***************************************************************** 12/19/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.301 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 WorldNetDaily: Threatening Iran – despite the evidence 2 [NYTr] US Hard Line on North Korea Backfires 3 Korea Times: Presidential Envoy Visits China for 6-Party Talks Resum 4 Korea Herald: New ambassadorial post on N. Korean nuke issue mulled 5 Korea Herald: Officials seek ways to hold 6-party talks 6 US: Charges Dropped in RNC False Bust 7 Salt Lake Tribune: His judgment spared U.S., maybe the world 8 US Taps IAEA Leader's Phone 9 Guardian Unlimited: Set back for Blair on climate change 10 BBC: Compromise seals climate meeting 11 UPI: Nuclear war a real fear in South Asia - 12 Salt Lake Tribune: Cuban missile crisis not the only close call 13 Salt Lake Tribune: Hair-trigger still is nuclear rule 14 Independent: UK 'war crimes' claims examined in The Hague 15 Independent: UK secretly backs removal of nuclear chief NUCLEAR REACTORS 16 YWS: N. Korea Started Nuclear Reactor in February 2003 17 US: Champlain Channel Engineers: NRC's Recent Inspection At Yankee M 18 US: Brattleboro Reformer: NRC to review whistleblowers' petition 19 Japan Times: Water leak forces reactor closure 20 US: decatur daily: NRC: Deficiencies at Browns Ferry 21 US: APP.COM: No time to waste 22 US: PittsburghLIVE.com: Power can be cleaner or cheaper, but not bot 23 US: News Journal: Nuclear power plant fix proposed in '03 NUCLEAR SAFETY 24 Accidental Nuclear War 25 Scots danger from missing DU fragments 26 [DU-WATCH] throw away soldiers and disposable civilians 27 [DU-WATCH] silver bullet, black dust - looking for a cause, 28 Anchorage Daily News: SCIENCE: Radioactivity is monitored on Amchitk 29 US: Courier Journal: Uranium plant worker's widow receives $125,000 30 US: Keokuk's Gate City: Opinion: Pentagon says depleted uranium is h NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 31 RGJ: AG won on Yucca, defends impeachment decision 32 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [EDITORIALS]Nuclear waste site mandatory 33 US: Carlsbad Current-Argus: WIPP to receive bids for records project 34 US: Salt Lake Tribune: New boss at Envirocare 35 Xinhua: Italy to send nuclear waste abroad for disposal 36 US: CCDR: Cotter officials begin reviewing license decision 37 US: Boston Globe: Debris removed from Starmet site 38 US: PE.com: Feinstein to push water bill 39 US: PE.com: Cost, risks fuel debate over safety 40 US: PE.com: Controversy cut from news story 41 Las Vegas RJ: Poll: Nevadans remain opposed to Yucca Mountain NUCLEAR WEAPONS US DEPT. OF ENERGY 42 UC loses nuclear weapons program (5/9) 43 UC loses nuclear weapons program (6/9) 44 ABQjournal: University of Colorado Wants Role in LANL Contract 45 DenverPost.com: Feds back visitor plan for future Flats refuge 46 Charleston.Net: City hopes to develop Savannah River Site 47 ABQjournal: LANL Proposal Is Faulted on Safety OTHER NUCLEAR 48 [DU-WATCH] Your e-voice at TrueMajority 49 Desert Sun: World powers focus on coal’s rising importance ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 WorldNetDaily: Threatening Iran – despite the evidence SATURDAY DECEMBER 18 2004 [Supercritical Thoughts] [Gordon Prather] © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com According to Undersecretary of State John Bolton, "[T]he United States strongly believes that Iran has a clandestine program to produce nuclear weapons and has been warning publicly about Tehran's weapons ambitions for over a decade." Now, having nuke ambitions is one thing. Having the "fissile" material – plutonium-239 or uranium-235 – needed to produce nukes is quite another. The key to preventing nuke proliferation is the international control of the production, processing, transformation and disposition of certain "nuclear" materials. In return for a promise not to acquire or seek to acquire nukes, the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons recognizes the "inalienable right" of all signatories to enjoy the peaceful benefits of nuclear energy. But all NPT-proscribed "nuclear" materials – as well as the facilities in which they are stored, processed, transformed or consumed – have to be made subject to an International Atomic Energy Agency Safeguards Agreement. More than a year ago, Iran signed an Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement, vastly expanding the authority of IAEA inspectors to go anywhere and see anything. Director General Mohamed ElBaradei has just reported to the IAEA Board of Governors that after a year-long exhaustive and intrusive inspection he has – to date – found no evidence that Iran has – or ever has had – a nuke program. So, perhaps what Bolton should have said is that the United States strongly believes – despite all evidence to the contrary – that Iran has a clandestine program to produce nuclear weapons. Take for example the nuclear power plant under construction at Bushehr, Iran. In the 1970s, Siemens began construction of two plants at Bushehr and had nearly finished one of them when both were practically destroyed during the Iranian-Iraqi War. Until 1995, the U.S. effectively prohibited any Western-based engineering firm from resuming construction. But then Russia overrode U.S. objections and agreed – in return for about $800 million in hard currency – to build a conventional Soviet-designed 1000 MWe nuclear power plant at Bushehr. Now scheduled for completion in 2006, it will – of course – be made subject to Iran's Safeguards Agreement. Anti-nuclear activists charge that the Iranians can and will produce nukes from plutonium they recover from the reactor's "spent fuel." That's nonsense, of course, but the neo-crazies have echoed that charge. You see, as the "fissile" U-235 isotope in uranium fuel is "burned" in a nuclear reactor, a small amount of plutonium is "bred." Initially, it is the "fissile" Pu-239 isotope that is produced. But as more fuel is burned, more and more fissile and non-fissile plutonium isotopes will be produced. All plutonium atoms have the same chemical properties. Therefore, the plutonium atoms can be chemically separated out. But "weapons-grade" plutonium must be about 90 percent Pu-239. So there is a definite limit to the length of time – much less than a year – the fuel can be allowed to remain in the operating reactor if weapons-grade plutonium is to be produced. But the IAEA will see to it that the Russian-owned fuel will remain – on average – in the safeguarded Iranian reactor for more than four years. Hence, the plutonium eventually recovered – after it has been sent back to Russia – from the Russian-owned "spent fuel" will be less than 60 percent Pu-239 and definitely not "weapons-grade." Bolton and the neo-crazies know that. So they argue that as soon as Bushehr has operated for a few months, Iran will withdraw from the NPT, throw out the IAEA and the Russians, and proceed to separate out enough "weapons-grade" plutonium to make a few nukes. Therefore, the neo-crazies argue, we must never allow Bushehr to begin operating. Well, to Bolton's consternation, the European Union has rejected his arguments and has made a deal – endorsed by China and Russia – with Iran. If – in addition to adhering to the IAEA Additional Protocol – Iran will suspend its uranium-enrichment activities, they'll see to it that nuclear power plants are just the beginning of the benefits Iran will receive. Iran's wish list includes fuel for Iranian power plants at "market prices"; the resumption of EU-Iran Trade and Cooperation Agreement negotiations; and EU support for Iran's application for World Trade Organization membership. So what do the neo-crazies intend to do about the clandestine nuke program that spy satellites in space and IAEA inspectors on the ground can't find? Well, when The New Republic's Franklin Foer asked Bolton at a recent conference at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs if the use of military force was still an option, Bolton replied, "No options are off the table." Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 [NYTr] US Hard Line on North Korea Backfires Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 15:38:54 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by John Clancy Sydney Morning Herald - Dec 18, 2004 Aggressive policy on North Korea backfires for US By Hamish McDonald Herald Correspondent in Beijing Just over two years ago, North Korea had maybe one or two plutonium bombs stored out of sight for a decade, too few to expend one in a test and thus possibly unworkable. Now it is on the way to making six to eight more. Meanwhile, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, is moving to reinforce his power, removing possible challengers and adjusting downwards his personality cult to make him harder for outsiders to disparage. As President George Bush gets his new foreign policy team into position at the start of his second term, his handling of North Korea is looking counter-productive, to say the least, and misguided in its assumptions and objectives, say a number of experts on the reclusive country. "We have brought the North Korean danger on ourselves," says Selig Harrison, Asia director at Washington's Centre for International Policy, who has just had published a damaging attack on Mr Bush's approach in the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs. "We have given the hawks in North Korea the excuse to start reprocessing plutonium again." At the same time, a leading Russian expert on the country, Georgy Toloraya, has warned that the underlying objective of Mr Bush's neo-conservative advisers - to bring down Kim Jong-il's regime - would, if successful, lead to a long-running civil war on the Korean peninsula that would be "worse than Iraq". The warnings, delivered in Beijing, where the two were attending a private conference of North Korea specialists this week, come as the region's diplomats try to reconvene the six-nation Beijing talks on the North Korean nuclear issue, stalled since the third meeting in June. Most analysts do not think much will happen until after the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, gets Senate confirmation as the new US Secretary of State. Only then will it be shown, through key appointments down the line, whether policy is likely to harden or soften towards North Korea. Mr Harrison accuses the Administration of wildly exaggerating the intelligence about North Korea's uranium enrichment program, used in October 2002 to suspend the supply of fuel oil given to Pyongyang under the 1994 "Agreed Framework" in which it undertook to freeze its nuclear activities. In response, North Korea expelled international inspectors and started reprocessing spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium, a fissile material for nuclear weapons. Available intelligence suggests North Korea had only blueprints and pilot centrifuges at best, putting it many years away from obtaining supplies of high-enriched uranium that are an alternative fissile material to plutonium, Mr Harrison said. The North Koreans may not have been aiming at weapons at all, he argued, but at obtaining lower grades of enriched uranium to make fuel for nuclear power reactors. The Bush neo-conservatives' purpose, Mr Harrison charges, was to end the 1994 deal worked out by the administration of the despised Bill Clinton. "This was a way to kill the Agreed Framework," he said. Whether or not Mr Harrison is taking too benign a view of North Korean intentions, Washington has not yet convinced the Chinese, Russians, South Koreans, and, perhaps, the Japanese that the North Korean uranium program presents an imminent danger that blocks progress on a deal to dismantle the more real plutonium weapons and facilities. Mr Toloraya, research director of Moscow's Centre for Contemporary Korean Studies, argues the West is wrong to expect a North Korean regime collapse on the lines of Romania or Bulgaria, despite its general misery. "It's not a Stalinist state as commonly reported," he said. "It is a combination of oriental despotism, theocracy, Confucianism - a bureaucratic monarchy." Regime collapse, by whatever cause, would mean the end of the North Korean state, and the North's absorption by South Korea. The 2 million to 3 million North Korean military and civilian "nomenklatura" (Russian for the party and bureaucratic elite) could face discrimination and even active repression under this scenario, and understand this well, Mr Toloraya said. "They are not going to be sitting idly and waiting for it to happen - I can see one scenario, even the most peaceful one, where these nomenklatura would start to fight, using hidden stockpiles of arms. This kind of reunification has a great danger of leading to a prolonged civil war." The alternative is a concerted "Marshall Plan" to turn North Korea into a more normal state over a 20-year period. The realistic aim, Mr Toloraya thinks, is a mixed economy under an autocratic political system, with North Korea's elite given ownership of state assets, helping to create versions of the "chaebol" industrial conglomerates that flourished under South Korea's late military ruler, Park Chung-hee. * Search the NYTr Archives at: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ To subscribe or unsubscribe or change your settings via the web, visit: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= ***************************************************************** 3 Korea Times: Presidential Envoy Visits China for 6-Party Talks Resumption Hankooki.com > The Korea Times By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter Unification Minister Chung Dong-young will make a four-day visit to China from Tuesday to find a breakthrough in the stalled six-party talks over Pyongyang¡¯s nuclear ambitions. ``As a presidential envoy, he will focus on discussing ways to resume the six-nation talks during his meetings with high-ranking Chinese officials,¡¯¡¯ a ministry spokesman said. On Dec. 22, he will meet Wu Bangguo, chairman the Standing Committee of the 10th National People's Congress and state councilor Tang Jiaxuan to discuss measures for early resumption of the multilateral talks. Three rounds of talks held in Beijing have yielded little progress. A fourth round was set for September, but North Korea refused to attend. The Seoul government may deliver a presidential letter to the Beijing authorities, underlining its hope to carry on the talks, officials in Seoul said. The six-party talks include the two Koreas, the United States, Russia, China and Japan. He plans to meet Foreign Affairs Minister Li Zhaoxing on Dec. 21 and is scheduled to give a lecture at Beijing University on the Korean peninsula¡¯s peace and prosperity the following day. On Dec. 23-24, Chung is set to visit Shanghai¡¯s industrial parks in Pudong, where North Korea¡¯s leader Kim Jong-il had toured in January 2000 and Suzhou, which is considered one of China¡¯s most successful cases of developing special economic zones. Chung, who concurrently chairs the standing committee of the National Security Council, will also pay attention to promote bilateral ties with China as the two sides had suffered a setback this year due to the territorial dispute over the ancient Korean kingdom of Koguryo (37 B.C.-668 A.D.). Koguryo, which controlled the northern part of the Korean peninsula and much of what is today¡¯s Manchuria, China, has been a big bone of contention between South Korea and China this year. im@koreatimes.co.kr 12-19-2004 15:55 Minister Chung Dong-young ***************************************************************** 4 Korea Herald: New ambassadorial post on N. Korean nuke issue mulled (bluelle@heraldm.com) By Choi Soung-ah 2004.12.20 The government is considering a brand new ambassadorial post to deal exclusively with the North Korean nuclear crisis as it enters a third calendar year in January, government officials said yesterday. With the latest talk in diplomatic circles suggesting an expansion in the number of home-based ambassadors handling specific pending issues, the Foreign Ministry is opting for new posts to lift the burden on high-ranking officials now juggling heavyweight tasks such as the nuclear standoff with other jobs. "Although there has not been any formal announcement, we see it as a necessary post that allows more ambassadors to be dispatched to headquarters and take on important roles," said Shin Hyun-suk, a spokesman for the ministry. "The deputy foreign minister post has too many responsibilities already and assigning special ambassadors to divide up the work will give each issue more focus and effectiveness." If and when decided, a special ambassador at the deputy minister level will take charge of the nuclear task force and head the negotiating delegation to the six-nation disarmament talks comprising the Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia. The current chief negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck, has been in charge of the six-party talks since its launch in August last year, requiring him to shuttle between Seoul, Beijing, Washington, Tokyo and Moscow. In the past year and a half, Lee made around 25 business trips dealing with at least six major issues, including the nuclear crisis, the bilateral Future of the Alliance Initiative Talks with the United States and the Goguryeo history dispute with China. This has raised concerns about the amount of time and attention these crucial issues deserve. "The workload is too heavy on one person, especially in terms of the nuclear issue," one official said. "As we have special envoys to handle such issues as consul affairs, antiterrorism, and environment, it is important to have an ambassador who will take over the nuclear issue especially at this time, as it is going into a very crucial stage." According to some accounts, Deputy Minister Lee is said likely to be named ambassador to Germany in an upcoming reshuffle while Song Min-soon, chief of the ministry's Office of Planning and Management, is expected to succeed him. Kim Sung-hwan, a former ambassador to Uzbekistan, is considered a leading candidate for the new ambassadorial post on the nuclear issue. The reshuffle plan also calls for appointing Vice Foreign Minister Choi Young-jin as ambassador to the United Nations and promoting Ambassador to Britain Lee Tae-sik to succeed Choi. In a surprise move last week, Hong Seok-hyun, chairman of the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, was designated as the new ambassador to the United States. (bluelle@heraldm.com) The Foreign Ministry has long been criticized for outdated practices and elitism, and some politicians have pointed out that Korea needs to adopt ideas from foreign countries such as China and find specialists to head the 6-party talks delegation, the Goguryeo dispute and similiar issues. ***************************************************************** 5 Korea Herald: Officials seek ways to hold 6-party talks 2004.12.20 The country's ranking security-related officials discussed ways of holding another round of six-way talks to resolve the North Korean nuclear impass. In a Saturday meeting of the presidential National Security Council, presided over by Unification Minister cum NSC chariman Chung Dong-young, participants shared strategies and ideas in resolving the standoff. Attended by several key government officials, including Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung and National Intelligence Service head Ko Young-koo, the meeting preceded Chung's three-day visit to Beijing starting next Tuesday. ***************************************************************** 6 Charges Dropped in RNC False Bust Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 11:11:45 -0600 (CST) Forwarded with Compliments of Government of the USA in Exile (GUSAE): Free Americans Proclaiming Total Emancipation and Working Towards Democracy. http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/136493/ First Jury Trial Arising from the RNC Protests Ends in Dismissal As D.A. Drops All Charges Against Gulf War I Veteran and Anti-Depleted Uranium Activist Dennis Kyne Mid-Trial Via www.denniskyne.com Email: d_kyne (nospam) hotmail.com (verified) 17 Dec 2004 - Modified: 08:20:24 PM CONTACT: TO INTERVIEW DENNIS KYNE, PLEASE CONTACT HIM THROUGH HIS ATTORNEYS AT (646) 602-9242 Dennis Kyne was among those arrested on the evening of August 31st on the steps of the New York City public library. On December 16, 2004, halfway through the jury trial against Mr. Kyne, New York County District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's Office made a motion to dismiss all of the charges. New York City Criminal Court Judge Gerald Harris granted the motion and commended the District Attorney's office for its fairness and professionalism. That decision came after Lewis and Gideon Oliver, Kyne's attorneys, produced video and photographic evidence which they believe raise serious concerns that NYPD Officer Matthew Wohl may have lied numerous times under oath. On the 31st, according to Officer Wohl's testimony, he was part of a mobile response team present at the library over an hour before any arrests were made. According to eyewitnesses at the library that day, including Mr. Kyne, and videotape of the event, members of the NYPD began searching and arresting people shortly before 6:00 PM. According to eyewitnesses, the searches and arrests were forceful, apparently indiscriminate, and frightening. Among those arrested prior to Mr. Kyne were a fifty-five year old art history professor from the University of Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, who was at the library with his eighteen year old son en route to a Yankees game, along with two women who had been seated at a table in the plaza in front of the library singing and playing guitar, one of whom was sixteen and the other of whom was seventeen. Officer Wohl testified that he personally observed Mr. Kyne yelling in a "boisterous" manner just before he was placed under arrest, although he could not specifically remember what Mr. Kyne was yelling. According to the sworn Accusatory Instrument Officer Wohl signed on September 1, 2004, Mr. Kyne was yelling, "Look what they are doing. The government is taking away our rights. They lied to you; they lied to me" in a "violent and tumultuous manner." Officer Wohl testified that he personally effected Mr. Kyne's arrest along with two other unidentified officers. According to him, Mr. Kyne was "screaming, yelling, and moving around" throughout the process. When asked how Mr. Kyne had resisted arrest, Officer Wohl testified that his "mouth, heart, and eyes" were moving, and that he lunged in a number of different directions, "almost like what a little kid would do." Officer Wohl also testified that Mr. Kyne "went down to the ground himself" and that Officer Wohl and three others had to pick him up and carry him across the street "while he squirmed and screamed" all the way to the back of the NYPD transport vehicle. Mr. Kyne's attorneys believe that the videotape and pictures raise serious questions about key elements of Officer Wohl's sworn testimony. Officer Wohl does not appear on the videotape or pictures produced by Mr. Kyne's attorneys. Nor does the videotape ever show Mr. Kyne yelling what Officer Wohl's Accusatory Instrument claims he was yelling. The videotape shows that Mr. Kyne reacted to several apparently baseless detentions and sometimes violent arrests by shouting that the police were "fucking Nazis" as he was walking away from the library. Officer Wohl testified that he did not recall Mr. Kyne ever yelling those words, despite that, according to his testimony, he was within feet of Mr. Kyne moments before his arrest. According to Mr. Kyne, as he was on the sidewalk walking away from the library, a police officer in a white shirt suddenly yelled, "That's a collar!" Videotape and pictures of the event show that two officers - neither of whom was Officer Wohl - then forced Mr. Kyne to his knees and placed him in plastic flexi-cuffs. As they were doing so, another police officer, who was wearing khaki pants and a short-sleeved, white t-shirt bearing no name or badge number, recognized Mr. Kyne and ordered that he be charged with "Dis Con and resisting." Mr. Kyne was, at that time, complying with the officers who were arresting him and repeating, "I'm not resisting." Another videotape shows that the officer in khaki pants - whom one person referred to as a "Commissioner" - later approached a Lieutenant from the NYPD's Legal Bureau and said, "We got one of the troublemakers from Pataki's last night." According to news reports, Governor Pataki was at McSorley's Alehouse the night of the 30th. Mr. Kyne was charged with seven violations and misdemeanors, including three Class A misdemeanors - Riot in the Second Degree, Resisting Arrest, and Obstructing Governmental Administration - each of which carries a potential sentence of up to a year in jail. The DA's Office dropped the Riot charge before the trial started. It also offered to dismiss the five other charges in exchange for a single Disorderly Conduct guilty plea, but Mr. Kyne believed that it was his duty to fight the charges. During the trial, Officer Wohl also testified that he arrested four others along with Mr. Kyne, including two French Canadian men who were arrested for merely holding a banner in their hands in front of one of the library's famous lions after another police officer told them they could do so. Several of the people Officer Wohl claims he arrested were prepared to testify that Officer Wohl had not, in fact, done so. "Especially these past few months in New York City, the scope of constitutionally protected conduct the Police Department has been criminalizing is shocking," said Kyne's lawyers. "We are worried that Officer Wohl did not tell the truth about what the NYPD did to Dennis. Maybe he was just following orders. If that is the case - if someone ordered him to lie on the stand - we believe that the District Attorney's office has an obligation to investigate this matter immediately, and lodge charges against those responsible, where appropriate. Police officers cannot lie in a court of law and get away with it. The District Attorney's office acted admirably in dismissing the charges against Mr. Kyne, but we believe that justice requires more of them in this case." Mr. Kyne comes from a long line of military men, and is himself a Gulf War I veteran. Mr. Kyne served as a medic for the United States Army and enjoys an honorable discharge from military service. He served in the United States Army from 1989 through 1995, achieved the rank of Drill Sergeant, and was with the 24th Infantry Division, the most forward unit in the conflict, during Operation Desert Storm. Mr. Kyne now receives a monthly check from the United States Government for "undiagnosed illnesses" in connection with his military service. For more than fifteen years, during the Gulf War, and even today the United States military has been using "depleted" uranium in artillery shells and armor plating. Mr. Kyne believes that what the government refers to as "Gulf War Syndrome" is, in fact, the result of the Army's use of "depleted" uranium on the battlefield. He has written a book on the topic, "Support the Truth," twelve copies of which were in his possession when he was arrested on August 31st. Mr. Kyne was in New York City during the Republican National Convention in order to speak about "depleted" uranium. He was particularly concerned to speak with New York City Police, Corrections, and Fire Department Officers in connection with reports that four New Yorkers from a unit made up mostly of those officers had recently shown signs of manmade, "depleted" uranium in their urine. Mr. Kyne is concerned that he was targeted by the NYPD and forced to face criminal charges because they disagreed with his fervent activism against the military's use of "depleted" uranium, which Mr. Kyne believes is still killing soldiers. Mr. Kyne was represented by Lewis B. Oliver, Jr. and Gideon Orion Oliver, a father-and-son team of civil rights attorneys. Lewis B. Oliver, Jr. conducted the trial. The Olivers are among the attorneys affiliated with the National Lawyers Guild who have initiated a federal civil rights class action against the New York City Police Department in connection with its conduct during the Republican National Convention. For more information about that lawsuit, please contact the National Lawyers Guild at (212) 679-6018, extension 16. Mr. Kyne's attorneys are calling on District Attorney Morgenthau to dismiss the charges against the others Officer Wohl claims to have arrested, and hope that it will launch a full investigation into this matter. They are concerned that, during the Republican National Convention, police officers appear to have made "dragnet" arrests, sweeping up groups of people instead of individuals, and then forced them to face criminal penalties based on the testimony of officers like Wohl, who may not have seen what they claim to have seen. "No matter when he said it, or how loud, Dennis was right," said Mr. Kyne's attorneys. "They lied to you, they lied to me, and they are trying to take away our civil rights." ============================================================================= See also: http://www.denniskyne.com ***************************************************************** 7 Salt Lake Tribune: His judgment spared U.S., maybe the world Article Last Updated: 12/19/2004 01:13:36 AM By Mark McDonald Knight Ridder News Service Stanislav Petrov, 65, in 1983 told his Soviet military superiors that a warning of a U.S. nuclear first strike was false, averting a counterattack. (Mark McDonald/Knight Ridder News Service ) smh FRIAZINO, Russia - The man who saved America - and probably the world - is living out his days on a measly pension in a dank apartment in a forlorn suburb of Moscow. He has a bad stomach, varicose veins and a mangy, spotted dog named Jack the Ripper. Stanislav Petrov has a small life now. He takes Jack for walks, makes a medicinal tea from herbs he picks in a nearby park and harangues his 34-year-old son about getting off the computer and finding a girlfriend. There was a time when Petrov, now 65 and a widower, was almost larger than life. He was a privileged member of the Soviet Union's military elite, a lieutenant colonel on the fast track to a generalship. He was educated, squared away and trustworthy, and that's why he was in the commander's chair on Sept. 26, 1983, the night the world nearly blew apart. Tensions were high: Three weeks earlier, on Sept. 1, Soviet fighters had shot down a Korean airliner, killing all 269 people aboard. Petrov was in charge of the secret bunker where a team of 120 technicians and military officers monitored the Soviet Union's early warning system. It was just after midnight when a new satellite array known as Oko, or The Eye, spotted five U.S. missiles heading toward Moscow. The Eye discerned they were Minuteman II nuclear missiles. Petrov's computer was demanding that he follow the prescribed protocol and confirm an incoming attack to his superiors. A red light on the computer saying START! kept flashing at him. And there was this baleful message: MISSILE ATTACK! Petrov had written the emergency protocol himself, and he knew he should immediately pick up the hotline at his desk to tell his military superiors that the Motherland was under attack. He also knew the timeline was short. The senior political and military chiefs in the Kremlin would have only 12 minutes or so to wake up, get to their phones, digest Petrov's information and decide on a counterattack. As the alarms blared, 80 technicians and 40 military officers jumped up and looked toward Petrov's command post on a mezzanine overlooking the gymnasium-sized control room. He shouted into an intercom for them to take their seats and attend to their work. ''I was not sweating,'' Petrov said, ''but I felt very weak in my legs. Like our Russian saying goes, I had legs of cotton. I was in a stupor, but then my feeling of duty took over.'' Petrov gathered himself and looked at the data coming from The Eye. Why only five missiles? That didn't fit with either his training or his logic. He knew that if the United States were going to launch a first strike, it would unleash hell, with hundreds of missiles. ''Political relations with the United States couldn't have been any worse at the time,'' he said. ''But to launch such an attack, one would have to be completely crazy.'' So Petrov called his superiors and reported in a firm voice that it was a false alarm, no attack. Personally, though, he wasn't sure. ''Not 100 percent sure,'' he said. ''Not even close to 100 percent.'' The next 15 minutes, waiting for the Minutemen to possibly hit, were unnerving. ''Yes, terrifying,'' he said. ''Most unpleasant.'' Soviet engineers eventually discovered that The Eye had sounded the alarm when it spotted what it thought was the engine flare from five U.S. missiles. But what had the satellite really seen? Flashes of sunlight reflecting off some clouds over Minuteman silos in Montana. © Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 8 US Taps IAEA Leader's Phone Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 00:10:20 -0600 (CST) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57928-2004Dec11.html washingtonpost.com IAEA Leader's Phone Tapped U.S. Pores Over Transcripts to Try to Oust Nuclear Chief By Dafna Linzer Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, December 12, 2004; Page A01 The Bush administration has dozens of intercepts of Mohamed ElBaradei's phone calls with Iranian diplomats and is scrutinizing them in search of ammunition to oust him as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to three U.S. government officials. But the diplomatic offensive will not be easy. The administration has failed to come up with a candidate willing to oppose ElBaradei, who has run the agency since 1997, and there is disagreement among some senior officials over how hard to push for his removal, and what the diplomatic costs of a public campaign against him could be. Although eavesdropping, even on allies, is considered a well-worn tool of national security and diplomacy, the efforts against ElBaradei demonstrate the lengths some within the administration are willing to go to replace a top international diplomat who questioned U.S. intelligence on Iraq and is now taking a cautious approach on Iran. The intercepted calls have not produced any evidence of nefarious conduct by ElBaradei, according to three officials who have read them. But some within the administration believe they show ElBaradei lacks impartiality because he tried to help Iran navigate a diplomatic crisis over its nuclear programs. Others argue the transcripts demonstrate nothing more than standard telephone diplomacy. "Some people think he sounds way too soft on the Iranians, but that's about it," said one official with access to the intercepts. In Vienna, where the IAEA has its headquarters, officials said they were not surprised about the eavesdropping. "We've always assumed that this kind of thing goes on," IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said. "We wish it were otherwise, but we know the reality." The IAEA, often called the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, coordinates nuclear safety around the world and monitors materials that could be diverted for weapons use. It has played pivotal investigative roles in four major crises in recent years: Iran, Iraq, North Korea and the nuclear black market run by one of Pakistan's top scientists. Each issue has produced some tension between the agency and the White House, and this is not the first time that ElBaradei or other U.N. officials have been the targets of a spy campaign. Three weeks before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the Observer newspaper in Britain published a secret directive from the National Security Agency ordering increased eavesdropping on U.N. diplomats. Earlier this year, Clare Short, who served in British Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet, said British spies had eavesdropped on U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's calls during that period and that she had read transcripts of the intercepts. The NSA, which is responsible for collecting and decoding electronic communications for the U.S. government, had no information to provide on the ElBaradei intercepts. The CIA refused to comment. ElBaradei, 62, an Egyptian diplomat who taught international law at New York University, is well-respected inside the United Nations, and many of the countries that sit on the IAEA board have asked him to stay for a third term beginning next summer. To block that, Washington would need to persuade a little more than one-third of the IAEA's 35-member board to vote against his reappointment. But even some of the administration's closest friends, including Britain, appear to be reluctant to join a fight they believe is motivated by a desire to pay back ElBaradei over Iraq. Without clear support and no candidate, the White House began searching for material to strengthen its argument that ElBaradei should be retired, according to several senior policymakers who would discuss strategy only on the condition of anonymity. The officials said anonymous accusations against ElBaradei made by U.S. officials in recent weeks are part of an orchestrated campaign. Some U.S. officials accused ElBaradei of purposely concealing damning details of Iran's program from the IAEA board. But they have offered no evidence of a coverup. "The plan is to keep the spotlight on ElBaradei and raise the heat," another U.S. official said. But another official said there is disagreement within the administration, chiefly between Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John R. Bolton, who aides say is eager to see ElBaradei go, and outgoing Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, over whether it would be worth diverting diplomatic capital that could be better spent on lobbying the board to get tougher with Iran. In September, Powell said ElBaradei should step aside, citing a term limit policy adopted several years ago in Geneva by the top 10 contributors to international organizations. "We think the Geneva rule is a good rule: two terms," Powell told Agence France-Presse. "It's not been followed in the past on many occasions, more often than not, but we still think it's a good, useful rule." Powell said he discussed it personally with ElBaradei, who decided he would stay on if the board wanted him. "However this effort is justified by the administration, the assumption internationally will be that the United States was blackballing ElBaradei because of Iraq and Iran," said Robert Einhorn, who was assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation until 2001. Several months ago, the State Department began canvassing potential candidates, including Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, two Japanese diplomats, two South Korean officials and a Brazilian disarmament expert. But the South Koreans and Brazil's Sergio Duarte are now considered to be problematic candidates because both countries are under IAEA investigation for suspect nuclear work. Downer, who is not willing to challenge ElBaradei, still remains the administration's top choice. The deadline for submitting alternative candidates is Dec. 31. "Our original strategy was to get Alex Downer to throw his hat in the ring, but we couldn't," one U.S. policymaker said. "Anyone in politics will tell you that you can't beat somebody with nobody, but we're going to try to disprove that." That strategy worked once before when the administration orchestrated the 2002 removal of Jose M. Bustani, who ran the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a U.N. organization based in The Hague. Bustani drew the administration's ire when he tried to involve his organization in the search for suspected chemical weapons in Iraq. The administration canvassed the organization's board and then forced a narrow vote for his ouster. A successor was found three months later, and there was little diplomatic fallout from the administration's maneuver, mostly because the OPCW has a fairly low profile and its members wanted to avoid being drawn into the diplomatic row leading up to the Iraq war. But John S. Wolf, who was assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation until June, said such action comes at a cost and makes it harder for the United States to keep the world's attention focused on pressing threats. "The net result of campaigns that others saw as spiteful was that even where the U.S. had quite legitimate and proven concerns, the atmosphere had been so soured that it wasn't possible to recoup," Wolf said. Gareth Evans, a former Australian foreign minister who now heads a high-level panel on U.N. reform, said that ElBaradei has been excellent in his job and that Washington would be making a mistake to challenge him: "If they think they can get anyone who could have better handled the complex and difficult issues surrounding North Korea, Iran and other controversies, they are not understanding the world right now." 2004 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 9 Guardian Unlimited: Set back for Blair on climate change Press Association Saturday December 18, 2004 Tony Blair's push for US engagement on climate change suffered a fresh set-back today when an international conference ended without agreement on future action. The prime minister has said global warming will be Britain's priority during next year's presidency of the G8 group of leading industrialised nations. President George Bush has made it clear America will not sign up to the Kyoto Protocol on cutting carbon dioxide emissions blamed for rising temperatures. The UK, along with fellow EU members, wanted US agreement on examining how to proceed once that protocol runs out in 2010 at the climate change conference in Argentina. However, America rejected proposals for a series of talks next year in favour of a single meeting held over several days. Environment secretary Margaret Beckett said: "What they don't want is for people to make some great leap into the unknown and start setting very concrete parameters for the future." Mrs Beckett told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It has not been particularly euphoric or celebratory. But on the other hand it has certainly been different from any previous conference of this kind I have been to. "What has been different about it is the greater degree of openness about the future beyond the Kyoto Protocol. "I think certainly for the last year, 18 months, maybe a bit more, not knowing quite where we were on ratification, whether the Protocol was going to come into force, has been a dampener." Mrs Beckett acknowledged that Mr Blair has "stuck his neck out" on the issue. "It may be that there are players around ... the American administration who wish that Britain was not making this a top priority in its G8 Presidency. We are," she added. Shadow environment secretary Tim Yeo said Britain "must get it own house in order" on climate change. "We are certainly having rising CO2 emissions in Britain and we need urgently to change policy," he told Today. "Once we do that we will have a lot more credibility in international talks that are so important." Special report Climate change Graphics CO2 emissions The world in the 2050s The greenhouse effect Interactive Guide to drilling for oil in the Arctic Calculate your personal carbon count Key resources The Kyoto protocol Bjorn Lomborg: Are we doing the right thing? Useful links UN framework convention on climate change Greenpeace Friends of the earth [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ***************************************************************** 10 BBC: Compromise seals climate meeting Last Updated: Saturday, 18 December, 2004 [Factory in Beijing, China] Emissions in fast-developing China are expected to rise Delegates at the UN climate change conference in Buenos Aires have reached agreement on ways to address the issue of global warming. They approved a compromise proposal on the format of future discussions agreed by the US and the EU overnight. Some developing countries had threatened to derail the deal, insisting on guarantees that they would not be subjected to emission cuts. But the demand was rejected by the EU and a new compromise emerged. The EU-US draft deal ended days of wrangling over discussions on combating global warming. The issue has kept delegates arguing well past the scheduled close of the two-week conference. Workmen in the Argentine capital began dismantling conference facilities while talks continued overnight. Give and take The agreement seemed in trouble when India - supported by China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - called for an amendment at the start of the final session on Saturday. Climate change: The evidence and futur predictions They insisted on a written guarantee that the deal would not lead to imposition of carbon reduction commitments on developing nations. The EU opposed this, saying the outcome of future talks should not be prejudiced. The differences between the EU and the US centred on talks on emission cuts when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The Europeans insisted on a series of informal meetings. In the end the US won its demand for one meeting, next May, but agreed it would be held over several days. The meeting will be held in Germany and "promote an informal exchange of information" on cutting harmful emissions and adapting to climate change, according to the draft text. The US - which pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 - had until then resisted any talk about longer-term action beyond 2012. "It is a give-and-take exercise and I think on balance we are very pleased with the outcome," said US lead negotiator Harlan Watson. Survival EU negotiator Yvo de Boer said the deal contained pretty much something for everyone. [Environmental activists dance tango wearing rubber boots to highlight the risk of floods in a warmer world] Tango protest: Activists have been demonstrating at the venue Kyoto commits signatories to trim output of six greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, by at least 5.2% by 2012, compared with 1990 levels. The Europeans have been seeking to involve the US and major emerging economies, such as China and India, in a post-Kyoto agreement on further emission reductions. The objections to the draft deal were not shared by all developing countries. South Africa and a number of smaller states supported the EU's position on Saturday. Island states threatened by rising sea levels are particularly keen to tackle global warming. Martin Puta Tofinga, environment minister for the Pacific archipelago of Kiribati, said: "I am talking about survival here, we need to move forward in a meaningful way." ***************************************************************** 11 UPI: Nuclear war a real fear in South Asia - (United Press International) December 19, 2004 By Anwar Iqbal UPI South Asian Affairs Analyst Washington, DC, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- No conventional war between India and Pakistan will remain limited for long and will gradually lead to a full-scale war and ultimately to a nuclear conflict, warns a study by a Pakistani defense official. The study, presented recently at a Washington think-tank, looks at various scenarios that could lead to an all-out war between the two South Asian neighbors, which conducted a series of nuclear tests in May 1998 and also possess nuclear-capable missiles. India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947 and are still engaged in 57-year-old conflict in the Himalayan valley of Kashmir which caused two of these three wars. Most of the possible war scenarios discussed in this study also focus on Kashmir where most international observers believe even a small conflict has the potential of escalating into a full-fledged war. Recently, both India and Pakistan have agreed to resolve their differences through dialogue and have taken several steps lessen tensions. The study by the Pakistani defense official envisages possible Pakistani response to a various proposals being discussed in India's defense circles for dealing with the Kashmir insurgency, which India blames on Pakistan-backed militants. The author, who wished not to be identified, argues that recently India has put forward the concept of a limited conventional war aimed at achieving a specific political objective, such as putting down the uprising in Kashmir. But the author warns that what India may see as "a limited conventional war," may not be accepted to Pakistan as such. "Similarly, what India defines as limited political perspective, may have a different implication for Pakistan," he adds. The author points out that most Western analysts and scholars are not comfortable with India's limited war doctrine and they also believe that "a limited war between India and Pakistan cannot remain limited for long." Comparing nuclear policies of the two countries, the author says that the central theme of Pakistan's nuclear policy guidelines is to act in a responsible manner and to exercise restraint in conduct of its deterrence policy. Pakistan, he said, also wants to ensure that its nuclear capability does not pose any threat to non-nuclear weapon states in the region. "Pakistan's nuclear capability is very clear for deterrence of aggression and defense of its sovereignty," the author said. India's declared nuclear doctrine, he said, is based on a posture of no first use of nuclear weapons. India, however, retains the option of using nuclear weapons in retaliation against a nuclear, biological or chemical attack on Indian territory or on Indian forces anywhere. "India's doctrine contains an inbuilt offensive design. The most dangerous aspect of this policy is that it keeps the option open for a conventional war against Pakistan," according to the author. Asked why Pakistan had used the option of a limited conventional war in Kargil in 1999, the author said Kargil is part of Siachen sector where limited battles have continued since 1984. Kargil, he said, was a continuation of the same ongoing skirmishes between India and Pakistan. The author then explains various options India may exercise for launching a limited conventional war against Pakistan. These include: -- Surgical strikes conducted along the Line of Control in Kashmir against Pakistani troops and jihadi camps, which India says Pakistan is running on its side of Kashmir. The Indians have already attacked along the LoC to prevent Kashmiri fighters from crossing into Indian Kashmir but never succeeded in acquiring the desired results. So far, India only uses artillery for launching these surgical strikes into Pakistani Kashmir but under the new strategy they will also use air strikes for hitting targets across the LoC. -- Hot pursuits that include physically crossing the LoC and battling envisaged jihadi camps or capturing certain areas. "It is an open option, says the author. "In any war scenario, India can use it." "But if they do so, Pakistan is not going to sit quiet. It will be an act of war which will not remain limited and it can escalate to a full-scale war and ultimately it can lead to a nuclear conflict if Pakistan's national interests are threatened," the author warns. -- Cold start strategy for which India has been raising eight to 10 combat groups to implement this new strategy. Each group will include forces from the army and the air force and, if required, from the navy. Each combat group will have a hard-hitting force of 3,000-4,000 troops and it should be able to achieve its objective in 72 hours, before Pakistan reacts or approaches the international community. The author says that Pakistan will not view an attack by this new force as a limited war. "For us it will be a full-scale war, and Pakistan will respond with full resources, and if we fail to contain the Indians, the nuclear factor will definitely come in." Explaining how a conventional war can lead to a nuclear conflict, the author says: "In a full conventional war, India has the potential to create impact. And if it does so, it will force Pakistan to use its nuclear option." Before the two countries acquired nuclear capability, India's strategy was to invade Pakistan and divide it into north and south. By severing all links between the two parts of the country, India hoped to force Pakistan to negotiate peace on New Delhi's terms. The Indians, the author said, also are considering a number of other options for launching a fast but effective incursion into Pakistan without causing a full-scale war. "But in the final analysis," he said, "all options to initiate war by India may look independent and workable but ultimately will lead to the same destination which both sides would like to avoid as responsible nuclear states." [UPI Perspectives] ***************************************************************** 12 Salt Lake Tribune: Cuban missile crisis not the only close call with doomsday Article Last Updated: 12/19/2004 01:13:31 AM Knight Ridder News Service MOSCOW - The Cuban missile crisis erupted in October 1962 when it was discovered that the Soviet Union had installed nuclear warheads on the island and targeted them at the United States. After a 13-day standoff, the Soviets withdrew the missiles. That is merely the best known of the close calls with nuclear war. There is also the ''autumn equinox incident,'' which involved Stanislav Petrov. There have been at least three others, according to Geoffrey Forden, a strategic-weapons expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. l On Nov. 9, 1979, in what Forden calls ''the training tape incident,'' three command posts showed a massive Soviet nuclear strike headed toward the United States. When ground-based radars showed no incoming missiles, no counterattack was launched. It was later determined that a training tape simulating a Soviet attack had been mistakenly inserted into the Pentagon's computer system. l On June 3, 1980, there was an alert of another Soviet attack, although there was no discernible pattern to the strike. ''The displays would show that two missiles had been launched, then zero missiles, then 200 missiles,'' Forden wrote in a study of the false alarms. The haphazard nature of the data quickly convinced analysts that there was a glitch in the system. l On Jan. 25, 1995, Norwegian scientists launched a large ''sounding rocket'' to collect data on the Northern Lights. The rocket was headed away from Russia, but Russian radar technicians thought it could be a U.S. Trident submarine-launched missile intending ''to blind Russian radars by detonating a nuclear warhead high in the atmosphere,'' Forden said. Russia's early warning satellites showed no confirmation of a U.S. attack, and the crisis was defused. © Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 13 Salt Lake Tribune: Hair-trigger still is nuclear rule Article Last Updated: 12/19/2004 01:13:36 AM U.S.-Russia: Keeping missiles ready to fly on a moment's notice may not be needed and could be dangerous By Mark McDonald Knight Ridder News Service MOSCOW - Just after midnight, in a secret bunker outside Moscow, the warning sirens began to blare. A simple, ominous message flashed on the bunker's main control panel: MISSILE ATTACK! It was no drill. A Soviet satellite had detected five U.S. nuclear missiles inbound. The control computer ordered a counterstrike, but the bunker commander, a nerdy lieutenant colonel named Stanislav Petrov, acting on a hunch, overrode the computer and told his Kremlin superiors it was a false alarm. The Soviet brass quickly stood down their missiles, saving 100 million Americans from nuclear incineration. This brush with Armageddon happened more than two decades ago, but nuclear missiles are still on hair-trigger alert in Russia and the United States. Today, they may be even more vulnerable to an accidental or renegade launch than they were in Petrov's day. ''The security of both nations should not be dependent on the heroic act or good judgment of a single individual,'' said Sam Nunn, the former senator from Georgia. Long active in anti-proliferation efforts such as the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Nunn is leading a campaign to persuade U.S. and Russian leaders to take their thousands of strategic nuclear warheads off hair-trigger alert, a status that remains in effect more than a decade after the Cold War ended. ''The chances of a premeditated, deliberate nuclear attack have fallen dramatically,'' Nunn said in an interview with Knight Ridder. ''But the chances of an accidental, mistaken or unauthorized nuclear attack might actually be increasing.'' In his 2000 election campaign, President Bush called the hair-trigger status ''another unnecessary vestige of Cold War confrontation'' that creates ''unacceptable risks.'' The first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which took effect 10 years ago this month, doesn't address hair triggering. Nor does the Treaty of Moscow, which Bush signed with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2002 to reduce the size of the U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals. Nunn believes the hair-trigger status has become ''the most dangerous element of our force posture.'' A hair trigger means missiles are launched - either from land or sea - upon the warning of an attack. That is, within about 15 minutes of a confirmed warning. In theory, the assurance that a retaliatory attack would be launched before the missiles could be destroyed would deter either country from trying a nuclear sneak attack. ''This is the logic of the Cold War - Mutual Assured Destruction,'' said Daniil O. Kobyakov, a nuclear expert at the PIR Center, a policy studies institute in Moscow. ''De-alerting requires a change in rationale. There's still a certain inertia on both sides.'' Nunn and others see that inertia in the Bush administration's refusal to consider the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and its request - since defeated in the Senate - for some $500 million for research on a so-called ''bunker buster'' nuclear weapon and low-yield ''mini-nukes.'' Russia, too, has some Cold War inertia to overcome. Putin proudly announced last month that Russia was testing ''the newest nuclear missile systems . . . that other nuclear states do not have.'' He offered no further details about the weapons. But it's the danger of accidental or maverick launches that most concerns atomic experts. That danger is heightened, in part, by the decrepit state of Russian defenses. ''The Russian Early Warning System is essentially useless,'' said Theodore Postol, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert on early warning issues and technology. Holes in Russia's satellite and radar networks, Postol said, mean U.S. submarines in the North Atlantic can strike Moscow with a two- or three-minute warning for the Russian capital. Launches from the North Pacific could hit the city with no warning at all. Postol also said a new Prognoz satellite warning system ''may never be in place.'' Petrov, the old bunker commander, the man who saved America back in 1983, nodded his head sadly when told of Postol's assessment. ''That's right, not enough satellites,'' he said. ''We never had enough.'' © Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 14 Independent: UK 'war crimes' claims examined in The Hague By Severin Carrell 19 December 2004 Claims that the UK has committed war crimes against Iraqi civilians are being examined by the International Criminal Court after complaints by a panel of legal experts. In a letter seen by The Independent on Sunday, the chief prosecutor of the ICC in The Hague has described the war crimes allegations as "one of the most significant" cases he has seen, and were being given "deserved weight" by his investigators. Luis Moreno Ocampo, the chief prosecutor, indicated that his office has now begun the formal process of gathering evidence about the claims and is now expected to ask the Government to explain its military strategy in Iraq. Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, said the move would cause "profound concern" for the Government. Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru MP and one of the most prominent critics of the war, added: "This is a highly significant development." The allegations against the Government were submitted earlier this year by a lawyers' group called PeaceRights, based at the University of Warwick, in a dossier written by a panel of eight leading experts in international law. The panel alleged that Britain had illegally used cluster bombs in civilian areas and illegally targeted power stations, depriving civilians and hospitals of water supplies and electricity. They also allege that British use of depleted uranium armour-piercing shells was negligent. Sir Menzies said the decision to study the allegations was particularly worrying for Tony Blair's government because the UK had been one of the main driving forces behind setting up the ICC. "The UK's conduct of warfare will now be open to acute review, and British conduct and policy will be judged by higher standards than ever before," he said. ***************************************************************** 15 Independent: UK secretly backs removal of nuclear chief By Clayton Hirst 19 December 2004 The British government, while publicly supporting the efforts of Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons, is secretly backing US plans to remove him. The US State Department and the CIA were last week reported to have tapped phone conversations with Iranian officials by Dr ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in an attempt to gather information that could discredit him. The Bush administration believes that Dr ElBaradei is taking too soft a line on Iran. In public Britain is closer to the IAEA position than Washington's: with Germany and France, it has led an EU initiative to persuade Iran to freeze its nuclear development. While the US refuses to rule out the use of force, the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has described bombing Iran's facilities as "inconceivable". It had been assumed that Britain was also well-disposed towards Dr ElBaradei, who has said he plans to seek a third term next year as IAEA chief, but a well-placed Whitehall source revealed that officials had secretly backed US moves to replace him. The Foreign Office gave its support to the plan weeks ago, and the Department of Trade and Industry, in charge of Britain's nuclear regulation, was also behind the move, according to the source. Dr ElBaradei has angered Britain and the US by contradicting their claims that Iraq was seeking to reconstitute its nuclear programme. The Foreign Office refused to comment, but behind the scenes it is justifying its decision to back the Americans on a technicality known as the "Geneva rule". This says senior UN officials should serve no more than two terms, which would bring Dr ElBaradei's tenure to an end next summer. Some of the IAEA's 35 board members are understood to want the 62-year-old Egyptian to stay on for a third term. To prevent his re-election, the US, backed by Britain, need to obtain 12 votes against him. The Washington Post reported last week that the US campaign is being driven by John Bolton, the hardline under-secretary of state for arms control, adding that the Americans would like to see Alexander Downer, the Australian Foreign Minister, as the new IAEA chief. Mr Downer has acknowledged being approached about the job, but is thought to be unwilling to mount a direct challenge to Dr ElBaradei, who has worked for the IAEA for 20 years. The dozens of taps on his phone are not thought to have uncovered any evidence to use against him. A spokes-woman for the Vienna-based IAEA said she was not surprised that Dr ElBaradei's phone had been tapped, but refused to comment further. Tehran, however, has said "it does not matter" who heads the IAEA. "We are not co-operating with the people of the IAEA, but ... with an international agency," said Hassan Rowhani, of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. ***************************************************************** 16 YWS: N. Korea Started Nuclear Reactor in February 2003 YONHAPNEWS WORLD SERVICE::ENGLISH NEWS http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/ 2004/12/19 22:46 KST SEOUL, Dec. 19 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has operated a nuclear reactor to generate electricity at its Yongbyon nuclear plant since February 2003, informed sources said Sunday. On Thursday, a Vienna-based North Korean diplomat told a Japanese media organization that the communist country had started producing electricity at the plant. But the news is nothing new, they pointed out. ***************************************************************** 17 Champlain Channel Engineers: NRC's Recent Inspection At Yankee Meaningless [TheChamplainChannel.com] [WNNE] POSTED: 9:15 am EST December 19, 2004BRATTLEBORO, Vt. -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has agreed to review whether the Vermont Yankee plant is in compliance with its design and therefore operating safely. The commission made the decision by agreeing to a petition submitted by nuclear industry whistleblowers Paul Blanch and Arnie Gundersen. The two engineers allege that NRC staff does not know what regulations the 33-year-old plant complies with or deviates from. Because of that they allege that the safety of the plant cannot be assured. Blanch and Gundersen also allege that without this information, the recent engineering inspection done at Vermont Yankee is meaningless. The engineers argue that the information is vital to determining whether Yankee should be allowed to boost the amount of power it produces. © 2004, Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. ***************************************************************** 18 Brattleboro Reformer: NRC to review whistleblowers' petition December 19, 2004 Brattleboro, VT By CAROLYN LORIé Reformer Staff BRATTLEBORO -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has agreed to review a petition on whether Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee complies with general design basis regulations. The petition was submitted in July by nuclear industry whistleblowers Paul Blanch and Arnie Gundersen. The two engineers allege that NRC staff does not know what regulations the 33-year-old plant complies with or deviates from. Because the NRC does not know, the safety of the plant cannot be assured, they contend. They also allege that without this information, the recent engineering inspection done at Vermont Yankee is meaningless. The inspection was the first to be done in a pilot program started by the federal regulator to ratchet up the level of oversight. It was also done to satisfy the Vermont Public Service Board's order of March 15, which made final approval of Entergy's uprate requested dependent on an engineering inspection. Blanch and Gundersen's petition was initially rejected by the NRC shortly after it was filed on the grounds that the petition process was for citizen conerns that could not be addressed in any other forum. Because the New England Coalition was going to address these concerns as intervenors in the uprate case, the NRC believed that it would unnecessary to address them in a petition. Though Blanch and Gundersen have worked closely with the coalition, neither is a member and their petition was filed indecently of the nuclear power watchdog group. In August, a teleconference was held, giving Blanch and Gundersen the opportunity to clarify their request. The NRC agreed to reconsider the matter. According to NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan, the fact that the coalition's contentions relating to design basis were rejected by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board helped tip the scales in Blanch and Gundersen's favor. Now that the petition is under review, the NRC will issue a final decision within a 120 days on whether it will be accepted. In addition to filing the petition, Blanch and Gundersen wrote a letter on Dec. 8 to Nils Diaz, chairman of the NRC, requesting that he intervene in the Vermont Yankee uprate case and insure that the plant complies with the necessary regulations. Blanch and Gundersen have closely monitored uprate case ever since Entergy applied for boost power by 20 percent in Feb. 2003. Both men have decades of experience in the nuclear industry. Gundersen is a nuclear engineer and was once senior vice president at Nuclear Engineering Services in Connecticut. In the early 1990s, he blew the whistle on his employer for improperly storing radioactive material. Gundersen was fired and dragged into a long legal battle. He now teaches math and science at Burlington High School. Blanch is an electrical engineer with more than 35 years of experience in the field. While working at Millstone Nuclear power plant in Connecticut, he reported safety violations to the NRC in the late 1980s. Blanch said he was retaliated against by both his former employer and the regulator for his actions. Both men are vocal critics of the NRC and the nuclear industry, which they allege are in often in collusion with each other to skirt safety regulations. Vermont Yankee officials have maintained that the plant meets all "applicable NRC regulations." The issue of design basis regulations surfaced at Thursday's meeting with the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel and the NRC. According to Wayne Lanning, NRC director of reactor safety, the plant is in compliance and the NRC staff well aware of the applicable regulations. Copyright ©1999-2004 New England Newspapers, Inc., ***************************************************************** 19 Japan Times: Water leak forces reactor closure Saturday, December 18, 2004 Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Friday it will suspend operations at the only running reactor of the six-reactor Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in Fukushima Prefecture, possibly from Monday, to investigate a suspected radioactive water leak. The utility said it will take necessary steps Sunday and stop the No. 6 reactor. Operations at five of the plant's six reactors have already been halted due to defects and regular inspections. The suspension of operations at the last reactor may have a significant impact on the power supply in its service areas, though the utility said it will have other power plants cover the loss while expecting winter power demand to peak in January and February. The utility suspects the presence of a water leak near a valve attached to a pipe inside the reactor containment vessel. Up to some 750 liters of water have been draining away every hour and the amount has been gradually increasing, but there is no radiation leak outside of the plant and little immediate impact on the safety operations of the reactor, it claimed. The Japan Times: Dec. 18, 2004 (C) All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 20 decatur daily: NRC: Deficiencies at Browns Ferry www.decaturdaily.com SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2004 By Eric Fleischauer DAILY Staff Writer eric@decaturdaily.com · 340-2435 A Nuclear Regulatory Commission official said Friday an inspection of Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant's Unit 1 revealed problems, but none that cannot be fixed. Caudle Julian, NRC's inspection team leader, announced the results of the inspection at a public hearing. The inspection began Nov. 29. After the meeting, Julian said he had "expected (the Tennessee Valley Authority) would have progressed further." He said TVA will begin correcting the deficiencies in February, with a repeat NRC inspection scheduled for late summer or early fall of 2005. The inspection evaluated all three Browns Ferry units for the purpose of considering TVA's application for 20-year license renewals. The deficiencies centered on Unit 1, a reactor mothballed 18 years ago. TVA is spending $1.8 billion to restart the unit, which would generate enough power for 650,000 homes. Among the deficiencies noted by Julian: + TVA had not implemented an aging management program for buried pipes. + TVA had not implemented a procedure for inspecting aging components. + While TVA divers were inspecting components in the water intake structure, the agency had not implemented a coordinated underwater procedure for pipe inspections. + Several components of Unit 1 needed a one-time inspection, even though the components do not need to be replaced on a regular basis. + TVA needs to implement a system that tracks all tasks that need to be accomplished before Unit 1's restart. + An alternate discharge path designed to permit the release of essential-equipment cooling water was clogged as a result of construction work. Julian said Units 2 and 3 were in good condition. If granted, the license renewal for Unit 1 would expire in 2033, Unit 2 in 2034 and Unit 3 in 2036. TVA spokesman Craig Beasley said the inspection results would not delay Unit 1's restart. Unit 1 is already licensed. Beasley said the deadline to correct the deficiencies in Unit 1 for licensure renewal is in 2013. "Overall, the work we're doing for license renewal is on schedule," Beasley said after the hearing. "There are some bits and pieces of it that are ahead or behind, but it is generally on track to coincide with the Unit 1 return to service." James Speegle, formerly employed by TVA contractor Stone &Webster, attended the hearing. He said the Louisiana-based company fired him because he complained to the NRC about defective painting methods. The company has previously denied the claim. NRC branch chief Steve Cahill of Atlanta said TVA is sandblasting all of Unit 1's painted surfaces and repainting them. Copyright 2004 THE DECATUR DAILY. All rights reserved. THE DECATUR DAILY 201 1st Ave. SE P.O. Box 2213 Decatur, Ala. 35609 (256) 353-4612 webmaster@decaturdaily.com www.decaturdaily.com ***************************************************************** 21 APP.COM: No time to waste ASBURY PARK PRESS Published in the Asbury Park Press 12/20/04An Asbury Park Press editorial The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted permission for the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey to remain open past its April 2009 license expiration date if the license renewal process extends beyond then. If there were any good news to be gleaned from that announcement, it's that plant owner AmerGen's request for an extension, and the NRC's decision to grant it, suggests that both know Oyster Creek is in for a tough, protracted battle. Under ordinary circumstances, one might think four years is time enough to determine whether the plant is worthy of a 20-year license extension. We're troubled, on the other hand, by the NRC's failure to attach an end date to the plant's ability to operate while its license renewal is under consideration. Plant owners who submit renewal applications five years prior to the license expiration date are automatically allowed to continue operating until a decision has been rendered. AmerGen missed that deadline, and doesn't expect to submit a renewal application until July 2005 -- 14 months late. The license renewal decision on Oyster Creek shouldn't be rushed. But the plant shouldn't be allowed to stay open indefinitely until a decision has been made. Oyster Creek is old and getting older. It poses a threat to health, safety and the environment of the region. Time is of the essence. ***************************************************************** 22 PittsburghLIVE.com: Power can be cleaner or cheaper, but not both - Sunday, December 19, 2004 By FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW A scolding has been received. The president of Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future objects to views expressed here last Sunday. It was pointed out that a new state law compels electric utilities to sell more power from cleaned-up "coal waste" and other fuels alleged to improve the environment. And that this will cost us more money, either as electric bill payers or taxpayers. Plus probably benefitting special interests like owners of coal piles and builders of windmills. But no, says John Hanger, the new law will save us money. Hanger is a former member of the state Public Utility Commission and a serious man. It is perfectly in order for him to advocate "renewable" and other environmentally favored electricity sources. Or even to argue that we should be willing to pay more for these. But it's an overreach to sell the public into thinking electricity can come to market cleaner and also cheaper. Environmental benefit vs. low cost is a tradeoff. Viewed realistically, one worthy goal can be weighed against others that might pay off better for the dollar. If Pennsylvania merely wanted utilities to sell cheap power, they could do it. It is their business to cut costs and improve profits. And yet look what they're now paying for natural gas! In four years its price has tripled. A shocking 15 of every 100 kilowatts distributed in the mid-Atlantic states now derive from the highest-cost fuel. Surely some of that can be saved, argues Hanger. Yet he seems to skip too lightly over inconvenient history. Electric companies never used to burn so much gas, not until they were forced to in a previous tantrum of environmentalism. Twenty-odd years ago the fury was against coal and nuclear. Both are relatively plentiful and cheap but deemed dirty or dangerous. Just try to get such a power plant approved anywhere in Pennsylvania nowadays. And so electric companies naturally switched to gas-fired generation, despite higher fuel costs. For this inflation environmentalists can take a bow. Gas executives of the past argued against wasting the stuff in steam boilers for kilowatts. It is a "premium fuel," they said; save it for home heating and cooking. Now, however, having helped elevate the price of natural gas two ways -- by forcing electric firms to burn too much of it and barring new supplies from being developed, in the Alaskan wildlife preserve, for example -- environmentalists now claim there's all this cheaper stuff available: waste piles and windmills, solar panels and municipal trash. Don't count on utilities voluntarily to purchase these bargains, however. Compulsion is required. Hence the new Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act, which while raising costs will wonderfully "create" industry, jobs and economic growth. But how much likelier might we prosper in a regime of lower taxes, less labor militancy, and truly low-cost power? Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future might consider such alternatives. Retired business editor Jack Markowitz Images and text copyright © 2004 by The Tribune-Review ***************************************************************** 23 News Journal: Nuclear power plant fix proposed in '03 www.delawareonline.com ¦ Federal agency meets over safety issues at Hope Creek By JEFF MONTGOMERY / The News Journal 12/18/2004 Hope Creek nuclear plant managers in 2003 proposed and then put off replacement of a troubled reactor pump this year, federal officials revealed during a Nuclear Regulatory Commission review Friday. The internal about-face came to light during an NRC session with PSEG Nuclear to review problems with a 20-foot-tall pump that circulates cooling water through the 1,100 megawatt plant's reactor core. The troubles include chronic and sometimes damaging vibrations, a deformed pump shaft and leaks in cooling-water seals. PSEG Nuclear, which operates the complex, has described the vibrations as similar to the industry average, although seals on the pump have failed in the past four times more often than a second unit at the bottom of the reactor. Watchdog groups have called on the NRC to require a major overhaul of the pump before Hope Creek restarts after a shutdown of more than two months caused by an unrelated steam-pipe break. They warn that a failure could cause radioactive water leaks or a full breach in the 100 million-pound-per-hour pump - increasing the risk of a meltdown if backup safety systems fail. The Hope Creek plant is one of three nuclear power plants in New Jersey just across the Delaware River from southern New Castle County. A large area east of Middletown containing more than 25,000 residents lies within the plant's 10-mile emergency evacuation zone. Company officials acknowledged Friday that they considered pump repairs last year. Company managers had agreed to replace the pump's drive shaft, which is up to 8 inches thick, during Hope Creek's 12th refueling cycle, which began in September of this year. But managers reversed course after interim repairs. A. Christopher Bakken III, PSEG Nuclear's president, last month estimated that the pump replacement would cost $7 million to $8 million, but denied that cost was a factor in the decision to delay the work. PSEG Nuclear expects to have spent $70 million on refueling and maintenance by the end of the current shutdown. Bakken said company managers were concerned about the time needed to prepare for the pump replacement and the potential for worker exposure to radioactive metal in the system. Company officials told the NRC that the pump problems add only a "low" additional risk to Hope Creek's operations. They said PSEG would add dozens of monitoring devices and take other early-warning steps to detect worsening vibrations or signs of a pump failure. "Our perspective is that the risk from not replacing the Bravo pump shaft in this cycle is a business risk and not a safety risk," said Michael Gallagher, a PSEG Nuclear vice president for engineering. Company officials now plan to do the work after the next refueling shutdown, about 18 months after the plant restarts. Neither federal nor utility officials could say Friday when the plant would seek approval to restart. The NRC plans to hold a public meeting beforehand. Raymond Lorson, an NRC materials and structural engineering branch chief, pressed company officials on those plans during the Friday meeting in Rockville, Md. "At one time, management was committed to replace the pump shaft, and that was the recommendation you have proceeded on, and that plan has changed," Lorson said. "What assures that you will replace the pump" in 2006? "We will make a commitment to replace it," Gallagher said Friday. Delaware has not taken a position on the shaft-replacement issue, but New Jersey has called on the company to replace the pump before it resumes power generation. Dozens of utility, industry and government representatives and members of the public listened to the session directly or by telephone hookup, but were not allowed to testify. NRC officials still are weighing options in the case. PSEG's current refueling shutdown, which ordinarily takes 60 days, began in late October. "While there's not an explicit regulatory hold, we certainly expect the right actions will be taken to ensure the plant can operate safely over the next cycle," Lorson said. The NRC's grilling targeted a utility already under intense scrutiny for chronic maintenance problems and accusations that plant work environments discourage safety complaints. Hope Creek's current refueling shutdown began 10 days early after a steam-pipe break forced workers to rapidly cool and idle the reactor core. During that incident, part of a high-pressure coolant injection pump failed, prompting workers to use other methods to control fluctuating temperatures and water levels in the reactor. Nancy Kymn Havin, a former PSEG manager who filed a whistle-blower complaint with the NRC after her firing in 2003, accused the utility of wasting the public's time. "This clearly is a safety issue and PSEG is really splitting hairs to say otherwise," Harvin said. "The company has a long-standing history of making promises and not delivering, and changing out executives." Federal officials began a review of the pump problem last month, after an engineering inspection report by a Chicago consultant supported the company's proposal to restart Hope Creek without replacing the pump. Federal regulators have the authority to block PSEG's plans to start without a pump overhaul. Contact Jeff Montgomery at 678-4277 or jmontgomery@delawareonline.com. © 2004 delawareonline.com/The News Journal ***************************************************************** 24 Accidental Nuclear War Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 01:41:02 -0500 This [below] dosen't even address nuclear winter long since played down by both sides with vested interest in maintaining their nuclear arsenals. Even if one side were to completely abolish their nuclear arsenals a launch, intentional or accidental can and may well yet induce nuclear winter destroying all warm blooded life in the northern hemisphere at least. According to the late Carl Sagan it would do so in the southern hemisphere, too. "The Russian Early Warning System is essentially useless," said Theodore Postol, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert on early warning issues and technology. Holes in Russia's satellite and radar networks, Postol said, mean U.S. submarines in the North Atlantic can strike Moscow with a two- or three-minute warning for the Russian capital. Launches from the North Pacific could hit the city with no warning at all. From: "Stephen Kobasa" Sent: Saturday, December 18, 2004 2:47 PM http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10433487.htm Dec. 16, 2004 U.S. and Russian nuclear missiles are still on hair-trigger alert By Mark McDonald Knight Ridder Newspapers MOSCOW - Just after midnight, in a secret bunker outside Moscow, the warning sirens began to blare. A simple, ominous message flashed on the bunker's main control panel: Missile Attack! It was no drill. A Soviet satellite had detected five U.S. nuclear missiles inbound. The control computer ordered a counterstrike, but the bunker commander, a nerdy lieutenant colonel named Stanislav Petrov, acting on a hunch, overrode the computer and told his Kremlin superiors it was a false alarm. The Soviet brass quickly stood down their missiles, saving 100 million Americans from nuclear incineration. This brush with Armageddon happened more than two decades ago, but nuclear missiles are still on hair-trigger alert in Russia and the United States. Today, they may be even more vulnerable to an accidental or renegade launch than they were in Petrov's day. "The security of both nations should not be dependent on the heroic act or good judgment of a single individual," said Sam Nunn, the former senator from Georgia. Long active in anti-proliferation efforts such as the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Nunn is leading a campaign to persuade U.S. and Russian leaders to take their thousands of strategic nuclear warheads off hair-trigger alert, a status that remains in effect more than a decade after the Cold War ended. "The chances of a premeditated, deliberate nuclear attack have fallen dramatically," Nunn said in an interview with Knight Ridder. "But the chances of an accidental, mistaken or unauthorized nuclear attack might actually be increasing." In his 2000 election campaign, President Bush called the hair-trigger status "another unnecessary vestige of Cold War confrontation" that creates "unacceptable risks." The first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which took effect 10 years ago this month, doesn't address hair triggering. Nor does the Treaty of Moscow, which Bush signed with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2002 to reduce the size of the U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals. Nunn believes the hair-trigger status has become "the most dangerous element of our force posture." A hair trigger means missiles are launched - either from land or sea [i.e., Trident] - upon the warning of an attack. That is, within about 15 minutes of a confirmed warning. In theory, the assurance that a retaliatory attack would be launched before the missiles could be destroyed would deter either country from trying a nuclear sneak attack. "This is the logic of the Cold War - Mutual Assured Destruction," said Daniil O. Kobyakov, a nuclear expert at the PIR Center, a policy studies institute in Moscow. "De-alerting requires a change in rationale. There's still a certain inertia on both sides." Nunn and others see that inertia in the Bush administration's refusal to consider the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and its request - since defeated in the Senate - for some $500 million for research on a so-called "bunker buster" nuclear weapon and low-yield "mini-nukes." Russia, too, has some Cold War inertia to overcome. Putin proudly announced last month that Russia was testing "the newest nuclear missile systems ... that other nuclear states do not have." He offered no further details about the weapons. A number of political analysts believe Putin's comments - which were unprepared remarks made to a group of senior commanders at the Ministry of Defense - were intended to boost military morale and for domestic political consumption. "I'm sure it was nothing surprising to the U.S.," said Kobyakov, noting that the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty obliges each side to provide technical data on any new nuclear weapons. Kobyakov and others believe Putin was probably referring to the Topol-M missile, which has long been in the Russian pipeline, and a sea-launched missile that's being developed. There are rumors in military circles in Moscow that the new missile could be maneuvered in flight, unlike current ballistic missiles, to foil the Bush administration's planned national missile defense system. One senior Russian general cryptically called it "a hypersonic flying vehicle." Government officials in both countries are keen to point out that they've stopped targeting each other with their nuclear missiles, although experts say this "de-targeting" is political hokum. The old targeting data and missile trajectories are stored in command computers, Kobyakov said. And missiles can be re-targeted in a matter of seconds: A couple of mouse clicks on a computer would put Washington, Miami or Moscow back in the nuclear crosshairs. But it's the danger of accidental or maverick launches that most concerns atomic experts. That danger is heightened, in part, by the decrepit state of Russian defenses. "The Russian Early Warning System is essentially useless," said Theodore Postol, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert on early warning issues and technology. Holes in Russia's satellite and radar networks, Postol said, mean U.S. submarines in the North Atlantic can strike Moscow with a two- or three-minute warning for the Russian capital. Launches from the North Pacific could hit the city with no warning at all. Postol also said a new Prognoz satellite warning system "may never be in place." Stanislav Petrov, the old bunker commander, the man who saved America back in 1983, nodded his head sadly when told of Postol's assessment. "That's right, not enough satellites," he said. "We never had enough." © 2004 KR Washington Bureau and wire service sources. ***************************************************************** 25 Scots danger from missing DU fragments Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 00:23:20 -0600 (CST) http://www.sundayherald.com/41214 Sunday Herald - 11 April 2004 Scots danger from missing DU fragments Army range lost pieces of killer shells By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor Depleted uranium (DU) is still contaminating the military firing range near Kirkcudbright in the south of Scotland, according to an unpublished Ministry of Defence survey. Since 1982 over 90 shells have been misfired or have malfunctioned and scattered fragments of DU, which is radioactive and chemically toxic, across the ground. Despite searches, some of the fragments have never been recovered. Local concern about the risks is going to be highlighted this week, when peace activists take to the streets to hand out cards to members of the public warning that DU could make them ill. The cards are deliberately designed to mimic those handed to troops in Iraq, and revealed by the Sunday Herald in February. Over the last 22 years over 6500 DU rounds have been fired at the Dundrennan range, near Kirkcudbright. The shells are meant to pass through shoreline target screens and drop more than two miles out to sea. But the latest official report passed to the Sunday Herald says that 79 have broken up in flight, 10 have hit the ground and four hit the target gantry. The report was written by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) Radiological Protection Services at Alverstoke in Hampshire. Higher levels of contamination have sometimes been found at points where malfunctioning DU rounds or fragments landed on the range, but this has been removed when MoD clean-up levels were exceeded, the report states. Other areas were less contaminated, but fenced off as a matter of good practice. But, the report adds: Some projectiles and fragments have not been recovered. The report reveals the results of the latest and most comprehensive survey of the range, which was carried out between September 2001 and March 2002. There are some isolated areas of DU contamination close to firing points and target gantries and it is recommended that any discrete fragments of DU should be removed from these areas, the report concludes. There are also a small number of areas where it would be advantageous to carry out further intrusive investigations to investigate some apparently anomalous monitoring results. One of the most polluted areas was around the Raeberry firing point and target, on cliffs overlooking the Solway Firth. But there the radiation readings were confused by the discovery of a luminous radium dial in an abandoned tank. The report recommends that this should be disposed of as radioactive waste and the area resurveyed. It adds: Given the known history of malfunctions that have occurred at the site in the distant past, it is very encouraging that this wide-ranging survey has resulted in the discovery of a relatively small number of previously undiscovered DU fragments. This is not, however, how it is seen by some local residents, who claim that there are many incidences of leukaemia along the Solway coast. We are not at war, but we live in a theatre of DU testing and this has the potential to cause ill health, said Chloe Bruce from the Galloway Coalition for Justice and Peace. The coalition is planning to distribute DU health warning cards in Kirkcudbright and Castle Douglas on Friday, prior to a public meeting in the evening. The focus of our action on April 16 is to highlight the hypocrisy of the MoD issuing warning cards to our troops, but not to the civilians they supposedly protect, declared Bruce. The MoD cards say: You have been deployed to a theatre where depleted uranium (DU) munitions have been used. DU is a weakly radioactive heavy metal which has the potential to cause ill-health. You may have been exposed to dust containing DU during your deployment. DU is a very hard metal produced as a waste product by the nuclear power industry. It is regarded by British and US armed forces as the best available material for armour-piercing shells, and has been extensively used in battles in Iraq and the Balkans. The British Armys Challenger 2 tanks fire a 120-millimetre DU round. DU has a unique battle-winning capability, says the MoD report. At present no satisfactory alternative material exists to provide the level of penetration needed to defeat the most modern battle tanks. A spokesman for the MoD insisted on Friday that the risks from DU contamination at the Kirkcudbright range were minimal, to say the least. The ministry carried out a comprehensive programme of monitoring at the site. It shows that levels of depleted uranium present a negligible risk to health, he said. There is no reliable scientific or medical evidence to link DU with ill-health of either service personnel or the general population. Copyright 2004 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088 ***************************************************************** 26 [DU-WATCH] throw away soldiers and disposable civilians Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 15:02:53 -0600 (CST) Throw Away Soldiers & Disposable Civilians Vive le Canada December 12 2004 http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/2004121214584783 World Tribunal for Iraq The records have to be kept and, by definition, the perpetrators, far from keeping records, try to destroy them. They are killers of the innocent and of memory. The records are required to inspire still further the mounting opposition to the new global tyranny. The new tyrants, incomparably over-armed, can win every war - both military and economic. Yet they are losing the war (this is how they call it) of communication. They are not winning the support of world public opinion . More and more people are saying NO. Finally this will be the tyranny's undoing. But after how many more tragedies, invasions and collateral disasters? After how much more of the new poverty the tyranny engenders? Hence the urgency of keeping records, of remembering, of assembling the evidence, so that the accusations become unforgettable, and proverbial on every continent. More and more people are going to say NO, for this is the precondition today for saying YES to all we are determined to save and everything we love. John Berger, 18.06.2003, Paris - Mieussy World Tribunal Premeditated Death and Destruction Unleashed Against a Sovereign Nation and People by Niloufer Bhagwat Opening statement before the Iraq tribunal hearings at Tokyo, 11 Dec 2004 Honorable Judges , Prosecutors , Amici Curiae , witnesses of the satanic death and destruction of the people of Iraq , of homes and livelihood , of hospitals , schools and places of worship; concerned citizens of Japan . We live in strange times. For even as a war rages fiercely in Iraq which in epic terms can be compared to a "Mahabharat" , a fierce war between the forces of right and wrong , justice and injustice , occupation and national liberation ; we resume this trial in the dark shadows of an "Apocalypse" which is the continuing military occupation and the reduction of the entire population of Iraq into the inmates of a vast concentration camp unmonitored even by the Red Cross and other UN and other International humanitarian organizations. Unprecedented in the annals of legal history, evidence is being recorded in this trial even as crimes continue to be committed with impunity, bringing home to us the reality of human existence, that words are never enough to defeat a brutal tyranny and even those of us who use words as tools are speechless in the face of the deliberate and premeditated death and destruction unleashed against a sovereign nation and people ,a member state of the United Nations waged solely to capture its oil resources and with that objective to subjugate and eliminate its population through one strategy or another. Millions of people in the world including in the United States , even before the aggression and military occupation commenced , much before we commenced our slow and painstaking examination of evidence and precedents , sensing imminent and unprecedented danger to the peoples of the entire world including to soldiers recruited to defend Republics and parliamentary democracies proceeded to pronounce their verdict against the doctrine of "continuous war " against one nation or another ;against the conversion of domestic economies into "war economies" even as thousands and thereafter millions were rendered unemployed .The people across continents opposed the policy of "blood for oil" and declared their rejection of this strategy of pre-emptive war for the control of resources of other societies and nations . The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War had estimated before the military onslaught that a fresh attack against Iraq would result in the deaths of anywhere between 48,000 to 260,000 Iraqi citizens and that post-war effects could take the lives of an additional 200,000 Iraqis excluding those killed in the 1991 attack on Iraq and those dead because of illegal sanctions imposed on the civilian population of Iraq by the Security Council and issue which I had dealt with in detail at Kyoto, quoting extensively from the statements of Mr. Dennis Halliday a former International Civil Servant of rare integrity who had resigned on the issues of sanctions claiming that it amounted to an illegal declaration of war on the civilian population. Now in the 19 month of the occupation by the military forces mainly drawn from the United States and UK along with other smaller contingents all members of the coalition of the aggressors ; Lancet Online Medical Journal based in the UK has published a study by American health experts and researchers at the John Hopkins School of Public Health, Columbia University and al Mustansiriya University Baghdad on the deaths of Iraqi civilians under the military occupation. The study confirms that : " Violent deaths were widespread.and were mainly attributed to coalition forces. Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children" The report went on to say that: "Making conservative assumptions , we think that about 100,000 excess deaths , or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes of coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths." Les Roberts and Gilbert Burnham who collaborated on the research published informed the media that they had evidence of the use of air power in populated urban areas. Richard Horton editor of the Lancet in an editorial emphasized that the "findings also raise questions for those far removed from Iraq in the governments of the countries responsible for launching a pre emptive war". The mounting evidence of the human catastrophe in Iraq not seen since the days of the Second World War prima facie indicates that the death toll may be more but not less than 100,000 and even the Lancet report however sincere has underestimated the death toll from all facets of the Occupation. In assessing the extent of Genocide it is necessary to focus on the destruction and attack on hospitals and health clinics to deny medical relief to those who could be saved if the Iraqi health service was not destroyed . This strategy was visible in the policy of organized looting and destruction of Iraqi hospitals in the weeks and months after the attack .The deliberate bombing of water pipes, the cutting off of water supplies to cities and town under siege by US, UK and other forces , destruction of sewage pipes and sanitary facilities , of electricity and heating have condemned millions in Iraq to consume contaminated water and food ,as a consequence the old, the feeble, and the children have been dying of diarrhea and related diseases caused by contamination of food and water with lack of medicines and health care leading to an increase in mortality. This is an indicator that apart from death by violence the Occupation has condemned people to death from malnutrition and lack of food , and water and food borne diseases with inadequate health care directly caused by the Occupation . The intrepid reporter Dahr Jamail reporting for a weekly in Alaska has disclosed that from what he had seen in six months in Iraq at close quarters , it was difficult to find any family in Iraq who had not had a member killed on account of the conditions arising from the Occupation. And what of the heroic city of Fallujah which dared to resist the mercenaries of US and UK Security Companies and Agencies, who have no combatant status under the Geneva Convention in any armed conflict , yet are to-day high profile in one war after another in Bosnia, in Kosovo , in Afghanistan and other theatres including in the trafficking in human beings as slaves .On 14th October 2004 sensing that the city of 300,000 was to be singled out for destruction as it had become a symbol of Resistance against the Occupation ; the people of Fallujah through several organizations of Teachers, Tribal Leaders, the Shura Council , the Bar Association, through the President of the Study Centre of Human Rights and Democracy forwarded an urgent appeal to the Secretary General of the United Nations in these words: " Your Excellency, It is obvious that the American forces are committing crimes of genocide every day in Iraq .Now while we are writing to Your Excellency , the American warplanes are dropping their most powerful bombs on the civilians in the city , killing and injuring hundreds of innocent people . At the same time their tanks are attacking the city with their heavy artillery" "On the night of 13th October alone American bombardment demolished 50 houses on top of their residents. Is this a genocidal crime or a lesson about democracy? It is obvious that the Americans are committing acts of terror against the people of Fallujah for one reason only : their refusal to accept the Occupation." "Your Excellency and the whole world knows that the Americans and their allies devastated our country under the pretext of the threat of the Weapons of Mass Destruction .Now after the destruction and the killing of thousands of civilians , they have admitted that there were no weapons found .But they say nothing about all the crimes they have committed .Unfortunately everyone is now silent and will not dignify the murdered Iraqi civilians with words of condemnation .Are the Americans going to pay compensation as Iraq has been forced to do after the Gulf War." " We know we are living in a world of double standards .In Fallujah , they have created a new vague target: AL ZARQAWI. This is a new pretext to justify their crimes, killing and daily bombardment of civilians. Almost a year has passed since they created this new pretext and whenever they destroy houses .they said We have launched a successful operation against AL Zarqawi. hey will never say that they have killed him because there is no such person. And that means the daily killings of civilians and the daily genocide will continue." "At the same time the representatives of Fallujah , our tribal leader has denounced on many occasions the kidnapping and killing of civilians , and we have no links to any group committing such inhuman behaviour." " Excellency , we appeal to you and to all the world leaders to exert the greatest pressure on the American administration to stop the crimes in Fallujah and withdraw their army.the city was quiet and peaceful when its people ran it .We simply did not welcome the Occupation. This is our right according to the UN Charter , International Law and the laws of humanity. If the Americans believe in the opposite they should first withdraw from the UN and all its agencies before acting in a way contrary to the Charter they have signed" " It is very urgent that your Excellency along with the world leaders, intervenes in a speedy manner to prevent a new massacre." This was the voice of the people of Fallujah appealing to the UN and to world leaders and what was the response? After the administration of the United States had taken care of the African-American voters and others through the Diebold electronic voting machines on the 8th November commenced the destruction of Fallujah which to the United States was a symbol of Iraqi resistance throughout the world. There is hardly a home intact in the city of Fallujah. The first attack by US forces with the Black Watch Regiments poised on the highways , was on the Fallujah hospitals and medical personnel who report the casualty figures and treat the wounded the messengers of the devastation and loss of lives .Dr Khamis al-Muhammadi of the Fallujan General Hospital has informed the media that she was seized and taken away by Occupation forces even as she was about to cut an unbilical cord during child birth; several doctors have been reported to have been killed and all hospitals and clinics destroyed. AL ZARQAWI like BIN LADEN was never captured despite the destruction of the entire city. Yet who can destroy the spirit of Fallujah which has survived many attempts of a whole century to crush it. Even as use of Depleted Uranium , of napalm, of banned chemicals spread throughout the world , Mr . Kofi Anan reacted to the appeal of Fallujah and pronounced what had already been known to millions that : "The Occupation of Iraq is illegal" with the Japan Times subsequently reporting that the Secretary General of the United Nations would pay the price for this statement with calls for his resignation despite past services rendered and though the real price for the fraudulently conceived FOOD FOR OIL program vests with the Security Council and the entire policy and its implementation was illegal as it sought to impose control over the resources of anther sovereign country to regulate production and distribution of Oil. With the war declared categorically illegal even by the Secretary General of the United Nations , on what basis does the US administration plan to increase troop levels .Why has it concealed from the world that it has already created four military bases in Iraq with the objective of permanent occupation . And what is the nature of the liberation of Iraq. Dahr Jamail reports that Baghdad after 19 months remains in shambles bombed out buildings sit as insulting reminders of unbroken promises of reconstruction 70 % of Iraqis at the very minimum are unemployed and there is a five mile petrol lines in an oil rich country.Engineers and doctors are unemployed and ply taxis .there are mass graves of innocent civilians in Fallujah and bodies with skins melted by napalm .bodies bloated and rotting devoured by dogs in the street after the complete destruction of the city of Fallujah water supply is frequently cut off from cities and towns targeted for attack children lie deformed by Depleted Uranium exposure in shattered hospitals from lack of treatment or even pain medication the Iraqi Red Crescent, other relief teams and the Red Cross has been obstructed in rendering aid mosques are bullet ridden with blood stained carpets." Even as governments and heads of State continue to deal with war criminals we must recall that the assault on Fallujah and other cities , towns and villages of Iraq are covered by article 6 (b) of the 1945 Nuremberg Charter and in the trials of the Far East or Tokyo trials among the war crimes defined include the" Wanton destruction of cities , towns or villages " crimes for which the Nazi leaders and other Generals and militarists were tried and executed .The acts perpetrated by US,UK forces in the onslaught on Fallujah constitutes a clear violation of the laws of Land War found in the US army Field Manual 27-10. What of the US, UK soldiers used as one half of the poor to kill the other half ;recruited from working class families from isolated and marginalized communities and towns affected by the economic recession and the downturn sweeping the United States and England with employment opportunities steadily decreasing. Christian Bollyn of the American Free Press , Washington D.C asked Lt.Col. Joe Yoswa if the US was using Depleted Uranium in Fallujah and received the reply that " DU is the standard round on the M-1 Abraham Tanks" which have been used in Fallujah. Because of the nature of poison gas exploded by the exploded DU shells, American Free Press asked Yoswa if the troops were protected from DU poisoning .Lt.Col. Joe Yoswa seemed unaware of the dangers posed by DU. Marion Falk a retired Nuclear scientist from Livermore Lab informed the media that US troops in DU contaminated battlefields are considered "throw away soldiers" who are dispensed with once exposed , and replaced by others who become throw away in their turn with risks of cancer ,deformed children from genetic damage and serious health problems. There is no higher purpose to fulfil for the "throw away soldiers" than the war and oil profits of the Corporations at stake from the continued occupation and the fear and unemployment at home; the bankrupting of the US economy are two sides of the same coin of which one side is the Occupation and the other side is the whipping up of fear and frenzy in the United States. Uranium Weapons There is a direct connection between the appropriation sought for the war at the cost of sweeping budget cuts and the steady elimination of social security funds and post office savings .There is also a direct connection between the nature of elections held in the United States , in Kabul where Mr.Hamid Karzai the representative of the UNOCAL Company cannot stir out of Kabul , and the elections proposed to be held in Iraq under conditions of Occupation and coercion . In all three countries the strategy is the same ; coerce the electorate and declare an election as "won" after which without a constitutional mandate enslave the majority of the people by obfuscating political ,economic and social rights reducing countries to garrisons .In recognition of these similarities and the impact of the illegal war on the people of the United States that the anti-war coalition has supported the "absolute right of the people of Iraq to resist the occupation of their country" and declared their own resistance to re-instate the draft and to prepare for resistance if conscription returns. In what has far reaching consequences for International Security the movement has declared that "it is incumbent on us to reject that notion that smaller countries must disarm and leave themselves defenseless at the demand of Bush and the Pentagon. Such demands are not only hypocritical , irrational and unjust , they amount to little more than a pretext for more invasions and occupations " . In the context of the fact that the resistance to the Iraq war has more than one front with the the military front in Iraq and the political front in the Americas it is necessary in view of the Security Council having acquiesced to the Occupation despite the fact that it is illegal that the General Assembly should be moved by a member of the United Nations to initiate moves for the vacating of the aggression against Iraq under Article 35 read with article 11 (2 ) . Any organization in which some powers have the hegemony of the veto can never fulfill the requirements of a new democratic international order . Prof. Niloufer Bhagwat 11 December, 2004 At Tokyo This article was posted at Crimes and Corruptions of the New World Order News ***************************************************************** 27 [DU-WATCH] silver bullet, black dust - looking for a cause, Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 15:02:47 -0600 (CST) 'Silver Bullet,' Black Dust - Chapter 1: Looking for a cause, looking for a cure. Many vets suspect the magic weapon of the 1991 Persian Gulf War caused their continuing health problems. The Pentagon dismisses the dangers. dailypress.com BY BOB EVANS December 12 2004 http://www.dailypress.com/news/specials/dp-du1,0,6357027,print.story?coll=dp-breaking-news For Matt Rohman, the symptoms began about the time that his unit returned to its barracks in Germany after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. First came a fatigue that sleep couldn't cure. Then severe pains in his joints. His teeth started falling out; his hands and feet went numb. Asthma grabbed his lungs. Debilitating migraine headaches squeezed his skull for days at a stretch. Sleeplessness and other symptoms followed. Now every day for Rohman, 40, begins the same: waking up in his York County home and trying to figure out how many of the pills and inhalers from the Veterans Affairs hospital he'll have to use. He wants to swallow just enough to keep his lungs working and the pain at tolerable levels. He's willing to ignore some of his problems to keep some of the drugs in their bottles. That way, his wife, 22-month-old son, 11-year-old daughter and what's left of his life don't disappear into a medicinal fog. At best, he'll spend the day with no feeling in his feet or hands, watching his kids play, pretty much stuck to a chair or the couch. You could stub out a lit cigarette on any of his fingers or toes, and he wouldn't feel it because of the neuropathy - a nerve disorder that leaves him unable to feel anything. On a good day, he's able to hobble across the room or maybe go out with his family for an hour or two. The bad days bring pain in his head too intense for him to be much help to his family or himself. Those days can also mean swelling in his extremities so severe, the tips of his toes and fingers look like toadstools and he can't walk at all. After years of testing and examinations, doctors from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs have concluded that something happened to Rohman's brain or central nervous system during the war. The neurological and other symptoms make that clear. Repeated tests, including brain and body scans, show that his brain is swollen. But there's no evidence of a physical injury or cause, those doctors' reports say, leaving them stumped about why he's so debilitated. The neurological and other symptoms that Rohman suffers are mirrored in tens of thousands of others who served in the war. When Rohman filed his final plea for VA benefits related to wartime service, the document noted that Rohman had 11 of the 13 officially recognized symptoms consistent with Gulf War service-related illness. One of the 13 applied only to women. The government lists 20 active theories of what caused these problems. But it provides no answers. It doesn't even know how many veterans have these problems or where they live. All that's known is that of the 697,000 who deployed in the war, more than 183,000 had service-related disabilities at the end of 2003, with thousands more applications pending. That's 26 percent of the total, three to five times higher than the rate of disability after World War II (9 percent), the Korean War (5 percent) and the Vietnam War (9 percent) for a comparable period. All from a war that lasted 100 hours, while the others went on for years. Why? Perhaps it was the highly potent bug repellent that the military used to keep away the sand fleas and other pests in the deserts of Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Perhaps it was the experimental pills that troops were ordered to take to ward off the effects of disease and chemical weapons. Perhaps it was the residue of their own government's most effective weapon for defeating enemy armor - the tank-killing projectiles made from depleted uranium. In the past few years, while the media and public have been paying attention to another war in the region, doctors and researchers have been finding out more about depleted uranium and how it might be responsible for some of the problems suffered by veterans of the Gulf War. Some of this research hasn't been made public yet, while other findings made ripples only among doctors and professors still in the hunt for a cause and a cure. There's now physical evidence that depleted uranium, once in the body, migrates to the brain, lungs, bones and testicles of rats and mice. Researchers have found that even a single particle placed in contact with human bone cells can set off a chain reaction of cell and chromosomal abnormalities of the type thought to cause cancer. They've also found that rats with depleted uranium in their bodies develop tumors and cellular mutations consistent with cancer. And that mice who breathe in tiny bits of the metal - just like the soldiers on the battlefield - get genetic mutations thought to be indicative of cancer. PENTAGON UNWILLING TO FUND NEW RESEARCH INTO ILLNESS Despite their efforts, these researchers haven't been able to show why brain scans on Gulf War vets show abnormalities that don't appear in scans of other servicemen and women who didn't go to the war. They just know that it's further proof that there's a real problem among those vets. They also can't say why men and women who deployed in the Gulf War are twice as likely as others their age to get a fatal neurological disorder known as ALS - Lou Gehrig's disease. The questions demand answers. To get them, more money and scientific patience is needed, these scientists say. But the main source of that money for the past 13 years - the Pentagon - says it isn't interested in pursuing new research into the health problems of its former soldiers. Especially when it comes to studying the health effects of using depleted uranium on the battlefield, a use that gives the United States and its allies a lopsided advantage in ground wars. Pentagon officials have long dismissed the possibility that any of the veterans' problems are the result of the radioactive toxic dust that results when depleted uranium weapons hit hard targets. This fall, they released a $6 million study that they labeled "Capstone" - a title picked because they say it should close the book on whether inhaling depleted uranium on the battlefield is a health risk worth considering. A number of scientists say it's too soon to stop investigating the possible dangers of these weapons, especially when there have been so few experiments that show what happens when animals or humans inhale the special type of dust created when depleted uranium weapons hit their targets. None of the recent research that points to possible problems with the weapons was included or addressed in Capstone, not even the work performed by government scientists or researchers financed by the Army and Department of Defense. The Army officer who oversaw the study says that's because there was a conscious effort to base the work on "mainstream science," instead of "preliminary data." Critics say that's the government's way of simply ignoring the emerging and potentially damning evidence on the subject. With the building body of data, they say, this is no time to label something the final word on depleted uranium's dangers. The skeptics include a panel of scientists, doctors and veterans appointed by the Bush administration to study the nature and status of research into the cause of the veterans' illnesses. The panel issued its first report last month and said more research into possible health effects from depleted uranium was needed. "We're not finished," says Lea Steele, the panel's scientific director. The committee's report says poorly planned and administered research programs are partly to blame for having so little to show for the $247 million spent on research into Gulf War illnesses so far. It points no fingers, but it does note that 74 percent of that money has been controlled by the Pentagon and that most of it has gone to support the now-discounted idea that stress and psychological problems account for the physical symptoms that vets suffer. Steve Smithson is a member of the panel and the assistant director of the American Legion's Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation Division. He says the Pentagon has been trying to prematurely end the debate about possible health hazards from depleted uranium for years. "These are very effective weapons," he says, "and they want to keep them." WEAPONS' POTENTIAL DANGERS WERE KNOWN FOR DECADES Depleted uranium was used in combat for the first time in the Gulf War. The weapons proved so effective, troops began calling them "The Silver Bullet," in honor of their near-magical ability to kill the enemy. The weapons enable U.S. tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles to fire accurately and decisively from much greater distances than other anti-tank weapons used in ground combat. That means U.S. troops can kill the enemy before the enemy can fight back. Last year, when Operation Iraqi Freedom began, the weapons' effectiveness played a big role. It was a reason commanders said they could whip Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein with a smaller, lighter - but more mobile - force than they used in the 1991 Gulf War. Before that, many people thought that depleted uranium wasn't much more than low-level nuclear garbage. Depleted uranium is the byproduct of making "enriched uranium" for nuclear weapons and fuel. The process involves stripping natural uranium of its most radioactive components for use in bombs and power plants. What's left is "depleted" uranium. In the early days of making nuclear weapons, this byproduct was considered a problematic waste. But almost immediately, weapons researchers began trying to make something with it. It took more than 20 years, but by the late 1970s, they'd succeeded. The Army, Navy and Air Force each had a weapon using the material. But they had to wait to see their creation anywhere except a test range. The first war that involved U.S. forces using tanks against hostile forces who also had tanks was the Persian Gulf War. One of the weapons' special properties creates what all acknowledge is the downside of these weapons. When those weapons strike something hard, they slice through the target, getting sharp where other metals get dull. They get sharper by shedding millions and millions of tiny bits of flaming depleted uranium, spitting out the bits like shavings from a pencil in a high-speed sharpener. Once cool, those bits become mildly radioactive toxic black dust particles, most of them small enough to inhale deep into the lungs. The Capstone study says those toxic particles will likely remain in the lungs for years. U.S. researchers have known that the weapons' use created a long-lived radiological risk to the lungs since at least the early 1980s. They've also known that these tiny bits of black dust pose a potentially catastrophic health hazard for troops on a battlefield. None of that was revealed publicly when the weapons were put to use. It wasn't until the mid-1990s that the government officially and publicly acknowledged that troops in the Gulf War had been exposed to this hazard and should have been warned and trained about the dangers beforehand. By then, thousands and thousands of troops had started suffering the debilitating pains, neurological problems and other symptoms. Rohman was one of them. 'WE ACTUALLY SLEPT UNDENEATH DESTROYED TANKS ...' For three months after the fighting stopped, Rohman and his buddies in a 3rd Armored Division combat engineer squadron were ordered to crawl around in the black dust left over from successful shots of depleted uranium. He was ordered to live and breathe in it while finishing the job of destroying damaged Iraqi tanks and munitions, to make sure that the enemy's equipment couldn't be used again. "We actually slept underneath destroyed tanks and stuff because we figured they wouldn't fire at their own destroyed vehicles," Rohman says. For months, the black dust covered many of those vehicles, rubbing off on Rohman's clothing, getting on his skin and often into his food and water. Hundreds of other soldiers were ordered to do the same work, while thousands of others might have come in contact with the dust through curiosity or happenstance. Neither Rohman nor the military can say how many of them got sick like he did. Rohman says none of the other soldiers from his unit came from nearby towns or cities, so he lost touch with them while focusing on his own deteriorating health. Researchers say the military didn't keep, or pursue, the kind of information that would help them make such determinations. They also say one of the biggest obstacles to solving the riddle of the illnesses is that people who appear to have the same experiences reacted differently - some getting ill and others staying well. Many soldiers didn't pay the black dust any notice during the war because the military had never told them about the dangers. "We didn't know any different," Rohman says. The Pentagon acknowledged seven years after the war was over that it should have provided training that advised troops to avoid contact with the dust or to use safety masks and suits in the situations that Rohman described. Instructions on depleted uranium weren't added to the Army's regular training program until the late 1990s. Since then, the requirements for telling troops about depleted uranium have been gradually relaxed for troops who don't fire or handle the weapons. The Army has a long list of medical and training requirements that must be met before a soldier is supposed to be sent off to war. The checklist for Transportation Corps soldiers deploying from Fort Eustis to Iraq is long. But for the past two years, it hasn't included a requirement that soldiers in transportation units receive depleted uranium hazard training, even though the Army's own radiological experts said in 1997 that they should. Military and medical officials say it's too early to tell what the effect will be on troops involved in the continuing fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Department of Defense policy - spurred by members of Congress critical of the way that the military handled health complaints after the Gulf War - requires all soldiers, sailors and airmen who come home from overseas wars to fill out a multipage questionnaire about their health and what they experienced. The only specific mention of depleted uranium exposure on the questionnaire involves one item near the end of a list of 22 possible exposure risks. The list includes such mundane items as "paints," "sand/dust" and "vehicle or truck exhaust fumes." Some soldiers returning from Iraq say that because they were never given instruction on the possible hazards, they didn't know what to choose when given the options of "No," "Sometimes" or "Often" on this question. Army, Air Force and Navy officials say anyone who checks "Sometimes" or "Often" is questioned further and tested, if necessary. They also say any man or woman in the military who deployed and asks for a test for depleted uranium will be given the test, no further questions asked. Department of Veterans Affairs officials say the same applies to those who served in the Persian Gulf War. PROMISE TO PERFORM TESTS NOT FULFILLED FOR VETERANS Yet, Rohman's medical records show that he made VA officials aware of his exposure to depleted uranium six years ago. He's sure that he told them earlier, but many of his records have been lost, and the earliest date that he can document is 1998. When the Daily Press called the VA administrator responsible for the local testing program to find out why this problem persisted, she immediately agreed that a mistake had been made and took steps to bring Rohman in for evaluation. He still hasn't been tested. It isn't clear whether things have gotten any better for veterans of the more recent fighting in Iraq. The Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, checked in the past year the health forms filled out by more than 1,000 troops who'd returned from the Gulf War. It found that very few of those who'd chosen "Sometimes" or "Often" got tested, said Dan Fahey, a congressional adviser who participated in a briefing on the study. Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, a veterans advocacy group, says he's talked to dozens of soldiers just back from the current war who told him that doctors can't diagnose their ills but have refused to test them for depleted uranium exposure. The soldiers even showed him medical records and other paperwork to prove it, he says. They won't go public for fear retaliation from the military. Robinson and Smithson say they won't be surprised if there are thousands of veterans with undiagnosed, unexplained illnesses once the totals are in from Operation Iraqi Freedom and its aftermath. Rohman says he won't be surprised, either. He wonders whether this new generation of warriors will succumb to the same undetected poisons that he believes hit him. His brothers still wear military uniforms and could be called to combat tomorrow - one a Marine the other in the Army. PENTAGON: WE'RE CONVINCED OUR METHOD IS ACCURATE The Pentagon will say only that as of October, 20,000 troops had been evacuated from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for noncombat-related illnesses and injuries and that, on average, about 5,800 troops are on "medical hold" each day because military doctors haven't finished diagnosing or treating them. Only five people have tested positive for depleted uranium from the most recent war - all victims of friendly fire who had depleted uranium shrapnel in their bodies, the Pentagon says. Getting tests for depleted uranium exposure from the U.S. military and VA might be a waste of time, anyway, say Robinson and experts who have developed those tests for other countries. "Even the test they offer is a less-than-respected test," Robinson says. Scientists overseas have spent years creating a more accurate method of detecting whether there are even tiny amounts of depleted uranium in the human body. They say the U.S. government relies on testing procedures and equipment that have a high margin of error and are capable of discerning the presence of depleted uranium only in limited circumstances. They say it's not much of a test if you really want to find radioactive and toxic dust in particles small enough to the inhaled. The British government officially takes the same stance as the United State on the dangers of depleted uranium, but it's financed a much more exacting test capable of finding out whether someone has even small quantities of depleted uranium in their system. It doesn't settle whether the depleted uranium is harmful, but it can identify the veterans' who definitely have it in their bodies. That would be an important step forward, several researchers say. British veterans of the Persian Gulf War began signing up for the tests in late September. Rohman would like to take it, but the U.S. military says it has no need to use it or even find out how it works. "We're convinced that our method is sufficiently sensitive and accurate enough," said Lt. Col. Mark Melanson, manager of the health physics program at the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, the Army's public health agency. 'OUR HUMAN RESEARCH ... HAS A LOT OF SEVERE LIMITATIONS' He says the government labs used to identify soldiers with depleted uranium in their bodies can detect the substance as long as there are at least 3 to 5 nanograms of uranium per liter in a day's worth of urine. The British test also involves a 24-hour urine sample. But it can accurately detect depleted uranium when only 0.1 nanogram of uranium per liter is present, making it capable of detecting amounts 30 times smaller or more. The British also say their degree of uncertainty at these lower levels is less than 1 percent, a much smaller margin of error than the U.S. tests. Melanson and other U.S. officials say anything below 3 nanograms of uranium in such a sample is clearly inconsequential. They cite studies of the known, respected science involving the health effects of uranium, specifically studies by the U.S. Institute of Medicine and the World Health Organization. But the co-author of the Institute of Medicine study, as well as an epidemiologist who was asked to review it to make sure it was scientifically sound, say that wouldn't be an accurate reading of the work at all. Establishing a lower limwit for inhalation of depleted uranium hasn't happened, they say, because too little is known about how the substance reacts with tissues in various parts of the body. "We have no idea," said Carolyn Fulco, the co-author of the Institute of Medicine study. Beate Ritz, an epidemiologist and expert on cancer at the University of California, Los Angeles, agrees: "Our human research, as valuable as it is, has a lot of severe limitations." Ritz, one of the scientists and health experts whom the institute asked to review its work to ensure accuracy, says it might take decades of following Gulf War veterans to have even a hazy picture when it comes to cancer. Fulco and others note that the Institute of Medicine and the World Health Organization said explicitly that the data on depleted uranium's health effects were limited and that more research needed to be done. Still, Melanson thinks that the 50 years of research considered by the studies is enough to show that low levels of uranium or depleted uranium in a human's blood, lungs and other body tissue isn't a problem. Most of that research involved uranium millers, miners and processors. It fed the government health standards that the Pentagon used in the Capstone study to establish that inhaling or breathing the dust from the weapons shouldn't be considered a significant health risk on the battlefield. Alexandra Miller, a radiobiologist at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, says using that research to dismiss the possible health effects of depleted uranium weapons is a mistake. There are many studies of uranium miners' health that indicate problems, she says. In addition, she says, the studies of miners and millers are, in many ways, irrelevant to the experiences of soldiers on the battlefield. When it comes to depleted uranium, she says, there simply hasn't been enough research on animals to know what happens when rats or humans inhale the dust from these weapons. The amount of depleted uranium dust that can be inhaled without harm simply isn't known yet, she says. "We don't really know," she said. "Not even for a rat." ----- Of Rodents and Radiation - Chapter 2:From the nose to the brain. Experiments with rats find that inhaling dust from depleted uranium weapons can cause genetic mutations. dailypress.com BY BOB EVANS December 12 2004 http://www.dailypress.com/news/specials/dp-du2,0,6750244,print.story?coll=dp-breaking-news In a New Mexico laboratory, researchers have been sliding rats into clear Plexiglas tubes with small holes at the end, openings just big enough for the animals' noses to poke through. Once in the tubes, the rats' noses jut into a central space called a plenum. All the air that they breathe comes through that space. The plenum sits at the center of the tubes, like the hub of a big Plexiglas wheel. When the experiment begins, the air in the plenum is laced with carefully measured, breathable specks of depleted uranium. Depending on the dose, the rats spend 15 minutes to six hours in the tubes, breathing the uranium-infused air. The researchers carefully have determined the amount of uranium and the length of time to mimic what happens to soldiers on a battlefield. Afterward, some rats are dissected to find out whether the uranium that they breathed shows up in their brains, lungs, livers, larynxes, tracheas or bronchial lymph nodes. The rest of the rats will meet the same fate a few days, weeks or a year later - to test long-term effects from the same exposure. The goal is to see whether the tiny pieces of uranium have migrated through their bodies into places that might explain the illnesses suffered by veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute in New Mexico, home of the Plexiglas tubes and the rats, is one of the few places in the world where scientists are able to accurately simulate what happens when impurities in the air are inhaled. Some of the groundbreaking research on the effects of air pollution has been done there, and the U.S. military has turned to this lab since the 1970s to try to determine the health effects of inhaling depleted uranium. Lovelace's labs typically are used to investigate hazards to the lungs. Government engineers and scientists have known for decades that the tiny bits of depleted uranium created when the weapons are used pose a health hazard in the lungs and kidneys. They've used computers and other methods to try to determine the details. The Pentagon has spent millions of dollars to prove that there's no significant radiological or toxicological risk from the pieces of depleted uranium on a battlefield that are small enough to be inhaled. Their studies have focused on potential damage to the kidneys and lungs, where decades of science based on studies of uranium miners, millers and processors predict the most significant effects will be shown. Scientists in New Mexico are looking at those organs, but they have their eye on a different, more important target this time: the brain. In the controversy over depleted uranium weapons, nearly everyone agrees that soldiers and others in the immediate area of a blast at the time of impact might be endangered. They also agree that people who later crawl around in the dust or on the destroyed vehicles should use protective gear. The big disagreement involves whether the dust can simply blow around in the desert away from the explosion, be inhaled, and kill people or make them sick. If this type of minimal contact is harmless, it means depleted uranium is an unlikely cause of the debilitating illnesses suffered by many Gulf War veterans. If inhaling just a little bit is shown to cause dysfunction in the brain, central nervous system or other parts of the body, the U.S. military might be forced to give up using one of its most effective weapons for land warfare. The Pentagon has dismissed this danger repeatedly and says there's no serious harm from inhaling depleted uranium on the battlefield - not when someone is in a tank struck by one of the weapons and certainly not afterward, from the dusty residue. A number of scientists say that's a premature conclusion and that important questions need to be answered first. SIMULATED MARCH THROUGH DESERT YIELDS A SURPRISE One of those scientists, professor Johnnye L. Lewis of the University of New Mexico's College of Pharmacy, is trying to find out what happens to the brain and other parts of the central nervous system when someone inhales a lot of the dust and what happens when they inhale a little. Unless there's evidence that depleted uranium is somehow getting into the brain or central nervous system, it's unlikely to be linked to the neurological and physical problems that many Gulf War veterans suffer. Doctors haven't been able to figure out why the veterans have those medical problems, and little is known about the effect that depleted uranium has on the brain. The Army officially says depleted uranium is entirely safe in these scenarios, but it does want to know more. So it's financing Lewis' work. Some of the tasks in Lewis' experiment are done with colleagues at Lovelace. But most take place in her lab at the university, a few miles away. Before exposing the rats to uranium, Lewis and her colleagues spent months analyzing data, reading research reports and talking to Army generals about how troops move around during a war. They had to find other labs, such as Lovelace and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where the different parts of the experiment and analysis could be authoritatively done. The goal was to design experiments that duplicated, as accurately as possible, what real soldiers on a battlefield encountered, Lewis says. Once the scientists were satisfied, the Lovelace rats went to work. In the first year, Lewis and her co-workers tested what they called the "tank-impact scenario," which involved exposing several groups of rats to very high doses of uranium (500 milligrams per cubic meter of air) for 15 minutes. That experiment simulated what would happen to someone in an enclosed area, such as a tank, when a depleted uranium weapon struck it. What came next - detecting the very small quantities of uranium that entered the rats' bodies - takes specialized equipment, Lewis says. To analyze the rats' brains, for instance, Lewis and her co-workers used a machine to cut the brains into slices thinner than 4/10,000th of an inch. She also had to find another lab capable of detecting small quantities of depleted uranium in such small samples without destroying them. Lewis picked Livermore, where a particle accelerator the size of a football field bombards the brain slices with protons. The barrage of protons produces X-ray signals and other readings that allow scientists to determine the presence or absence of uranium and other substances, as well as how much there is in the sample being tested. When the Livermore scientists did their analysis during the first stage of the experiment, they found no evidence of uranium in the rats' brains, Lewis says. Some of the rats died from kidney damage before they were scheduled to be sacrificed and analyzed, but this was not too surprising. Years of research on uranium miners, millers and processors showed that the kidneys are particularly vulnerable during exposure to uranium dust. Then the scientists began testing what they call the "march-through scenario," simulating what might happen if soldiers were ordered to walk through an area where tanks or other equipment had been hit with depleted uranium weapons. In this scenario, the rats are exposed to very small quantities of uranium (only 1 milligram per cubic meter of air) for six hours, Lewis says. Nothing remarkable happened. The next phase involved finding out what happened if the insides of the rats' noses had been irritated by dust, like the small-grained Iraqi desert sand, before the animals are exposed to the uranium. To do this, the lab used a component of bacteria that produces the same kind of bodily reaction as the powdery sand that blasts at troops in the Iraqi desert. After the irritation, the rats got the low dose of uranium in their air tubes. This time, the rats had an important story to tell. "In that case, in a small subset of animals, we did see uranium in the brain," she says. The depleted uranium was even tracked from one part of the brain to another, linked by a neural pathway. That means it could go deeper in the brain, Lewis says. The results are preliminary and involved only two of six rats in one group, But Lewis says the implications could be very important as the experiment is repeated and if the same results occur. She says it will be at least a year or more before she can say for sure how significant her findings are. Lewis expects this phase to produce the best test of what most soldiers experienced in the war. "If somebody's inhaling dust in the desert, they're likely to get some sort of irritation," she says. Later, when they walk or drive near battle sites, the dust would have been kicked up by others walking or driving ahead of them or by the winds, she says. EXPERIMENTS COULD EXPLAIN HARM TO NERVOUS SYSTEMS Scientists generally think that the body has a natural protective barrier called the blood/brain barrier. When impurities, such as toxins, get into the body, they are generally absorbed into the bloodstream. Blood cells, enzymes and other factors then break down those toxins before they get to the brain, protecting it from harm. It appears that the uranium found in those two rat brains bypassed that process and is the result of direct neural transfer, Lewis says. That means the uranium probably went directly from nerve endings in the nose to the olfactory tissue in the brain, bypassing cleansing agents in the blood. "I feel some confidence that this is a plausible pathway," Lewis says. If so, toxic aspects of inhaled uranium might also be carried directly from nerves in the nose to other parts of the brain to do damage elsewhere - and might explain many of the problems that Gulf War veterans are having, she says. Those organs and parts haven't been looked at yet, she says. If the migration of uranium to the brain can be repeated with more rats, the next step is to see how far into the brain the uranium can go, whether it reaches the spinal cord and central nervous system, and what effect it has, Lewis says. The big question is whether depleted uranium can be linked to the neurological problems experienced by Gulf War veterans. Mohamed B. Abou-Donia and other Duke University researchers tested that possibility with rats and found evidence that the answer is yes. Because of tight restrictions placed on depleted uranium (the military and Department of Energy strictly regulate its ownership and use), they used a chemical compound very similar to the toxicity and radiological properties of what's used in military weapons. The substitute, uranyl acetate, is frequently used by military and other government researchers as a substitute for depleted uranium in experiments. Abou-Donia and the scientists at Duke injected rats with various concentrations of the compound and found that high doses killed the rodents. Low doses significantly affected their ability to perform several sensory and motor-skills tests, such as gripping and walking on a beam. When they examined those animals' brains, they found changes in chemicals that affect how well the brain could function. "The present results suggest that low-dose multiple exposure with uranyl acetate causes long-term neurobehavioral deficits after the initial exposure has ceased," the Duke scientists wrote in the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior in 2002. They said the work showed that the weapons' use could affect the central nervous system, as well as the peripheral or neuromuscular system of the body, and that more research was needed. SCANS OF THE BRAIN SHOW REDUCED CHEMICAL LEVELS Rats and mice can tell us much about how chemicals will affect the human body. But sometimes, exposures that cause damage to the little animals do nothing to humans. Do the illnesses suffered by Gulf War vets have a link to the brain? A number of researchers have used brain-scanning equipment to study that question and say the answer is yes. Using the scanners to look at the brains of sick Gulf War veterans, they've consistently found evidence of reduced levels of chemicals required for proper brain functions. In the veterans, the scans zeroed in on parts of the brain thought related to chronic fatigue syndrome and the veterans' neurological problems. Researchers say it's unlikely that these brain abnormalities existed before the war because the soldiers' behavior, physically and mentally, would have been noticeably impaired and prevented deployment. But the tests can't confirm what caused the problems or exactly when they began. The suspects for the cause include depleted uranium dust, the use of heavy-duty bug spray, experimental anti-chemical-warfare medicine, vaccinations for diseases peculiar to the Persian Gulf region, genetics and exposures to toxins after the war. Some of those are known to affect the brain; others are being evaluated. So far, the uranium in Lewis' experiments has shown up only in the olfactory bulbs of the rats' brains, an area where damage isn't likely to cause the symptoms that Gulf War vets suffer. The smaller particles might be more dangerous, she says, because they're more likely to end up in the nose and therefore are available for transport into the brain. These smaller, lighter particles are also the ones more likely to be in the air - at nose level - hours, days or months after use of depleted uranium weapons, kicked up by vehicles, boots or winds. Lewis suspects that in subsequent experiments, with longer exposures or higher doses, there will be evidence of depleted uranium migrating deeper and deeper into the brain, past the olfactory bulb and into places that might be linked to the debilitation that some of the veterans have experienced. It's possible some people, and some rats, are more capable of withstanding the onslaught of the dust or uranium, perhaps because of stress, genetics or a combination of factors, she says. That would explain why some rats' brains succumbed to the one-two punch of dust and uranium and others didn't. It might also explain why some soldiers have come down with these symptoms, while others in their unit didn't. SUSPECTED PREDICTOR OF CANCER FOUND IN VETS' BLOOD Lewis says she hasn't completed the part of her research that involves looking at whether the inhaled uranium changes the neurochemicals in the brain - the chemicals that make the brain function well or poorly. That would help show whether inhaled uranium affected the neurological health of veterans exposed to it. Her research follows work by other scientists who found that tiny pellets of depleted uranium implanted in the bodies of rats have resulted in collections of uranium in the brains, bones, kidneys, testicles and lymph nodes. Terry C. Pellmar, a researcher at the Armed Forces Radiobiological Research Institute, found evidence of changes in the brain as a result of those depleted uranium implants. Some of the rats initially exhibited loss of mental function, but the effects weren't substantial or long-term, she says. Tests given to Gulf War vets with shrapnel in their bodies have shown no demonstrable evidence of impairment in their mental capacities either, she says. Memory loss, confusion and other mental impairments are among the symptoms that other veterans of the war complain of. The Pentagon and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs have been following several dozen Gulf War veterans who have small pieces of depleted uranium shrapnel in their bodies, testing them periodically for various health problems and indicators of carcinogenic and genetic abnormalities. A few soldiers thought to have inhaled depleted uranium dust are also in the study. The most recent installment of this continuing study said no significant harm to the soldiers had been found, other than the obvious wounds of war that they'd suffered. The Pentagon often points to this research when asked about the health effects of the weapons, noting that these veterans likely have larger quantities of depleted uranium in their bodies than anyone who inhaled some dust on a battlefield. What Pentagon officials don't mention is what some researchers in the program think is a potentially important finding. Richard J. Albertini of the University of Vermont's Vermont Cancer Center is one of several co-authors of the shrapnel study. His part of the work included examining cells taken from the veterans to look for genetic changes that might prove harmful. Albertini's specialty involves research into the hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyl transferase, or HPRT, gene, one of the 30,000 genes that every human being has in their cells. Albertini is particularly interested in HPRT genes in T-lymphocytes - white blood cells important to the body's ability to ward off diseases, including cancers. Albertini said blood samples from three of the 39 veterans in the most recently published shrapnel study showed an increased frequency of mutations of the HPRT gene, compared with earlier samples. The three-out-of-39 ratio is a statistically significant number, the study says. Many scientists think that increased frequency of mutation in HPRT genes is a predictor of cancer. That's why HPRT was included in the study. Albertini says the link between HPRT mutations and cancer hasn't been proven. A much larger study than those available to date would be needed to know for sure. Then would come research to determine what rate of increase might be indicative of a greater risk of cancer. Right now, he says, "it's a canary in a coal mine. Just because the canary dies does not mean the miner is going to die, but it's a warning." Cancer isn't one of the documented problems experienced by Gulf War veterans, Albertini says. Experts say it's too early to tell whether increased rates of cancer will be part of the problems those veterans suffer, though some forms might become evident now. RATS THAT INHALED PARTICLES, DEVELOPED MUTATIONS At this point, what's important about the mutation-rate increase is that it might indicate the possibility that veterans exposed to depleted uranium face increased risk of cancer in the future, Albertini says. The increased mutations in the HPRT gene among veterans spurred another researcher in New Mexico, Vernon Walker, to hook up more rats to tubes to breathe in uranium. "Lo and behold, he did get an increase in the frequency" of mutations of the HPRT genes in the rats, Albertini says. "So we think this sort of confirmed our hypothesis." That hypothesis says "the important exposures are from inhalation, where all blood cells can be exposed, not from the shrapnel in a few where the exposure is local," Albertini adds. All blood flows through the lungs and lymph nodes as part of the process of carrying oxygen to all parts of the body, while only a small fraction of someone's blood would come close enough to the tiny pieces of embedded shrapnel in veterans, Albertini says. He says it makes sense that even a tiny piece of radioactive dust in someone's lung would have the potential to alter the genetics of more blood cells than shrapnel or a pellet. That's why he thinks the potential for long-term harm from inhaled uranium dust is greater than that from shrapnel, especially given the small pieces the military leaves in the body when its doctors decide that more damage would result from surgery. Albertini says he'd like to test that theory further, but so far, the military hasn't made any samples available from troops with more recent exposures. Obtaining newer samples is crucial for determining whether there's a link between depleted uranium weapons and the mutations and, ultimately, cancer, Albertini says. The rate of mutations in HPRT genes returns to normal after a period of time, he says, so the veterans of the 1991 war won't exhibit this warning sign forever. In the most recent examination of the veterans with shrapnel, he says, only two people exhibited the increased mutations seen in the earlier study. That doesn't mean the other soldiers aren't at a higher risk of getting cancer, he says. The HPRT gene mutations are a marker that indicates that the radiation is having an effect on the blood. But they aren't the mutations suspected of causing cancer themselves. Those mutations are likely continuing, if the theory is correct, and could cause the chain reaction of effects that result in cancer, Albertini says. Samples from troops exposed to depleted uranium dust in Operation Iraqi Freedom haven't been made available yet, but Albertini says further studies of how HPRT genes react in relation to depleted uranium are being planned. The object is to determine whether the relatively weak alpha radiation from small pieces of inhaled depleted uranium cause the type of mutations in the HPRT genes that were seen in the veterans, Albertini says. Other researchers have seen similar genetic effects from exposure to depleted uranium. A German study found that 16 British soldiers who reported inhaling depleted uranium during their wartime service had five times the frequency of chromosomal aberrations as a group of 40 people who hadn't been exposed to the dust. The aberrations were of the type known to be indicative of radiation that alters the atomic structure of matter, the study said. None of the British veterans had depleted uranium shrapnel wounds. Whether those veterans actually inhaled depleted uranium - and how much of it is left in their bodies all these years later - is unknown, the German scientists wrote. At the time of their research, there was no reliable way to measure whether someone had inhaled very small amounts. The German researchers noted that studies had found the type of uranium that results in the black dust from depleted uranium weapons remains in rat lungs longer than other forms of uranium. The high, intense heat that's part of forming the depleted uranium dust makes the particles not as prone to be dissolved by the blood and other fluids. On one of the few occasions when scientists have been able to perform an autopsy on a Gulf War veteran thought to have inhaled the black dust, lymph nodes related to the lungs showed unexpectedly high concentrations of particles from the decay of uranium, the German study says. RESEARCH INDICATES A LONG LIFE IN THE LUNGS Depleted uranium dust created after the weapons' use and small enough to inhale lasts for years in simulated lung fluid, according to a Pentagon study released this fall. The study says the smaller pieces tended to take longer to dissolve half their mass. That means those bits, though small, are in contact with living tissue for a long time. Researchers concerned with the safety of the weapons say that could prove important, as the conventional wisdom in science says that chemical toxicity, not radioactivity, is the likely source of any possible ills from inhaled depleted uranium. Like other heavy metals (such as mercury, zinc and lead), uranium is a toxic chemical. Like those other metals, it's also a naturally occurring element. Nature puts a certain level of those metals into the food chain, the air we breathe and the water we drink. Mankind and modern life has added more, via air pollution and working with what's found in nature to create plumbing, machines, weapons and other tools. As a result, our bodies and their waste products, including urine, contain some degree of all these metals. How much is a safe level and how much is too much is the question, whether it be figuring out safe levels of mercury in fish or how much black depleted uranium dust a soldier can inhale without incident. The toxic effects of these metals typically act like poisons carried through the bloodstream. They collect in parts of organs - often the kidneys or liver - and can destroy them. Uranium miners, millers and processors exposed to too much uranium dust typically have kidney damage; little tubes in the organs break down and malfunction. Depleted uranium's radiological properties act differently. Until very recently, scientists thought that the effects of radioactivity occurred in very predictable paths and patterns, depending on the material, how big it was and whether it was emitting alpha, gamma or X-rays. Like all uranium, depleted uranium emits mostly alpha radiation. Typically, alpha radiation isn't considered very dangerous because its power doesn't go very far and is easily blocked by a sheet of paper, clothing, the top layers of skin and other mundane items. But once an alpha radiation source gets in the body, it's another story. Then there's no shield to protect the cells and tissue. The radius of alpha radiation is relatively short, but it's long-lasting and therefore powerful. STUDY ANSWERS ALL QUESTIONS, PENTAGON SAYS Pentagon and other government officials say risk from that radiation is negligible because the soldiers, even those caught in a tank hit with the weapons, wouldn't inhale enough depleted uranium dust to create a problem. The military spent five years and $6 million to gather data on what actually happens when tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles are hit with depleted uranium. It released the data and its findings this fall in what it called the Capstone Study - a title designed to tell people that their research was the final word on the subject. Real vehicles and vehicle parts were hit with depleted uranium weapons in a large building in Aberdeen, Md. Sophisticated machines capable of gathering and counting millions of tiny pieces of dust recorded the data. Researchers with respirators, wearing devices that could also collect the depleted uranium and other dust particles in the air, wiped the vehicles down afterward and examined the insides. It was the most complete and sophisticated examination of what happens when depleted uranium weapons strike a vehicle, Lt. Col. Mark Melanson says. He manages health physics programs at the Army's public health agency, which commissioned the study. Using the established government standards for acceptable levels of uranium inhalation and ingestion, the researchers in Capstone found that even under the worst circumstances, people in a tank or Bradley Fighting Vehicle hit by a depleted uranium weapon would incur no significant health risk. They wouldn't inhale enough for there to be a toxicological danger to their kidneys or other organs, the study says. And the tiny bits that remained in the soldiers' lungs, even the ones that stayed there for years and years, would not be of sufficient quantity to pose a radiological hazard anywhere near as great as smoking cigarettes, it says. Possible radiological problems from the weapons have been dismissed by many in the military for years. "The issue is chemical, not radiologic, risk," says Melissa A. McDiarmid of the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the VA hospital in Baltimore. McDiarmid directs the government's monitoring of Gulf War veterans with shrapnel in their bodies and has participated in other government-financed research. McDiarmid says the tiny amount of black depleted uranium dust that a soldier could inhale several hundred feet away from an explosion is inconsequential. Even if particles are inhaled in that scenario, they wouldn't constitute a big enough dose of radiation or toxic chemical to change lives, she says. Fifty years of research based on the experiences of workers in the uranium mining, milling and processing industries prove that scientists have good models to use to compute what is - and isn't - a harmful dose of inhaled uranium, whether it's depleted or not, she says. CHALLENGING THE MODEL ABOUT HOW RADIATION HARMS The government standards used in the Capstone Study are based on the research on those occupations and its hazards. Scientists then develop a model of what's safe and unsafe, using computers and theories. Many well-respected scientists say the models are fine but aren't a substitute for testing the models' assumptions out on living creatures or cells. Tests on animals often prove that the models are wrong, they say. Alexandra Miller is a scientist at the Armed Forces Radiobiological Research Institute. Miller has spent much of the past 10 years testing whether very small particles of alpha radiation can have lasting and catastrophic effects on cells. She and others around the world are challenging the conventional wisdom that it takes large doses of radiation - either in a single blast or prolonged exposure - to make someone sick or die. The research on uranium industry workers used to support the argument that depleted uranium dust in battlefield situations isn't a significant hazard is limited, Miller and these scientists say. There are studies that contradict each other, that are poorly done and don't really match up with what troops in the 1991 war experienced, they say. Their point isn't that the weapons are more dangerous than the military says. They simply say that now is too early to reach a conclusion about safety and that more work needs to be done. In one recent experiment, Miller exposed human bone cells to alpha particle radiation from depleted uranium and other forms of uranium. Scientists have known for years that when uranium or depleted uranium gets in the body, more of it tends to migrate to the kidneys and bone than any other parts. Miller says her experiments with the bone cells had two significant findings. First, she found that the cells went through transformation from normal cells to cancer cells. When those cells were then injected into animals, tumors developed. A genetically similar group of animals used for comparison didn't develop those tumors, she says. Although the precise cause of cancers isn't known yet, scientists think that these sorts of transformations get the carcinogenic ball rolling, Miller says. The results of that experiment weren't too surprising, she says, though they were important. The surprise came when she started counting how many cells turned to cancer cells and noticed how far away they were from the source of the radiation. "BYSTANDER EFFECT" BRINGS UNEXPECTED DAMAGE TO CELLS Scientists have been working with uranium long enough to be able to say with certainty how much alpha radiation a given piece of uranium or depleted uranium holds. Extremely sensitive devices can measure it. Scientists therefore think that they can predict in advance how far away the radiation effects can be felt. But when Miller applied those rules of science to the cells in her laboratory, the rules didn't work. Those same rules underlie the Pentagon's Capstone Study. "We actually got more damage to chromosomes than we expected, based on the number of alpha particles," she says. "That was the first surprise to me, as a scientist." Other scientists and other experiments have made similar discoveries. Now they're trying to figure out what it means and why it happens. Miller says the transformations might result from uranium's toxicity, not its radioactivity. But she suspects that it's a combination of radiation and toxicological effects. The radiation starts the damage, and the toxicological properties carry it further, she theorizes. The radiation causes another change, and the process is repeated, over and over, until many more cells are altered. Another possible explanation is that the cells damaged by the initial radiation excrete a hormone or other chemical that spreads to a nearby cell and damages it, Miller says. The damage gets repeated, over and over. No one is sure of the cause, but scientists do have a name for it: the "bystander effect." That simply means cells, chromosomes and genes that are nearby - but not in the path of actual radiation - are affected. The effect seems to be more pronounced with alpha radiation, as opposed to the other varieties, Miller says. "It's actually changed radiobiology dogma in the past four to five years," providing a new look at a hundred years of science, she says. Whether it will also change what science considers a healthy or unhealthy dose of radiation remains to be seen. So far, the government agencies and industrial groups that set what are deemed to be safe levels of exposure haven't revamped their standards in light of the bystander effect, Miller says. Now is probably too early for that, she says, but by the same token, it's too early to say we know enough about depleted uranium to decide what's safe. When Miller published her first paper on how uranium might damage cells, it was 1998. She says only two other scientists had published experiments on the topic before that. More work needs to be done, she says. Similarly, Miller says, more work needs to be done on inhalation of depleted uranium, as opposed to ingestion. When uranium is swallowed, most of it passes immediately through the digestive system and is eliminated in body waste. But when a particle small enough to be inhaled directly lands on lung tissue - with no clothing, paper or outer layers of skin to block the path of the alpha radiation - what happens to that lung tissue? "We simply don't know," she says. "The body of data out there on uranium is limited." McDiarmid thinks that we do know enough to reach the conclusion that inhaled depleted uranium isn't a significant radiological danger. And she thinks that the failure to acknowledge this might be hurting ill veterans from the Persian Gulf War. "What we have here is a witch hunt for an explanation," she says, fed by the public's fear of radiation and fanned by opponents of the weapon and ignorance of the actual science. "The thing I'm worried about with everybody chasing depleted uranium is that we're missing the boat," she insists. With so much attention on depleted uranium, other possible causes for the veterans' illnesses go unexplored and the veterans aren't helped. Her most recent research paper about the veterans with shrapnel in their bodies also points to another risk of pursuing this line of inquiry into depleted uranium, known by scientists and others as "DU." "Questions regarding the long-term health consequences of these exposures have fueled considerable debate regarding continued use of DU in combat," it says. If the weapons are proven to create toxic dust that swirls around the desert and contaminates the air in virtual perpetuity, the United States, Great Britain and their allies might be forced to give the weapons up. They might also be forced to spend billions of dollars cleaning the dust up and taking it out of the desert. Lurking in the background of this scenario is the argument by some antinuclear activists, Iraqi physicians - and the former rigime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein - that the black dust left behind from the Persian Gulf War caused deformities, cancers and death for thousands of Iraqi children since 1991. So far, those statements have been buried behind the curtain of Saddam's tyranny, beyond verification by credible groups. Now that Iraq is open to outsiders and run by a friendly interim government, credible medical and scientific experts have started work to figure out whether these stories are propaganda - or the worst sort of bad news. The United Nations and other organizations recently began financing studies to determine whether the depleted uranium left behind in Iraq and Kuwait in the two wars are linked to health problems in the two countries. The head of the U.N. effort - Pekka Haavisto, a former Finnish minister of the environment - said this fall that the British government gave his workers information on places where it used depleted uranium weapons but that the U.S. government hadn't. U.S. military munitions experts say losing depleted uranium from this country's arsenal would be a disaster - and might cost more soldiers' lives in combat than scrapping the weapons might save. ----- How Dangerous Is Depleted Uranium? Some Say Radioactive Arms Cause Gulf War Syndrome Hearst Newspapers December 10, 2004 http://www.thechamplainchannel.com/helenthomas/3989401/detail.html The Pentagon claims that American forces and Iraqis are not at risk from contact with depleted uranium, which is used in armor-piercing munitions and protective tank plating. That's baloney to some scientists who insist the widespread use of depleted uranium during the American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq poses a grave danger. Despite attempts to reassure the public, the Pentagon remains on the defensive. Depleted uranium, or DU, is a radioactive by-product from the industrial process used to enrich uranium. It is the leftover uranium-238 that results when scientists seek to transform naturally occurring uranium into uranium-235, which is used to produce nuclear energy. The Army values munitions manufactured from depleted uranium because, when fused with metal alloys, they are considered the most effective warhead for penetrating enemy tanks. Also, because depleted uranium is twice as dense as lead, the Army uses DU as armor plating. Once a depleted-uranium round strikes its target, the projectile begins to burn on impact, creating tiny particles of radioactive U-238. Winds can transport this radioactive dust many miles, potentially contaminating the air that innocent humans breathe. This inhalation may cause lung cancer, kidney damage, cancers of bones and skin, as well as birth defects and chemical poisoning. The 1991 Persian Gulf War was the first conflict to see the widespread use of depleted uranium, both in armor-piercing projectiles and in the protective armor of the new generation of Abrams tanks. Studies by the Pentagon and the National Academy of Sciences established no linkage between DU and the "Gulf War Syndrome" ailments after the first Gulf War. Some 70 people are still under study for the effects of contact with DU, with particular emphasis on what happens when people breathe the air where DU projectiles have vaporized. Dr. Helen Caldicott has dedicated her life to warning about the hazards of nuclear war and the effects of DU. Born in Melbourne, Australia, she first became interested in nuclear hazards when she saw the movie "On the Beach" at the age of 15. The film deals with a nuclear accident that leads to a global nuclear war. Growing up, she led a movement in Australia against the French atmospheric nuclear tests in the Pacific and tried to win a ban on Australian uranium mining. She became a medical doctor and later founded Physicians for Social Responsibility, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. She also has been a nominee for the same prize. She is a strong, vocal antiwar activist. In her book, "The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush's Military-Industrial Complex," Caldicott claims that DU qualifies as a nuclear weapon because of its low-level radioactivity. She said that huge quantities of DU were created during the Cold War when the United States made thousands of nuclear weapons. "Weapon researchers and developers have now succeeded in putting this toxic 'nuclear waste' to use through the creation of depleted uranium bullets and shells," she added. The weapons can cause enormous damage in Iraq, she said. Depleted uranium particles are soluble in water and the waters around the battlefields, as in Iraq and Kuwait, are at risk of radioactive pollution, Caldicott said. She warned that DU maintains radioactivity for billions of years and can concentrate in the food chain, with children and babies more vulnerable to the carcinogenic effects of ingested radiation than adults. Medical reports from Iraq indicate that childhood malignancies are seven times more frequent than they were before the first Gulf War. The complaints of the veterans of the first Gulf War are "surprisingly similar in pattern to the various pathologies induced by uranium exposure as described by the U.S. military," Caldicott said. Some 50,000 to 80,000 veterans were afflicted with Gulf War Syndrome during that war, and there has been no definitive answer -- but a lot of dispute -- as to the cause. The military use of depleted uranium is still being questioned. But one thing is certain: War is dangerous to your health. (Helen Thomas can be reached at the e-mail address hthomas@hearstdc.com). Discuss Helen Thomas' Opinion ----- Controlled Press Ignores Criminal Obliteration of Fallujah American Free Press Christopher Bollyn 12/12/2004 URL : http://www.anti-imperialism.net/lai/texte.phtml?section=CE&object_id=23321 Medias and disinformation The controlled press has scrupulously avoided discussing the devastation and prima facie evidence of war crimes committed during the U.S. siege and assault of Fallujah. As Americans prepared for Thanksgiving, an estimated 100,000 residents of the besieged Iraqi city of Fallujah, trapped in their homes, struggled to survive without fresh food, water or electricity, reportedly cut off by U.S. forces on November 8. Meanwhile, on the streets of Fallujah, a city of more than 350,000, dogs gnawed on bloated and rotting corpses that remained unburied for weeks. Thousands of families in Fallujah were reported to be in a critical humanitarian situation after U.S. forces prevented the delivery of relief supplies. An Iraq Red Crescent Society (IRCS) humanitarian aid convoy, reportedly blocked by U.S. troops for more than two weeks, was allowed to deliver aid to residents in the heart of the city on November 25. On Thanksgiving, U.S. forces permitted the IRCS convoy carrying thousands of food parcels, blankets, tents and medical supplies to enter the city and allowed one of the clinics to be converted into a temporary hospital to treat the injured. Rana Sidani of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva, Switzerland however, told American Free Press on Nov. 30 that "many civilians" were still prevented from receiving aid or medical care. At the beginning of the U.S. operation in Fallujah on Nov. 5, a hospital in the central Nazzal district of Fallujah was "reduced to rubble" as a result of U.S. air and artillery bombardment. "Only its fagade, with a sign reading Nazzal Emergency Hospital, remained intact," Reuters reported. "A nearby compound used by the main Falluja Hospital to store medical supplies was also destroyed," witnesses told Reuters. Fallujah's main hospital was occupied by U.S. forces when the ground offensive began. These actions are apparent violations of international humanitarian law. "Bodies can be seen everywhere and people were crying when receiving the food parcels," Muhammad al-Nuri, a spokesman for the IRCS in Baghdad, said. "It is very sad. It is a human disaster." Al-Nuri said that it is difficult to move in the city due to the large number of dead bodies in the streets. The ICRS estimates there are more than 6,000 dead in Fallujah, al-Nuri said. AFP asked Major Jay Antonelli at the Coalition Press Information Center (CPIC) in Baghdad if the ICRS estimate of 6,000 dead in Fallujah was credible. "We do not keep a count of dead Iraqis," Antonelli said. Asked the same question, the ICRC's Sidani said, "We don't know." Antonelli said, "U.S. forces never blocked aid convoys from reaching the wounded. We only recommended to the aid convoys that they should not enter the city because the MNF [Multi-National Forces] could not guarantee their security or safety." "The ICRC is very worried about the humanitarian situation in Falluja," Sidani said. Asked what the ICRC was doing to alleviate the suffering in Fallujah, Sidani said: "We are reminding the parties of their responsibilities under international humanitarian law." It should be noted that the U.S.A. and Britain, the belligerent occupying powers in Iraq, are the two largest contributors to the ICRC, providing more than 42 percent of its budget for field operations. A second convoy from Baghdad, headed by Dr. Said Ismael Haki, the IRCS president, delivered aid to Fallujah on Nov. 26. "There are no houses left in Fallujah, only destroyed places." Haki said. "I really don't know how the people will return to the city. No one will find their homes." As U.S. troops in Fallujah engaged in what has been described as the most intense urban combat since Vietnam, the controlled press scrupulously avoided discussion or footage of the devastation of the rebellious Sunni city. For example, during the second week of the attack, rather than discuss the widespread devastation of Fallujah, U.S. television news programs focused largely on a brawl between basketball players and fans in Detroit. Lt. Col. Brandl, commander of the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, was filmed giving a "pep talk" to his marines: "The enemy has got a face he's called Satan," Brandl said. "He's in Fallujah, and we're going to destroy him." At least 136 U.S. soldiers were killed during November in Iraq, and more than 800 were wounded, most of them in Fallujah, making it the most costly month, and operation, in terms of U.S. lives lost since the invasion of Iraq began in March 2003. FOR WHAT CAUSE? Michael Ware, Baghdad bureau chief for Time magazine, who has been in Fallujah during the fighting, said U.S. actions in Fallujah are "creating the nightmare that we are seeking to prevent." "I stood there as I saw American boys die," Ware told Chris Matthews of MSNBC on Nov. 24, "I mean, a man shot at close range, blown apart by a rocket propelled grenade. He dies there in front of you and I can't help but think why? For what cause? "I see us creating the very thing that the president said we went there to prevent," Ware said, "subsequent to this invasion and the occupation and the guerrilla war that is currently underway, we are the midwives of the next generation of al Qaida and Islamic terrorist." Ware, who has interviewed senior insurgent leaders, said they study the writings of the Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap, Che Guevara, and Mao Zedong. "They're bringing it straight from the Vietnam, and the broader insurgency playbook," Ware said. "The name of the game is deny the population to the insurgents," Ware said. "That's what we're trying to do, win hearts and minds. But we're not winning them." The U.S. struggle to win Iraqi hearts and minds suffered a further set back when NBC TV broadcast footage of a U.S. marine executing a wounded and unarmed Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque. The much-publicized shooting, apparently part of a massacre of a group of wounded resistance fighters, "was a rare crack in the fagade that Washington, with the complicity of most of the corporate media, has tried to present to the world of its brutal assault on the rebel Iraqi city," Rohan Pearce wrote in The Greenleft Weekly Australia on Nov. 24. The New York Times has reported actions taken by U.S. forces in Fallujah, which appear to be prima facie evidence of war crimes, without mentioning that the actions constitute clear violations of the Laws of Land War found in the U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10. For example, a Nov. 20 Times article by Edward Wong, with two correspondents in Fallujah, reports that U.S. marines had transformed a mosque into a fortress with snipers and machine gunners perched on the roof. Then, using the passive form, Wong goes on to say that "no neutral group has been able to enter the city," without mentioning that U.S. forces blocked humanitarian aid convoys. Likewise, Wong wrote, "Electricity and water had been cut off." The Times, whose motto is "All the news that's fit to print," apparently didn't think that it's readers needed to know the U.S. forces had cut off the water and power to a city of 340,000 people. Asked if U.S. forces had cut power and water to Fallujah, Maj. Jay Antonelli of CPIC wrote: "MNF did, with approval of the Interim Iraqi Government, cut off electricity to the city of Fallujah as Operation Al-Fajr began. Water was not cut off intentionally, however the water system did sustain some kinetic damage during strikes." American Free Press asked the Pentagon's Lt. Col. Joe Yoswa if it is true that U.S. forces were using mosques as fortresses. "It's not possible," Yoswa said. "Under no circumstances. We would not set up snipers in a mosque in an offensive position." CPIC's Antonelli said: "MNF would not use a mosque as a 'fortress.' MNF and Iraqi security forces would only fire from a mosque if they were being fired upon and were firing back in self-defense." Abu Sabah, a refugee from Fallujah, reported seeing phosphorus bombs: "They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud. Then small pieces fell from the air with long tails of smoke trailing behind them. These exploded on the ground with large fires that burnt for half and hour," Abu Sabah said. "When anyone touched these fires their bodies burnt for hours." Eyewitnesses from Fallujah also reported seeing "melted" bodies. "THROW-AWAY SOLDIERS" Having seen what appeared to be a depleted uranium (DU) missile fired at a building in Fallujah on CNN during the first week of the fighting, AFP asked the Pentagon if DU weapons are being used in Fallujah. "Yes," Yoswa said, "DU is a standard round on the M-1 Abrams tank." Because U.S. marines in Fallujah are very close to the poison gas produced by exploded DU shells, AFP asked Yoswa if anything was being done to protect the troops from DU poisoning. Yoswa seemed unaware of the dangers posed by the use of DU. Marion Fulk, a retired nuclear scientist from Livermore National Lab told AFP that U.S. troops in DU contaminated battlefields are considered "throw-away soldiers." The Marines exposed to DU in Fallujah, and elsewhere, face greatly increased risks of cancer, deformed children, and other health problems in the future. OBLITERATION OF FALLUJAH The "obliteration of Fallujah" is a serious war crime, according to Francis A. Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois. "The obliteration of Fallujah continues apace," Boyle wrote in his Nov. 15 article, A War Crime in Real Time: Obliterating Fallujah. "Article 6(b) of the 1945 Nuremberg Charter defines a Nuremberg War Crime in relevant part as the 'wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages.' According to this definitive definition, the Bush administration's destruction of Fallujah constitutes a war crime for which Nazis were tried and executed." -- Posted for educational and research purposes only, ~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~ NucNews Links and Expanded Archives - http://nucnews.net --------------------------------- Win a castle for NYE with your mates and Yahoo! Messenger [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/Sj.0lB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> [Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 28 Anchorage Daily News: SCIENCE: Radioactivity is monitored on Amchitka NED ROZELL ALASKA SCIENCE (Published: December 19, 2004) After Stephen Jewett and his diving partners emerged from the chilly waters of the Aleutians Islands last summer, crew members of the Ocean Explorer scanned their bodies with Geiger counters. Checking for nuclear contamination isn't standard diving protocol, but they were working off Amchitka Island, the site of three atomic blasts in the late 1960s and 1970s. Jewett is a research professor at UAF's Institute of Marine Science who was diving with colleagues off Amchitka to get samples of fish and other marine life, bottom water and sediments to check for effects of the nuclear testing. The Geiger counter stayed silent throughout their June-July 2004 mission in the Aleutians. Jewett was part of a crew sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy to sample the aquatic life off Amchitka as part of a larger look at how the area has responded to three nuclear blasts. Amchitka's nuclear legacy began in 1964, when officials with the Department of Defense and the Atomic Energy Commission needed a place to test nuclear devices that were too large for the Nevada Test Site. They chose vacant Amchitka Island, about 1,400 miles west of Anchorage. In 1965, the Department of Defense drilled a deep hole in the island and set off an 80-kiloton nuclear blast. Four years later, the Atomic Energy Commission workers drilled a 4,000-foot hole and detonated the second explosion underneath Amchitka. The largest blast of nearly 5 megatons came on Nov. 6, 1971, when the AEC detonated a warhead of the Spartan anti-ballistic missile system underground about one mile beneath Amchitka. During the explosion of "Project Cannikin," the green and brown surface of Amchitka rose and fell 20 feet and the shock registered 7.0 on the Richter scale. Within two days after the explosion, a crater more than one mile wide and 40 feet deep formed. Beneath the surface of Amchitka, the blasts created spherical cavities that later collapsed and filled with rubble. These underground chambers trapped nuclear contaminants, but earthquakes or groundwater percolating through the areas may carry radioactive materials towards the ocean. Jewett's group, in partnership with researchers at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers and Vanderbilt universities, and the University of Pittsburgh, is testing tissue and bone samples of oceanic life. The nearest Native village is on the island of Atka, about 300 miles east of Amchitka. Residents there eat many creatures from the sea, including sea lion, salmon, halibut and harbor seals. To find the status of food sources around Amchitka, university divers went to specific spots offshore of the blast sites and also dove off Kiska, a "reference site" about 50 miles west of Amchitka. The divers collected water samples, sand, kelp, sea urchins, chitons, blue mussels, snails, octopus and many species of fish. In one month, they filled more than 12 chest freezers with samples that researchers at labs in Idaho and Kentucky are now analyzing. Government researchers with the Amchitka Bioenvironmental Program took similar samples in the late 1960s until 1973. Jewett and his colleagues will compare some of the current results to radiological readings taken 40 years ago. The results of the University of Alaska team's 136 dives and 93 hours of "bottom time" should be official by May 2005 when the research team has a report due. Even though none of the hundreds of tissue samples they scanned showed the initial signs of radioactive contamination, Jewett said the island should be tested periodically in the future because of the seismic instability of the mid-Aleutians. "Even if the current level of testing turns up nothing, Amchitka should be monitored on some level over the long term," he said. Ned Rozell is a science writer at the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks. He can be reached by e-mail at nrozell@gi.alaska.edu. The advertisements below are not endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News. The Anchorage Daily News - Get the whole story every day - ALASKA.com The Anchorage Daily News ***************************************************************** 29 Courier Journal: Uranium plant worker's widow receives $125,000 Sunday, December 19, 2004 Payment is among first from program Associated Press GREENUP, Ky. A 93-year-old widow became the first person in Kentucky to receive compensation for a death related to work in the uranium enrichment plant in Paducah. Ernestine Cloyes' husband, James Cloyes, succumbed to fibrosis of the lungs caused by his nearly three decades of working at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. He died nearly 20 years ago. Ernestine Cloyes, who will be 94 on Christmas Day, said that receiving $125,000 on Thursday from U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning was a bittersweet moment for her. She said she was relieved for the security the money would provide her and her family, but she said it did not compensate for the loss of her husband. Her son Nick Cloyes said the presentation was the culmination of several years of effort to see his mother properly compensated. Nick Cloyes has lived and worked in the Ashland area for several years, and he moved his mother to the area from Paducah about 10 years ago. "This day marks the end of a lot of hard work," he said. "And it's some added security for Mom." Bunning, R-Ky., said about 24,000 claims have been filed under the compensation program. So far, only about 30 have seen any result from those claims. Bunning said he hopes more of those claims will be resolved now that the program is under the direction of the U.S. Department of Labor. "The people at Paducah fought the Cold War when no one else did," Bunning said. "They were heroes. And the federal government for 50 years ignored that." The compensation program provides benefits to nuclear workers and their survivors for job-related illnesses from exposure to toxic chemicals. The Paducah plant opened in the 1940s as the United States' only uranium enrichment facility. The plant produced radioactive material used in the creation of nuclear weapons. In the 1960s the plant, along with a sister operation in Piketon, Ohio, shifted from enriching uranium for weapons to providing fuel for nuclear power facilities. Earlier this year the United States Enrichment Corp., which operates both plants, announced it will phase out the Paducah operation by 2010, while expanding the Piketon plant. Copyright 2004 The Courier-Journal. ***************************************************************** 30 Keokuk's Gate City: Opinion: Pentagon says depleted uranium is harmless www.dailygate.com By: Helen Thomas WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon claims that American forces and Iraqis are not at risk from contact with depleted uranium, which is used in armor-piercing munitions and protective tank plating. That's baloney to some scientists, who insist the widespread use of depleted uranium during the American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq poses a grave danger. Despite attempts to reassure the public, the Pentagon remains on the defensive. Depleted uranium, or DU, is a radioactive byproduct of the industrial process to enrich uranium. It is the leftover uranium-238 that results when scientists seek to transform naturally occurring uranium into uranium-235, which is used to produce nuclear energy. The Army values munitions manufactured from depleted uranium because, when fused with metal alloys, they are considered the most effective warheads for penetrating enemy tanks. Also, because depleted uranium is twice as dense as lead, the Army uses DU as armor plating. Once a depleted-uranium round strikes its target, the projectile begins to burn on impact, creating tiny particles of radioactive U-238. Winds can transport this radioactive dust many miles, potentially contaminating the air that innocent humans breathe. This inhalation might cause lung cancer, kidney damage, cancers of bones and skin, as well as birth defects and chemical poisoning. The 1991 Persian Gulf War was the first conflict to see the widespread use of depleted uranium, both in armor-piercing projectiles and in the protective armor of the new generation of Abrams tanks. Studies by the Pentagon and the National Academy of Sciences established no linkage between DU and the "Gulf War Syndrome" ailments after the first Gulf War. Some 70 people are still under study for the effects of contact with DU, with particular emphasis on what happens when people breathe the air where DU projectiles have vaporized. Dr. Helen Caldicott has dedicated her life to warning about the hazards of nuclear war and the effects of DU. Born in Melbourne, Australia, she first became interested in nuclear hazards when she saw the movie "On the Beach" at the age of 15. The film deals with a nuclear accident that leads to a global nuclear war. Growing up, she led a movement in Australia against the French atmospheric nuclear tests in the Pacific and tried to win a ban on Australian uranium mining. She became a medical doctor and later founded Physicians for Social Responsibility, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. She also has been a nominee for the same prize. She is a strong, vocal anti-war activist. In her book "The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush's Military-Industrial Complex" Caldicott claims that DU qualifies as a nuclear weapon because of its low-level radioactivity. She said that huge quantities of DU were created during the Cold War, when the United States made thousands of nuclear weapons. "Weapon researchers and developers have now succeeded in putting this toxic 'nuclear waste' to use through the creation of depleted uranium bullets and shells," she added. The weapons can cause enormous damage in Iraq, she said. Depleted-uranium particles are soluble in water, and the waters around the battlefields, as in Iraq and Kuwait, are at risk of radioactive pollution, Caldicott said. She warned that DU maintains radioactivity for billions of years and can concentrate in the food chain, with children and babies more vulnerable to the carcinogenic effects of ingested radiation than adults. Medical reports from Iraq indicate that childhood malignancies are seven times more likely than they were before the first Gulf War. The complaints of the veterans of the first Gulf War are "surprisingly similar in pattern to the various pathologies induced by uranium exposure as described by the U.S. military," Caldicott said. Some 50,000 to 80,000 veterans were afflicted with Gulf War Syndrome during that war, and there has been no definitive answer -- but a lot of dispute -- as to the cause. The military's use of depleted uranium is still being questioned. But one thing is certain: War is dangerous to your health. Copyright © 2004. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 31 RGJ: AG won on Yucca, defends impeachment decision Anjeanette Damon RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL 12/18/2004 10:00 pm Associated Press/AP file During his two-year tenure as attorney general, Brian Sandoval has orchestrated more than half a dozen high-profile cases, resulting in both widely recognized victories and defeats. His proudest moment as attorney general came last summer when his legal team won a key federal court decision that appears to have crippled the planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. “If I had one objective that I could accomplish during my term (as attorney general) it was to have a significant victory in the Yucca Mountain litigation,” he said. “And we did that. I think Nevadans can really appreciate the significance of that legal victory.” U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has recommended Sandoval for the federal bench. If he is nominated by President Bush and confirmed by Congress, he could start as Nevada’s newest federal judge in April. Sandoval inherited the Yucca Mountain legal fight from previous attorneys general but helped craft the ultimate argument when the case made it to the courtroom. Although Nevada lost five of its six cases, the single victory eliminated a safety standard for the project. Without the standard, the government can’t get a license for the repository. “He’s very hands-on for somebody as high up as an attorney general,” said Joe Egan, the Washington, D.C.-based lawyer hired to argue the case. “He was very deeply involved in strategic decision making.” Egan also credited Sandoval with stopping a planned shipment of radioactive waste from Ohio to be stored at the Nevada Test Site. “He wrote the federal government a letter saying we are going to sue you and we’re going to win and here’s why we’re going to win,” Egan said. “And they blinked. They backed off and now that waste is not coming to Nevada.” At the same time he was fighting Yucca Mountain in court, however, Sandoval, as Bush’s campaign co-chairman, worked to re-elect the man who approved the site for 77,000 tons of America’s most radioactive waste. His explanation — that he and Bush agreed to let the courts settle the issue — won him blistering criticism from Democrats. Sandoval’s legal endeavors as attorney general haven’t always been as successful as the Yucca Mountain fight. In May, Sandoval decided to jump into a brewing controversy over whether state employees could serve as legislators. Allegations of “double-dipping” — when a lawmaker would collect both a government paycheck and legislative salary — had stirred an ethics outcry in Clark Country. After writing an opinion saying state employees who act as lawmakers violate the constitution’s separation of powers doctrine, Sandoval sued the Legislature and made his first appearance before the Nevada Supreme Court. But fewer than five minutes into the argument that he had researched and prepared himself, the justices began picking apart his premise. The court unanimously rejected Sandoval’s argument, clearing the way for public employees to keep their seats in the Legislature. Sandoval also played a starring role in the controversial Nevada Supreme Court decision that temporarily overrode the constitutional requirement for a two-thirds majority to pass new taxes. In an attempt to end a legislative standoff over new taxes last year, Gov. Kenny Guinn sued the Legislature, asking the Nevada Supreme Court to force it to pass an education budget and spending bill. Sandoval’s office made the argument that the Legislature wasn’t fulfilling its constitutional requirement to fund education and pass a balanced budget. The result was a politically explosive decision overriding the voter-mandated super-majority requirement. The decision was excoriated by voters and criticized by the legal community. But Sandoval said the court went beyond what his office had asked it to do. “The decision the court reached was not even remotely related to any of the relief we asked for in the petition,” Sandoval said. Arguing those two cases, gave Sandoval a “keen appreciation” for a judge’s role as legal-interpreter, not judicial activist, he said. “In terms of separation of powers, nobody, I think, knows that better than I do,” he said. Sandoval also can take credit for initiating the ethics case that resulted in the first impeachment of a state office holder in Nevada’s 140-year history. After a yearlong investigation into allegations Controller Kathy Augustine forced her state employees to work on her 2002 re-election bid on state time and equipment, Sandoval’s office brought a complaint to the Nevada Commission on Ethics. Augustine admitted violating ethics laws and was fined $15,000. But after the Assembly unanimously impeached her on three charges, the Senate dropped two of the most serious charges. The Senate then narrowly convicted her of using state facilities and equipment for her own benefit and returned her to office with a censure. Despite criticism of his decision to take Augustine to the ethics commission instead of criminal court, Sandoval said he wouldn’t have changed how he handled the case. “It was something we handled with the ultimate amount of respect and discretion,” he said. “I felt that was the wise way to go. The criminal case would’ve taken much longer to get to trial.” © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett ***************************************************************** 32 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [EDITORIALS]Nuclear waste site mandatory 2004.12.19 The government has proposed that it will split into two stages the development of a nuclear waste treatment facility. Construction of the facility to store high-grade nuclear waste will be delayed, and a facility to store low-to-mid grade nuclear waste will be constructed first. This proposal is part of an effort to appease local residents at the designated site. But this measure is only a temporary one. Storing the nuclear waste will still be a problem. The original plan was to build these two facilities together. The government has proposed this new plan to divide the facilities because they need to be built as soon as possible. The construction of a nuclear waste facility has been delayed for nearly 20 years. The latest delay resulted after fierce protests by local residents at the designated site of Buan in North Jeolla province. The storage capacity of our existing facilities will reach their limit in 2008. Considering it will take at least three to four years to build such facilities, we can no longer delay the construction. Whether we like it or not, nuclear energy is a main source of electricity in our country. About 40 percent of the electricity in Korea comes from nuclear power. The reason we don't need to worry so much about electricity shortages despite high fuel prices is because of nuclear power. If high oil prices continue and the Kyoto Protocol on global gas emission levels takes effect next year, nuclear power's importance will become greater. Despite this situation, civic groups have refused the government's new proposal. Do they want to us live without electricity or do they want us to discard nuclear waste elsewhere? Of course, the civic group's rejection of nuclear waste facilities also rises partly from the government's unilateral manner in pursuing the project without properly informing residents about safety measures and risks, the layout of such facilities and the advantages of having a facility. The government should accept any opposing opinions within principles and redouble its efforts to persuade and convince the local residents. It is also wrong for the civic groups and local residents to unconditionally oppose the project as they are doing now. Low-to-mid grade facilities are said to have a radiation level less than one-millionth of high-grade facilities. These facilities would also have a positive effect on a local area's economy. Why would anyone refuse that? Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use | ***************************************************************** 33 Carlsbad Current-Argus: WIPP to receive bids for records project Updated: December 19, 2004 - 02:30:50 By Victoria Parker-Stevens/Current-Argus Staff Writer Dec 19, 2004, 02:30 am CARLSBAD — A contract is expected to be awarded by February for a records archive demonstration project in Carlsbad. The contract would be the first step toward a local archive center for Waste Isolation Pilot Plant records, said Bill Keeley, Washington TRU Solutions chief information officer. WTS began advertising a request for proposals this month, after pulling it a few months ago for changes, including making it a demonstration project. WTS is the management and operations contractor for WIPP and is handling this project for the federal Energy Department. The company would locate in a WTS office facility and use some WTS equipment. The number of employees would be proposed by the bidders, Keeley said. The company would establish a record management system to convert WIPP records into a digital format. The records would need to be made accessible via the Internet, and a master document index developed. The project would involve 200,000 pages of hardcopy — or 100 boxes — 200,000 pages of microfilm — or 100 rolls — and 500 pages from aperture cards. Aperture cards contain a microfilm image and also have information punched into the card. The records that would be used in the demonstration project are already in Carlsbad, Keeley said. Records generated locally are stored at a facility on Canal Street. Proposals are due in January, and the company must be able to mobilize within 14 days of the award, which is targeted for Feb. 1. Evaluation criteria include performance, approach, resources and cost. The demonstration project must be completed by Sept. 30. Rather than contracting for the center now, knowledge from the demonstration project can be used to develop further procurement actions, Keeley said. “This is one major first step in the process,” he said. “It’s a big milestone for Carlsbad.” Also unlike the first, this request for proposals encourages small businesses to bid, including by allowing the company to be brought under WTS nuclear facility quality assurance standards. Getting a program approved for quality assurance in the nuclear field is difficult and time consuming, Keeley said. Local officials lobbied for the congressional designation of Carlsbad as a central location for the records, which was received a couple of years ago. The center is intended to provide more timely information in a usable format to citizens, researchers, stakeholders and regulators. The center has been funded in the last two appropriations bills, including $5 million in a fiscal year 2005 appropriations bill signed this month. Local officials have said they would like to see the center expand into storage of other government and private business records, especially given the interest in transferring data to electronic storage formats. Copyright © 2004 Carlsbad Current-Argus, a Gannett Co., Inc. ***************************************************************** 34 Salt Lake Tribune: New boss at Envirocare Article Last Updated: 12/18/2004 05:21:25 AM Entrepreneur with risk-taker reputation to run the controversial Utah business By Patty Henetz The Salt Lake Tribune Hazardous waste awaits burial in cells that will be compacted and covered at the Envirocare facility in Utah's west desert earlier this month. (Steve Griffin/The Salt Lake Tribune) Twenty-five years ago, Steve Creamer noticed the trains that carried coal from Utah's Carbon County to New Jersey came home empty. He also knew that East Coast landfills were charging $100 a ton to dump garbage, with prices promising to go higher. Creamer, while a successful engineering consultant, didn't know how to run a waste facility. But he had designed landfills and knew it would cost less to fill those empty trains with garbage and haul it to Utah than leave it in New Jersey. He joined forces with USPCI, a hazardous waste company, and started the mammoth East Carbon Development Co. landfill. The operation eventually made him a fortune and started him on the entrepreneurial path that led to the announcement this week of his purchase with a New York investment firm of Envirocare of Utah, the hazardous waste landfill in Tooele County. On Friday, two days after the sale announcement, Creamer, a self-described "very nice guy," said Envirocare will retain its name and many of its current personnel but changes still to be announced are on the way. Acknowledging that Envirocare owner Khosrow Semnani was at the center of years of contention, Creamer promised to run a tight ship. The new ownership "will end an era. Khosrow built a successful business, but there was a lot of grief along the way," Creamer said in an interview Friday. "I take care of people. I'll never lie to you, no matter how good or how bad something is." Creamer, who will be in charge of Envirocare's operations, said sale negotiations have ended. What's left is to go through state regulatory hoops and renegotiate contracts with customers. "When we can talk freely, I'll look forward to talking about it," he said. "I think everybody will be very happy." While his friends agree, and vouch for his courage and honesty, Envirocare critics are girding for battle with this new foe. It's not necessarily personal, but that doesn't mean they are in the mood to back down, especially if Creamer pursues so-called Class B and C radioactive waste, hotter and more dangerous than the Class A waste the Tooele County facility now accepts. "While it may have been useful to some to point at Semnani's business dealings and his credibility as a main issue around B and C [waste], you still have the fundamental issue of whether it's in the best interest of the state of Utah," said environmental watchdog Steve Erickson. ''Even if it were assumed this could all be done without any future liability or safety concerns, you still have the fundamental question, 'Is this what we want, regardless of who's in charge?' '' If Creamer can run Envirocare with a minimum of contention, it may be due to what he has learned not just from his successes, but also his mistakes and controversies: a failed highway through the Book Cliffs, engineering problems that contributed to the failure of a dam near St. George, a proposal to bring spent nuclear fuel to southern Utah and an experimental paving material called Syncrete that cracked and crumbled before an expensive road project even was completed, costing the state millions. Mistakes, though, are part of the territory for entrepreneurs. "He's creative, imaginative, and brave enough to go out and do it," said state Board of Regents Chairman Nolan Karras, a longtime friend. "There's a lot of pain that goes with that. For every Steve Creamer, there are a lot of bones lying around." Envirocare lobbyist Spencer Stokes, who with Creamer and two others advanced the ill-fated "Plan B" to bring spent highly radioactive nuclear fuel to Utah for temporary storage before going to a federal repository, said Creamer's background as a man willing to pursue ambitious ventures attracts investors. "This is one of those stories of one individual doing it on his own. He wasn't born into money. He's done it largely by being willing to take risks and use his own money," Stokes said. "He has a good track record with investors in being able to turn a profit." Creamer, 53, went to work for the state Department of Transportation right after graduating from Utah State University in 1973. For the next two years the Monroe native worked for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. Eventually, he and Reed Noble formed Creamer &Noble, building the engineering consulting firm by rehabbing water and sewer projects built during the Depression and serving 20 of Utah's 29 counties and 200 of its 300 cities. He rode out citizen opposition to the East Carbon Development Co. landfill, and was either a part owner or manager of the giant economic engine until 1997, when he and partner Chip Everest started ISG Resources. The nation's largest marketer of fly ash, a cement substitute, ISG also recycled other waste products from coal-fired power plants. Creamer sold ISG in 2002, but stayed on the payroll for another year. For the past year he has been contemplating what to do next. "I decided to jump into the fire," he said, making it sound like fun. In between triumphs came defeats. Creamer &Noble engineered the Quail Creek earthen dam near St. George which burst Jan. 1, 1989. No one was injured, but the disaster cost the state more than $11 million. Around that time, Creamer was enduring questions about his involvement with a proposed 83-mile highway through the Book Cliffs from the town of Ouray in Uintah County to Interstate 70 near Cisco in Grand County. Creamer &Noble was instrumental in getting the Legislature to give counties mineral royalties collected by the federal government, which Grand County planned to draw on when they paid the firm for its road engineering. The Grand County Council eventually killed the highway proposal, but not before the fight helped destroy the very structure of the county's government. Then came Syncrete. Creamer &Noble officials were consulting engineers to Hodson Chemical, which developed the experimental concrete overlay the state used in 1989 to resurface a 4-mile stretch of Interstate 15. After the material started breaking into chunks and hurtling into motorists' windshields, the federal Office of Inspector General and the Utah Attorney General's Office conducted a criminal investigation into the project, which cost taxpayers nearly $3 million. Active politically in advancing his interests, Creamer is a familiar figure at the Utah Statehouse. State election records show he contributed more than $80,000 to candidates in the 2004 gubernatorial election, including $45,000 to Karras, $20,000 to Gov. Olene Walker and $15,000 to Gov.-elect Jon Huntsman Jr. Creamer's wife, attorney Jeannine Bennett - whom Creamer described as "a screaming Democrat" - contributed $10,000 to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Scott Matheson Jr. Creamer said the donations were made before his purchase of Envirocare was on the table. He said regulators have called Envirocare a "national resource," a notion he likes. But to watchdog and ferocious Envirocare critic Claire Geddes, it is a status Utah can do without. "Utah's been targeted enough. There's no way we should be asked to be the sacrificial lamb for the rest of the nation," she said. As for Creamer's promise to run a facility without problems, "that's an impossibility," she said. "It's a nice theory to say everything will be run top notch, but I don't believe it." Creamer urged patience. "Give us a chance to tell the whole story," he said. Envirocare ''needs to be managed well, it needs to be managed without controversy, and we think we can do that." Steve Creamer bio Age: 53 Hometown: Monroe, Utah Education: Utah State University degree in engineering in 1973 Work history: Utah Dept. of Transportation, Utah Dept. of Environmental Quality Businesses: Creamer &Noble engineering consulting firm, East Carbon Development Co., ISG Resources, Envirocare of Utah © Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 35 Xinhua: Italy to send nuclear waste abroad for disposal www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2004-12-19 02:13:04 ROME, Dec. 18 (Xinhuanet) -- Italy's nuclear waste is to be sent abroad for disposal, a company tasked with managing the waste saidhere on Saturday. The Italian state-owned company SOGIN said Environment MinisterAltero Matteoli had drawn up a decree authorizing the 20-year-old waste to be sent abroad, probably to France or Britain. SOGIN said the decree covered 250 tons of waste, most of which is currently stored at two plants in Piedmont and a third plan in Emilia Romagna. It said the cost of the transport and disposal operation would come to some 300 million euros. Most of the waste is spent fuel from Italy's four reactors, oneof which was shut down in 1978. The other three were closed down after a 1987 referendum halted Italy's nuclear power production. Last year, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government bowedto popular pressure to consider alternative sites for a proposed national nuclear dump that was to be set up in the southern regionof Basilicata. The dump was to store 80,000 cubic meters of medium and high grade nuclear waste that is expected to remain radioactive for between 20,000 and 150,000 years. The national nuclear dump was to be set up at the tiny town of Scanzano Jonico on Italy's south coast, but locals were outraged at the government decision. Thousands joined protests including road blocks, marches and hunger strikes. Enditem Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 36 CCDR: Cotter officials begin reviewing license decision 12-18-04 [Canon City Daily Record - Canon City and the Royal Gorge Region, Colorado] James Bouknight Daily Record Staff Writer A Thursday meeting of the Fremont County Independent Outreach Committee to review the proposed Cotter Corp. uranium milling license produced more questions than answers for some members In general, the 69-page decision analysis and the separate 29-page radioactive materials license require substantial changes at the company’s Cañon City facility, such as draining the mill’s tailings ponds and modifying other aspects of the uranium production process. “It was clear that the new operating license is significantly different than what they have had before,” said FCIOC member Randy Roberts. “It’s just going to take some time to digest. “Without the state here to explain things, it was pretty confusing. It’s kind of vague in a lot of ways, and it’s going to take a little while to figure out what they mean.” Aside from a change in the tailings disposal method, the department also requested a more intensive radiation and heavy metal monitoring program. “We like the sound of that,” Roberts said. Although no Cotter employees who attended Thursday’s meeting were available for comment, Executive Vice President Rich Ziegler said the company was taking a close look any new requirements in the proposed five-year license. “We’ve got to have a look at it and see what’s new and see what these new requirements mean,” Ziegler said. “We are going to give it a through review.” “My major concern is with how the state addressed the Maywood issue,” Ziegler said, referring to the department’s decision to bar future requests to directly dispose of radioactive materials at the Cañon City site. In part, the department made its decision to reject direct disposal on the grounds that the Fremont County Commissioners and Cañon City Council have come out against importation of radioactive wastes. But state officials also had an economic basis for their decision. “Direct disposal is highly lucrative for Cotter, but results in very little additional local employment or direct expenditures within the community,” according the department’s executive summary. Ziegler said the department’s decision on direct disposal didn’t take the company off guard. “It’s what we expected,” Ziegler said. Cotter could request a hearing to challenge portions of the license within 60 days of Tuesday’s release, but Ziegler said it was too early to say whether the company would. For its part, FCIOC will not likely request a hearing, according to Roberts. contents Copyright Ó 2004 Royal Gorge Publishing Corporation. All ***************************************************************** 37 Boston Globe: Debris removed from Starmet site Debris removed from Starmet site Boston Globe A cleanup crew spent the last two weeks removing metal debris and remnants of some 60 underground drums from a small area on the Starmet Corp. Superfund site in West Concord. Davis Bushnell December 19, 2004 Metal, drum remnants forwarded for analysis By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent | December 19, 2004 A cleanup crew spent the last two weeks removing metal debris and remnants of some 60 underground drums from a small area on the Starmet Corp. Superfund site in West Concord. Samples of the material, taken from a 150-by-200-foot area near a holding basin and cooling-water pond, have been sent to General Engineering Laboratory in Charleston, S.C., for analysis, said Bruce Thompson, Starmet project coordinator for De Maximis Inc. of Weatogue, Conn. The firm is conducting an investigation on how to clean up the 46-acre property off Route 62 for the five parties cited by the US Environmental Protection Agency in June 2003 for contaminating the site. In June 2001, the property went on the EPA's Superfund list, which designates hazardous-waste sites that pose a health risk. Starmet's predecessor company, Nuclear Metals Inc., made uranium-tipped bullets for the Army from 1970 to 1999. The material removed in recent days could be uranium dust and beryllium, a lightweight metallic element, Thompson said, emphasizing that monitors installed around the property's perimeter are indicating that no contaminants have been released into the air. Concord Deputy Fire Chief Chris Kelley and James West, a member of an activist group, praised the efforts of Thompson's firm. ''I'm impressed by De Maximis's professionalism," Kelley said, adding that his department has reviewed and made minor revisions to a comprehensive safety plan. West, a technical assistance coordinator for the Citizens Research and Environmental Watch group of Concord, said, ''Members of our group are really pleased that the buried material has been removed" without incident. Meanwhile, the state Department of Environmental Protection has set a Jan. 22 deadline for receiving proposals to remove more than 3,700 barrels of depleted uranium that are now being stored in Starmet buildings. The Army has agreed to pay for the removal of these barrels, which contain low levels of radioactive material. It probably will take six weeks to review the proposals and select a contractor, said Joseph Ferson, a spokesman for the state environmental agency. Work could begin in early April and last for several months, he said. Next spring, De Maximis is planning a second sampling phase, Thompson said. If everything goes according to schedule, an assessment of the risks to public health could start in the summer. The cleanup of the property is targeted to begin in 2008 or 2009, he said. Besides the Army, the other parties found responsible for contaminating the site are the US Department of Energy; Whittaker Corp. of Simi Valley, Calif.; Textron Inc. of Providence; and MONY Life Insurance Co. of New York City. [ /] © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company. [ /] More News ***************************************************************** 38 PE.com: Feinstein to push water bill | Inland Southern California | Inland News PERCHLORATE: Her legislation would require safety standards and designate cleanup funds. 01:26 AM PST on Saturday, December 18, 2004 By MICHELLE DeARMOND / The Press-Enterprise LOS ANGELES - Sen. Dianne Feinstein announced legislation Friday that she said would force the Environmental Protection Agency to set a safety standard for a health-threatening chemical that has leached into water supplies across the country. Feinstein, D-Calif., was at a lunch with more than 200 water-agency representatives and community leaders in Los Angeles when she outlined the bill she plans to introduce in January. The announcement received praise from Inland water officials, but drew criticism from a federal authority who said the timetable was unrealistic. The bill, if enacted, would require authorities to identify the scope of the problem that has plagued communities such as Glen Avon and Rialto. Additionally, it would force the EPA to set a national standard by July 31, 2007, on how much of the chemical perchlorate - which was found in food in spring 2003 - is safe to have in the water. The Defense Department, one of the largest consumers of the chemical used in rocket fuel and munitions, also would be forced to accept responsibility for the problem and help fix it, Feinstein said. "It's unacceptable to have perchlorate in milk and lettuce, and we must stop it," she said. Critics have been urging state and federal authorities to set a limit for perchlorate contamination. Recent tests have found the chemical in foods irrigated with contaminated water. Scientists disagree about how much perchlorate is dangerous, but they have determined it impairs thyroid function by interfering with iodide absorption. Thyroid function is necessary for brain and nerve development in fetuses. Perchlorate is used in rocket fuel, fireworks, munitions and other explosives and dissolves easily in water. The Defense Department has said 200 parts per billion in drinking water is safe, while California health officials have considered a goal of 6 parts per billion. A federal panel of experts is studying the issue and is expected to release its findings next month. The report is likely to help determine how much perchlorate will be allowed in water and possibly food. Whatever standard is set, Feinstein's proposed deadline of 2007 is too soon, said Corine Li, a manager for the EPA's Region 9 drinking-water office, which includes the Inland area. The EPA could have an enforceable standard set in 2009 or 2010, which water suppliers would have to meet in 2012 or 2013, she said. The Defense Department challenged a 2002 draft report by the EPA, which slowed down the process, she said. The report proposed a 1 part per billion standard, but the Pentagon and industries challenged the level as too stringent. High levels of perchlorate have led to well closures and cleanup efforts in the Inland region. Twenty drinking-water wells in Rialto, Fontana and Colton have been shut down or had their use restricted because a large plume of perchlorate sent levels as high as 820 parts per billion. Concerns about such contamination have brought the state closer to enforceable standards than the EPA, said Li. California doesn't have to wait on the EPA if it wants tighter standards, she said. State health officials have considered a goal of 6 parts per billion and have an "action level" that requires public disclosure of water supplies that are 4 parts per billion or greater. Feinstein's announcement was good news for Inland water officials in attendance, including Bill Ruth of the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board, who stood up at the end of Feinstein's speech to thank her. Ruth said his agency, which oversees Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties, will meet for 10 hours Monday to discuss the problem. Praise also came from John M. Mylne III, of the board of directors for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which augments supplies for Inland water agencies. "She has thrown down the gauntlet with perchlorate," he said after listening to her speech at MWD offices in Los Angeles' Union Station. "She has a commitment to not allow the Defense Department to get away scot-free. Perchlorate was created for defense purposes." Included in Feinstein's legislation, she said, will be a proposed $200 million for perchlorate cleanup and support for better technology to clean up the problem. In other actions Friday, Feinstein sent a letter to Agriculture Under Secretary Mark Rey protesting a U.S. Forest Service proposal to take $9 million away from California for wildfire prevention. She said the proposal would shift 15 percent of the hazardous-fuels reduction funding for the state to other areas of the country. "Precisely because there are so many homes near the forests in Southern and Central California, our treatment costs are higher and therefore we lose out under your plan." Staff writer Bonnie Stewart contributed to this report. Reach Michelle DeArmond at (951) 368-9441 or mdearmond@pe.comMore headlines... © 2004 Belo Interactive Inc. ***************************************************************** 39 PE.com: Cost, risks fuel debate over safety | Inland Southern California | Local News Impact on health weighed against billions for cleanup 02:11 AM PST on Sunday, December 19, 2004 By DOUGLAS E. BEEMAN and DAVID DANELSKI / The Press-Enterprise The debate over the rocket-fuel chemical perchlorate has become a tug of war between those worried about the nation's health and those charged with the nation's defense. On one side is the potential harm to the nation's most vulnerable people - newborns and babies still in the womb. On the other side is the threat to the nation's armaments - and a cleanup bill that could reach into the tens of billions of dollars. Good science could settle much of the debate. Stan Lim / The Press-Enterprise The cost of cleaning up perchlorate in the Inland area already is significant. Lockheed Martin Corp. has spent at least $80 million to clean up a water basin near a former rocket testing facility in Redlands, and the company could be on the hook for $180 million more. But the industries that make and use perchlorate have mingled politics and public relations with science in their campaign to convince the government that small amounts of the chemical in drinking water will not harm the public. Industry groups contend that a level of 200 parts of the chemical per billion parts of water is safe for everyone. California, Massachusetts and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency say a safe level is 1 to 6 parts per billion. Many Inland water supplies have more than what state and federal officials say is safe. Pressed by industry, the federal government has asked for an outside review of the science that could guide drinking-water standards and cleanup requirements nationwide. The review by the independent National Academy of Sciences is due in January. Although only advisory, the National Academy's work is expected to influence the EPA's work as well as a drinking-water standard for perchlorate that California is developing. The Press-Enterprise reviewed thousands of pages of scientific studies, government reports, court records and industry and White House documents to examine industry's role in the process. The Press-Enterprise found: Companies such as Lockheed Martin Corp., Kerr-McGee Corp., Boeing and Aerojet - with combined sales of more than $87 billion in 2003 - have hired researchers, lobbyists and lawyers to influence the scientific debate and to delay health-safety regulations in California and across the nation. Some scientists employed by industry wear two coats - the laboratory smock of a researcher studying perchlorate's health effects and the business jacket of a consultant hired to persuade government and the public that state and federal scientists have overstated perchlorate's hazards. Industry has accused one independent scientist of biasing the EPA's assessment. An industry-paid scientist helped rewrite a news article in a science journal. The controversy surrounding the chemical was deleted. The industries have paid for most of the science that guides decisions about how much perchlorate to allow in drinking water. Contrary to government scientists' conclusions, they say their science shows that a lifetime of low doses of perchlorate will have no ill effects. The stakes are high. Inland Impact Perchlorate is turning up in water served to millions of people - in Rialto, Colton, Redlands, Riverside, Corona and Glen Avon; in many communities served by the Colorado River aqueduct; and in dozens of towns and cities nationwide. Government tests have found the chemical in nearly all of more than 200 lettuce and milk samples collected from New Jersey to California. Inland water providers have shut down wells, installed expensive treatment systems and blended water supplies to dilute the perchlorate. The EPA, striving to ensure an ample margin of safety for newborns and fetuses, is struggling to determine a safe level of perchlorate that could guide drinking-water standards nationally. The perchlorate and aerospace industries and their best customers, the nation's defense and space agencies, could end up paying billions of dollars to clean the chemical from soil and drinking water across the country. California's water-quality boards have required companies to begin cleaning up perchlorate contamination. In Redlands alone, Lockheed Martin Corp. has spent at least $80 million to clean up a water basin near a former rocket testing facility and could be on the hook for $180 million more. By some estimates cited by industry, the Defense Department might have to spend as much as $55 billion to clean up perchlorate in and around military bases, depending on how much perchlorate the EPA decides is allowable in drinking water. The EPA's decision will be based, in large part, on science paid for by those with billions at stake. Some say that is a problem because scientists might not be completely objective when their employers have so much riding on the outcome. Industry says they are damned if they do, damned if they don't. "I find it frustrating. We really were out there trying to do the right thing," said Michael Girard, spokesman for the Perchlorate Study Group, the industry consortium that has funded most of the science. He said the group has tried to operate in the open and make its findings - and its data - available to anyone who wants it. "It's unfortunate that all of the science can't be done in this country on government dollars," Girard added. "But the fact is that much of science that is done in the United States is sponsored by industry. ... And it ultimately benefits the public." Kenneth Pimple, an ethics expert at Indiana University in Bloomington, said it's not surprising that researchers who want to study a problem turn to those who have a stake in the outcome. "If you're interested in perchlorate's effect on the environment, who's going to pay for it? The people who have an interest in it," he said. Unless industry suppresses results it doesn't like, there should not be a problem, he said. Several scientists and experts in scientific ethics said that funding sometimes can influence findings. Industry often views scientists the way it views lawyers, said Sheldon Krimsky, a professor of urban and environmental policy at Tufts University in Massachusetts. "You just hire a scientist to say what you want them to say," said Krimsky, who has written extensively about the influence of industry on science. Studies funded by the tobacco industry were less likely to find health problems than independent studies, he said. Likewise, there is growing evidence that studies funded by drug companies are less likely to find problems with the drug at issue than independently funded scientific work is. Legacy of Contamination Dubbed "powdered oxygen," perchlorate is a type of salt that keeps the fuel burning in military missiles, road flares and fireworks. The defense and space programs use 90 percent of the nation's perchlorate. As a salt, perchlorate dissolves easily in water. But once it's in water, it's costly to remove. Through industrial spills, accidents and outdated handling practices that date to World War II, perchlorate has leached into the lower Colorado River and into some Southern California groundwater supplies. The list of states with perchlorate-contaminated water sources is growing, according to federal records. No one disputes that perchlorate, in sufficient amounts, can disrupt the thyroid's ability to produce the hormones necessary for metabolism, mental alertness and, in fetuses and newborns, development of brains and bones. Perchlorate inhibits the thyroid's ability to absorb iodide, a building block for the hormones that guide neurological development. In healthy adults, this is far less of a problem. Adults have a large reserve of thyroid hormones they can draw upon if hormone production is disrupted. In addition, perchlorate is discharged from the body in a matter of hours. But fetuses are dependent on their mothers' thyroid, and newborns don't have the thyroid hormone reserves that adults have. The debate centers on how developing fetuses and infants might be affected by long-term exposure to small amounts of the chemical. Industry-paid scientists have built on one another's work to produce results that they say demonstrate that small amounts in drinking water are benign. Nearly all research done on perchlorate in the past decade has been sponsored by industry. Until then, little was known about the chemical's health effects. Perchlorate's possible effects on neurological development could be very subtle, said R. Thomas Zoeller, a University of Massachusetts thyroid expert who twice served on panels of scientists that reviewed the EPA's health-risk analysis for perchlorate. Children exposed to it might be less intelligent or less physically coordinated, he said. No studies have determined the exact point at which perchlorate begins to cause harm in humans. Industry and Defense Department officials have warned that overzealous regulations would force costly cleanups of water that already is safe. Economist Richard Belzer, who has done work for the Perchlorate Study Group, suggested it would be cheaper to give pregnant women iodide-fortified vitamins than to clean up perchlorate-tainted water. Illustration: Knowledge Gap The EPA became concerned about perchlorate in 1985, when the chemical showed up in groundwater near an Aerojet rocket production and testing facility in Azusa. The EPA's mission is to protect human health and to press for the cleanup of contaminants in water and soil that might be harmful to health. But the agency didn't know what to do about perchlorate and had more pressing pollution concerns. By the late 1980s, perchlorate was showing up in high levels - as much as 8,000 parts per billion - at a Sacramento-area Aerojet plant. That refocused the EPA's attention on the chemical. Despite the limited health information, the EPA in 1992 issued its first health-safety guideline for perchlorate. Based partly on the belief that perchlorate could cause cancer, the EPA set the limit at 3.5 parts per billion in water. Industry contends that perchlorate does not cause cancer. But the EPA did not put a lot of confidence in its number. Joan Strawson, the EPA official who led the effort, said at the time that more research was needed. Soon afterward, in 1993, companies that manufacture and use perchlorate got together. The purpose: to finance studies examining perchlorate's effects on health. The consortium became known as the Perchlorate Study Group. One of the group's earliest efforts, completed in 1995, concluded that 42,000 parts per billion in water was a safe level. The EPA disagreed. Strawson, the EPA scientist assigned to the issue, noted that it was too close to levels that had caused a fatal bone-marrow disorder in humans who were given perchlorate as a medical treatment. As government and industry wrestled with the perchlorate problem, industry began hiring some of the government scientists. In the mid-1990s, Michael Dourson quit his EPA job in Cincinnati and formed Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, known by the acronym TERA, a nonprofit corporation set up to perform health-risk analyses and to coordinate scientific studies for paying clients. One of TERA's earliest clients was the Perchlorate Study Group. And one of TERA's first efforts for the perchlorate industry was a 1997 risk analysis that proposed a new health-safety level: 350 parts per billion. The author of TERA's report: Joan Strawson, who as a government scientist had recommended less than 4 parts per billion. Strawson, who had been Dourson's colleague at the EPA, said industry money had nothing to do with her recommendation, which was nearly 100 times higher than what she had proposed as an EPA employee. The number, she said, was based on additional data available at the time. TERA has since revised its recommendation to 70 parts per billion. Dourson said clients' interests don't influence TERA's work. TERA has done about $775,000 in work for the Perchlorate Study Group, according to records Dourson provided. By 1997, the EPA was beginning to revise its own health-safety assessment as the level of concern escalated. A more accurate testing method developed that year by the California Department of Health Services was detecting the chemical in dozens of places. Perchlorate was showing up in water supplies in as many as 25 states, often near military or defense contracting facilities. The lower Colorado River, a drinking-water source for as many as 25 million people in Arizona, Nevada and California, contains perchlorate that has leached from a former Kerr-McGee manufacturing plant near Las Vegas. "It's been very recent that it's been seen as a national issue, rather than an isolated, local issue," said Kevin Mayer, the EPA's perchlorate coordinator for the Pacific Southwest region. "When you've got something that's perceived as a problem at one, maybe two sites in the country ... it's hard to get this sort of odd, isolated chemical into the queue to get significant research done on it." A National Problem In 1999, the EPA convened a panel of scientists in San Bernardino. The conclusion: More research was needed. Industry, including Kerr-McGee, American Pacific Corp., Aerojet, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, agreed to sponsor more studies. Girard, the industry group's spokesman, said the goal was to get enough science done to determine what level would protect public health. Annie Jarabek, who has overseen the EPA's health-risk assessments for the chemical, said that industry officials had hoped the additional research would allow the EPA to set a higher reference dose - an amount known to be safe for humans. Instead, the research raised new concerns, she said. A study that examined rat brain development found changes at lower doses than in earlier studies, Jarabek said. Other experiments found thyroid tumors in rats exposed to perchlorate in the womb. "We are concerned about what lifelong exposure might mean, especially if you were exposed in utero," Jarabek said. Based on such research, the EPA in 2002 lowered its reference dose to 1 part per billion. Millions of people across the nation, tens of thousands in the Inland area, were drinking water with higher levels of perchlorate. Meanwhile, industry researchers had examined the chemical's effects on perchlorate workers, on schoolchildren exposed to naturally occurring perchlorate salts in Chile, and on newborns in perchlorate-affected communities. Over a three-year period, the group of researchers completed at least 10 separate studies on perchlorate. They concluded uniformly that perchlorate had no significant effect on health. They also said the rat studies were flawed or inconclusive. Not all perchlorate research was funded by industry. A handful of independent researchers, working on their own or with state funding, completed studies that suggested an association in California and Arizona between perchlorate-contaminated water and disruptions in newborns' thyroid hormones. Industry scientists repeatedly criticized the independent studies, in journals, written public comments, conferences and hearings. On the Offensive The perchlorate industry and the Defense Department were not happy with the EPA's proposed 1-part-per-billion guideline. In a written response filed in early 2002, for example, the Air Force complained that the EPA "has failed to act in the national interest by not basing its decision on all available credible science." They asked for more time to examine the EPA's work but didn't get all they sought. But the EPA couldn't proceed with a final health-safety limit until a panel of outside scientists reviewed the agency's work. Industry went on the offensive. Industry-funded researchers wrote letters criticizing an Arizona study that compared thyroid-hormone levels in infants born in Yuma and others born in Flagstaff. Yuma residents drink Colorado River water contaminated with perchlorate. Flagstaff residents do not. Marjory Spraycar, managing editor of the journal that published the Arizona study, said such articles rarely draw letters from readers. In this case, industry-paid scientists wrote at least three critical letters. Industry-paid consultants also challenged a master's paper produced by a graduate student at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health. The study concluded that the thyroid hormones in newborns appeared to be most dramatically affected in the communities with the highest perchlorate levels. The EPA's risk-assessment report praised the research by Jackie Schwartz as "by far the most convincing of the neonatal studies. ..." Schwartz said the results of her study don't necessarily finger perchlorate as the cause of hormone differences Industry-funded scientists raised reasonable issues with how she analyzed her data, she said. But those scientists failed to point out the biggest handicap of her study - that no one could say whether pregnant women had actually consumed perchlorate-contaminated water. For industry scientists to raise that criticism would have undermined their own comparable studies, she said. Attorneys for Lockheed Martin accused Thomas Zoeller, a member of EPA's scientific-review panel, of biasing the agency's entire health-risk assessment. In comments posted on the EPA's Web site, the lawyers said that Zoeller was a contributor to a perchlorate report done by an environmental group. Zoeller said he critiqued the report, recommending that the group tone down some hyperbole, but didn't contribute to it. Lockheed's criticisms felt personal, Zoeller said. "The perchlorate issue had been a genuine learning experience for me." A Lockheed representative said the lawyers were simply pointing out the appearance of bias. "It was not a personal attack," company spokeswoman Gail Rymer said. Beyond Science Some industry-paid scientists took on the role of promoter of industry views. Among them was Seattle toxicologist Richard Pleus, who was a co-author of a 2002 study on perchlorate's effects on 37 healthy adults. ( Related story) In a letter to the Perchlorate Study Group explaining his invoices for May and June 2002, Pleus sought money for ensuring the "persuasiveness" of a presentation to California health officials and for hiring Belzer, the economist, to scrutinize whether the state followed its own rules in developing a proposed public-health goal for perchlorate. In July 2002, two members of the industry group sued, asserting that the state hadn't adhered to those rules. That forced the state to conduct a months-long second review of its health goal. Pleus repeatedly has said in public meetings that low concentrations of perchlorate in drinking water have less effect on the thyroid than chemicals found in common vegetables such as cabbage. Other scientists said the analysis is obfuscation and hyperbole based on a 52-year-old study. Jarabek of the EPA said the vegetable comparison is "a communications strategy." She said Pleus has not provided enough scientific explanation for her to know whether his comparisons are valid. In a written response to questions, Pleus said recent laboratory research confirmed his contention that some vegetables have a greater effect on iodide absorption than perchlorate does. He said the EPA has never responded to his analysis. Pleus has said in public presentations that perchlorate has no effect on the thyroid when humans are exposed to concentrations in water of 200 parts per billion or less. That may be true for adults but not for more sensitive babies, said Zoeller, the thyroid expert from Massachusetts. "The spin that Pleus puts on it is to focus only on the adults, when he knows it's based on body weight," Zoeller said. Zoeller, who is assisting lawyers suing a former road-flare manufacturer in Northern California over perchlorate contamination, said Pleus has acknowledged under oath that lower levels of perchlorate might affect babies' thyroids. Pleus, who has served as an expert witness for industries, acknowledged in a September deposition that water with 25 parts per billion might affect a baby's ability to absorb iodide in the thyroid, although he said it would not affect the infant's thyroid hormones, according to a transcript. In his written response to The Press-Enterprise, Pleus said that the lawyers questioning him insisted that he make a calculation, although he believes it is invalid because babies consume much less water than the attorneys suggested. As for hiring Belzer, Pleus said the economist helped the Perchlorate Study Group tailor its scientific presentation to address California's policy considerations. Pleus also said he feels The Press-Enterprise's perchlorate coverage has not been as hard on government scientists as it is on his research. Decision Delayed In 2002, as the EPA pushed to complete its assessment of perchlorate's health risks, industry representatives pressed the White House to intercede. They contended that concentrations of as much as 200 parts per billion were safe. They wanted an independent scientific review. In February 2002, a month after the EPA proposed 1 part per billion as the standard to protect human health, Richard Belzer sent a series of faxes to officials at the Office of Management and Budget, the White House agency that monitors federal regulations. Belzer formerly worked at the White House agency. Belzer suggested that the EPA was being overly cautious. He added that the agency's "safety factors are especially galling" because they far exceeded the estimates contained in a study paid for by industry, according to White House records obtained through the federal Freedom of Information Act. In fall 2002, industry hired high-powered lobbyists who warned that the EPA's work could jeopardize the nation's defenses. Washington lobbyist Ron Kaufman wrote the White House budget agency, urging further scientific review. He also said the limit should be set at 200 parts per billion - and maybe higher. Scientific data, he said, showed fetuses and infants could be exposed to as much as 16,000 parts per billion of perchlorate without harm. Kaufman, a longtime Republican Party activist, is brother-in-law to President Bush's chief of staff, Andrew Card. Kaufman's firm, The Dutko Group, is registered as a lobbyist for American Pacific Corp., a perchlorate manufacturer. In December, Belzer again wrote the White House budget agency. "Cleanup is just money, and the DoD is pretty good at spending money," Belzer wrote. But at 1 part per billion, he said, the EPA's proposal could hurt the nation's security by soaking up money that could be spent to clean up more dangerous chemicals or to keep the nation's defenses ready. "The former means a net increase in human health risk. The latter compromises national security, and quite possibly the safety of servicemen. These are ugly choices, made deeply disturbing if perchlorate at these levels does not pose any risk at all," Belzer wrote in an e-mail to Nancy Beck at the White House budget agency. In an e-mail to The Press-Enterprise, Belzer said he is not a lobbyist. "As a former OMB staff economist, I routinely provide information to OMB for a variety of reasons. With respect to perchlorate, I have helped them become aware of and informed about various scientific and regulatory policy issues." By January 2003, other lobbyists were adding pressure for a delay. The EOP Group, a Washington lobbyist representing former perchlorate manufacturer Kerr-McGee Corp., said in a series of faxes to the White House that EPA's health-safety limit could potentially ban perchlorate, creating "unacceptable risks" to the military's readiness. The lobbying firm wanted a review of the EPA's perchlorate work by the National Academy of Sciences. By March 19, 2003, industry had gotten what it asked for. The EPA's science adviser, Paul Gilman, signed a letter asking the National Academy to review the EPA's work. Publicly, the review was described as being sought jointly by the EPA and two government perchlorate consumers: Department of Defense and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Kevin Mayer, the EPA's perchlorate coordinator for the Pacific Southwest region, said it was clear from the moment that the agency's health-risk assessment was released that industry and the Defense Department were unhappy with 1 part per billion. "This issue is clearly controversial," he said. While scientists and government officials try to reach some conclusion, water agencies dealing with perchlorate are stuck in limbo. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein is pushing legislation to force a cleanup standard by 2007, although EPA officials said such a regulation probably wouldn't be in force until after 2010. Without clear rules, water providers don't know how clean the water should be, said Timothy Brick, Pasadena's representative on the Southern California's Metropolitan Water District board. "We need to move expeditiously to set a standard." Reach Douglas E. Beeman at (951) 368-9459 or dbeeman@pe.comor David Danelski at (951) 369-9410 or ddanelski@pe.comMore © 2004 Belo Interactive Inc. ***************************************************************** 40 PE.com: Controversy cut from news story | Inland Southern California | Inland News Reporter's article on perchlorate study was modified, deleting details of controversy 01:46 AM PST on Sunday, December 19, 2004 By DAVID DANELSKI / The Press-Enterprise Comparing versions A story on perchlorate that freelance writer Rebbeca Renner submitted to Environmental Health Perspectives, a science journal, was edited with the help of a scientist who also was a perchlorate-industry consultant. Renner didn't learn of the changes until after the story was published. To read the two versions, click on the following links: Submitted version Published version (Files require free ) When nationally known science writer Rebecca Renner opened the September 2002 issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, she found her article about perchlorate drastically rewritten. Gone was the context and controversy about the rocket-fuel chemical that has polluted drinking-water supplies, milk, lettuce and other foods. "It was outrageous," she said. Renner, who had been assigned to write a news story about a study of 37 healthy adults exposed to perchlorate, didn't learn who helped make the changes to her article until last week. The study's co-author, a paid consultant for the perchlorate industry, had assisted one of the journal's editors in rewriting Renner's work. The editing work was described in a letter from the consultant's boss to the Perchlorate Study Group, a consortium of perchlorate consumers and producers. The letter sought compensation for "editing the EHP news article (Renner, 2002)." The Sept. 12, 2002, letter from Intertox, a Seattle-based consulting firm, told how the company's then-chief toxicologist, Gay Goodman, changed Renner's article. To explain the basis of "invoice 98803," Goodman's co-author, Intertox director Richard Pleus, wrote that the first version of Renner's article "was potentially very damaging" to the Perchlorate Study Group. "Dr. Goodman gained the trust of the editor, and through a cooperative process entailing five or more drafts, provided substantial and critical improvement to the article," Pleus wrote to the Perchlorate Study Group. Intertox director Richard Pleus wrote that the first version of Renner's article "was potentially very damaging" to the Perchlorate Study Group. Read the full letter (Files require free ) Renner, whose work has appeared in Scientific American and other respected publications, said she was appalled. Removed from her article were details of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's concerns about how perchlorate could harm neurological development of fetuses and how studies of animals supported the EPA's position. Also deleted was Renner's disclosure that the Perchlorate Study Group co-sponsored the research. The article ran under the headline, "Reprieve for Perchlorate. Effects Not a Significant Concern," a statement reflecting industry's position on the chemical. "My name was misused, and my journalistic reputation was misused," Renner said. "It is outrageous that my article was changed by people working for industries that have a totally vested interest and a huge stake in the outcome of this issue, and that it was changed in a covert way." Goodman, in a written response to questions, said she received a letter from the journal that asked for her "cooperation" in the preparation of Renner's story. "I was asked to correct any errors of fact in the news article and to recommend editorial changes to any text that inaccurately or poorly represented the information presented in our paper," Goodman wrote. "This I did. ... I was not asked to contact the author of the news article and did not do so." The journal independently made other changes, and she reviewed them for accuracy, she said. The journal's editors said that Goodman's involvement was not inappropriate. The study by Goodman and her co-author, Pleus, was published in the same issue of the environmental journal. The journal gave drafts of Renner's story to Goodman because she was the official contact person for anyone seeking information on the study, said Susan Booker, the journal's managing news editor. The journal, a 35,000-circulation publication of the federal government's National Institute of Environmental Health Services, is published 17 times a year and read by scientists, regulators, health-care workers and other professionals and academics. Booker added that the magazine's standard procedure is to share drafts of articles about scientific studies with the studies' authors to be sure that the articles accurately reflect the scientists' work. Articles printed in the journal's Science Selections section are intended to summarize studies in layman's terms from their researchers' perspective, she said. Renner said the changes to her story made the journal appear to be naïve about the perchlorate controversy. But Booker said that including information about the controversy surrounding perchlorate and other studies with contrary results did not fit the format of the section. "The decision was made to limit the additional context that was added by Rebecca because it went beyond the scope of the topic of the research article," added Kimberly Thigpen, the journal's news editor, in a telephone interview. Renner said that her past articles on other studies included background similar to the material cut from her perchlorate story. Thigpen acknowledged that the Intertox letter revealed a potential conflict of interest in the editing process. Because of that concern, the magazine decided this month that news articles should be vetted by outside parties to be sure they are balanced. Renner said Goodman's editing overstepped journalistic bounds. "Gay Goodman, who is under the payroll of the Perchlorate Study Group, essentially got to rewrite a story about her own manuscript and run it under my name," Renner said in a telephone interview. ***************************************************************** 41 Las Vegas RJ: Poll: Nevadans remain opposed to Yucca Mountain Sunday, December 19, 2004 Survey commissioned in wake of Bush win By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- The presidential election still is being fought in Nevada, at least when it comes to Yucca Mountain. Both sides in the dispute over the proposed nuclear waste repository continue to debate President Bush's victory on Nov. 2, and what it means in terms of public opinion and for upcoming fights in Congress. A new poll commissioned by Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., indicates most Nevadans remain opposed to Yucca Mountain and a majority want the state to continue fighting the nuclear waste project even though voters chose to re-elect Bush. The senators said the poll reported the true feelings of Nevadans as they cast their votes in November. Analysts said the senators also were acting to control Election Day damage on the Yucca issue. Of Nevadans who voted for Bush in November, 85 percent polled said their choice was based on the war, the economy -- issues other than Yucca Mountain, which the president designated for a nuclear spent fuel repository in 2002, according to the survey. Seven out of 10 respondents said they opposed the repository, consistent with an earlier state poll, while 57 percent said Nevada's elected officials "need to continue fighting against Yucca Mountain," the poll showed. "The voters of Nevada, just because they voted for Bush, it does not mean it was an endorsement of Yucca Mountain by any stretch," Ensign said. "Nobody should misread this election." The survey, taken of 600 registered voters Nov. 30 through Dec. 2 by the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, carried an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points. Ensign said he and Reid commissioned the poll for ammunition in Congress and to fight a perception growing out of the election that Nevadans have become more accepting of the repository that the Energy Department proposes to build 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Senate aides said the poll cost about $20,000. They said it was paid out of unspent funds from the state's 2002 fight against legislation that designated Yucca Mountain for nuclear waste disposal. Reid and Ensign ordered the poll a few weeks after Bush defeated John Kerry by 50.5 percent to 48 percent in Nevada. The president's victory followed a campaign in which Democrats played up Yucca Mountain and Kerry's promise to kill the project if elected. Stumping for Kerry in Henderson on Oct. 30, President Clinton said if Bush wins Nevada, "the inescapable conclusion will be the majority of the people of Nevada have voted to put (nuclear waste) here." Consequently, Bush's victory in the state was touted by supporters of the Yucca Mountain Project. They predicted the Nevada election results would become part of an aggressive effort in Congress next year to pass bills that would help the Energy Department move the repository program forward. But even though Democrats built up the Yucca issue during the campaign, Reid said the new poll indicates it was not at the front of voters' minds. "In spite of the election where Yucca Mountain could have been terminated by voting for Kerry, the people of Nevada still don't like it, and that feeling is very, very strong," Reid said. Political science professor Eric Herzik said that, in taking the poll, the senators are attempting to reclaim control of Yucca Mountain as a political issue. "It's somewhat damage control in that the way the election results have been spun is that this was a referendum on Yucca Mountain and now the Democrats are back-pedaling," said Herzik, who teaches at the University of Nevada, Reno. Democrats "tried to use it as an issue and it blew up on them," Herzik said. Herzik said the senators' involvement also signals Nevada legislators and other elected officials they are not to break ranks against Yucca based on the election. David Damore, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said the results send a message to the White House and to Energy Secretary-designee Samuel Bodman that state leaders do not intend to back down on Yucca Mountain. Robert List, a former Nevada governor who is a consultant to the Nuclear Energy Institute, said the poll may re-energize environmental activists who were discouraged by the election results. Other than that, List said, the survey is unlikely to be persuasive. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 42 UC loses nuclear weapons program (5/9) Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 21:00:24 -0600 (CST) http://www.sfbayview.com/101304/nuclearweapons101304.shtml UC Regents lose control of nuclear weapons program Five admirals, Carlyle Group and Rand take over Part 5 by Leuren Moret Our children: uranium meat How was the truth about depleted uranium covered up and hidden from the American people? The same way Agent Orange was hidden for decades from Vietnam veterans and the public. As Henry Kissinger said, Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy. The health impact of exposure to depleted uranium, known as Gulf War Syndrome, has been covered up under three presidents beginning in 1991, with former President George Bush. Establishment doctors and scientists helped with the cover-up. Dr. Joyce Lashof, appointed by President Clinton as chair of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans Illnesses (1995-1997), is a medical doctor and former dean of the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley. As a member of the faculty at the university that has managed the nuclear weapons labs for 61 years for the U.S. goverment, she had access to the best information on the health effects of depleted uranium. After all, the nuclear weapons labs are mandated to spend 5 percent of their budgets on research concerning the biological effects of radiation. Annual lab budgets at each facility are over $1 billion. Sandia Labs, now owned by Lockheed, of which 70 percent is owned by Carlyle, has been studying mitochondrial damage from DU exposure in Gulf War vets. Higher rates of mitochondrial related diseases Parkinsons, Lou Gehrigs (ALS) and Hodgkins disease have been reported in Air Force and Army Gulf-era veterans. Despite the fact that a nuclear weapons lab found a link between DU exposure in Gulf War veterans and these diseases, Lashof categorically stated that everyone gets Lou Gehrigs disease: We heard veterans describe their diagnosis that we know happened to the general population. I mean, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a disease that happens to people Lou Gehrig's disease. And there is a veteran who has that. He feels it's due to his service in the Gulf. We don't know the cause of Lou Gehrig's disease, but we know it happens to lots of people who didn't go to the Gulf (from Update: Gulf War Syndrome, interview with Greg Krause, ONLINE NewsHour, Jan. 7, 1997, http://www.pbs.org/newshou r/bb/military/gulf_1-7.html). When asked during an interview on PBS what her findings were, after complaints from veterans resulted in her appointment by presidential order as chair of the investigative committee, Dr. Lashof stated in 1997: Well, we were critical of the Pentagon in one area and one area only. And I think its important to emphasize that the government has done a very good job of setting up physical examinations, of treating veterans as they come in, of launching a whole series of studies that should give us the kinds of answers were looking for. But the one area that we did fault them in was that they did not take very seriously the need to determine whether or not there were releases of chemical agents during - not only during the war but rather after the war as well and, indeed, whether people were exposed to these agents (same source). Terry Jemison of the Department of Veterans Affairs reported the astounding news to the American Free Press that as of August 2004, Gulf-era veterans now on medical disability number 518,739, with only 7,035 reported wounded in Iraq in that same 14-year period. A Gulf War I medical doctor reported that in a unit of 20 soldiers who served in Iraq in 2003, eight have malignancies just 16 months later. These 2003 soldiers were not exposed to chemicals or bioagents, but they were exposed to DU at levels many times more than in Gulf War I. And the Gulf-era veterans have been treated just as Vietnam veterans were theyve been ignored. Almost none have been able to get medical care. Dr. Joyce Lashof also downplayed birth defects in post-Gulf war babies reported in Gulf-era veterans. She said: It was heart-rending to sit and listen to the woman with a child with a congenital defect. She feels it's due to service in the Gulf. I think it's completely understandable, but it's just not valid. Birth defects are very common. About 3 percent of births have some type of congenital defect. The initial studies we have show no greater frequency of birth defects among those children born to veteran s who were in the Gulf, either women veterans or men (same source). A 1995 Life photo-essay, The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm (see below), focused on the numerous cases of severe birth defects that had occurred in families of veterans from that war. It reported, Of the 400 sick vets who had already answered (Don Riegles Senate Banking) Committee inquiries, a startling 65 percent reported birth defects or immune-system problems in children conceived after the war. Post-war babies in that 65 percent have been born with severe births defects - some with missing brains, no eyes , missing organs or fingers, and blood diseases. "The legacy of the Gulf War should be a recognition by all Americans that the government acknowledges and honors its obligation to care for Gulf War Veterans, not the perception the government cannot be trusted to candidly address their health concerns" (from Clinton announces new money for Gulf War Syndrome Research, CNN, Nov. 19, 1997, http://www.cnn.com/US/9711/08/gulf.war.illness/). The report produced by the presidential committee chaired by Dr. Joyce Lashof was another government whitewash by all too willing scientific and medical prostitutes. And Clintons administration was the second presidential cover-up of depleted uranium, which was used in Yugoslavia in 1995 and 1999 under President Clintons orders. References Henry Kissinger, quoted in Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POWs in Vietnam (1990) p. 97, citing The Final Days by Woodward and Bernstein (Simon and Schuster 1976). Update: Gulf War Syndrome, interview with Greg Krause, ONLINE NewsHour, Jan. 7, 1997, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/gulf_1-7.html. Clinton announces new money for Gulf War Syndrome Research, CNN, Nov. 19, 1997, http://www.cnn.com/US/9711/08/gulf.war.illness/. Birth defects: The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm, Life photo-essay (1995), http://www.life.com/Life/essay/gulfwar/gulf08.html ***************************************************************** 43 UC loses nuclear weapons program (6/9) Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 21:00:18 -0600 (CST) http://www.sfbayview.com/110304/ucregents110304.shtml UC Regents lose control of nuclear weapons program Five admirals, Carlyle Group and Rand take over Part 6 by Leuren Moret More-4-Us Dr. Henry Kissinger, who wrote: Depopulation should be the highest priority of U.S. foreign policy towards the Third World. Research on population control, preventing future births, is now being carried out secretly by biotech companies. Dr. Ignacio Chapela, a University of California microbiologist, discovered that wild corn in remote parts of Mexico is contaminated with lab altered DNA. That discovery made him a threat to the biotech industry. Chapela was denied tenure at UC Berkeley when he reported this to the scientific community, despite the embarrassing discovery that UC Chancellor Berdahl, who was denying him tenure, was getting large cash payments - $40,000 per year - from the LAM Research Corp. in Plano, Texas. Berdahl served as president of Texas A&M University before coming to Berkeley. During a presentation about his case, Chapela revealed that a spermicidal corn developed by a U.S. company is now being tested in Mexico. Males who unknowingly eat the corn produce non-viable sperm and are unable to reproduce. Depopulation, also known as eugenics, is quite another thing and was proposed under the Nazis during World War II. It is the deliberate killing off of large segments of living populations and was proposed for Third World countries under President Carters administration by the National Security Councils Ad Hoc Group on Population Policy. National Security Memo 200, dated April 24, 1974, and titled Implications of world wide population growth for U.S. security & overseas interests, says: Dr. Henry Kissinger proposed in his memorandum to the NSC that depopulation should be the highest priority of U.S. foreign policy towards the Third World. He quoted reasons of national security, and because `(t)he U.S. economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less-developed countries ... Wherever a lessening of population can increase the prospects for such stability, population policy becomes relevant to resources, supplies and to the economic interests of U.S. Depopulation policy became the top priority under the NSC agenda, Club of Rome and U.S. policymakers like Gen. Alexander Haig, Cyrus Vance, Ed Muskie and Kissinger. According to an NSC spokesman at the time, the United States shared the view of former World Bank President Robert McNamara that the population crisis is a greater threat to U.S. national security interests than nuclear annihilation. In 1975, Henry Kissinger established a policy-planning group in the U.S. State Departments Office of Population Affairs. The depopulation GLOBAL 2000 document for President Jimmy Carter was prepared. It is no surprise that this policy was established under President Carter with help from Kissinger and Brzezinski all with ties to David Rockefeller. The Bush family, the Harriman family - the Wall Street business partners of Bush in financing Hitler - and the Rockefeller family are the elite of the American eugenics movement. Even Prince Philip of Britain, a member of the Bilderberg Group, is in favor of depopulation: If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels (Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, leader of the World Wildlife Fund, quoted in Are You Ready for Our New Age Future? Insiders Report, American Policy Center, December 1995). Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been proposing, funding and building Bio-Weapons Level 3 and Level 4 labs at many places around the U.S. even on university campuses and in densely populated urban locations. In a Bio-Weapons Level 4 facility, a single bacteria or virus is lethal. Bio-Weapons Level 4 is the highest level legally allowed in the continental U.S. For what purpose are these labs being developed, and who will make the decisions on where bio-weapons created in these facilities will be used and on whom? More than 20 world-class microbiologists have been murdered since 2002, mostly in the U.S. and the UK. Nearly all were working on development of ethnic-specific bio-weapons (see Smart Dust, Roboflies ). Citizens around the U.S. are frantically filing lawsuits to stop these labs on campuses and in communities where they live. Despite the opposition of residents living near UC Davis, where a Bio-Weapons Level 4 lab was planned, it had the support of the towns mayor. She suddenly reversed her position after a monkey escaped from a high security primate facility on the campus where the bio-weapons lab was proposed. Residents claimed that if UC Davis could not keep monkeys from escaping from their cages, they certainly could not guarantee that a single virus or bacteria would not escape from a test tube. The AWOL monkey killed the project (see Smart Dust, Roboflies). Population is a political problem. The extreme secrecy surrounding the takeover of nuclear weapons, NASA and the space program and the development of numerous bio-weapons labs is a threat to civil society, especially in the hands of the military and corporations. The fascist application of all three of these programs can be used to achieve established U.S. government depopulation policy goals, which may eliminate 2 billion of the worlds existing population through war, famine, disease and any other methods necessary. Two excellent examples of existing U.S. depopulation policy are, first, the long-term impact on the civilian population from Agent Orange in Vietnam, where the Rockefellers built oil refineries and aluminum plants during the Vietnam War. The second is the permanent contamination of the Middle East and Central Asia with depleted uranium, which, unfortunately, will destroy the genetic future of the populations living in those regions and will also have a global effect already reflected in increases in infant mortality reported in the U.S., Europe, and the UK. References Birth defects: The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm, Life photo-essay (1995), http://www.life.com/Life/essay/gulfwar/gulf01.html. Statement by Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, http://homepage.mac.com/kaaawa/iblog/C337802379/E1557478132/. Smart dust, roboflies, microbugs: UC is spying on you by Leuren Moret, San Francisco Bay View, Feb. 26, 2003, http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Berkeley-Library-Classified22feb03.htm ***************************************************************** 44 ABQjournal: University of Colorado Wants Role in LANL Contract December 19, 2004 The Associated Press LOS ALAMOS — The University of Colorado is talking to private companies and other universities about jointly bidding on a contract to manage Los Alamos National Laboratory. University of Colorado System officials said they are interested in creating spinoff companies from Los Alamos research. "We are not interested in being the primary bidder. That just doesn't match our interests and capabilities," said Jack Burns, vice president for academic affairs and research for the UC System. Burns declined to say who the primary bidder or the other players would be if the university decides to seek a role in the contract. He said the day-to-day operations of the lab would be handled by some institution other than Colorado. On Dec. 1, the federal government issued a draft of the criteria it wants from bidders seeking to manage the lab. This is the first time in Los Alamos' 60-plus-year history that the contract has been put up for bid. The current contract expires Sept. 30, 2005. The University of California has held the contract since the lab's inception as a top-secret World War II project to develop the atomic bomb. Burns met last week in Albuquerque with U.S. Department of Energy officials, who held a meeting on the draft criteria and met with interested parties. Burns said he left with the sense that the DOE wants to see Los Alamos lab be more aggressive in finding commercial uses for the technology developed there. "We can help with producing some new collaborations by brokering a larger consortium in a number of areas — from basic physics to biology," Burns said. Last year, the University of Colorado System helped develop nine new companies and another 12 companies started up this year, he said. The Energy Department will put out the final version of the bid criteria next year. That's when Burns and others will decide how to put together a consortium and whether to make a bid. Burns, a former astronomy professor at the University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University, said University of Colorado faculty members and researchers have had a long relationship with scientists at the lab. Copyright Albuquerque Journal ***************************************************************** 45 DenverPost.com: Feds back visitor plan for future Flats refuge Published: Saturday, December 18, 2004 By ver Post Washington Bureau By Dan Elliott The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service endorsed a plan Friday that would let visitors roam 16 miles of trails across a scenic, wind-swept plateau that once housed the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant. A state health official said the 6,240-acre site will be safe for public use after a $7 billion cleanup of plutonium, but an activist disagreed. "It's really unwise to allow public recreation on a site that's still contaminated with some levels of plutonium and toxic materials," said LeRoy Moore of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center. The cleanup of the site, set against the foothills northwest of Denver, is expected to be complete in 2006, and the refuge could open in 2008. Parts would remain off-limits because of buried wastes, but officials say the cleanup will remove surface contamination. The Fish and Wildlife Service's draft management plan and environmental impact statement, released Friday, include four alternatives. The agency's preferred option includes hiking, cycling, horseback riding and some hunting. Most of the trails would use existing roads. A seasonally staffed visitor center, parking and developed overlooks would be constructed. The agency proposed removing unused roads, preserving the habitat of a federally protected mouse species and managing native plants, deer, elk and prairie dogs. The preferred option will likely become the final plan early next year unless some new and significant obstacle surfaces, said Mark Sattelberg, a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist at Rocky Flats. All contents Copyright 2004 The Denver Post or other copyright ***************************************************************** 46 Charleston.Net: City hopes to develop Savannah River Site 12/18/04 Up to 2,000 jobs are to be cut BY JACOB JORDAN Associated Press AIKEN--The timing couldn't have been worse. Almost a week before Christmas, Savannah River Site employees were told up to 2,000 jobs would be cut at the former weapons complex within the next two years. The community took the news in stride Friday. The site once employed 25,000 in its heyday during the Cold War, but that number has been cut by more than half when weapons production halted and cleanup of the environment got underway. Just a few miles away, the Aiken area is thriving and diversifying, community members say. They are hoping the bad news could soon be trumped by announcements of new projects and development for the site, which has long ensured the community's economic pulse. It seems everyone in the area has a family member, friend or acquaintance who works there. Van Smith, owner of a downtown tailor shop Lionel Smith Ltd., has lived in Aiken his entire life. Describing the town as "pro-business," Smith said the timing doesn't help the town's psyche. "Nothing's worse than not knowing whether you have a job," said Smith, 42. But "Aiken has the tendency to be a more positive community. ... I feel like we'll live through it." The site has certainly lived on. After years of creating waste from nuclear weapons production during the Cold War, the site's mission has changed. Now, most of the projects involve environmental cleanup, waste solidification and demolition. "The defense mission is less than it once was but there is still a defense mission," Westinghouse Savannah River Co. spokesman Will Callicott said. Westinghouse operates the site, which reaches into several counties in South Carolina and is owned by the Department of Energy. Westinghouse President Bob Pedde told employees from nearby Georgia and South Carolina of the layoffs in an e-mail Thursday. "It's sad news, but there is a silver lining," said Bill Lawless, a former site employee. "It's that we are getting the site cleaned up." Callicott said the safe day-to-day operation is the highest priority. The site's reputation for safety is well-known, said Leighton McLendon Jr., general manager for a real estate firm founded in 1916. "We're always concerned that jobs are going to be lost," said McLendon, whose also serves on the local chamber of commerce board. "The good thing about the Aiken area is a lot of people are here," he said, noting the community is a short drive to the beach, mountains and a major city, Atlanta. He praised local and state officials for maintaining missions at the site, and lobbying for new ones, like the mixed-oxide fuel facility, which would dismantle the nation's nuclear weapon stockpile and convert it to fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the MOX facility, combined with the recent naming of SRS' lab as a national laboratory, will create future employment opportunities, many in the private sector. Copyright © 2004, The Post and Courier, All Rights Reserved. webmaster@postandcourier.com ***************************************************************** 47 ABQjournal: LANL Proposal Is Faulted on Safety Saturday, December 18, 2004 Albuquerque Journal--> By Adam Rankin Journal Staff Writer Nuclear safety and federal oversight may not be getting the attention they deserve in the draft criteria for operating Los Alamos National Laboratory, released by the U.S. Department of Energy earlier this month, according to comments submitted by an independent safety board. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, formed in the late 1980s to review safety at DOE sites nationwide, sent top officials at DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration a three-page letter critical of the draft request for proposals to operate LANL and its emphasis on efficiency rather than safety. The board is critical of language in the draft criteria that would allow the next contractor to operate LANL to define some procedures and to seek out commercial standards and practices to replace those prescribed by DOE directives. "All language in the (request for proposals) suggesting that the contractor determines in the first instance how nuclear activities are to be carried out should be deleted," they write. "The government should never place itself in a position subsidiary to its own contractors." The board's comments go on to say that "there is no inherent reason to believe that when a 'conflict' is identified, the commercial practice is superior." NNSA spokesman Al Stotts said Tyler Przylbylek, NNSA's chairman of the contract criteria team, and other agency officials are still reviewing the board's comments. When the criteria were first released, Przylbylek said they were designed to try to bring in best practices and innovations from industry. But some watchdogs are concerned the criteria might go too far. "They (NNSA) are proposing lesser oversight, which is, I think, utterly ridiculous, given the last couple years at the laboratory," Jay Coghlan, director of Nuclear Watch of New Mexico, said, alluding to the laboratory's recent security infractions. In April 2003, outgoing Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham decided to open to competition the contract to operate LANL for the first time in the lab's 60-plus year history. The University of California has operated the laboratory since 1943 under contract extensions without competition, until a series of security and financial management problems provoked Abraham's decision. NNSA, DOE's semi-autonomous agency responsible for overseeing the department's nuclear facilities, released a draft version of the long-anticipated criteria for operating LANL on Dec. 1. Public comments on the criteria are due by Jan. 7. "The Board concludes that the draft (request for proposals) places unnecessary and ill-advised limitations on the Department of Energy's right to inspect and oversee the activities of the contractor, undermines DOE's system for identifying and implementing safety requirements, and omits relevant safety requirements," John T. Conway, chairman of the nuclear safety board, wrote in a cover letter, accompanying the comments. Deemed critical to the content of the final version of the criteria, expected in late January or February, Conway called on NNSA to respond to their concerns within 20 days, because "it would be preferable to resolve these issues before the final (request for proposals) is released." One provision included in the draft criteria would allow a single federal official to approve alternative procedures or assessments proposed by the next LANL operator, "without any requirement to consult with subject matter experts or program management at the site or in DOE headquarters," according to the board's comments. "This provision... opens a 'back door' by which safety requirements in the (request for proposals) can be eroded after the contract is awarded," according to the board's critique. In a separate analysis released this week, titled "Safety Management of Complex, High-Hazard Organizations," the board is also critical of a recent DOE effort to increase efficiency by providing financial incentives for timeliness and cost savings. "These well-intended changes, designed to improve productivity and efficiency, have the potential to lessen safety and to make a high-consequence, low-probability accident more likely," according to the report. The board notes that this is part of a decade-long DOE effort to balance safety and productivity. "The underlying concern is that the pendulum may swing away from safety: decisions on balancing productivity and safety will be primarily in the hands of contractors, independent DOE oversight will decrease, and risks to the public and workers could increase," according to the report. "This is clearly not an acceptable outcome." [Get Copyright Clearance] Copyright 2004 Albuquerque Journal ***************************************************************** 48 [DU-WATCH] Your e-voice at TrueMajority Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 00:26:16 -0600 (CST) I invite you to visit the link below and add your comments about DU weapons. Interesting that this thread was started by some other Elaine just today. http://truemajority.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=871107041&f=370107741&m=472105251&r=433107251#433107251 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/Sj.0lB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> [Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 49 Desert Sun: World powers focus on coal’s rising importance By Morris Bechloss Special to The Desert Sun December 19th, 2004 Coal, which has long been maligned as an inefficient and environmentally unacceptable energy source may yet prove to be the saving grace for the world’s mounting energy problems. Although the United States had previously occasioned the world’s biggest switch from oil and natural gas to coal powering of its growing electrical generation capability, the trend is even more significant in the two biggest new sources of global energy demand – China and India. The United States, benefiting from the Bush administration’s more tolerant policy has recently seen a huge increase in its use of coal as a power generating source this year. Coal production in the U.S. is expected to climb this year to a record 1.2 billion tons, an increase of more than 3.7 percent from 2003. Ninety percent is used to generate electricity. With U.S. coal supplies representing well over 200 years of reserves at the present rate of use, coal is also much cheaper than oil and/or natural gas, which are becoming increasingly harder to come by. America’s more prolific use of coal is one of the main reasons that the U.S. has taken such a strong stance against signing the soon-to-be operational Kyoto protocols. With no such restriction facing China or India, due to their exemption from the Kyoto limitations, these emerging global manufacturing powers are plunging head long into coal production and usage. Last year Chinese coal production had soared to 842 million tons of oil equivalent from 500 million in 1990. If recent trends hold, production could rise to nearly 1 billion tons of oil equivalence this year. In addition China shows no inhibitions in diversifying its energy matrix. Included are quadrupling its nuclear power generation by 2020, and adding of multiple terminals to process imported liquified natural gas. Although this will decrease the percentage of coal’s share in power generation, it will not affect the total coal tonnage to be used in the future. Although the overall impact ofglobal warming is expected to be greatly boosted by the unlimited coal use allowed to China and India by the Kyoto Protocols, new emission-limiting legislation may soon be in the offing which will include the U.S., China and India. Observers foresee a subsequent emission control treaty including the Big 3 that will include World Trade Organization action against unfair trade practices. Such legislation would make it possible to charge these world manufacturing powers with such practices due to their advantage in not limiting their gaseous emissions. As of now, the use of coal into oil conversion is limited to the "tar sands" of Canada. Almost all the oil extracted from this oil bearing coal is found in the Dominion’s Northern Alberta Province. At present this amounts to 1 million barrels of oil equivalents a day, with a potential of 2 million expected by the end of the decade. However, this oil is of the high sulfur variety which is much more difficult and expensive to refine than light sweet crude, which makes up only 20 percent of the global world market. As the world’s energy source development becomes even more precarious, coal will play an increasingly important role. However, since oil and gas use for driving, heating and air conditioning are still the predominant absorber of the world’s energy potential, substitutes for the world’s hydrocarbon and the unlocking of natural gas supplies still hold the key to eventual U.S. energy independence. Morris R. Beschloss of Rancho Mirage is an international economist and financial writer. He can be reached at (760) 324-8166. His column on global economic issues will appear weekly in The Desert Sun’s Business section. 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