 
of 19 months, marking another step in the gradual return to 
normal of Japan's nuclear industry. 

Delivery of spent uranium was suspended in November 2002 after 
welding defects caused leaks of radioactive water at the plant in 
Aomori prefecture.

Public confidence in Japan's nuclear industry has been damaged by 
a series of scandals, the latest of which led to the closure of 
17 nuclear plants belonging to Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) last 
year.

Rokkasho, being built by a consortium of power companies called 
Japan Nuclear Fuel, is due to begin full-fledged operations in 
mid-2006. It will begin trial operations using depleted uranium 
this month. David Pilling, Tokyo  
     
      © Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2004. "FT" and
"Financial Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times. Privacy
*****************************************************************
 23 Lompoc Record: Public meetings planned on Diablo Canyon 

By Malia Spencer - Staff Wtiter 

6/4/04 

Officials from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be in 
San Luis Obispo next week for two public meetings to discuss 
issues regarding the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.

A town hall-style meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, 
June 9, at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Luis Obispo, where NRC 
staff is scheduled to answer questions regarding inspection 
results after the Dec. 22 San Simeon Earthquake. Those results 
were also the topic of a public meeting Feb. 4. Transcripts of 
that meeting are available through the NRC Web site at 
www.nrcgov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html.

Security issues, the required license and the license application 
by Pacific Gas &Electric - the company that operates the plant - 
for expanding on-site storage of spent nuclear fuel will be 
discussed, along with other safety related-topics.

"As an agency, our primary mission is the protection of public 
health and safety. We want people who live near the plant to know 
the NRC values their opinions and wants to address their 
concerns," NRC's Region IV Administrator Bruce Mallett said in a 
written statement. "We are actively seeking public participation 
in this meeting and will use the informality of a town hall 
meeting to encourage this."

Members of the community activist group Mothers for Peace will be 
attending both meetings, said the group's spokesperson Rochelle 
Becker. She said the town hall meeting was called in response to 
the Feb. 4 meeting, where she says NRC officials were unable to 
answer residents' questions.

Specifically, the group wants the commission to address seismic 
concerns regarding stress from the earthquake on underground 
pipes and wells and new information about the type of faults 
found near the plant.

Becker said the fault near the plant is a thrust fault, and 
Diablo Canyon was built to withstand movement of a slip-strike 
fault.

After Wednesday's town hall meeting, NRC officials will hold 
another meeting Thursday, June 10, to discuss the annual 
assessment of Diablo Canyon's safety performance. This meeting is 
open to the public, and officials will be available afterward to 
answer questions.

At this meeting, officials will be discussing a letter from the 
NRC to Diablo Canyon officials, in which William Jones of the NRC 
informs PG officials that the plant "operated in a manner that 
preserved public health and safety" throughout 2003.

A copy of the letter is available on the NRC Web site at 
www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSITE/ASSESS/LETTERS/diab_2003q4.pdf.

The performance period under discussion is January through 
December, 2003. There will also be a presentation by NRC staff of 
how the agency's Reactor Oversight Process works.

Becker said she attends all NRC meetings that she can, and she 
urges other area residents to do the same.

"It's an opportunity that people should take serious advantage 
of," Becker said. "This is the only chance that Central Coast 
residents will have to talk right to the NRC."

Staff writer Malia Spencer can be reached at 739-2219 or by 
e-mail at mspencer@pulitzer.net. Print this story Email this 

The Lompoc Record - Serving the Lompoc and Santa Ynez Valleys

© Copyright 2001 Pulitzer Central Coast Newspapers. All Rights 
*****************************************************************
 24 Germany: Ahaus waste trucking first week of June? 
 
Date: Fri, 04 Jun 2004 18:11:05 -0700

 
<x-flowed>


Ahaus waste trucking first week of June?

von <mailto:JFahrenkrug@gmx.de%20and%20info@list.x1000hamburg.de>Diet Simon 
- 27.05.2004 13:03

Nuclear waste from Rossendorf near Dresden could start moving to Ahaus in 
June, writes Jürgen Fahrenkrug of the X 1000 Hamburg activist group.
Presently the first week of June is thought to be likely,he says in an 
email circular. Look in the Internet or ring the Ahaus hotline (49) 
2561/961792 for up to the minute information. Nothing is 100% certain yet. 
However, the transports are supposed to be by truck.

cfd140.jpg
Two possible routes

The two possible routes are posted in the Internet at
cfd22a.jpg 
<http://nixfaehrtmehr.de/strecke.jpg>http://nixfaehrtmehr.de/strecke.jpg. 
For more on the status of things see cfd23a.jpg 
<http://www.bi-ahaus.de.%E2%80%9D>http://www.bi-ahaus.de.
The Ahaus activists keep latest media reports on their issues in German at 
cfd249.jpg <http://www.bi-ahaus.de/>http://www.bi-ahaus.de/. Heres a 
summary of the latest:
·The figures being used by the BfS licensing authority on loading waste 
into the Castor caskets are false, allege the Ahaus activists.
·Police have banned a planned demonstration on the Kamener Kreuz autobahn 
junction planned for 1 June.
·After the failure of talks with the government of Saxony, North-Rhine 
Westphalia says it is now quickly filing litigation to try to have the 
transports stopped. Action is already in train against the transport licence.
·The Saxony government has started the procedure to start transporting the 
waste on 1 October.
·In connection with an annual congress of the nuclear industry in 
Düsseldorf, the BBU environmentalist group was scathingly critical of the 
North-Rhine Westphalian government, saying it pampers the industry, which 
feels very comfortable in the state. A release refers to the only German 
uranium enrichment plant at Gronau (near Ahaus) where fuel is produced for 
all the world. BBU said the resistance to the transports from Rossendorf is 
half-hearted. At the Jülich research centre basic research on running nukes 
continues. The release mentions several other facilities.

e-Mail:: 
<mailto:JFahrenkrug@gmx.de%20and%20info@list.x1000hamburg.de>JFahrenkrug@gmx.de 
and info@list.x1000hamburg.de ¦ Homepage:: 
<http://www.bi-ahaus.de>http://www.bi-ahaus.de ¦

</x-flowed>


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 25 Las Vegas RJ: Nuclear engineer resigns 
 
Friday, June 04, 2004

By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
 

WASHINGTON -- Daniel Bullen, a nuclear engineer and materials
expert, has resigned from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review
Board, a high-profile panel that reviews scientific work on the
Yucca Mountain Project. 
Bullen said Thursday he decided to step down after leaving the
faculty at Iowa State University to take a position at Exponent,
Inc., a scientific engineering firm based in Menlo Park, Calif.
 
 "Some of the things we are pursuing in the office would be a
conflict of interest," including competing for contracts to work
with the Energy Department, the national laboratories and
nuclear utilities, said Bullen, who works from the firm's
Chicago office.
 
 Bullen, 47, said he would consult on the Yucca Mountain Project
"if the opportunities arose."
 
 As a member of the technical review board, Bullen has evaluated
the nuclear waste repository program for the past seven years.
Congress created the advisory board to monitor technical issues
associated with the Yucca program. 
The 11-person board is down to seven members because of
resignations over the past year, creating vacancies the White
House has not filled.
 
 Bullen took an active role in developing the board's opinions
on how the repository should be designed to minimize corrosion
of nuclear waste-bearing canisters. Those views have conflicted
with the Energy Department, sparking vigorous debate in the
science community. 
Declining to give an opinion on the Yucca Mountain Project,
Bullen said he does not plan to speak publicly about the
repository. Paul Craig, a University of California engineering
professor, has delivered speeches critical of the DOE effort
since resigning from the review board in January.
 
 "I have the utmost respect for the scientists and engineers on
the project and they have a difficult task," Bullen said. "I
won't be speaking out for or against it."
 
 
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
 26 Tri-City Herald: Senate lets DOE reclassify nuclear waste 

This story was published Friday, June 4th, 2004 

By Les Blumenthal Herald Washington, D.C., bureau 

WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Friday turned aside by the narrowest 
of margins a proposed amendment by Sen. Maria Cantwell and agreed 
to allow the Department of Energy to reclassify highly 
radioactive wastes in an effort to cut costs and speed cleanup at 
its nuclear sites. 

Although language in the Defense Authorization Bill was aimed at 
the department's Savannah River, S.C., complex, Cantwell and 
other senators argued it would set a precedent that could later 
be applied at Hanford and other sites. 

"It's a very, very, very dangerous precedent," said Cantwell, 
D-Wash. "It leaves our state in jeopardy and it leaves all states 
with nuclear waste in jeopardy." 

Cantwell's amendment to strip the language from the defense bill 
was defeated on a 48-48 vote after more than three hours of 
debate. Amendments fail on a tie vote. 

The critical vote forcing the tie came when Sen. Olympia Snowe, a 
moderate Republican from Maine, voted against the amendment. 
Snowe was the last senator to vote and was lobbied by Cantwell 
and others until just moments before she voted. 

Though the outcome was mostly along party lines, Cantwell picked 
up support from three Republicans: Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith, 
Arizona Sen. John McCain and Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter. 

Three Democrats missed the vote: Montana Sen. Max Baucus, who had 
surgery earlier this week, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who is 
running for president, and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. 

"A tie is a loss," Cantwell said after the vote. "But we're not 
done." 

Given the closeness of the vote, Cantwell said she might offer 
another amendment to the defense bill, which the Senate is far 
from finishing. The House version of the defense bill includes 
language that would require the National Academy of Sciences to 
study the issue. 

"This isn't over yet," said Cantwell. 

In a press release, U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Pasco, said 
discussions over such matters belongs in negotiating sessions 
between state and federal governments, not in Congress. 

"The department needs to redouble efforts to reach an agreement 
with Washington state," he said. 

The Department of Energy had sought to change the definition of 
high-level nuclear waste so it didn't have to remove the sludge 
from the bottom of underground tanks at Hanford, Savannah River 
and its site in Idaho. 

Department officials said that rather than removing the sludge, 
it could be mixed with sand and gravel and turned into a 
groutlike substance that could remain in the tanks indefinitely. 

Such a step could save $86 billion in cleanup costs, department 
officials said. 

The department turned to Congress for authority to change the 
high-level nuclear waste definition after a federal judge in 
Idaho ruled the DOE couldn't do it unilaterally. 

Washington, Idaho and South Carolina had joined in the lawsuit 
opposing the department, but they also opened negotiations with 
DOE, which had threatened to withhold $350 million in cleanup 
money. 

Although Washington and Idaho failed to reach an agreement with 
the department, South Carolina did. Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., 
inserted language in the defense bill that would have allowed a 
new definition when it came to the wastes at Savannah River. 

More than 50 million gallons of highly radioactive wastes are 
stored in underground tanks at Hanford, which have leaked and in 
most cases are beyond their design life. 

"DOE wants to change the rules of the game," said Cantwell, 
adding that rather than "sneaking" language into the defense 
bill, there needs to be a full debate on changing a 30-year-old 
definition included in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. 

"The department is playing a switch-and-run game because someone 
like OMB (the White House budget office) says we don't have the 
money" she said. "Well, guess what, cleanup is going to cost 
money." 

Washington's other senator, Democrat Patty Murray, said the 
administration is trying to circumvent a court case it lost and 
blackmail Washington and other states into accepting lower 
cleanup standards. 

"For more than a year, the Department of Energy has been trying 
to change the ground rules so it can leave more waste untreated, 
declare victory and walk away from out nation's most contaminated 
nuclear sites," Murray said. "They tried to do it in the courts 
and they lost. Today, they are trying to do it on the floor of 
the United States Senate." 

Graham denied he had slipped the language into the bill as a 
member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which wrote the 
bill in a closed session. Graham said each state should have the 
right to negotiate a new definition of high-level nuclear waste 
with the Energy Department. 

"What we have here is an agreement between environmental 
regulators in South Carolina and DOE over what is clean," Graham 
said, adding what was involved was roughly an inch of sludge in 
the tanks at Savannah River that will be classified as "waste 
incidental to reprocessing." 

But South Carolina's other senator, Democrat Ernest Hollings 
disagreed. "We don't have states' rights when it comes to 
high-level nuclear waste," Hollings said. "We are playing with 
fire." 

And Cantwell said that under Graham's language each of the 50 
states could ultimately negotiate not only its own definition of 
high-level nuclear waste with the department but other 
environmental definitions with the federal government. 

"What if Michigan negotiates its own clean air standards with EPA 
(the Environmental Protection Agency)?" Cantwell asked. "What if 
Florida negotiates its own standards for clean water?" 

The Senate did adopt an amendment on a voice vote requiring the 
department to spend the $350 million in cleanup funding it had 
threatened to withhold, including more than $60 million for 
Hanford. 

Kyle McSlarrow, the deputy energy secretary, said in a prepared 
statement he would direct DOE officials to proceed aggressively 
with work at the Hanford tank farms. Talks with the state of 
Washington would continue, he said. State officials have 
criticized DOE for failing to discuss what they call the 
substantive issues of waste reclassification. 

The Washington Public Interest Research Group and Heart of 
America Northwest, two public interest groups, denounced the 
Senate action on reclassification. 

"This is yet another attempt by the U.S. Department of Energy to 
weasel out of its obligation to properly clean up the radioactive 
mess it created at Hanford," said Robert Pregulman, executive 
director of WashPIRG, in a prepared statement. 

© 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
 27 Las Vegas SUN: Proposal on Yucca's budget gives little relief

June 03, 2004 

By Suzanne Struglinski <suzanne@lasvegassun.com> SUN WASHINGTON 
BUREAU 

WASHINGTON -- Funding levels set in the House Wednesday will not
offer much relief for the Yucca Mountain project's looming
budget crunch.

 House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla.,
proposed a $27.99 billion limit for the Energy and Water
spending bill, which funds the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste
storage project, the Nevada Test Site and other programs for
fiscal 2005, which begins Oct. 1.

 Young's proposal represents a $50 million increase from the
administration's request, but the allocations are not official
until they are approved by a majority of the House
Appropriations Committee members. A meeting of the committee is
expected to take place next week.

 Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, who heads the House Appropriations
subcommittee that creates the Yucca budget, has repeatedly said
he will most likely only be able to fund the program at $131
million in his bill, a $749 million decrease from the
administration's request.

 The administration wanted $880 million for the project, but
could only get $749 million of it through a budget policy change
that has not passed yet.

 Hobson had not yet seen or discussed the allocation as of
Wednesday evening, his spokeswoman said.

 Hobson has said in the past, however, that the bill will be
tight because of a $600 million shortfall in funding for Army
Corps of Engineers projects that somehow needs to be made up.

 The Senate is expected come up with its own spending limit for
the appropriations bills later this month.

 
 
*****************************************************************
 28 Las Vegas SUN: Yucca documents might be missing

June 03, 2004 

Discrepancy seen in number of pages being sent to NRC

 By Suzanne Struglinski <suzanne@lasvegassun.com> SUN WASHINGTON 
BUREAU

 WASHINGTON -- Nevada's attorneys want to know how at least 24
million pages of Yucca Mountain project documents seem to have
fallen off the Energy Department's radar screen.

 It is unclear how the department pared down its list or what
information would be missing from a data base of information now
being compiled, according to the state's lawyers, but some could
be important to help keep nuclear waste out of Nevada.

 The department estimated in February and April that 3 million
to 4 million documents totaling about 36 million pages could be
included in the nuclear waste storage project's Licensing
Support Network, expected to go online later this month, but
then on May 4 estimated only 1 million documents or 12 million
pages would be included.

 The department starting sending documents May 6 to the License
Support Network, a central data base kept by the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission for all Yucca Mountain project documents.

 A commission spokesman confirmed the department has sent
documents over to be indexed but they are not available to the
public. They become public once the department "certifies" all
of the documents are there.

 Yucca Mountain Project spokesman Allen Benson said the
department based its 3 million to 4 million document estimate on
its initial data collection phase but a closer review of the
documents showed only 1 million needed to be included.

 Benson could not elaborate on what the review entailed or how
the department decided which documents no longer needed to be
included.

 "We just overestimated the number, it's that simple," Benson
said.

 But attorney Charles Fitzpatrick of Egan, Fitzpatrick, Malsch
and Cynkar, the Virginia law firm hired by Nevada to handle
Yucca Mountain legal issues, said arithmetic can lead to a
possible answer.

 In a May 20 report the department's inspector general wrote the
commission can index 150,000 documents per week, so it could
take between five months to more than a year to index 3 million
to 8 million documents that would need to go on the network. The
IG found 5 million e-mails that still needed to be processed on
top of the department's original estimate.

 The inspector general estimated the commission could need until
May 2005 to make all of the information public. The license
application, which the Energy Department has said would be
submitted by the end of this year, cannot start until all of the
documents are public.

 Under the regulations, the department needs to submit to the
network any information it plans to use during the licensing
proceeding six months before it submits the license application,
and the license application must be submitted by December if the
repository is to open by the target date of 2010.

 Fitzpatrick said he thought the department saw the inspector
general's estimate during its review and opted to make the
change to stay on track.

 In an April 30 response to the inspector general audit,
included in the final report, W. John Arthur, the deputy
director of the department's Las Vegas-based Office of
Repository Development, agreed with the audit recommendations
but says a "revised estimate for the initial LSN Certification
will be provided to-- the NRC within the next few weeks."

 A May 4 letter to the commission from Jospeh Ziegler, director
of the office of license application and strategy, says the
department will submit 1 million documents.

 Fitzpatrick said that NRC regulations outline specifically what
needs to be included in the data base.

 "DOE (Energy Department) can't just up and decide out of the
blue what it wants to put on the LSN," Fitzpatrick said. "It's
every piece of paper you want to rely on or cite."

 The state has to wait until June 23 to see the department's
response, but it is prepared to file a dispute if it feels
information is missing, Fitzpatrick said.

 The state sent a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Wednesday asking it to assign a pre-license application
presiding officer as soon as possible rather than two weeks
after the department submits its documents on the network, as
outlined in the commission's regulations.

 "Whether the correct figure is 3 million, 4 million, or 8 1/2
million, it remains that DOE clearly is struggling to meet its
artificial June deadline," attorney Martin Malsch wrote. "Nevada
anticipates that, when DOE certifies later this month, there
will be immediate and serious questions about whether the
certification is in compliance with NRC's rules, notwithstanding
the serious civil and criminal penalties that would be
associated with a false certification."

 The officer has the power to decide whether material the
department has decided to leave out is relevant and then require
the department to submit it.

 Fitzpatrick said having an officer in place now would help get
a jump start on the process.

 Once the department loads its documents onto the network, the
commission has 30 days to turn in its documentation while the
state and other parties allowed to participate in the process
have 90 days to get their documentation online.

 Suzanne Struglinski 

can be reached at (202) 662-7245 or suzanne@lasvegassun.com


 
*****************************************************************
 29 Las Vegas SUN: Without Congress, state won't get more Yucca funds

June 04, 2004 

By Suzanne Struglinski <suzanne@lasvegassun.com> SUN WASHINGTON 
BUREAU

 WASHINGTON -- Nevada will not get the additional $4 million for
Yucca Mountain oversight it requested from the Energy
Department, unless Congress approves a change, a department
official said Wednesday.

 The state has already received close to $1 million from
Congress for its work on Yucca Mountain this year and the
department has no authority to provide any more money for the
same work, Margaret Chu, director of the department's Office of
Civilian Radioactive Waste Management wrote in a five-page
letter to the state.

 In a letter to Bob Loux, executive director of the state's
Agency for Nuclear Projects, Chu said the department believes
the state can only get more money if Congress approves it.

 The state sued the department in March, claiming it
shortchanged the state $4 million this fiscal year in the
funding for oversight of the development of a high-level nuclear
waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Nevada attorneys believe the state is entitled to money set
aside to fund the project, regardless of what Congress allocates.

 Loux said Chu's letter was no surprise. The state asked the
court hearing its lawsuit to put the case on the fast track, but
the court has not. In the meantime, state officials have been
evaluating how they will prioritize the work without the
additional money. What specifically would be cut is hard to
pinpoint until the federal court rules on the state's six other
legal challenges against the project.

 "We're treading water until we know," Loux said.

 If the court rules in favor of Nevada, the state will not need
the money to fight the project.

 However, in case that doesn't happen, the state has requested
$14 million for fiscal year 2005 and plans to file a petition
with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to stop work on the
project until the state has enough money to meet its
responsibilities under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

 As an official party to the licensing process, Nevada has to
follow certain rules, such as posting documents to the
electronic database, and the work can not be done properly
without adequate money, Loux said.

 Meanwhile, the Nuclear Energy Institute placed full-page ads in
Washington newspapers The Hill and Roll Call Thursday calling
for Congress to give the Energy Department access to the Nuclear
Waste Fund.

 "One of America's most important environmental projects -- a
secure repository for used nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain,
Nevada -- is at risk unless Congress takes decisive action now,"
according to NEI, the nuclear industry's lobbying arm.

 The ad, which depicts a cowboy labeled "U.S. Congress" rescuing
a woman labeled "Yucca Mountain Repository" tied to the railroad
tracks in front of an oncoming train, calls for Congress to pass
bills that let money from the fund go directly to the project.
It also wants to "stop the looming crisis in fiscal year 2005"
pointing to the department's claim it will have to lay off
people in Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and other states if the
funding change is not approved by July 31.

 Suzanne Struglinski can be reached at (202) 662-7245 or
suzanne@ lasvegassun.com.

 
 
*****************************************************************
 30 Las Vegas SUN: Nuclear waste vote divides Nevada senators

June 04, 2004 

By Suzanne Struglinski <suzanne@lasvegassun.com> SUN WASHINGTON 
BUREAU 

WASHINGTON -- The Senate voted Thursday to give the Energy
Department authority to reclassify nuclear waste in South
Carolina, a move that has split Nevada's senators and has some
state officials concerned about the precedent set by the
decision.

 The move would ease waste cleanup regulations, which would
allow the Energy Department to add cement or grout to high-level
nuclear waste in South Carolina and leave it in tanks at a
former nuclear weapons facility.

 Supporters, including Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., argue the
change, if enacted into law, could mean less nuclear waste
coming to the Nevada Test Site and the proposed nuclear waste
repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

 Opponents, including Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and other Nevada
officials, are concerned that the vote paves the way for changes
in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the law that governs Yucca
Mountain, and wouldn't do anything to limit the amount of waste
coming to Nevada.

 Ensign said he worked hard to make sure the policy change does
not adversely affect the state in any way.

 "The bottom line is this is less nuclear waste for Yucca
Mountain," Ensign said. "We made sure the language doesn't sent
any kind of precedent."

 But Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., believes the change would override
30 years of nuclear waste clean-up legislation.

 "DOE (the Energy Department) is notoriously incompetent when it
comes to clean up and oversight and we shouldn't let them get
away with it by changing the rules," said Reid spokeswoman Tessa
Hafen. Even more troubling for some state officials, the change
would override a federal court decision that said the Energy
Department could not change the classification of the waste.

 Nevada officials are trying to stop the Yucca Mountain project
and have sued the Energy Department. With the case pending in
federal court, state officials worry about the change.

 Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear
Projects said he thinks the change "sets a bad precedent of
changing the law to satisfy the needs of the Department of
Energy."

 "It's not right for DOE (Energy Department) to just change the
law," Loux said.

 Gov. Kenny Guinn sent a letter last year objecting to this type
of change when the department originally pushed for it, Loux
said.

 The Nuclear Waste Policy Act now specifically defines liquid
waste from spent nuclear fuel reprocessing as high-level
radioactive waste that needs permanent geological storage, which
Congress has designated as Yucca Mountain.

 But the 2005 Defense Authorization bill, now in debate on the
Senate floor, includes a provision by Sen. Lindsey Graham,
R-S.C., that says in South Carolina, the law's definition of
high-level waste does not include anything the Energy secretary
decides does not need geological storage or has had the
"radioactive radionuclides removed to the maximum extent
practical."

 This will allow the department to leave some waste in
underground storage tanks at the Savannah River Site in South
Carolina instead of moving it to Yucca Mountain.

 A tie 48-48 vote Thursday defeated an amendment offered by Sen.
Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., to strip Graham's language from the
bill. Cantwell led an almost four-hour debate on the amendment
since she fears this could leave million of gallons of
high-level waste at the Hanford Site in Washington.

 "Basically it (the policy change) would reclassify nuclear
waste that is in existing tanks in my state, in South Carolina,
in Idaho, and in New York, and basically say that waste can be
covered over with cement, with sand, and could be grouted,"'
Cantwell said. "Basically, it says we can take high-level
nuclear waste and grout it.

 "For most Americans, grout is something they see in their
bathroom, not something they do with nuclear waste."

 Ensign and most Republicans voted against the amendment while
Reid and most Democrats voted for it.

 The department has been trying to get Congress to give it the
power to reclassify waste since a federal court in Idaho sided
with the Natural Resources Defense Council last year.

 The court ruled that the department's plan to deem some
radioactive waste in underground storage tanks in South
Carolina, Washington and Idaho as "incidental," mix it with
concrete and leave it in the tanks violated the Nuclear Waste
Policy Act. The case is on appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals in San Francisco.

 Joe Egan, an attorney who represents Nevada on nuclear waste
issues, compared the department's plan to classify some of the
tank waste as low-level to "calling a pit bull a poodle so they
can release it from the pound and let it play with the kiddies."

 Deputy Secretary of Energy Kyle McSlarrow thanked Graham for
his work on the issue and said in a statement that the final
disposal of waste in Idaho and Washington still needs to be
solved.

 Graham, who added the policy change during closed-door meetings
of the Senate Armed Services Committee last month, said it puts
into affect an agreement between the department and the state to
leave one and a half inches of waste at the bottom of the tanks
to "prevent people from unnecessarily risking their lives to go
get that last inch and a half."

 "It means that some things that were going to go to Yucca
Mountain don't have to go because to send them to Yucca Mountain
is not environmentally necessary and it is not financially
sensible," Graham said. "All I am asking is that South Carolina
be allowed to execute this agreement that is good for South
Carolina and the nation and will move forward and clean up in a
sound manner."

 Ensign says this means 100,000 fewer containers destined for
Yucca.

 "None of the language in there (the bill) did anything bad to
Nevada," said Ensign, who also sits on the Senate Armed Services
Committee that creates the Defense Authorization bill. "And it
will save the government $16 billion."

 Ensign worked with Graham to specify that if the state decides
to move any of the waste the department opts to leave in the
tanks, once it crosses the state line it would be deemed
high-level waste again. This would prevent it from going to the
Nevada Test Site, which can store low-level nuclear waste, an
Ensign aide said.

 But critics of the provision say it has nothing to do with more
or less waste coming to Nevada since the site's 77,000-ton limit
on nuclear waste will be reached with or without the South
Carolina waste.

 "We find it amazing that Ensign voted to allow DOE to override
a court case when we have these Yucca cases pending," said
Natural Resources Defense Council attorney Geoff Fettus, who
argued the original case in the Idaho court. Fettus also argued
one of the six legal challenges the state brought against the
project. The outcomes are still pending.

 "DOE has constantly tried to change the rules of the game. This
is one of the primary rules Congress set 20 years ago on what is
high-level radioactive waste."

 Fettus said the department could now start playing the same
game everywhere and attempt to change other portions of the
Nuclear Waste Policy Act or ask Congress to change the law to
overrule court cases the state may win.

 "This is not just about Yucca, but the Nevada Test Site as
well," Fettus said.

 He said under the change, South Carolina would not have any
control over radioactive material left in the tanks since the
department has control over it. He pointed out that South
Carolina is only singled out in one portion of the bill
language, which makes it easy to strip out so it would apply to
all states with contaminated department sites.

 Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass, who is running for president, did not
vote. Sens. John Edwards, D-N.C., Ben Nighthorse Campbell,
R-Colo. and Max Baucus, D-Mont. also did not vote.

 
 
*****************************************************************
 31 NRDC: Senate Passes Graham Amendment to Reclassify Radioactive Waste
to Avoid Cleaning It Up

[Natural Resources Defense Council]                                                                    

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Press contact: Karen Wayland, 
202-289-2402, or Rob Perks, 202-289-2420 If you are not a member 
of the press, please write to us at or see our contact page. 

 Statement by Karen Wayland, NRDC Legislative Director 

WASHINGTON (June 3, 2004) - In a stunning 48-48 vote, the U.S. 
Senate today rejected an amendment to strike language in the 
Defense Authorization funding bill that changes the Nuclear Waste 
Policy Act (NWPA), allowing the Department of Energy (DOE) to 
reclassify lethal high-level radioactive waste as "Waste 
Incidental to Reprocessing" in South Carolina. The language in 
the bill, which was written by DOE and added in committee by Sen. 
Lindsey Graham (R-SC), will allow DOE to abandon potentially 
millions of gallons of highly radioactive waste in leaking tanks 
in South Carolina, and set an alarming precedent for similar 
nuclear waste cleanup sites in Idaho and Washington. 

The following is a statement by Karen Wayland, legislative 
director of the Natural Resources Defense Council:

 "Despite strong bi-partisan support for Senator Cantwell's 
amendment to strike a dangerous provision from the defense 
authorization bill, the effort to prevent the Bush administration 
from weakening nuclear waste protections fell in a tie vote.

 "Senator Graham has done the dirty work for the Department of 
Energy, rewriting nuclear cleanup laws behind closed doors 
despite the risks to South Carolina and other states.

 "Thanks to Senator Graham, the Savannah River Site could become 
the most radioactive place on the planet.

 "We're shocked that Senator Graham and some of his colleagues 
would sell their states down the river so the Department of 
Energy can avoid cleaning up millions of gallons of highly 
radioactive waste in corroding tanks next to drinking water 
supplies.

 "This legislative fix is a cruel trick that allows the Bush 
administration to leave a legacy of radioactive pollution that 
could endanger drinking water for millions of Americans.

 "Unlike the Senate, members of the House prevented the 
Department of Energy's dirty and dangerous deal from polluting 
the defense bill. The fight to protect the public from 
radioactive waste now moves to conference committee."
 

BACKGROUND 

DOE is responsible for cleaning up 253 underground tanks 
containing approximately 100 million gallons of high-level 
nuclear waste in Washington, Idaho, South Carolina and New York. 
In July 2003, a federal district court ordered DOE to remove the 
highly toxic radioactive waste from the storage tanks, many of 
which have already begun leaking, to protect human health. The 
ruling prohibited DOE from arbitrarily "reclassifying" the waste 
as "Waste Incidental to Reprocessing" and abandoning the waste in 
tanks beneath a layer of grout as the agency had planned. DOE has 
appealed the district court decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals 
for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. Six states (South 
Carolina, Washington, Idaho, New York, Oregon and New Mexico) 
have written in support of upholding the district court's ruling. 

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit 
organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists 
dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. 
Founded in 1970, NRDC has more than 1 million members and 
e-activists nationwide, served from offices in New York, 
Washington, Santa Monica and San Francisco. 

*****************************************************************
 32 Pahrump Valley Times: Casks could last only 200 years 
 
June 4, 2004

 NOT SO SECURE 

By DOUG McMURDO PVT 

The engineered casks that would contain high-level nuclear waste 
buried at Yucca Mountain might only last 200 years instead of 
10,000 years, according to Dr. John Walton, one of the principal 
investigators working as a consultant for Nye County's oversight 
of the repository. Walton's comment was one of several that 
seemed to take a small audience by surprise Wednesday when 
consultants and county employees took part in a workshop held by 
the Independent Scientific Investigations Program at the Pahrump 
Community Library.

 Walton, who has a PhD in chemical engineering and is a professor 
at the University of Texas El Paso, where he is chairman of the 
environmental science and engineering program, has studied the 
barrier system planned for Yucca Mountain for more than two 
years, and has more than 20 years experience working on nuclear 
waste disposal issues. 

Walton developed a water chemistry evolution model for the 
repository barrier system that demonstrated the potential for 
corrosive brine development.

 "Waste is not only radioactive, but it is physically hot," 
Walton explained. 

Among the most critical work being performed by scientists and 
others in the program involves the monitoring of current and 
potential groundwater flow paths at Yucca Mountain, where the 
federal government intends to store the nation's high-level 
nuclear waste, perhaps as early as 2010. 

Deep faults, some inactive for an estimated 16 million years and 
others that are active today, provide mixed news, according to 
Thomas H. Anderson, a professor of geology and planetary science 
at the University of Pittsburgh. Earthquakes have occurred in the 
vicinity, the last at Little Skull Mountain in 1992, but Anderson 
said the current fault characteristics also allow for a more 
efficient means to site monitoring wells. 

The defining issue of the investigations project, above the 
durability of the casks and the potential for earthquakes, 
focuses on groundwater flow paths and the absolute need for the 
ability to track them. The southern half of Yucca Mountain faces 
Amargosa Valley 20 miles away, and there are serious concerns 
regarding the farming community's water future. 

From Dr. Dale Hammermeister's perspective, flow patterns analysis 
is a never-ending process. Hammermeister, the on-site 
geotechnical representative for Nye County, said of the 
procedure, "We are slowly beginning to understand flow patterns. 
It is incredibly complex and is a long term process."

For comment or questions, please e-mail 
webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley 
Times, 1997 - 2003 
*****************************************************************
 33 Pahrump Valley Times: Nevada prepares for Yucca document dispute 

June 4, 2004

By STEVE TETREAULT PVT WASHINGTON BUREAU 

WASHINGTON - The state of Nevada signaled Wednesday it plans to 
challenge an Internet database the Energy Department is building 
to support its bid for a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. 

Attorneys for the state asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
to appoint a hearing officer to review the electronic document 
network after DOE certifies that it is ready.

 Nevada officials said the department, in a rush to meet 
deadlines, might be limiting the documents it posts to the 
database and makes available for public review. 

Joe Egan, Nevada's lead nuclear waste lawyer, said the state's 
request was "the first volley" as it prepares to fight NRC 
licensing for the Yucca Mountain Project.

 "For the longest time the DOE treated this as a minor 
administrative nuisance but it is turning out it could be a major 
issue," Egan said of the electronic licensing support network. 

The Energy Department had no immediate comment on the state's 
request. 

DOE officials have said they plan to meet a June 23 deadline to 
certify the network, but an internal audit released last week 
said that as of March there were still problems that needed to be 
fixed that could delay the project for up to a year or more.

 Federal regulations require the network to be certified at least 
six months before repository licensing can proceed. The Energy 
Department wants to file a license application on Dec. 23 to be 
reviewed by the NRC.

 Delays in certifying the network could push back the NRC's 
review of the Yucca Mountain repository, a process that is 
expected to take three to four years, officials said. 

Pointing to DOE estimates from earlier this year, Nevada 
officials believe the department has cut back on the number of 
documents it plans to post online, a possible violation of 
federal rules. 

DOE officials said during initial paperwork gathering, they 
estimated 3 million to 4 million documents would be posted. But 
they subsequently concluded only 1 million or so met the legal 
requirements to be placed on the network initially.

 Additionally, DOE is reviewing 6.4 million email messages for 
possible posting to the database.

 Martin Malsch, a former acting general counsel and inspector 
general with the agency, wrote the state's request to leaders of 
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

"Nevada anticipates that, when DOE certifies later this month, 
there will be immediate and serious questions about whether the 
certification is in compliance." Malsch wrote. 

"Whether the correct figure is three million, four million, or 
eight and one half million, it remains that DOE clearly is 
struggling to meets its artificial June deadline," Malsch wrote.

For comment or questions, please e-mail 
webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley 
Times, 1997 - 2003 
*****************************************************************
 34 Pahrump Valley Times: Nye's Yucca scientists explain responsibility 
 
June 4, 2004

AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE INDEPENDENT SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATIONS
PROGRAM FOR THE REPOSITORY 

By DOUG McMURDO PVT 

 Commissioners Midge Carver, right, and Patricia Cox listen to a 
presentation Wednesday from one of the consulting scientists 
involved in oversight of the Yucca Mountain Project.

DOUG McMURDO / PVT Dr. Dale Hammermeister, Nye County's on-site 
geotechnical representative at the Yucca Mountain repository, 
explains the purpose of the Independent Scientific Investigations 
Program.   

Everything you always wanted to know about Nye County's 
Independent Scientific Investigations Program - but were afraid 
to ask - could have been learned Wednesday at the Pahrump 
Community Library where a wide variety of scientists were on hand 
to explain their Yucca Mountain work in easy-to-understand terms.

 The team of scientists brought together by Les Bradshaw, 
director of the county's Department of Natural Resources and 
Federal Facilities and the program manager for the Nye County 
Nuclear Waste Repository Project Office, are primarily county 
employees and private consultants with a wide range of expertise 
in various disciplines.

 The program has come under fire in recent months due to 
perceived accountability issues. Wednesday's overview might have 
cleared up any concerns. According to Bradshaw, the program and 
the people contracted to investigate the Yucca Mountain Project 
were assembled to allow Nye County to "go toe to toe" with 
Department of Energy scientists who are working to have the 
repository licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

According to Dale Hammermeister, Nye County's on-site 
geotechnical representative and second to Bradshaw in the chain 
of command, the purpose of the investigations program is to 
conduct independent studies of potential impacts of the proposed 
high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, with key 
emphasis on health, safety and the environment, particularly as 
those issues relate to downgradient groundwater. 

The program receives its funding from the Energy Department, but 
Hammermeister made it clear Nye County's work is independent from 
the DOE. In fact, the program's initial strategy was to provide 
supplemental studies to the federal investigation as it relates 
to site characterization and repository design issues, but since 
1998 the focus has shifted to address important issues not 
adequately researched by the Energy Department.

 The Independent Scientific Investigations Program began in 1994 
with a technical grant provided by the DOE. Similar grants were 
awarded in 1996, a five-year exploratory study; in 1998 a grant 
was awarded to begin the Early Warning Drilling Program - perhaps 
the most important study regarding Yucca Mountain, particularly 
as it pertains to groundwater flows into Amargosa Valley.

 In 2002 a five-year cooperative agreement was reached. In all, 
Hammermeister said Nye County has received roughly $20 million 
for oversight, and if a current proposal is approved once the 
Energy Department budget is established, the program could 
receive an additional $20 million.

 The related work elements of the program are "highly complex," 
according to Hammermeister. Scientists are drilling, sampling, 
logging and constructing wells; testing aquifer pumps, analyzing 
geologic samples, monitoring water chemistry and water levels, 
analyzing borehole, surface, and airborne geophysics, and 
developing regional geologic mapping and characterization.

 Repository ventilation monitoring, integrated data management, 
and tracer testing are also key elements of the program, said 
Hammermeister. 

"It takes a team effort," Bradshaw said following the overview. 
"A lot of these issues mesh together and it takes this kind of 
effort to stand toe to toe with DOE. All this strengthens Nye 
County's desire for a safe repository, a say in operations, and 
the ability to provide to our residents, especially those in 
Amargosa Valley, that we want to communicate the risks. If you're 
living in Amargosa Valley (roughly 20 miles south of Yucca 
Mountain) you want assurances."

For comment or questions, please e-mail 
webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley 
Times, 1997 - 2003 
*****************************************************************
 35 Daily Press: COMMENTARY: Yucca Mountain and politics
 	 	 	
Friday, June 4, 2004 
 
GEORGE F. WILL

WASHINGTON  John Kerry recently stopped in Las Vegas to say: 
"Rest assured, Nevada. If I'm president, Yucca Mountain will not 
be a depository." Back to mind comes Chic Hecht, a one-term 
Republican senator elected in 1982, who said he opposed using 
Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as a nuclear 
waste "suppository."

Also to mind comes the French sovereign known as Henry of Navarre 
(1553-1610). More about him anon.

The problem of nuclear waste has been studied for 50 years. 
Twenty-two years ago Washington took responsibility for that 
waste  there are 49,000 metric tons of it  stored in 131 sites in 
the 39 states with nuclear power plants. Seventeen years ago 
Congress selected Nevada  the federal government owns 86 percent 
of the state  for the repository. Beginning in 2010, the waste is 
to be put 1,000 feet underground, on 1,000 feet of rock, in steel 
containers in 100 miles of storage tunnels within the mountain.

But in 1996 President Bill Clinton promised to veto any attempt 
to make Nevada even a temporary repository. That promise helped 
him beat Bob Dole there by just 4,730 votes, the smallest state 
margin that year.

In 2000 George W. Bush promised not to make Nevada a temporary 
repository, but said "sound science" would guide him regarding 
establishing a permanent repository there. He beat Al Gore 50-46 
(301,575 to 279,978). A switch of 10,799 votes would have made 
Gore president. 

In 2002 Bush approved Yucca Mountain as the permanent site. 
Congress said Nevada's governor could veto the selection, but 
that his veto could be overridden by majorities in both houses. 
He vetoed it; Congress overrode him.

By this protracted dance of democracy the interests of an 
American majority  161 million live within 75 miles of today's 
storage sites  prevailed, respectfully, over the objections of an 
intense minority, the approximately 2 million people who live in 
southern Nevada. Kerry's willingness to overturn this 
accommodation reflects a cold, and factually correct, calculation 
having nothing to do with the national interest: for the intense 
and compact Nevada minority, unlike for the diffuse American 
majority, this is a vote-determining issue.

Kerry's message to Nevadans  essentially, "I feel your 
hypothetical pain"  testifies to his readiness to do whatever it 
takes to win. As does his vow last week that, if elected, he 
would renegotiate the Central American Free Trade Agreement 
(CAFTA).

He would try to force signatory nations (Costa Rica, El Salvador, 
Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and, soon, the Dominican Republic) 
to adopt labor and environmental standards more pleasing to him. 
The ostensible purpose of this would be to improve the lot of 
labor in those nations. But the primary purpose of the 
renegotiation would be to raise production costs in those 
countries, thereby making imports from them less competitive with 
American products.

Time was, Kerry was a free trader. Now he favors "fair trade," as 
defined by his labor allies. But he still is a critic of what he 
and likeminded people consider the Bush administration's 
obnoxious tendency to tell other nations how to behave.

The Wall Street Journal reports that "it would be unprecedented 
for a newly elected president to turn his back on a major trade 
deal negotiated by his predecessor." Unprecedented and, in 
Kerry's case, inconsistent.

When Kerry and kindred spirits criticize what they consider the 
Bush administration's hubris and bad diplomatic manners, they 
often cite its withdrawal from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate 
change. It is understandable that they do not dwell on the fact 
that the Clinton administration refused to submit it for Senate 
ratification, or that the Senate voted 95-0 for a resolution 
against proceeding with the protocol as negotiated. The junior 
senator from Massachusetts said "no one in their (sic) right 
mind" would favor it as it is.

Regarding Yucca Mountain and CAFTA, Kerry's comportment reflects 
toughness  call it Navarrean toughness  about subordinating all 
considerations of principle to the exigencies of winning power. 
Someone in the White House has naughtily said that Kerry "looks 
French." The scalding truth is that he wears Hermes neckties, 
which are French, and, worse still, he speaks French. But his 
real French connection is his spiritual kinship with Henry of 
Navarre.

Henry was raised a Protestant but converted to Catholicism twice  
for political reasons. His explanation still resonates with those 
politicians  a large tribe  who believe, as Kerry does, in doing 
whatever is necessary: "Paris is well worth a Mass."

George Will's e-mail address is georgewill@washpost.com.

Freedom Communications"> A Freedom 
Communications Newspaper Copyright © 1996-2004 Daily Press 
*****************************************************************
 36 Pahrump Valley Times: Key engineer resigns from review board 
 
June 4, 2004

By STEVE TETREAULT PVT Washington Bureau 

WASHINGTON - Daniel Bullen, a nuclear engineer and materials 
expert, has resigned from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review 
Board, a high profile panel that reviews scientific work on the 
Yucca Mountain Project.

 Bullen said Thursday he decided to step down after leaving the 
faculty at Iowa State University to take a position at Exponent, 
Inc., a scientific engineering firm based in Menlo Park, Calif. 

"Some of the things we are pursuing in the office would be a 
conflict of interest," including competing for contracts to work 
with the Energy Department, the national laboratories and nuclear 
utilities, said Bullen, who works from the firm's Chicago office.

 Bullen, 47, said he would consult on the Yucca Mountain Project 
"if the opportunities arose." 

Bullen has evaluated the nuclear waste repository program for the 
past seven years as a member of the technical review board, an 
advisory board Congress created to monitor technical issues 
associated with the Yucca program. 

The 11-person board is down to seven members due to resignations 
over the past year that the White House has not replaced.

 Bullen took an active role in developing the board's opinions on 
how the repository should be designed to minimize corrosion of 
nuclear waste-bearing canisters. Those views have conflicted with 
the Energy Department, sparking vigorous debate in the science 
community.

 Bullen declined to give an opinion on the Yucca Mountain 
Project, and said he does not plan to speak publicly on the 
repository. Paul Craig, a University of California engineering 
professor, has delivered speeches critical of the DOE effort 
since resigning from the review board in January. 

"I have the utmost respect for the scientists and engineers on 
the project and they have a difficult task," Bullen said. "I 
won't be speaking out for or against it." 

Bullen said his resignation effective May 24 was timed to avoid 
potential conflicts with his new private sector job. His 
resignation letter was posted Thursday on the board's website. 
Bullen's term technically expired in April, but panel members 
remain until the president appoints a replacement.

 		 		   	 
For comment or questions, please e-mail 
webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley 
Times, 1997 - 2003 
*****************************************************************
 37 Tri-Valley Herald: Bush to trim nuclear arsenal 
 
  6/5/2004   
 
Order would cut stockpile in half over the next eight years

By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER

 The Bush administration has ordered the nation's nuclear arsenal 
cut nearly in half over the next eight years. 

President Bush signed a classified report last month that would 
scrap more than 4,600 H-bombs and warheads, leaving about 6,000 
weapons, according to estimates by nongovernmental experts. 

The nation's top nuclear-weapons executive announced the cuts 
Thursday but offered scant details and little of the fanfare that 
might be expected of the largest U.S. nuclear arms reductions in 
more than a decade. In number, if not explosive power, the U.S. 
arsenal will drop to levels unseen since the late 1950s. 

"This is in fact an historic effort," National Nuclear Security 
Administration chief Linton Brooks told reporters by phone. 
Brooks suggested the cuts were a sign that "the Cold War's over. 
We don't have an adversary with a huge (nuclear arms) stockpile 
ready and capable of launching a large-scale nuclear attack." 

The Bush arms cuts are momentous by percentage but less ambitious 
than those ordered by his father. In real terms, potential U.S. 
adversaries such as Russia, China and North Korea will see 
virtually no change in the U.S. nuclear forces actively deployed 
against them. 

Hundreds of nuclear warheads will remain targeted over the North 
Pole at Russian missile silos. All but two types of warhead types 
already planned for retirement will remain in the field. Weapons 
scientists at Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia labs will 
study expanding the arsenal's capabilities and explosive yields, 
but Brooks said no new or heavily modified weapons figure in the 
revised stockpile. 

Under the Moscow Treaty signed two years ago, fielded strategic 
bombs and warheads will stabilize at about2,200 by 2012, and 
estimates by arms researchers at the Natural Resources Defense 
Council place the "nonstrategic" arsenal of lower-yield weapons 
at about 1,000. 

The weapons to be eliminated already are in storage, primarily in 
a top-security underground bunker at Kirtland Air Force Base in 
Albuquerque, N.M., and a similar facility at Nellis Air Force 
Base outside Las Vegas. 

For some, weapons officials will discontinue replacement of 
"limited-life components" such as reservoirs of tritium and 
neutron generators. Others will be scheduled for dismantlement at 
the Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas, probably in about a decade. 

"It could and should have been done a decade ago. These warheads 
were redundant in December 1991, when the Soviet Union 
disintegrated," said NRDC senior nuclear weapons analyst 
Christopher Paine. 

How many weapons of specific bomb and warheads types will go 
inactive or be destroyed remains classified, especially for the 
roughly two-thirds of the arsenal that is not fielded. 

"I'm trying to be precise and candid at the same time without 
giving you the numbers," Brooks said. 

The administration did not inform or consult with Russian 
counterparts on the cuts and made no plans to allow verification 
of the dismantled weapons. 

Lifting that secrecy, Paine said, would reassure China and Russia 
about the size of the U.S. arsenal and ease pressure on them to 
maintain high weapons reserves. 

"What is the possible security interest that's being protected? 
The secrecy is just a bad habit that they're unable to shake," he 
said. 

President George H.W. Bush eliminated entire classes of H-bombs, 
particularly the land-based tactical nuclear weapons of the U.S. 
Army and Marines; several types of nuclear torpedoes and bombs; 
and all nuclear weapons on Navy surface ships. 

President Clinton expanded some of the cuts, with the two 
presidents together sending the arsenal plummeting from about 
22,000 weapons in 1989 to about 10,000 for most of the 1990s. 

President George W. Bush's orders ratified plans made in the 
Clinton administration to retire an old ICBM warhead, the W62 now 
being removed from early Minuteman missiles, and the advanced 
cruise-missile warhead, the W84, a bomb loaded with safety 
features but kept on inactive status for lack of a missile to 
deliver it. 

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore lab designed both and will 
continue modest efforts to maintain them -- by studying their 
plutonium cores and high-explosive detonators -- until their 
retirement within the next five years. 

Stan Norris and Hans Kristensen, arms researchers who maintain 
the NRDC's definitive 25-year database on U.S. and foreign 
nuclear stockpiles, estimated that the largest cuts in retained 
weapons will be in W80 cruise missile warheads (down by 1,000), 
the W76 Trident sub-launched warhead (down by 1,500), the B61 
strategic bomb (down by 600) and the W78 warhead on later 
Minuteman land-based missiles (down by 500.) 

But they estimate the Bush plan retains hundreds more of all of 
those weapons, plus all of the Peacekeeper warheads, the highest 
yield sub-launched warheads and the highest yield U.S. bomb -- 
Livermore's B83 -- rated at 1.2 megatons or almost 100 times more 
powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. 

"Essentially, they're cutting in half what they had in reserve, 
which is a good half step toward what they should be doing," said 
Hans Kristensen, an NRDC arms-research consultant. "They're still 
going to end up here with a Cold War arsenal, just smaller ... 
We're still tying our numbers (to) what the Russians and the 
Chinese do." 

The cuts will not mean a "peace dividend." Brooks' agency will 
save money by not extending the life of the eliminated weapons, 
but will spend that money on building a plutonium bomb-core 
factory, on shortening the time to prepare for a nuclear test if 
the president orders one and on studies of new and modified 
nuclear weapons for new missions. 

Congress insisted on the stockpile report before approving new 
administration spending on a factory to take over the job of 
making plutonium bomb cores from Los Alamos National Laboratory, 
operated by the University of California. The cuts suggest the 
factory could be smaller than projected but still needed 
eventually, Brooks said. 

"For some people, I think it will make it easier for us to go 
ahead, but I'm not convinced this will resolve all of the 
issues," he said. 

Tri-Valley Herald All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
 38 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Fears for Hanford as S.C. nuclear cleanup rules eased
 	 	 	 	 	 
  [seattlepi.com]     

Friday, June 4, 2004 

By CHARLES POPE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER WASHINGTON 
CORRESPONDENT

WASHINGTON -- The Senate yesterday gave the Energy Department 
permission to weaken cleanup standards at a South Carolina 
nuclear weapons plant, triggering bitter denunciations from 
Washington state's two senators, who fear the looser standards 
could also be applied at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. 

The new policy fell into place after the Senate rejected an 
amendment by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., that would have killed 
a provision that allows the Energy Department to reclassify 
millions of gallons of high-level radioactive waste into a less 
dangerous classification. The 48-48 vote capped four hours of 
pointed debate. 

If the same language is adopted by the House, it will allow the 
Energy Department to mix millions of gallons of intensely 
radioactive sludge with concrete and leave it in the bottom of 51 
underground tanks at the Savannah River Site. This would be done 
instead of digging it up and sending it to a more secure disposal 
facility. 

Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., the measure's sponsor, said the new 
approach would save the government $16 billion and speed cleanup, 
while still preserving the environment. Graham also insisted that 
the modified cleanup standards would apply only to South Carolina 
and not necessarily to the Energy Department's other contaminated 
weapons sites, including Hanford. 

Critics, including Cantwell and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., 
sharply disagreed, insisting that Graham's provision would open 
the gates to lower cleanup standards at all Energy facilities, 
including Hanford, and would allow the federal government to 
retreat from its promise to clean up heavily contaminated weapons 
plants. 

"I've been around too long to believe that," Murray said to 
suggestions that the policy applies only to South Carolina. "It's 
been DOE's goal from the very beginning to have this policy be 
put into place. They crack the door open and there's no end." 

Those fears are reinforced by concerns that Hanford officials 
already are pushing ahead with plans to leave significant amounts 
of radioactive material in the tanks. 

A draft plan released by the Energy Department in April proposes 
leaving behind 10 percent of tank waste, as compared with the 1 
percent of waste originally stipulated in a cleanup agreement 
signed in 1989 by the state of Washington, the Energy Department 
and the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Despite the setback, Cantwell said she would continue to fight 
the provision in Congress and in the courts if needed. And she 
suggested that Graham had been duped into backing the new 
approach. "Senator Graham will find out that DOE has used him as 
a ploy and that his state will be less protected," she said. 



    
    

According to the Energy Department, Hanford holds 53 million 
gallons of highly radioactive waste in 177 aging underground 
tanks. At least 67 tanks have leaked more than 1 million gallons 
of radioactive waste into the soil, contaminating the aquifer and 
threatening the Columbia River. 

Aware of the threat, the state of Washington, the Energy 
Department and the Environmental Protection Agency signed an 
agreement in 1989 outlining how Hanford would be cleaned up. The 
agreement requires the Energy Department to remove as much waste 
as technically feasible, but not less than 99 percent. 

The Energy Department plans to siphon out the liquid and sludge 
waste from the tanks, turning that into glass logs for disposal, 
but it maintains that it would be too expensive to extract the 
remaining residue. Instead, the department has proposed 
reclassifying it as low-level waste, encasing it in a mortarlike 
grout, then filling the tanks with concrete and leaving them in 
place. 

That prospect, critics said, is what got a boost in the Senate 
yesterday. 

A senior Energy Department official would not directly comment on 
whether the department would attempt to apply the new standards 
to Hanford and other facilities. 

But Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow said, "We are very 
pleased that the Senate approved DOE's scientifically sound plans 
to empty, clean, stabilize and dispose of nuclear waste currently 
stored in tanks at its Savannah River site in South Carolina." 

He added that the department would work with Washington and 
Idaho, which has the other major site, "to negotiate with these 
states to find a mutually agreeable solution that resolves these 
issues." 

Graham agreed, saying after the vote, "demagoguery was trumped by 
the facts. I think this is a huge step forward and I'm going to 
fight for this as long as I'm in the Senate." P-I Washington 
correspondent Charles Pope can be reached at 202-263-6461 or 
charliepope@seattlepi.com                 

  [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 
98119 (206) 448-8000
 
 Send comments to ©1996-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer Terms of 
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 39 Seattle Times: Senate eases tank-cleanup rules for radioactive waste
 	 	 	
Friday, June 04, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.
 			 			 			 			
By Seattle Times staff and news services
 			 			
WASHINGTON — The Senate yesterday agreed to ease cleanup 
requirements for tanks holding millions of gallons of highly 
radioactive waste in South Carolina, a move that could set a 
precedent for a cleanup of waste at the Hanford nuclear 
reservation in Eastern Washington. 

The provision allows the Energy Department to reclassify some of 
the radioactive sludge in 51 South Carolina tanks, so it can be 
left in place and covered by concrete, instead of being entombed 
in the Nevada desert. 

Energy Department officials have argued that some residual 
sludges could be safely contained in the tanks rather than 
processed and sent to Nevada. 

But Senate critics, led by Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., have said the 
tank containment — involving grouting the sludge in place — could 
increase the risks of radioactive wastes contaminating 
groundwater in the centuries ahead. 

"I think the grout process hasn't been proven, and I think they 
are looking for a shortcut," Cantwell said. 

Yesterday, Cantwell offered an amendment to strip the provision 
from a defense authorization bill, but the measure narrowly 
failed. But Cantwell said she still was hopeful the provision 
could be defeated in a possible second Senate vote or stripped 
out of final legislation in a joint House-Senate conference 
committee. 

While the new cleanup plan has been backed by South Carolina 
state officials, it has split that state's Senate delegation. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who put the provision into the 
defense bill, said it will quicken waste cleanup at the Savannah 
River nuclear complex near Aiken by 23 years and save $16 
billion. He rejected claims the waste would harm the environment. 

Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., said the sludge accounts for more 
than half the radioactivity in the tanks of liquid waste and 
endangers future generations. It's "not harmless sludge we can 
pour sand over and cover with concrete" as the Energy Department 
proposes, said Hollings. 

The Savannah River tanks contain 34 million gallons of liquid 
waste. Sludge accounts for about 1 percent of the waste volume. 

While supporters of the measure insisted it would apply only to 
waste at the Savannah River site, opponents said the change in 
nuclear-waste policy would create a "clear precedent" that could 
force other states — mainly Washington and Idaho, where there 
also are defense waste tanks — to accept less-safe cleanup plans. 
 
Cantwell, who led the push to kill the measure, accused the 
administration of trying to "sneak" the change in cleanup 
requirements through Congress by tacking it onto a defense 
measure in closed-door proceedings without hearings. 

And Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., accused the White House of trying 
"to blackmail my state to accept a lower cleanup standard." 

Graham's provision was put into the $447 billion defense bill 
during consideration by the Armed Services Committee without 
hearings. The House panel refused to include the changes in its 
version of the defense bill and, instead, called on the National 
Academy of Sciences to examine the Energy Department cleanup 
proposal. 

The tanks of nuclear waste are left over from decades of 
producing plutonium and highly enriched uranium for nuclear 
weapons. A 1982 law requires that all waste from such 
reprocessing must be buried at a central repository planned for 
Nevada. 

The largest amount of wastes is in Hanford, where the 177 tanks, 
some of which are leaking, store 53 million gallons. 

The tanks, grouped in farms, contain a mix of liquids, salts 
cakes and slurries. A $5.78 billion waste treatment plant under 
construction at Hanford is supposed to mix the wastes with glass 
and put it into stainless-steel canisters that could be stored in 
Nevada. 

The Energy Department argues that the residual sludge should be 
considered low-level waste and should not have to be removed. 
Instead, the department wants to cover the sludge with 
cement-like grout, saying that would be protective for hundreds 
of years. 

Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow said yesterday the 
proposed treatment is a "scientifically sound." He maintained it 
was "fully protective" of the environment. 

Last year, a federal judge, acting on a lawsuit by 
environmentalists, ruled that such an approach violates the 1982 
Nuclear Waste Policy Act. To get around the ruling, the 
department wants to get the law changed. 

And environmentalists yesterday blasted the Senate action. 

Times staff reporter Hal Bernton contributed to this report: 
206-464-2581; 

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company
*****************************************************************
 40 UPI: Senate backs nuclear weapon research - 

(United Press International)
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
  June 04, 2004 			   

Washington, DC, Jun. 4 (UPI) -- The U.S. Senate has defeated an 
effort to reclassify nuclear waste as less dangerous nuclear 
material.

 The move came Thursday during consideration of the $401 billion 
defense appropriations measure for 2005, debate on which 
continues Friday.

 A defeated amendment offered by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., 
would have allowed the the Department of Energy to reclassify 
high-level nuclear waste from the Savannah River nuclear site in 
South Caroline as less dangerous low-level waste.

 The Senate is also considering a provision offered by liberal 
Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Dianne 
Feinstein of California eliminating $27.6 million in funding for 
the development of a 100-kiloton Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, 
a nuclear device meant to penetrate underground installations.

 The measure would also remove $9 million in funding for the 
Pentagon's efforts to develop low-yield weapons of less than 5 
kilotons.

 While two Senators have argued the two programs would result in 
another nuclear arms race, the Bush administration and proponents 
of the move in Congress say both programs are just research and 
development efforts.

 The military budget measure is expected to be completed next 
week.                                                                           

[UPI Perspectives]                                                                    
*****************************************************************
 41 Las Vegas RJ: DOE denies state request for money 
 
Friday, June 04, 2004

$4 million sought for oversight of Yuccalicensing procedure By
KEITH ROGERS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
 
A Department of Energy official has denied Nevada's request for
an additional $4 million to oversee the licensing process for
the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
 
 Bob Loux, who heads the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency,
requested the money Feb. 23, believing Energy Secretary Spencer
Abraham could grant the funding without congressional approval.
 
 A five-page letter dated Tuesday from the Energy Department's
civilian radioactive waste management director, Margaret Chu,
said that assumption was wrong.
 
 "We also disagree with your assertion that DOE `recently ...
recognized' an obligation to assist Nevada financially when
Congress has not done so," Chu wrote.
 
 Loux, who said he has not received the letter officially, noted
that the latter issue is being challenged in court in
Washington, D.C.
 
 "It will affect some of our responsibilities relative to our
participation in licensing. So, it's issues like that that need
to be looked at," Loux said Wednesday in a telephone interview.
 
 The Energy Department plans to construct a maze of tunnels in
the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to entomb 77,000
tons of spent fuel from commercial nuclear power reactors and
highly radioactive defense wastes. 
Before the federal government can put the waste there, the
repository must be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission. Energy Department officials have vowed to have a
license application ready for review by the NRC by Dec. 23.
 
 One NRC official anticipates the commission will need four
years to review the application. The Energy Department wants to
have a repository ready for the first delivery of spent nuclear
fuel by 2010, but the General Accounting Office, the nonpartisan
investigative arm of Congress, has deemed that goal unrealistic.
 
 Currently, the state of Nevada is receiving less than $1
million in oversight funding paid to affected units of
government. County governments affected by the Energy
Department's plans collectively split $4 million.
 
 The Energy Department had proposed giving nothing to the state
for oversight funding from the nuclear waste fund in the current
fiscal year, but Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., intervened and pulled
$994,100 from the department's environmental management funds
for the state.
 
 Meanwhile, the Energy Department continues to grapple with a
June 23 deadline for a massive database, known as the licensing
support network, where documents on the project can be reviewed.
Nevada officials have expressed doubt that the Energy Department
can meet that deadline.
 
 
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
 42 Tri-City Herald: Opinions: Competition best policy for Hanford contracts 

This story was published Friday, June 4th, 2004 

Increasing opportunities for small businesses at Hanford and 
other Department of Energy sites is the right goal, but trying to 
force a 500 percent jump is the wrong approach. 

The Energy Department goal for 2004 is to conduct just over 5 
percent of its business through direct contracts with small 
companies, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office. The 
agency is being asked to meet a goal of 23 percent eventually. 

Setting such an artificial bar raises the risk of paying more for 
work or goods than what's necessary. Even worse, it increases the 
likelihood that an unqualified company might be assigned to 
highly technical and dangerous work. 

More needs to be done to give small businesses a shot at the 
billions of dollars the nation is spending on cleanup at Hanford 
and other Cold War production sites. 

But the approach dictated by the Small Business Reauthorization 
Act -- which established a goal of awarding 23 percent of prime, 
or direct, federal contracts to small businesses -- is the wrong 
way to go. 

So is the old way of doing things, which was to reach the 23 
percent goal by counting subcontracts that the giant corporations 
running DOE sites award to small businesses. 

Instead of set-asides for small businesses, the Energy Department 
ought to design requests for bids in a way that encourages as 
much competition as possible. 

That means dividing up work at Hanford and other sites into 
smaller packages to give mid-sized and small companies a chance 
to compete with the corporate giants. 

That's not always possible, of course. The complex nature of 
nuclear cleanup means that sometimes the only practical course is 
a multibillion-dollar contract, even though the massive scope of 
the work guarantees the narrowest of competitions between a few 
multinational corporations. 

It's an absurd idea, for example, to require the Energy 
Department to manage 23 percent of the vitrification plant's 
construction through contracts with small businesses. 

But taxpayers aren't getting the best deal when the Energy 
Department is allowed to put together bid requests in a way that 
channels nearly every procurement dollar through a handful of 
giant corporations. 

The White House could do taxpayers and small businesses a favor 
by pushing the Energy Department to follow the administration's 
policy against bundling government contracts into massive 
packages. 

That's why the Herald editorial board has favored breaking up the 
$4 billion cleanup contract for cleaning up Hanford's river shore 
into a handful of smaller contracts. 

The arguments that the work is too complex or dangerous for 
smaller firms are unconvincing. Any winning bidder, regardless of 
size, will have to demonstrate that it can complete the work 
fully and safely. 

At least that's true if bid proposals are judged on their merits 
and not based on some formula for guaranteeing a percentage of 
work to small companies. 

The idea of federal dollars supporting small businesses is great 
when it creates jobs and adds value to necessary work, but too 
often the companies that benefit from set-asides do little more 
than process an invoice and tack on a profit. 

Small companies can win their fair share of real work if they're 
given a shot. The 500-employee company enjoys a degree of 
flexibility and can find efficiencies that escape the 
50,000-employee giant. 

It's that competitive advantage that ought to win government 
contracts for small companies, not mandated set-asides. 

Taxpayers invariably get a raw deal when the goal becomes filling 
a quota, rather than fostering competition. 

© 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
 43 The State: Senate OKs leaving waste at SRS
 
 06/04/2
 
Language was inserted in defense bill by S.C.s Graham

 By LAUREN MARKOE

 Washington Bureau

The Savannah River Site moved one giant step closer Thursday to
becoming the final resting place for high-level nuclear waste. 

By a single vote, the U.S. Senate left untouched language in a
defense bill that would allow such waste to remain at SRS, the
facility near Aiken that produced much of the nations Cold War
nuclear fuel. 

The vote marked a victory for U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.,
who had inserted the language. Current federal law requires the
removal of high-level nuclear waste to a deep, geologic
depository. 

Graham, with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy,
argues that keeping some of the high-level waste  which is
stored in 51 tanks at SRS  will resolve the disposal issue 23
years faster and $16 billion cheaper. 

The agreement between the state and the Department of Energy,
Graham said, ensures the tanks will be cleaned up in an
environmentally friendly and cost-effective manner. 

Most of the 37 million gallons of liquid high-level waste at SRS
will be removed to the deep, geologic depository at Yucca
Mountain, Nev. At issue is residual high-level waste that will
be more difficult and expensive to remove. 

Critics of Grahams proposal argue that for safetys sake, all
high-level waste  residual or not  must go to Yucca Mountain.
And they say that if Graham wants to change the nations nuclear
policy, he should call for hearings and work through the Senate
energy committee, not the armed services committee, on which he
sits. 

Its disappointing that Sen. Graham... rewrote nuclear clean-up
laws behind closed doors against the interests of South Carolina
and other states, and without any public input, said Karen
Wayland, legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense
Council. 

Thanks to Sen. Graham, the Savannah River Site could become the
most radioactive place on the planet. 

An amendment to the Senate version of the 2005 defense
authorization bill, sponsored by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.,
would have eliminated Grahams language. It failed 48-48. 

U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., voted for the Cantwell
amendment and spoke against Grahams proposed changes. 

Hollings hearkened back to his days as S.C. lieutenant governor,
nearly a half-century ago, when he chaired a 17-state council on
nuclear policy. 

We were cautioned by the experts in nuclear fission that the
Savannah River was not a place for permanent storage, he said. 

He also took issue with Grahams assertion that South Carolina
would have the final say over whether high-level waste stays in
the state. The language Graham inserted in the bill, he said,
leaves that to interpretation. 

Gov. Mark Sanford believes Grahams language is a good
compromise, spokesman Will Folks said. Sanford last year
supported a lawsuit against the Department of Energy for its
efforts to reclassify high-level nuclear waste, but Folks said
Sanford has been assured that the state Department of Health and
Environmental Control will have sufficient say in the fate of
high-level waste at SRS. 

The House version of the defense budget does not include
Grahams language. In the next few weeks, as select members of
the House and Senate work out a compromise defense budget bill,
it could be dropped. 

Reach Markoe at (202) 383-6023 or lmarkoe@krwashington.com  




TheStateOnline
*****************************************************************
 44 Reuters: Senate Backs Energy Dept. on Nuclear Waste


Thu Jun 3, 2004 11:19 PM ET                                                             

By Vicki Allen 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday narrowly 
backed a Bush administration plan to ease cleanup standards to 
allow some radioactive sludge from Cold-War era bomb production 
to stay in tanks at a South Carolina site, which critics say will 
harm cleanup efforts at other sites. 

On a 48-48 tie, the Senate upheld the measure that was tucked 
into a huge $422 billion defense authorization bill by South 
Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. 

Graham said the Energy Department's plan allowing the residual 
sludge to remain in tanks sealed with a special concrete grout 
would contain the pollution and save $16 billion in cleanup costs 
and 23 years of effort at the Savannah River weapons site. 

But Sen. Maria Cantwell said the measure would set a precedent 
that would force her state of Washington, which houses the huge 
Hanford Nuclear Reservation, to consent to a lower cleanup 
standard instead of making the Energy Department abide by a 1982 
law to remove the waste and bury it in a proposed nuclear 
repository in Nevada. 

"The question is what are we going to do to hold DOE's feet to 
the fire to make sure that they get this waste cleaned up," 
Cantwell, a Democrat, said. 

South Carolina's other senator, Democrat Ernest Hollings, also 
opposed the Energy Department's plan. 

But Graham said "the quicker the clean-up the better ... it means 
less seepage throughout the ground, less pollution." 

He said "some residual waste, less than two inches deep, will 
remain in the tank and be mixed with concrete and grout." 

The dispute among lawmakers from Washington, Idaho and South 
Carolina, where much of the waste is stashed, had stalled 
progress on the huge defense bill for days. The Senate was 
expected to complete the bill next week. 

The House of Representatives did not have a similar measure in 
the defense bill it passed last month, so it will be an issue 
when differences in the bills are worked out. 

Some environmental groups decried the Senate's nuclear waste 
vote, saying it set an alarming precedent for cleaning deadly 
toxins that are leaking into ground water. 

"We're shocked that Sen. Graham and some of his colleagues would 
sell their states down the river so the Department of Energy can 
avoid cleaning up millions of gallons of highly radioactive waste 
in corroding tanks next to drinking water supplies," said Karen 
Wayland, legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense 
Council. 

Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow said the vote would 
"ensure that we engage in cleanup activities that are fully 
protective of the environment and workers' safety."              

© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.            
*****************************************************************
 45 Times-News: Nuclear cleanup bill divides Idaho leaders
 			 			 			 			 			 				 
www.magicvalley.com         The Times-News Twin Falls, Idaho   
    
Friday, June 4, 2004The Times-News and
The Associated Press

TWIN FALLS -- Idaho's two U.S. senators remained at odds with 
other state leaders on Thursday by supporting legislation that 
will let the federal government reclassify radioactive waste to 
avoid removing it from South Carolina, a move critics say could 
set the standard for Idaho.

But Republican Sens. Mike Crapo and Larry Craig secured a defense 
bill amendment that restores $95 million in funding for nuclear 
waste cleanup here. The money had been withheld after the state 
wouldn't follow South Carolina's lead.

Republican Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and his two predecessors, 
Democrat Cecil Andrus and Republican Phil Batt, all of whom have 
been responsible for bird-dogging the Energy Department's nuclear 
waste cleanup agreements with Idaho, have warned the South 
Carolina measure could open the door for Congress to tinker with 
Idaho's cleanup agreement.

"We caution our congressmen not to adopt legislation which would 
in any way alter or jeopardize the full implementation of the 
agreement," Andrus and Batt said in a joint statement.

Mark Snider, a spokesman for Kempthorne, said the governor is 
pleased that the senate restored the cleanup funds.

"That's an important step to give the DOE the legislative 
authority to spend cleanup money in Idaho," Snider said.

As for the South Carolina issue, he said the governor's office 
will be monitoring progress in the Senate to see where things end 
up.

Combined there are nearly 90 million gallons of radioactive 
liquid waste in underground tanks in Idaho, South Carolina and 
Washington. Energy Department officials argue that 1 percent of 
the tank waste -- residual sludge adhering to the bottom and 
sides of the tank -- would be extremely expensive to remove. 
Instead, they would fill in the tanks with sand and pour in 
cement.

The 11 tanks at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental 
Laboratory near Idaho Falls hold 900,000 gallons of liquid waste 
from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. Should the tanks 
leak, they could threaten the regional aquifer below that 
supplies water to much of southern Idaho and feeds the Snake 
River. Cleaning them up is a state priority. The Energy 
Department says if grout was added, all but less than 1 percent 
of the waste would be removed first.

Both Larry Craig and Mike Crapo sided in Thursday's 48-48 Senate 
vote to kill a proposal from Democrat Maria Cantwell of 
Washington that would have required the South Carolina waste be 
permanently removed first.

Cantwell's proposal complicated the funding issue, Craig and 
Crapo said. The Idaho Senators said they have blocked efforts to 
change management of waste in Idaho without the state's consent. 
And they are attempting to add language that clarifies the South 
Carolina provision has no affect on any agreement between any 
state, including Idaho.

"There is no intention here of creating any kind of precedence or 
pressure with regard to any other state," Crapo said. "There will 
be no legislative action regarding the state of Idaho unless the 
state agrees."

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act requires that waste classified as 
high-level nuclear waste be entombed in a permanent underground 
repository. That doesn't allow the Energy Department to leave any 
sludge behind. The department attempted to unilaterally 
reclassify the waste to get around its dilemma.

But activists sued in federal court in Idaho and won. Today the 
issue is on appeal. Meanwhile, the Energy Department has turned 
to Congress. When the South Carolina language emerged after a 
closed-door meeting, the cleanup funding for other states 
suddenly was at risk.

"This is a victory," Craig said. "It's that simple. We faced a 
DOE request to withhold tank cleanup funding until Congress 
granted DOE sweeping new authority to alter its cleanup 
commitments in states like Idaho. Today the Senate said no to 
both. Idaho will have its cleanup funding and still retains the 
full rights to approve all cleanup plans. We won."

In South Carolina at Savannah River, there are 51 tanks with 34 
million gallons of sludge. Hanford in Washington has 177 tanks 
with 53 million gallons.                        

Copyright © 2004, Lee Publications Inc.

Magicvalley.com is an on-line division of The Times-News, 
published daily at 132 W. 3rd St., Twin Falls, Idaho 83301 by Lee 
Publications, Inc., a subsidiary of Lee Enterprises.  
*****************************************************************
 46 Daily Texan - Opinion: Los Alamos bid would help UT - 

Opinion | 6/4/2004 

 By Junjay Tan 

A mushroom cloud has prevented many from addressing the real 
issues facing the University's bid for Los Alamos National 
Laboratory.
 
Organizations such as UT Watch have focused on Los Alamos' status 
as a nuclear weapons research center, claiming that by managing 
the lab, the University promotes nuclear weapons proliferation.
 
Yet there are more important issues that students, staff and 
faculty should realize before opposing or supporting a bid.
 
Granted, Los Alamos has many problems. At least 55,000 barrels of 
nuclear waste are stored there, charges of mismanagement and 
racism have occurred and security issues such as lost keys are 
prevalent. Los Alamos is probably the most recognizable national 
lab because the creation of the atomic bomb and the Wen Ho Lee 
scandal occurred there. But that doesn't necessarily mean Los 
Alamos is in much worse condition than other national labs. UT 
Watch's current arguments focusing only on Los Alamos' problems 
are similar to a home inspector's giving a "high" indoor pollen 
count without comparing it to the outdoor pollen count. 

From an engineering standpoint, nuclear research involves not 
just building weapons, but also studying their designs. This 
would make the country better able to prevent nuclear attacks. 

Administrator Linton Brooks of the National Nuclear Security 
Administration, in a letter to the directors of several national 
labs, has said that further research of nuclear weapons would 
enable the United States to "explore a range of technical options 
that could strengthen our ability to deter, or respond to new or 
emerging threats."
 
The University also stands to profit commercially from management 
of Los Alamos. The University of California System recently hired 
MBA interns to commercialize Los Alamos research. If UT wins 
control of the lab, it too could profit from this - both 
monetarily and from opportunities for Red McCombs MBA students. 
Further, with increasing oil prices and increasing instability in 
the Middle East, Los Alamos could also provide the University a 
place to explore nuclear energy technologies.
 
Then there is the matter of prestige. Texas A plans to bid for a 
national lab soon. And almost all the top science and engineering 
schools manage national labs: Cal-Tech manages NASA's Jet 
Propulsion Laboratories, MIT manages Lawrence Livermore, and 
Georgia Tech manages Oak Ridge. UT-Austin, recognized nationally 
as a top science and engineering school, has lost out on many 
opportunities in the past (Sandia National Laboratory, halted 
construction of the Texas Superconducting Super Collider because 
of Congressional budget cuts) and needs a national lab to 
maintain its status as a technology leader. Whether Los Alamos is 
the right lab is uncertain, but it may be.
 
Most important, with all the criticism of Los Alamos, wouldn't 
the University's managing it allow students - such as those from 
UT Watch - more information about what is going on there and more 
opportunities to protest if they see the lab engaging in 
unethical conduct? Then they would actually have first-hand 
information about the lab's activities.
 
Los Alamos could be a great opportunity for the University. 
Students, staff and faculty should look at more than Los Alamos' 
nuclear weapons research and focus on how management of the lab 
would affect the entire University.              

*****************************************************************
 47 Oak Ridger: Two government agencies to discuss Y-12 report 							 							
 
Story last updated at 2:04 p.m. on June 4, 2004

By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff

During a public meeting Monday evening, officials will address 
technical concerns associated with a health assessment on uranium 
releases from Oak Ridge's nuclear weapons plant.

The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the missions, mandates 
and scientific approaches involving the Agency for Toxic 
Substances and Disease Registry and the Environmental Protection 
Agency as they relate to Oak Ridge, the public health assessment 
process and the limits of concern for cancer caused by radiation.

At issue is a document released by ATSDR that states past and 
current off-site exposures to uranium released from the Oak Ridge 
Y-12 Plant pose "no apparent health hazard." In other words, 
people could've been or were exposed, but the estimated doses 
weren't at levels expected to cause adverse health effects.

The health assessment focuses heavily on the Scarboro 
neighborhood, located just over a ridge from the weapons plant 
known these days as the Y-12 National Security Complex. This Oak 
Ridge neighborhood has been at the heart of a contamination 
debate for quite some time.

The final version of ATSDR's assessment was released a couple of 
months ago. However, EPA's concerns date back to late 2003 and 
were generated when the agency reviewed a draft version of the 
Y-12-related document.

EPA's Region 4 agreed there are "no apparent adverse health 
effects," but took issue with the "dose or risk criteria" ATSDR 
used for assessing potential long-term chronic cancer risks. The 
cancer comparison value used by ATSDR was 5,000 millirem over 70 
years.

A millirem is a unit of radiation exposure. To put this into 
context, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, exposure 
from a full set of chest X-rays is about 6 millirem.

In addition to Region 4's comments, EPA's Office of Radiation and 
Indoor Air indicated that it did not agree with ATSDR's final 
conclusion regarding past uranium exposures - voicing concern 
over health evaluation criteria used by ATSDR and suggesting the 
health assessment underestimated some radiation doses, among 
other things.

Though EPA's concerns about the Y-12 health assessment have been 
well publicized, the federal agency has yet to address the issue 
publicly. Officials abruptly canceled an April talk by EPA on 
this issue because the meeting would've been held in Kingston 
instead of Oak Ridge where the situation is more relevant.

Monday's public meeting is scheduled to run from 6:30 to 8:30 
p.m. at the Department of Energy Information Center, according to 
Jennifer Sarginson, who handles media inquiries for ATSDR. The 
center is located at 475 Oak Ridge Turnpike. 

*****************************************************************
 48 Pahrump Valley Times: Able to go 'toe to toe' with DOE 

June 4, 2004

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS BRING NECESSARY SKILLS 

PVT 


  Other Key Personnel

 Other key contract geologists and technicians on board:

 • Spike Lacomb - geologist

 • Bob Wilcoxon - geologist

 • Ed Huskinson - geologist

 • Rocky Rockwood - field technician

 • Jim Foster - lab technician

 Jamie Walker of Jamieson Geological Services is the managing
geologist

 Nye County technical personnel include:

 Kathy Gilmore - geoscientist II

 Doug Davis - geoscientist II

 Levi Kryder - geoscientist I

 Dale Hammermeister, the on-site geotechnical representative,
oversees the Yucca Mountain study under Program Manager Les
Bradshaw.

 Key support contracts: 

• MaryEllen Giampaoli - environmental compliance specialist

 • Elaine Ezra - TerraSpectra Geomatics

 RELATED STORY
 Nye's Yucca scientists explain responsibility
   

Meet the scientists involved with Nye County's Independent
Scientific Investigations Program.

 The principal investigators are:

 •Dale Hammermeister, a county employee and on-site geotechnical
representative listed second to Program Manager Les Bradshaw in
the organizational chart. 

• Jamie Walker of Jamieson Geologic, Inc. Walker has more than
11 years experience in minerals exploration, including managing
numerous drilling, logging and mapping projects.

 • Tom Bugo is a hydrogeologist with roughly 20 years of
experience in the field of applied hydrogeology. Buqo is widely
respected as a leading hydrogeologist in Southern Nevada who
specializes in water resources exploration and development, as
well as waste disposal problems.

 • Dave Cox of the Questa Engineering Corporation has more than
25 years experience in the oil and gas industry, with special
expertise in well testing in fractured rock and porous media
reservoirs. John Campanella, also of Questa, has close to 20
years experience as a reservoir engineer with special expertise
in modeling and analysis of water flow through fractured or
"vuggy" rocks.

 • Tom Anderson is a PhD and full professor of geology at the
University of Pittsburgh. He is a recognized expert in
structural geology with more than 25 years of related experience
throughout the western hemisphere. 

• John Walton, a PhD candidate in the Environmental Science and
Engineering Program at the University of Texas El Paso, is a
contractor for the county and will be the thesis advisor for a
graduate student from UTEP. 

• George Danko, a PhD and full professor at the UNR School of
Mines, has more than 25 years of professional experience
modeling and analyzing mine ventilation systems, including a
decade spent at Yucca Mountain. 

• Frank D'Agnese, PhD, of Earth Knowledge, has 15 years of
experience developing and implementing hydrogeologic data
management systems and is the former principal investigator of
the Death Valley Regional Groundwater Flow System, which
encompasses southern Nye County. 

• Grady O'Brien, also of Earth Knowledge, is the former project
chief for the Death Valley system's Regional Database
Integration Project, and is a well-known and respected
hydrogeologist. 

Source: Nye County Department of Natural Resources and Federal
Facilities. 

For comment or questions, please e-mail
webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com
Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2003 
*****************************************************************
 49 Paducah Sun: Panel supports plant cleanup plan 

- Paducah, Kentucky
 
  Friday, June 04, 2004;Paducah, Kentucky     

The plan, out for public comment through July 16, uses
electrical resistance to heat the ground below the surface and
vacuum out vaporized contamination. 

By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650

A watchdog group supports cleaning up the main source of 
groundwater pollution at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant even 
if it won't come close to cleansing the 10-billion-gallon aquifer 
that extends to the Ohio River.

 Bill Tanner, chairman of the plant's Citizens Advisory Board, 
said the cleanup plan is pleasing in light of board concerns that 
the Department of Energy wants to spend less to clean up the 
52-year-old uranium enrichment plant. Earlier this year, DOE 
released a document to base cleanup on hazards and health risks — 
a move Tanner said fell well short of protecting the public and 
making the plant safe enough for other industry to use once it 
closes starting in 2010. 

Under the new approach, DOE could have argued that the planned 
source removal would have little effect on groundwater 
contamination that will last "hundreds or thousands of years," 
Tanner said. "We realize there isn't enough technology or money 
to clean up the aquifer, but we need to help Mother Nature out as 
best we can."

 The plan, out for public comment through July 16, would use 
electrical resistance to heat the ground far below the surface 
and vacuum out vaporized contamination for carbon-filter or 
oxidation treatment.

 Last year, cleanup contractors tested electrodes buried 100 feet 
deep near the southwest corner of a cleaning building, called 
C-400, where the now-banned hazardous degreaser trichloroethylene 
(TCE) was used extensively for decades to clean 
uranium-enrichment machinery.

 The test proved 98 percent effective in removing molasses-like 
globs of the hidden, heavier-than-water chemical lodged in 
underground rock fissures. The globs constantly feed traces of 
TCE into the aquifer.

 DOE said it chose the electrode system over other alternatives 
such as steam extraction, which is no more effective and would 
cost twice as much to install as the $32.8 million electrode 
process. Steam extraction would cost another $10.2 million 
annually to maintain, compared with $7.9 million for the 
electrode system.

 Annual costs for either proposal include $4.9 million to 
continue providing free municipal water to 121 neighboring homes 
and businesses threatened by groundwater contamination. There 
would also be warning signs and fencing, plus deed restrictions 
if the building is eventually turned over to other industry.

 To get free city water, plant neighbors had to give up using 
their wells several years ago. Otherwise, drinking or washing 
clothes with contaminated water would expose them to "a 
significant potential risk" from TCE, a toxin and potential 
carcinogen, the plan says.

 The electrode test removed more than 22,000 pounds of the 
chemical from the ground. Historic spills have left almost 
180,000 gallons of TCE beneath the building, some at 
concentrations more than 20,000 times greater than the federal 
safe-drinking-water standard of five parts per billion. That 
level, at which municipal water systems must treat to remove TCE, 
is equivalent to five kernels of corn in a silo 45 feet high and 
15 feet wide.

 Although the electrodes have worked well in other parts of the 
nation, the aquifer beneath the plant is unusually deep and 
rapid, with water flowing at roughly a foot a day. For that 
reason, Energy Department officials had pre-test questions about 
how effectively the technology would work here. Digging up soil 
is impractical because much of the contamination is under the 
building, which is still in use.

 "The tests were successful, and we're moving ahead with 
full-scale removal," DOE spokeswoman Laura Schachter said 
Thursday.

 According to the plan, the electrodes can effectively remove the 
solvent to a level of 100 parts per million, or 20 times higher 
than the drinking water standard. Tanner, who doubles as 
superintendent of the West McCracken Water District, said the 
citizens' board closely tracked the four-month test until it 
ended last spring.

 "Basically, we recommended it," he said. "It's a good technology 
and should be used to remove the source of TCE in the groundwater 
plumes."

||

 The plan is accessible at 
www.bechteljacobs.com/pad_reports.shtml. It also is available at 
the DOE Environmental Information Center, 115 Memorial Drive, and 
the McCracken County Public Library. Information: Greg Bazzell, 
441-6800. 

All staff photographs are available for purchase. Please call 
270-575-8682 or 270-575-8683. 
*****************************************************************
 50 L.A. Daily News: DOE says radiation at field lab no threat
 
Article Published: Thursday, June 03, 2004 -
                                
By Ryan Oliver Staff Writer

The Department of Energy assured Simi Valley residents Thursday 
night that newly discovered levels of high radiation in 
groundwater at the Santa Susana Field Lab where nuclear reactors 
were tested beginning in the late 1940s do not appear to be a 
threat.

 The contaminated groundwater was found by scientists last month.

 Roger Gee of the Department of Energy said that despite 
extensive testing over the years, a new testing well detected 
high levels of tritium -- a nuclear waste byproduct. But he said 
the water is not used for any drinking or irrigation supplies and 
appears to be contained to a small area.

 "There's no health risk where we found it," Gee said.

 Groundwater samples taken in March show tritium at 80,000 
picocuries per liter, or four times the national drinking water 
limit. The contamination was caused by nuclear research conducted 
at the lab. 

Several hundred residents showed up for the public hearing, with 
many concerned that the pollution could eventually shift and 
create a public health hazard.

 "There's all sort of pollution out there," said Chatsworth 
resident Gwen Heomoda. "But it seems to be the DOE is making 
steady progress. They're not here to try and hide what they're 
finding."

 Simi Valley resident Marc Blocksage, 19, who lives near several 
of the polluted sites and developed an unexplained tumor in his 
neck when he was 16, along with one of this neighbors, said he 
came to the meeting to see what the DOE had to say. He said the 
department's upfront information and use of maps and charts 
putting out well sites was a big improvement over recent years.

 "They've been up front, but there's still a lot of stuff up 
there," Blocksage said.

 Tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen with a half-life of 12 
years, will degrade and meet drinking water standards in 25 
years. It has been found before at low levels around the lab, 
officials said. 

Ryan Oliver, (818) 713-3669 ryan.oliver@dailynews.com		   	 	
 		   			 		   	 	
Copyright © 2004 Los Angeles Daily News Los Angeles 
*****************************************************************
 51 Google News Alert - nuclear
 
Date: Fri, 04 Jun 2004 14:12:43 -0700 (PDT)

 
IRAN Challenges US to Prove Allegations About Nuclear Program
Tehran Times - Tehran,Iran
... Hassan Rowhani told reporters here on Wednesday that the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently announced that Iran's nuclear dossier
will be ...
<http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=6/5/2004&Cat=2&Num=011>
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US pledges to half its nuclear stockpile
New Scientist - London,England,UK
The US will slash its stockpile of nuclear weapons by nearly half over
the next eight years, the US Department of Energy has pledged. ...
<http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99995075>
See all stories on this topic:
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'LET'S make South Asia a nuclear-free zone'
Times of India - India
DUBAI : Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, in remarks aired on Friday
as Pakistan conducted a test of a nuclear-capable missile, said he was
prepared to ...
<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow/720305.cms>
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NUCLEAR cleanup bill divides Idaho leaders
Twin Falls Times-News - Twin Falls,ID,USA
But Republican Sens. Mike Crapo and Larry Craig secured a defense bill
amendment that restores $95 million in funding for nuclear waste cleanup
here. ...
<http://www.magicvalley.com/news/localstate/index.asp?StoryID=10172>
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<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&newsclusterurl=http://www.magicvalley.com/news/localstate/index.asp%3FStoryID%3D10172>

PM Abdullah denies knowledge of Libyan nuclear technicians in ... 
Channel News Asia - Singapore
KUALA LUMPUR : Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has denied any knowledge
of nuclear technicians from Libya being trained in Malaysia. ...
<http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/southeastasia/view/88474/1/.html>
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NUCLEAR reprocessing plant resumes storage of radioactive nuclear ... 
Environmental News Network - Berkeley,CA,USA
TOKYO — A closely watched nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in northern
Japan received a shipment of high-level radioactive waste Thursday, triggering
protests ...
<http://www.enn.com/news/2004-06-04/s_24532.asp>
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<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&newsclusterurl=http://www.enn.com/news/2004-06-04/s_24532.asp>

BULGARIA set to resume nuclear plant project
Euractiv - Brussels,Belgium
Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg expects the decision to revive the controversial
nuclear plant development project to help maintain Bulgaria's position
as ...
<http://www.euractiv.com/cgi-bin/cgint.exe?204&OIDN=1507800&-tt=el>
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NORTH Korea has the right for peaceful nuclear programme - ... 
ITAR-TASS - Moscow,Russia
TOKYO, June 4 (Itar-Tass) - North Korea’s has the right to retain its
nuclear programme for a peaceful use on condition of fulfilling all requirements
of the ...
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HOBBS accused of nuclear gaffe
NZ City - New Zealand
ACT claims Acting Foreign Affairs Minister Marian Hobbs has made a nuclear
gaffe as serious as the Prime Minister's Al Gore blunder. ...
<http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/default.asp?id=40089>
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NEW Zealanders Review Nuclear Ban
Centre for Public Opinion and Democracy - Vancouver,BC,Canada
4, 2004 – Residents of New Zealand would support changes in the country’s
ban on nuclear propelled ships, according to a Digipoll published in the
New ...
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 52 TheDay.com: Navy Will Soon Take Command Of New Super Sub
 	 	 	
Saturday, Jun 5, 2004   								   									 										
											 												 												 											--> 										
Jimmy Carter To Be Christened On Saturday By Former First Lady

By ANTHONY CRONIN

Published on 6/4/2004

Groton  When former first lady Rosalynn Carter cracks a 
champagne bottle against the Jimmy Carter on Saturday, she will 
christen the last of the Seawolf-class submarines and put into 
the nation's service a highly advanced attack vessel with 
technological capabilities not found in the previous ships of its 
class.

 The Jimmy Carter, SSN-23, is a sleek and stealthy ship that 
stretches more than 450 feet in length, weighs more than 12,000 
tons and has a massive 40-foot-diameter hull. It is specially 
outfitted with a hull section that adds about 100 feet to its 
length, and its highly trained crew of 166 officers and enlisted 
men is larger than those of the two previous subs in its class, 
the Seawolf and the Connecticut.

 This is certainly the most capable fast-attack ship that has 
ever been delivered to the U.S. Navy, said Fred Harris, senior 
vice president of programs for Electric Boat, whose Groton and 
Quonset Point, R.I., facilities built the sub.

 The ship's namesake, former President Jimmy Carter, will attend 
Saturday's christening ceremonies at 11 a.m. at the Groton 
shipyard. As the boat's sponsor, Rosalynn Carter will have the 
honor of christening the massive warship, and James Schlesinger, 
the former secretary of energy under President Carter, will be 
the featured speaker before a by-invitation-only crowd expected 
to number in the thousands.

 Carter, the 39th president, is a graduate of the U.S. Naval 
Academy in Annapolis, Md. He is the only submarine-qualified 
person to become a U.S. president. He was involved in the early 
days of the nation's emerging nuclear submarine program and took 
part in the construction of the Seawolf, SSN 575, the second 
nuclear submarine built at the Groton shipyard. During his years 
in the Navy, Carter served in both the Atlantic and Pacific 
submarine fleets, rising to the rank of lieutenant.

 The multibillion-dollar Jimmy Carter is capable of traveling 
undersea at more than 25 knots and submerging to a depth of more 
than 800 feet. Originally, the ship was to be constructed by 
2001, but in 1999 the Navy asked Electric Boat to modify the sub 
by inserting a special 100-foot section  called the 
Multi-Mission Platform  that would provide room for dozens of 
Special Forces operatives and their gear as well as other 
missions. 

The platform makes the Jimmy Carter a unique submarine within its 
class as well as among other attack subs. In fact, the 100-foot, 
2,500-ton special hull section was as complex to outfit and build 
as a complete 688-class attack submarine.

 We consider this to be, without a doubt, as good a design as 
EB, the Navy and its team members have ever done in any U.S. 
shipbuilding program, Harris said. It has been a great effort. 
The design was completed earlier with less issues in the shipyard 
than any previous sub design in the U.S.

 The ship, the third and last of the Seawolf class, was delivered 
to the Navy on time and within budget.

 Harris said that once the sub is christened, it will undergo 
testing by the Navy and EB. We'll have the crew come aboard and 
learn all the new and changed systems and capabilities of this 
ship, he said. 

The Jimmy Carter also will undergo sea trials to ensure it meets 
all necessary requirements before it's officially delivered to 
the Navy by the end of this year.

 This is a very large, integrated ship with many different 
missions, Harris said.

 The Jimmy Carter was built to meet a variety of missions, 
including special warfare operations and tactical undersea 
surveillance. It includes an advanced communications mast that 
supports high-volume data transmissions and has auxiliary 
maneuvering devices on board that allow it to operate at low 
speed in littoral, or close to shore, areas.

 The sub also has the ability to launch and recover a wide range 
of tethered and untethered vehicles and sensors of varying sizes 
and shapes for use in mine warfare or for tactical surveillance. 
Besides its crew, it can carry special operations forces and 
unmanned undersea and aerial vehicles. It can also accommodate an 
advanced Navy SEAL delivery system. The ship's arsenal includes 
Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles and Mark 48 advanced 
capability torpedoes. 

The Jimmy Carter will be under the command of Cmdr. Robert Kelso 
and Lt. Cmdr. Todd Cloutier, the ship's executive officer, or 
second-in-command. The chief of the boat, the senior enlisted man 
onboard, is Master Chief Shawn Burke.

 Over its multiyear construction period, thousands of individuals 
from around the country have worked on the Jimmy Carter, from 
shipyard workers in Groton and Quonset Point to suppliers and 
contractors and Navy personnel. Harris said about 3,500 suppliers 
from around the country were involved in the construction of the 
ship.

 This (christening) will be a real proud day for EB and the 
community, Harris said. It's been a lot of hard work.

 a.cronin@theday.com   

1998-2004 The Day Publishing Co.   	 	
*****************************************************************
 53 CounterPunch: Diane Rejman: Memorial Day is Not Just for the Dead
 
June 3, 2004 
The Wounded, the Sick, the Forgotten
 
Memorial Day is Not Just for the Dead
 
By DIANE REJMAN 

Memorial Day is traditionally a day to honor those soldiers who
have given their lives in protecting our country. This year, we
need to expand the list of those we honor. 

First of all, women, children, the elderly, and the sick are
included in the 150 million souls who were killed in wars in the
20th century. 

And then there are the wounded, whose lives are permanently
damaged. In Iraq, the great new technology used in body armor
means less soldiers are being killed, but more are returning
with missing arms, legs, and faces. Not all physical wounds are
obvious. After decades, the government finally acknowledged the
damage Agent Orange did to soldiers in Vietnam, only after long,
difficult battles by damaged veterans. 

The new agent orange is depleted uranium. Contrary to popular
belief, depleted uranium is still radioactive. We used 300 tons
of it in Gulf I, and over 2,000 tons in the current war. When
used, DU becomes aerosalized. These minute particles have ended
up in the sand, air, water and food supplies throughout Iraq.
Its damage to the human body includes kidney and vision
problems, cancers, and an increased rate of birth defects and
stillborns. As with agent orange, our government is denying
these claims by our veterans. 

There is also serious psychological and emotional damage done to
a large number of those involved in war. Images of fellow
soldiers' body parts splayed on the ground or in the front seat
of a jeep will stay with the person forever. As will memories of
the infant blown to pieces by the soldier's rifle. War is not
noble or pretty. 

The toll grows. Each injured soldier and civilian has families
and friends who will be affected, either as a lifetime
caregiver, or as someone who may realize they do not have the
power to help their psychologically damaged loved ones. The
estimated 500,000 Vietnam veterans living in the streets of
America are testimony to these kinds of victims. 

There are simply too many people for us to have to memorialize.
And it is criminal to increase those numbers because of the lies
of a small group of power hungry individuals. 

Veterans for Peace is a non-profit educational and humanitarian
organization dedicated to abolishing war. One of our goals is to
increase awareness of the costs of war. The damage to
individuals and families is a big part of these costs, but other
significant costs include damage to the environment, and all of
the social good that is sacrificed because of war's huge
financial costs. Another great cost from our current war
involves the loss of many of our rights, such as our right to
privacy and free speech. The soul of our country and our world
is damaged with every new act of violence. 

In order to bring awareness to these costs, and to promote the
other parts of VFP's mission, a group of us will be spending 23
days on a cross-country Stop the War bus trip. We are planning a
series of media events along the way. We encourage your
participation, vicariously through our website.
(http://homepage.mac.com/gordonsoderberg/roadtrip/index3.html) 

We realize we cannot change the world, but the world can be
changed one person at a time. This is who we are reaching out
to, every individual who can make any kind of difference in
their own lives. 

I'd like to end with a quote by Martin Luther King: "Justice at
its best is love correcting everything that stands against
love". I believe there are few things in this world which stand
against love more harshly than war. 

The best way to honor our soldiers on this memorial day is to
bring them home now. 

Diane Rejman is a member of Veterans for Peace. She is listed in
Who's Who in America, and holds an MBA from Thunderbird, the
American Graduate School of International Management. She gave
this talk as a guest speaker at the First Presbytarian Church in
Palo Alto, CA. She can be contacted at
yespeaceispossible@yahoo.com

WWW http://www.counterpunch.org   
    
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material is distributed without profit or payment to those who 
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for 
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