***************************************************************** 11/17/05 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 13.268 ***************************************************************** 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 IRNA: Russia to continue nuclear consultations with Iran: Ivanov 2 AFP: US announces London meeting on Iran nuclear program Friday - 3 Guardian Unlimited: Iran's Nuclear Maneuverings Irk Russia 4 Guardian Unlimited: Iran in political turmoil as president purges op 5 AFP: Bush, Roh say nuclear-armed North Korea unacceptable 6 Guardian Unlimited: Bush Takes Hardline Stance Against N.Korea 7 Xinhua: Chinese president calls for peaceful settlement of nuclear i 8 Reuters: Roh says nuclear North Korea won't be tolerated 9 Guardian Unlimited: Bush, S. Korean President United on Nukes 10 Japan Times: Seoul aims for leading role 11 US: URGENT HELP NEED WITH PLUTONIUM SPACE LAUNCH 12 Times of India: N-deal finds support in US Cong- 13 CDI: Beyond Hiroshima: A Flawed Legacy of U.S. Nuclear Stewardship 14 US: courant.com: Protecting Sub Base A Top Priority Of New Panel 15 US: Jane's: US dumps bunker-buster - or not? 16 US: Guardian Unlimited: Documents Show Nixon Deception on Cambodia 17 NPR: Sixty Years of Trying to Control the Bomb 18 NPR: Examining Nuclear Threats Past and Present 19 IPS-English POLITICS-INDIA: Nuclear Deal With US Turns 20 Bellona: Japan to dismantle five more Russian subs 21 RIA Novosti: Moscow City Court upholds Adamov's arrest ruling 22 RIA Novosti: Russia ready for key role in APEC energy, transport dev 23 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Keep your enemy closer | NUCLEAR REACTORS 24 allAfrica.com: Namibia: Nuke Power 'Not All It's Cracked Up to Be' 25 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: North proposes co-owning reactor 26 RIA Novosti: Russia supplying 10% of nuclear fuel to Japan 27 NewsFromRussia.Com: Armenia: nuclear power plant will restart 28 US: Vermont Guardian: Fed panel questions Vermont Yankee uprate prop 29 US: Rutland Herald: Engineer terms Yankee reactor cracks 'significan 30 US: NRC: [Docket No. PRM-50-80] Mothers/UCS petition 31 US: NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for th 32 US: Hudson Valley News: Entergy plans new Indian Point warning syste 33 US: NJPIRG: Exelons Takeover of PSEG Will Lead to Higher Rates and W NUCLEAR SECURITY 34 US: [NukeNet] UPI- U.S. Reactors Helpless Against Air Attack 35 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: British nuclear forces, 2005 36 Guardian Unlimited: Bush, Putin to Try for Unity on Terror War NUCLEAR SAFETY 37 [DU Information List] Shameless BBC: When misinformation means 38 US: [du-list] DU NYS legislation press release 39 [du-list] Usuk DU & Xtian fundy 2nd Seal Duct tape 40 Bellona: Radiation pollution trial against Mayak plant begins 41 US: NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Find NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 42 US: [shundahaialert] Shundahai Network Goes To Nuke company 43 AFX: Iraq faces 40 mln usd bill to clean up toxic, radioactive 44 [NukeNet] Rokkasho uranium trials fail the test - corrected 45 AU ABC: Martin urges last-minute dump inquiry submissions 46 reviewjournal.com: Senators block Bush choice 47 reviewjournal.com: Yucca audit unearths more e-mail questions 48 US: San Bernardino County Sun: Deal on tainted water made with Goodr 49 US: PE.com: Deal requires testing wells for perchlorate contaminatio 50 Whitehaven News: HSE probes Sellafield fall tragedy 51 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada senators blocking Bush nominee for Yucca PEACE 52 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Lessons lost US DEPT. OF ENERGY 53 New Mexican: Panel fears Los Alamos Lab pits’ radioactive waste coul 54 New Mexican: Potential LANL chief wants to nurture new scientists 55 SF Chronicle: ZERO HOUR FOR LOS ALAMOS / UC has run the nation's top 56 DenverPost.com: Rocky Flats workers stiffed for efficiency 57 Tri-Valley Herald: Delegation supports UC-Bechtel lab bid ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 IRNA: Russia to continue nuclear consultations with Iran: Ivanov Tehran, Nov 16, IRNA Russia-Iran-Nuclear Russian Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov on Wednesday said his country would continue consultations with Iran on its nuclear programs. In an interview with Itar-Tass and RIA-Novosti news agencies, Ivanov said during his recent visit to Iran, the two sides discussed regional issues including Iran's nuclear programs. Russia believes Iran, like other member countries of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and based on the country's commitments, is entitled to expand its nuclear program. He voiced his country's opposition to access of non-nuclear countries to nuclear weapons, saying such an issue may leave serious impacts on regional and international security. He urged continuation of nuclear talks between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the European Union troika to remove possible concerns. Ivanov voiced Russia's willingness to expand ties with Iran, saying Iran is Russia's old neighbor and partner. Iran and Russia enjoy great potential for constructive cooperation, he further stated. ***************************************************************** 2 AFP: US announces London meeting on Iran nuclear program Friday - Thu Nov 17, 2:59 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States said that an informal meeting on Iran" /> Iran's nuclear program would be held in London on Friday, confirming reports, after Tehran resumed nuclear fuel work that it had earlier suspended. A State Department spokesman said that Nicholas Burns, the US undersecretary of state for political affairs, was leaving for London to meet with officials from Britain, France, Germany, Russia and others to discuss what he called Iran's "unwelcome move" to resume converting uranium into uranium hexafluoride. "This is an unwelcome move; one that we view with concern," said spokesman Adam Ereli, adding that the IAEA has confirmed Iran's return to uranium conversion efforts. "It is the latest in a series of moves by Iran that, frankly, go against what they themselves have committed themselves to and what the international community has asked of them." The countries involved in the meeting are trying to persuade Iran to halt efforts to produce enriched uranium, which is seen as a sign that Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons. Burns will meet his counterparts in London to "hear their views, hear what they think, what their assessments are; and consider again, as I said earlier, how together we can all act to accomplish our common goal," Ereli said. The meeting had been signaled by diplomats in Vienna, the location of the International Atomic Energy Agency" /> International Atomic Energy Agency, who had said, under condition of anonymity, that China would join the Iran discussions between the United States, the EU-3 countries and Russia on Friday. On Wednesday sources in Vienna said Iran has begun the conversion of 50 additional tonnes of uranium ore that can be turned into enriched uranium with potential military uses. Copyright © 2005 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 3 Guardian Unlimited: Iran's Nuclear Maneuverings Irk Russia From the Associated Press [UP] Thursday November 17, 2005 10:01 PM AP Photo XHS107 By GEORGE JAHN Associated Press Writer VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Russia's growing anger at Iran's reluctance to compromise on its nuclear activities could help the United States and other nations seeking to refer Tehran to the U.N. Security Council, diplomats said Thursday. Along with China, Russia is a key Iran ally and veto-wielding member of the Security Council that has opposed referring the Islamic state to the world body. But frustration in Moscow could swing the Russians closer to the U.S.-European position - and indirectly pressure Beijing to join the mainstream, one diplomat told The Associated Press. Russia has been increasingly active in recent weeks in efforts to bridge differences between Tehran and the West only to face Iranian intransigence, said the diplomats, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. Most recently, they said, Iranian officials told the Russians on Wednesday they would not resume uranium conversion - only to do so a few hours later. So far, Russia has been influential in getting Iran back to negotiations on uranium enrichment. The Americans and Europeans recently agreed to abandon demands that Iran renounce enrichment and related activities and instead endorsed a plan allowing Iran to convert uranium but move the enrichment process to Russia. In theory, that would deny Iran the capacity to produce weapons-grade uranium for nuclear weapons - something the Americans and their allies say Iran wants to do. Tehran insists it is interested in enrichment only to make nuclear fuel for electricity. Gregory L. Schulte, the chief U.S. representative to the IAEA, alluded to recent comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Israel should be wiped off the map. ``A country that threatens 'death' to other countries must be denied the most deadly of weapons,'' he said Thursday in a speech at Vienna's Diplomatic Academy. He accused Tehran of ``lying, covering up and withholding information on its nuclear activities.'' He said that even Russia, a key Iranian ally, believes Iran ``is developing a nuclear weapons capability.'' When senior Iranian officials told Russian counterparts that they had decided not to resume conversion for ``technical reasons,'' the Russians interpreted that as a positive sign. It raised hopes of easing tensions two weeks before the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency meets in Vienna Nov. 24 to consider possible referral to the Security Council, which can impose sanctions. Tehran's reversal was not unexpected: Iran had said several weeks ago it would process a new batch of raw uranium into a precursor of the gas used to enrich uranium. But it was nonetheless a blow, eroding the Russian goodwill Tehran needs, the diplomats said. The reversal also came soon after Russian Security Council head Igor Ivanov had briefed senior EU officials about Iran's readiness to compromise, which further embarrassed and angered the Russians, said a European official speaking from outside Vienna. A man who answered the phone at the Russian diplomatic mission in Vienna responsible for the IAEA said the head of the mission was not available for comment. U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns was en route to London on Thursday for a meeting with British, French and German negotiators representing the European Union on Iran's nuclear situation. Also, Iran recently allowed U.N. nuclear inspectors to revisit the Parchin military site, about 20 miles southeast of Tehran, in an effort to blunt chances of Security Council referral. Diplomats have told the AP that initial results of samples from the site showed no trace of radiation. But diplomats said Thursday that the nuclear agency found additional evidence that increase suspicions about Iran's agenda. They said a report by IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei to be presented at the upcoming board meeting will present new findings about ``dual-use'' equipment held by Iran - technology that can be used both for peaceful nuclear applications or in programs to make weapons. ---- On the Net: www.iaea.org Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 4 Guardian Unlimited: Iran in political turmoil as president purges opponents Iran in turmoil as president's purge deepens Simon Tisdall and Ewen MacAskill Friday November 18, 2005 The Guardian Iran is facing political paralysis as its newly elected president purges government institutions, bringing accusations that he is undertaking a coup d'état. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's clearout of his opponents began last month but is more sweeping than previously understood and has reached almost every branch of government, the Guardian has learned. Dozens of deputy ministers have been sacked this month in several government departments, as well the heads of the state insurance and privatisation organisations. Last week, seven state bank presidents were dismissed in what an Iranian source described as "a coup d'état". An informed Iranian source with first-hand knowledge of all the main political and clerical figures in the country said: "Ahmadinejad is defying everybody. He does whatever he wants and considers it to be right. This is not how things are done in Iran." The upheaval at the highest government levels in Tehran follows the dismissal of four senior ambassadors and has raised questions about Iran's ability to conclude negotiations on its nuclear programme which are due to come to a head at a UN meeting in Vienna next week. Mr Ahmadinejad drew international condemnation after he made comments about wiping Israel off the map. Concern about the government's isolationist stance has been increased by claims from Tony Blair that Iran is aiding bombmakers attacking British troops in south-east Iraq. Growing resistance inside Iran to Mr Ahmadinejad, who was unexpectedly elected in June, is coming from several senior figures and sections of the media. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who was runner-up in the election, denounced the purge and, in comments reported by Iranian news agencies, suggested the president should be reined in. "A tendency in Iran is trying to banish competent officials and it is harming the country like a plague," Mr Rafsanjani said. "Our society has been divided into two poles and some people are behaving aggressively." Hassan Rohani, sacked as Iran's senior nuclear negotiator, told Tehran newspapers that the negotiations with the west were being mishandled. The former president Mohammad Khatami also voiced concern that Mr Ahmadinejad was exceeding his powers. In a sign of divisions at the top of the clerical establishment, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has until now supported Mr Ahmadinejad, said "irregularities" in the government's behaviour would not be tolerated. Iranian sources said opinion in the conservative-controlled majlis [parliament], which initially welcomed the president's election, was becoming uneasy. There has been a series of rows about Mr Ahmadinejad's nominees to top ministry jobs, including in the oil ministry. The stock market has fallen 30% since the new president took office, and there is growing criticism of his failure to deliver on promises to create jobs and raise living standards. "There is a very tense situation. Ahmadinejad has made a very bad start and needs to get attuned to political realities," the Iranian source said, suggesting that Mr Ahmadinejad could face impeachment proceedings in the majlis if he continued to pack the government with his appointees. But the source said western threats of economic sanctions or military action against Iran were strengthening Mr Ahmadinejad at the expense of moderate conservatives, liberals and reformers. Paralysis at the top of the Iranian government could pose serious problems for the west as it struggles to resolve the nuclear stand-off. Iran began processing a fresh batch of uranium yesterday in spite of compromise proposals. Next week's UN meeting will debate whether to refer Iran to the security council for possible action. [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 5 AFP: Bush, Roh say nuclear-armed North Korea unacceptable 17/11/2005 06h41 US President George W. Bush (L) and South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun (R) ©AFP - Luke Frazza BUSAN, South Korea (AFP) - US President George W. Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun have set aside their differences on North Korea and agreed that a nuclear-armed Pyongyang is unacceptable. They said in a joint statement that "a nuclear-armed North Korea will not be tolerated" and that the issue "should be resolved through peaceful and diplomatic means" and called on North Korea to act "promptly and verifiably." "I must say that we do not have any differing opinions on this," Roh said through an interpreter at a joint press conference after the leaders met in the ancient Korean capital of Gyeongju. Bush gave no ground on Washington's position that North Korea will not get the light-water atomic reactor it wants for producing energy until it has verifiably dismantled its nuclear weapons and the programs to make them. "Our position is that we will consider the light-water reactor at the appropriate time. The appropriate time is after they have verifiably given up their nuclear weapons and/or programs," said the US president. South Korean riot police block anti-US protestors on a bus with a photo of the US leader during an anti-US-APEC rally in Gyeongju ©AFP - Kim Jae-Hwan The two leaders also recommitted themselves to six-country talks -- with Russia, China and Japan the other partners in negotiations with North Korea -- and Roh said a new round of negotiations should start as soon as possible. The meeting came a day after Roh, who in the past had resisted Bush's hardline approach on the issue, and Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed that each side in the talks should show "sincere flexibility on its position." The US president acknowledged "complexities" in the bilateral relationship but stressed that ties between Washington and Seoul had "never been better" and emphasized his support for eventually reuniting the two Koreas. "There's a real possibility that by working together, at some point in time, the peninsula will be united and at peace," said Bush. He also praised South Korea's democracy and open economy and thanked Roh for sending some 3,000 troops in support of US efforts in Iraq -- the third-largest contingent behind the United States and Britain. Bush also lashed out at opposition Democrats at home, who have stepped up charges that he twisted intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and convince the United States to go to war. US President George W. Bush (L) and South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun (R) ©AFP - Luke Frazza Bush was asked whether he sided with Vice President Dick Cheney, who suggested that such criticism undermined US forces, or Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, who called asking questions in time of war a patriotic duty. The president wasted no time in answering: "The vice president." He said that it was "patriotic as heck to disagree with the president" but that "when Democrats say that I deliberately misled the Congress and the people, that's irresponsible." Recent polls have put Bush at his lowest popularity levels since taking office and shown that a majority of Americans now doubt his honesty. After a brief trip to Japan, Bush was here for talks with Roh as well as for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum summit, which opens Friday. He was to travel to China and Mongolia before returning to Washington. By the time he ends a week-long trip to Asia, Bush was to have consulted all of the leaders of his partners in the North Korean talks. He was to see Russian President Vladimir Putin here and sit down in Beijing with Hu. Bush, who branded Pyongyang an outpost of "isolation, backwardness and brutality" on Wednesday, had been expected to soften his rhetoric somewhat by expressing support for Roh's policy of reconciliation with the North. At a previous round of talks in September, the parties issued a joint statement of principles in which North Korea promised to scrap its nuclear programs in exchange for energy assistance and other benefits. But a day later, North Korea insisted it would not dismantle its nuclear arsenal before the United States supplied it with a light-water atomic reactor to generate electricity. The United States says North Korea must disarm first. At last week's talks in Beijing, North Korea raised a new obstacle, accusing Washington of breaching the September agreement by imposing sanctions on its firms. + Àðàáñêèé Copyright Disclaimer ©AFP 2005 ***************************************************************** 6 Guardian Unlimited: Bush Takes Hardline Stance Against N.Korea From the Associated Press [UP] Thursday November 17, 2005 11:01 AM AP Photo KORM102 By JENNIFER LOVEN Associated Press Writer GYEONGJU, South Korea (AP) - President Bush took a hardline stance against North Korea on Thursday, saying the U.S. won't help the communist nation build a civilian nuclear reactor to produce electricity until it dismantles its nuclear weapons programs. With the nuclear dispute with North Korea at an apparent impasse, Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun put the communist regime on notice that it would not be allowed to keep its nuclear weapons programs. ``A nuclear-armed North Korea will not be tolerated,'' Roh said through a translator. The North has demanded that it be given a light-water reactor - a type less easily diverted for weapons use - in exchange for disarming. U.S. officials once rejected the idea outright and argued North Korea could not be trusted with any nuclear program, but now have left the door open as long as Pyongyang isn't given a reactor as an incentive but only as a reward after it has eliminated nuclear weapons programs. ``We'll consider the light-water reactor at the appropriate time,'' Bush said. ``The appropriate time is after they have verifiably given up their nuclear weapons and/or programs.'' So far, Bush is getting one thing he wanted from his four-country swing through Asia: no public displays of dissension from the United States' partners in the talks. Negotiations between North Korea and the United States, Japan, South Korea, Russia and China in September concluded with Pyongyang's promising to end its nuclear program in exchange for aid, diplomatic recognition and security guarantees. But a disappointing new round of talks ended last week without progress on the difficult next step - how to dismantle existing weapons and verify that the country has really ended all suspicious programs. At Bush's meeting with Roh - like that a day earlier in Japan with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi - the leaders made clear they remain committed to ending North Korea's program. There was no mention of the differences between the United States and South Korea on how to deal with Pyongyang. Roh, who has pursued engagement and closer ties with the North, opposes military action if diplomacy fails and is cool to going to the U.N. Security Council for sanctions. Bush has not taken either option off the table. But, declared Roh: ``We have no disagreement at all that this issue must be resolved.'' The issue will continue as a dominant theme during Bush's Asian tour. On Friday, Bush confers with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. Over the weekend, he travels to China to meet with President Hu Jintao. Roh's determination to put South Korea on a more equal footing with the United States was on display when the two leaders appeared together. Bush normally dominates such sessions with fellow leaders, even on foreign soil, as he takes most of the questions and does much of the talking. That wasn't the case this time. Roh spoke twice as much as Bush, who kept his answers brief. Still, there was none of the language that Roh used during his 2002 campaign that some viewed as anti-American. Roh repeatedly said U.S.-Korean relations have been strong under his administration. The leaders celebrated the drawdown of U.S. forces in South Korea, slated to drop by about a quarter from the current 37,000. Bush also thanked South Korea for sending military forces to Iraq. Protests in the historic capital where the two leaders met were much smaller than the anti-American demonstrations that greeted Bush in Latin America earlier this month. About 250 people gathered at the Gyeongju train station, carrying signs reading ``Stop Bush'' and opposing Roh's talks with Bush. In the nearby port city of Busan, where the annual two-day summit of 21 Pacific Rim leaders begins Friday, a small pro-Bush rally was the only demonstration. Supporters of the American president carried signs reading ``We love USA'' and with crossed-out portraits of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. After their meeting, Bush and Roh had a private lunch and toured the picturesque mountaintop Bulguksa Buddhist Temple, South Korea's oldest Buddhist temple. After returning to Busan, the president met briefly in his hotel with Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, leader of a moderate Muslim-majority nation that is a U.S. ally against terrorism - though it bitterly opposed the Iraq and Afghan invasions. At the APEC forum, Bush is expected to make the risk that bird flu might spark a global human pandemic a main topic of discussion. With the member countries accounting for nearly half of global trade, the leaders are also expected to try to reinvigorate stalled talks on a global free-trade accord. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 7 Xinhua: Chinese president calls for peaceful settlement of nuclear issue www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2005-11-17 12:20:46 SEOUL, Nov. 17 (Xinhuanet)-- China stands for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue on the peninsula, visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao said here on Thursday. Addressing the South Korean National Assembly, Hu said China's stance on the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula is unequivocal and consistent and China supports all efforts conducive to peace and stability on the peninsula. Hu noted that China has made unremitting efforts for the denuclearization of the peninsula. The Chinese president described the joint statement of the fourth round of the six-party talks on the Korean Pennisula nuclear issue as "an important staged success" achieved through the joint efforts of China, South Korea and the other four parties. "Facts have proved that peaceful dialogue is the most realisticand feasible means to solve the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula," he said. China will continue its efforts to bring a peaceful solution tothe nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula, he said, adding that he also hopes relevant parties will stick to the policy of seeking a peaceful solution to the issue through dialogue. President Hu called on the parties concerned to be more flexible, calm and pragmatic in an effort to gain more common ground so as to make new headway in the talks and eventually realize the common objective of solving the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue in a peaceful way. China always believes that the issues on the Korean Peninsula can be solved only through dialogue and negotiations between the two sides on the peninsula, he said. Hu pledged his country's continuous support to the two sides for improving their ties through dialogue, building mutual trust and finally realizing the peaceful unification of the peninsula ontheir own. China is ready to play a constructive role in important issues regarding the peace and stability of Northeast Asia and Asia as a whole, making its due contribution along with South Korea, said Hu. Enditem Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 8 Reuters: Roh says nuclear North Korea won't be tolerated | Reuters.com Wed 16 Nov 2005 10:29 PM ET KYONGJU, South Korea, Nov 16 (Reuters) - South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said on Thursday he and U.S. President George W. Bush reaffirmed that a nuclear-armed North Korea will "not be tolerated" and a resolution will be sought through peaceful means. Roh made the statement at the start of a joint news conference with Bush after their talks. "With regard to the North Korea nuclear issue, we reiterated that a nuclear-armed North Korea will not be tolerated, and reaffirmed that the issue should be resolved through peaceful and diplomatic means," Roh said. © Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved. [ border=] ***************************************************************** 9 Guardian Unlimited: Bush, S. Korean President United on Nukes From the Associated Press [UP] Thursday November 17, 2005 6:46 AM AP Photo KORM102 By TERENCE HUNT AP White House Correspondent BUSAN, South Korea (AP) - In a show of unity, President Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun declared Thursday that a nuclear-armed North Korea ``will not be tolerated'' and agreed the problem should be resolved through peaceful diplomacy. The two leaders spoke at a news conference in Gyeongju, the ancient capital of Korea. About 250 demonstrators, carrying signs that said ``Stop Bush,'' gathered at the train station in the city to protest the president's visit. Bush expressed solidarity with Vice President Dick Cheney, who issued a blistering attack in Washington against Democratic critics who claim the White House manipulated intelligence on Iraq before the war. Cheney said the critics were spreading ``one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city.'' ``Ours is a country where people ought to disagree and I expect there to be criticism,'' Bush said, who appeared visibly irritated. ``But when Democrats say I deliberately misled the Congress and the people, that's irresponsible.'' Bush and Roh met ahead of a 21-nation trade and economic summit whose members include the leaders of the five countries - the United States, China, South Korea, Russia and Japan - negotiating with North Korea for its nuclear disarmament. Roh said the the next round of six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program should be held as soon as possible to find a breakthrough. The negotiations adjourned last Friday with delegates reporting little progress. ``We have no disagreements at all that this issue must be resolved,'' Roh said. ``We reiterated that a nuclear-armed North Korea will not be tolerated and reaffirmed that the issue should be resolved through peaceful and diplomatic means,'' Roh said through a translator. Bush agreed. ``It's in the world's interest that this happen,'' Bush said. ``It's also in our interest that we continue to work together to solve the problem. I see a peninsula one day that is united and at peace.'' Roh said the two leaders talked at length about the North Korean nuclear issue and exchanged views about North Korea's attitude and tactics. ``We are basically looking to resolve this North Korean nuclear issue, and we are exploring more ways that we can resolve this issue,'' Roh said. The two leaders endorsed a joint declaration expressing satisfaction with ``the steady development'' of the U.S.-South Korean alliance. Bush said the United States would not comply with North Korea's demand that it be provided with a light-water nuclear reactor before it disarms, a stumbling block in the talks. ``We'll consider the light-water reactor at the appropriate time,'' Bush said. ``The appropriate time is after they have verifiably given up their nuclear weapons and/or programs.'' Roh played down disputes with the United States and said the current state of relations with the North represented ``perhaps the most stable situation between the two Koreas that you have ever seen. And the Korea-U.S. dialogue is going on very smoothly.'' South Korea has resisted the tough approach advocated by the Bush administration for ending the impasse with North Korea, opposing the idea of military action if diplomacy fails. South Korea also is cool to the idea of taking the standoff to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. Bush's eight-day journey to Asia offers him a reprieve from troubles at home, where his approval rating has fallen to the lowest point of his presidency. Unhappiness over the war in Iraq has hurt Bush's popularity and credibility, and Republicans are nervous about how the war and the president's other woes will affect next year's midterm elections. Roh has been a major supporter of Bush's Iraq policy. South Korea is the third-largest contributor of troops behind the United States and Britain, deploying more than 3,000 soldiers. Like Bush, Roh's domestic approval ratings are down, and his foes call him a lame duck. Bush flew here for the annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, representing 21 countries that account for about half the world's trade. APEC is expected to call for progress at the next round of World Trade Organization talks in Hong Kong next month toward a global trade agreement. APEC represents ``a significant bloc in the WTO membership,'' said Faryar Shirzad, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs. ``And so when they speak and lay out an agenda of ambition, it's an agenda that the membership at the WTO takes note of and helps drive the negotiating dynamics in a constructive way.'' In addition to the APEC meetings, Bush will hold separate talks with the leaders of Malaysia, Russia and Indonesia before traveling to China on Saturday. Before meeting with the prime minister of Malaysia, Bush, Roh and their wives made a quick sightseeing trip to the Bulguksa Buddhist Temple. Situated on a mountaintop, it is the oldest Buddhist temple in South Korea. Looking ahead to talks about North Korea, Bush said his objective was to remind his partners that they need to stick together and send a consistent message. The most recent round of negotiations adjourned Friday with no sign of progress, but it's likely they will resume in Beijing next month or in January. In September, North Korea promised to end its nuclear program in exchange for aid, diplomatic recognition and security guarantees. On the Net: CIA World Factbook on South Korea: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ks.html Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation: http://www.apecsec.org.sg/ White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 10 Japan Times: Seoul aims for leading role Thursday, November 17, 2005 By BRAD GLOSSERMAN PUSAN, South Korea -- South Korea, long considered "a shrimp among whales" in Northeast Asia, senses opportunity. Diplomatic developments in the region hold out hope of a transformation of relations among states, and South Korean strategists see their nation as uniquely positioned to lead this process. The six-party talks to deal with North Korea's nuclear program are widely viewed as the incubator for a new regional security order. The current negotiations are an ad hoc affair, with diplomats meeting in Beijing at odd intervals. But the complexities of the talks and the range of issues and concerns subsumed in them will necessitate their institutionalization. Many participants and observers agree that the talks should morph into a permanent security forum for Northeast Asia, an unprecedented development. In December, Malaysia will host the first East Asian Summit. While the EAS is being touted as a step forward in the effort to define East Asia as a coherent political entity, there are still far more questions than answers about this event. Who will attend? Who will lead this process? What is its ultimate objective? How will it fit into the existing structure of regional institutions, such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the ASEAN Regional Forum and the ASEAN Plus Three? In both cases, South Koreans argue their country is best suited to lead these efforts, and they see them as platforms to raise South Korea's international profile. In the six-party talks, for example, many South Koreans feel that they, as an ally of the United States and a Korean nation, are the best mediators for those negotiations and best positioned to bring the two key parties -- the U.S. and North Korea -- together. When discussion turns to the EAS, South Koreans point to friction between Japan and China, the two natural leaders of any regional program, and suggest that the competition between them will block substantive progress toward the goal of creating a coherent "East Asia." South Koreans assert their country can serve as a neutral intermediary between those two rivals, and simultaneously dampen Southeast Asian concerns that any regional entity will be dominated by the two giants from Northeast Asia. Yu Myung Hwan, South Korean vice minister of foreign affairs and trade, summed up his country's view in a keynote speech to an international conference here that preceded the APEC summit: "Korea is free from the burden of historical issues, and a bridge country between advanced and developing countries, thus able to suggest a direction of integration that can harmonize the interests of countries concerned in a balanced way." It will be interesting to see how that argument is received in Japan. Numerous Japanese have used similar language and logic to argue that their country is best suited to act as a bridge in the Asia Pacific, bringing the Americas and Asia together; the same case is made in the Group of Seven, where Japanese representatives have long maintained that their country is the best interlocutor between the developed and developing worlds. South Korea will use this week's APEC meeting in Pusan to showcase its ability to lead the region. Producing a forward-looking agenda and leaders' statement are important, but the real test is seeing those commitments implemented. In other words, the real test of South Korean leadership -- or that of any country -- is not in the period leading to a meeting, but in that which follows: Real leaders continue to work for results even when the spotlight has dimmed. That is the proper measure of a country's commitment to any project. In security affairs, Seoul can demonstrate leadership by helping dampen tension in the region. Playing up historical tensions with Japan is at odds with this ambition, both because it inflames passions within South Korea and because it encourages other countries to act in similar ways. Seoul should do more to solve problems, not exacerbate them. (Arguing that Japan "started" the dispute may be true, but it doesn't help solve the problem, which is what leaders are supposed to do.) Similarly, Seoul should be working harder to find the sources of tension in the region and dealing with them before they flare. Most significantly, South Koreans will have to work harder to balance all relevant interests in the region. That means reaching out to North Korea, but also to the U.S., its ally, and Japan, another country with key interests in any settlement of regional security problems. Thus far, Seoul has found it easier to reach out to Pyongyang and argue on behalf of the North in multilateral forums than it has to make the case for Washington and Tokyo. Such objectivity is a tall order. It is especially difficult given the supercharged political atmosphere in South Korea, where it is much easier to stand up for their brethren in the North than it is to make the case for the U.S. or Japan. Neither is it clear that other countries in the region are prepared to cede a leading role to South Korea. Southeast Asian nations have insisted on a leading role for ASEAN in every Asian forum they join; they are unlikely to make an exception for South Korea just because it isn't a giant like Japan or China. Tokyo and Beijing are equally unlikely to step aside for Seoul, if for no other reason than that each has long argued that it is the rightful leader within the region. South Koreans are to be commended for recognizing the opportunities inherent in East Asia's transition. Seizing them is another matter. The obstacles that South Korea faces are formidable, and the odds of success are long. A grand vision is essential to the realization of Korean ambitions, but they must be tempered by realistic expectations. South Koreans may have to be satisfied with being a "balancer" in key regional relationships -- between Japan and China, for example -- rather than a leader. Yet even that is a considerable improvement from being "a shrimp among whales." Brad Glosserman, a contributing editor to The Japan Times, is executive director of Pacific Forum CSIS, a Honolulu-based think tank. He can be reached at bradgpf@hawaii.rr.com The Japan Times: Nov. 17, 2005 (C) All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 11 URGENT HELP NEED WITH PLUTONIUM SPACE LAUNCH Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 12:40:15 -0600 (CST) Dear Friends: I write to urge your immediate financial support for a project the Global Network is now undertaking. NASA plans to launch 25 pounds of highly-toxic plutonium from Florida in January, 2006 on a New Horizons space probe to the planet Pluto. In NASA's Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the New Horizons Mission they say that the plutonium to be used will be a mixture of pu-238 and pu-239. The pu-238 is the hottest and most toxic ever created. The pu-239 has a half life of several hundred thousands of years. The Nagasaki bomb dropped by the U.S. at the end of World War II used pu-239. In the EIS, NASA acknowledges that a deadly launch accident could release the plutonium to be carried by prevailing winds for a 60-mile radius. In such a worst case scenario NASA states that clean-up costs would range from $241 million to $1.3 billion per square mile. In the 1997 Cassini EIS, NASA acknowledged they would have to remove all the people, the buildings, the vegetation, the animals, and the top = inch of soil in the contaminated area after such an accident. Central Florida would be a nuclear wasteland. One thing we have learned over the years is that space technology can and does fail. The Global Network is now arranging to have op-ed pieces placed in several key newspapers in the region. We are also working with members of the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice to organize a space center protest just prior to the January 11 launch. But we'd also like to do something more. The Global Network would like to purchase three < page advertisements in the Florida Today newspaper in the weeks prior to the launch. We have determined that the advertisements would cost us $2,800. They would allow us to share our deep concerns with thousands of people throughout the space coast region. In the advertisement we'd place the map, right out of NASA's EIS, that illustrates the 60-mile "potentially affected area" surrounding the space center that could be contaminated after a launch accident. In addition, the ad would allow us to give our unfiltered reasons for opposing nuclear power in space. We hope you will help us raise awareness and debate in Central Florida by donating today to this special fund to place advertisements in the newspaper. Your check (mail to address just below) will help us raise the level of discussion about launching deadly plutonium into space. If you'd like to make a contribution with your credit card just go to our website home page http://www.space4peace.org and scroll down to the secure red Donate Now! button. Thank you for your help with this important effort. Bruce K. Gagnon Coordinator Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 652 Brunswick, ME 04011 (207) 729-0517 (207) 319-2017 (Cell phone) globalnet@mindspring.com http://www.space4peace.org http://space4peace.blogspot.com (Our blog) ***************************************************************** 12 Times of India: N-deal finds support in US Cong- [ Thursday, November 17, 2005 01:27:43 pmPTI ] WASHINGTON: US Congressmen and other experts have warned Congress not to push for a fissile material production cut-off on India during the third in a line of hearings to discuss the civilian nuclear cooperation deal between the US and India. In a somewhat surprising shift of opinion, long time India-foe Congressman Dan Burton from Indiana, who will be visiting India soon, expressed support for the US-India strategic alignment. "How can the Congress of the United States create a better environment or better working relationship with India?" questioned the old India-critic Burton. He castigated past Indian leadership for the country not reaching its global status earlier. At the House International Relations Committee hearing Thursday, Congressmen heard a slew of opinions from experts who ultimately supported the July 18 deal signed during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's July visit. It was the third in a line of hearings held by the full committee of the House International Relations Committee (US India Global Partnership: How Significant for American Interests?). In what seemed like a slow but expanding shift toward support for the civil nuclear cooperation agreement, Republican Henry Hyde from Illinois, who is chair of the House International Relations Committee, said: "I hope this agreement will signify (what) is a sea change in how India's leaders conceive their country's role in the world." "Much of the problem can be traced to the legacy of the colonial past, specifically, a mindset manifested in a defensive attitude toward an imagined hostile world, and a self-imposed alienation from the West that impoverished its opportunities and produced anomalies remarkable for a democracy, such as its close and warm relationship with the Soviet Union," Hyde contended. He warned that if India was to take on its rightful place on the global stage, it also had the responsibility to participate more. "Thus the assumption by India of a more active role, is very much welcomed, if it is accompanied by commensurate expansion of responsibility for reinforcing security and stability in the Middle East and the Indian Ocean region, and Central Asia, and even for the international systems as a whole," Hyde emphasised. "Giant India's emergence summons comparably, giant possibilities." And as the world quickly evolves into unfamiliar patterns, Hyde said, "My hope is she will join us in shaping this era and take possession of the limitless possibilities that are hers to possess." Tom Lantos, Democrat from California, said, "We can have no better partner than India ..." in the fight against terrorism and for the spread of democracy around the world. He spoke of terrorist attacks in both countries including the recent Diwali bombings in the Indian capital New Delhi. He urged Congress to look at other aspects of the July 18 agreement rather than only at the civilian nuclear content, areas such as HIV/AIDS, research, technology, trade, engineering, and military cooperation. Lantos again lauded the Manmohan Singh government for taking the "potentially risky" decision to vote with the US on Iran at the IAEA meeting in Vienna, showing India could take "tough" decisions if needed. Democrat representative from New York Gary Ackerman also argued strongly against adding any additional conditions to the existing agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation, warning it would scuttle the pact and perhaps do permanent damage to the bilateral relationship. "I would point out to those critics of the agreement that there are already many very serious and difficult conditions contained in the July 18 joint statement that India will have to meet. Indeed, there are some difficult conditions that the United States will have to meet." Eni Faleomavega, a Democrat from Hawaii, who has consistently maintained India's right to have nuclear weapons, came out strongly as usual in favour of the agreement asserting that India had historically been the strongest supporter of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Brookings Institute's Stephen Cohen warned that India would not be a "dependent" state or ally of the US, but more like a France. Indian strategists, Cohen noted, had strong reservations about the US non-proliferation regime and India had developed a theoretical position relating to vertical nuclear weapons programme, one that had been used by other countries like Iran and North Korea. Cohen also contended that the Bush administration did not have enough South Asia experts in it, and had not discussed the civil nuclear cooperation content adequately with experts within and outside the administration before signing the deal with India. Francis Frankel, founder of the Center for the Advanced Study of India, who addressed the issue of whether India could be a hedge against a rising China, argued New Delhi was in a "weaker position" economically and did not have the same nuclear capabilities as China. And China's strategic partnership with Pakistan offset any advantages, not to mention Beijing's $1 billion investment in that country and its inroads into Myanmar. But India did not see itself in conflict with China and has too much at stake in China to be overtly anti-Chinese, Frankel said. The Congress also heard from Ashley Tellis, former senior advisor to the US ambassador to India and Satu Limaye of the Institute for Defense Analysis at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. Tellis argued that the uncertainty about the nuclear future so far as China and Pakistan were concerned made India wary of compromising its fissile material cut-off. He said it would be best to work with New Delhi on a global fissile material moratorium treaty. He emphasised that India's fissile material cache was very little compared to that of China; that the promises the Bush administration had secured under the July 18 agreement, namely separation of military and civil facilities, would already put a cap on building the largest possible reactor, thus limit fissile material production. His views on fissile material cut-off were supported by Cohen and Frankel. "It would not be an exaggeration to say that for the first time the interests of the two countries is strongly convergent," he said, but qualified that the path would not be without bumps. Congress, Tellis maintained, had "an important opportunity to transform" the relationship between the two by turning India into a "full partner" from being a target of US non-proliferation law. Limaye agreed with Frankel's assessment that India could not be a buffer against China. He noted New Delhi's incremental growth in relations with East Asian countries, but did point out India's cozying up with Burma was inconsistent with Washington's stand. Much of East Asia, he said, supports the US-India strategic relationship, but Japan and China were wary of it. Copyright © 2005 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 CDI: Beyond Hiroshima: A Flawed Legacy of U.S. Nuclear Stewardship October 12, 2005 Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the worst of U.S. attacks on Japan during World War II. The B-29 firebombing raid on Tokyo the night of March 9-10, 1945, incinerated well over 100,000 people—more than the number of people who died immediately following either nuclear attack. But not until Aug. 6 and 9, when they saw two Japanese cities destroyed by a single atomic bomb apiece, would Emperor Hirohito and his military leaders finally consider surrender. Military analysts contend that nuclear weapons shortened the Pacific war by at least two years, preserved half a million American lives that would have been lost during invasion of the Japanese home islands, and saved as many as five million Japanese soldiers and civilians from death in battle or by starvation. Nevertheless, for the 60 years since, U.S. stewardship of its nuclear policy and weaponry has often been nudged to the brink of catastrophe by ignorance, arrogance and mechanical malfunction. Warning signs appeared from the start. In the Trinity test of July 16, 1945 (the world’s first nuclear explosion), the prototype of the plutonium device that would pulverize Nagasaki detonated with unexpected violence, four times the Los Alamos Lab’s estimates. Then there was the 1954 Bravo test shot of the first dry-fuel hydrogen bomb, its fusion reactions stoked by powdered lithium deuteride. Resulting weight-saving breakthroughs proved essential to our Cold War development of bomber- and missile-deliverable thermonuclear warheads. And at 15 megatons (a megaton, MT, is the million tons equivalent of TNT), it remains the largest explosion triggered by the United States—a blast exceeding 1,000 times the power of the uranium bomb that had leveled Hiroshima. At three times its projected yield, this Pacific test triggered frightening unintended consequences. When the dawn sky above the Pacific islet of Namu flashed into blinding incandescence on March 1, 1954, the initial fireball was four miles wide. "The thing was glowing. It looked to me like a diseased brain," recalled physicist Marshall Rosenbluth in Richard Rhodes’ Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. Its roiling radioactive cloud eventually reached 130,000 feet and a breadth of 66 miles. It damaged the fuselage and engine nacelles of a massive RB-36D reconnaissance bomber flying at 40,000 feet, 15 miles from ground zero. Twenty miles away, radioactive fallout trapped the firing team in its concrete bunker. And 82 miles away, additional fallout contaminated a Japanese fishing boat, hospitalizing its crew—one of whom died. Radiation sickness then forced the evacuation of 264 U.S. personnel and nearby islanders. Following Bravo, three additional blasts in the Operation Castle test series vastly exceeded predictions; in the first B-52 airdrop of a 3.8 MT hydrogen bomb in 1956, the pilot missed the target island by four miles. Two years later, a B-47 accidentally dumped a nuclear weapon (unarmed) on South Carolina. And during our 1962 Pacific nuclear tests, three malfunctioning Thor booster rockets had to be destroyed along with their thermonuclear warheads. The list goes on. Obviously, responsible stewardship of a nuclear arsenal comprising thousands of weapons with elemental energy of the stars compressed into their warheads is a daunting prospect—especially when underlying nuclear reactions are not fully understood and when pilots and missile designers make mistakes. But what happens when presidential advisors and military leaders lose clarity of judgment and moral focus? At least three times from 1953 through the Berlin Wall Crisis of 1961, Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy were urged to launch preemptive nuclear strikes against the Soviet Union—by civilian and military leaders ranging from Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze to Gen. Thomas Power, commander of Strategic Air Command, and retired Air Force Gen. James Doolittle. Furthermore, consider provocations by Air Force Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, who sent every available reconnaissance bomber in the Strategic Air Command directly over Vladivostok at the height of the Cold War. Or Power, LeMay’s successor, who in the midst of October 1962’s Cuban Missile Crisis, ordered an Atlas missile test-launched from the West Coast over the Pacific even as he commanded thermonuclear-armed air-alert bombers to ignore customary turnback points and head straight for Russia’s early-warning radar system. Worse: with Polaris missile subs leaving port and 136 Atlas and Titan ICBMs being armed and readied for launch, Sens. Richard Russell and J. William Fulbright, presidential advisor McGeorge Bundy, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff pressured Kennedy to order preemptive strikes against Cuba, followed by an invasion. Fortunately Kennedy said no, for optimistic intelligence estimates were proven wrong. Russian crews at San Cristobal and Sagua La Grande were in a position to prepare SS-4 missiles for launch against Washington, D.C., and southeastern U.S. cities, their megaton warheads having arrived in Cuba on Oct. 4; and, completely unexpectedly, nine Russian tactical nuclear missiles were available to cover approaches to potential invasion beaches. "Never before or since," writes historian Donald Kagan, "has the world been brought so close to nuclear war." Unlike Kennedy, President George W. Bush did not say no, albeit with conventional weapons. In March of 2003, reacting to unverified (and inappropriate) intelligence reports, he initiated his preemptive invasion of Iraq. The previous year, he had withdrawn the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty with Russia after releasing a Nuclear Posture Review that considered preemptive nuclear strikes and potential development of new ‘mininukes’ for use against deeply buried bunkers—despite U.S. endorsement of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In fact, development of this new type of nuclear weapon would deny U.S. acceptance of the treaty’s preambular intent to strengthen "trust between States in order to facilitate the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons," throwing into question U.S. commitment in Article VI "to pursue negotiations in good faith of effective measures relating to … nuclear disarmament." While such destabilizing decisions do not approach in severity some of the potential catastrophes narrowly averted during the Cold War, they did occur in a historical context radically altered from that prevailing in the summer of 1945, when the United States laid claim to the world’s only nuclear weapons. Indeed, since then we have watched expansion of the ‘nuclear club’ continue apace: today seven other nations are known to possess nuclear weapons. North Korea has announced that it also has them, with Iran moving toward their development. Given this steadily widening availability of nuclear weaponry, responsible global nuclear stewardship is needed now more than ever. Although other governments might look to the world’s only remaining superpower for leadership in this endeavor, closer examination reveals a six-decade record of miscalculations and ethical lapses that unfortunately suggest the United States is, at best, a dubious role model. # # # (A condensed version of this article appeared in 2005 in The San Diego Union-Tribune and The Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Aug. 5 and 7, 2005 respectively.) A resident of Philadelphia, Mr. Gaillard writes frequently on defense issues and military technology. His background includes experience in publishing, education, and industry; his book reviews and articles have appeared in The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Times, U.S. Naval Institute PROCEEDINGS, The Marine Corps Times, Naval History, Defense News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Submarine Review, and other newspapers and magazines across the U.S. He is a contributor to the Center for Defense Information’s Straus Military Reform Project. Sources Consulted: Cowley, Robert (ed.). What If? 2: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2001. Gribkov, Anatoli I. Operation ANADYR: U.S. and Soviet Generals Recount the Cuban Missile Crisis. Chicago: Edition Q, 1994. Hansen, Chuck. U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History. New York: Aerofax, a division of Crown Publishers, 1988. Kagan, Donald. On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace. New York: Doubleday, 1995. Kaplan, Fred. "JFK's First Strike Plan." Atlantic Monthly Oct. 2001: 81-86. Light, Michael. 100 Suns: 1945-1962. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Rhodes, Richard. Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. --- The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Touchstone, a division of Simon & Schuster, 1988. Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Truman, Harry S. Memoirs by Harry S. Truman (vol. 1). Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1955. # # # Center for Defense Intelligence ***************************************************************** 14 courant.com: Protecting Sub Base A Top Priority Of New Panel CONNECTICUT NEWS November 17, 2005 By JESSE HAMILTON, Courant Staff Writer GROTON -- A new commission met for the first time Wednesday to start crafting an ambitious plan not only to protect the Navy's submarine base from future closure threats but also to diversify the economy in southeastern Connecticut so such a closure wouldn't cripple it. State officials, town leaders and prominent businesspeople sat in a town meeting room to start inventing the governor's new commission, trying to figure out how it might fit with an existing local effort that already formulated a "Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy" for the area. The way commission Chairman Douglas Fisher sees it, the VIPs in this new group may have a better shot of making that existing plan - a plan much like others elsewhere in the state - actually happen. "This one is getting attention, and that's a good thing," said Fisher, who is director of economic and business development at Northeast Utilities. Tony Sheridan, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut, said there are serious roadblocks to the fledgling development strategy the new commission will try to bolster. "We don't have a friendly business climate in Connecticut," he said. And "talking about [the development plan] is like trying to get your kids to eat oatmeal." This corner of Connecticut was one moment away from economic devastation this year when an independent federal commission saved the submarine base from a Department of Defense attempt to close it. Closure could have dragged dozens of defense contractors down with it, including submarine builder Electric Boat. It was a close call that came at the end of a monumental campaign to defend the base. Now, the governor wants to get a head start on warding off any similar Pentagon efforts before they get started. This commission, attended by the commander of the sub base and the president of Electric Boat, is charged with coming up with a plan. "We need to make sure we don't go through that process again," said James Abromaitis, commissioner of the state Department of Economic and Community Development. The first meeting spotlighted some delicate issues that lie ahead. Capt. Sean Sullivan, the sub base commander, announced, "I'm in a difficult position." As a representative of the Navy, he can't work on strategies to beat back the Pentagon, though he said he could work on efforts toward better relationships between the base and the surrounding communities and businesses. And Electric Boat President John Casey said aid can't come soon enough for his business, and the commission's work would already be too late to help with some looming problems. At this first meeting, the group discussed forming an executive board and subcommittees that would work on specific issues - all open to the public. Though most of the comments from around the room presented challenges the group might face, there were a few suggestions for things to pursue. State Sen. Cathy Cook said the area could try to become a "the homeland security center of excellence," building on its strong defense and U.S. Coast Guard presence. Fisher suggested the group could look into fostering the development of energy sources, even if it's nuclear power. "We came too close to losing the sub base," said Gov. M. Jodi Rell in a statement read at the meeting. She has saddled the commission with a major task to maintain the 31,500 jobs a loss of the sub force could mean while diversifying a region that has become "too reliant" on the undersea weapons. But she put faith in the teamwork that already won that challenge. She said, "We accomplish far more as a group than we do on our own." To comment on this story, or to request a correction click here to send a message to Karen Hunter, The Courant's reader representative. to read Karen's daily Weblog courant.com is Copyright © 2005 by The Hartford Courant ***************************************************************** 15 Jane's: US dumps bunker-buster - or not? 17 November 2005 In late October, US Congressional leaders agreed to withhold USD4 million requested by the US administration to complete pre-engineering studies into the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP). Although it has been widely reported that the programme has now been cancelled, there is evidence that the RNEP project may yet continue under a new name. The body in charge of US nuclear weapons programmes, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which operates within the US Department of Energy, has stated it wants to complete the RNEP study at Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico, as planned, but with Pentagon funding. It proposes renaming the study. Although the NNSA had asked to drop Energy Department funding, reflecting a "change in policy" favouring research into conventional penetrator options, the nuclear option may not have been abandoned. The RNEP programme may be as much motivated by the development of new technology directly applicable to a new generation of lower-yield nuclear weapons, as by the perceived military need for a weapon that is able to destroy hard and deeply buried targets (HDBTs). The conventional weapon is to undergo a 'sled test' early in 2006, in which a mock warhead will be slammed into a huge block of concrete at high speed to test impact. The results could guide government policy to fully developing either a conventional or nuclear earth penetrator. Much depends on whether the penetrator shell contains a mock nuclear warhead, as originally planned, or a mock conventional warhead. A mock nuclear warhead would signal the intention to continue the RNEP programme under a conventional guise. However, some insiders believe that further attempts to get additional funding approved in Congress may come up against the same obstacles as before. 279 of 824 words © 2005 Jane's Information Group. All rights reserved | ***************************************************************** 16 Guardian Unlimited: Documents Show Nixon Deception on Cambodia From the Associated Press [UP] Thursday November 17, 2005 8:31 AM By HOPE YEN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Determined to win re-election, the Nixon administration sought ways to use former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa for its campaign in 1972, the year after President Nixon pardoned the union leader, newly released documents show. The material released Wednesday by the National Archives shows the Justice Department reviewed how far the administration could go in promoting Hoffa at campaign appearances in an effort to cut into traditionally strong union support for Democrats. ``Hoffa should be advised that public campaign appearances without official or unofficial union sponsorship are not prevented by the terms of his release,'' an Aug. 21, 1972, Justice Department memo states. It was among 50,000 pages of declassified documents made public from the Nixon years that shed light on the Vietnam War and a president who tried not to let public and congressional opinion get in his way. ``Publicly, we say one thing,'' Nixon told aides in one memo after his secret war in Cambodia became known. ``Actually, we do another.'' Nixon pardoned Hoffa in December 1971 for two federal convictions for jury tampering and mail fraud, then got the Teamsters' endorsement the following year. Critics long have contended that administration officials cut the deal in exchange for political favors; the charge has never been proved. The voluminous documents paint a picture of an administration keenly aware of Hoffa's labor support and how it might be used to their advantage. The Teamsters also supported Nixon in his 1968 presidential campaign. In a March 19, 1971, memo to Attorney General John Mitchell, White House counsel John Dean spelled out the political calculation after Hoffa's wife and son requested a meeting with Nixon to ask for a pardon. At the time, White House officials were concerned that Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., could mount a fierce challenge for the presidency. ``If he is paroled, we may get some credit and he will start off with a constructive relationship with the president,'' Dean wrote. ``He would be a dedicated factor to box in Kennedy, and he might eventually be key for us to organized labor. ``Politically, for him to be released with a sense of debt and/or interest relative to the president, could be momentous,'' Dean added. The documents also offer new details on the administration's reaction to the pardon. By Dec. 11, 1973, for instance, White House officials were investigating whether political deals were cut, and, if so, whether Nixon knew about it. ``We are interested in discussing the president's role in this matter and not in defending any former White House personnel,'' speechwriter Ben Stein wrote deputy counsel Fred Fielding, noting that a white paper ``answering fully the charges'' was forthcoming. No such paper was released. In the Aug. 21, 1972, memo, Justice Department lawyers asserted it would be appropriate for Hoffa to elicit union support even though Nixon's pardon a year earlier had imposed a restriction that the labor leader could not return to union activities until 1980. The lawyers contend there are ``sound legal arguments'' for Hoffa to make appearances before union groups. However, to avoid a direct conflict with the presidential pardon, it is inadvisable for Nixon officials to ``encourage him in any way to initiate open involvement with labor organizations,'' according to the memo. ``He should be advised to avoid any official contact with labor groups,'' the memo said. Nixon handily won re-election in 1972; Hoffa eventually disappeared without a trace on July 30, 1975. The documents also show Nixon's political calculations when it came to defending the previously secret U.S. bombings and troop movements in Cambodia. On May 31, 1970, a month after Nixon went on television to explain his actions, asserting that he would not let his nation become ``a pitiful, helpless giant,'' the president met top military and national security aides at the Western White House in San Clemente, Calif. Revelation of the operation had sparked protests and congressional action against what many lawmakers from both parties considered an illegal war. Nixon noted that Americans believed the Cambodian operation was ``all but over,'' even as 14,000 troops were engaged across the border in a hunt for North Vietnamese operating there. In a memo from the meeting marked ``Eyes Only, Top Secret Sensitive,'' Nixon told his military men to continue doing what was necessary in Cambodia, but to say for public consumption that the United States was merely providing support to South Vietnamese forces when necessary to protect U.S. troops. ``That is what we will say publicly,'' he asserted. ``But now, let's talk about what we will actually do.'' He instructed: ``Do not withdraw for domestic reasons but only for military reasons. We have taken all the heat on this one. Just do it. Don't come back and ask permission each time.'' --- Associated Press Writer Cal Woodward contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 17 NPR: Sixty Years of Trying to Control the Bomb South Korean protesters carrying a mock North Korean missile are blocked by riot policemen at a rally in Seoul, May 4 © 2005 [A meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Security Committee during the Cuban Missile Cri] A meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Security Committee during the Cuban Missile Crisis: President John F. Kennedy, (L) Dean Rusk, and Robert McNamara (R) in the White House Cabinet Room. U.S. National Archives Talk of the Nation, November 8, 2005 · Over six decades, the world has struggled to develop atomic power and control nuclear weapons -- with mixed results on both counts. Neal Conan hosts a special broadcast on the history of the atomic age, live from the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C. Guests: Richard Rhodes, Historian and author of 20 books; a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb; author of the forthcoming End Game: the Unmaking of the Nuclear Arms Race Siegfried Hecker, nuclear scientist at Los Alamos since 1965; former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory (1986-1997); visiting professor, Stanford University General Eugene Habiger, former commander-in-chief of the United States Strategic Command (1996 to 1998); distinguished fellow with the Center for international Trade and Security, University of Georgia Robert McNamara, former secretary of defense under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson; former president of the World Bank ***************************************************************** 18 NPR: Examining Nuclear Threats Past and Present [A mushroom cloud rises above Fangataufa Lagoon. ] A mushroom cloud rises above Fangataufa Lagoon, French Pacific Possessions, following detonation of France's first hydrogen bomb, August 24, 1968. Corbis © 2005 Every American citizen today has at least the right to ask, are we doing at the governmental level all we can do to prevent a nuclear attack on America? The simple answer is no, we are not. Former Sen. Sam Nunn, in a speech to the National Press Club To compel Iran to abide by its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which includes submitting to full inspections and safeguards, the Security Council must be prepared to impose the entire range of sanctions -- diplomatic, economic, and military. Sen. Richard Lugar, speaking to the Press Club Talk of the Nation, November 8, 2005 · Sixty years after President Harry Truman called for an end to the use of atomic weapons, arms control efforts continue. How did we get where we are today? Talk of the Nationexamines the issue in a live broadcast before a studio audience at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C. Guests: Ambassador Linton Brooks, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee Former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA), co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). ***************************************************************** 19 IPS-English POLITICS-INDIA: Nuclear Deal With US Turns Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 14:56:14 -0800 ROMAIPS AP IP DV ML=20 POLITICS-INDIA: Nuclear Deal With US Turns Faustian Bargain Analysis by Praful Bidwai=20 NEW DELHI, Nov 16 (IPS)-Indian leaders are finding, to their dismay,=20 that they confront far tougher choices in implementing a controversial=20 nuclear agreement they signed with the United States, than they had=20 bargained for.=20 These choices pertain to a sequence of steps New Delhi must take that=20 could prove a potential obstacle to the deal's execution, based upon its=20 approval by U.S. Congress.=20 Under the agreement, signed on Jul.18 by President George W. Bush and=20 Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the U.S. promised to make a one- time exception for India in the international nuclear control regime,=20 recognise it as a =94responsible=94 nuclear weapons-state (NWS), and resu= me=20 civilian nuclear commerce with it.=20 In return, India would separate its civilian nuclear facilities from=20 military ones and =94voluntarily=94 place the former under the safeguards= of=20 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It would also sign an=20 Additional Protocol with the IAEA providing far more intrusive-than- normal inspections of civilian facilities.=20 On Monday, U.S. ambassador to India David Mulford bluntly announced that=20 India must submit a plan for civilian-military separation so that=20 Washington can judge whether or not it is =94credible=94 and decide to=20 present it to the Congress.=20 The agreement's approval would demand a change in U.S. domestic laws, in=20 particular the Non-Proliferation Act of 1978, which prohibits civilian=20 nuclear transactions with, and triggers sanctions against, a country=20 which is pursuing a nuclear weapons programme.=20 India, which shocked the world by detonating five nuclear bombs in May=20 1998, has an ambitious nuclear weapons programme, for which it=20 desperately seeks recognition, especially from the U.S.=20 =46rom initial condemnation of the tests, Washington has moved to an=20 awkward acceptance of India's NWS status. This followed rounds of high- level talks on the nuclear and missiles issue and a political-military=20 reconciliation under which the two states launched a =94strategic=20 partnership=94.=20 If implemented, the July agreement would bring this process to fruition=20 and give it official imprimatur. However, India would still not have the=20 status of a nuclear power under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of=20 1970, which only recognises five NWSs (the U.S., Russia, Britain, France=20 and China).=20 Indian leaders had promised that the agreement's implementation would be=20 strictly =94reciprocal=94. On Jul. 28, Manmohan Singh told=20 Parliament: =94Indian actions will be contingent at every stage on action= s=20 taken by the other side=94. He said India's commitments would=20 be =94conditional upon, and reciprocal to, the U.S. fulfilling its side=94= =20 of the deal. He also said the separation of civilian and military=20 installations would take place in a phased manner over a period of time.=20 Singh reiterated that the decision to place civilian nuclear facilities=20 under IAEA safeguards would be strictly voluntary and =94based solely on=20 our own duly calibrated national decisions=94 and in keeping with the=20 agreed principle that =94India should have the same benefits and=20 advantages=94 as the five NPT-recognised NWSs.=20 However, ambassador Mulford's statement and recent depositions by senior=20 U.S. officials before Congressional committees, put a divergent=20 interpretation on India's obligations under the deal. Although India=20 need not complete the separation of civilian and military facilities=20 before Congress approves the agreement, it must draw up a =94game plan=94= to=20 do so before Congress considers the deal.=20 On Nov. 2, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns=20 told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: =94Our judgment is that it=20 would not be wise or fair to ask congress to make such a consequential=20 decision without evidence that the Indian government was acting on what=20 is arguably the most important of its commitments -- the separation of=20 its civilian and military nuclear facilities=94.=20 To do this, India =94must craft a credible and transparent plan and have=20 begun to implement it before the administration would request=20 congressional action=94.=20 This sequence of steps flies in the face of =94reciprocity=94 and =94Indi= an=20 actions=94 being =94contingent at any every stage on actions taken by the= =20 other side=94. India must take the first step.=20 =94This is unlikely to go down well with India's political class=94, says= =20 Kamal Mitra Chenoy, professor of international politics at the=20 Jawaharlal Nehru University, in the capital.=20 The right-wing, nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), which was=20 responsible for India declaring itself a nuclear weapon state in 1998,=20 when it ruled the country, has already been bitterly critical of the=20 July deal as one taken without wider national consensus.=20 As for the left, the minority Manmohan Singh government is critically=20 dependent on communist parties for survival and credibility. =94Already,=20 the government is under attack for having voted against Iran at the IAEA=20 at the behest of the U.S. and in order to defend the nuclear deal,''=20 says Chenoy.=20 The Left, the centrist Samajwadi Party and the Janata Dal (Secular) have=20 launched a joint campaign on the issue of India's vote against Iran.=20 They have held mass rallies in New Delhi and Lucknow and accused the=20 government of undermining an independent foreign policy as well as=20 India's vital interest in a major gas pipeline from Iran through=20 Pakistan, which holds the key to Asian cooperation in energy.=20 However, even more controversial will be the U.S. demand, voiced by=20 Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security=20 Robert G. Joseph before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that=20 India's offer of placing civilian facilities under the IAEA safeguards=20 should not be =94voluntary=94, unlike for the five =94recognised=94 NWSs.= =20 Joseph said that =94we would not view a voluntary offer arrangement as=20 defensible from a non-proliferation standpoint or consistent with the=20 (Jul.18) Joint Statement=94.=20 According to M.R. Srinivasan, former chairman of India's Atomic Energy=20 Commission, of the hundreds of civilian nuclear installations they have,=20 the five NWSs have so far placed only 17 under the IAEA safeguards.=20 Their agreements allow the removal of civilian facilities from=20 safeguards and the transfer of nuclear materials out of them. If India=20 is to have, as claimed by the government, the =94same responsibilities an= d=20 practices=94 as the five NWSs, it should be permitted to transfer materia= l=20 =66rom civilian facilities.=20 However, Joseph was categorical that in India's case the IAEA=20 safeguards =94must be applied in perpetuity=94 and =94nuclear materials i= n the=20 civil sector should not be transferred out=94.=20 This is a clear case of what New Delhi has repeatedly condemned=20 as =94double standards=94. It claimed the deal was meant to correct=20 imbalances. A note issued by the Prime Minister's Office on Jul. 29=20 explicitly stated that: =94NWSs, including the U.S., have the right to=20 shift facilities from civilian category to military and there is no=20 reason why this should not apply to India=94.=20 The Indian nuclear establishment has special concerns about at least two=20 kinds of installations; the 500 MW prototype fast breeder reactor (PFBR)=20 under construction and plants which reprocess spent fuel from civilian=20 power reactors to extract plutonium from it. This plutonium can be used=20 to make bombs.=20 India is loath to place the PFBR under safeguards because it claims it=20 is a =94research reactor=94. It is equally reluctant to lose a cheap sour= ce=20 of plutonium from the power reactor reprocessing plants.=20 India's dilemmas come in the context of opposition to the agreement=20 aired by many U.S. proliferation experts and Congressmen, who say it=20 will weaken the non-proliferation regime.=20 The deal is also likely to face opposition from the 55-member Nuclear=20 Suppliers' Group, which the Bush administration hoped to win over. The=20 Group is divided; Russia, France and Britain, which want to sell nuclear=20 technology and materials to India, support the agreement while Sweden,=20 Japan and New Zealand have voiced their disapproval.=20 Complicating matters is India's domestic politics. With widening=20 divergences between Indian and U.S. interpretations of the deal and=20 growing discrepancies between U.S. demands and Singh's pledges, a=20 domestic consensus will prove elusive. This will limit the government's=20 options. (END/IPS/AP/IP/DV/ML/PB/RDR/05)=20 =20 =3D 11161039 ORP005 NNNN ***************************************************************** 20 Bellona: Japan to dismantle five more Russian subs In a long anticipated move toward fulfilling its G-8 Global Partnership commitments, the Japanese government will shoulder the expense of dismantling five abandoned Russian nuclear submarines that are likely to leak radiation, Agencie France-Presse reported Monday. 2005-11-16 12:37 Tokyo and Moscow will finalise the agreement on November 21st, when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper said, citing unnamed sources. Japan has already spent about 700 million yen ($5.9m) to demolish a derelict Viktor Class submarine last December that had been decommissioned from the Russian nuclear Pacific Fleet. The fleet has some 40 other rusting submarines, many with their spent nuclear fuel still on board, awaiting dismantlement. They are scattered along the Far East coast of Russia, which makes speedy demolition problematic. Japan will likely pay a similar amount for each of these next five, whose demolition work is slated to begin at the end of next year, the paper said. Publisher: , President: Information: , Technical contact: Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 21 RIA Novosti: Moscow City Court upholds Adamov's arrest ruling 17/ 11/ 2005 MOSCOW, November 17 (RIA Novosti) - The Moscow City Court has upheld a ruling of a lower court to extend in absentia the arrest term of former Russian Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov until January 12, 2006, his lawyer said Thursday. The city court rejected an appeal filed by Adamov's lawyer, Timofei Gridnev, to rule against the May 14 decision of the Basmanny District Court to arrest the former minister, who is currently being held in custody in Switzerland awaiting extradition to the United States. "On May 14, when the court announced a judicial restraint against Adamov, the Prosecutor General's Office said there were no official data on him, and issued an international search warrant allowing the court to pass an arrest warrant in absentia," the lawyer said. Adamov, who served as Russia's nuclear power minister in 1998-2001, was arrested in Bern May 2 at the request of U.S. authorities, who accuse him of misappropriating $9 million granted to Russia for improving the safety of its nuclear facilities. If convicted by an American court, Adamov may face a prison sentence of up to 60 years and a $1.75 million fine. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office also launched proceedings against Adamov, charging him with embezzlement and abuse of office. Both countries petitioned Switzerland for Adamov's extradition. Although the U.S. requested his arrest May 2, the Swiss authorities did not receive its extradition request until June 24. Swiss authorities received Moscow's request on May 17. The Swiss Justice Department ruled on October 3 to extradite Adamov to the United States. Adamov's defense team appealed the ruling on November 1. The ex-minister will remain in a Berne prison until the Federal Court in Lausanne passes the final ruling on the appeal. © 2005 "RIA Novosti" ***************************************************************** 22 RIA Novosti: Russia ready for key role in APEC energy, transport development 17/ 11/ 2005 MOSCOW, November 17 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is ready for a key role in the development of transportation and energy in the Asian-Pacific region, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an article published Thursday in the run-up to a summit of leaders from the Asia and Pacific Economic Cooperation Organization (APEC). "Its geographical position and resources, including technological and intellectual potential, enable Russia to play a key role in the development of a new transport and energy architecture of the Asia-Pacific region," the president said. He added that Russia would do this with its partners, relying on their capabilities, including investment potential. "Transport haulage across Russia is cheaper compared with other routes and involves cargo flows between the Pacific and European regions, the world's two most powerful economic centers," the Russian leader said. Putin cited the Trans-Korean railroad as a good example of transport cooperation, as it considerably cuts the costs of cargo delivery between Europe and Asia. "This project, designed to deliver cargoes across North and South Korea, is gradually advancing, although the pace of its implementation cannot be called quick due to slow progress in the talks on the Korean nuclear issue," Putin said. According to Putin, Russia has relied on its technological potential in industry and equally in medical and biological technologies since the start of its cooperation with APEC. "APEC can be proud for its role in preventing the spread of atypical pneumonia [SARS]. Now the time has come to use this experience in the fight against bird flu. This is our common problem. Therefore, we must deal a preventive blow against this epidemic to prevent it becoming a human disease. I mean both the experience of quarantine measures and joint vaccine development and production programs. Russia has good experience and potential in this area," Putin said. Russia's participation in APEC is an indisputable and long-term priority of the country's foreign policy and foreign trade policy, Putin said. "Our goal is to contribute to the country's economic and social development, especially its Siberian and Far Eastern regions," the Russian president said. He added that Russia had the relevant potential for this purpose. "Our APEC partners will only welcome this form of Russian 'incursion'," Putin said. © 2005 "RIA Novosti" ***************************************************************** 23 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Keep your enemy closer | thebulletin.org The best way to know the full extent of Iran's nuclear doings is to offer it help. By Jack Boureston and Charles D. Ferguson November/December 2005 pp. 25, 76 (vol. 61, no. 6) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [I] t now appears a foregone conclusion that Iran will continue its nuclear program no matter what the United States and the European Union offer to stop it. Short of a U.N. Security Council resolution--which is unlikely, given the reluctance of veto-wielding nations such as China and Russia to impose sanctions--Israel or the United States might seek to end the Islamic Republic's nuclear program through force. But bombing nuclear facilities or launching a preventive war runs the risk of futility because Iran has hardened and dispersed its nuclear complex. Moreover, military action may spark reprisal by Iranian-backed jihadist groups at a time when the U.S. military is already stretched to the breaking point by the insurgency in Iraq. In pursuing a civilian nuclear program, Iran has international law on its side. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty gives signatories "the inalienable right" to peaceful nuclear technologies contingent on not making nuclear explosives. Although Iran has been less than forthcoming about many of its nuclear activities, inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency have not revealed evidence of a nuclear weapons program. Despite the U.S. government's fears, the president's "WMD Commission" concluded that U.S. intelligence knows "disturbingly little" about Iran. And in August, the Washington Post reported that a new U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) projects that Iran is about 10 years from having the capability of making nuclear weapons--double the time predicted by earlier estimates. The new NIE, if correct, provides more time for active engagement. The United States and other international partners should seize the opportunity to work closely with Tehran to ensure that its nuclear program complies with the most rigorous safeguards while preserving its right to perform peaceful nuclear activities. Close involvement also can serve as an important source of data on Iranian nuclear activities and can act as a reality check on U.S. intelligence community estimates. Such collaboration would open interesting avenues to shape the development of Iran's nuclear program in a positive manner. In the near term, the United States could work with the nuclear industry to provide a steady supply of fresh fuel to Iran through direct contracts with individual companies or through a multinational consortium. (Such a "fuel bank" was recently proposed at an international conference in Moscow.) In parallel to the provision of guaranteed fresh fuel as needed, Iran would implement part of its own proposed agreement with the European Union to restrict the number of enrichment centrifuges it operates for research purposes. A key to successful implementation, however, is to enhance the monitoring of Iranian enrichment facilities. Unfortunately, the United States is ill-prepared for this task, since efforts to improve safeguards technologies have languished. Safeguards techniques include video surveillance to monitor daily activities at a nuclear facility, satellite imagery analysis to assess movements to and from a country's nuclear sites, and environmental sampling to determine what types of nuclear materials are present at a facility. In a May report titled "Nuclear Power and Proliferation Resistance: Securing Benefits, Limiting Risk," the American Physical Society found that less than $5 million was devoted to such research and development in fiscal 2005. No technology is proliferation-proof, but more can be done to make nuclear technology proliferation-resistant. To that end, the American Physical Society recommends that the United States "expand efforts in international technical collaborations" with an eye toward "designing safeguards directly into critical nuclear systems." Probably the most effective built-in safeguards technologies are "use-control" systems that would automatically shut down a facility if a violation occurs. (For example, a use-control system could stop operation of a uranium enrichment plant if highly enriched, bomb-usable uranium is produced.) Iran's nuclear program could be a valuable test bed for such enhanced safeguards. And increased transparency would yield important diplomatic benefits by minimizing the distrust that currently characterizes Tehran's relationship with the United States and other countries. Over the long term, if confidence builds that Iran is fully complying with more rigorous safeguards--and if Iran's nuclear energy needs continue to grow--the United States and its international partners can assist Iran with developing next-generation fuel cycles that have built-in proliferation-resistant technologies. One such option would be to spike low-enriched uranium hexafluoride with thorium. If the spiked material is introduced into an enrichment plant to make highly enriched uranium, as opposed to the low-enriched uranium used for nuclear fuel, the presence of radioactive thorium would sound an alarm. To make all this happen, the nuclear industry has to play an essential role. Some industry officials are gradually coming around to the concept that proliferation is bad for business because a well-publicized diversion of commercial nuclear technology into a military program would likely hurt sales. However, the industry has yet to make proliferation-resistance a top priority in all new fuel-cycle technologies under development. Critics would likely label our proposal as appeasement. Rather than being starry-eyed Neville Chamberlains proclaiming nuclear "peace in our time" with Iran, we would hinge implementation of our initiative on Iran agreeing to rigorous, continuous monitoring of their nuclear program through active involvement with the United States and the European Union. Only by keeping our enemy closer can we increase confidence that Iran is living up to its commitments. Jack Boureston is managing director of FirstWatch International, a private nuclear proliferation research group in Monterey, California. Charles D. Ferguson is a science and technology fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and coauthor of The Four Faces of Nuclear Terrorism (2005). November/December 2005 pp. 25, 76 (vol. 61, no. 6) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Copyright 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ***************************************************************** 24 allAfrica.com: Namibia: Nuke Power 'Not All It's Cracked Up to Be' The Namibian (Windhoek) November 17, 2005 * Elma Robberts Windhoek THE Langer Heinrich Uranium Mine development in the Namib Naukluft Park came under scrutiny again on Tuesday at a lecture presented in Swakopmund by Dr David Fig. Fig is a South African researcher on environmental policies and an author of books about the nuclear industry. Fig said that the supposed current nuclear revolution is a false concept. According to him, the recent rise of uranium prices is linked to rising oil prices instead of an increase in nuclear power developments. He said the global nuclear industry has been dormant for the last two decades and many nuclear programmes over the world have been completely done away with. New developments are planned in Asia but Fig said it is unlikely that the industry will grow by more than 10 per cent. Therefore, he concludes that there is no guarantee that the uranium price will remain high. He said investors are hesitant to get involved in the nuclear industry because of the cost of environmental clean-up, potential accidents, waste problems and public risk. The World Bank sponsors no investments in the industry, Fig said, because it is of the opinion that it is the least viable form of energy. The Kyoto Protocol states that an increase in nuclear energy will not make a significant difference to environmental problems, said Fig. Fig said the only other use of uranium is the creation of nuclear weapons and it can harm a country's international reputation if it is seen as a provider for such programmes. The rapid granting of Paladin's mining licence is unheard of elsewhere, Fig said, and the silence of conservation movements about mining in a national park is cause for concern. He agreed with the Oeko Institute's opinion that Paladin's environmental impact assessment is incomplete regarding the possible risk of radiation. The environmental impact assessment also falls short in discussing measures to reduce water usage. The mine will use about 1,3 million cubic meters of water per year, which is equal to 10 per cent of the total annual supply of the Swakopmund Municipality. Possible contamination of underground water and the dust hazard are also not addressed satisfactorily in the assessment, Fig said. He said sufficient time should have been given to address these questions before granting Paladin's licence. Copyright © 2005 The Namibian. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 25 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: North proposes co-owning reactor November 18, 2005 KST 15:34 (GMT+9) November 18, 2005 ¤Ñ WASHINGTON ¡ª North Korea has proposed to co-own a light-water nuclear reactor and to allow the United States to manage the spent fuel rods to be produced from it, a Korean-American expert who accompanied a senior U.S. official's recent visit to the communist country said. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson visited North Korea from Oct. 17 to 20, and Tony Namkung, an adviser on Asian affairs to the governor, accompanied him. Mr. Richardson was Washington's UN ambassador under the Clinton administration during the first nuclear crisis in the early 1990s. In an interview with the Joong-Ang Ilbo, Mr. Namkung said a top North Korean official made the proposal to appoint an American CEO for a joint entity that would operate the light-water reactor Pyongyang has been demanding in return for ending its nuclear programs. A North Korean manager should support the American head, the official was quoted as saying by Mr. Namkung. Washington is seriously considering the offer, Mr. Namkung said, claiming that the recently expressed optimism of Christopher Hill, the U.S. chief negotiator for the six-nation talks, is linked to the North Korean offer. A South Korean government official confirmed Mr. Namkung's statement. The Seoul official, however, said Washington is firm about beginning the light-water reactor discussion at an appropriate time ¡ª presumably only after North Korea dismantles its nuclear programs. "It is unclear even when the North Korean offer may become a subject of a discussion," the South Korean official said. by Kang Chan-ho myoja@joongang.co.kr> Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use | ***************************************************************** 26 RIA Novosti: Russia supplying 10% of nuclear fuel to Japan 17/ 11/ 2005 MOSCOW, November 17 (RIA Novosti) - Russia provides 10% of the fuel used in Japanese nuclear power plants, a specialist at the Far East Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences said Thursday. "The key objectives of Japan's energy strategy for the medium term are to permanently reduce the share of oil in the country's power system and increase the share of natural gas and nuclear fuel. We are already working in this field," Viktor Pavlyatenko said at a round table on Russian-Japanese cooperation. Russia and Japan have a long-term agreement on natural gas exports, Pavlyatenko said. "Russia and Japan will cooperate to ensure energy security in North-East Asia as a whole," he said. © 2005 "RIA Novosti" ***************************************************************** 27 NewsFromRussia.Com: Armenia: nuclear power plant will restart 23:08 2005-11-17 Armeniahas restarted its only nuclear power plant, after a six-week shutdown for maintenance and refueling, the plant's general director said Thursday. General Director Gagik Markosyan said the plant's sole working reactor was started up without difficulty on Wednesday after being refueled with US$14.5 million (€12.4 million) in nuclear fuel supplied by Russia. Immediately after startup, Armenian security forces conducted an exercise at the plant to train against a hypothetical terrorist threat, he said. The aging, Soviet-built plant was closed after a devastating 1988 earthquake, but returned to service in 1995 during a severe energy shortage. Armenia has been under international pressure from the European Unionto shut the plant down due to safety concerns, but officials are resisting the call, as the plant supplies nearly 40 percent of the nation's electricity. President Robert Kochariansaid last month that the country intended to build a new nuclear plant, reported AP. Copyright ©1999 by "Pravda.RU". When reproducing our materials ***************************************************************** 28 Vermont Guardian: Fed panel questions Vermont Yankee uprate proposal By Kathryn Casa | Vermont Guardian posted November 17, 2005 BRATTLEBORO Entergy has its work cut out for it. After two full days of hearings and meetings and nearly two years after the company first filed its application for a 20 percent power increase at Vermont Yankee a federal nuclear advisory panel expressed open dissatisfaction with some of Entergys responses to a wide range of technical questions, and sent top managers scurrying for better answers in time for another round of meetings at the end of the month. We have a basic problem here understanding what youre doing, Graham Wallis, chairman of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, scolded Entergy uprate project manager Craig Nichols on a question about steam flow. It is so trivial it should be a matter of one minute to explain it. A subcommittee of the seven-member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) the panel of scientists that advises the Nuclear Regulatory Commission spent more than 19 hours Tuesday and Wednesday carefully listening to Entergys case for the uprate, to NRC staff members reasons why they support it, and to a long line of area residents including farmers, doctors, and a half-dozen children, plead with them to reject the proposal they characterized as unsafe, unwanted and unnecessary. The people of Windham County are counting on you, said Newfane resident Ed Anthes. Your decision will be seen as a precedent nationwide. There are too many unmeasured unknowns to risk this experimental power boost. Area residents' concerns about the uprate are wide-ranging. This week, many people once again expressed grave doubts about increased radioactive waste; inadequate evacuation planning; the ability of the 33-year-old boiling water reactor to sustain increased pressure and stress, especially in light of post-uprate equipment failures at other plants; reduced safety margins; and questionable calculations on which the uprate may be based. The state Department of Public Service, which supports the uprate, nevertheless continues to question its effect on safety margins and the NRC requirement that safety systems function independent of one another. Entergy officials admitted during testimony Tuesday that safety margins will be diminished, although still within acceptable levels, as a result of the power increase. An expert for the grassroots New England coalition, which opposes the uprate and has formal status in the case before the NRC, cited pipe corrosion problems and the failure of the plants steam dryer as potential uprate-related complications. Entergy officials have discovered more than 60 hairline cracks on the plants steam dryer, but maintain they do not compromise the components structural integrity. The NRC agrees that the dryer is safe under current power conditions, but is demanding further analysis about what would happen under uprate conditions. I agree with Vermont Yankee that the dryer itself is not a safety component, but the issue is what happens when the dryer fails, said Joe Hopenfeld, a consultant for the coalition. What happens to the fragments? Where do they go? The steam dryer on the Quad Cities Unit 1 reactor in Illinois broke into pieces after a 17 percent uprate, sending fragments hurtling down the steam lines and raising the fear that pieces might lodge in valves or lines critical to the safety systems. Another of the coalitions technical advisers, industry whistleblower Paul Blanche, challenged the ACRS to verify that Vermont Yankees plans comply with all applicable NRC regulations. We have numerous indications that neither the licensee nor the NRC are fully cognizant of the compliance with the regulations, Blanche said. "The ACRS must assure itself that Vermont Yankee poses no undue risk to the public, he continued. I believe the ACRS needs assurance that VY is in compliance with all regulations. It is the decision of the ACRS as to how to accomplish this but short of verification of compliance there is no assurance that the public will be protected. Send the uprate application back to the drawing board and require Vermont Yankee to meet current design and safety standards, said Sally Shaw of Gill, MA. We think what the NRC calls improvements in techniques are relaxation of standards, deregulation, or a shift to industry self-regulation. The most oft-repeated call came from dozens of people over the course of both days, who implored the subcommittee to require an inspection of Vermont Yankee that goes beyond what the NRC performed in 2004. That analysis of 45 components, done in response to a requirement by the state, uncovered eight issues that NRC staff members determined were of low safety significance and have since been corrected by Entergy. NRC inspection team leader Jeff Jacobson said the probe, which was piloted at Vermont Yankee, was so effective that it has now been adopted as the agencys standard. In the past we always focused on one or two safety systems, whereas in this approach we try to focus throughout the plant on where we believe its most vulnerable, said Jacobson. When we finished pilot inspections we did an assessment and decided this new approach was in fact more effective. But according to New England Coalition technical advisor Ray Shadis, eight findings out of 45 components is a strong signal that you need to be looking further. The team that came to Vermont Yankee had 90 issues on a kind of wish list, said Shadis. Of those 90 issues, approximately half were eliminated because those particular items or activities did not exist at Vermont Yankee. So the first cull wasnt because they looked at it and it was OK. It was largely because it didnt even apply at VY. One finding uncovered in the NRC inspection was a discrepancy is the time Entergy reported it would take for water to boil away and expose the core. ACRS member George Apostolakis, a professor of nuclear engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, questioned why it took a special inspection to discover the basic variance. It seems to me the [NRC] staff relies too much on what the licensee has proposed, he said. Certain things looked at in inspections arent looked at in licensing reviews, Jacobson responded. We have it as a commitment to go back and look at our licensing process to figure out how we can better integrate activities such as this. We recognize the vulnerability and we need to better look at the things done during a license review and a license inspection. If Vermont had not insisted on a special review would you have found this, Apostolakis asked. I cant answer that, said NRC Senior Project Manager Rick Ennis. I dont know. Maybe it would have been found in a routine inspection. The ACRS functions separately from the NRC, with its own set of staff and consultants, to make recommendations to the commissioners on significant issues like power uprates. Created by Congress in 1947 during the nations nuclear heyday, its mandate is safety: to review safety studies and reactor license renewal applications; advise the commission on the hazards of proposed and existing reactors and the adequacy of proposed safety standards; and to initiate reviews of safety-related items. Although there has been no new reactor built in the United States since the 1970s, the committees work has increased over the past several years as the owners of the nations fleet of 101 commercial reactors request uprates, license extensions or both. The ACRS no longer reports to Congress, as it did originally. Rather, it makes nonbinding recommendations to the NRC, which has not denied a single uprate application. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said although the ACRS had probably never recommended the NRC deny an uprate, the committee has been successful in attaching conditions to some uprate applications. The subcommittee will provide feedback from two sets of hearings, including meetings in Rockville, MD, later this month, to the full ACRS in early December. The full committee will, in turn, make its recommendation to the NRC, which is expected to rule on the Vermont Yankee uprate by February. Send us your news tips, a letter to the editor or general comments. * All fields required - This information is used for verification purposes only - Thanks! Vermont Guardian PO Box 335 Winooski, VT 05404 | | Northern Vermont: PO Box 335, Winooski, VT 05404 Southern Vermont: 139 Main Street, Suite 702, Brattleboro, VT 05301 Contact: 802.861.4880 (ph) | 802.861.6388 (fax) | 877.231.5382 (toll-free) ©2005 Vermont Guardian | Visit us: www.vermontguardian.com This document can be located online: ***************************************************************** 29 Rutland Herald: Engineer terms Yankee reactor cracks 'significant' November 17, 2005 By Susan SmallheerHerald Staff BRATTLEBORO — A retired research engineer from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission testified on behalf of an anti-nuclear group Wednesday that the proposed power boost at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant left many serious questions still unanswered. Joram Hopenfeld told members of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, an independent arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, that the biggest question mark was the condition of Vermont Yankee's steam dryer and he said the recent discovery of additional cracks was "significant." Just last week Entergy Nuclear, owner of Vermont Yankee, announced that new high-tech tests revealed 42 additional cracks in the steel component, for a total of 62 cracks discovered since the 17-foot-wide component started undergoing additional scrutiny in 2004. Despite their recent discovery, the cracks, mostly hairline, are believed to be about 30 years old. Regulators are unsure what caused the cracks, but have determined that continued operation at current power levels is safe, but left open the question of the power boost. The steam dryer is considered a critical component in any power boost because other nuclear reactors which have undergone similar power production boosts have developed serious problems in their dryers, causing the plants to shut down. Wednesday marked the second of two days of testimony and public comment before the national panel, which is made up of nuclear experts from all over the country. Wednesday's panel included nuclear researchers, consultants and college professors and focused on the thermal-hydraulics of the plant. Hopenfeld wasn't the only scientist testifying Wednesday who still had concerns about the 20 percent power boost, which recently won preliminary approval from the NRC staff with a positive safety evaluation of the proposal. The NRC however has recommended additional monitoring and testing of the reactor as a required condition. William Sherman, the Vermont state nuclear engineer, said that Entergy's plans for calculating the pressure inside the reactor during an emergency cut back on the so-called defense-in-depth philosophy, or the multiple layers of safety systems to protect the public from a catastrophe. "Modification of the 'defense-in-depth' concept is troublesome," Sherman testified, adding that the NRC staff had only addressed "part of the problem, but not the whole problem." Vermont has locked horns with the NRC staff over the issue, and has initiated a separate proceeding before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, a quasi-judicial arm of the NRC. Sen. Roderick Gander, D-Windham, won a standing ovation from about 100 area residents who came for the afternoon session when he told the advisory group that it was "the last line of defense" for the people of the region, who had voted twice in recent town meetings against the continued operation of Vermont Yankee. "We're really counting on you," he told the group, asserting that Entergy had successfully manipulated the regulatory process by applying for three separate permits — power boost, high-level waste storage in Vernon, and a 20-year license extension — rather than in one, complete and comprehensive application. "All of them should have been bundled, it's been maddening," Gander said. Gander said that Entergy was poised to make a minimum profit of an additional $20 million a year from the additional power — power that is not currently needed by Vermont power companies. Gander said that the issue boiled down to safety versus a corporation's profits, a theme voiced by many who spoke. "Profits are fine," Gander said, "but this is a license to coin money, a license to steal." Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com. © 2005 Rutland Herald ***************************************************************** 30 NRC: [Docket No. PRM-50-80] Mothers/UCS petition FR Doc E5-6365 [Federal Register: November 17, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 221)] [Proposed Rules] [Page 69690-69692] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr17no05-16] Union of Concerned Scientists and San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace; Partial Grant of Petition for Rulemaking AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Petition for rulemaking: Partial grant. SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is granting in part, a petition for rulemaking (PRM-50-80) submitted by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace (MFP). The petitioners requested two rulemaking actions in PRM-50-80. First, the petitioners requested the regulations establishing conditions of licenses and requirements for evaluating proposed changes, tests, and experiments for nuclear power plants be revised to require licensee evaluation of whether the proposed actions cause protection against radiological sabotage to be decreased and, if so, that the changes, tests, and experiments only be conducted with prior NRC approval. The NRC is contemplating a rulemaking action that would address the petitioners' request and, if issued as a final rule, essentially grant this portion of the petition. Second, the petitioners requested that regulations governing the licensing and operation of nuclear power plants be amended to require licensees to evaluate facilities against specified aerial hazards and make changes to provide reasonable assurance that the ability of the facility to reach and maintain safe shutdown will not be compromised by such aerial hazards. The NRC is deferring resolution of the second issue of the petition at this time. The NRC intends to address this issue when the NRC responds to comments on its proposed Design Basis Threat rule. The petitioners further requested the Commission to suspend the Diablo Canyon Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) proceeding during the NRC's consideration of PRM-50-80. That request was denied by Commission Memorandum and Order CLI-03-04, dated May 16, 2003. ADDRESSES: Copies of the petition, the public comments received, and the NRC's letter of partial grant to the petitioner may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room, located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Public File Area O1F21, Rockville, Maryland. These documents are also available electronically at the NRC's Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this site, the public can gain entry into the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and image files of NRC's public documents. For further information, contact the PDR reference staff at (800) 397- 4209 or (301) 415-4737 or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Joseph L. Birmingham, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, telephone (301) 415-2829, e-mail jlb4@nrc.gov. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Petition The petition was sent to the NRC on April 28, 2003, and the notice of receipt of the petition and request for public comment was published in the Federal Register (FR) on June 16, 2003 (68 FR 35585). The public comment period ended on September 2, 2003. Four comments were received opposing the petition. No comments were received supporting the petition. First Requested Action The petitioners requested that 10 CFR 50.54(p), ``Conditions of licenses,'' and 10 CFR 50.59, ``Changes, tests, and experiments,'' be revised to require licensee evaluations of whether proposed changes, tests, and experiments cause protection against radiological sabotage to be decreased and, if so, that such activities only be conducted with prior NRC approval. The petitioners stated that the two regulations have minimal overlap and that many changes, tests, and experiments have no effect on security. However, some proposed changes, tests, and experiments, including those that are short-term or temporary, may affect plant security. The petitioners stated that short-term degraded or off-normal conditions are often determined to be acceptable because of the low probability of an accident initiator during a short period of time. However, the petitioners stated that sabotage is not random and the saboteur or saboteurs may choose to act during the degraded or off- normal conditions. Therefore, the probability of sabotage occurring during degraded or off-normal conditions increases toward 100 percent. The petitioners asserted that it is reasonable to assume an insider acting alone or an insider aided by several outsiders will time the sabotage to coincide with a vulnerable plant configuration. Therefore, the petitioners requested that licensees be required to evaluate changes, tests, and experiments from both a safety and a security perspective. The petitioners suggested that the security review could flag a heightened vulnerability for a given change, but accept it (for temporary situations) based on compensatory measures (armed guards, etc.). The petitioners suggested the result would probably be that many licensee actions could proceed as planned, some could proceed with compensatory measures, a few would require NRC review, and a very small number might be denied. Second Requested Action The petitioners requested that 10 CFR part 50 be amended to require that licensees evaluate each facility against specified aerial hazards and make necessary changes to provide reasonable assurance that the ability of the facility to reach and maintain safe shutdown will not be compromised by an accidental or intentional aerial assault. The petitioners asserted that none of the nuclear power plants were designed to withstand suicide attacks from the air and that the fire hazards analysis process used by the NRC following the March 22, 1975, fire at the Browns Ferry reactor in Decatur, Alabama, should be implemented for aerial hazards. The petitioners claimed that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) [[Page 69691]] no-fly zones established in late 2001 was a concession by the Federal government to the vulnerability of nuclear power plants to air assaults. The petitioners also asserted that the control buildings at nuclear power plants are outside of the robust concrete structures studied by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) in their analyses of nuclear power plant vulnerability to aircraft crashes. The petitioners further asserted that 37 of 81 Operational Safeguards Response Evaluations (OSRE) conducted to the date of the petition identified significant weakness(es), and contended that the control building is the Achilles' heel in the OSRE target sets. The petitioners claimed that an aircraft hitting the control building may destroy the control elements for all four water supplies and much more. The petitioners asserted that the scope of the NRC-required fire hazards analyses are not restricted to containment and that this is a recognition that core damage can result from fires outside containment. The petitioners stated that licensees are required to show in their fire hazards analyses that there is enough equipment outside the control room for safe shutdown, and that these analyses have resulted in equipment and cable relocation. The petitioners further stated that the fire hazards analyses are ``living documents'' that future plant changes must be reviewed against. The petitioners suggested that the way to ensure adequate protection from aerial threats is to replicate the fire hazards analysis process and that NRC should define the size and nature of the aerial threat that a plant must protect against as part of the design basis threat (DBT). The petitioners suggested the aerial threat should include, at a minimum, general aviation aircraft, because post-9/11 airport security measures generally overlook general aviation. The petitioners suggested the aerial threat include explosives delivered via mortars and other means (e.g., rocket propelled grenades). The petitioners further stated that, if the aerial hazards evaluation determines that all targets within a target set are likely to be disabled, the licensee should have three options: (1) Add or install other equipment to the target set that is outside of the impact zone to perform the target set's function. (2) Protect in place at least one of the targets (shield wall, etc.). (3) Relocate or reroute affected portions of a system to be outside of the impact zone. The petitioners also suggested the aerial hazards analysis should provide a means to ensure that future changes do not compromise protection and that whether arriving on foot or by air adversaries would not be able to neutralize an entire target set. The petitioners asserted that in 13 of 57 plant OSREs the adversary team did not enter containment in order to destroy every target in the target set, (27 of the OSREs simulated destruction of at least 1 target set). The petitioners further argued that if an aircraft had hit a nuclear power plant on September 11, 2001, then the approach set forth in the petition would have been undertaken as necessary to prevent recurrence. The petitioners suggested that these measures should be implemented to prevent occurrence in the first place. Public Comment on the Petition The NRC received four letters of public comment on PRM-50-80. All of the comments opposed the actions requested in the petition. The comments are described below. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) stated that they oppose inclusion of general aviation aircraft in the DBT. AOPA described the actions taken to date by the Federal government and industry in terms of airport and aircraft security and current flight restrictions near nuclear power plants. AOPA also cited a report by Robert M. Jefferson, who concluded that general aviation aircraft are not a significant threat to nuclear power plants. The report is on the AOPA's Web site at http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2002/02-2-159_report.pdf . Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a nuclear power plant licensee, stated that the proposed change to 10 CFR 50.59 is inconsistent with the purpose of the regulation and that the DBT order already required revised physical security plans for the new DBT by April 29, 2004. The same commenter further stated that Sandia National Laboratories, in conjunction with NRC, has been performing vulnerability studies of aircraft impacts and that the NRC will promulgate changes to the regulations if they are needed. A consortium of nuclear power plants, Strategic Teaming and Resource Sharing (STARS), stated that industry guidance in NEI 96-07, ``Guidelines for 10 CFR 50.59 Implementation,'' for performing 10 CFR 50.59 evaluations specifies that all applicable regulations be considered in those evaluations and that a required dual security review for all changes is unnecessary. STARS stated further that requirements to prevent radiological sabotage already exist in 10 CFR 50.34 (c) and (d), 50.54(p), part 73 and recent security orders. STARS further asserted that nuclear power plants have diverse, divided trains and shutdown capability. STARS asserted that NRC and industry studies of the effects of a large airborne object showed no massive releases of radiation. STARS concluded that an aircraft impact would pose no greater or different vulnerability than has already been analyzed. NEI, an industry group representing all U.S. commercial nuclear power plants, plant designers, architect/engineering firms, and fuel cycle facilities, opposed the petition. NEI stated that industry guidance in NEI 96-07, ``Guidelines for 10 CFR 50.59 Implementation,'' already requires all applicable regulations to be considered in those evaluations and a required dual security review for all changes is unnecessary. NEI also argued that 10 CFR 50.59 and 50.54(p) are necessarily different in purpose. NEI further asserted that there is no direct correlation between security plan effectiveness and the plant condition. NEI also argued that the Federal Government, not the licensee, is responsible for protection of nuclear power plants from aircraft attacks. NEI further claimed that extensive aircraft impact analyses are not justified and cited an industry study of the risk from an armed terrorist ground attack that concluded there would be noncatastrophic consequences. Reasons for NRC's Response The NRC evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of the first action requested by the petition versus the attributes of the NRC Performance Goals. The NRC's conclusions are described below. First Proposed Action The NRC acknowledges that the requested rulemaking would help to ensure protection of public health and safety and the environment and help to ensure secure use and management of radioactive materials. The NRC notes that current regulations require nuclear power plant licensees to address the continued safety of the plant with regard to changes, tests, or experiments involving structures, systems, or components as described in the Final Safety Analysis Report (FSAR) (10 CFR 50.59) and also to ``* * * establish, maintain, and follow an NRC- approved safeguards contingency plan for responding to threats, thefts, and radiological sabotage * * *'' (10 CFR 73.55(h)(1)). Further, licensees must ``* * * establish and maintain an onsite physical protection system and security organization which will have as its [[Page 69692]] objective to provide high assurance that activities involving special nuclear material are not inimical to the common defense and security and do not constitute an unreasonable risk to the public health and safety.'' (10 CFR 73.55(a)), and ``* * * may make no change which would decrease the effectiveness of a security plan * * *'' (10 CFR 50.54(p)(1)). These regulations are focused on evaluation of specific areas of safety and security and do not explicitly require evaluation of the interactive effect of plant changes on the security plan or the effect of changes to the security plan on plant safety. Additionally, the regulations do not require communication amongst operations, maintenance, and security organizations regarding the implementation and timing of plant changes in order to promote awareness of the effects of changing conditions to allow the organizations to make an appropriate assessment of changes and implement any necessary response. Because existing regulations are focused on ensuring that licensees evaluate changes to specific subject areas, and because guidance has already been developed to help ensure that those evaluations are performed appropriately, the NRC must consider carefully the effect of a revision on the existing regulations. For example, 10 CFR 50.59 is focused on ensuring safe operation of the facility by requiring evaluation of changes, tests, and experiments that affect the facility as described in the FSAR. Industry and NRC have expended a large amount of resources to provide guidance to help ensure that regulatory expectations for this area are clearly described. At this time, regulatory expectations for the implementation of 10 CFR 50.59 are thought to be well understood. Further, operations personnel, performing a 10 CFR 50.59 evaluation, may not be sufficiently knowledgeable of the security plan details in order to make an appropriate evaluation of the effect of changes, tests, and experiments on security. Current regulations do not require such an evaluation for many plant changes made to nonsafety systems, structures, and components. Therefore, it may be appropriate to provide a requirement in 10 CFR part 73 that changes to the facility be assessed for potential adverse interaction on the safety/security interface. The NRC believes that the rulemaking process, including stakeholder comment, will better identify how the regulations should be modified and what the scope and details of a revision should be. In summary, the NRC agrees with the petitioners that rulemaking may be appropriate for the first requested action. NRC Plans for the First Proposed Action Regarding the first requested action, the NRC's interoffice Safety/ Security Interface Advisory Panel (SSIAP) has advised the staff on the most effective and efficient method to integrate this rulemaking with other ongoing safety/security actions to require that licensees evaluate changes to the facility or to the security plan for adverse interactions. Further, in its SRM on June 28, 2005, the Commission directed the staff to include this issue as part of ongoing rulemaking for 10 CFR 73.55, currently due to the Commission on May 31, 2006. Second Proposed Action The NRC evaluated the second proposed action and is deferring resolution of the second issue of the petition. The NRC intends to address the request when the NRC responds to comments on its proposed Design Basis Threat rule. That rule was issued for public comment on November 7, 2005. For these reasons, the Commission is granting the first requested action of PRM-50-80 and is deferring resolution of the second requested action. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 9th day of November, 2005. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Annette L. Vietti-Cook, Secretary of the Commission. [FR Doc. E5-6365 Filed 11-16-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 31 NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for the FR Doc E5-6367 [Federal Register: November 17, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 221)] [Notices] [Page 69787] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr17no05-97] Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Review; Comment Request AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). ACTION: Notice of the OMB review of information collection solicitation of public comment. SUMMARY: The NRC has recently submitted to OMB for review the following proposal for the collection of information under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35). The NRC hereby informs potential respondents that an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and that a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. 1. Type of submission, new, revision, or extension: Extension. 2. The title of the information collection: NRC Form 396, ``Certification of Medical Examination by Facility Licensee.'' 3. Current OMB approval number: 3150-0024. 4. How often the collection is required: Upon application for an initial operator license, every six years for the renewal of operator or senior operator license, and upon notices of disability. 5. Who is required or asked to report: Facility licensees who are tasked with certifying the medical fitness of an applicant or licensee. 6. An estimate of the number of annual responses: 1,287 (1,150 responses + 137 recordkeepers). 7. The number of annual respondents: 137. 8. The number of hours needed annually to complete the requirement or request: 758 (288 hours for reporting [.25 hours per response] and 470 hours for recordkeeping [3.4 hours per recordkeeper]). 9. An indication of whether section 3507(d), Public Law 104-13 applies: Not Applicable. 10. Abstract: NRC Form 396 is used to transmit information to the NRC regarding the medical condition of applicants for initial operator licenses or renewal of operator licenses and for the maintenance of medical records for all licensed operators. The information is used to determine whether the physical condition and general health of applicants for operator licensees is such that the applicant would not be expected to cause operational errors and endanger public health and safety. A copy of the final supporting statement may be viewed free of charge at the NRC Public Document Room, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Room O-1 F21, Rockville, MD 20852. OMB clearance requests are available at the NRC worldwide Web site: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comment/omb/index.html. The document will be available on the NRC home page site for 60 days after the signature date of this notice. Comments and questions should be directed to the OMB reviewer listed below by January 17, 2006. Comments received after this date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but assurance of consideration cannot be given to comments received after this date. John A. Asalone, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (3150- 0024), NEOB-10202, Office of Management and Budget, Washington, DC 20503. Comments can also be e-mailed to John_A._Asalone@omb.eop.gov or submitted by telephone at (202) 395-4650. The NRC Clearance Officer is Brenda Jo. Shelton, 301-415-7233. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 10th day of November, 2005. Brenda Jo. Shelton, NRC Clearance Officer. [FR Doc. E5-6367 Filed 11-16-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 32 Hudson Valley News: Entergy plans new Indian Point warning system in 14 months Thursday, November 17, 2005 Reliability of the old sirens can be affected by factors including nesting birds January 2007, is the target date Entergy has set for having a new warning siren system in place in the 10-mile radius around its Indian Point nuclear reactors. The company detailed its strategy at a special forum conducted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in Peekskill. Entergy Emergency Programs Director Mike Slobodien said the old rotating sirens will be replaced with stationary, omni-directional sirens, which will improve their ability to be heard. They will use proven existing technology, but a specific design has not been chosen. Each siren will have its own long-life battery backup. Slobodien says they hope to expedite the permit process with their siting strategy. Slobodien: "No R&D" I think the sirens are going to be placed very close to existing locations, he said. We dont want to divert from what we have today. We may have fewer sirens than we have today, but I dont see us going to new locations. Conklin: "aggressive" Rainwater: "we still have unreliable sirens" If the sirens can be heard over a longer distance, the overall number of sirens possibly could be reduced from the current 156 in four counties. Craig Conklin, Chief, Nuclear and Chemical Hazards Branch Preparedness Division of FEMA, was impressed. Im glad to see theyve taken a very aggressive approach. To me, it shows their sincerity in trying to improve the system. It will be our job to review the application when it comes in, in a timely manner, and to support that. Less impressed was Lisa Rainwater, Indian Point campaign director for the environmental organization Riverkeeper. It is our opinion that 300,000 residents living in the ten-mile radius deserve quick and speedy action both on behalf of Entergy and the NRC. Our concern is that until January 2007 and beyond, we still have the unreliable sirens. Entergy disputes the contention that the sirens are that unreliable, claiming that recent tests, including one earlier this week, have had success rates in the high 90 percent range. Indian Point Site Vice President Fred Dacimo said even though they plan to replace the existing sirens in just over a year, they will spare no effort to maintain and improve the existing system until the new system is ready to go. HEAR today's news on MidHudsonRadio.com, the Hudson Valley's only Internet radio news report. ***************************************************************** 33 NJPIRG: Exelons Takeover of PSEG Will Lead to Higher Rates and Worse Service November 17, 2005 For More Information: Suzanne Leta (609) 394-8155 x310 TRENTON New Jersey Public Interest Research Group (NJPIRG) released a new report today analyzing Exelons proposed takeover of PSEG. The report, entitled "Consolidation of Power: How Exelon’s Bid to Acquire PSEG Could Raise Rates, Reduce Reliability and Risk Public Safety", details the takeovers impact on New Jersey consumers. The report concludes that the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) should reject Exelons takeover on the grounds that it does not serve the public interest. If Exelon gobbles-up PSEG, it would create an energy giant strong enough to put a stranglehold over electricity rates in New Jersey and the surrounding region, said Suzanne Leta, NJPIRG advocate and one of the report authors. Consumers are already struggling with high home heating and electricity rates this year. If Exelon gets away with this, ratepayers will be hit with a one two punch on their utility bills. The Takeover Would Increase Exelons Market Power The report found that Exelon would control 56 percent of the generational capacity in the regional electricity market, PJM East. Generation controlled by the company would be absolutely necessary to ensure stability of the electricity grid under peak load conditions. This would place Exelon in a position of strategic importance in the electricity market, enough to be extremely influential in determining the nature, quality and price of electric service for customers. Exelon would also own 40 percent of natural gas supply in the region stretching from Philadelphia to northern New Jerseywhere gas-fired electricity generators often set the price of electricity. By raising the price of gas to all users, including itself, Exelon could raise the cost of electricity and realize higher revenues from its continually-operating base load generators. In essence, Exelon would earn itself payments in excess of its energy costs. The Takeover Would Threaten the Viability of New Jerseys Electricity Auction New Jersey depends on vigorous competition between electricity suppliers at a bulk auction to hold down electricity rates. The report found that the number of winners in the auction has declined by almost two-thirds in the last two years, from 15 to 6 corporations. At the same time, the fixed price for electricity resulting from the auction has risen 19 percent. The percentage of supply contracts going to a single bidder has risen as well. In the PSE&G service territory, the maximum number of bids won by a single bidder increased from 21 percent in 2002 to 36 percent in 2004. And PSEG officials have stated publicly that PSEG has provided, indirectly or directly, at least 75 percent of the energy supply to the auction. If Exelon takes over PSEG, the number of competitors in the auction system would be reduced even further, making New Jerseys market system look more like the dysfunctional power markets in Illinois and Ohio. With fewer effective competitors, New Jerseys auction system could produce disappointing results, with consumers paying the price, said Leta. Exelons Cost-Cutting Measures Could Harm Electricity Reliability and Quality of Service Large holding companies, driven by pressure to reduce costs in order to produce larger returns to shareholders, have a history of making cuts that lead to reduced reliability of the electric system. Exelon is no exception. The report found that Exelon subsidiary ComEd operated the worst-performing circuit in Illinois in 2002, and 2003, the company received the lowest customer satisfaction rating of all utilities in the state. And after Exelon took over Pennsylvania-based PECO in 2000, Exelon reduced transmission maintenance by one-third. In 2003, PECO had the worst overall customer satisfaction rating out of seven state electric utilities with 90 percent higher justified customer complaints than the average utility. In contrast, PSE&G has the best reliability record in New Jersey and has invested in over 1,300 customer service employees. If Exelon chooses to cut investments in transmission maintenance and customer service, as it has in other states, it could reduce the reliability and quality of service in New Jersey. Exelons Operation of Nuclear Power Plants Risks Public Safety The report found that The Exelon Way of operating nuclear power plants comes at great risk to public safety. The Exelon Way involves cutting on-site staff, firing safety whistleblowers, and pushing nuclear reactor output to its limits. Exelon delays necessary repairs to coincide with routine but infrequent plant shutdowns, to minimize loss, despite the risks of operating damaged equipment. This leaves a much smaller margin for error when it comes to safety. Exelons business strategy also depends upon extending the life of aging nuclear power plants, pushing 1960s-era technology 20 years beyond its intended life, increasing the risk of a catastrophic accident. Not only will consumers see their rates go up, but they will also have to pay the price of worse reliability, quality of service and additional risk to public safety, said Leta. New Jersey Regulators Would Lose the Power to Protect Consumers If Exelon takes over PSEG, PSEG would become part of a federally regulated holding company subject to federal jurisdiction over its financial practices. The report found that New Jersey regulators would lose any power to regulate risk in PSEGs investment decisions, such as non-utility business ventures. These ventures can put pressure on a companys credit rating and lead to higher interest rates, which are then passed on to New Jersey ratepayers. To make matters worse, Congress recently repealed the Public Utility Holding Company Act. As a result, the federal government has far less ability to protect consumers from any risky investment decisions Exelon chooses to make. Concessions Will Not Solve the Long-Term Problems Inherent with the Takeover Exelon has proposed divestiture of a small amount of its assets to competitors and has claimed that the economic efficiencies created by the takeover will benefit consumers. However, the report found that Exelons proposed divestiture is far too small to mitigate the market power the company will gain in PJM East. Exelons proposal is also based on a mathematical concentration screen that fails to analyze possible effects on New Jerseys auction system, a screen designed for more typical retail commodity markets like office supplies or cars, and uses arbitrary concentration thresholds that are not necessarily connected to effects in the marketplace or prices consumers must pay. In addition, Exelon has not formally proposed sharing any of the economic efficiencies it expects to create with ratepayers. In fact, the report found that even if Exelon did share the savings, they would amount to only a token decrease in electricity costs for the average residential consumeron the order of 21 cents a month per household for only four years. Exelons takeover of PSEG can only proceed with approval from the BPU. The report concludes that the BPU should reject the proposal on the grounds that it does not serve the public interest and could in fact reduce competition, raise rates, reduce reliability and quality of service and risk public safety. The report also notes that such a decision would not be without precedent. In the past year, Oregon and Arizona utility regulators stopped out of state holding companies from taking over state-based energy companies because the deals did not provide any public benefit. It is the BPUs responsibility to put ratepayers first. BPU President Jeanne Fox should follow the lead of Oregon and Arizona and reject Exelons takeover of PSEG, concluded Leta. **Correction to pg. 29 of Consolidation of Power: Exelon filed an application for a license extension of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in July 2005.** THE NEW JERSEY PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH GROUP Citizen Lobby and Law & Policy Center 11 North Willow Street • Trenton, NJ 08608 • 609-394-8155 ***************************************************************** 34 [NukeNet] UPI- U.S. Reactors Helpless Against Air Attack Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 15:05:08 -0800 NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net) CRAC-2 Report On fatalities, limited cancers, limited injuries and property damage: http://www.mothersalert.org/crac.html Please call your Senators and Rep and tell them about this report, that NRC is not to be trusted they're in bed with the industry they're supposed to regulate, more well armed and trained guards need to be put in place and mostly that these reactors need to be permentantlt shutdoen as soon as possible. A Manhattan Project for renewable energy needs to be enacted. Please call your Senators & Rep at: 202-224-3121, 202-225-3121 & 1-877-762-8762. Please forward this to allinterested parties including media outlets. -Bill Smirnow http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20051111-112358-9520r U.S. reactors helpless against air attack By MARTIN SIEFF UPI Senior News Analyst WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- More than four years after Sept. 11, 2001, the 103 civilian nuclear reactors in the United States are still defenseless against direct air attack, and their minimum requirement for ground security has only been upgraded by a single security guard each. According to new guidelines mandated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and entered into the Federal Register on Monday, Nov. 7, the 65 nuclear power stations across the United States that house the 103 active civilian nuclear reactors will now be required to have a minimum of five security guards each on regular duty rather than four. Nor does the NRC appear to require any further upgrading of reactor security as necessary in the foreseeable future. "All the nuclear power plants are currently meeting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's requirements in regard to safety," NRC Commissioner Gregory Jaczko told a conference on nuclear power and safety organized by the Nuclear Policy Research Institute at Airlie, Va. Tuesday. However, critics charge that isn't the case at all. They say no practical measures whatsoever have been taken since Sept. 11, 2001, to protect any of the 103 civilian reactors against having aircraft crash into them. "No steps have been taken to ensure protection (of the reactors) against air attack. No steps have been taken to protect (the installations) against the number of attackers who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks," Dan Hirsch, president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap nuclear watch dog group told the NIPRI conference. "It is just outrageous," said Hirsch, former director of the Program on Nuclear Safety at the University of Santa Cruz. "They are leaving the reactors vulnerable. These are in-place nuclear weapons. If a plane were to attack a reactor there is nothing to protect them. There is no protection. The plants are just completely vulnerable to air attack." The NRC requirement for each nuclear reactor to have only four guards each was based on the assumption held by the regulators for decades that no more than three terrorists or saboteurs could be expected to attack a nuclear plant at any one time and, therefore, all one needed at any time to protect against them, was a three-plus-one figure. Even the active involvement of 19 dedicated al-Qaida terrorists ready to sacrifice their lives by crashing four hijacked airliners into heavily populated targets on Sept. 11, 2001, did not significantly shake that assumption, he said. Also, the NRC has not required any of the utilities operating existing nuclear plants to install anti-aircraft missiles, or any other defenses against terrorists who might try to crash rented or hijacked aircraft into the reactors, Hirsch said. Such an attack need not even destroy or significantly damage the reactor directly. If the primary and back-up water cooling pipes and equipment were damaged enough to interfere long enough with the coolant flow, a meltdown on a Chernobyl scale would inevitably happen. "Even after a reactor is shut down, it has to be water-cooled for months" until the radioactive fuel inside it has sufficiently cooled down, Hirsch said. "All a terrorist has to do is disrupt the coolant." Nor does the U.S. Air Force or Air Force Reserve give continual air cover to the 103 civilian reactors. Nor does it take a nuclear explosion to destroy a working reactor and scatter its deadly radioactive material to be dispersed by the winds. A 1950s experiment that was recorded on film showed a small reactor being destroyed by conventional explosives. Nuclear safety advocates have proposed encasing the 103 civilian reactors in surrounding steel skeleton structures that would deflect any aircraft from crashing directly into them. "It would cost less than 1 percent of the construction costs of the reactor," Hirsch said. Although the fuel from the fully-loaded Boeing 767s that crashed into the World Trade Center towers melted the steel skeletons of the buildings after burning for more than an hour each, advocates of the steel skeleton plan say that, just as the World Trade Towers withstood the kinetic energy of being hit by the planes, such protective skeletons around reactors would too. NRC Commissioner Jaczko did not address these concerns or take questions on them when he appeared at the NIPRI conference. "The NRC needs to be continued to be wedded to safety and security," he said. But he gave no further details of how this was being done. An in-depth investigation published by Time magazine earlier this year found that there are only 8,000 full-time guards employed to cover all the nuclear power plants in America, giving an average of only 80 per power plant, of whom not more than 60 and probably even less would be on duty on any given shift. The magazine also reported that the guard towers around the plants were called "iron coffins" by the guards who manned them and that they could not repel even a .50-caliber rifle bullet. Time reported that many security experts believe U.S. nuclear power stations currently lack the number of guards, fire-power and defensive systems to repel determined attempts to storm them and wreck their operating systems in order to provoke catastrophic core meltdowns by as few as 19 or 20 terrorists. © Copyright 2005 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved Want to email or reprint this story? Click here for options. advertisement Commentary: Change of course in Iraq By ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE UPI editor at large 11/16/2005 8:48:00 AM -0500 An emerging bipartisan consensus on Iraq is designed to remove the conduct of the war from the nothing-short-of-total-victory hawks in the administration ... 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Kristensen November/December 2005 pp. 77-79 (vol. 61, no. 06) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [S] ince Britain withdrew its last WE177 gravity bomb from service in March 1998, it has relied on a single nuclear weapon system, its fleet of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), and their accompanying Trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). Though the fleet is expected to be in operation until 2020 or beyond, attention is now turning to the question of whether Britain requires a new generation of nuclear weapons. The debate is in its early stages, but it has already proved contentious. Just before he died unexpectedly in early August, Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary, called upon Prime Minister Tony Blair to "break from the past" and make "the case that nuclear weapons now have no relevance to Britain's defenses in the modern world." [1] Some suspect Blair has already secretly decided to build a new generation of nuclear weapons to replace the Trident system. [2] The debate is unfolding against the backdrop of global concerns about nonproliferation, especially in Iran and North Korea, and about Britain's long-standing nuclear "special relationship" with the United States. Any new British nuclear warheads would be built by the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE). Since 1950, the AWE has been responsible for the full life cycle of British nuclear warheads, from research and development through disassembly and disposal. British warheads have been designed at Aldermaston, a 750-acre site in Berkshire. Final assembly and disassembly takes place at Burghfield, a 225-acre site 7 miles to the east. [3] The Atomic Weapons Establishment Management Limited--a joint venture between Lockheed Martin, Serco Limited, and British Nuclear Fuels, Ltd.--has a 25-year contract with the Ministry of Defence to operate AWE that is due to expire in 2025. Like its counterpart in the United States, AWE is responsible for guaranteeing the reliability and safety of the warheads in the stockpile and for maintaining the capability to design new weapons should the Blair government decide to do so. AWE also supports arms control treaties to which Britain is a party. For instance, its Forensic Seismology Centre at Brimpton, near Aldermaston, monitors earth movements around the world to detect underground nuclear explosions and advises the government on nuclear testing issues. SSBNs. The current British stockpile numbers "fewer than 200 operationally available warheads," according to the British government. This official terminology implies that additional warheads are held in reserve--as is the case in the United States and Russia. All of these warheads are of one type, and their sole purpose is arming Britain's SSBNs. The exact type of warhead is not publicly known. The Labour Party's 1998 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) determined that only one of Britain's four SSBNs would be on patrol at any given time, and it "will carry 48 warheads." The British government reaffirmed this number to Parliament on July 21, 2005. The stockpile's remaining warheads are enough to arm the three other subs, each of which can carry as many as 16 missiles, with up to three warheads per missile. Only two of the three subs would be able to deploy on relatively short notice; one sub is scheduled to be in major overhaul at all times and would take considerably longer to deploy, if at all. The submarine on patrol operates at reduced alert, with the capability to fire its missiles within days of receiving an authentic launch order (rather than within a few minutes, as during the Cold War). The missiles are held in a "detargeted" mode, meaning that target data would need to be loaded into the guidance system before launch, an operation that takes a few minutes. It could also take the sub some time to get into position to launch a missile. While on patrol, the submarine carries out secondary tasks, including hydrographic data collection and exercises with other vessels. During the past few years, a couple of British subs have visited French ports. Though the government has described the number of "operationally available" warheads in its stockpile, estimating the size of the total stockpile remains difficult. There are, however, some hints. The 1998 SDR reduced the number of Trident II D5 missiles to be supplied by the United States from 65 to 58, meaning that there are not enough missiles to fully arm all four SSBNs. This suggests a Royal Navy decision to acquire only enough missiles to arm three boats (48 missiles), with the remaining 10 missiles to be used for spares and test-launches. If we assume that the navy arms each of the 48 missiles with an average of three warheads, then only 144 warheads are required. It is important to note that there is not a set of Trident IIs specifically dedicated to British use. Rather Britain draws on a pool of commingled missiles kept in the Strategic Weapons Facility Atlantic at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia. Britain has title to 58 missiles but does not own them; a missile that was deployed on a U.S. sub may later deploy on a British sub, or vice versa. A second indicator of the size of the British arsenal is that Britain assigns its patrolling SSBN a "substrategic mission" to supplement its strategic role. [4] Operationally this probably means that some of the sub's missiles have a single warhead aimed at targets once covered by WE177 gravity bombs. These warheads could be used to attack regional adversaries--so-called rogue states--that have weapons of mass destruction, a mission that would not require a substantial attack. The substrategic mission may also require smaller warhead yield options. This can be achieved by choosing to detonate a warhead's unboosted primary, which would produce a yield of 1 kiloton or less, or by choosing to detonate the boosted primary, which would produce a yield of approximately a few kilotons. The load-out of an SSBN on patrol with strategic and substrategic missions would likely be either 10, 12, or 14 SLBMs loaded with multiple warheads; the remaining missiles would be armed with one warhead each. U.S. Trident IIs can carry up to eight warheads; presumably those missiles on British submarines can do the same. Assuming a limited upload capability, a few spares, and a number of warheads always in maintenance (and therefore not "operationally available"), we conclude that a reasonable estimate of the total stockpile is approximately 200 warheads. A special relationship. On July 3, 1958 the United States and Britain signed the Agreement for Cooperation on the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defense Purposes. [5] For nearly 50 years, British and American weapon designers have worked closely together at each others' labs. Between March 1962 and November 1991, British scientists also conducted 24 nuclear tests with their U.S. colleagues at the Nevada Test Site. As a result of this cooperation, recent British nuclear warheads have been based largely on U.S. designs. The warhead on British Trident missiles is thought to be a close variant of the U.S. W76 warhead. The tightness of the relationship means that, in part, as the U.S. nuclear arsenal goes, so too does Britain's. In April 2005, a former Los Alamos National Laboratory warhead designer and three colleagues claimed that there is a serious flaw in the W76 warhead that could cause it to explode with a reduced yield or possibly not at all. [6] Officials from the National Nuclear Security Administration, Los Alamos, and other experts say there is no problem with the warhead and maintain that the W76 is reliable, but the issue is of obvious concern to the British. The British government confirmed in 2002 that staff from the Defence Procurement Agency's Nuclear Weapons Integrated Project Team held discussions with their U.S. counterparts "on the U.S. W76 warhead, relevant to the safety and reliability of [Britain's] Trident warhead." [7] In July 2005, the government announced that it intends to spend more than £1 billion ($1.8 billion) during the next three years to ensure the "continued reliability and safety . . . of the existing Trident warhead stockpile." In the United States, such language has meant modifying the W76 warhead to incorporate new capabilities that significantly improve the weapon's effectiveness. The U.S. Navy has begun replacing the W76's airburst arming and firing fuzes with a new groundburst fuze. This modification significantly increases the lethality of the W76 warhead and broadens the range of targets that it can hold at risk to include some hard targets, such as reinforced missile silos. Whether Britain also plans to install groundburst fuzes in its warheads is unknown. Some interesting historical documents about the secret understandings between U.S. presidents and British prime ministers on the use of nuclear weapons have been declassified and published on the internet. [8] The documents, which span 1950-1974, reveal some tension in the "special relationship." British leaders wanted assurances from each new U.S. administration that they would be consulted and have some say if nuclear weapons were about to be used. U.S. leaders wanted the freedom to act unilaterally and never agreed to a British veto on the use of U.S. forces; they always agreed to consult Britain, but only "if time permits." Britain has always had a special role supporting and collaborating with the deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons overseas. Since World War II, in fact, Britain has based four nuclear-capable U.S. weapons systems, the most numerous of which were various gravity bombs, some of which remain on British soil today. From 1958 to 1963, the United States deployed 60 Thor intermediate-range ballistic missiles and W49 warheads in Britain; from 1968 to 1991, it deployed depth bombs at British bases for use by U.S., British, and Dutch antisubmarine aircraft; and from 1961 to 1992, U.S. SSBNs used Holy Loch on the Firth of Clyde in Scotland as a refit facility. Nuclear history. Within the last few years, interesting new details about Britain's nuclear weapons history have been released to the public. In a two-volume, 1,100-page official history of the 1982 Falkland Islands campaign, Sir Lawrence Freedman provides specific details about the presence of British nuclear weapons in the conflict. [9] In response to Argentina's surprise attack in early April, Britain dispatched a task force of ships to the South Atlantic to make a strong diplomatic statement. Two of the vessels, the frigates Brilliant and Broadsword, carried two WE177 nuclear depth charges each for killing submarines. In London, there was an intense debate over whether to delay the ships' departure and off-load the weapons, or sail with them and remove them later. While en route, the weapons were transferred to the aircraft carriers Hermes and Invincible, which already carried 40 and 25 percent, respectively, of Britain's nuclear depth charges and were also traveling to the South Atlantic. Only in late June did the weapons return to Britain. Freedman stresses that there was never any intention to use the weapons against the Argentines but adds that the chief of the defense staff, Adm. Sir Terence Lewin, was inclined to bring them to the South Atlantic just in case Soviet submarines got involved in the conflict on the Argentine side. In 2003, the British government released information identifying more than a dozen nuclear weapon accidents and incidents since 1960. [10] The British define a nuclear weapon accident as "an unplanned occurrence involving the destruction of, or damage, or suspected damage to, a nuclear weapon which has resulted in actual or potential hazard to life or property, or which may have impaired nuclear safety." There are two categories of accidents: Category 1, in which no release of radioactive material occurs, and Category 2, in which a release is detected. Between 1973 and 1987, there were seven Category 1 accidents and zero Category 2 accidents. None of them involved anything like the 32 acknowledged U.S. "broken arrows" (accidents), which include airplanes crashing and submarines sinking with nuclear weapons aboard. In one instance, an explosion inside a U.S. missile silo catapulted a nuclear warhead 600 feet into the adjacent woods. British accidents include a few minor traffic mishaps involving vehicles transporting nuclear weapons and instances in which weapons fell a few inches with no damage to the warheads. The British also track "incidents"--unplanned occurrences that "did not constitute an accident . . . but which [need] to be reported in the interests of safety, or because it was likely to attract the attention of the public or the media." There were 12 such incidents between 1960 and 1991. One occurred during the transfer of containers carrying nuclear weapons between warships in the Falklands War. The container was damaged in the accident, but the nuclear weapon was not. Another occurred in August 1988 when a British warship carrying nuclear weapons collided with another ship while moored off Hong Kong. Though these ships are not identified in British reports, this incident may have involved either the carrier Ark Royal or the transport ship Fort Grange, both of which were on overseas cruises in the Pacific that included a visit to nuclear-free Australia in October. 1. Robin Cook, "Worse Than Irrelevant," Guardian, July 29, 2005, p. 25. 2. Marjorie Thompson and Julian Lewis, "A New Generation of Nuclear Weapons?" Guardian, July 4, 2005, p. 20. 3. AWE Corporate Communications, "AWE Annual Report 2004/5," 2005. 4. In "Nuclear Deterrence in a Changing World: The View from a U.K. Perspective" (RUSI Journal, June 1996), a Ministry of Defence official described a substrategic strike as "the limited and highly selective use of nuclear weapons in a manner that fell demonstrably short of a strategic strike, but with a sufficient level of violence to convince an aggressor who had already miscalculated our resolve and attacked us that he should halt his aggression and withdraw or face the prospect of a devastating strategic strike." The substrategic mission began with the submarine Victorious in December 1995 and became fully robust when the third submarine, Vigilant, conducted its first patrol in June 1998. We assume that it now applies to the first and fourth subs as well. 5. This required amendments to the 1954 Atomic Energy Act, which President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed on July 2, 1958. 6. John Fleck, "Nuclear Weapons May Get Makeover," Albuquerque Journal, April 10, 2005, p. A1; William J. Broad, "Aging Warheads Ignite a Debate Among Scientists," New York Times, April 3, 2005, p. 1. 7. Written answers for House of Commons, February 6, 2002, Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol. 379, col. 997W. 8. William Burr, "'Consultation is Presidential Business,' Secret Understandings on the Use of Nuclear Weapons, 1950-1974," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 159., July 1, 2005 (gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB159/index.htm). 9. Sir Lawrence Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign (London: Routledge, 2005); see also Deborah Haynes, "New History Book Sheds Light on Britain's Nuclear Cargo in Falklands War," Agence France Presse, June 27, 2005. 10. Directorate of Safety and Claims, Ministry of Defence, "U.K. Nuclear Weapons Safety Since 1960," released on February 12, 2005 (mod.uk/linked_files/publications/foi/rr/03022005145211024_nuclea r.pdf). Nuclear Notebook is prepared by Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Inquiries should be directed to NRDC, 1200 New York Avenue, N.W., Suite 400, Washington, D.C., 20005; 202-289-6868. November/December 2005 pp. 77-79 (vol. 61, no. 06) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Britain's arsenal SSBNs* Class Date of first patrol Vanguard Vanguard December 1994 Victorious Vanguard December 1995 Vigilant Vanguard June 1998 Vengeance Vanguard February 2001 [ height=] SLBMs Range No. of warheads x yield Trident II D5 7,400 kilometers 1-3 x 100 kilotons SSBN: nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine; SLBM: submarine-launched ballistic missile. *Vanguard-class submarines can carry up to 16 missiles per boat. Each SSBN is protected by one or two hunter-killer submarines during transit to and from its patrol area. British deterrent patrols are thought to be coordinated with the operations of French SSBNs. 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ***************************************************************** 36 Guardian Unlimited: Bush, Putin to Try for Unity on Terror War From the Associated Press [UP] Thursday November 17, 2005 11:46 PM AP Photo KORD107 By TERENCE HUNT AP White House Correspondent BUSAN, South Korea (AP) - Though their political relationship is strained, President and Russian President Vladimir Putin are trying to speak with one voice about the war on terror and the campaign to stop North Korea's nuclear ambitions. The two leaders were to meet Friday, apparently still at odds over how to address Iran's nuclear programs and with long-running differences over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and U.S. concern that Russia is retreating from democracy. Far from home, Bush was on the defensive about Democrats' criticism that he had misled the nation about the need to go to war in Iraq. He said at a news conference Thursday that it was ``patriotic as heck to disagree with the president.'' But he added, ``What bothers me is when people are irresponsibly using their positions and playing politics. That's exactly what is taking place in America.'' Friday's meeting was to be the fifth between Bush and Putin this year, following talks in Moscow; Washington; Bratislava, Slovakia, and Gleneagles, Scotland. Despite their disputes, they're on a first-name basis and emphasize their friendship, which was strengthened when Putin stepped forward and supported Bush after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Bush and Putin were to meet in a hotel suite before the opening of the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. The White House said the key topics would be Iran, North Korea, terrorism, trade, Moscow's goal of joining the World Trade Organization by the end of the year and developments in Russia. Bush also was to meet with Southeast Asia leaders to underscore U.S. interest in the region, one of the battlegrounds in the fight against terrorists. Bush planned to ask the leaders to exert their influence on the military junta in Myanmar, which U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said was ``one of the worst regimes in the world'' for its record on human rights and free speech. Putin has refused to support Bush in his eagerness to go to the U.N. Security Council with suspicions Iran is trying to build a nuclear arsenal. Over U.S. objections, Russia is building a nuclear reactor for a power plant in Iran, an $800 million project the United States fears could be used to help develop nuclear arms. Putin says that he shares the U.S. goal of an Iran without nuclear arms but that he has been assured Tehran has no ambitions for developing a nuclear weapon and instead wants its program for civilian energy use alone. Bush and Putin have generally agreed on a need to avert the spread of nuclear weapons technology to other nations, including North Korea. Russia is a partner with the United States, China, Japan and South Korea in talks aimed at persuading North Korea to halt its nuclear program in return for energy and security guarantees. The political relationship between Bush and Putin has frayed, in part because of U.S. concerns that Putin is consolidating power in the Kremlin and eroding democratic advances in post-Soviet Russia. While Russia backed the United States in the war in Afghanistan, Putin vehemently opposed the invasion of Iraq. Putin has been outspoken about the struggle against terrorism, but U.S. officials accuse Russia of turning a blind eye toward what they say is Iranian and Syrian support for terrorists. Russian officials accuse the United States and European nations of maintaining double standards on terrorism and have repeatedly lashed out at them for granting asylum to Chechen rebel figures they consider terrorists. Putin and other officials have suggested some in the West are at least tacitly supporting terrorists in hopes of weakening or dividing Russia. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 37 [DU Information List] Shameless BBC: When misinformation means Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 15:01:44 -0800 cc093.jpg My Groups | pandora-project Main Page http://www.thecatsdream.com/blog/2005/11/shameless-bbc-when-misinformation.htm SHAMELESS BBC: WHEN MISINFORMATION MEANS WAR CRIMES SHAMELESS BBC: WHEN MISINFORMATION MEANS WAR CRIMES Exclusive interview with Karen Parker, Chief Counsel of the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers By Gabriele Zamparini (*) The BBC News website, in a special page "Q&A: White phosphorus" and under the title "The BBC News website looks at the facts behind the row." reads: What are the international conventions? Washington is not a signatory to any treaty restricting the use of white phosphorus against civilians. White phosphorus is covered by Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons, which prohibits its use as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations or in air attacks against enemy forces in civilian areas. The US - unlike 80 other countries including the UK - is not a signatory to Protocol III. The same BBC News website, in the article "Iraq probes US phosphorus weapons" reads: "Washington is not a signatory to an international treaty restricting the use of the substance against civilians." I asked Karen Parker, Chief Counsel of the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers based in San Francisco to comment on what the BBC reports. Question: Karen, how do you comment on what the BBC writes? Answer: The comment "Washington is not a signatory to an international treaty restricting the use of the substance [WP] against civilians." assumes that therefore civilians may be targeted by WP weapons. This is an outrageous assumption because civilians may NEVER be the target of military operations -- whether using bows and arrows or white phosphorous, or any other weapon. This rule is not dependent on specific treaties but is a fundamental part of the laws and customs of war. Protocol III relating to incendiary weapons (of the Convention on Prohibitions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (1983)) makes all this clear by reinforcing this. While this treaty mainly sets out rules relating to WP in regards to combatants, it also reinforces the rule against targeting civilians. There seems to be some controversy about whether WP might be a chemical weapon or a poisonous gas weapon and hence prohibited by treaties ratified by the US relating to these types of weapons. While a technically interesting question, it deflects attention from the fact that the US forces targeted civilians with WP and other weapons, both illegal and legal in Falluja. The debate about what category of weapons WP weapons are is irrelevant to THAT issue. What is important is to focus on the deliberate targeting of civilians or using weapons against a legal military target when there is a substantial likelihood of serious and numerous civilian casualties. Such targeting is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, especially due to the nature of the weapons such as those containing WP used against them. While the US may not have ratified certain weapons conventions, this does not mean that therefore the US may legally use the weapons that are the subject of such treaties. This is because weapons may be otherwise banned by operation of existing humanitarian law. Under these rules, a weapon may be considered banned if: (1) it cannot be contained to the legal field of battle; (2) it cannot be stopped or cleaned-up when the war is over; (3) it causes "undue suffering" or "superfluous injury" (terms from The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 -- echoed in the "Conventional Weapons Treaty"); or (4) it unduly harms the environment. The nature of WP makes it difficult to control, so it cannot be contained to legal military targets. In this sense, it could be banned by operation of international law in urban areas, as it cannot be sufficiently controlled to the legal field of battle. Note that the Incendiary Weapons Protocol was intended to limit the use of these weapons even against combatants because of the "excessively injurious" issue. Most specific weapons treaties have provisions that provide for "similar, but unnamed weapons" that are "analogous" to the names ones. For example, the 1925 Protocol on Gases has such clauses. WP weapons fit this rule as either "chemical" or "gases" by analogy. Q. The US government has just admitted to have used WP in Fallujah as a weapon. What's your comment on this? A. It is very disturbing that the US lied for a number of months about the use of WP in Falluja, and only came forward with an admission of use after clear evidence. While combatant forces are allowed to withhold certain information from the general public at certain times, the US apparently lied to US Members of Congress and other officials. This is especially disturbing because the use of WP in urban areas is prohibited by operation of law. In this sense, the US was covering up war crimes. Q. Which other WMD - if any - have been used by the US in Iraq? A. The US has used weapons containing depleted uranium (DU) in both the first and second Gulf Wars. DU weapons also fail the test set out above, as attested by the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in its resolutions and reports on this issue. Both the UN Secretary General and a Sub-Commission expert, Chief Justice Sik Yuen (Supreme Court, Mauritius) addressed this issue in their reports, that concurred with my prior assessment, submitted to the UN Commission on Human Rights and its expert body, that DU weapons are illegal. I also understand that napalm may have been used in Iraq. At present, I have not been able to verify this conclusively. Q. What should the international community do now and what you and your organization are doing? A. My organization, the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers, has filed a legal action against the US at the Organization of American States for attacking hospitals and medical facilities in Falluja and for using illegal weapons in those attacks. For details, please see www.humanlaw.org. Obviously, this lawsuit needs to be fully supported, and I welcome help in that regard. In addition, however, we at AHL are trying to set up a "conclave" of attorneys to look at both this and a number of other legal challenges to the way that the US has conducted military actions in Iraq. I would hope to look at illegal weapons, illegal military operations and a wider variety of humanitarian law violations than just torture. I would also hope to look at the "anticipatory" agreements that the US pushed with a number of European and other governments in which the signatory States agreed to NOT bring the US to either the International Criminal Court (not possible anyway, as the US has not ratified the treaty) or to its own domestic Courts as mandated by the Geneva Conventions. These "anticipatory" treaties are "void" as they violate the Geneva Conventions and basic principles of international law, but they need to be judicially challenged. Such challenges are very expensive and economically beyond the reach of human rights organizations such as ours. One reason to force these agreements is that there are no funds to challenge them. So "they" win by default. This is tragic. Q. How the antiwar movement may help? A. The anti-war movement can help by making certain that they understand the gravity of the breaches of international law. This is not a "rogue elephant" situation -- this is a herd of rogue elephants. The US, and to a lesser extent the UK, are decimating the Geneva Conventions and all other rules of the laws and customs of war. It is shocking that most MP and Members of US Congress do not even know the rules: they are willing to send their citizens to die, but don't know the rules. It doesn't get any worse than this. The anti-war movement could also help to raise funds for legal actions. Yes, we must be in the streets, but we must also be in the courthouse. There simply must be legal challenges to these egregious violations. For those interested in helping in my Association of Humanitarian Lawyers action against the US at the OAS, please feel free to contact me at ied@igc.org or reb@xcaretresearch.com. And as stated, we are interested in holding a conference for attorneys who are ready, willing and able to take on the US in national and regional and UN forums. To know more: Association of Humanitarian Law 154 Fifth Avenue San Francisco, CA 94118 USA Telephone: + 1 (415) 465-9900 http://www.humanlaw.org/ (*) Gabriele Zamparini is an independent filmmaker and freelance writer living in London. He's the producer and director of the documentaries XXI CENTURY and The Peace! DVD and author of American Voices of Dissent (Paradigm Publishers). He can be reached at info@thecatsdream.com Yahoo! Model Search - Could you be the next catwalk superstar? Check out the competition now ---------- YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS * Visit your group "pandora-project" on the web. * * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: * pandora-project-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com * * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. ---------- Attachment Converted: cc093.jpg: 00000001,35eb7668,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 38 [du-list] DU NYS legislation press release Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 15:06:08 -0800 For Immediate Release November 10, 2005 Assemblyman Dinowitz Fights for Veterans Exposed to Depleted Uranium Calling the Threat of Depleted Uranium a Ticking Time Bomb Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (D-Bronx) announced today that he is introducing legislation to assist veterans who may have been exposed to depleted uranium (DU) during their military service. The legislation aims to ensure that military personnel and veterans get the best screening and treatment for exposure to hazardous materials, particularly DU. Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process. It was widely used for the first time during the Gulf War to make munitions and build armor for tanks. While many soldiers were in close proximity to equipment or munitions, the greatest of concern has been with soldiers who have been on or in vehicles struck by depleted uranium projectiles, particularly when shrapnel remains in their bodies. The effects of depleted uranium are devastating. Symptoms ranges from joint pains, muscle aches and fatigue to birth defects and chronic illnesses resulting in death. The bill would direct the New York State Division of Veterans' Affairs to aid any soldier or veteran in obtaining federal treatment services, including the best medical practices used to screen for depleted uranium. Those who believe they were exposed or who have been identified by the military as high risk would be eligible for treatment services. Not only would screening result in earlier diagnoses but it would also help prevent mis-diagnoses. When soldiers are given the wrong medication the side-effects could exacerbate an existing illness. A task force would be established to study the health effects of the exposure to depleted uranium. The task force would also set up a health registry for veterans who may have been exposed since the Gulf War; develop a plan to outreach to and follow-up of military personnel; and prepare a report for service members on the effects of depleted uranium and on precautions recommended under non-combat and combat conditions. Assemblyman Dinowitz stated, "The young men and women who serve our country are being exposed to materials that may be deadly. We have a moral obligation to identify the affected veterans and provide them with the best available medical care. I believe this is the least we can do to show our appreciation to the men and women who fight for our freedom." Ulster County Legislator Susan Zimet stated, "I applaud Assemblyman Dinowitz for his compassion, foresight and courage to introduce this legislation on behalf of our returning veterans. I doesn't matter how you feel about the war. Whether you are for or against it is irrelevant. We have a lot of soldiers who are coming home incredibly sick. They are asking us to help them in their fight to get the federal government to follow their own protocols for treatment of our returning of our returning veterans. What's happening is not fair, it goes against everything we believe in." The following were in attendance at the press conference: Connecticut Representative Roger Michele, author of first law in United States on DU; Melissa Sterry, Gulf War veteran; New Paltz County Legislator Susan Zimet, author of Ulster County resolution on DU; Joan Walker, President of NO DU Coalition of Hudson Valley; Raymond Ramos, Iraq War veteran and NY's 442nd National Guard; Herbert Reed, Iraq war veteran and NY's 442nd National Guard; Gerard Mathews, Iraq War veteran. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. ***************************************************************** 39 [du-list] Usuk DU & Xtian fundy 2nd Seal Duct tape Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 15:09:00 -0800 Quelle bonne idee Elaine. This first story will be picked up now... as we send the Second Seal Xtian fundamentalist myths to our favourite reporters/editors. It is quite likely that Usuk DU is (IMHO) a deliberate genocide weapon. This is corroborated by the 1940's nuclear knowledge and early admissions by the US military and the current failures to attempt clean-up and marking of hits and contaminated areas, such denials leading to export of hot scrap etc., plus the USUK targeting of hospitals and health records by bombing and looting etc. and the continued US "policy" to promote civil war in Iraq ( viz Iraq is to be "fixed" by eliminating the original native peoples) The oil fields can be operated by remote control and by low-cost 3rd world labour (from Louisianna and Bangladesh etc.) As collective law suits eventually come into play.. there is more profit to be made with Halliburton/Cheney protective gear, Ridge duct tape, Rumsfeld Gilead (Tamiflu) jabs etc. db ----- Original Message ----- From: Elaine Hunter To: du-list ; du-watch@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2005 3:08 AM Subject: Re: [du-list] FYI from Dan Fahey So Fahey is too important to post for himself? mtpstaff wrote:Two things of interest: 1. Christian evangelism discovers DU! http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1967.cfm Note that Joyce Riley's video is prominently featured here--she has historical ties to right wing militia groups and evangelists. But there's just some great quotes here, such as: "We propose that the Depleted Uranium dust now being exploded on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq and wafting over much of the Middle East may be a part of the "huge sword" of the Second Seal." 2. The claims escalate: http://www.sfbayview.com/110905/radioactivetank110905.shtml New claims here are that 4000 tons of DU have been used in Iraq (I predict this will rise to 5000 by the March anniversary of the start of the Iraq war), and that 25 million Iraqis (out of a population of 26 million) will die because of DU. The use of DU is described as an act of genocide targeting inhabitants of oil and gas rich countries. The DU issue is in good hands, I can see! I just can't understand why the mainstream media doesn't give this story more coverage... To subscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type subscribe and send. ---------- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.3/171 - Release Date: 11/15/05 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. ***************************************************************** 40 Bellona: Radiation pollution trial against Mayak plant begins ST. PETERSBURG—In an unprecedented legal step, the Mayak Chemical Combine—known as the most radioactively contaminated place in Russia—was brought to trial earlier this week on charges of radioactively contaminating the environment. A geiger counter near one of Mayak’s Techa reservoir system showing 785 micoroentgens, some 50 to 75 times the normal background radiation. Bellona Rashid Alimov, 2005-11-17 11:52 Opening statements took place in the Southern Urals city of Chelyabinsk on Thursday. At the opening sessions, the court will consider an inquiry filed by the Urals Regional Prosecutors’ office and draw conclusions about whether Mayak’s Director General Vitaly Sadovnikov should be charged with any elements of crime. It is likely that Sadovnikov, who is now the deputy of the Chelyabinsk Parliament, will be stripped of his Parliamentarian’s immunity from criminal prosecution. According to the Russian news agency Noviy Raion, the hearings on Sadovnikov’s parliamentary immunity will be postponed for a week as the defense had not yet received a copy of the prosecutor’s inquiry. Sadovnikov is accused of violating Article 246 of the Criminal Code of Russia, which spells out “violation of environmental protection rules during the execution of operations,” and also breaking Article 247 which deals with “violation of the rules of handling environmentally dangerous substances and wastes.” If found guilty, he faces up to five years imprisonment. Such a case against a huge contaminator is without precedent not only in Mayak, but also for contaminators across Russia and could indicate a new era of prosecutorial interest in environmental crime. “Yesterday Kiriyenko was named as the new head of Rosatom. It is symbolic that the first court session on the Mayak’s case took place today,” said Bellona’s Alexander Nikitin, head of Bellona’s St. Petersburg office. “Radioactive waste handling and Soviet nuclear legacy rehabilitation should become the main problems for the new Rosatom head.” Investigation of Mayak goes on Inspections of the Mayak plant continue, but nuclear authorities claim there have been no dumps above set limits during the past several years. Ecologists are concerned because they have not seen progress in the investigation. They hope though that Russian law will prevail and Mayakfor the first time in its historywill be punished and urged to observe ecological standards. First day of court open … and shut As Nadezhda Kutepova, a local ecologist from the Ozersk based Planet of hopes environmental organization said to Bellona Web, the court session was at first declared to be open to the public. But the court room was cleared upon Sadovnikov’s arrival. A protest rally was expected in front of the court house with more than 150 participants brought by Mayak authorities. The greens also planned to organize a picket. Other participants were planning to come from the nuclear safety organisation, Pravosoznaniye (Legal Conscience). Also expected were activist from the organisation Techa, which is named after the river the Mayak facility has been polluting for almost a half century, and encompasses victims of Mayak’s 1957 accident when a reservoir holding highly active radioactive waste exploded, constituting the second worst nuclear accident after Chernobyl. But the police slammed down a ban on all pickets Wednesday. The criminal contamination case against Mayak was brought on April 11th by Deputy Prosecutor General Yury Zolotov. Preliminary examinations of the Techa River Cascade—Mayak constructed reservoirs along the Techa river where the plant dumps much of its waste—showed that over the past four years, the radiation background levels in the river have risen and exceed safe norms by dozens of times. In 2004, Mayak allegedly dumped some 60 million cubic meters of industrial waste into the Techa illegally. According to the prosecutor’s office the estimated environmental damage to the area is some 30 million rubles. Mayak representatives say that, despite an almost total lack of budget funding (less then 10 percent of what they have requested), a significant amount of clean-up measures were undertaken, including work toward liquidating radioactive particles blowing into the air from lake Karachai, and radioactive waste vitrification. The by-pass channels in the Techa cascade were also cleaned on this shoe-string budget, according to Mayak officials. “The fundamental problem for Mayak isn’t even the discharges, but rather the lack of any clear plan to rehabilitate the [Techa] reservoirs and the territory in general,” said Bellona researcher Igor Kudrik. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 41 NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding FR Doc E5-6366 [Federal Register: November 17, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 221)] [Notices] [Page 69787-69788] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr17no05-98] of No Significant Impact for License Amendment for Lifenet's Facility in Virginia Beach, VA AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice of Availability. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dennis Lawyer, Commercial and R Branch, Division of Nuclear Materials Safety, Region I, 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, 19406, telephone (610) 337-5366, fax (610) 337-5269; or by e-mail: . SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I.Introduction The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering issuing a license amendment to LifeNet for Materials License No. 45-25601-01, to authorize release of its facility located at 1457 Miller Store Road in Virginia Beach, Virginia, for unrestricted use. NRC has prepared an Environmental Assessment (EA) in support of this proposed action in accordance with the requirements of 10 CFR Part 51. Based on the EA, the NRC has concluded that a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) is appropriate. II. EA Summary The purpose of the proposed action is to authorize the release of the licensee's facility located at 1457 Miller Store Road in Virginia Beach, Virginia, facility for unrestricted use. LifeNet was authorized by NRC from 2002 to use radioactive materials for research and development purposes at the site. On September 12, 2005, LifeNet requested that NRC release the facility for unrestricted use. LifeNet has conducted surveys of the facility and provided [[Page 69788]] information to the NRC to demonstrate that the site meets the license termination criteria in Subpart E of 10 CFR Part 20 for unrestricted use. The NRC staff has prepared an EA in support of the license amendment. The facility was remediated and surveyed prior to the licensee requesting the license amendment. The NRC staff has reviewed the information and final status survey submitted by LifeNet. Based on its review, the staff has determined that there are no additional remediation activities necessary to complete the proposed action. Therefore, the staff considered the impact of the residual radioactivity at the facility and concluded that since the residual radioactivity meets the requirements in Subpart E of 10 CFR Part 20, a Finding of No Significant Impact is appropriate. III. Finding of No Significant Impact The staff has prepared the EA (summarized above) in support of the license amendment to terminate the license and release the facility for unrestricted use. The NRC staff has evaluated LifeNet's request and the results of the surveys and has concluded that the completed action complies with the criteria in Subpart E of 10 CFR Part 20. The staff has found that the radiological environmental impacts from the action are bounded by the impacts evaluated by NUREG-1496, Volumes 1-3, ``Generic Environmental Impact Statement in Support of Rulemaking on Radiological Criteria for License Termination of NRC-Licensed Facilities'' (ML042310492, ML042320379, and ML042330385). Additionally, no non-radiological or cumulative impacts were identified. On the basis of the EA, the NRC has concluded that there are no significant environmental impacts from the proposed action, and has determined not to prepare an environmental impact statement for the proposed action. IV. Further Information Documents related to this action, including the application for the license amendment and supporting documentation, are available electronically at the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at . From this site, you can access the NRC's Agency wide Document Access and Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and image files of NRC's public documents. The ADAMS accession numbers for the documents related to this Notice are: Environmental Assessment Related to an Amendment of U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Materials License No. 45-25601-01 (ML053130104); and letter dated September 12, 2005, requesting release of facility and enclosing Decommissioning Survey Report for LifeNet (ML052640482). Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at (800) 397-4209 or (301) 415-4737, or by e-mail to . Documents related to operations conducted under this license not specifically referenced in this Notice may not be electronically available and/or may not be publicly available. Persons who have an interest in reviewing these documents should submit a request to NRC under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Instructions for submitting a FOIA request can be found on the NRC's Web site at . Dated at King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, this 9th day of November, 2005. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. James P. Dwyer, Chief, Commercial and R Branch, Division of Nuclear Materials Safety Region I. [FR Doc. E5-6366 Filed 11-16-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 42 [shundahaialert] Shundahai Network Goes To Nuke company Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 15:09:03 -0800 For Immediate Release 11/14/2005 Goshute and Allied Groups Challenge PFS Nuke Consortium in its Hometown. Opponents of the proposed Private Fuel Storage High-level nuclear waste dump took their opposition this past weekend to LaCrosse, WI, hometown of the PFS nuclear consortium. Several experts and activists spoke at a conference Saturday at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse dealing with the dangers of transporting nuclear waste and the impact on American Indian people. About 50 people attended the event, which was hosted by the UW-L Native American Student Association, and was sponsored by Nukewatch from Wisconsin, Nuclear Information Resource Service from Washington, DC, Wisconsin Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Midwest Treaty Network, and the UW-L Progressives. Margene Bullcreek, resident of the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, gave the keynote address. Margene has opposed the PFS Nuclear waste dump from the beginning. "I've always felt that the casks PFS wants to use to ship and store this waste weren't safe, that's why we oppose PFS." she said. "Besides the dangers of shipping this waste to our reservation, this is an issue of environmental racism. PFS is targeting Native Americans to dump their poisonous waste." Private Fuel Storage is headquartered in La Crosse. Its chairman, John Parkyn, is a resident of LaCrosse, and a former executive with Dairyland Power, one of the seven member utilities of PFS. The local LaCrosse newspaper reported Parkyn as recently saying that it will be several years before the Skull Valley facility is ready to accept shipments. According to Parkyn, shipment plans and routes are subject to further approval of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Pete Litster, Executive Director of Shundahai Network, expressed concerns about these statements. "John Parkyn is telling the communities where this waste is produced that this process could take a while." he said. " Meanwhile PFS is telling the Skull Valley Goshutes and the people of Utah that this is a done deal, there is nothing more we can do, and they could begin construction of the dump next year and begin accepting shipments in less than two years." Litster, who also presented at the conference, explained to participants the outstanding objections against the PFS project that have been raised by the state of Utah. These include risks of aircraft accidents en route from Hill Airforce Base to the bombing range west of the Reservation, and the possibility that the Skull Valley site may not be temporary, as PFS claims, due to the inability of the U.S. Department of Energy to take the nuclear fuel storage casks from Skull Valley to the proposed final destination at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Litster also described concerns over the ability of PFS to cover the enormous costs of emergency response along the proposed transportation routes. This is in light of Department of Energy revelations last year that the DOE can no longer predict a definite time-frame for opening the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear repository in Nevada, given their inability to meet their own financial commitments to emergency response along the proposed shipping routes. According to Litster, this is further compounded by the fact that some PFS member utilities, the financial backbone of the consortium, have either pulled out of PFS, are threatening to pull out, or are looking at options for expanding storage of their waste at the plant sites. The PFS dump is proposed as a temporary storage facility, designed to hold this waste until Yucca Mountain is able to accept it, which according to Litster, "will likely never happen." "We see no guarantee," Litster said "given that DOE cannot keep its financial obligations to the emergency response of our communities, that PFS will be able to either." Oscar Shirani, a nuclear industry whistle-blower, spoke passionately about the dangers of moving this waste from its current locations to the Skull Valley Goshute reservation in Utah. Shirani worked in the nuclear industry for 23 years, and was a structural engineer and auditor at Exelon Corp., which operates nuclear plants in Illinois and elsewhere. He said he found problems with casks being made for Exelon, but the company covered up his findings and eventually laid him off. Mr. Shirani was blacklisted from the U.S. nuclear industry after citing major violations in the fabrication and approval of the casks that would move 40,000 tons of used nuclear reactor fuel from across the U.S. to the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation in Utah. Shirani said he's concerned that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission isn't doing enough to ensure safety of waste storage casks and that its audits only look at procedures, not the actual manufacturing of the casks. "Plane crashes and terrorist attacks aside," Shirani said, "these casks are dangerous on their own. Flaws in their fabrication could cause them, among other things, to crack and possibly rupture from internal heat and pressure." In the end," according to Margene Bullcreek, "it's not just Goshute Indians who will be threatened by this waste. Everyone across the country who lives along these transportation routes, including indigenous tribes, will be put at risk if this goes through." According to Litster, "PFS is on a collision course here, and they're hoping we'll look the other way. We won't. We intend to stop them in their tracks." For more information contact Margene Bullcreek 801-680-2349 Pete Litster 801-533-0128 Shundahai Network www.shundahai.org P.O. Box 1115 Salt Lake City, UT 84110 Phone- 801.533.0128 Fax- 801.533.0129 shundahai@shundahai.org Online Fundraising Store- www.cafepress.com/shundahainet If you are a Myspace user, you can now add us! www.Myspace.com/shundahai Shundahai is a Newe (Western Shoshone) word meaning "Peace and Harmony with all Creation" ***************************************************************** 43 AFX: Iraq faces 40 mln usd bill to clean up toxic, radioactive Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 17:45:58 -0800 Forbes.com Iraq faces 40 mln usd bill to clean up toxic, radioactive waste - UN 11.10.2005, 08:23 AM GENEVA (AFX) - Iraq faces a massive 40 mln usd environmental clean-up campaign to tackle the lethal toxic and radioactive legacy of more than two decades of conflict and neglect, a UN agency and Iraqi authorities said. Five sites near Baghdad, described by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) as 'the tip of the iceberg', have been identified for an initial clean-up, but there are thought to be thousands more. 'There are thousands of polluted areas in Iraq, either from industrial or military pollution,' Iraq's environment minister, Narmin Othman, said at the launch of a UNEP assessment of environmental 'hotspots' in Iraq. The UNEP report highlighted the Al Qadyissa metal plating facility, bombed during the US invasion of Iraq, where several tonnes of cyanide pellets are scattered around a site that is accessible to children. Other immediate priority areas include pesticides and petrochemicals warehouses and a military scrapyard. Many of them have been contaminating farm land and drinking water, or are close to impoverished communities who looted sites without knowing the risks. The Ouireej site was a military ammunition dump. Two people have been killed by explosions and by poisoning during clean-up attempts there over the past two years, according to the report, which included pictures of children playing in the site. 'Wars, conflicts, instability and the poor environmental management of the previous regime have left their scars on the Iraqi people and the Iraqi environment,' UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer said. A UNEP expert, Mu ralee Thummarukundy, said the five sites were not the worst cases of pollution but were chosen initially because of their proximity to local communities and security conditions. The report did not cover pollution caused by uranium-hardened shells used during tank battles or aerial bombardments in Iraq in 1991 and 2003. 'We do not only have chemicals, we even have radiation. We have depleted uranium radiation, a good programme has identified 311 sites polluted by depleted uranium, especially in the south,' Othman told journalists. Toepfer said a separate project was being set up with British funding to train Iraqi experts to deal with depleted uranium, which was used to harden munitions. He declined to comment on the level of danger the depleted uranium might represent. Five key causes of severe pollution by chemicals and heavy metals were identified, ranging from the 1980 Iran-Iraq war, the two Gulf Wars, to years of environmental neglect under Saddam Hussein's regime and looting which spread contamination. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. ***************************************************************** 44 [NukeNet] Rokkasho uranium trials fail the test - corrected Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 15:01:25 -0800 NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net) Media Release - note correction to third paragraph Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. (JNFL) has failed to provide evidence to support its claims that uranium trials at the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant are proceeding smoothly, according to the Tokyo based Citizens' Nuclear Information Center (CNIC). CNIC Co-Director, Hideyuki Ban, said today, "JNFL's latest uranium trial progress report (9 November 2005) shows us that there is no way it is ready to enter the active trial phase, using spent fuel." "Of greatest concern, there is no indication that JNFL plans to undertake a true test of the whole process. Unless a full test is carried out, running uranium through the whole plant from beginning to end and comparing input and output, it will be impossible to judge whether it is safe to proceed to active trials." Active trials were scheduled to commence this year, but it is now inconceivable that this schedule will be met. One major hold up is modifications to the vitrified high level waste storage building. It was discovered that due to a design error the cooling system of these buildings was inadequate. The governor of Aomori Prefecture has indicated that he won't give his approval for active trials until this problem is fixed. Hideyuki Ban added, "In addition to the general problem of testing the whole plant, we are also unsatisfied with the information that has been released. While we recognize that nuclear safeguards requirements imposes limits on what can be made public, in this case essential information is being withheld simply for commercial confidentiality reasons. On the basis of the information released, it is impossible to ascertain how much progress has really been made with the uranium trials." "It is simply not good enough for JNFL to say 'trust us' and expect to be allowed to proceed to active trials. Active trials entail far greater dangers than the uranium trials. They involve much higher levels of radioactivity and they carry the risk of a criticality accident. These are not things to be treated lightly for the sake of meeting arbitrary schedules." Concerned about the way JNFL and the government are rushing ahead towards active trials at Rokkasho, citizens are holding demonstrations and public meetings in Tokyo from 16 - 19 November. In Tokyo sit ins, demonstrations and public meetings are being held. At the public meetings Martin Forwood (Cumbrians Opposed to Radioactive Environment) will speak about problems at the THORP reprocessing plant in the UK and Professor Hong Seong Tae (People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy) will give a South Korean perspective on Rokkasho. Martin Forwood will also speak in Morioka on the 20th and Aomori on the 21st. Contacts: Philip White, International Liaison Officer Hideyuki Ban, Co-Director Citizens' Nuclear Information Center 3F Kotobuki Bdg, 1-58-15, Higashi-Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-0003 Phone: 81-3-5330-9520 Fax: 81-3-5330-9530 http://cnic.jp/english/ cnic@nifty.com _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings or access the archives at: http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 45 AU ABC: Martin urges last-minute dump inquiry submissions Thursday, 17 November 2005. 20:12 (AEDT)Thursday, 17 November The Northern Territory Government says people must act quickly if they are to get submissions in to a Senate inquiry on a national nuclear waste dump. The inquiry is examining legislation that will allow the Federal Government to build the dump at one of three remote Territory sites, despite local opposition. The inquiry stops taking submissions tomorrow, ahead of a public hearing in Canberra next week. NT Chief Minister Clare Martin says the process is a sham, but people should still get involved. "Go to the website and follow the prompts, and put in just a few lines," she said. "Say how you feel. The voice of Territorians is a strong one and to certainly do that it doesn't take a PhD thesis, it takes your honest views." ***************************************************************** 46 reviewjournal.com: Senators block Bush choice Nov. 17, 2005 Questions surround pick to lead Yucca Mountain project, Ensign says By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Nevada's senators are blocking confirmation of President Bush's pick to lead nuclear waste disposal efforts at Yucca Mountain. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said he and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., have placed holds on Ward Sproat, who has been nominated to become director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management in the Department of Energy. Senators can invoke procedural holds to block final action on nominees and legislation. Ensign said he and Reid will relent on Sproat "once we can get answers about where the administration is going" on nuclear waste. Reid had no comment. Ensign met with Sproat on Nov. 2. "I think he can be very good," Ensign said in an interview. "But we still have a hold on him until we can see these other questions get answered first." Bush administration officials "will work with senators who have placed a hold on Mr. Sproat to remedy their concerns," Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens said. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved Sproat's confirmation Wednesday by a voice vote, sending the confirmation to the Senate floor. But the nominee's path forward could be uncertain if opposition exists, said the committee's chairman, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. The Senate is expected to recess in mid-December, with unfinished business carrying into next year. "It is hard to get a nominee through if somebody doesn't want him to go, so I would think this is serious," Domenici said. He assigned his committee chief of staff to talk to Reid, the Senate Democratic leader. The Yucca Mountain project has been without a Senate-confirmed leader since Margaret Chu resigned in February. Paul Golan, the principal deputy director, has been serving as acting director. A flurry of activity and rumor this fall has focused attention on possible new directions in the government's efforts to manage nuclear waste and establish a repository at the Yucca Mountain site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Congress passed a bill earlier this week that continues spending for Yucca Mountain but at a reduced rate. The bill directs the Department of Energy to start searching for sites that might hold a nuclear waste reprocessing complex to supplement a repository. Yucca Mountain project managers last month announced a redesign of some features and impending changes in contract management. The Energy Department is preparing other legislation to benefit the stalled Yucca Mountain program, including provisions that would remove accounting restrictions on project spending and would withdraw federal land for the repository, DOE officials have said. Rumors have been floating in nuclear industry circles, unconfirmed by Bush officials, that the administration is working on a nuclear waste reprocessing initiative that would involve Yucca Mountain in some way. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2005 ***************************************************************** 47 reviewjournal.com: Yucca audit unearths more e-mail questions Nov. 17, 2005 By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Government inspectors said in a report Wednesday that they discovered more e-mails that raise questions about work performed at Yucca Mountain, including one message that suggested backdating notebooks and another with a recommendation to "make up something." The report prepared by the Energy Department inspector general refocused attention on Yucca Mountain quality assurance, an area in which department has been regularly criticized. DOE spokesman Craig Stevens said the department was aware of the e-mails, which he characterized as a "blip in the cosmos of Yucca Mountain." Critics said the audit provides fresh evidence of the proposed nuclear waste dump's management shortcomings. "This report reinforces the complete lack of confidence I have in the ability of the DOE to honestly evaluate the safety of Yucca Mountain and to truly enforce any type of quality assurance program," said Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev. In March, the Yucca program was tossed into turmoil with the release of a cache of e-mail messages in which U.S. Geological Survey hydrologists discussed possible falsification of quality assurance documents on water infiltration research. The 16-page report issued Wednesday was part of an ongoing criminal investigation related to those messages, which also are the topic of a probe by a U.S. House subcommittee. Auditors said they reviewed e-mail written by or associated with workers being investigated. Auditors said the latest review "identified a number of e-mails containing language that could indicate possible conditions adverse to quality." Investigators did not say how many questionable messages were found or whether they referred to the same matters uncovered in March. Five e-mails were excerpted in the report. In one excerpt, an author referred to a report that concerned rainfall. "Our best guess. Screw 'em. It's a lovely, 85, sunny, warm breeze. It's nice to be disconnected and not caring whether it's QA (quality assurance) or not. If you can't give them QA, that's fine." Another said "... we may want to backdate the notebook to when we started putting things together." Quality assurance requires scientists and engineers to record and document their research, computer modeling and field reports meticulously so that they can be verified and confirmed as part of repository safety licensing. The e-mails disclosed in March and the latest messages disclosed by auditor indicated that some workers held the quality assurance process in low regard. Additionally, auditors said that the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management in DOE fell short in how it reviewed internal messages to ensure that possible quality control problems were being identified and investigated. Out of 10 million e-mails that accumulated over years, the Energy Department deemed nine million irrelevant for repository licensing. But inspectors said they found e-mails among the rejects that should have raised flags. DOE spokesman Stevens said the department is responding by preparing a new review of the 10 million e-mails, plus another 4 million, using statistical sampling to examine a more comprehensive set of messages than before. Paul Golan, acting director of the Yucca Mountain project, has issued a corrective action plan that will guide the reviews, and people who are examining e-mails for hints of problems are being retrained, Stevens said. Stevens said DOE examiners found some of the new e-mails this summer while others were brought to the department's attention by the inspector general and are being examined. "The issue of the e-mails is something that has been looked at ad nauseam by people in this department," Stevens said. "When this came to the knowledge of the front office, they worked quickly to get on top of this. "In the universe of the Yucca Mountain Project, this report isn't even a twinkle from the most distant star," Stevens said. The audit prompted some members of Nevada's congressional delegation to renew calls for an independent investigation of the nuclear waste project. "What is clear from this report is that allowing the DOE to review its own quality assurance records is like giving prisoners the keys to their own jail cells," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., who leads the House subcommittee that has been conducting an examination of the e-mails and related issues, said the audit "highlights what I think is a culture of mismanagement at DOE. They left out nine million e-mails, and that troubles me." Energy Department officials were not certain how long it would take to perform the new examination. The department plans to spend more than a year and more than $1 million to try to put to rest questions about Yucca Mountain science that were raised by the e-mails disclosed in March. Some officials have cautioned against reading much into e-mails offered without background or context. Joseph Hevesi, a USGS hydrologist identified as one of the e-mail authors, told Porter's subcommittee at a hearing in June that provocative messages he wrote were merely "water cooler talk." Hevesi said he did not falsify documents on the project. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2005 Stephens Media GroupPrivacy Statement ***************************************************************** 48 San Bernardino County Sun: Deal on tainted water made with Goodrich Nikki Cobb, Staff Writer About 30 protesters picketed a meeting Wednesday night at which BF Goodrich, accused of contaminating the groundwater of hundreds of thousands of residents of Rialto, Fontana and Colton with perchlorate, hammered out a settlement with the regional water board. The deal, signed in the Rialto Council Chambers, requires Goodrich to drill between five and nine wells in the area in the next 10 months to monitor the path of a seeping underground perchlorate plume. It also requires the formation of an oversight committee composed of community members and activists, and that others responsible for the contamination be pushed to pay for replacement water. Members of the Riverside-based Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice and the Los Angeles-based Environment California as well as local residents said the agreement lets Goodrich off easy, and the 10-month time frame has loopholes that could allow the company to drag its heels for years before consumers see any benefits. "Testing is good. The problem is this agreement treats testing like it's an end in itself," said Sujatha Jahagirdar of Environment California. "We think it's a recipe for indefinite delay." Perchlorate, thought to cause thyroid malfunction, is used in the manufacture of munitions, fireworks and rocket fuel. It has been detected in wells in Rialto, Fontana, Colton and county areas served by the West Valley Water District. Each water purveyor has wells shut down due to perchlorate contamination or is treating wells to remove the pollutant. Its presence in the area is thought to date back to World War II. The Defense Department and a myriad of other contractors and corporations have allegedly contributed to the problem, including Goodrich. The city of Rialto is suing Goodrich, the Defense Department, San Bernardino County and dozens of other "potentially responsible parties" for the contamination. "Goodrich has entered into a consent order agreement to assess water quality in the immediate area of the 160-acre site" that the company operated on from 1957 to 1963, said Goodrich spokeswoman Gail Warner in a statement. "Goodrich intends to continue its assistance in addressing these issues despite ongoing litigation among the water purveyors and (potentially responsible parties)," Warner said. Davin Diaz of the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice said this agreement isn't enough. "Any settlement that doesn't include replacement water, as far as we are concerned, is null and void," Diaz said. Replacement water could come in the form of wellhead treatment or even distributing bottled water for drinking. Kurt Berchtold is assistant executive officer of the Santa Ana River Water Quality Control Board, the other party to the agreement with Goodrich. He defended the agreement, emphasizing that consumers aren't drinking water laced with perchlorate now. Water purveyors are either treating contaminated well water or taking polluted wells off line altogether. Berchtold said the monitoring wells are an essential step in eventually solving the perchlorate problem. He said Goodrich has been cooperative in the past, and in 2003 gave $4 million to the area water purveyors for wellhead treatment. "We think the investigation required by the agreement is necessary before an effective replacement-water or cleanup program can be put in place," Berchtold said. Berchtold also said he believes the 10-month schedule is appropriate, and that Goodrich faces fines of $100,000 per month if the work drags on. Rialto Councilman Ed Scott, a delegate to the perchlorate proceedings, said last week he was skeptical about the settlement. "If the water board were to give them 10 months, I want the water board to hold their feet to the fire," Scott said. "BF Goodrich needs to clean our water up now." Los Angeles Newspaper Group ***************************************************************** 49 PE.com: Deal requires testing wells for perchlorate contamination | Inland Southern California | San Bernardino Metro 01:01 AM PST on Thursday, November 17, 2005 By MEGHAN LEWIT / The Press-Enterprise RIALTO - Regional water-quality officials on Wednesday approved a settlement that will require Goodrich Corp. to drill test wells to determine the extent of perchlorate contamination that has tainted water wells in Rialto and Colton. The Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board voted 5-0 in favor of the settlement despite protests and testimony from residents and environmental activists who filled the Rialto City Council chamber demanding that Goodrich immediately provide replacement water. "The health of our children is priceless," activist and resident Jan Misquez said. "As a mother, I can't tell you how hurt I am that I raised (my children) here. They drank this water, and we didn't know what was in it." Although the settlement does not include a water-replacement order, regional water-board officials said the 10-month testing effort will provide more information on the perchlorate plume. Board members also suggested forming a committee of community members to oversee the testing process, and directed gave staff direction to seek water replacement as soon as possible. "We believe that we need additional investigation in order to better determine how the perchlorate is distributed in the groundwater basin," said Kurt Berchtold, assistant executive officer for the regional water board. Fifteen wells that serve Rialto and Colton are contaminated by an underground plume of perchlorate, a water-soluble chemical used in fireworks, rocket fuel and ammunition. The source of the perchlorate is believed to be a 160-acre industrial area in north Rialto where Goodrich and a number of other companies operated over the past 50 years. In sufficient amounts, perchlorate can block the absorption of iodide into the thyroid gland, interfering with production of hormones that guide brain and nerve development in fetuses and babies. Rialto has raised its water rates to help pay for treatment while the city pursues a lawsuit against the Defense Department, Goodrich, Black & Decker Inc. and nearly 40 other agencies and companies believed to be responsible for the contamination. City officials have said the intent is to refund ratepayers once the lawsuit is settled. Craig Moyer, an attorney for Goodrich, said the settlement approved Wednesday will enable the company to recover cleanup costs from other responsible agencies. The regional board ordered Goodrich in 2001 to come up with a plan to define the plume. The company later paid $4 million to four local water agencies for treatment of tainted wells in exchange for a two-year window in which the company didn't have to conduct any tests. After the 10-months of testing, the regional water board can order Goodrich to provide water replacement, Berchtold said. Penny Newman of the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice said that wasn't good enough. "The critical part for the community is to not have any perchlorate in the drinking water," Newman said. "That wasn't accomplished tonight." Reach Meghan Lewit at (909) 806-3065 or More headlines... ***************************************************************** 50 Whitehaven News: HSE probes Sellafield fall tragedy Published on 17/11/2005 PROSECUTIONS are likely in the wake of the Sellafield tragedy which claimed the life of a young Cleator man who plunged 350ft down the radioactive Windscale Pile chimney. A four-day inquest at Whitehaven heard that action could have been taken to prevent Neil Cannon from falling to his death in No 1 Pile, which has not operated since it caught fire in 1957. The Health and Safety Executive, which was represented at the inquest along with the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, will now study all the evidence with a view to further action. It could bring prosecutions against British Nuclear Fuels and Mr Cannon’s employers, P.C. Richardson, who were engaged by BNFL to carry out the specialist decommissioning work on the chimney. The Whitehaven News was told yesterday that if the HSE finds that breaches of regulations have taken place, it will have a statutory duty to prosecute. The Crown Prosecution Service, after a long investigation, has already decided not to bring any corporate manslaughter charges, but the inquest evidence opens the way for separate health and safety prosecution. The full verdict returned by inquest jury on Tuesday read: “Neil Cannon died from multiple injuries whilst working when he fell from a high ledge in a chimney; in part because the written system of work was not being followed and appropriate and/or adequte measures to prevent this were not taken.†Coroner John Taylor told the jury: “I don’t think a simple verdict of accident will fully reflect the circumstances of his death.†Barry Snelson, managing director of the Sellafield Site, said yesterday: “We are very sorry that this tragic accident occurred on our site. We are committed to working safely and the continuous improvement of safety. We are doing all we can to learn from this event to ensure that it can never happen again. “The whole site was stunned and shocked by this tragedy and our grief is only a tiny fraction of that suffered by Neil’s family. Our hearts go out to them. “All on the site feel as distressed as I do. I am determined that we are not going to put this tragedy behind us and we are not going to get over it. We owe it to Neil and his family to keep Neil’s memory fresh, every day, as a continual spur to never letting our guard drop on safety. “Before this tragedy we thought we were devoted to safety on the Sellafield site. Since, we have doubled, trebled and quadrupled our efforts and dedication. We have set ourselves the target of zero accidents on the site and intend to achieve it. No other target is defensible. “We fully accept the jury’s verdict. Since this terrible tragedy three years ago we have taken numerous steps. We have adopted much more rigorous procedures for working at heights. We have undertaken a high hazard assessment across all areas and we have been steadily and relentlessly tightening up procedures, training and risk assessment.†The accident happened in January 2003 when Mr Cannon, who lived at The Forge, Cleator, was working on a ledge in the diffuser section of the Windscale Pile B6 chimney. A trainee steeplejack, he was trying to manoeuvre an RSJ beam off the ledge to fall to the bottom of the chimney. The sharp bracket on the beam severed his safety harness, known as a lanyard, and the weight of the beam took him over the edge. The inquest heard that workers would often have to leave the platform to go out on to the ledge, while attached to the handrail by a lanyard, to retrieve and tie up any beams that had landed on the ledge. After the four-day inquest, the jury opted for a ‘narrative verdict’, which meant that appropriate measures to prevent Mr Cannon’s death were not taken. The jury took ten minutes to reach their verdict. The inquest heard from a number of witnesses that although safety guidelines were in place, in the form of a written system of work, they were not always followed in practice. Foreman Gordon Metcalfe said that the system of work should have been changed to reflect how the work was being carried out in practice. He added: “The point of the written system of work is so everyone knows how to do the job and it is safe.†Project manager Jim Whitehead said that, in his view, it was not safe for Mr Cannon to have secured his safety line to a handrail on a working platform. The HSE said yesterday: “This is an on-going investigation in which we will be liaising with the Civil Nuclear Constabulary.†***************************************************************** 51 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada senators blocking Bush nominee for Yucca Mountain chief Today: November 17, 2005 at 13:8:1 PST ASSOCIATED PRESS LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada's senators are blocking confirmation of President Bush's pick to lead nuclear waste disposal efforts at Yucca Mountain. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said Wednesday that he and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., have placed holds on Ward Sproat, the administration nominee to direct the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. Ensign, who met with Sproat on Nov. 2, said he and Reid will relent on Sproat "once we can get answers about where the administration is going" on nuclear waste. Reid had no comment. Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens said Bush administration officials "will work with senators ... to remedy their concerns." The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved Sproat's confirmation Wednesday by a voice vote, sending the confirmation to the Senate floor. But senators can invoke procedural holds to block final action on nominees and legislation. The committee chairman, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., assigned his committee chief of staff to talk with Reid, the Senate Democratic leader. The Energy Department got approval from Bush and Congress in 2002 to entomb the nation's most radioactive nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The project has been without a Senate-confirmed leader since Margaret Chu resigned in February. Paul Golan, the principal deputy director, has been serving as acting director. Congressional budget cuts and revelations that scientific data may have been falsified have slowed Energy Department progress toward applying to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an operating license. Congress has also directed the Energy Department to start searching for sites that might hold a nuclear waste reprocessing complex to supplement a repository. --- Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 52 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Lessons lost | thebulletin.org During the last 60 years, we missed several opportunities to contain the nuclear threat. It's not too late to learn from our mistakes. By Joseph Cirincione November/December 2005 pp. 42-53 (vol. 61, no. 06) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists "The hope of civilization," President Harry S. Truman said in his message to Congress in October 1945, "lies in international arrangements looking, if possible, to the renunciation of the use and development of the atomic bomb." One month later, Truman joined the leaders of Britain and Canada to propose to the new United Nations that all atomic weapons be eliminated and that nuclear technology for peaceful purposes be shared under stringent international controls. By 1946, he had a detailed plan that included many of the nuclear nonproliferation proposals still debated today, including a ban on the production of new weapons and fissile material for weapons; international control of nuclear fuel; a strict inspection regime; and complete nuclear disarmament. But in the United States, opponents of the proposal said America should hold on to its nuclear monopoly. In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin wanted his own bombs. Both nations opted to seek security through atomic arsenals, not atomic treaties. The end result? The number of nuclear weapons grew from the two fission bombs held by the United States in November 1945 to more than 27,000 nuclear and thermonuclear bombs held by eight or nine nations today. Was this the preordained outcome of the nuclear age? Was the arms race inevitable? Debating "What if?" scenarios is tricky business. Many undoubtedly believe U.S. nuclear policy has been validated by history: The Soviet Union collapsed and America is still here, so what's the problem? But this logic is a bit like hikers who believe that their path up and down the mountain was the only way to get to the other side, even when others point out a safer, quicker path around the mountain. Unlike these hikers, the United States was not compelled to follow just one path after it began its journey. During the last 60 years, we have come upon numerous forks in the road, guided by nuclear minimalists on the one side and nuclear expansionists on the other. Usually, as with the first fork in the 1940s, the expansionists prevailed. But not always. And although, at times, expanding nuclear arsenals seemed the more realistic option, there were several roads not taken that would have left us more secure today. Having survived the Cold War, we now find ourselves staring at the steep face of another mountain. The path we choose over the next few years will determine whether we build a safer world or launch another great wave of proliferation, vastly increasing the probabilities for the use of these weapons by nations or terrorists. Now, as then, there is a clash of strategies. Proposals to reduce stockpiles, end production of nuclear weapon materials, increase international controls, and create new mechanisms for producing nuclear fuel vie with strategies to deploy new nuclear weapons, preserve large nuclear arsenals indefinitely, block selected nations from getting nuclear technology, and counter proliferation through military action. The nuclear expansionists defend these latter strategies as "new thinking" best suited to an era when terrorists and rogue nations can ignore arms control treaties and exploit our supposedly naïve faith in international law. But, as the history of the last six decades reveals, this so-called new thinking has time and again led us down a dead end. [1] A small group of Manhattan Project scientists at the Metallurgical Lab in Chicago were, in the spring of 1945, increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled spread of atomic energy and the moral implications of using the atomic bomb. While A-bomb research was conducted primarily in Los Alamos, New Mexico, the Chicago lab focused on the production of fissile materials that would form the core of the explosive device. In June 1945, Nobel laureate James Franck formed a committee to consider the implications of the bomb, including Eugene Rabinowitch, the ultimate drafter of the committee's report (and, six months later, cofounder of the Bulletin), and Leo Szilard, an early advocate of the bomb who had become concerned about its use on Japan after Nazi Germany's defeat. Their report warned that the United States could not rely on its nuclear monopoly indefinitely. And presciently, it observed that a numerically superior arsenal would offer only false security, as a "quantitative advantage in reserves of bottled destructive power will not make us safe from sudden attack." If no international agreement were developed after the first detonation of the bomb, then there would be a "flying start of an unlimited armaments race." [2] The Franck Report pinpointed nuclear materials as the critical choke point. Under an international agreement, they said, uranium could be accounted for, and there could be a check on the conversion of natural uranium into fissile material. Such an agreement must be backed by controls: "No paper agreement can be sufficient since neither this or any other nation can stake its whole existence on trust in other nations' signatures." The Interim Committee in charge of atomic bomb policy chaired by then-Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson did not seriously consider these recommendations. But the Chicago scientists had hit upon a core truth: Preventing proliferation had to be a political solution; the science of nuclear technology could not be otherwise contained. They urged that the use of nuclear bombs "be considered as a problem of long-range national policy rather than military expediency." This impulse would find new life after the war. The U.S.-British-Canadian proposal to form a U.N. Atomic Energy Commission was adopted by the United Nations in December 1945. On June 14, 1946, Bernard Baruch, the U.S. representative to the commission, presented the detailed U.S. recommendations. Baruch was nothing if not dramatic. "We are here to make a choice between the quick and the dead," he said. "If we fail, then we have damned every man to be the slave of fear." Baruch based his plan on the Acheson-Lilienthal report, submitted to President Truman by then-Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson and U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Chairman David Lilienthal in March 1946. The plan sought to establish an International Atomic Development Authority that would own and control the "dangerous" elements of the nuclear fuel cycle, including all uranium mining, processing, conversion, and enrichment facilities. Only "non-dangerous" activities could be conducted on a national level, and even then only with a license granted by the proposed Development Authority. Baruch reasoned that this structure would make verification relatively simple since the mere possession of a uranium conversion or enrichment plant by a national authority would be a clear violation. His version of the plan also included automatic punishment for violations, a step further than the recommendations of Acheson and Lilienthal. [3] Since the objective of the Baruch Plan was not only to restrain the spread of nuclear weapons, but also to prevent an arms race and eliminate the bomb altogether, it proposed that once the Development Authority could ensure that no other state was able to construct the bomb, the United States would guarantee the elimination of its entire nuclear stockpile. Approved by the U.N. Atomic Energy Commission on December 31, 1946, the plan was opposed by the Soviet Union in the U.N. Security Council. Stalin saw the bomb as more than a weapon. It was a symbol of industrial might, scientific accomplishment, and national prestige. Stalin told his scientists: "Hiroshima has shaken the whole world. The balance has been broken. Build the Bomb--it will remove the great danger from us." [4] Stalin was not about to accept any plan that limited Soviet national sovereignty and that might have locked in, even if only for a short time, the U.S. nuclear advantage. Knowing the Americans would refuse, the Soviets proposed that any agreement require Washington to disarm prior to the establishment of an international authority. Stalin was right. The United States would not compromise. Manhattan Project leader Gen. Leslie Groves argued that the Soviets would not be able to build the bomb for one to two more decades. Secretary of State James Byrnes saw the bomb as a trump card in meetings with Stalin and Soviet Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov. Even Baruch came to believe that the plan could only be accepted on its own terms, since, "America can get what it wants if she insists on it. After all, we've got it and they haven't." [5] The combination of Soviet opposition and growing faith in the sustainability of American superiority proved too much for the Baruch Plan. For a brief time in 1946, this revolutionary vision to abolish the ultimate weapon seemed within reach. In a matter of months, it was defunct. And so began the arms race. Historian David Holloway and others argue persuasively that even had world leaders followed physicist Niels Bohr's advice for "an open world" and the sharing of atomic information, Stalin would still have wanted a bomb of his own. Neither Truman nor Stalin saw the bomb as Bohr did--a common threat to the world. Stalin thought the danger was not the bomb, but the U.S. monopoly of the bomb. He wanted to get the bomb and then negotiate. Truman saw it as a tool to contain Stalin and preserve U.S. security. He was not about to give it up. But did the arms race have to then accelerate? Did we have to manufacture hundreds, then thousands of bombs? The U.S. decision to effectively abandon international control efforts and race to build a numerical and then a qualitative nuclear advantage proved Baruch's fearful prophecy. The development of strategies and plans on both sides to fight and win a nuclear war, the creation of vast nuclear weapon complexes, and the deployment of intercontinental ballistic missiles and fleets of ballistic missile submarines were dangerous, expensive, and unnecessary. Rather than guaranteeing national security, these actions brought us several times to the brink of global annihilation--and at an enormous cost. Since 1940, the United States alone has spent approximately $7.5 trillion on nuclear weapons, or about $115 billion each year on average (in 2005 dollars). [6] Ultimately, what drove the arms race was not the military utility of the bomb, but its perceived diplomatic value. It began early on, with arguments that dropping the bomb on Japan would also have a deterrent effect on the Soviet Union. The Soviets understood this, but did not respond as the proponents of atomic power politics had predicted. Molotov said years later that the Soviets rejected the Baruch Plan because they understood that the bombs dropped on Japan "were, of course, not against Japan but against the Soviet Union: See, remember what we have. You don't have the atomic bomb, but we do--and these are what the consequences will be if you stir. Well, we had to adopt our tone, to give some kind of answer, so that our people would feel more or less confident." [7] The idea that political power comes from the barrel of a gun-assembly fission bomb took hold in U.S. policy. Even James Conant, the president of Harvard who had overseen the Manhattan Project and was a voice for nuclear restraint, wrote Stimson in 1947, "I am firmly convinced that the Russians will eventually agree to the American proposals for the establishment of an atomic energy authority of worldwide scope, provided they are convinced that we would have the bomb in quantity and would use it without hesitation in another war." [8] After the coup in Czechoslovakia and the Berlin crisis, both in 1948, Truman ordered an increase in weapons production. The United States soon had 50 atomic bombs; by late 1949, the arsenal had grown to more than 200. This was the crucial fork, the road wrongly taken that effectively institutionalized a policy of nuclear one-upmanship. When the Soviets tested their first fission bomb that year, Truman raised the stakes, accelerating a program to build the "Super," or fusion bomb. Lilienthal, the AEC chairman, wrote in his diary, "More and better bombs. Where will this lead . . . is difficult to see. We keep saying, 'We have no other course'; what we should say is, 'We are not bright enough to see any other course.'" [9] Many of the scientists responsible for the first nuclear weapon strongly opposed the Super. The AEC had asked for the advice of its General Advisory Committee on the entire nuclear weapons program. As part of the eight-member group, Conant and J. Robert Oppenheimer, the former head of the Manhattan Project, joined in the unanimous opinion against the H-bomb. The committee believed it a weapon of genocide: "The use of this weapon would bring about the destruction of innumerable human lives; it is not a weapon which can be used exclusively for the destruction of material installations of military or semi-military purposes. Its use therefore carries much further than the atomic bomb itself the policy of exterminating civilian populations." [10] Even if the Soviets developed the H-bomb, they argued, the United States could deter its use with atomic weapons. The scientists' views did not prevail. Albert Einstein wrote in the March 1950 Bulletin, "The idea of achieving security through national armaments is, at the present state of military technique, a disastrous illusion. . . . The armament race between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., originally supposed to be a preventive measure, assumes hysterical character." [11] The United States tested its first H-bomb on November 1, 1952, with a yield of 10.4 megatons. Predictably, the Soviets tested their first fusion device a year later on August 12, 1953. The American "Bravo" test of March 1, 1954, exploded the first deliverable H-bomb (with a yield of 15 megatons), and the Soviets tested their first true H-bomb on November 23, 1955. Three decades later, then-Bulletin editor Harrison Brown surveyed the results of this competition: "We now find ourselves locked in an arms race with the Soviets which has gone on for nearly 40 years and has reached the point where there are more than 50,000 nuclear weapons--representing a total yield of about 13,000 megatons--deployed by the United States and the Soviet Union. Remembering that the bomb that obliterated Hiroshima was but 0.01 megaton, we begin to appreciate the enormity of the overkill potential in the hands of the superpowers." [12] It could have been even worse. Several times over the last 60 years, U.S. leaders did choose the path of control, restraint, and international cooperation. It paid off. Others followed America's lead. By the early 1960s, the arms race had made the United States more vulnerable, not less. America went nuclear nuts in the 1950s, sprinkling nuclear weapons through the armed forces like jelly beans. The U.S. nuclear arsenal mushroomed from just under 400 weapons in 1950 to more than 20,000 by 1960. Moscow's arsenal likewise jumped from 5 warheads in 1950 to roughly 1,200 in 1960. The United States was ahead but afraid. As the atomic scientists had warned, numerical superiority did not bring security. Tensions were high, and confrontations in Berlin (1961) and Cuba (1961 and 1962) put the world on edge. Moreover, the threat no longer came from just two states. Britain joined the nuclear club in 1952, France in 1960, and China was not far off. In 1958, the U.S. intelligence community concluded that, if things proceeded as they had over the previous 10 years, then as many as 16 states could have nuclear weapons by 1968. [13] U.S. leaders were thus faced with the crucial question of how to protect the nation in the face of such a severe threat. Build more weapons or try to climb down? For John F. Kennedy, the answer was clear. In September 1961 the new president said "the risks inherent in disarmament pale in comparison to the risks inherent in an unlimited arms race." [14] Kennedy organized the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency to pursue this vision and to provide at least some balance in national policy discussions. He began negotiations for both a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and a nonproliferation pact. He signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union in 1963, calling it a "first step" in a series of threat reduction measures he hoped would follow. Kennedy did not live to finish the job, but his successor Lyndon B. Johnson picked up the baton. On July 1, 1968, he signed the diplomatic crown jewel of his presidency: the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). President Richard Nixon later won ratification of the agreement and signed it into force in a March 1970 Rose Garden ceremony. "Let us trust that we will look back," Nixon said, "and say that this was one of the first and major steps in that process in which the nations of the world moved from a period of confrontation to a period of negotiation and a period of lasting peace." In many ways it was. The NPT was a bipartisan effort that produced a measurable increase in national and international security. The NPT and the test ban proved--or should have proved--the substantive link between controlling existing nuclear arsenals and controlling the spread of nuclear weapons to other nations. Though denied by many today, it was clearly recognized at the time. As a recently declassified 1958 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) noted: "A U.S.-U.S.S.R. agreement provisionally banning or limiting nuclear tests would have a restraining effect on independent production of nuclear weapons by fourth countries. However, the inhibiting effects of a test moratorium would be transitory unless further progress in disarmament--aimed at effective controls and reduction of stockpiles--were evident." [15] Subsequent NIEs reaffirmed this linkage. The first assessment conducted during Kennedy's presidency, in September 1961, looked at 15 countries that might develop nuclear weapons programs during that decade. It judged seven as unlikely to do so in the next few years, but warned, "These attitudes and views could change in the coming years with changing circumstances, e.g., if it became increasingly clear that progress on international disarmament was unlikely." [16] But the test ban, the NPT, and other disarmament efforts made a difference. Taking the nonproliferation fork in the road made the United States and the world more secure. NIEs in 1963, 1964, and 1966 confirmed a steady decrease in the number of "likely" or "possible" new nuclear states. [17] By the end of the 1960s, even though France and China did test nuclear weapons, only two other states were of real concern (India and Israel). The diplomatic dam held. These nonproliferation victories were popular with the public but fiercely opposed by Cold War hawks. The test ban was a particularly tough fight and conservative rhetoric was at a fever pitch. Democratic Sen. John Stennis of Mississippi wrote in his subcommittee report, "Soviet secrecy and duplicity require that this nation possess a substantial margin of superiority in both the quality and quantity of its implements of defense." [18] A few years later, opponents of the NPT were equally adamant. Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina opposed the treaty because it would "prevent the modernization of armaments in the Western European countries, thereby removing a counterforce to Soviet designs." [19] Stennis called it "unilateral disarmament." [20] The progress of the 1960s gave way to the nuclear ambivalence of the 1970s, when arms limitation agreements coexisted with warhead multiplication and India's 1974 nuclear test, and reverted to nuclear expansionism again in the 1980s. Then, the talk was of preparing to fight and win a global thermonuclear war. Today, defenders of those policies insist the Reagan administration buildup was necessary to encourage Soviet reform and to reach real arms reduction agreements. Not so, claimed Anatoly Dobrynin, longtime Soviet ambassador to the United States. "The impact of [President Ronald] Reagan's hardline policy on the internal debates in the Kremlin and on the evolution of the Soviet leadership was exactly the opposite from the one intended by Washington," he said. "It strengthened those in the Politburo, the Central Committee, and the security apparatus who had been pressing for a mirror image of Reagan's own policy." [21] In their quest to use atomic diplomacy to constrain, deter, or intimidate other countries, America's leaders encouraged an arms race and allowed other states to obtain the very weapons that could constrain or deter the United States. Fearful of domestic political repercussions if they looked weak on national security, they squandered the national treasury rather than invest in programs that could have improved both national and international security. For 60 years, we followed a convoluted path that has led us back to the brink of disaster. The United States and Russia retain thousands of warheads on hair-trigger alert. Stockpiles of fissile material located in the former Soviet Union and other countries are insecure and could plausibly fall into the hands of terrorists. Countries such as Iran evoke their sovereign right to develop ostensibly peaceful nuclear power that could have decidedly non-peaceful applications. The nuclear have-nots chafe at the hypocrisy of the nuclear weapon states that have no intention of eliminating their arsenals. So, once again, we stand at a crucial fork in the road. But, whereas our path six decades ago was circumscribed by the looming threat of Soviet power, today's political climate allows for considerably more freedom of movement. The global non-nuclear norm is stronger than ever. Most of the 183 non-nuclear weapon states party to the NPT believe what the treaty says: We should eliminate nuclear weapons. (And 66 percent of the American public feels the same way.) The world has fewer nuclear weapons than it did 15 years ago, and fewer countries have or are considering nuclear weapon programs. In the United States, formidable budgetary pressures will make it difficult for any president to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a new generation of nuclear weapons. And there is a growing appreciation among politicians and military officials of the limited military utility of nuclear weapons. "I think the time is now for a thoughtful and open debate on the role of nuclear weapons in our country's national security strategy," Republican Cong. David Hobson of Ohio said this February. "It's been 15 years since the end of the Cold War, and in my opinion, the Department of Energy's weapon-complex decision making is still being driven by the nuclear weapons structure put in place over the past 50 years." [22] Moving ahead requires an objective threat assessment. The main danger to the United States today does not come from a nation intentionally attacking with nuclear weapons. Deterrence is alive and well. Even a nuclear-armed North Korea or Iran would know that the use of any such weapon would be regime suicide. The most urgent threat is a terrorist attack, and the number one goal must be to ensure that any such attack is non-nuclear. Hurricane Katrina provided some idea of what it would mean to have a U.S. city disappear from the national grid. Many, in fact, have compared the storm to Hiroshima. But Hiroshima was much worse. The bomb, small by today's standards, killed 140,000 people and destroyed or damaged 70,000 of the 76,000 buildings in the city. But, like the known risk to New Orleans, the government response to the nuclear threat has been woefully inadequate. Former Sen. Sam Nunn says, "American citizens have every reason to ask, 'Are we doing all we can to prevent a nuclear attack?' The answer is, 'No, we are not.'" Now is the time to shore up the nuclear security dams and levees that can prevent this ultimate disaster. A broad expert consensus already exists on the core elements of such a plan: secure all weapons-usable materials (highly enriched uranium and plutonium) against theft or diversion; end the production of these materials; end the use of these materials in civilian research, power reactors, and naval reactors; and eliminate the large surplus stockpiles of these materials held by the United States, Russia, and other nations. [23] Many of the programs to implement these steps are now in place. All that's lacking is real action and real money. We should, for example, commit to a global cleanout of nuclear materials stored in vulnerable sites in dozens of nations during the next four years, instead of the ten years currently planned. We could buy up an additional 500 tons of Russian highly enriched uranium and downblend it into fuel for U.S. nuclear reactors, rather than continue the lethargic pace of the current program. As an added bonus, such steps--though focused on preventing nuclear terrorism--would also help prevent new states from acquiring nuclear weapons and reduce current stockpiles. To completely address those dangers, we can hearken back to the early Truman proposals that coupled weapons elimination with strict, verified enforcement of nonproliferation. Dramatic reductions in nuclear forces could be joined, for example, with reforms making it more difficult for countries to withdraw from the NPT by clarifying that no state may withdraw from the treaty and escape responsibility for prior violations of the treaty or retain access to controlled materials and equipment acquired for "peaceful" purposes. [24] Serious restructuring of the international supply of nuclear fuel is also needed. As Baruch and others recognized early on, it is inherently dangerous to spread the technologies that can both produce fuel for nuclear reactors and material for bombs. We cannot rely on any state's good intentions, since intentions--and states--change. Regrettably, U.S. policy has emerged as the key obstacle to implementing these measures. Current strategy holds that large nuclear arsenals are still necessary to national security and that the proliferation problem does not stem from the weapons themselves, but only from certain countries that possess these weapons. This "new thinking" is derived straight from the Cold War strategies of the 1950s. Now, as then, the United States seeks security through arsenals much larger than any competitor and plans to use nuclear weapons against even non-nuclear threats. Now, as then, the belief is that U.S. force can prevent or eliminate the bad proliferators (Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, now; the Soviet Union and China, then), while forging alliances with the good proliferators (India and Israel, now; Britain and France, then). The war with Iraq was the direct application of this approach. The failure of the war exposes the bankruptcy of the underlying strategy. Regime change in Baghdad has not encouraged Tehran to renounce its nuclear ambitions. And it was carrots, not sticks, that led to the breakthrough in the nuclear talks with North Korea, by offering Pyongyang energy aid, economic cooperation, and security assurances. A policy that seeks to limit nuclear weapons to U.S. allies offers only superficial security. Alliances and the governments that form them are ephemeral. Iran used to be a friend; the United States sold Tehran its first nuclear reactor. Iraq used to be a friend, armed by U.S. aid. Pakistan is a friend now, but a change in government could put nuclear weapons directly in the hands of Islamic extremists. Even "responsible" nuclear states cannot always prevent the illicit transfer or theft of nuclear technology. The best way to limit proliferation is to limit the number of nuclear states, weapons, and materials. President Kennedy understood that. He worried not only about China acquiring nuclear weapons, but also about Cold War allies such as Canada, Sweden, and Australia, and about the dangers from our own weapons. At key points along the 60-year-long nuclear road, officials opted to expand arsenals, while trying to control others' acquisition. Today's nuclear world is the result. It is time to take the other path. We need bold action now, just as much as in 1945. It should not take another 60 years before the scientists' plea for a "long-range national policy" is answered. We do not want to go up that mountain again. 1. The author gratefully acknowledges the research of Jane Vaynman and Joshua Williams of the Carnegie Endowment for this article. 2. "Report of the Committee on Political and Social Problems," Manhattan Project Metallurgical Laboratory, University of Chicago, June 11, 1945 (the Franck Report). See also, Jane Vaynman, "Nuclear Time Capsule," Carnegie Analysis, June 2, 2005 (ProliferationNews.org). 3. Len Weiss presents an excellent detailed history of these proposals in "Atoms for Peace," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November/December 2003, pp. 34-41, 44. 4. Cited in David Holloway, Entering the Nuclear Arms Race: The Soviet Decision to Build the Atomic Bomb, 1939-1945 (Washington, D.C.: The Wilson Center, 1979), p. 41. 5. Lawrence S. Wittner, One World or None: A History of the World Disarmament Movement Through 1953 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 254. 6. Discussions with Stephen I. Schwartz, September 2005. This figure is based on Schwartz's 1996 Atomic Audit estimate of $5.8 trillion, updated to include spending over the past 10 years and converted to 2005 dollars. 7. From Sto sorok besed s Molotovym: Iz dnevnika F. Chueva (Moscow: Terra, 1991) cited in David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb (London: Yale University Press, 1994), p. 164. 8. Conant to Stimson, January 22, 1947, Stimson papers, box 154, folder 18, cited in Martin J. Sherwin, "How Well They Meant," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, August 1985, p. 14. 9. Cited in Barton J. Bernstein, "Truman and the H-Bomb," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1984, p. 13. 10. Ibid. 11. Albert Einstein, "Arms Can Bring No Security," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1950, p. 71. 12. Harrison Brown, "Linking Past and Future," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, August 1985, pp. 4-7. 13. Director of Central Intelligence, "National Intelligence Estimate 100-2-58, 1 July 1958" (approved for release July 2004). Of these sixteen, they assessed five as "likely" to do so. 14. John F. Kennedy, "Address Before the General Assembly of the United Nations," September 25, 1961. 15. Director of Central Intelligence, "National Intelligence Estimate 100-2-58," p. 2. 16. Director of Central Intelligence, "National Intelligence Estimate Number 4-3-61," September 21, 1961, p. 9. 17. These NIEs are now available on the web site of the National Security Archives (gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/). 18. Cited in Glenn T. Seaborg, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Test Ban (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), p. 278. 19. "Atom Treaty Hit Again by Thurmond," Washington Post, February 11, 1969. 20. Warren Unna, "Stennis Criticizes A-Treaty," Washington Post, February 28, 1969. 21. Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence (New York: Times Books, 1995), pp. 482, 495, cited in Lawrence S. Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition, vol. 3 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), p. 308. 22. Cong. David Hobson, 2005 Arms Control Association Luncheon Address, "U.S. Nuclear Security in the 21st Century," Washington, D.C., February 3, 2005. 23. These recommendations are elaborated in the 2005 study from the Carnegie Endowment, by George Perkovich, Jessica Mathews, Joseph Cirincione, Rose Gottemoeller, and Jon Wolfsthal, Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Washington, D.C., 2005), pp. 83-125. 24. See for example, the excellent suggestions made by Sally Horn, a State Department representative to the NPT Review Conference in May 2005, summarized in Joseph Cirincione, "No Easy Out," Carnegie Analysis, May 24, 2005 (ProliferationNews.org). Joseph Cirincione is director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is the coauthor of Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Threats (2005) and Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security (2005). His new book, Bomb Scare: Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century, will be published in 2006. November/December 2005 pp. 42-53 (vol. 61, no. 06) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ***************************************************************** 53 New Mexican: Panel fears Los Alamos Lab pits’ radioactive waste could seep into water Thu Nov 17, 2005 5:13 pm By Andy Lenderman A citizen advisory board is demanding more information about unlined radioactive-waste pits at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where officials have agreed to further study the matter. At issue is whether a low-level waste dump, known as Area G, could potentially contaminate groundwater. The Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board  a 21-member body sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy  has recommended the lab not expand Area G, stop burying radioactive waste underground and find ways to not produce it in the first place. The boards waste committee met Wednesday in Santa Fe and badgered lab officials for basic information about the waste pits. Chairman J.D. Campbell of Taos was especially concerned precipitation could enter the pits, pass through the radioactive waste and seep into the mesa where the dump is located. Campbell , a civil engineer, wanted more information about rainfall and how it penetrates the soil at Area G. He was also concerned about fractures, or cracks in the soil that could allow contamination to move around more quickly. Lab engineer Sean French told the committee the lab will study the boards concerns, including moisture content in the pits, this year. Unfortunately, this is not something that weve looked at closely, and its something we will do, French said. French said the fact the lab is not using liners on the waste pits is based on the labs best judgment. My sense is that the mesa, down to several hundred feet, is very, very dry, French said.  ... But I cant prove it to you. Lab officials estimated that groundwater sits about 900 feet below the sites surface. Last month, the board sent a sevenpage formal recommendation to the Department of Energy which said the lab should stop burying waste underground, among other concerns. The desired effect of this recommendation is to get the (Department of Energy) to shift away from 19th-century burial tactics and move toward new and bolder 21st-century technologies that can effectively and permanently deal with the hazards in the waste generated at (Los Alamos National Laboratory), the recommendation reads. The board also heard a summary report on Area G that said the radioactive metals americium, plutonium and strontium were detected sporadically across the site. The report, performed by lab officials, is one result of an agreement reached in March between the lab, the Department of Energy and the New Mexico Environment Department that requires environmental cleanup at the lab. Contact Andy Lenderman at 995-3827 or alenderman@sfnewmexican .com. ***************************************************************** 54 New Mexican: Potential LANL chief wants to nurture new scientists Thu Nov 17, 2005 5:13 pm By Andy Lenderman Science and research will be the core mission at Los Alamos National Laboratory if the University of California and Bechtel National team wins the competition for a management contract, a team leader said in a recent interview. Officials at the university, which has been sole manager of the federal weapons laboratory since its inception in 1943, recognized they needed help from private companies when preparing to bid for the contract, a university regent said. We think this is the right approach, said Michael Anastasio , the proposed new director of Los Alamos if the UC-Bechtel team wins. We think its an approach that is compatible with great science, enables great science. The National Nuclear Security Administration is scheduled to announce a new manager for the lab on or around Dec. 1. The University of California teamed with Bechtel National, Washington Group International and BWX Technologies Inc. to submit a proposal to the National Nuclear Security Administration. Theyre competing with a coalition that includes the University of Texas and Lockheed Martin Corp. Anastasio, a nuclear physicist, currently directs Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories . He has helped to develop three nuclear warheads and manage the countrys Stockpile Stewardship Program, a computer-based method of certifying the reliability of existing nuclear weapons. He said his vision of Los Alamos includes a strong nationalsecurity mission coupled with a support for future scientists. The (federal) Department of Energy laboratories, I think, are one of the last repositories of the breeding ground of great science, Anastasio said. ... And so theyre a real opportunity for us, for the country, to use these as a vehicle to grow the kind of science the country will need in the future. Anastasio acknowledged the supply of scientific and engineering talent in the country is dwindling, and said the University of California offers many programs that mentor students and give them opportunities to be exposed to national sciencelab work. Its always a struggle, Anastasio said. Its something that we need to be very vigilant on and really anticipate and plan the future. He said working at one of the national labs offers many opportunities. Typically a scientist at one of these labs has a variety of different careers in their career at the laboratory, Anastasio said. So you can change careers and get involved in different kinds of science, different kinds of applications of the science, and not have to move your family. ... You can do it right inside that same institution. Anastasio also addressed what might happen to the labs work force if his team wins. By making this change, we dont envision any major change in the employment, the size or the character of the lab, he said. ... We have no plan to make any significant change in the size of the manpower just because of the change. Anastasio, UC Regent Gerry Parsky and John Mitchell of Bechtel were in Santa Fe last month to meet with local officials and introduce themselves to the community. Mitchell is the proposed deputy director for Los Alamos if his team wins the competition. Our proposal is all about a long-term national-security and science laboratory, Mitchell said. If thats what people want, thats what were here for. Parsky said the regents had a great deal of concern about whether they should bid to manage the lab again. We wouldnt have gone forward with this bid without being able to secure the partners that we did, Parsky said. The coalition, called Los Alamos National Security LLC, has opened an office in Los Alamos at 4200 West Jemez Road, Suite 200B. Contact Andy Lenderman at 995-3827 or alenderman@sfnewmexican . com. ***************************************************************** 55 SF Chronicle: ZERO HOUR FOR LOS ALAMOS / UC has run the nation's top weapons lab for six decades. Will it all end this week? Thursday, November 17, 2005 Los Alamos National Lab employees are anxiously awaiting the climax of a four-year saga: a decision that will determine who runs the world's most glamorous and controversial nuclear weapons lab and that also could end the University of California's unchallenged six-decade domination of the U.S. weapons program. An announcement could come soon, perhaps even Friday. The decision will wrap up a six-month competition to run scandal-shaken Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb was tested in 1945. UC and its industrial partners, including San Francisco-based Bechtel National Inc., are competing for the contract against aerospace giant Lockheed Martin Corp. and its allies -- the huge University of Texas system, several New Mexico universities and various industrial partners. Whoever gets the contract will be in charge of the lab for the next seven years -- and possibly 13 years if the new management is deemed good enough to earn a six-year extension offered in the contract. A Lockheed Martin takeover would be seen as an example of a growing trend toward the "privatization" of the nation's nuclear weapons complex. Loss of the contract by UC would be a crushing blow to the university system's reputation and, perhaps, to the state of California, which owes much of its international economic clout and attractiveness to investors' perception of the state as the Nobel laureate-packed front line of scientific and technological advances. Lab officials have always insisted they run Los Alamos as a matter of public service, not for the money -- and understandably so, because until recently, it was no way for a giant university system to get rich. Each year, the Department of Energy typically gave UC about $9 million in annual reimbursements for its Los Alamos work, which was peanuts considering the lab's size, prestige and overall budget. (In January, DOE punished UC for bungled work at Los Alamos by cutting its 2005 award to $3 million.) In the next contract, though, the maximum potential annual reimbursement is immensely higher, $79 million, depending on the contractor's performance. The National Nuclear Security Administration, a quasi-independent agency under the U.S. Energy Department, was scheduled to announce the winner around Dec. 1. This week, however, rumors of an early decision swept the Los Alamos lab, where thousands of staff members await word of their fate. Staffers have spread word that an announcement could come as early as Friday, and a Los Alamos official refused Tuesday to rule out the possibility. "There's a lot of tension, just waiting for a decision," said Los Alamos safety specialist John Jennings, who helped FBI investigators expose financial corruption at the lab in 2002-03. UC has run the lab since 1943 without having to compete for its Energy Department contracts. But in 2003, Los Alamos and its management by UC came under fire after a series of security, safety, financial and managerial scandals at the lab, and the Energy Department and Congress ordered that all future contracts be open to outside bidders. Several lab staff members told The Chronicle this week that they thought the Lockheed-Texas team had the best shot at winning the contract after what some view as a ghastly parade of UC screw-ups. "The morale here is abysmal," said theoretical physicist Brad Lee Holian. "People's lives have been wrenched apart by the political games that have been played. You can't hold people's careers by the heels out over the balcony without them feeling threatened and cheapened." A 20-year employee, Collin Sadler, a project leader in the lab's detonator surveillance division, said he favored UC partly because he believed it offered a more attractive retirement system. But he expects Lockheed to win, and "most (staffers) appear to be resigned to the fate of the gods." In recent months, the Lockheed-Texas team has benefited from continued leaks of bad news from Los Alamos. The latest case involved an "Occurrence Report," which came to light late last month concerning an incident in October 2003 in which a lab official with a reputation for verbal bullying ordered two staffers to return to a laboratory they had fled after they sensed "a strong smell of acid and a burning sensation." The report, dated June 30, 2005, said both workers had complied and, as a result, were exposed to fumes of hydrochloric acid. One worker has since suffered "decreased lung function" and "has been reassigned to other work." Lab investigator Joseph Richardson, who wrote the report, said the incident underscored "what appears to be a work environment of mistreatment and reprisal" at the lab. This atmosphere caused the two workers to fear they would lose their jobs if they angered their supervisor, who "had a history of making disparaging and inappropriate remarks ... and engaged in preferential treatment when making work assignments," Richardson said. In 2002-03, the Los Alamos scandals reached a climax when top management officials, including the lab's director and chief auditor, were forced to resign. Other aspects of the scandals took longer to resolve -- for example, in February, a district court judge in Albuquerque sentenced former lab employee Peter Bussolini to six months in prison and fined him $30,000 for his part in using a lab account to buy more than $300,000 worth of hunting and outdoor gear, TV sets and other products. Another employee, Scott Alexander, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison on similar charges. Over the months, lab officials have repeatedly insisted that they have cleaned up their act and that they are ready to handle Los Alamos more maturely than in the past. "Our historic relationship with Los Alamos embodies the university's highest mission of public service, and we believe our decision to compete vigorously for the new contract represents the best interests of the nation," UC Board of Regents Chairman Gerald Parsky said in a statement in May after the regents voted 11-1 to compete for the contract. Being in that position has been humiliating for UC. It's especially embarrassing because UC's leaders insisted in 2003 that they wouldn't stoop to compete with anyone. "We will not compete for the contract, because it is a public service; it is something we do for the nation," senior UC Vice President Bruce Darling said in January 2003. The subsequent 2 1/2 years have been a comic opera of stumbles, finger-pointing and lurid incidents. Computer disks of classified data allegedly were lost, leading to frantic searches that ended when lab officials concluded the disks had never existed in the first place. The lab director denounced sloppy employees as "cowboys" and "buttheads," shut down the lab for months so everyone could take retraining classes and forced out five employees while disciplining seven others. A lab auditor who was scheduled to testify to Congress about lab misdeeds claimed he had been beaten up in the parking lot of a topless bar by people who told him to keep his mouth shut; police concluded that the incident was just an ugly bar fight unrelated to lab issues. "I think people are probably ready for a change," observed Jennings, 56, a 30-year veteran of the lab who hopes Lockheed wins the competition. He grieves that UC's long and often brilliant scientific legacy -- which began with mythic UC figures like the pipe-puffing, poetry-quoting J. Robert Oppenheimer, who oversaw "a small (scientific) community based on a lot of trust and mutual respect" -- has sunk so low. "It's sad to see it end that way," he said. What's at stake Two consortiums are fighting for the right to run Los Alamos National Laboratory. Who's competing In one corner: the University of California and its partners, including Bechtel National. In the other is Lockheed Martin, which is teaming with the University of Texas, several New Mexico universities and their industrial partners. History UC has run the lab since 1943, but a series of scandals prompted the Department of Energy to put oversight of the lab up for bid. E-mail Keay Davidson at . Page A - 1 The San Francisco Chronicle] ***************************************************************** 56 DenverPost.com: Rocky Flats workers stiffed for efficiency OPINION Article Launched: 11/17/2005 01:00:00 AM editorial Because they helped finish the cleanup of the nuclear bomb facility early, some who worked there missed out on benefits that were set to kick in soon. Of all the nonsensical things the U.S. Senate has done this term, denying health care coverage to former Rocky Flats workers ranks near the top. Cleanup and closure of the former nuclear bomb factory near Boulder had been slated for late 2006. Managers asked workers to speed up the job, and the cleanup was finished this fall, a year early, saving taxpayers at least $500 million. The early closure came just days before scores of workers would have qualified for retirement benefits, including future health insurance. Thousands of people worked at Rocky Flats over the years, but these employees had special job skills and stayed to see the cleanup through to completion. Without them, the final tasks might not have been done so quickly. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., pushed to get $15 million in the federal budget to close the benefits gap. Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar supported it. But last week, their colleagues refused to pony up. That's right: Rocky Flats workers saved taxpayers a half-billion dollars but the Senate refused to put up $15 million to cover future medical bills. Without retiree benefits, Rocky Flats workers may have trouble getting private health insurance because their jobs involved handling radioactive materials. The Senate's failure signaled workers at other Department of Energy sites that being efficient only means they'll be left out in the cold. The DOE had hoped that Rocky Flats' efficient closure would be a model for cleanups at other nuclear defense facilities. For example, Rocky Flats managers and employees together figured out how to safely dismantle manufacturing "canyons" - the same kind of long, huge buildings that the DOE would now like to demolish at its Savannah River, S.C., site. Taking down the enormous, enclosed structures requires enthusiastic cooperation and keen attention to detail from front- line workers. It's dangerous labor where one mistake can expose workers to risky radiation levels. The upshot: The feds may face billions of dollars in extra cleanup costs because future workers will recall what happened to Rocky Flats employees and push back against efficiency measures. Talk about being penny-wise and dollar-foolish. Allard deserves applause for trying to do the right thing, but unfortunately he isn't likely to get another chance to press the issue this year. The most charitable explanation is that senators who voted down the request didn't understand the issue. Still, their failure was outrageous. All contents Copyright 2005 The Denver Post or other copyright ***************************************************************** 57 Tri-Valley Herald: Delegation supports UC-Bechtel lab bid Article Last Updated: 11/17/2005 03:15:41 AM Los Alamos officials concede to management lapses in the past at facility By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER Almost all of Californias congressional delegation has thrown its support behind a University of California-Bechtel team to run Los Alamos National Laboratory. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, as well as 51 of Californias 53 representatives in the House, conceded in a letter Wednesday to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman that there have been some management lapses at LANL in the past. But they say the new UC-Bechtel team, known as Los Alamos National Security LLC, now has things well in hand. We believe the LANS LLC team will give the Department the intellectual power across a broad range of disciplines from our nations premier public research institution coupled with the business expertise andexperience you will need to address the Departments most important challenges, Californias federal lawmakers said in the letter. The U.S. Energy Department has set a Dec. 1 deadline for choosing a new management team at the New Mexico lab after both Congress and former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham decided management failings there by the University of California warranted opening the contract up for bidding for the first time since 1943. A team of corporations and universities led by Lockheed Martin Corp., the worlds largest defense contractor, is challenging UC Energy Department officials have said the competition will be apolitical, but spokespeople for Californias delegation said weighing in seemed worthwhile. Student disarmament activists plan on renewing protests today before the universitys governing Board of Regents. They say the university, which runs both Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore labs and holds a monopoly on U.S. nuclear explosive design, should get out of the bomb business. Blindly doing the bidding of those who would have us resume the nuclear arms race is unacceptable, Darwin Bond-Graham, a sociology graduate student at UC Santa Barbara, said in a statement Wednesday. The only responsible and acceptable bid to manage LANL must necessarily include a radical programmatic shift toward disarmament and environmental restoration. The Lockheed and UC-Bechtel teams commit under the contract bid to design new nuclear weapons as required by the Energy Department and to operate a moderate-sized production line for plutonium pits, the fission cores of H-bombs. Disarmament activists in fact wont be pleased if either team wins. Tora Dorabji, head of outreach for Tri-Valley Citizens Against a Radioactive Environment, said the contract calls for a nuclear weapons lab on steroids. No matter the outcome of this competition, it will be a loss for security, democracy and the nation, she said. Californias congressional delegation said the focus on nuclear-weapons science favors the University of California. Few question the quality of science performed at these labs in certifying the safety, security and reliability our nations nuclear weapons stockpile, they said in the letter to Bodman. © 2005 ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************