***************************************************************** 10/16/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.243 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 [toeslist] [Fwd:URGENT! Nuclear Liability Vote is Back! 2 Navajo Nation Uranium Workers Receive $50,000 Compensation In 3 Shivers in San Onofre's Shadow 4 Emergency plans for radiation leaks are changing across state 5 How nuclear plants are preparing for the worst 6 Terrorists eye nuclear plants: expert 7 State moves to shut down Sellafield 8 Nuke Panel to Edit Web Site 9 NATIONAL NEWS: Call for nuclear waste review NEWS DIGEST 10 Home-generated power 'better than nuclear energy' 11 London vulnerable to attack on nuclear waste train 12 Court Rules in Nev. Nuke Case 13 Truck carrying uranium barely escapes rollover 14 Doctors Speak Out On Environment 15 Irish PM demands Sellafield closure 16 Nuclear storage opponents want backing of Mormon 17 Yucca lawsuit will be litigated in federal court 18 State loses appeal over Yucca water 19 Assembly warns of nuclear waste risks 20 Committee highlights nuclear transport risks 21 CANDU can and does 22 Terrorist-Nuclear-Failings, 23 Nuclear assurance to marginals - 24 ACF pleased Labor not keen on finding alternative nuclear dump site 25 Sellafield controversy: - Sue the British Government 26 Nuclear waste trains 'at risk from terrorists' 27 Romania's nuclear industry shows signs of recovery NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Pakistan and India: Into the Nuclear Fire? 2 [toeslist] U.S. Strategists Begin to Favor Threat to Use NUKES 3 Nuclear Weapons and the WTC Attacks 4 !*"Bunker Buster": a nuclear weapon? 5 [toeslist] [Fwd: Jihad: The ultimate thermonuclear bomb] 6 Small emergency at Leningrad NPP 7 We shall not be moved 8 Osama tried to obtain nuclear material: German TV 9 DOE Sells Lithium Compound It Stored for Decades 10 Kursk docking starts soon 11 Israel Finds Radiological Backpack Bomb 12 Tramp's nuclear secret 13 Plan seeks to prepare for wrecks, Flats waste 14 Mexican lab gets ORNL's used parts 15 INEEL Researchers Clean Plutonium From Soil Using Carbon Dioxide 16 Lab must share more results, DOE says 17 Nuclear Attacks Also a Threat 18 Memo to Bush: A Plan to Prevent Weapons of Mass Destruction 19 -Engineer contracts for SNS awarded 20 Concerned citizens question representatives about te safety of 21 Possibilities for nuclear terror too real to ignore 22 Pakistan prepares for possible use of nuclear, biological weapons 23 Tramp's nuclear secret **************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 [toeslist] [Fwd:URGENT! Nuclear Liability Vote is Back! Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 01:03:08 -0500 (CDT) Long, but please read and then forward widely. We must slow this administration's runaway train. Best, melissa -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [SEAC-ANNOUNCE:4116] URGENT! Nuclear Liability Vote is Back! (Price-Anderson Act) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 01:10:56 -0400 From: "Mike Ewall" STOP THE REVIVAL OF THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY NUCLEAR LIABILITY VOTE IS BACK! CALL TODAY! To find out which members of congress represent your state on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, visit: http://energycommerce.house.gov/107/members/members.htm As you can tell from this recent statement (http://energycommerce.house.gov/107/news/10042001_385.htm) by the chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee (Billy Tauzin of Lousiana), renewal of the Price Anderson Act is needed to "spur the construction of smaller 'modular' nuclear power reactors." This is a reference to the new "Pebble Bed" mini-nukes that Exelon Corporation is trying to build in the U.S. --------------------------------------------------------- ACTION ALERT!! Price Anderson Act legislation moving in House; Action needed, beginning NOW! You can help TODAY: Take the "Price Anderson Challenge" below.... Hello All -- An obscure yet extremely important piece of legislation which has the power to totally end nuclear power is making its way before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. That legislation is H.R. 2983, the Price Anderson Reauthorization Act of 2001. It's extension could make or break nuclear power -- FOREVER. Simply put, it protects the nuclear industry from being fully financially liable in case of catastrophic accidents (which, of course, the industry says could NEVER happen, calling into question why they need to limit their liability in the first place, and in a "free market" in the second place. You don't give huge government subsidies to established industries in a "free market." But I digress....). It's so important that Vice President Dick Cheney said that without passage of the Price Anderson Act, no one would invest in nuclear power. (Well, duh!) And he wants 150 more reactors built in the next 20 years, remember. Enclosed below as background is the fact sheet Public Citizen has put together on the Price Anderson Act. It should get you going. You'll also find a list of names and phone numbers of the full House Energy and Commerce Committee where the bill will be taken up on Thursday. We need three things from you RIGHT NOW, before you log off: 1.) Copy the phone number(s) of those reps from your state, and make sure you CALL THEM TODAY. If no one from your state is listed, and/or in addition to those listed, make sure to also BEGIN calling your rep, urging him/her to vote against the Price Anderson Act. You may get future alerts on this issue, and you and your rep should be on first name basis by then. 2.) Take the Price Anderson Challenge!! All you have to do is sign the attached e-petition found on the following link: http://www.petitiononline.com/cgi-bin/mlk?http://www.geocities.com/priceanderson/ Here's the "challenge" part: as of this writing, there were 916 signatures. By this time tomorrow (Thursday) night we'd like to make that an even 3,000 signatures! So, what are you going to do to make sure that happens??? 3.) You will kindly send this e-mail to 10 other people who you think would also sign the petition, and ask them to send it to 10 people.... And ask them to make the calls above, too. Check back on the petition tomorrow to see how well you did. This one is for all the marbles. The nuclear industry wants this legislation passed more than they want Christmas. For them it IS Christmas! Be a Grinch. If you want a non-nuclear future, YOU will have to do something to make it happen. Please start here, and start now. After all, in the post 9/11 world, a nuclear reactor is only a World Trade Center with 1,000 Hiroshima's stored inside. It's your call, starting now, continuing tomorrow. Thanks for your help and support. Keep working miracles for the environment. No Nukes. Stay well, --Dave Kraft-- -- Dave Kraft (847)869-7650; -7658 fax Nuclear Energy Information Service P.O. Box 1637 Evanston, IL 60204-1637 neis@forward.net http://www.neis.org __________________________________________________________________ PRICE ANDERSON ACT: THE BILLION DOLLAR TAXPAYER SUBSIDY FOR NUCLEAR POWER October 10, 2001 For More Information, Contact: Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy & Environment Program 202.546.4996 http//www.citizen.org/cmep/ The Price Anderson Act is anti-consumer because it asks taxpayers to assume most of the liability for nuclear accidents. If the nuclear industry does not have enough faith in its own technology to take full responsibility for their own mishaps, then nuclear energy does not deserve the public support Price Anderson provides. When Congress first created Price Anderson 44 years ago, they made it clear the Act was temporary legislation designed to prop up an infant industry. After so many decades and billions in subsidies, it is time to retire this boondoggle. The Price Anderson Act a law that subsidizes nuclear power by creating liability protection for nuclear accidents will expire in August 2002. The nuclear industry is working hard to ensure that the bill is reauthorized and expanded to cover a new generation of nuclear plants. Several bills have been introduced in the 107th Congress to renew the Act for another ten year period. The primary mission of the Act is to subsidize shareholders value in nuclear power by placing a cap on the amount nuclear reactor owners pay in the event of a catastrophic accident or terrorist attack. This makes capital investment in the nuclear industry more attractive to investors because their risk is minimized and fixed. As a result, the cost of nuclear power is subsidized, since owners of nuclear reactors are spared from paying full insurance premiums which would cover the full costs of their business. As a result, Price Anderson encourages reliance on this inherently dangerous fuel source, needlessly placing Americans at risk to toxic radiation exposure should an accident or attack occur at a nuclear power plant. Ominously, while the Price Anderson Act limits the financial responsibilities of nuclear power corporations, the Act provides insufficient insurance coverage to compensate for nuclear accident victims injuries and loss. Consequently, the Act is a dual-edge sword for the public that it purportedly protects. The legislation was intended first of all to bolster investor confidence, whereas victim compensation is secondary. Price Anderson establishes only phantom insurance for the public, then provides a real bailout mechanism for the nuclear energy industry by reducing its need to pay for insurance, subsidizing the industry at the taxpayers' expense. Understanding how the Act provides a crutch for nuclear energy is important for all citizens concerned about the United States continued reliance on nuclear power and the vulnerability of nuclear power to terrorist threats. What is the Price Anderson Act? The Price Anderson Act became law in 1957 as part of amendments to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. The Act sets a limit on the monetary liability of companies for a nuclear accident, and defines the procedural mechanisms for the industry's insurance coverage. The Act requires that nuclear reactor owners obtain $200 million in insurance liability coverage from a private insurer, referred to as primary financial protection. One company - Connecticut-based American Nuclear Insurers - provides 100 percent of this primary financial protection. In the event of an accident that exceeds $200 million in damages, all 103 nuclear reactor operators in America must pay up to $88 million per reactor to cover costs, meaning the potential total insurance pool financed by private interests is $9.3 billion ($200 million primary financial protection + $88 million from each of the 103 reactor operators). What are the Problems with Price Anderson? Public Citizen's main concern with Price Anderson is that corporations are not liable for the entire costs of their own nuclear accidents. Since corporations under Price Anderson are only responsible for around two percent of the estimated cost of a serious accident, nuclear power corporations are largely immune from the responsibilities of operating an inherently dangerous facility in America's communities. In the wake of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, the federally-funded Sandia National Laboratory prepared a report on behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). This 1982 study estimated that damages from a severe nuclear accident could run as high as $314 billion or more than $560 billion in 2000 dollars. Since that study, the NRC has developed "more realistic" modeling improvements to the agency's probabilistic risk assessment. A review of their 1982 study "found that property damages would be twice as much as those calculated in 1982, solely on the basis of the modeling improvements made." In addition, the Chernobyl catastrophe has cost the nations of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus $358 billion. This Chernobyl total, however, is vastly understated, since it does not attempt to estimate the costs to other nations, which also experienced health costs from the far-reaching nuclear fallout. Therefore, the $9.3 billion provided by private insurance and nuclear reactor operators represents less than two percent of the $560 billion in potential costs of a major nuclear accident. Since the nuclear reactor operators have their liability capped through Price Anderson, that means taxpayers would be responsible for hundreds of billions of dollars in costs from a foul-up by a private corporation or a terrorist attack. A second major problem is that Price Anderson is blind to comparative differences in risk among reactors and arbitrarily treats the whole industry uniformly. Higher-risk reactors - including older, relicensed reactors - are not required to carry correspondingly higher levels of insurance coverage. Moreover, the Price Anderson Act does not stipulate security requirements to protect against terrorism at insured reactors. In light of the tragic events of September 11, there should be a thorough and independent assessment of the security needs at U.S. nuclear power facilities before reauthorization of Price Anderson is even considered. A third major problem with Price Anderson is that it distorts the economic viability of the nuclear power industry since taxpayers cover the industry's insurance costs. A 1990 study calculated that without Price Anderson, nuclear power corporations would pay more than $3 billion annually in order to fully insure their operations. Not surprisingly, the nuclear industry has fought hard to keep the Price Anderson liability limit. In sworn testimony before Congress in May 2001, John L. Quattrocchi, senior vice-president of the company that provides most of the private insurance for the nuclear industry (American Nuclear Insurers) stated, "[k]nowing the extent of one's liability provides economic stability and incentives that would not exist without a limit." Translation: taxpayers, not the nuclear industry, should bear the brunt of the potential risks of a severe nuclear accident, in order to make their company a stable investment for shareholders. A fourth problem is that Price Anderson was originally intended by Congress to be a temporary solution to what they thought was a temporary problem the refusal of private insurers to underwrite the risks of nuclear power. In a 1957 report, the U.S. Senate wrote that Price Anderson would only be needed for ten years because "the problem of reactor safety will be to a great extent solved and the insurance people will have had an experience on which to base a sound program of their own." But the historical record debunks this initial optimism. Nuclear reactors continue to experience significant safety problems. These safety concerns have increased substantially in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Fifth, Price Anderson does not guarantee victims of accidents or attacks fair compensation. The industry's claim to the relatively-paltry $9 billion liability is not necessarily accurate. The Price Anderson Act fails to clearly stipulate the industry's exact responsibility in the text of the law, in terms of the execution of the Act's provisions, or in terms of the actual funding of the insurance coverage. The text of the Price Anderson has definitions which are very open-ended, giving the NRC wide discretion to fill in the blanks. In addition, the Act is vague on what the government's financial obligations are in the event funds are unavailable from the nuclear industry. The total effect is large opportunity to evade responsibility if there is an accident and victims require payment of damages. Thus, the Act has no fault liability for reactor operators, and injured victims are precluded from directly suing vendors or manufacturers responsible for the accident. The execution of the law after a major accident poses legal hurdles to a victim seeking compensation. The Act states that jurisdiction over an accident falls to the federal district court. Thus, the Act restricts plaintiff's ability to utilize any state laws which go above and beyond federal protections. Furthermore, no fault liability limits reactor operator accountability even if they are reckless or criminally negligent. Moreover, Price Anderson protects nuclear operators from punitive damages that are not covered under their private insurance coverage. Similarly, Price Anderson Act indemnifies Department of Energy nuclear contractors even in cases of gross negligence and willful misconduct, which seems to discourage contractor accountability and a safety culture. No other government agency provides this level of taxpayer indemnification to non-government personnel. Why the Act is important now? The President and leaders in Congress, touting the viability of nuclear power to meet America's energy needs, are calling for the construction of a new generation of nuclear reactors. Since the nuclear industry has admitted that they would be unable to compete with alternative energy sources without this billion-dollar subsidy, Congress is now debating Price Anderson renewal. If the nuclear power industry is willing to propose building new reactors in America's communities, the least they could do is stand behind their own technology and accept 100 percent liability for any nuclear accident that occurs. Safety would become a serious concern for the industry if they knew that they actually would have to pay for anything that goes wrong. In light of the September 11 attacks, security limitations at nuclear power plants are all the more serious. Continuing to hide behind Price Anderson's taxpayer bailout is dangerous for America's communities and pocketbook. ---------------- Additional info can be found online at: http://www.geocities.com/priceanderson/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: toeslist-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 2 Navajo Nation Uranium Workers Receive $50,000 Compensation In Wednesday Ceremony U.S. Newswire 10 Oct 18:08 To: National Desk Contact: Sue Blumenthal of the U.S. Department of Labor, 202-693-0023 Website: http://www.dol.gov SHIPROCK, N.M., Oct. 10 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Five uranium miners or their widows who are members of the Navajo Nation were presented checks for $50,000 in a ceremony on the Navajo Reservation today in Shiprock, N.M. The checks are lump-sum payments awarded through a new federal compensation program for nuclear weapons employees, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. "These checks represent our deep respect for the men and women of the Navajo Nation who steadily and quietly worked to protect our country, and who, because of their work, lost their health," said Shelby Hallmark, director of the U.S. Labor Department's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs. "Through this ceremony we wanted to make it clear to everyone on the reservation that the energy compensation program is real, and that this promise will be kept." The Labor Department administers benefits under the law. Several members of the Navajo Nation also participated in the 9 a.m. ceremony Wednesday: Taylor McKenzie, vice-president of the Navajo Nation; Judy Secody, executive director of the Navajo Division of Health, and Larry Martinez, program director for the Office of Navajo Uranium Workers. The event was held at the Navajo Chapter House in Shiprock, N.M. A town hall meeting to explain the new law will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Shiprock Chapter House. In addition, representatives from the U.S. Labor Department's district office in Denver and the joint Labor/Energy Department resource center in Espanola, N.M., will be available at the Shiprock Chapter House Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning to help uranium miners or survivors of miners who need help completing claim forms. The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act went into effect July 31, 2001. It provides $150,000 in lump-sum compensation and related medical expenses to workers who are seriously ill because they were exposed to beryllium, silica or radiation while working for the Energy Department, its contractors or subcontractors in the nuclear weapons industry. For uranium workers who were awarded $100,000 in benefits under section five of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), the law provides an additional $50,000 in lump-sum compensation as well as paid medical expenses. --- U.S. Labor Department releases are accessible on the Internet at http://www.dol.gov. The information in this news release will be made available in alternate format upon request (large print, Braille, audio tape or disc) from the COAST office. Please specify which news release when placing your request. Call (202) 219-7773 or TTY (202) 501-3911. ***************************************************************** 3 Shivers in San Onofre's Shadow October 15, 2001 Talk about itE-mail storyPrint Safety: The continued terror threat against the U.S. gives rise to nervousness and debate in San Clemente, the city closest to the nuclear power plant. By DAVID REYES, TIMES STAFF WRITER For three decades, Nancy Dyer has lived near the San Onofre nuclear power plant. Like other San Clemente residents, Dyer says that most of the time, the plant--its twin, dome-shaped reactors visible from Interstate 5--has been but a small concern in the back of her mind. Until now. San Clemente residents, shop owners, even surfers at San Onofre now view the nuclear plant with some trepidation. Dyer takes a fatalistic view: "Look, if terrorists do blow it up and if we're going to go, we're going to go. I worry more for the people in Santa Ana, because that's where the fallout will go." Keri Reed, 22, a customer in the hair salon that Dyer owns, says one thing is for sure: People are talking about where the next attack might be. "Some people are saying Vegas, but it could really be a place where nobody's expecting it," she said. But no one appeared to be packing up the minivan and moving to Montana. San Onofre is one of the nuclear plants that failed Operational Safeguards Response Evaluation tests last fall. Details of the failure, a security breach, were never disclosed. But since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the plant has beefed up security, with guards carrying semiautomatic weapons while patrolling the perimeter, hallways and control room. The airspace above the plant is restricted because the property is part of Camp Pendleton, said plant spokesman Ray Golden, whose recent statement about the plant's ability to withstand a crash by a 747 jetliner caused anxiety and confusion when he later retracted it. "I said the plant was designed to withstand a hit by a 747. But I then checked and we are not built to withstand a 747," he said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has acknowledged that nuclear plants were not built to withstand the impact of such aircraft, and that "detailed engineering analyses of a large airliner crash have not yet been performed," according to a press release. But because not all area residents were aware of Golden's retraction, some argue that the plant is safe from such an attack and some argue the opposite. In taverns and restaurants throughout the city of 50,300, there is also confusion about the power plant's superstructure. Some say it's 9 inches thick; some say thicker, some say thinner. "How fast can you run from fallout?" asked a tavern patron. "Not fast enough," replied another. According to Golden, the power plant's concrete domes range in thickness from 3 feet, 9 inches to 7 feet. The concrete is fortified with steel rods and quarter-inch steel plates. Additionally, the reactor lies in the center of a containment building shielded by reinforced concrete 3 to 6 feet thick, he said. Still, many residents, including City Councilwoman Stephanie Dorey, believe that no matter what is done to guarantee safety and security, there's always a chance that something could go wrong, "putting us all in jeopardy." Dorey is buying cell phones for her entire family, in part for safety, but also after she heard that loved ones called one another from the hijacked airliners on Sept. 11. In addition, her family is preparing a contingency plan. With her daughter in college at San Luis Obispo, the Doreys would meet in a city north of Los Angeles "just in case" San Onofre is targeted. "I called my daughter and told her we need to have a plan if we have to evacuate," Dorey said. "We need a city to meet up in. But my daughter said, 'Mom. We have Diablo nuclear plant right up here.' " Josh Wright, 24, membership manager at the San Clemente-based Surfrider Foundation, has kept his mind on his work. But before Sept. 11, he often daydreamed of moving to Hawaii and surfing the island's famous point breaks. "I've been toying with the idea of moving to Hawaii," Wright said. "But the closeness of the power plant didn't register until my girlfriend said, 'Josh, if you ever wanted to leave, now would be a good time.' " After nine years with Surfrider, he has what few surfers can boast: being able to live near the ocean with a good job. "From what I hear in town, people are worried," Wright said. "But I believe the reactor can withstand a missile attack. Plus, we live so near to Camp Pendleton, and I have a lot of confidence in the military." As they watched surfers glide across the waves at San Onofre State Beach, Dan Bustos and his brother, John, sat comfortably on beach chairs, nearly in the shadow of the nuclear plant. "We know of the apprehension the public has about places like that," said Dan Bustos, 54, nodding toward the plant. In fact, the brothers had talked the night before about a possible terrorist attack on the plant. But both agreed that "we're not going to stop our life, the way we live," Dan Bustos said. Nor would they waste a beautiful fall day that offered Dan, who lives in Oregon, a chance to spend quality time with his brother, 41, a Pasadena firefighter learning to surf. Geoff Jennings of Newport Beach said people are too worried about the threat of terrorists. "Having a healthy dose of caution is good," said Jennings, preparing to paddle his kayak out to sea. "But if you're going to be overly paranoid, you'd never leave the house." A test of nerves may come Oct. 24, when San Onofre tests its emergency siren system from 10 a.m. to noon. "I don't think people living here feel safer because of Camp Pendleton," said Ole's Tavern owner Mark Secora. "But I feel safer because we're living in a small town and it's not L.A. or San Francisco, for example. . . . But you never know." For information about reprinting this article, go to http://www.lats.com/rights/register.htm Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 4 Emergency plans for radiation leaks are changing across state Daily Herald: Suburban Chicago's Information Source By Mick Zawislak Daily Herald Staff Writer Posted on October 15, 2001 As scrutiny of security measures continues, the people charged with responding if radiation were released from nuclear plants in Illinois and elsewhere also are on a vigilant watch. "Mostly, what we've been doing is looking very closely at everything we do and incorporating more of a terrorist aspect to our response scenarios," said Patti Thompson, director of communications for the Illinois Department of Nuclear Safety. The agency has resident inspectors at each plant, in addition to the two resident NRC inspectors, who would represent the front line in the event of an accident. In addition, the agency constantly monitors the reactors for such things as temperature and pressure. The stacks and the area within a 2-mile radius also is constantly monitored, she said. Three to four emergency exercises are held each year in cooperation with local and state emergency response teams and authorities. Ironically, the last one, held in an Aurora train yard in late June, involved a terrorist aspect in which an explosion derailed a train carrying radioactive chemicals, Thompson said. Participants included the Aurora Fire Department, FBI, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and DuPage and Kane county emergency service and disaster agencies. After the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission outlined 16 detailed emergency planning standards that had to be met before a license to operate was granted. Public education and information and exercises and drills are among the standards. An area 10 miles in radius surrounding each plant is designated as an emergency planning zone in the event of a release of radiation. People living in these areas receive information each year, such as which radio station to tune to and evacuation routes. If a release were to occur, reactor and environmental analysts are called to the state Radiological Emergency Assessment Center. They assess data and weather conditions and with the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, make recommendations on how best to respond and which areas should be evacuated. The governor would give the order to evacuate, Thompson said. Weather conditions would have a big impact on what the response would be, Thompson said. Rain tends to keep radiation contained while the wind speed and direction affects potential exposure. "Every accident would probably be unique. You could have a small release or a larger release, depending on the events that caused the release." Copyright © Daily Herald, Paddock Publications, Inc.Top | Home | Search | ***************************************************************** 5 How nuclear plants are preparing for the worst Daily Herald: Suburban Chicago's Information Source By Mick Zawislak Daily Herald Staff Writer Posted on October 15, 2001 Buildings with walls of steel-reinforced concrete 4 feet thick protect nuclear reactors from hurricanes and other natural disasters, but damage inflicted by determined terrorists may be another matter. Federal regulators acknowledge the plants were not designed, for example, to withstand the crash of large commercial jets. And reports of drills in which armed commandos were able to penetrate security at plants nearly half the time during mock terrorist raids has raised more red flags. With 11 operating reactors at six locations, three inactive reactors and thousands of tons of spent fuel scattered at those sites, Illinois has more nuclear facilities than any other state and, by extension, more at stake. "The one big area we need work on is the ability to withstand a hit from a large airliner," said Congressman Mark Kirk, whose 10th District includes the Zion plant on Lake Michigan. The Wilmette Republican, who as a former lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserves flew several missions over Kosovo two years ago, recently met with the Zion plant's chief of security and two other staffers in his Washington office. Though it stopped producing electricity four years ago and is considered inactive, about 1,000 tons of radioactive waste is stored on site. Those sites at Zion and other facilities are in pools within separate structures outside the containment buildings that house the reactor and are less heavily fortified. Kirk, who has led the charge to have the waste removed to a permanent facility, said he was satisfied with security measures at Zion. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, state police have been on duty there 24 hours a day, many security people have been added and the perimeter of the secured area moved back, he said. He said the most comforting news was that even if all the systems in the cooling ponds were disabled, the water wouldn't boil because of the level of decay. That would restrict the release of radiation and give authorities much more time to react, Kirk said. The likelihood of an attack at Zion is low, he said. But an explosion at any storage facility could send radioactive dust aloft. Wind and weather conditions would determine the scope of such an event, those in the field say. But what about the active plants? The nuclear industry has said that possibility at active reactors also is low because the plants are equipped to defend themselves and the radioactive materials are contained by steel and concrete and other safeguards, such as back-up systems to ensure fuel is kept cool. Regulators emphasize the plants for decades have had stringent security measures that have been taken even further since Sept. 11. But critics say the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other government entities have not moved decisively to impose further security measures to prevent an attack. The Nuclear Control Institute, an advocacy group specializing in problems of nuclear proliferation, says the radioactive material released either from a reactor or onsite can injure tens of thousands of people. "As a resident around these plants, I would have no confidence in any of them to resist what I call a determined intruder," said Dave Kraft, who has monitored the industry for 20 years as director of the Nuclear Energy Information Service based in Evanston. Kraft cited a U.S. News & World Report article that appeared just before the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington as being cause for concern. The article revealed numerous breakdowns in plant security throughout the country, including cases where people with criminal records gained access to sensitive areas. Kraft fears terrorists with handheld rockets, for example, could take over control rooms or sabotage equipment and create havoc. "There's an urgency here that's not being conveyed to the public," he claimed. The group plans to position a paper on the subject to the Illinois Congressional delegation. It also is alerting them that the NRC took its Web site offline last week, depriving the public of information it needs about pending legislation, such as the National Energy Plan. More security For the past month, all 103 nuclear plants in the United States have been on the highest level of security, which includes increased patrols, the presence of state and local police, greater communication with agencies such as the FBI and more limited access to the plants. New Jersey, for example, has posted the National Guard at its nuclear facilities. But that type of action has been rare so far. "We have not seen any evidence this (type of action) has been taken in other states but we recommend it," said Steven Dolley, research director for the Washington-based Nuclear Control Institute. The group has suggested posting National Guard troops to deter attacks from land and water, arranging for prompt deployment of advanced anti-aircraft weapons and researching all plant employees and contractors to protect against sabotage. The NRC last week took its public Web site offline to review material on the site, an action Kraft said removes information the public needs to make decisions about pending legislation. Meanwhile, security at all plants is being scrutinized on the order of NRC Chairman Richard A. Meserve, but none of the details have been made public. "He has directed the agency employees to conduct a top-to-bottom review of safeguard and security issues," said Pam Alloway-Mueller, spokeswoman for the NRC regional office in Lisle. "Everything concerning security issues is being reviewed." The agency is supposed to respond within 60 days, she said, but wouldn't speculate on what changes in policy or practice might result. The simulated sabotage scenarios have been staged at nuclear plants since 1991 and "do from time to time illustrate a deficiency," that is then corrected, Alloway-Mueller said. She declined to discuss specifics. "No one's let their guards down in any way, shape or form," said Wanda Taylor, deputy press secretary for Gov. George Ryan. "Just because you don't see something doesn't mean it isn't there," she said of enhanced security at plants here. In Illinois, all the nuclear plants, as well as three inactive ones, including Zion, are operated by Exelon Corp. Armed security guards, fences, barriers, video monitors and "multiple levels of surveillance" were standard at Exelon plants prior to Sept. 11, said spokeswoman Ann Mary Carley. Employees without unescorted access to plants face background screening and safety and security training, she said. Access badges are coded for individuals and also must be matched by a palm print, she said. The employee must also pass through explosive, metal and weapons detectors and an X-ray machine before they are allowed access to "protected" areas, she added. Carley said communication with the FBI, state police, Coast Guard and Illinois Department of Nuclear Safety has been increased. There also have been undisclosed enhancements to the overall security system, she said. "I would say we have comprehensive security measures and precautions in place that could withstand some fairly significant events," she said. The plants were not designed for acts of war, however, she added. "I think we will clearly be looking at additional threats and ways to provide prevention against them," she said. Although his focus was on Zion, Kirk said he quizzed Exelon on several scenarios that could occur at active plants. He did not advocate anti-aircraft weapons at each site, saying the standing order of the Air National Guard to shoot down airliners that are not responding to commands was sufficient. Copyright © Daily Herald, Paddock Publications ***************************************************************** 6 Terrorists eye nuclear plants: expert Local News - Hamilton - canada.com network 'Ample evidence': Kuwaiti man had outdated documents on N-plant, virus lab Melanie Brooks National Post Monday, October 15, 2001 The Canadian Press Radioactive material is shipped to the Chalk River nuclear facility northwest of Ottawa. OTTAWA -- Terrorists are clearly gathering information for their next move, says Dave Harris, a former head of strategic planning for CSIS. A Kuwaiti man was found with sensitive documents about Ottawa nuclear energy and virus-control labs. Mr. Harris said there is "ample evidence" that terrorist groups have taken an active interest in nuclear capabilities in the past. Most people, he said, are still focused on stereotypical terrorist plots, such as putting a bomb in a nuclear facility or stealing secrets. But the bigger threat, he said, is less obvious, and takes more time -- time the terrorists have already shown they are capable of taking to patiently research a target. "I think there are people who are capable of finding employment, or are already employed, or find someone within the nuclear site to draw information from them for later attacks," he said. "That could involve sabotage of major energy producers as part of the larger effort to undermine our society and economy. Or they could research where a truck bomb might best be placed. "In our open society, you don't even have to have an infiltrator. You can have a guided tour through a great number of these nuclear facilities' control rooms." The information about the 36-year-old Kuwaiti man was part of a flood of tips and information intelligence officers have received since last month's terrorist attacks on the United States. Intelligence officials in the U.S. and Canada are not identifying the Kuwaiti man, or specifying where or how he was stopped. Security around the country's 22 nuclear reactors has been stepped up since Sept. 11, and RCMP, OPP and Ottawa police have increased security around vulnerable sites in Ottawa, such as Parliament Hill, the U.S. Embassy, 24 Sussex Drive, and the water filtration plants. RCMP officials wouldn't comment on security at the Health Canada facility in Ottawa, but have stated that nuclear plants in Canada are possible terrorist targets. Two weeks after the attacks on the U.S., RCMP officers in Canada interviewed an employee who worked at an AECL building in Deep River, but no charges were laid. Mohamed Attiah, a project engineer with AECL for 10 months, was dismissed from his job for reasons the Crown corporation would not disclose. Mr. Attiah, a father of four and a Canadian citizen for 24 years, denied any involvement with terrorists. Radioactive material is another threat that many people haven't given enough thought to, said Mr. Harris. A terrorist could release radiological elements in our cities, food or water supplies, preventing people from using an area for hundreds of years. "My understanding is it's not difficult at all to get a hold of this material," said Mr. Harris. "After the errant sloppiness of former Soviet states, this kind of thing has been leaking out all over the place. Needless to say, some groups and countries have been seeking this stuff out like crazy. I would count on this material being in the wrong hands." Radioactive material is often shipped by truck to and from AECL's facility in Chalk River, as well as to Ontario's nuclear plants in Pickering, Darlington and on the Bruce Peninsula, and smaller plants in Quebec and New Brunswick. Nuclear waste is regularly trucked to Chalk River from labs at hospitals and universities across Canada. People in the West don't fully understand the hatred extremist groups have for our society, and the lengths they will go to to penetrate any kind of security we have, said Mr. Harris. Canada in particular needs a radical improvement in its defence and security measures to protect against threats like this, he said. "Once you appreciate that it's an absolute obligation of honour and necessity for them to rid the world of as many of us as possible, then all of a sudden where's the surprise that people have been looking around in our nuclear secrets and sensibilities?" A Canadian government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Kuwaiti man's papers must have been outdated because there is no longer any high-security biological material at the Ottawa site. Three years ago, Health Canada moved its high-risk virus labs from Tunney's Pasture in Ottawa to a high-security facility in Winnipeg. Though the details are unclear, these are presumably the same "virus- and disease-control labs" detailed in the man's documents. The deadliest virus in Ottawa's labs is HIV, which doesn't lend itself to bioterrorism. There used to be laboratories in Ottawa where research was done on viruses such as the West Nile virus and other dangerous agents, but this work stopped in the 1980s because the facility wasn't equipped to deal with the extra security and precautions required, the official said. The virus building itself was shut down more than three years ago, its contents removed and the inside decontaminated and cleaned of any hazardous material. The high-security virus laboratories were then moved to Winnipeg in 1998, to the larger National Microbiology Laboratory. The lab is housed in the Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health, which also holds the animal diseases labs for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The National Microbiology Laboratory has Levels 3 and 4 labs, and deals with high-risk viruses such as West Nile and Ebola. Because of the nature of the viruses being studied at the Winnipeg facility, there are extremely high levels of security, and several entry checkpoints that make it almost impossible to get to the high-level labs, said the government official. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, security has been increased even further. © Copyright 2001 National Post Copyright © 2001 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest ***************************************************************** 7 State moves to shut down Sellafield Irish Newspapers - October 15th 01 THE Government has stepped up the campaign to close Sellafield by taking the UK to court on three fronts, writes Karl Brophy. The Taoiseach said last night that legal action will be initiated under European, UN and the international OSPAR convention. He effectively accused the British government over the weekend of using the fall-out of the September 11 attacks to announce the opening of the highly controversial MOX plant at the nuclear facility. The Government, he said, took the UK's attitude very seriously. © Copyright Unison ***************************************************************** 8 Nuke Panel to Edit Web Site Las Vegas SUN October 15, 2001 WASHINGTON (AP) - Worried it might help terrorists, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is overhauling its Web site, removing some details about the nation's 103 nuclear reactors, agency officials said. The Web site has been out of commission since Friday and a spokeswoman said Monday it probably won't be available for another few days - and then with less information. "We took it down to make sure to take off anything that might be of use to an evildoer, a terrorist," said NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner. "We hope for it to be back up in a few days." Among the items to be removed from the Web site are the specific longitude and latitude locations of the nuclear power plants, she said. It's uncertain whether more general information about their location will be omitted. Other things on the Web site being closely scrutinized are maps of the plants, cross-section sketches of reactor vessels and other design details and daily plant status reports. No final decision has been made on many of these items. "Everything is being looked at," said Gagner. The nuclear power plants - 103 reactors at 64 sites in 31 states - have been under heightened alert since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The governors of New Jersey and New York have dispatched National Guard troops to reactors in their states. And the U.S. Coast Guard has established "security zones" to protect five nuclear power plants located on Lake Erie and Lake Michigan. No ships are authorized to transit through or anchor within the zones without advanced permission. The plants are the Perry and Davis Besse reactors in Ohio, the Kewaunee and Point Beach reactors in Wisconsin and the Enrico Fermi reactor in Michigan. Mitchell Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry trade organization, said the group has had "ongoing discussions" with the NRC on security and about the contents of the NRC Web site. The institute's own Web site provides an "interactive map" giving the general location of nuclear reactors in each state, including the names of the closest community. "It doesn't give an exact grid location. There are no specific directions," said Singer, adding that he was not aware of discussions to remove any information from it. At a hearing last week, Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, raised concern about the longitude and latitude location of nuclear power plants being readily available on the NRC Web site. Detailed maps showing locations of nuclear power plants have disappeared "pending the outcome of a policy review" from the Web site belonging to the International Nuclear Safety Center, operated by the Energy Department's Argonne National Laboratory. Some nuclear industry watchdog groups expressed concern that the NRC might go too far in taking valuable information about the performance of nuclear power plants, including daily plant status reports, out of the public domain. "This is information that has been in the public realm for years and years," said Tom Clements of the Nuclear Control Institute, a Washngton-based advocacy group. "It's useful for oversight." All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 9 NATIONAL NEWS: Call for nuclear waste review NEWS DIGEST Financial Times; Oct 15, 2001 By ALAN PIKE An "urgent technical review" of the risks from trains transporting nuclear waste through London will be called for by the London assembly today. The assembly's scrutiny of waste transportation has been given added urgency by the increased fears of terrorism since September 11. Trains carry waste from power stations in south-east England to Sellafield in Cumbria. Their routes are not publicised but they run through highly populated areas. In its report, the assembly calls for more to be done "to secure emergency preparedness in London in the event of a serious incident". It calls for the staging of a large-scale exercise involving all the capital's emergency services to test responses. There was also a need to improve trackside security urgently. This included "the need to provide a first line of defence against terrorists seeking access to the flasks when a train is stopped at a marshalling yard". Radiation and contamination levels on trains and around tracks should be monitored, and a review of public information arrangements in the event of an accident involving a waste train undertaken. Alan Pike Copyright: The Financial Times Limited ***************************************************************** 10 Home-generated power 'better than nuclear energy' © 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd Independent News By Michael Harrison, Business Editor 15 October 2001 A think-tank with close links to Labour is urging the Government to drop plans to build nuclear power stations and instead encourage people to generate electricity in their homes. The left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research calls on Tony Blair today to stop "pandering" to the industries of the previous century and devise a new approach to cutting emissions and tackling climate change. In a report, Power to the People, the institute says technologies are becoming available that will allow household central heating boilers to generate enough electricity to meet the needs of the typical home. The think-tank says such an approach would greatly reduce the amount of energy wasted by conventional electricity generation. It estimates that only 30 per cent of the energy used to generate electricity reaches the consumer because of the heat lost in cooling towers. The report is a setback to the nuclear movement, which has marshalled growing support in government for the argument that Britain can only guarantee security of supply and meet its Kyoto environmental targets by sanctioning a £10bn programme of 10 new nuclear power stations. The institute was one of the architects of the Government's climate change levy and has considerable influence over Labour's energy policy. The report says that, in addition to small combined heat and power generators, by 2020 homes will benefit from energy-saving devices such as solar roof panels, solar thermal water heating and remote switching for water heaters and refrigerators. Chris Hewett, the report's author, said: "The next generation of energy technologies is able to generate power and heat more cost-effectively in the homes and offices where we need it. Such a system is far more secure, flexible and clean than returning to the nuclear age or limping along with fossil fuels. The Government's energy review must design policy for this century rather than pandering to the industries of the last." ***************************************************************** 11 London vulnerable to attack on nuclear waste train SocietyGuardian.co.uk | Society | Disaster response Patrick Butler Monday October 15, 2001 An attack on a train carrying spent nuclear fuel through London could leave emergency services struggling to cope, an investigation warned today. The London assembly's nuclear waste trains investigative committee claimed an urgent technical review was needed for the possibility of an attack - terrorist or vandal - on, or derailment of, the train, particularly as no exercise had been conducted involving all of the capital's emergency services. Committee chairman, Green group leader in the Greater London authority, Darren Johnson, said Britain should suspend train transportation of spent fuel. He also urged an exercise to test the coordinated response from all services. "We don't believe that adequate procedures are yet in place in terms of training exercises to deal with an emergency on one of those trains. Security measures do need to be improved," he said. His remarks followed the publication of a report by the committee which found that ambulance and police services had not participated in any rehearsals for incidents involving nuclear material, and that no rehearsals had taken place in London. The nuclear waste train travels from power stations in Suffolk, Essex and Kent to Sellafield in Cumbria via at least nine boroughs in north and south London although its exact route is not publicised. It is also marshalled at Willesden Junction. Since 1962 more than 6m miles have been clocked up in moving spent nuclear fuel across Britain by rail without incident but the report warned that this was no "excuse for complacency". The report said: "Were there to be a serious accident and major release of radioactivity the consequences for Londoners could be severe." The committee's investigation, begun in March 2001, revealed little consensus among national and local authorities on how far spent nuclear fuel containers constitute a terrorist threat. The official government position - and that of British Nuclear Fuels railway service - before the September 11 terrorist attack on the US was that the fuel containers were not a "credible terrorist risk". But several London boroughs and pressure groups including Greenpeace disagreed, arguing that they were "attractive" targets. The report concluded that security needed to be tightened to help keep youngsters away from the trains and in improving the first line of defence against terrorists when a train was stopped in a marshalling yard. Accident risk assessment needed to be investigated further along with the possibility of using alternative rail freight routes, bypassing both London and other big residential areas. Improving programmes to monitor radiation and contamination levels of trains and trackside was recommended. The report also said Railtrack and operators must improve trackside security "as a matter of urgency". SocietyGuardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 12 Court Rules in Nev. Nuke Case Las Vegas SUN October 15, 2001 SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A dispute over where to store 77,000 tons of radioactive waste inched forward Monday when an appeals court ruled the lawsuit should be heard by a federal judge. The federal government sued Nevada after the state refused to issue water permits to run what is being touted as the nation's only proposed repository for spent nuclear fuel. The facility still needs congressional approval. The water permits are required to operate the dumpsite at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. It would store radioactive waste from about 100 nuclear sites nationwide. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a federal judge to hear the government's suit. U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt had said the suit should be heard in state court, but the appeals panel said a federal court should decide the case because the proposed dumpsite is authorized under federal law. The appeals panel did not dictate how the dispute should be resolved. Nevada has granted water rights to the federal government, but only for the purpose of studying whether the uninhabited desert location is suitable for a nuclear repository. The Bush administration has said the dump is necessary because the nation may need to use more nuclear power and because existing nuclear energy and weapons facilities are running out of storage space. Nuclear power provides 20 percent of the nation's electric capacity. Congress chose Yucca Mountain 14 years ago for a potential nuclear dumpsite under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and no other location has been proposed or studied. U.S. government attorney Jared Goldstein told the appeals court that Nevada is "interfering with a congressional mandate" by refusing to issue a water permit. Nevada has said it withheld a water permit because of potential safety threats and because Congress has only approved the location for study. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 13 Truck carrying uranium barely escapes rollover Charleston Daily Mail Brian Bowling Daily Mail staff Monday October 15, 2001; 01:30 PM A truck carrying containers of apparently fissionable uranium barely avoided rolling over on the West Virginia Turnpike near Beckley when another truck lost control and struck it a glancing blow. No one was apparently injured in the Sunday afternoon accident or a secondary accident between two cars trying to avoid the trucks, and there was no release of the radioactive material, said State Police Trooper J.A. Jackson. Jackson said the accident occurred at 4:30 p.m. Sunday when Gregory Anderson, 24, of Waycross, Ga., lost control of the U.S. Express tractor-trailer he was driving in the northbound lane of the Turnpike. The truck, which was hauling tires, crossed the median and struck a southbound RSB Logistics Inc. flatbed truck at about a 45-degree angle. David Hoffman, 52, of Mead, Wash., told police he saw the U.S. Express truck lose control and was already braking and swerving to avoid the collision when it struck his flatbed truck. Strapped to the flatbed was a container with two 30- gallon cylinders of uranium hexafluoride, fissile. Hoffman drove about 100 yards from the accident scene before stopping to check his load. After checking his load, Hoffman walked back to the scene and told Jackson that he had been struck by the other truck and that he was carrying a radioactive load. "Kind of scary, you know what I mean?" Jackson said. A spokesman for the Alberta, Canada, company could only confirm that the southbound truck was coming from the Midwest United States with a radioactive cargo. Morris Leung said company policy prohibited him from being more specific. "I can't give you that kind of information," he said. Leung did confirm that the "fissile" designation would mean that the uranium hexafluoride hasn't been used in a nuclear reactor yet and, therefore, was more radioactive than depleted uranium hexafluoride. In either case, there was no potential for explosion, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health's chemical safety database. The substance can react with water to produce a corrosive gas -- hydrogen fluoride -- which can be fatal if inhaled. Mike Dorsey, assistant chief of emergency response for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said environmental response workers checked the site and found no evidence of either radioactive or hazardous chemical release. "None of it spilled," he said. "It's very nasty stuff." Jackson cited Anderson for failing to maintain control of his vehicle. Writer Brian Bowling can be reached at 348-4842. © Copyright 2001 Charleston Daily Mail -- Privacy policy -- Send ***************************************************************** 14 Doctors Speak Out On Environment The Salt Lake Tribune -- Tuesday, October 16, 2001 BY JUDY FAHYS Most Utah doctors do not want nuclear waste in Utah. They favor tougher limits on arsenic in drinking water. And they support steep fines for a Davis County garbage-burning plant whenever its chemical releases are too toxic. The Utah Medical Association, which represents about 3,000 of the state's doctors, waded into the choppy political waters of the three environmental issues Sept. 22 when its House of Delegates passed resolutions voicing those stands. "We are committed to doing the right thing," said Hugo Rodier, a Draper family practitioner and chairman of UMA's environmental committee. "I know it may not be politically correct in Utah, but we have got to do what is best for the community." Rodier said the logic behind all three measures was the same: keeping Utahns healthy and preventing illness. He noted that an article in The New England Journal of Medicine last year estimated that environment can be blamed for about 80 percent of all diseases. "We can build a clinic at the bottom of the cliff," he said, "or we can build a fence at the top of the cliff so that people don't fall down." While the briefly worded resolutions are certain to raise some eyebrows, they may not have a big impact on how those sensitive issues are handled, said Rob Bishop, a former lobbyist for Envirocare of Utah, which operates a radioactive and mixed waste landfill in Tooele County. Bishop, a high school political science teacher and former Utah House speaker, described the UMA resolutions as arrows in the quivers of interest groups that might be trying to make a case for their position. Craig W. Wilkinson, a Salt Lake City vascular surgeon, tried to persuade fellow doctors to vote against the nuclear waste resolution. He pointed out that the question of how to dispose of spent fuel rods and radioactive debris is a national issue and one that should be decided with a scientist's reasoning rather than an advocate's emotion. "I don't think it's the place of the Utah Medical Association to be scaring people, especially when they [UMA members] probably don't know any more than their neighbors," said Wilkinson, adding that the issue warrants more study first. Those who attended the meeting said no one spoke against the two other resolutions. Utah has two significant nuclear waste facilities: a radioactive ore reprocessing mill outside Blanding and the Envirocare site at Grassy Mountain. A proposed third facility, an above-ground storage pad for spent fuel rods at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation 45 miles from Salt Lake City, is under review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The burn plant resolution specifically names the Wasatch Energy Systems plant in Layton. T he plant just last month completed $7 million in new air-emission controls. WES has logged five violations over the years for heavy metals, acid gasses and dioxins -- chemicals linked to cancer and other illnesses. The resolution on arsenic urges support for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's plan to reduce the amount of arsenic allowed in drinking water by 80 percent, to 10 parts per billion. It also urges support for the reduction of other drinking water contaminants and financial aid to help communities meet these standards. Louis Borgenicht, a Salt Lake City pediatrician, said doctors have a social responsibility to help the public understand the implications of public policies, such as the storage of nuclear waste in Utah's west desert. "It's kind of radical," he said of the resolution. "I think it's good, though." © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 15 Irish PM demands Sellafield closure BBC News | EUROPE | 12 October, 2001, [Sellafield, Cumbria] Sellafield poses too great a risk, says Bertie Ahern Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern has called for the UK's Sellafield nuclear plant to close amid concerns about terrorist threats and environmental damage. It is not acceptable that the Irish Sea is used as a kitchen sink by the nuclear industry Bertie Ahern He accused his UK counterpart Tony Blair of timing the announcement that a new fuel operation would open to coincide with the aftermath of the US terror attacks. Mr Ahern said the risk from the site in Cumbria was "unacceptably increased" with the announcement to push ahead with the new mixed oxide (Mox) operation. The Mox plant, which processes a blend of plutonium and uranium, was given the go ahead last week. Environmental threat Mr Ahern said that the plant, which lies only 200km from Dublin, represented the biggest threat to Ireland's environment. Bertie Ahern: Appalled by the decision to approve the Mox plant Speaking at his party Fianna Fail's 75th annual conference in Dublin, the prime minister described the plant as "being kept on a life support machine" by the British taxpayer. Mr Ahern's comments came the day after an article in New Scientist magazine warned a terrorist strike on Sellafield could release 44 times more radioactive material than the disaster at Chernobyl. "We are appalled by the decision to proceed with the new Mox plant," Mr Ahern said. News management "It has all the hallmarks of a bad news story hastily released in the midst of a momentous international crisis in the hope that most people will be distracted. "It poses a significant additional and totally unacceptable threat to our environment and to our national security. It has all the hallmarks of a bad news story hastily released in the midst of a momentous international crisis Bertie Ahern "In the context of the heightened threat from terrorism, the existing risks from Sellafield are unacceptably increased. "The opening of the Mox plant would mean that the Irish Sea is used as a highway for the transport of highly dangerous nuclear fuel to and from nuclear plants around the world. "And this is in addition to the existing and equally unacceptable activities of Sellafield." Mr Ahern has told Mr Blair about his opposition. "It is not acceptable that the Irish Sea is used as a kitchen sink by the nuclear industry," he said. "The position of Fianna Fail is clear and uncompromising. "We demand that Sellafield is shut." Security tightened On Thursday Senator Fergus O'Dowd, of the main opposition party Fine Gael, called on the British Government to establish a no-fly zone over Sellafield. It followed the New Scientist article based on an interview with Gordon Thompson, executive director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies in Massachusetts, which suggested what may happen if an airliner was deliberately flown into the nuclear site. "Four million terabecquerels of radioactivity would contaminate large parts of Britain and, depending on which way the wind was blowing, Ireland, continental Europe and beyond," the article said. But British Nuclear Fuels called the article "grossly irresponsible" and announced it was tightening safety and security procedures. The nuclear industry believes that recycling the used fuel and turning it into Mox can help reduce the world's growing stockpile of plutonium, one of the most toxic substances known to humankind. ***************************************************************** 16 Nuclear storage opponents want backing of Mormon LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: Sen. Harry Reid Nevada legislator leading opposition against Utah site Monday, October 15, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Church has declined to give stance on issue THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SALT LAKE CITY -- Opponents of a plan to store spent nuclear fuel on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation want the backing of the Mormon Church. So far, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints declined to get involved. "They said it was a political issue, and they have not yet taken a position," said Maryann Webster, an active Mormon. Instead, the church told her to work with her state legislator on the issue. But Webster said it's an issue their church might condemn as loudly as it now criticizes threats to families and loosening alcoholic-beverage controls. Webster is joined by a U.S. senator in seeking the support of the church, which claims 70 percent of Utah residents as members. Calling high-level radioactive waste "nuclear poison," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., also a Mormon, has led the opposition against the Utah storage site, as well as a permanent repository in the desert about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "It's very hard to get them involved in the politics of things," said Reid. "But it would be nice if they could" weigh in. When asked about that possibility, Mormon Church spokesman Dale Bills said simply that the faith has taken no position on the question of storing nuclear waste in Utah. The church officials have previously said the church only gets involved in political issues it considers to have moral implications, which have included gay marriage initiatives and alcohol control. Local Catholics have not issued a statement either, but two representatives are members of Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, a public health and environment group opposed to radioactive waste in Utah. Bishop George Niederauer and Dee Rowland, the Salt Lake diocese's government liaison, have been monitoring debate over high-level nuclear waste as advisory board members. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2001 ***************************************************************** 17 Yucca lawsuit will be litigated in federal court Tuesday, October 16, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules By DAVID KRAVETS THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SAN FRANCISCO -- The battle over where to store the nation's 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste inched forward Monday when a divided federal appeals court ruled a lawsuit over the Yucca Mountain Project will be heard in federal court. The federal government sued Nevada after the state refused to issue water permits to operate the nation's only proposed repository for spent nuclear fuel. The dump site would be built 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. In what has become a battle of courtroom venues, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a federal judge to hear the government's lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt had said the lawsuit should be heard in state court, but the appeals panel said the proposed dump site is authorized under federal law -- so a federal court should decide the case. "The Department of Energy is gratified by the decision," Yucca Mountain Project spokeswoman Gayle Fisher said. "We now have the opportunity for a full hearing in (U.S.) District Court, which is what we wanted to do all along." Regardless of the legal venue, the appeals panel did not dictate how Hunt should resolve what has become a classic case of states' rights vs. federal authority. Nevada opposes a proposed nuclear waste dump site at Yucca Mountain. At stake is the housing of contaminated waste from the nation's nuclear energy and weapons facilities, which are running out of storage capacity. Nevada has granted water rights to the federal government but only for the purpose of studying whether the uninhabited desert location is suitable for a nuclear repository, which the Bush administration said is needed as the government begins eyeing a renewed interest in nuclear power. U.S. government attorney Jared Goldstein told the appeals court that Nevada is "interfering with a congressional mandate" by refusing to issue a water permit. While state officials have said they withheld a water permit because of potential safety threats to the public, they also said they denied the permit because Congress only has approved the location for study. Nevada cannot allocate water for a dump site until the government's studies are completed and Congress approves the area for a dump, said Robert Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects. Because Congress has not approved the site, Loux said, the federal government has no legal authority to order Nevada to issue the water permit. In a dissent, appeals Judge Procter Hug Jr. of Reno agreed, saying, "I reach what I find a logical and compelling conclusion: an act which Congress has not yet passed cannot pre-empt state law or state agency decisions." No hearing date has been scheduled regarding the water permit dispute. Congress has not said if or when it would approve the site. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 18 State loses appeal over Yucca water Las Vegas SUN Today: October 16, 2001 at 8:57:27 PDT 9th Circuit rules federal court should decide water issue By Mary Manning and Cy Ryan A federal appeals court on Monday ruled that a fight over water rights related to the construction of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain will be heard in federal court. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ordered a federal judge to hear the government's suit. One of the three judges who heard the appeal dissented. The Department of Energy sued Nevada after the state engineer refused to issue permanent water rights to construct the world's first high-level nuclear waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Former state engineer Michael Turnipseed denied the DOE's request for the ground water in 2000, citing threats to public health, safety and Nevada's tourism-based economy if the state's ground water were to become contaminated with radiation. The state granted the DOE temporary permission to use the ground water to study Yucca Mountain through April 2002. But the DOE had sought permanent rights to use 430 acre-feet a year to build and operate a repository. An acre-foot is enough water to supply a family of four for a year. In September 2000 U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt, saying the suit should be heard in state court, refused to hear the DOE's challenge regarding Nevada's decision not to grant water rights for the nuclear waste project. In his ruling, Hunt said rules related to water are the responsibility of the state. Hunt's ruling prompted the DOE to seek an opinion from the appeals court, which ruled that the Yucca Mountain project is authorized under federal law, so a federal court is the proper place to hear the case. The appeals judges did not dictate how Hunt should resolve the issue of states' rights. Appeals Judge Proctor Hug of Reno, who dissented Monday, argued that since the project has not been approved, the water rights issue should be left to a state court. "I reach what I find a logical and compelling conclusion: an act which Congress has not yet passed cannot preempt state law or state agency decisions," Hug wrote. Paul Taggart, deputy attorney general who represented the state engineer who denied the water application, said he was disappointed with the ruling of the circuit court. "We did not prevail," Taggart said. Taggart outlined several options, such as asking for a re-hearing of the full 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court. Taggart said the state wanted the issue decided in state court, but the case is going back to Hunt. One issue is whether the federal Nuclear Waste Policy Act supersedes the Nevada law that bars a nuclear dump in Nevada. "Although the location of a nuclear waste repository is plainly a sensitive social issue, it is not the issue in this case," said the court's 2-1 decision, which was written by Judge Thomas Nelson. Nelson said that if the federal act is interpreted to mean only the federal government is entitled to determine that Yucca Mountain is suitable, then the DOE wins. But Nevada will win if the federal nuclear law is interpreted to permit the state to take part in the decision-making process -- above and beyond just filing a "notice of disapproval" of the site, as allowed in the federal law. The circuit court said the interpretation will control the outcome of this suit. Taggart contends Congress has not yet selected Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository, so it is premature for the DOE to apply for the permanent water rights. While this is a fight over the nuclear dump, Taggart said the issue also revolves around who controls water rights in Nevada -- the government or the state. "We think water law is a state matter," Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams said. Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, echoes Adams. "Federal courts are not familiar with state water law," Loux said, noting that the state had granted the DOE enough water to study the mountain. "Unless there is a permit for the DOE to build the repository, the agency does not need a permanent water right." Nevada officials oppose the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, which is the only site being studied to store 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste. DOE officials had not seen the ruling and therefore could not comment, a spokesman said. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 19 Assembly warns of nuclear waste risks Monday October 15, 09:44 AM A London assembly report into the risks of transporting of nuclear waste on trains through the capital will today call for an "urgent technical review" to be carried out. The trains run through highly populated areas on their way from power stations in the south east to the Sellafield plant in Cumbria. With increased fears of the risks of terrorism, the report will argue for tighter security and better training for emergency services. ePolitix.com: the UK's political portal Comments to: news-admin@uk.yahoo-inc.com Copyright © 2001 ePolitix. All rights reserved. Republication or ***************************************************************** 20 Committee highlights nuclear transport risks Monday October 15, 12:35 PM A committee of the London assembly has called for tougher trackside security and improved emergency planning for trains carrying nuclear waste through the capital. The assembly's Nuclear Waste Trains Investigative Committee has warned that while trains frequently carry spent nuclear fuel through London there has been no London-based training exercise involving all the capital's emergency services. Assembly members decided to investigate the transport of nuclear waste through London after concerns from residents about the effects of any radiation coming from the trains and about the likely effect of a major accident on the capital. Spent fuel from three nuclear power stations in the southeast is regularly taken to British Nuclear Fuel's Sellafield plant in Cumbria. The power stations are at Dungeness in Kent, Bradwell in Essex and Sizewell in Suffolk. While the exact routes through London are not revealed, the trains pass through a number of London boroughs including West Hampstead, Islington, Hackney and Newham in north London and Hammersmith and Fulham, Wandsworth, Lambeth and Bromley in west and south east London. Due to the lack of appropriate storage facilities at the reactor sites, part loads of nuclear waste are frequently stored at marshalling yards in Willesden, before complete shipments are sent to Sellafield. Among the report's 22 conclusions and recommendations are that representatives of all emergency services should take place in radiation training exercises, that there should be more proactive monitoring of radiation levels on trains and alongside tracks, that security needs to be improved "as a matter of urgency", and that alternative routes avoiding population centres should be examined. BNFL had told the committee that the regular transports of nuclear fuel are essential, given the lack storage facilities at the nuclear power plants. Enough spent fuel is generated at each reactor site to fill one transport flask per week, though material is usually stockpiled until two flasks are filled. While the committee said there was an "unwillingness to give exact figures for the number of transportations of spent nuclear fuel through London annually", it estimated there could be up to 200 separate transportations each year. Threats including terrorist attacks, vandalism and derailments have also led to the committee calling for an urgent technical review of the risks surrounding the transportation of nuclear waste through London. Fears over the security of the trains had been raised by the Nuclear Trains Action Group in their evidence to the committee. NTAG, which was set up by the London region of CND in the late 1980s, told committee members that trackside security was very poor. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the committee concluded that a reassessment of the risks from sabotage or terrorist attack should be carried out. Darren Johnson of the Green Party, who chaired the committee, said the investigation had examined some important questions to ask on behalf of Londoners. "We needed to be clear about how prepared London is for an emergency and what potential risks there are for Londoners. The issues raised in this report go beyond London. The question of emergency procedures is a matter of national importance," he said. BNFL said it had been safely transporting nuclear waste by train for the last forty years. "During that time we have travelled 6 million miles without a single incident or accident. We are very proud of this record and believe it to be second to none," said a spokesman. ePolitix.com: the UK's political portal Comments to: news-admin@uk.yahoo-inc.com Copyright © 2001 ePolitix. All rights reserved. Republication or ***************************************************************** 21 CANDU can and does Financial Post - Canada; Oct 15, 2001 BY ROBERT VAN ADEL David Martin's letter (CANDU Can't, Oct. 9) contains a number of errors and does not accurately reflect Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.'s business operations. While I can respect Mr. Martin has his own views and opinions, I believe any discussion on the nuclear industry should be based on facts. Contrary to what Mr. Martin implies, British Energy is examining a number of options for replacing ageing nuclear power reactors in the United Kingdom, including AECL's world class NG CANDU design. The nuclear industry is actually experiencing a renaissance. The relicensing of existing reactors, life extension and refurbishment is underway in many countries, including Canada. In respect to Mr. Martin's claim about government funding, AECL has not requested a billion dollars for developing the next generation of CANDU reactors. Discussions with the government of Canada have focused on AECL's business plan as a commercial Crown corporation to ensure that Canada's investment in nuclear technology is fully utilized and that good returns are realized. AECL has led the leveraging of the government's investment into a $6-billion a year industry that employs about 26,000 highly skilled Canadians. AECL has successfully constructed CANDU reactors on four continents providing safe, reliable and clean electricity. It is interesting to note that here in Canada, CANDU reactors provide about 50% of the electricity in Ontario. CANDU reactors in Canada have avoided well over a billion and half tonnes of carbon dioxide, acid gases, particulate matter and toxic heavy metal pollution over the four decades. Robert Van Adel, president and CEO, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., Toronto All Material Subject to Copyright ***************************************************************** 22 Terrorist-Nuclear-Failings, Ont. energy minister takes heat for report on dangers at nuclear plant LOUISE ELLIOTT TORONTO (CP) - Ontario's energy minister defended the safety of the province's nuclear facilities Monday, one day after a 1998 evaluation of the Bruce plant revealed dangerous practices were in place. Jim Wilson argued that the report, obtained by a national newspaper through a freedom of information request, had been kept secret because of security concerns which have only multiplied following the Sept. 11 terror attacks. "(Nuclear facilities) need to deal with those issues in confidence with their regulators, with the federal government and with police agencies, and then when appropriate the issues can be made public," he said. "Otherwise, the terrorists might get a leg up." The report was completed by a group of independent nuclear experts from the World Association of Nuclear Operators, an industry advisory group based in Atlanta. It found that inexperience, sloppy work habits and poor maintenance were evident at the plant. In the daily legislative question period Monday, Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty demanded to know why the results of the report weren't made public sooner. "Why have you conspired to hide this information from Ontarians since 1998?" he asked, quoting a statement from Information and Privacy Commissioner Anne Cavoukian in which she says there is "a compelling interest for the public to have nuclear safety information." McGuinty rejected Wilson's argument that secrecy was needed even more after the events of Sept. 11, saying Ontarians need to know the truth in order to know they are secure, particularly in the wake of the terrorist attack which killed more than 5,000 people. "I think there's a need for peace of mind for Ontarians that comes in knowing that, although there was a problem, we have a minister who has taken the bull by the horns and done everything he reasonably can to make a substantive improvement," he said. McGuinty criticized Wilson for not telling the legislature what steps, if any, were taken to address the safety issues raised by the report. "That's his responsibility and he's failing to live up to that," he said. "What else is out there which might be disconcerting if made public and has he or has he not acted on it?" The report was given to Ontario Power Generation, the provincially owned utility, in 1999. Among its findings: - Some operators were unaware of important topics such as the time it would take for water in the reactors to begin boiling away if flows of coolant water were blocked. - Nuclear plant workers disconnected warning alarms they found too noisy. - Operators sometimes did not watch instrument panels. - More than 2,500 changes to the nuclear plant were not added to design manuals, leading to confusion on how the plants run. A Bruce station official said the plant's performance has improved since the report was written. The nuclear operators association now considers the Bruce to be "one of the fastest improving nuclear plants in North America," said Duncan Hawthorne, chief executive officer at the site on Lake Huron, northwest of Toronto. © The Canadian Press, 2001 ***************************************************************** 23 Nuclear assurance to marginals - smh.com.au - National October 16, 2001 By Michelle Grattan Federal Labor, which needs to win three key marginal seats in South Australia, yesterday offered its voters a $65.3 million carrot and a promise that it will not store nuclear waste in the state. Campaigning in Adelaide, the Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley, also renewed Labor's promise to review the level and nature of assistance to the car industry and the textile, clothing and footwear industries before the present "pause" in tariff cuts expires in 2004. Both the nuclear waste issue and protection for the car industry are sensitive in a state which has three Liberal marginals and one Labor marginal seat. The Liberal marginals are Makin (0.8 per cent), Adelaide (1.2 per cent) and Hindmarsh (1.2 per cent). The Labor marginal is Kingston (1.5 per cent). Mr Beazley told the South Australian Press Club that Labor recognised the state had had its fair share of unsafe and ill-considered nuclear experiments at places such as Maralinga and Emu. "We have listened to the overwhelming opposition of the people of South Australia and decided this state is not the place for a nuclear dump," he said. "If, on November 10, you can't decide on which party to vote for, think of this: a Liberal government will dump nuclear waste in your great state, a Labor government will not." The Federal Government has left open whether to store waste in South Australia. Mr Beazley said the Industry Minister, Senator Nick Minchin, a South Australian, had "headed the scouting mission and found a number of preferred sites - all, funnily enough, in his home state". On the car and TCF tariff review, Labor's policy is that it would pay particular attention to the state of local industries and to the movement of tariff and non-tariff barriers among competing nations. Mr Beazley said the Government had said it would review tariffs only after the 2004 changes had been introduced. "That's a bit like saying you'll think about getting Ansett up in the air after you've stood by and watched it collapse. "By conducting a review of tariff reductions before they take place, we will be able to look at the possible outcomes and act accordingly. "We will act in the interest of thousands of South Australian workers and the many companies that will be affected by tariff reductions. "The Howard Government wants to sit back and see what happens to these industries and the workers. We think workers and their families are too important for this hands-off approach." Copyright © 2001. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 24 ACF pleased Labor not keen on finding alternative nuclear dump site ABC News - This Bulletin: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 9:11 ACST The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has welcomed Labor's pledge not to rush into finding an alternative nuclear waste dump site just because a Labor government would rule South Australia out as an option. Yesterday the Federal Opposition leader, Kim Beazley, reaffirmed Labor's promise to scrap Coalition plans to set up a medium level radioactive waste dump in remote South Australia should it win office. He also said a Labor government would commission further studies into the options that exist. ACF campaign officer David Noonan says he is heartened by Mr Beazley's position. "It's time to step back from imposing a nuclear waste future on South Australians and Australians in general. "The ACF recommends that there's an order of events that needs to be put in place to get a credible answer, to have something that has public acceptance and scientific defensibility." But Federal Industry Minister, Nick Minchin, says it was Labor's current deputy, Simon Crean, who stressed the need for a national nuclear waste repository. Senator Minchin has described as a joke, Labor's latest claim that more studies into the options should be carried out. "Mr Crean himself announced nine years ago that Australia needed a purpose built storage site for low level radioactive waste and initiated the national search and shortlisted South Australia. "So it's nonsense to say, 'oh you know we should now sit around and wait'. Wait for what? Wait for Godot?" © 2001 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 25 Sellafield controversy: - Sue the British Government The Norway Post - Doorway to Norway 15. Oktober 2001 British nuclear scientist Chris Busby thinks Norway ought to sue Britain and the owner of the nuclear reposession plant at Sellafield. Norway has several times protested against the nuclear pollution from the plant on the northwest coast of England, but in vain. -If the Norwegian government doesn't sue, organizations or individuals ought to, Busby says to the newspaper Bergens Tidende. Busby's own research has shown that there is a higher than ususal frequency of various types of cancer among persons living close to nuclear plants or in regions where ocean currents or climatic conditions create a spread of nuclear pollution. Norway's protests began when tests showed that radiocative pollution from Sellafield reaches as far north as the Kola Peninsula, the Barents Sea and Svalbard, in addition to the waters around the North Sea. The Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern has already announced that his government will bring the issue before an international court, if Britain does not change its decision to expand the Sellafield plant, building a new section for the production of nuclear fuel. (NRK) Rolleiv Solholm ***************************************************************** 26 Nuclear waste trains 'at risk from terrorists' Independent___ News UK © 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor 16 October 2001 The risk of a terrorist attack on trains carrying nuclear waste through London should be re-evaluated, the Government was told yesterday. Up to 200 trains carrying spent nuclear fuel from atomic power stations on the south coast pass through the capital every year on their way to the British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) reprocessing plant at Sellafield in Cumbria. GLA members conducting a safety inquiry into the traffic believe the threat of sabotage by terrorists has not not taken sufficiently seriously – and they are calling for an urgent review in the light of the attacks on New York and Washington. Darren Johnson, leader of the Green party on the GLA and chairman of the authority's nuclear waste trains investigative committee, has written to the Energy minister, Brian Wilson, asking for the reassessment. "They're looking at this very seriously in the United States and we're calling on the Government to deal with it urgently," Mr Johnson said. Spent uranium fuel rods are transported to Sellafield from three nuclear reactor sites on the South-east – Dungeness in Kent, Bradwell in Essex and Sizewell in Suffolk. The trains, operated by BNFL's own transport company, Direct Rail Services, all pass through central London and are marshalled at Willesden before heading north. The spent fuel is contained in specially designed steel flasks and there has never been a leak of radioactivity in the 40 years the traffic has been running. But Mr Johnson said: "It has always been maintained by the regulatory authorities and the nuclear industry in this country that nuclear flasks are not a promising target for terrorists. Nevertheless, work carried out in the US before 11 September indicated that it was a credible scenario to assume that a flask could be sabotaged, and could be punctured with an explosive device. "We didn't get full details from either the nuclear industry or from other bodies about the arrangements in place to deal with a terrorist threat in this country. But what we were concerned to hear was that they didn't consider it a very plausible threat which suggest that there aren't many precautions in place to deal with it. So we are calling on them to deal with it urgently." Mr Johnson added that in the US, the transport of nuclear waste by rail had been suspended after 11 September. The committee's report also pointed out that there had never been a full-scale test of all the emergency procedures in place to deal with a nuclear rail accident in London, and suggested this should take place as soon as possible. A spokesman for BNFL said last night: "We get advice on our security from the Government. Since 11 September this has been looked at and we have been allowed to continue with these transports." A spokesman for the Energy minister said last night: "The Office of Civil Nuclear Security, which is an independent office with the Department of Trade and Industry, is looking at this." ***************************************************************** 27 Romania's nuclear industry shows signs of recovery BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Oct 15, 2001 Text of report in English by Romanian news agency Rompres web site Bucharest, 15 October: While a few years ago, the Nuclear Activities Public Utility [RAAN] was facing dismantling due to huge state debts and lack of funds from the budget, its situation has significantly improved lately, daily Curentul reports on Monday [15 October]. The Romag Prod plant based at Drobeta-Turnu Severin [southwestern Romania], a RAAN component, is currently the only major heavy water producer in the world. It has earned this position after Canada, that had huge stocks of heavy water, closed down its two plants, while other countries, among which Argentina, have a very low heavy water production, solely aimed at meeting the needs of its own Candu-type reactors. The RAAN has already started to export heavy water and it earned more than 3m dollars from a first 16-tonne shipment to South Korea after winning an international tender. "We are currently exploring the markets of the United States, Germany and Italy and we are also trying in China. We can meet any export demand," RAAN managing director Rodin Traicu is quoted by Curentul as saying. Besides exports, the Turnu Severin plant continues to produce heavy water for the Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant's Unit 2. Romag Prod by 2004 has to deliver 510 tonnes of heavy water required for a first load of the unit and a smaller quantity for refill. The price of the Romag-made heavy water dropped constantly to a current 273 dollars per kg from 444 dollars per kg in 1986, when the plant was established. The RAAN has also solved its environmental issues, the pungent smell from sulphurous hydrogen being now hardly felt; sensors are placed all over the 60 hectares of the plant and automatically give alarm when admitted levels of noxious fumes are exceeded. On the other hand, the Nuclear Research Institute based in Pitesti [southern Romania] has also managed to relaunch its activity after struggling to survive during 10 years of transition to a market economy. It cut its staff from 3,000 in 1990 to a current 600, passing through difficult times. It has a highly trained staff, also proved by the fact that 100 Romanian researchers from Pitesti are currently working in US universities and in major Canadian companies dealing in nuclear power. At present, the Pitesti experts are conducting research for a new type of nuclear fuel and make radioactive isotopes for industry and medicine, Curentul reports. Source: Rompres web site, Bucharest, in English 1158 gmt 15 Oct 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Pakistan and India: Into the Nuclear Fire? Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 01:20:02 -0500 (CDT) Institute for Public Accuracy 915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045 (202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org ___________________________________________________ PM Monday, October 15, 2001 Interviews Available Pakistan and India: Into the Nuclear Fire? As Colin Powell visits Pakistan and India, the following analysts are available for interviews: ZIA MIAN, zia@princeton.edu, http://members.tripod.com/~no_nukes_sa/zia.html Mian is co-editor of the book "Out of the Nuclear Shadow" and a researcher on South Asian security issues with the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He said today: "The first and most immediate task is ensuring Pakistan's stability: The longer the U.S. bombs Afghanistan, the more civilians get killed and the greater the refugee crisis, the more unstable the situation becomes. The second task is to cool tensions between India and Pakistan, as India pushes for action against Pakistani-supported radical Islamic groups fighting in Indian-occupied Kashmir. Third, the U.S. is lifting economic and military sanctions it imposed against India and Pakistan after their May 1998 nuclear tests, but it must ensure that there is no military build-up in the region. Otherwise, we shall jump out of the frying pan of terrorism and into the fire of a South Asian nuclear confrontation. Fourth, General Musharraf should not be allowed to use the current crisis to delay the elections and restoration of democratic government scheduled for next year." JAY TRUMAN, hermit@downwinders.org, http://www.downwinders.org Truman, one of the nation's foremost authorities on nuclear weapons policy, is author of the article "India -- Villain, Hero, or Scapegoat?" and director of the Downwinders organization. He said today: "Pakistan, the newest member of the nuclear weapons club, has approximately 30 nuclear weapons. Should the government of Pakistan fall as a result of its support of the U.S. strikes against Afghanistan -- and should it be replaced with pro-Taliban forces -- where will those weapons end up? By removing sanctions against India and Pakistan for developing nuclear weapons in return for support of our strikes against Afghanistan, we are junking the entire concept of opposition to nuclear proliferation." JACQUELINE CABASSO and ANDREW LICHTERMAN, wslf@earthlink.net, http://www.wslfweb.org/doclib.htm Cabasso is executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation, which just released the report "Nuclear Weapons in a Changed World: The Hidden Dangers of the Rush to War" and a report earlier this year titled "Looking for New Ways to Use Nuclear Weapons." She said today: "The Bush administration has indicated that it intends a long war, and has hinted that it may attack other countries that it believes 'harbor terrorists.' Such a wider war could involve, directly or indirectly, Israel, the U.S., Pakistan, India, the U.K. and Russia -- six of the eight countries known to have nuclear arms. U.S. officials already have explicitly refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons in the current conflict. If the war continues to escalate, the U.S. government might ultimately use low-yield nuclear weapons, such as earth-penetrators to destroy mountain caves. These are billed as being 'clean' weapons but would potentially spew radioactive dirt over hundreds of miles and would cross a historical nuclear threshold." Lichterman is program director at the Western States Legal Foundation. JOHN BURROUGHS, lcnp@lcnp.org, http://www.lcnp.org Burroughs is executive director of the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy and author of the recent paper "A Rule-of-Law Response." For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 ***************************************************************** 2 [toeslist] U.S. Strategists Begin to Favor Threat to Use NUKES Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 23:38:26 -0500 (CDT) http://us.click.yahoo.com/Pv4pGD/4m7CAA/ySSFAA/7gSolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ---------- U.S. Strategists Begin to Favor Threat to Use Nuclear Arms Dana Milbank Washington Post Service Saturday, October 6, 2001 WASHINGTON The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on Washington and New York have invigorated national security strategists inside and outside the government who favor using nuclear weapons to deter and respond to chemical or biological attacks. Conservatives outside the Bush administration have been calling on the administration to make an explicit threat to use nuclear weapons to respond to a biological or chemical attack. This would change a long-standing U.S. policy of refusing to rule in or rule out use of nuclear weapons in the event of such an attack. So far, at least, senior administration officials have maintained this policy of deliberate ambiguity, though some administration figures appear to be sympathetic to a change that would entail a more specific threat. A report issued in January by the National Institute for Public Policy declared that "U.S. nuclear weapons may be necessary" to deter regional powers from using weapons of mass destruction or for "providing unique targeting capabilities" against such things as buried targets or biological weapons targets. "Under certain circumstances," the report said, "very severe nuclear threats may be needed to deter any of these potential adversaries." Among the report's authors were Stephen Hadley, now deputy national security adviser to President George W. Bush; Robert Joseph, the head of proliferation strategy at the National Security Council, and two key defense advisers to Mr. Bush, Stephen Cambone and William Schneider Jr. Proponents of the shift in policy said the attacks on New York and Washington had affirmed their views. "Sept. 11 really underscores the need to look at a full range of flexible options," said David Smith, a military consultant who was an author of the institute's report. "What we were trying to get at there is we don't believe the current arsenal of the United States is persuasively deterrent to all comers." Many Bush administration officials have endorsed the notion of switching to smaller nuclear arms that could be used for, among other things, hitting chemical and biological weapons sites and targeting such figures as Osama bin Laden or Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, who hide in deep underground bunkers. A report in June 2000 by Stephen Younger, who has been named to head the Threat Reduction Agency at the Defense Department, called for smaller nuclear weapons as part of a rethinking of the role of nuclear weapons. Though a shift in the arsenal would take years to implement, an early sign will be the Nuclear Posture Review under way in the Pentagon and due to Congress by year's end. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, in his confirmation hearing on Sept. 13, said that deterrence against weapons of mass destruction was "a critical component" of the review. He also pointed out that the military already had "a number of low-yield weapons in the current stockpile." Another author of the institute's report, William Van Cleave of Southwest Missouri State University, said the review would argue "that we need to regain some capability for some low-yield nuclear weapons." For the past decade or so, U.S. leaders have been deliberately ambiguous about using nuclear weapons to respond to a chemical and biological threat. One example was after Iraq invaded Kuwait. When Dick Cheney was defense secretary, he said in December 1990, "Were Saddam Hussein foolish enough to use weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. response would be absolutely overwhelming and it would be devastating." Administration officials said later that he was not implying a nuclear threat. Some arms control experts say they believe that the Bush administration's statements so far already go beyond past administrations' ambiguity. "That is an implied threat," said Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association. "They've crossed the line or they're at the line by implying the possible use." Opponents said nuclear threats would encourage nuclear proliferation and worry friendly governments. Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said, "It would create its own crisis, fracture the alliance and have no military purpose." Copyright ) 2001 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> FREE COLLEGE MONEY CLICK HERE to search 600,000 scholarships! http://us.click.yahoo.com/Pv4pGD/4m7CAA/ySSFAA/NJYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: toeslist-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 3 Nuclear Weapons and the WTC Attacks Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 00:39:04 -0500 (CDT) By Tomas Hopkins Primeau Assistant Professor of International Relations, ITESM, Monterrey Mexico Reprinted with permission by Espacios, c. 2001 The most common analogy used to describe the attack on the WTC in New York City has been the Japanese surprise attack upon Pearl Harbor, however a more appropriate analogy lies with the United States use of nuclear weapons upon the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These attacks introduced a new weapon of terror, a weapon that has been central to the conduct of US foreign policy down to the present crisis in Afghanistan-where the US government has repeatedly and publicly reserved the right of using nuclear weapons if necessary. The use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima caused a profound shift in thinking by states in terms of their national security and military strategies. Similarly on September 11th we saw the introduction of a new weapon of terror (in the form of civilian jetliners), that has caused yet another paradigm shift in terms of developed states and their perceptions of national security. This new type of thinking is reflected in the USs newly created Council of Homeland Security. The bureaucratic doublespeak which underlies this new institution revels the true nature and purpose of what the US government calls its Department of Defense. If the US Department of Defense were really about national defense it would make the creation of the Council of Homeland Security a redundant and unnecessary enterprise. The Councils creation makes plain the true purpose of the US Department of Defense (which before the Cold War was more honestly and more accurately named the Department of War.) Historically the role of the US Department of Defense has NOT been to protect US territory, but rather it has been used as a tool to project and protect the USs national interests around the world. Thus a more appropriate monkier for this particular institution of US imperialism would be the Department of Offense rather than the Department of Defense, but what US leader would ever speak that honestly?. This fact however brings us full-circle back to the underlying causes for the attack upon the WTC in New York, and more symbolically, the Pentagon in Washington D.C. For years Osama bin Laden has made it abundantly clear that his Jihad lies with US imperialistic enterprises in Occupied Palestine, the genocidal UN embargo (imposed and maintained by the US) against the people of Iraq, and US military bases in Gulf states such as Kuwait, Oman, and especially Saudi Arabia. As Richard Falk has repeatedly noted, the terror weapon of US imperialism for the last 50 years has been the nuclear bomb. This is a weapon of terror which the US has consistently threatened to use against Third World peoples in places such as Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and now Afghanistan. Falk argues that the greatest source of international terrorism is the omnipresent threat of nuclear annihilation which hangs constant over each of our heads, 24 hours each day. This threat of nuclear terror still persists, even after the end of the Cold War, because the nuclear powers (led principally by the United States) have refused to dismantle and disarm their weapons of terror and mass destruction. And the US has also repeatedly expressed its willingness to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries (i.e. the vast majority of the Third World states) which goes far in explaining why India and Pakistan have recently joined the nuclear club. This development has only compounded the level of international nuclear terrorism, especially given the recurring Kashmiri crisis between India and Pakistan. Nuclear terror however has conveniently been left out of the USs highly dubious definition of international terrorism. If it were included it would be obvious to all who should be at the top of any list of states supporting international terrorism. Partly as a consequence of this however, non-state actors such as Al-Qaeda have developed their own new and innovative weapons of mass destruction and terror to counter US terrorism and imperialism. Modern science once portrayed the splitting of the atom as a benign advancement to the material progress of human kind. But Robert Oppenheimer, upon seeing the destructive power of the first nuclear detonation, quoted the Bhagavad-Gita and spoke of the deity of Shiva, the destroyer of worlds. Just as Oppenheimer could never look upon the power of the atom in the same way again, we will never be able to look upon a jetliner soaring above a city skyline in the same way again. If Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda are indeed culpable for this act, they have added to the heavens yet another new and impetuous implement of terror and destruction to the threat of nuclear terror that hovers daily above our heads. The Terror Above Us: Nuclear Weapons and the WTC Attacks By Tomas Hopkins Primeau Assistant Professor of International Relations, ITESM, Monterrey Mexico Reprinted with permission by Espacios, c. 2001 The most common analogy used to describe the attack on the WTC in New York City has been the Japanese surprise attack upon Pearl Harbor, however a more appropriate analogy lies with the United States use of nuclear weapons upon the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These attacks introduced a new weapon of terror, a weapon that has been central to the conduct of US foreign policy down to the present crisis in Afghanistan-where the US government has repeatedly and publicly reserved the right of using nuclear weapons if necessary. The use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima caused a profound shift in thinking by states in terms of their national security and military strategies. Similarly on September 11th we saw the introduction of a new weapon of terror (in the form of civilian jetliners), that has caused yet another paradigm shift in terms of developed states and their perceptions of national security. This new type of thinking is reflected in the USs newly created Council of Homeland Security. The bureaucratic doublespeak which underlies this new institution revels the true nature and purpose of what the US government calls its Department of Defense. If the US Department of Defense were really about national defense it would make the creation of the Council of Homeland Security a redundant and unnecessary enterprise. The Councils creation makes plain the true purpose of the US Department of Defense (which before the Cold War was more honestly and more accurately named the Department of War.) Historically the role of the US Department of Defense has NOT been to protect US territory, but rather it has been used as a tool to project and protect the USs national interests around the world. Thus a more appropriate monkier for this particular institution of US imperialism would be the Department of Offense rather than the Department of Defense, but what US leader would ever speak that honestly?. This fact however brings us full-circle back to the underlying causes for the attack upon the WTC in New York, and more symbolically, the Pentagon in Washington D.C. For years Osama bin Laden has made it abundantly clear that his Jihad lies with US imperialistic enterprises in Occupied Palestine, the genocidal UN embargo (imposed and maintained by the US) against the people of Iraq, and US military bases in Gulf states such as Kuwait, Oman, and especially Saudi Arabia. As Richard Falk has repeatedly noted, the terror weapon of US imperialism for the last 50 years has been the nuclear bomb. This is a weapon of terror which the US has consistently threatened to use against Third World peoples in places such as Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and now Afghanistan. Falk argues that the greatest source of international terrorism is the omnipresent threat of nuclear annihilation which hangs constant over each of our heads, 24 hours each day. This threat of nuclear terror still persists, even after the end of the Cold War, because the nuclear powers (led principally by the United States) have refused to dismantle and disarm their weapons of terror and mass destruction. And the US has also repeatedly expressed its willingness to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries (i.e. the vast majority of the Third World states) which goes far in explaining why India and Pakistan have recently joined the nuclear club. This development has only compounded the level of international nuclear terrorism, especially given the recurring Kashmiri crisis between India and Pakistan. Nuclear terror however has conveniently been left out of the USs highly dubious definition of international terrorism. If it were included it would be obvious to all who should be at the top of any list of states supporting international terrorism. Partly as a consequence of this however, non-state actors such as Al-Qaeda have developed their own new and innovative weapons of mass destruction and terror to counter US terrorism and imperialism. Modern science once portrayed the splitting of the atom as a benign advancement to the material progress of human kind. But Robert Oppenheimer, upon seeing the destructive power of the first nuclear detonation, quoted the Bhagavad-Gita and spoke of the deity of Shiva, the destroyer of worlds. Just as Oppenheimer could never look upon the power of the atom in the same way again, we will never be able to look upon a jetliner soaring above a city skyline in the same way again. If Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda are indeed culpable for this act they have added to the heavens yet another new and impetuous implement of terror and destruction to the threat of nuclear terror that hovers daily above our heads. ***************************************************************** 4 !*"Bunker Buster": a nuclear weapon? Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 23:56:04 -0500 (CDT) FORWARDED MESSAGE ===================== From: "Pendragon" Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2001 9:06 PM From: "Michael laird" I was curious to find out what exactly a "bunker buster" is. here's I found: first, an abstract from the NY Times: May 31, 1997, Saturday U.S. Refits a Nuclear Bomb To Destroy Enemy Bunkers By MATTHEW L. WALD Source: The New York Times Section: National Desk 1289 words Abstract US deploys 'bunker buster' nuclear bomb, designed to destroy underground factories and laboratories while causing relatively little surface damage; weapon, designated B-61, is repackaging of a 30-year-old hydrogen bomb that was originally designed to be dropped from an airplane by parachute and explode while still aloft; dropped without parachute, it can burrow as deep as 50 feet into soil before exploding; critics say B-61 is new weapon intended to be used against rogue states suspected of trying to develop weapons of mass destruction in underground complexes; diagrams Scarey, eh? next, from the Journal of the Federation of American Scientists: http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001/v54n1/weapons.htm Low-Yield Earth-Penetrating Nuclear Weapons By Robert W. Nelson Fig. 1 Diagrams like this one give the false impression that a low-yield earth penetrating nuclear weapon would "limit collateral damage" and therefore be relatively safe to use. In fact, because of the large amount of radioactive dirt thrown out in the explosion, the hypothetical 5-kiloton weapon discussed in the accompanying article would produce a large area of lethal fallout. (Philadelphia Inquirer/ Cynthia Greer, 16 October 2000.) Despite the global sense of relief and hope that the nuclear arms race ended with the Cold War, an increasingly vocal group of politicians, military officials and leaders of America's nuclear weapon laboratories are urging the US to develop a new generation of precision low-yield nuclear weapons. Rather than deterring warfare with another nuclear power, however, they suggest these weapons could be used in conventional conflicts with third-world nations. Critics argue that adding low-yield warheads to the world's nuclear inventory simply makes their eventual use more likely. In fact, a 1994 law currently prohibits the nuclear laboratories from undertaking research and development that could lead to a precision nuclear weapon of less than 5 kilotons (KT), because "low-yield nuclear weapons blur the distinction between nuclear and conventional war." Last year, Senate Republicans John Warner (R-VA) and Wayne Allard (R-CO) buried a small provision in the 2001 Defense Authorization Bill that would have overturned these earlier restrictions. Although the language in the final Act was watered down, the Energy and Defense Departments are still required to undertake a study of low-yield nuclear weapons that could penetrate deep into the earth before detonating so as to "threaten hard and deeply buried targets." Legislation for long-term research and actual development of low-yield nuclear weapons will almost certainly be proposed again in the current session of Congress. Senators Warner and Allard imagine these nuclear weapons could be used in small-scale conventional conflicts against rogue dictators, while leaving most of the civilian population untouched. As one anonymous former Pentagon official put it to the Washington Post last spring, "What's needed now is something that can threaten a bunker tunneled under 300 meters of granite without killing the surrounding civilian population." Statements like these promote the illusion that nuclear weapons could be used in ways which minimize their "collateral damage," making them acceptable tools to be used like conventional weapons. As described in detail below, however, the use of any nuclear weapon capable of destroying a buried target that is otherwise immune to conventional attack will necessarily produce enormous numbers of civilian casualties. No earth-burrowing missile can penetrate deep enough into the earth to contain an explosion with a nuclear yield even as small as 1 percent of the 15 kiloton Hiroshima weapon. The explosion simply blows out a massive crater of radioactive dirt, which rains down on the local region with an especially intense and deadly fallout. Moreover, as Congress understood in 1994, by seeking to produce usable low-yield nuclear weapons, we risk blurring the now sharp line separating nuclear and conventional warfare, and provide legitimacy for other nations to similarly consider using nuclear weapons in regional wars. Conventional Earth-Penetrating Weapons Fig. 2 The Pentagon has a growing collection of high precision conventional weapons capable of defeating hardened targets. In this sled-driven test, the GBU-28 laser guided bomb with its improved BLU-113 warhead penetrates several meters of reinforced concrete. Fig. 3 A B2 bomber releases an unarmed B61-11 earth-penetrating bomb during tests in Alaska. Despite falling from an altitude of 40,000 feet, this bomb burrowed only approximately 20 feet into the soil. Any nuclear blast at this shallow depth would not be contained, and would produce intense local fallout. Video clips from CNN (2.2MB) and Lockheed Martin (2.8MB) The Pentagon already has a number of conventional weapons capable of destroying hardened targets buried within approximately 50 feet of the surface. The most well-known of these is the GBU-28 developed and deployed in the final weeks of the air campaign in the Gulf War. The Air Force was initially unable to destroy a well-protected bunker north of Baghdad after repeated direct hits. The 4000 lb GBU-28 was created from a very heavy surplus Army eight-inch gun tube filled with conventional explosive and a modified laser guidance kit. It destroyed the bunker, which was protected by more than 30 feet of earth, concrete and hardened steel. The precision, penetrating capability, and explosive power of these conventional weapons has improved dramatically over the last decade, and these trends will certainly continue. Indeed, the GBU-37 guided bomb, a successor to the GBU-28, is already thought to be capable of disabling a silo based ICBM - a target formerly thought vulnerable only to nuclear attack. In the near future, the United States will deploy new classes of hard target penetrators which can land within one to two meters of their targets. The B61-11 Nuclear Bomb However, mini-nuke advocates - mostly coming from the nuclear weapons labs - argue that low-yield nuclear weapons should be designed to destroy even deeper targets. The US introduced an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon in 1997, the B61-11, by putting the nuclear explosive from an earlier bomb design into a hardened steel casing with a new nose cone to provide ground penetration capability. The deployment was controversial because of official US policy not to develop new nuclear weapons. The DOE and the weapons labs have consistently argued, however, that the B61-11 is merely a "modification" of an older delivery system, because it used an existing "physics package." The earth-penetrating capability of the B61-11 is fairly limited, however. Tests show it penetrates only 20 feet or so into dry earth when dropped from an altitude of 40,000 feet. Even so, by burying itself into the ground before detonation, a much higher proportion of the explosion energy is transferred to ground shock compared to a surface bursts. Any attempt to use it in an urban environment, however, would result in massive civilian casualties. Even at the low end of its 0.3-300 kiloton yield range, the nuclear blast will simply blow out a huge crater of radioactive material, creating a lethal gamma-radiation field over a large area. Containment Just how deep must an underground nuclear explosion be buried in order for the blast and fallout to be contained? The US conducted a series of underground nuclear explosions in the 1960s - the Plowshare tests - to investigate the possible use of nuclear explosives for excavation purposes. Those performed prior to the 1963 Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty, such as the Sedan test shown in Figure 4, were buried at relatively shallow depths to maximize the size of the crater produced. Fig. 4 The 100 KT Sedan nuclear explosion, one of the Plowshares excavation tests, was buried at a depth of 635 feet. The main cloud and base surge are typical of shallow-buried nuclear explosions. The cloud is highly contaminated with radioactive dust particles and produces an intense local fallout. In addition to the immediate effects of blast, air shock, and thermal radiation, shallow nuclear explosions produce especially intense local radioactive fallout. The fireball breaks through the surface of the earth, carrying into the air large amounts of dirt and debris. This material has been exposed to the intense neutron flux from the nuclear detonation, which adds to the radioactivity from the fission products. The cloud typically consists of a narrow column and a broad base surge of air filled with radioactive dust which expands to a radius of over a mile for a 5 kiloton explosion.1 In the Plowshare tests, roughly 50 percent of the total radioactivity produced in the explosion was distributed as local fallout - the other half being confined to the highly-radioactive crater. In order to be fully contained, nuclear explosions at the Nevada Test Site must be buried at a depth of 650 feet for a 5 kiloton explosive - 1300 feet for a 100-kiloton explosive.2 Even then, there are many documented cases where carefully sealed shafts ruptured and released radioactivity to the local environment. Therefore, even if an earth penetrating missile were somehow able to drill hundreds of feet into the ground and then detonate, the explosion would likely shower the surrounding region with highly radioactive dust and gas. Long-Rod Penetration Fig. 5 Underground nuclear tests must be buried at large depths and carefully sealed in order to fully contain the explosion. Shallower bursts produce large craters and intense local fallout. The situation shown here is for an explosion with a 1 KT yield and the depths shown are in feet. Even a 0.1 KT burst must be buried at a depth of approximately 230 feet to be fully contained. (Adapted from Terry Wallace, with permission.) It is straightforward to show, however, that the maximum penetration depth is severely limited if the missile casing is to remain intact. One can make reasonably accurate estimates of the penetration depth based on the well-developed theory of "long-rod penetration." The fundamental parameter R is the ratio of the projectile ram pressure to the yield strength of the material.3 The target material yields, and penetration occurs, when R is greater than one. For a steel rod to penetrate concrete, the minimum velocities for penetration is about one half a kilometer per second (1100 miles per hour). For ductile materials, the kinetic energy lost from the penetrator can deform the target and dig out a penetration crater. Fundamentally, however, the depth of penetration is limited by the yield strength of the penetrator - in this case, the missile casing. Even for the strongest materials, impact velocities greater than a few kilometers per second will substantially deform and even melt the impactor. An earth-penetrating nuclear weapon must protect the warhead and its associated electronics while it burrows into the ground. This severely limits the missile to impact velocities of less than about three kilometers per second for missile cases made from the very hardest steels. From the theory of "long-rod penetration," in this limit the maximum possible depth D of penetration is proportional to the length and density of the penetrator and inversely proportional to the density of the target. The maximum depth of penetration depends only weakly on the yield strength of the penetrator.4 For typical values for steel and concrete, we expect an upper bound to the penetration depth to be roughly 10 times the missile length, or about 100 feet for a 10 foot missile. In actual practice the impact velocity and penetration depth must be well below this to ensure the missile and its contents are not severely damaged. Given these constraints, it is simply not possible for a kinetic energy weapon to penetrate deeply enough into the earth to contain a nuclear explosion. The Weapons Labs and the CTBT The most vocal proponents of new small-yield weapons come from the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories, at Los Alamos and Livermore. In a 1991 Strategic Affairs article entitled "Countering the Threat of the Well-armed Tyrant," Los Alamos weapons analysts Thomas Dowler and Joseph Howard II, argued that the US has no proportionate response to a rogue dictator who uses chemical or biological weapons against US troops. Our smallest nuclear weapons - those with Hiroshima-size yields-would be so devastating that no US president could use them. We would be "self-deterred." To counter this dilemma, they argued the US should develop "mininukes," with yields equivalent to 0.01-1 KT: "... nuclear weapons with very low yields could provide an effective response for countering the enemy in such a crisis, while not violating the principle of proportionality." More recently, in a speech to the Nuclear Security Decisionmakers Forum, Sandia Laboratory Director Paul Robinson stated "The US will undoubtedly require a new nuclear weapon ... because it is realized that the yields of the weapons left over from the Cold War are too high for addressing the deterrence requirements of a multi polar, widely proliferated world. Without rectifying that situation, we would end up being self-deterred." A more cynical interpretation of these statements is that the laboratory staff and leadership simply feel threatened by the current restrictions on their activities, and want to generate a new mission (and the associated funding) to keep them in operation indefinitely. Indeed, beginning in 1990 with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, there was serious discussion of closing one of the bomb labs. Moreover, President Clinton ended US nuclear testing in 1993, and signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) - a permanent worldwide ban on nuclear testing - in 1996. Despite the Senate's failure to ratify the CTBT in 1999, its proponents believe the treaty will eventually come into force. The major nuclear powers continue to abide by the world moratorium on nuclear testing, and even India and Pakistan appear to have joined the moratorium after their May 1998 nuclear tests. The nuclear weapons labs are particularly threatened by the CTBT, since it will probably limit them to maintaining the stockpile of weapons already in our arsenal. Keeping young scientists interested in the weapons program is especially difficult when their main job is the relatively mundane task of assuring reliability. The labs desire the challenge of designing new nuclear weapons, simply for the scientific and technical training experience the effort would bring. Hence, there is tremendous pressure to create a new mission that justifies a new development program. But could the US deploy a new low-yield nuclear earth-penetrating weapon without testing it? Under continued political pressure to support the Test Ban and its related Stockpile Stewardship Program, Los Alamos Associate Director Steve Younger has stated, "one could design and deploy a new set of nuclear weapons that do not require nuclear testing to be certified. However, ... such simple devices would be based on a very limited nuclear test database." On the other hand, it seems unlikely that a warhead capable of performing such an extraordinary mission as destroying a deeply buried and hardened bunker could be deployed without full-scale testing. First, even if the missile casing were able to withstand the high-velocity ground impact, the warhead "physics package" and accompanying electronics must function under extreme conditions. The primary device must detonate and produce a reliable yield shortly after suffering an intense shock deceleration. Second, there must be great confidence that the actual nuclear yield is not greater than expected. Since the natural energy scale for a fission nuclear weapon is of order 10 KT, much lower yield weapons must be sensitive to exacting design tolerances; the final yield is determined by an exponentially growing number of fission-produced neutrons, so the total number of neutron generations must be finely-tuned. Given that these weapons may be used near population centers, it thus seems highly unlikely that designers could certify a low-yield warhead without actually testing it. What would be the consequence if the US decides to go ahead and test a new generation of nuclear weapons? As House Democrats expressed in a letter to Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, "The resumption of nuclear test explosions that will result from such a program involving nuclear weapons would decrease rather than increase our national security and undermine US and international non-proliferation efforts." If the US abandons the moratorium, Russia and China will almost certainly respond in kind - destroying prospects for eventual passage of the CTBT. Conclusion Proponents of building a new generation of small nuclear weapons have seldom been specific about situations where nuclear devices would be able to perform a unique mission. The one clear scenario is using these warheads as a substitute for conventional weapons to attack deeply buried facilities. Based on the analysis here, however, this mission does not appear possible without causing massive radioactive contamination. No American president would elect to use nuclear weapons in this situation - unless another country had already used nuclear weapons against us. The end of the Cold War should allow us to place further limits on the development and use of nuclear weapons. The danger of moving from a conventional to a nuclear war is so enormous, that the US refrained from using nuclear weapons in Korea even when US troops were in danger of being overwhelmed. Attempts to develop a new generation of low-yield nuclear weapons would only make nuclear war more likely, and they seem cynically designed to provide legitimacy to nuclear testing -steps that would return us to the dangers of Cold War nuclear competition, but with a larger number of nations participating. Robert W. Nelson, a theoretical physicist who works on technical arms control issues, is on the research staff of Princeton University and a consultant to FAS. still with me? next from Jane's Defence Weekly: http://www.janes.com/defence/land_forces/news/jdw/jdw010116_3_n.shtml : Jane's Defence Weekly 16/01/2001 British Army seeks bunker buster Christopher F Foss JDW Land Forces Editor London Additional reporting Paul Beaver JDW Special Correspondent London A number of contractors in Europe and the USA submitted expressions of interest to the UK's Defence Procurement Agency (DPA) late last year for the British Army's unfunded requirement for the development and manufacture of an Infantry Anti-Structures Weapon (IASW) system. Jane's Defence Weekly understands that one of the possible warhead types under consideration for the IASW is of the thermobaric (fuel-air explosive) type which would be highly effective against bunkers and a variety of other targets. The Defence Evaluation and Research Agency has been studying this type of warhead for several years. The use of thermobaric weapons by Russian forces in Chechnya has been widely criticised by human rights groups. The IASW would be used by dismounted infantry to neutralise a variety of targets that provide cover for threat infantry such as bunkers, buildings and other fortifications. Key operational requirements of the projected IASW include the ability to be fired from within a confined space; the ability to be deployed and fired by one person; the capability of penetrating the structure and exploding inside; and having an effective range of at least 150m and weighing no more than 10kg. The system will have a blast warhead for maximum target effectiveness. To save costs, it is probable that this will be an off-the-shelf solution and the UK is looking to acquire a complete system which will include not only the weapon but also a complete training package. It is also possible that a modified existing weapon could be offered for the IASW requirement. Today, UK infantry units have no specialised weapons to engage bunkers and buildings that are likely to be encountered in increasing numbers. They would have to use the 1,950m-range Euromissile MILAN anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) and the 400m-range Hunting Engineering LAW 80 for this role. Both of these have a high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warhead that are not optimised for this role and neither can be fired from within a building. There are, however, some concerns from human rights organisations about the possible fielding of thermobaric weapons although they have been offered on the export market by Eastern European countries for some years. A typical thermobaric warhead utilises an advanced form of the fuel-air explosive concept. The contents of the warhead are scattered in aerosol form on impact and then ignited to create a rapidly -formed, high-pressure blast wave which neutralises the target area. Following early combat experience in Afghanistan that showed up the shortcomings in using existing anti-tank weapons to combat bunkers and other field fortifications, Russia developed thermobaric warheads for a number of its weapons. These include the Kornet (maximum range 5,500m) and Metis-M (maximum range 1,500m) ATGM which have been offered on the export market for some years. The user has the option of a missile with a HEAT warhead or a thermobaric warhead, depending on the target to be engaged. The KBP Instrument Design Bureau has also developed the Shmel 'infantry rocket flame thrower' with the RPO-A version using a thermobaric warhead which is claimed to be as effective as a 122mm or 152mm artillery projectile. Thermobaric warheads are also available for use with the widely deployed Russian developed RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade system. Russia also built and fielded in small numbers the TOS-1 rocket system mounted on a modified T-72 tank chassis. This has a roof-mounted turret with 30 220mm tubes, each of which can launch a rocket with a thermobaric warhead to a maximum range of 3,500m. one more: from One World News Service: http://www.oneworld.org/news/reports98/nuclear.html The U.S. will neither confirm nor deny but the public has a right to know 9th Febuary 1998 by Felicity Arbuthnot IRAQ With the U.S. and Britain poised to begin an intense aerial bombardment of Iraq, there has been little mention of the consequences it would have for the health and environment of the Iraqi people and for the region as a whole. Recently, Russian President Boris Yeltsin expressed concern that an overly aggressive US posture at a time of high tensions is extremely dangerous, with possible wider ramifications beyond the region. Once again, we are seeing a vast buildup of weaponry in the region, with some new additions that set a dangerous precedent. There has been mention in recent media reports of 'bunker busting' weapons and 'deep-penetration' bombs that the US has spent huge sums in perfecting. The US tested new weapons in warfare before, and specifically against Iraq in 1991 when hundreds of tons of U-238 so-called depleted uranium bullets and shells were fired from A-10 aircraft, attack helicopters and tanks, littering the landscape with radioactive debris. There exists the possibility that the US forces will once again test their latest military technologies on Iraq. On November 15, 1995, at a meeting of the Nuclear Weapons Council Standing Safety Committee in the US, a request was made to accelerate the completion date of the B61-11 to December 1996. The B 61-11 is the nuclear version of the deep-penetrating bomb, destroying its intended target underground by means of a nuclear explosion. it was developed and deployed without congressional approval despite assurances that no new nuclear weapons were being developed in the US. There are other tactical nuclear weapons in the B-61 seies, for example, the B-61 models 3,4,and 10 that are already deployed in NATO countries and at bases in Turkey, the country of closest proximity to Iraq. According to Professor Paul Rogers of Bradford University, the B61-11 was specifically designed to destroy the deepest and most hardened of underground bunkers, which the conventional bunker-busting bombs mentioned recently in the press are incapable of destroying. The dangers of such a weapon include shock waves leading to seismic activity and the release of high level radioactive elements. There is a tradition of covering up the use of radioactive weapons. The public did not find out about the use of U-238 'depleted uranium'weapons until after the Gulf War. Their use was discovered because of 'friendly fire' incidents, when allied tanks mistakenly fired U-238 projectiles at other allied tanks. Presently, the US military is monitoring the radioactive breakdown of depleted uranium shrapnel lodged inside the bodies of US troops. Depleted uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. There is now a fivefold increase of cancers in Iraq. Depleted uranium weaponry have been condemned as weapons of mass destruction by the United Nations Sub-Commission for the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. (SC 1997-36). The US has not ruled out the possibility of using the new earth penetrating B61-11 bomb that can be attached to a B2 bomber or is light enough to be carried on F16 aircraft. Recent history has shown that previously unheard-of weapon systems have been used, and in the confusion and immediacy of warfare, circumstances lead to uncontrolled excalation and accidents. THE PUBLIC HAS A RIGHT TO KNOW WHETHER THESE TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS, DESIGNED TO EXPLODE AT ONLY 100 FEET UNDERGROUND, WILL BE DEPLOYED. It is not the right of powerful countries to test their new weapons systems on Third World Countries, or on those countries that are considered 'rogue' states today, but that were economic and strategic partners in the recent past. And it is clear that civilians - men, women, and children - will be killed, despite claims of new, 'accurate' weapons being used. It is not the right of powerful countries to use their military might to apply pressure on the timetable of negotiations when so much is at stake. The Iraqi people are desperate; 1.2 million children, according to UNICEF, have died as a result of sanctions. _______________________________________________________________ A Comment: That the murderous labors of the merchants of death can reach the point where humans-----even after the unconscionable and godless horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the massive tagedy of Chernobyl that showered with nuclear fallout all Europe, and the disastrous use of depleted uranium shells in the Gulf War that made Iraq radioactive and U.S. servicemen living vegetables, suffering and dying from the still denied "Gulf War Syndrome"-----are willing and capable of planning, building, deploying, and using new and ever new versions of the nuclear holocaust, is more than mind-boggling and such a shocking piece of news that we only hope it cannot be true. However, the greed for gain that rules our hearts makes everybody blind and insane, and if U.S. politics is truly what it seems, and the absolutely reckless use of nuclear energy, even for purposes of mass destruction, is as rampant in the minds of U.S. planners and military people as is undeniably the case, not only our own American future, but future of all mankind may be doomed. It is truly unfathomable that humanity is incapable of learning one simple truism----one for which even the wild beast of the forest have a much better understanding-----the basic law of physics, that "action is followed by reaction". Is it not clear nowadays that whatever we do to others, it will surely come back to hit us? That we cannot wantonly poison the planet, without-----dying? That we cannot throw bombs upon other people, without getting hit by bombs ourselves? That throwing nukes upon "rogue nations" (what a racist, fascist term----how shall then others call us, Americans----subhuman, biestly, insane savages, perhaps?) will only make those nations, or others, do the same-----to us?? Are we truly so insane, so maddened with power, oppression, inhumanity, and greed, that we are determined to go down the road to mutually assured destruction? Have we not understood yet what our opponents are capable of doing? "When will we ever learn?" ***************************************************************** 5 [toeslist] [Fwd: Jihad: The ultimate thermonuclear bomb] Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 00:11:43 -0500 (CDT) Friends, greetings.The enclosed piece contains an interview with a very knowledgeable Pakistani Muslim about Jihad; something it is necessary for us to understand. I found it educative. Thought you may find it of interest. With kind regards. r ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Get your FREE credit report with a FREE CreditCheck Monitoring Service trial http://us.click.yahoo.com/Gi0tnD/bQ8CAA/ySSFAA/NJYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: toeslist-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Return-Path: Received: from kashi.ghen.net (admin.wwwcorp.com [209.235.108.130] (may be forged)) by mail.rpi.edu (8.11.3/8.11.3) with ESMTP id f9CGDdA109284 for ; Fri, 12 Oct 2001 12:13:39 -0400 Received: (from listserv@localhost) by kashi.ghen.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id JAA20083; Fri, 12 Oct 2001 09:42:29 -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: dxa4@email.psu.edu Message-Id: Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 10:22:04 -0400 From: Dinesh Agrawal Subject: Jihad: The ultimate thermonuclear bomb Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" X-Loop: owner-ofbjp-w@ofbjp.org To: ofbjp-w@ofbjp.org X-URL: http://www.ofbjp.org/ofbjp-w Reply-To: ofbjp-w@ofbjp.org X-Mailing-List: ofbjp-w@ofbjp.org Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CJ10Df01.html ASIA TIMES ONLINE (HONG KONG), OCT 10, 2001 THE ROVING EYE JIHAD: 'THE ULTIMATE THERMONUCLEAR BOMB' By Pepe Escobar ISLAMABAD - Arif Jamal, born in Lahore into a traditional Punjabi family, is arguably the leading Asian expert on jihad. He was educated in Pakistan, France and the US. He is married and lives in Islamabad, where he works as a consultant for leading media organizations in Europe and in Pakistan. Although he describes himself as a journalist, he is also a scholar. For the past three years Arif Jamal has been engaged in monumental research that will yield at least four books - all of them related to jihad. "Jihad" is now the supreme mantra in Pakistan's tribal areas after the beginning of American strikes on Afghanistan. Jamal is fond of remembering a certain scene at the White House in the mid-'80s, when Ronald Reagan - with his unfliching Californian eye for drama - was receiving a bunch of bearded and rugged frontier characters in the Oval Office: they were the Afghan mujahideen fighting the mighty Red Army of the "Evil Empire", the Soviet Union. Reagan on that occasion proclaimed the mujahideen "the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers". Among these mujahideen a place could easily be found for a certain Arab millionaire named Osama bin Laden. Today Osama bin Laden - formerly the "moral equivalent" of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson - on the receiving end of America's fury. History can be very fond of symmetries. In the '80s, the Afghans were fighting a jihad against an Evil Empire, financed in part by America's CIA. At the beginning of the 21st century, Afghans are about to engage in a jihad against America itself. As Jamal puts it: "Now it's time for America to pay the price for the jihad in Afghanistan." Asia Times Online: What is the true meaning of jihad? Jamal: Jihad literally means "holy struggle". But in common parlance, when people use the word jihad, it means jihad in the way of Allah - or "the holy war". Prophet Muhamad stressed a lot the concept of jihad all his life. And he fought jihad more than 20 times in his own life. The real objective of jihad in the life of Prophet Muhamad was to defeat the infidels and establish an Islamic state in Mecca, Medina and the Arabian island later on. This essential meaning of jihad remains even today. The main objective of jihad even today is to defeat the infidels and establish Islamic states all over the world. Muslims believe that the Earth belongs to Allah and they should establish the system of Allah on Allah's Earth. The infidel system must go. ATol: What are the rewards of waging jihad? Jamal: Prophet Muhamad also offered a lot of incentives for those who would wage jihad in their lives. The mujahideen were assured of entering Paradise before the first drop of their blood fell to earth. The Holy Scriptures of Islam also say that houris [beautiful virgins of the Koranic Paradise] come down to Earth to take the spirit of the mujahid who is about to die before the first drop of his blood falls to earth. The martyrs are promised 72 houris in Paradise. These houris are more beautiful than all the beauties of the world combined. I have studied more than 600 wills of Pakistani mujahideen who were fighting in Kashmir. There is hardly any will that escapes this concept. All the mujahideen have mentioned the houris as an important incentive for waging jihad. The Paradise with houris is the prime objective of these mujahideen. ATol: What is the Koranic view of "infidels" - especially Christians and Jews? Jamal: In the beginning Prophet Muhamad did try to evolve alliances with Jews of the Arabian island against the nonbelievers. But they did not prove long-lasting. And ultimately the Jews, Christians and nonbelievers were bracketed in the same fashion by the Prophet. Prophet Muhamad wanted to establish an Islamic State in the Arabian island. It was not possible by evolving alliances with non-Muslims in those days. The Holy Koran is very clear about Jews and Christians; it very clearly says in several places that Jews and Christians cannot be friends with Muslims. The mujahideen today are propagating this concept from every available pulpit. Prophet Muhamad also asked to throw Christians and Jews out of the Arabian island. And this is the foundation of the concept of jihad of Osama bin Laden. Osama's contention is that it is un-Islamic to have the Christian and Jewish army of the United States of America in the Arabian island. He wants them out. Many of his close associates say that if the American troops leave Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden can be convinced to appear before an Islamic court of law. This shows that his jihad is based on the sayings of Prophet Muhamad. A big problem is that jihad has intensified the hatred between Muslims and Christians and Jews. ATol: Could we say that Osama's jihad is a misinterpretation of jihad according to Prophet Muhamad? Jamal: I don't think it is a misinterpretation of the Islamic concept of jihad. It may be a narrow interpretation of the concept. ATol: So Osama's jihad in thesis only applies to Saudi Arabia, it would not apply to Palestine and Israel. Jamal: Basically, the important thing is the presence of Christians and Jews of the American army on Saudi soil. But with the passage of time his jihad has also assumed many other aspects. It has come to be a jihad to liberate the whole world from the infidels, and establish an Islamic system all over the world. The practical problem is once you start jihad or guerrilla warfare you cannot come back to normal life. Your interest lies in the continuation of jihad. ATol: Do great Islamic religious authorities like grand muftis, for instance, agree with the concept of a global jihad? Jamal: I think no Muslim on Earth would disagree with the concept of jihad, because if they did they would become infidels. Most Muslims don't take part in practical jihad. Even moderate Muslims would not disagree with the concept of jihad. They may disagree with the attacks on the World Trade Center, but they do not disagree with the concept of jihad as such. Most would certainly like to see the establishment of an Islamic state all over the world. Most Sunni Muslims condemned the Iranian revolution which established a Shia Islamic state. This is a sectarian problem. Shias believe they waged a real Islamic revolution, and Iran is the only Islamic state at the moment. Sunnis don't believe so. The Wahhabis, for example, believe that Saudi Arabia is the only Islamic state in the world. As I said, Islam is a very sectarian religion. Different sects interpret different concepts according to their own wishes. ATol: The concept of jihad itself was elaborated in seventh century Arabia. In your opinion, what is the relevance of such a concept to the 21st century? Jamal: Jihad as we know it now started only after the CIA and ISI [Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency] started jihad in Afghanistan. Before that, jihad was a dormant concept, and Muslims were waging mostly nationalistic struggles. In the last two decades, jihad has come to mean "armed struggle". After the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European empire, jihad has been adopted by the have-nots in Muslim countries. And these have-nots are waging a sort of class struggle against the Western haves. Jihad has become a thermonuclear bomb in the hands of the have-nots in Muslim states. So if Marx were alive today he would say that the new class struggle is the Islamic have-nots against the Western haves Sum Probably Marx would not agree with this because he was in favor of a class struggle without the involvement of religion Sum But this is one form of class war, yes. ATol: Who is entitled to start and wage a jihad? Do you need special qualifications for it? Jamal: According to the Holy Scriptures, it is the Commander of the Faithful - the Amir-ul-Momineen - who is entitled to declare jihad. But in the absence of a commander-in-chief, any Muslim can wage jihad. The Holy Scriptures say that jihad will continue till the Day of Judgement. This means that the mujahideen will not revert to ordinary life. You cannot simply abandon jihad. Once you get training to wage jihad, and you wage jihad, you only change locations, but you have to continue the struggle. That is why the mujahideen from Afghanistan were directed to Kashmir. ATol: So how do you internalize jihad? Apparently once you start waging jihad, your whole world-view is subordinated to jihad. Everything else is not important. Even if you have to kill innocent people, this is subordinated to the higher purpose of jihad. Jamal: The end justifies the means. When you start jihad, it starts dominating you, because it gives you power over the rest of the world. All other things become subordinated to jihad. Even the concept of Islam boils down to jihad for the mujahideen. All other Islamic concepts - even when they are important - they become subordinated to jihad. Jihad becomes the ultimate end even for the Islamic belief system. These mujahideen ignore many, many important Islamic concepts. For example, Prophet Muhamad said that marriage is important for Muslims. It is "half of your belief", according to Him. But when I read the wills of mujahideen, I find they refuse to get married because they want to get married in Paradise. ATol: So most mujahideen are single. Jamal: Yes, most mujahideen prefer to get married in Paradise. Apart from jihad, they do practice namaz (the ritual of five prayers a day) regularly, they very regularly fast, but they ignore other concepts of Islam. They say jihad is the summit of Islam. So if you have found the summit, you have found the whole thing. This is what they are taught. They believe jihad will bring them honor in the world, they will become powerful. The heroes of the mujahideen have always been generals. No Muslim scientist, or intellectual, or artist has ever become a hero. It's a military tradition that dominates the mujahideen. ATol: Some influential Muslim scholars say that the great problem with Islam is that unlike Christianity, it did not go through a Renaissance and a Reformation. Jamal: Something to this effect has been said by the Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi. Regarding your question, I think this is an influence of Christian scholars on Muslim scholars. I think the West developed only after it abandoned Christianity and adopted science. It did not develop because it had Renaissance and Reformation. They developed only after they abandoned Jewish and Christian dogmas and adopted science as a way of life. I think this is the only solution for Muslim societies as well. Unless they adopt science and technology, they will not be able to fight the West. ATol: How many different faces may jihad adopt? Jamal: Jihad can take many forms. The concept of many Pakistani organizations of mujahideen is the liberation of Kashmir from Hindu domination. Many of them say that if India quits Kashmir they will stop jihad. ATol: Could we make a comparison with the jihad in Afghanistan in the '80s? Many might have said that after the Soviets were expelled, they would quit jihad; instead they started fighting with each other. Jamal: Certainly this will happen in Kashmir as well if India quits, because Islam is very sectarian in the Indian subcontinent. All the jihadi and Islamist parties in the subcontinent are based on sects. They cooperate with one another for the sake of convenience. But essentially they do not consider other sects as the "right" sects. ATol: How do you describe the current jihad against Shias inside Afghanistan itself? Jamal: When the CIA started jihad in Afghanistan, Shias in Afghanistan also participated in the struggle against the Soviets. But later the anti-Shia forces took over jihad - and the jihad started eating its own children. The Shias in Afghanistan are mostly concentrated in the Hazarajat region. They are also slightly spread out in the west. This phenomenon has international aspects as well. One reason is the Saudi influence on the Afghan jihad. You remember the Saudis were matching America dollar for dollar. And Saudis had a lot of influence over the mujahideen in Afghanistan. This influence was one of the important factors which turned the mujahideen and the Taliban against the Shias in Afghanistan. The second reason is related to internal Pakistani politics. In Pakistan, Zia-ul-Haq was seeking a support base among the Sunnis of this country. And he strenghtened a lot of Sunni organizations and parties, a lot of them Deobandi - which eventually turned against the Shias because they were also receiving money from the Saudis and other Middle Eastern shaykhdom (kingdoms). Since the Middle Eastern monarchs were against Iran, these parties also turned against Shia in Pakistan. The Afghan factor multiplied the tension between Pakistani Shias and the Deobandi organizations. ATol: Why are the Taliban are so fiercely anti-Shia? Jamal: Shias have always been part of Muslim societies. They are a significant part of most Islamic countries in the world. Normally Shias are associated with Iran only, but there are many other countries with a sizable Shia majority, like Syria or Iraq. In Pakistan, 10 percent of the population is Shia. But in Afghanistan, when the Taliban came to power, they represented a certain Islamic sect - the Deobandis. And Deobandi is the most aggressively and ferociously anti-Shia sect. This hatred is rooted in history and politics. In 18th century Lucknow (in India), the rulers , the Muslim rajahs, were Shias, whereas the populaton was Sunni. When the Deoband movement emerged, they used the class hatred of common people in Lucknow and the environs against the Shia rulers. From that point in history, the tension between the Deoband movement and Shias started rising. But it never took a bloody shape until the military regime of Zia had to depend on the Deobandi organizations and parties in Pakistan to prop up and support his government. ATol: Can you mention some examples of Deobandi parties and organizations? Which ones are considered terrorist organizations? Jamal: The important Deobandi political parties are the three factions of the JUI (Jamiat Ulema Islam) - directed by Fazlur Rahman, Samiul Haq and Maulana Ajmal Qadri. The other national parties are Sipah-I-Sahaba Pakistan ("The Soldiers of the Companions of Prophet Muhamad"), and there are also four Deobandi organizations involved in the jihad in Kashmir. One is Harakat-ul-Mujahideen - which has been designated a terrorist organization by the US. The others are Harkatul-Jihad-al-Islami, Jaish Muhamad and Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen. The Taliban, of course, are also Deobandis. ATol: Is there any substantial difference between Deoband practiced by the Taliban and Deoband practiced by these religious parties in Pakistan? Jamal: There's very little difference. In Pakistan they cannot practice their version of Islam the way the Taliban can in Afghanistan. Given freedom in Pakistan, they would behave in the same way as the Taliban do. And this is exactly what they are striving for. And their influence is of course increasing day by day. ATol: In terms of percentage, how big are they? Jamal: It's very difficult to estimate. It's an important minority, maybe around 10 percent, spread all over the country. Once again, it's important to say that Islam in the subcontinent is very sectarian. The Islamic sects in the subcontinent are as well defined as the castes are defined for Hindus. All the sects hate one another. Deobands believe that Shias are not Muslims. This has come to be their fundamental principle. The Brelevis - which are the largest sect in Pakistan and India - believe Deobandis are not Muslims. Brelevis also believe that Wahhabis are not Muslims. It's a war of all sects against all sects. They could unite sometimes against a bigger enemy - like the United States. But given a relaxed atmosphere, they are at each other's throats. ATol: Could we talk about different manifestations of jihad - in Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya, maybe Southeast Asia? Jamal: I believe jihad has been spreading since the Afghan jihad started. Before that, the nationalist struggles were mere nationalist struggles even when Muslims were involved. In the case of Palestine, it was not jihad unless the jihad in Afghanistan started in 1980. In the last two decades, jihad has been spreading because the Muslims have found a very lethal way of combating their enemies - and expressing themselves - thanks to the CIA. The reasons and the causes of the spread of jihad are certainly valid - but it is an irrational way of reacting to those real problems in life. Hamas did not come into being in the early days of the Palestinian struggle. It was only after the Palestinians learned armed jihad in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the Philippines, the Abu Sayyaf group is very much linked with organizations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Chechnya as well, the Saudis are very much involved - through Wahhabi organizations in Pakistan. There is an international network of jihadi movements which has come into being. All these organizations all over the world are becoming closer and closer linked to one another. They give all kinds of assistance to other jihadi organizations, and civil society is unable to resist them. Most of these jihadi movements are one way or another linked to jihadi movements in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And both countries have become a source of training, arms and ammunition to these organizations. There is a respite sometimes, because of some government policies, but once these policies go away the jihadis re-emerge. One of the latest examples is in Burma. The jihad in Burma subsided when there was an arms embargo by the Huseena Wajid government in Bangladesh, and the price of a Kalashnikov went up three times - but now the jihadis can again support the Burmese mujahideen against the Buddhist government of Burma. These mujahideen are concentrated in the Burmese province of Arakan. A sizable number of Burmese fighters came to Pakistan; here they collect donations, and get religious military training. ATol: Is there a Javanese connection to the jihad, or maybe from Aceh? Jamal: I haven't come across any visible link between Pakistani and Afghani jihad organizations and Indonesian or Malaysian mujahideen. But some Indonesian and Malaysian mujahideen got training in Pakistan and Afghanistan. There are no significant organizational ties - as yet. ATol: Could we explain the attacks on America as organized by a coalition of jihadi organizations - with no Super-Brain giving the executive orders? Jamal: Yes, in the sense that there are mujahideen from many countries involved in this operation. But we have to wait for the details. It is certainly not the handiwork of one organization, one group or one individual. If Osama and the Al-Qaeda are involved, they are not alone. It was certainly a collective effort. ATol: Let's talk about the training of a jihadi. How do you form a jihadi? What do they learn in those training camps? Jamal: In 1980, when the CIA and ISI started jihad in Afghanistan, they concentrated on training the Afghans in the art of guerrilla warfare. There was very little religious indoctrination. According to a former ISI officer, they trained something like 80,000 Afghans in the art of guerrilla warfare during the '80s. But after some time they found out that military training was not enough. So the CIA and the ISI - with the help of Saudi money - started establishing madrassas (Koranic schools) all over the country, for Afghans and Pakistanis, and certainly along the Pakistan-Afghan border. These madrassas produced hardened Islamist guerrillas. The early fighters were freedom fighters. But they were slowly replaced by the Islamist guerrillas. And that is why when the mujahideen came to power in Afghanistan after the overthrow of Dr Najibullah's government in 1992, they could not sustain power. The students from these madrassas took over the government in the name of the Taliban Islamic movement. ATol: So they were the second generation of jihadis. Jamal: Yes - and these madrassa-trained students were the best jihadis. The CIA and the ISI set up many training camps inside Afghanistan and in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan. When the jihad in Afghanistan came to an end, these guerrillas needed employment somewhere. And luckily for them, the Kashmir front was opened. So most of them were diverted to Kashmir. Kashmir was a nationalist cause for Pakistan. And Pakistanis responded to it very liberally - unlike in Afghanistan, where the cause was not a Pakistani cause. Kashmir was a Pakistani cause. So they set up scores of training camps. My own calculations show there are somewhere near half a million military-trained Islamist guerrillas in this country. ATol: How many of these are operating right now in Kashmir? Jamal: At any one time, there are between 3,000-4,000 Islamist guerrillas inside Indian-controlled Kashmir. These guerrillas are full-time guerrillas. Military training is only a part of their syllabus. Most of the time they learn about the holy scriptures of Islam and the rituals of Islam. The stress in the training camps is on religious training rather than military training. Once you train somebody to give his life in the way of Allah, it compensates for lack of training. This is why 3,000-4,000 guerrillas are holding more than half a million Indian troops in Kashmir. And the Indian army does not seem to be winning. If they were only mercenaries fighting for money, they would not have done so well. It's their Islamist belief, it's their desire to establish the sovereignty of Allah all over the world which keeps them going. ATol: So they don't study anything else apart from the Koran - no history of the subcontinent, no math, no languages? Jamal: Certainly not. They read the Holy Koran and other religious texts like the sayings of the Holy Prophet. These organizations also produce a lot of literature of their own. They are encouraged to read that literature as well. Once the students finish their training they come back to society and start proselytizing. They don't sit back at home. So half a million guerrillas in Pakistan are very much active in imparting to others the Islamist solution to their problems. ATol: What does the military training consist of? And who are the instructors? Jamal: Most of the instructors are Pakistanis. There are some Muslim deserters from the Indian army as well. The concept is not to wage jihad only. The important thing is to get prepared to fight jihad if one has to. That is why all the trained mujahideen do not go to Kashmir or elsewhere. They get training because the Koran orders Muslims to remain always prepared to fight against the infidels. They usually follow a basic military course of 21 days - to get minimum training in Kalashnikov-handling, hand grenades, ambushing. You come back to get advanced training only when you are planning to practically wage jihad. Even those who have minimum guerrilla training are better fighters than the Pakistani policemen. And the advanced guerrillas are certainly better than most conventional armies. The proof is what is going on in Indian-held Kashmir. ATol: Have you had any reports of a massive transfer of jihadis from Kashmir to wage jihad against America in Afghanistan? Jamal: No, there is no mass transfer to Afghanistan. There are only four organizations who are engaged both in Kashmir and Afghanistan. But they have different agendas for Kashmir and Afghanistan. Those who fight in Kashmir are not necessarily involved in Afghanistan, and vice-versa. In Kashmir the fighters are mostly Punjabis - and Punjabis have proved themselves to be very good guerrilla fighters. In Afghanistan they need Pashtun fighters, because the Pashtuns do not like guerrilla warfare. They feel they are being cowards, because they attack the enemy from behind. They have the tradition of coming out in the open and fighting the enemy. Most of the Pashtun fighters in Kashmir failed and died: they could not match the Indian army because they came into the open. Only Deobandi organizations are involved both in Kashmir and Afghanistan. The Taliban expelled all other jihadi organizations from Afghanistan when they came into power - because they consider only Deobandis as good Muslims. ATol: What is the future direction of jihad? Jamal: Jihad has tremendously affected Pakistani society. With increasing poverty, most people have very little to do with their lives. In this uneducated society, they have found a solution - an irrational solution - to their problems. They don't want to labor to find better solutions. They think if they wage jihad all their problems will be solved. It is very interesting: all their problems are worldly, and the solution is spiritual. But when they join jihad, they forget about their worldly problems. The Kalashnikov in their hands gives them respect, power and raison d'etre. Somebody who has nothing in life and nothing to lose, who has been for many years idling away his time in the streets of a Pakistani village, suddenly finds a cause to live for in a jihadi camp. And that gives him not only spritual power but also practical power over one of the biggest armies in the world. He is almost intoxicated with that power. And he will do everything to retain that power. These guerrillas very often praise themselves for winning against the Soviet Union - a former superpower. They have turned the Indian army - a big conventional army - into a wreck. And they believe they can defeat the sole superpower today - the United States. And they believe they are the intermediaries who can establish the rule of Allah on Allah's Earth. ATol: Assuming the scenario of the fall of the Taliban government - which is now the supreme desire of the "fantastic coalition", as George W Bush put it, do you think jihad will be waged against the government inside Pakistan? Jamal: In Afghanistan there is no viable alternative for the Taliban at the moment. The Afghan king, Zahir Shah, has been away from the country for more than 25 years now. He doesn't know anything about today's Afghanistan. He ruled Afghanistan in different times. The Northern Alliance is itself divided. It can speak for small minorities such as the Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Shias - but they cannot provide strong government in Afghanistan. The removal of Taliban will create a vacuum, which will ultimately lead to further bloodshed. In Pakistan, where the state is stronger, there is every possibility of bloodshed, but not on the same scale, at least in the beginning. The Pakistani jihadi organizations have an enemy before them: the United States and their collaborators in Pakistan. Ultimately Pakistani jihadi and Islamist organizations won't agree to form a government because they hate one another more than they hate the biggest enemy - the United States. So there is more of a possibility of an eternal clash among the jihadi and Islamist parties than jihadis against the Pakistani government. ______________________________________________________________________ To send mail to ofbjp-w, use the address: ofbjp-w@ofbjp.org Website: http://www.ofbjp.org/ofbjp-w ***************************************************************** 6 Small emergency at Leningrad NPP One of the giant reactors at Leningrad nuclear power plant was partly shut down Monday after several failures in the valve-system of a generator. Thomas Nilsen, 2001-10-16 12:02 Leningrad nuclear power plant, the notorious safety troublemaker outside St Petersburg, once again lost control over one of its dangerous RBMK reactors. Monday afternoon, the safety system of reactor no. 4 forced the power output from the reactor to be reduced to the half. The reactor in question is similar to the one that exploded and burned in Chernobyl back in April 1986. A serious accident at Leningrad nuclear power plant could cause enormous radiation troubles for the Baltic and in worst case, the entire northern Europe. The safety problems, along with the lack of safe storage for the spent nuclear fuel and the highly radioactive waste are the main reasons why the Bellona Foundation, along with many other international experts, recommends the closure of this particular nuclear power plant. A broken valve in turbo generator no. 7 at reactor no. 4 caused Monday's failure. While the workers on duty did their very best to repair the valve, the result was only more broken valves in the reactor's system. The RBMK reactors at Leningrad nuclear power plant are criticised because there are so many thousands of small pipes and valves inside the reactor core. This makes it difficult to locate the troubles as it comes. The press-service of Leningrad NPP says the troubles should be repaired by 24 hours. In the meantime the reactor has to operate at half capacity, less than 500 MWt. Radiation levels This is the offical realtime ASCRO data monitoring system for radiation in the in 30-km observation area around Leningrad NPP. Leningrad NPP operates four reactors of the RBMK-1000 type. These are the oldest civilian reactors in Russia of the Chernobyl type. The first one started its operation in 1973, while Monday's trouble reactor is the newest one from 1980. According to the official monitoring, the radiation levels in the area around Leningrad NPP are normal at all 23 sites where on-line measurements are updated today. The link in the box to the left goes directly to this official on-line measurement system. Bellona's St Petersburg office currently works on a energy-proposal for the region, also aimed to look into energy production that by time can replace the need for Leningrad NPP. 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 ***************************************************************** 7 We shall not be moved Gregory Pasko, an investigative journalist who worked for the Pacific Fleet's newspaper, was arrested on 20 November 1997 by the FSB and charged with high treason for his writing about the nuclear safety issues in the Russian Pacific Fleet. The state secret experts have left Vladivostok, while the Pasko-trial will tread water until early November. For all that, the defence is more confident than ever. Jon Gauslaa, 2001-10-15 20:57 At a recent press conference Pasko's defender, Ivan Pavlov, said that the expert-interrogations showed that both the technical side and the juridical side of the expert-evaluation are untenable, and that it should be easy for the Pacific Fleet Court to see this. 'We shall not be moved' -- It took the experts three days to discredit not only their own work, but also the phrase 'state secrets', said Pavlov. They mixed up technical terms and answered the same questions with both "'yes" and "no". The attorney also revealed that the experts tried to defend their position with statements like "I have blackout"; "I have a bad sight"; and "We had problems with our computer". -- When being questioned about a sentence they claim contains state secrets, they even themselves admitted that their conclusion was 'nonsense'. -- To put it short, the experts showed an astonishing lack of knowledge, said Pavlov. Besides, the legal foundation of their evaluation can under no circumstances form the basis for a conviction, as it is based on the secret decree 055, which according to a recent ruling by the Military Supreme Court has no legal value. -- Thus, if our opponents limit themselves to use only legal means, they will not be able to move us one inch, concluded Pavlov. Experts producing blunt smiles One of the incidents Pasko is accused with is that he allegedly has drawn a sketch over a technical naval base, which would help the Japanese to make the base 'subject to terrorist attacks'. Although the sketch is inaccurate and outdated, and American personnel have visited the base in question on several occasions, the experts still claim that the sketch reveals state secrets. However, they also claim that if the base mentioned were blown up, the whole Primorsky region and also most of 'the country that ordered the sketch' would be wiped out. When the experts were asked why the Japanese would want to destroy their own country, they could give no proper answer. -- They were only able to produce blunt smiles and claim that the sketch according to decree 055:96 contains state secrets about the location of secret units and about the presence of nuclear fuel, said Pasko's 'public defender' Aleksandr Tkatchenko of the Russian Pen-club. Grigory Pasko was arrested in November 1997 on charges of espionage. He was acquitted in July 1999, but convicted of 'abuse of official authority' and freed under an amnesty. Seeking a full acquittal, Pasko appealed, but so did the prosecution, insisting he was a spy. In November 2000 the Military Supreme Court sent the case back for a re-trial at the Pacific Fleet Court. The re-trial started on July 11th 2001, and will resume on November 1st. The charges against Pasko are based on the evaluation of the state secret experts, whose main legal instrument has been the Russian Ministry of Defence's secret decree no. 055:1996. 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 ***************************************************************** 8 Osama tried to obtain nuclear material: German TV Expressindia.com > Top stories > WorldWednesday, October 17, 2001 Berlin, October 15: The al-Qaeda terrorist network tried to obtain weapons-grade nuclear material with the help of the Russian mafia, the German ARD television network says in a report to be broadcast on Monday evening. Friedrich Steinhaeuser, an arms control specialist with California's Stanford University, said in an interview to ARD that an attempt to obtain enriched uranium was foiled in Prague. "We know that there were very definite attempts by al-Qaeda to obtain nuclear material through middlemen and representatives of Russian organised crime and that these conversations are believed to have taken place in Europe and are also being investigated by European security services," said Steinhaeusler. He said several kilograms of highly-enriched uranium of Russian origin had been seized in Prague in connection with the attempted deal. The gang involved had worked with middlemen from Belarus, the Czech Republic, Germany and Russia, according to the report. Steinhaeusler said in the report that a Stanford University survey showed that nuclear material was not kept under sufficient security by a number of states. bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network have been blamed by US investigators for the September 11 attack that devastated the World Trade Centre and damaged the Pentagon, leaving about 5,500 people dead. © 2001: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. All rights ***************************************************************** 9 DOE Sells Lithium Compound It Stored for Decades EarthVision Environmental News PIKETON, OH, October 12, 2001 - Millions of pounds of a lithium compound has been stored at a Department of Energy (DOE) site since the early 1960s but instead of spending $16 million to repackage and continue storage of the material, the Department sold the entire stock for $5.9 million. DOE announced that the lithium hydroxide monohydrate, a nonradioactive material, was originally used in a process to make materials for nuclear weapons in the 1950s and early 1960s. When these operations ended, the material was sent for storage. This sale and removal also avoids future storage and repackaging costs associated with this material. "Obviously, we are very pleased to complete this project," said Sherri Robinson, Portsmouth DOE Site Manager. "By not having to repackage this material, we have saved more than $16 million." According to DOE, about 70 percent of the lithium compound was sold to TOXCO, a California-based company, while the balance was bought by five other companies. The material will be used for a wide variety of uses, including pharmaceuticals, lithium batteries, and as an additive in concrete for road construction. In addition, DOE notes that no waste was generated during the removal of the lithium compounds. The buyers recycled the drums and oak pallets were sent to an Ohio-base recycling facility. ***************************************************************** 10 Kursk docking starts soon Background information and news about the numerous accidents and incidents that involve the nuclear vessels in the Northern Fleet. (Murmansk:) Kursk will be on the surface after the docking operation is completed. Viktor Khabarov, 2001-10-15 18:33 The head of the Northern Fleet Vyacheslav Popov said that no deadlines have been set for the docking of Kursk. "The complicated technical solutions are to be implemented, but we are no longer dependent on the weather conditions as we were during the lifting and transportation of Kursk. The weather influences the operation, but it is not a decisive factor. It is a different situation now, compared to when the submarine was still on the seabed, at which point a strong wind easily could make the situation critical and dangerous. At present, the bad weather can just prolong the time of the docking, but will not influence the result of the operation. So, much attention has been paid to the safety of the works at this final stage, that we will not allow any rush" the admiral said. Now Russian and foreign specialists are preparing for the docking. Both of the pontoons are being fastened to the barge Giant-4. Rear-admiral Mikhail Barskov said that the Russian side made a schedule stipulating the preparation and docking of the pontoons to no more than 5 days. The Mammoet representatives agreed, but insisted that all the works should be carried out in daylight. The pontoons can maximum be immersed 15 meters down, then they will be fastened to the barge and the water pumped out. The radiation monitoring will take place on all stages of the operation in order to follow all safety measures. 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 ***************************************************************** 11 Israel Finds Radiological Backpack Bomb RICHARD SALE, UPI Terrorism Correspondent, United Press International, October 14, 2001 WASHINGTON, Oct 14, 2001 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Israeli security last month arrested a man linked to suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden armed with a radiological backpack bomb, as he attempted to enter Israel from the Palestinian Territories via a border checkpoint at Ramallah, according to U.S. government officials. The arrest took place during the last week of September, according to one knowledgeable official who spoke on condition of anonymity. He declined to give the exact date of arrest. Two other sources interviewed by UPI confirmed the incident, but also declined to give further details. "People know how to walk a dog back," one said, meaning that relating too exact an account could lead to the identification of the source of the information. Regarding the arrest, a U.S. government official said: "There was only one individual involved. He was from Pakistan." Another source said U.S. officials believed that the suspect had probably gotten to the territories via Lebanon. Information on the arrest went immediately to U.S. President Bush and a close circle of advisors, another U.S. official said. He described the appearance and character of the top-secret report circulated among the Cabinet members and signed by each official present. Former Pentagon terrorism expert, Peter Probst, described a radiological bomb as a device with a small explosive core that is encased in radioactive material. "It would not kill a great many people, but it would contaminate a considerable area with radiation," he said. A U.S. government expert said that the weapon captured by Israel was a backpack device that CIA officials learned about through Russian intelligence agents in place in 1995. He emphasized it was not a so-called nuclear suitcase bomb. The CIA had intelligence reports from senior Arab intelligence officials alleging that in October 1998 bin Laden had obtained one or two nuclear suitcase weapons from a Central Asian republic in return for $30 million in cash and two tons of heroin worth $70 million - a deal brokered by the Chechen mafia. Russian Gen. Aleksandr Ivanovich Lebed, a former national security advisor to then-President Yeltsin acknowledged publicly in 1997 that several nuclear suitcase bombs had disappeared from Russia's arsenal. But former CIA counter-terrorism official Vince Cannistraro has no patience with such accounts: "All talk of bin Laden having a nuclear suitcase bomb is crap," he said. Cannistraro could not be reached for comment about the backpack device. Nuclear suitcase bombs were designed for Soviet Speznatz or special operations troops to assault and destroy NATO command and control bunkers in Europe in the event of a NATO-Soviet war. The devices could not be detonated without matching codes held in strictest security by Moscow, a former CIA official said. Backpack bombs have no such codes, but they were also designed for Spetznetz forces and have such an intricate and complex system of activation that the ability of a terrorist to detonate one "would be incredibly limited," according to one U.S. government official. "There is such a complicated sequence you have to perform that some terrorist isn't going to be able to get it to work. You have to be very highly trained," an intelligence official agreed, describing the chances that the device could have been activated as "practically miniscule." Probst is nevertheless convinced that radiological bombs are still a danger for New York City. "Bin Laden is fascinated by Wall Street. My fear is that he will attempt to smuggle in some "dirty" bomb that wouldn't kill many people but would dangerously contaminate the area," he said. Copyright 2001 by United Press International. Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Bid4Assets, Inc. ***************************************************************** 12 Tramp's nuclear secret The Times MONDAY OCTOBER 15 2001 BY PHILIP PANK A TRAMP who lived on a park bench has in death been revealed as a nuclear physicist who participated in pioneering bomb tests. Bernard Downhill, 72, was found ill on the shopping-centre bench where he took up residence five years ago, and died shortly afterwards in hospital. In the 1950s he worked at the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment and in the South Pacific. Relatives said he witnessed at least three nuclear tests. Mr Downhill left his family in the mid-1960s, going overseas before moving to Lancaster, where he became well known. Poems and bouquets dedicated to him were left on the bench after his death. Tony Hennessy, of Lancaster Homeless Action Centre, said: “He was a perfect gentleman.” Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided ***************************************************************** 13 Plan seeks to prepare for wrecks, Flats waste Denver Post.com Jeffrey Leib Denver Post Staff Writer Friday, October 12, 2001 - It's a nightmare scenario: A major accident in the T-REX construction corridor shuts down the interstate and forces emergency responders to weave through traffic to rescue victims. RESPONSE SYSTEM LISTS 3 LEVELS OF T-REX INCIDENTS Fire and police representatives and others have been meeting for months to create an Incident Response plan for the T-REX highway corridor. The concern is that a truck turnover, chemical spill or other major accident could snarl traffic for hours. They've broken down possible incidents as follows: * Level 1 incident - Affects the traveled roadway for less than 30 minutes with either some lane blockages or no blockage. * Level 2 incident - Affects highway traffic flow from 30 minutes to two hours. Includes lane blockages but not full closure of the interstate. Officials establish an incident command center during such an event and they'll consider rerouting traffic off the highway onto alternate routes. They will use electronic message signs on the highway to inform motorists about the incident and possible alternate routes. * Level 3 incident - Causes major congestion for at least two hours, or a full closure of the highway. Officials implement a plan to reroute traffic onto alternate routes. All emergency service agencies in the metro area are notified of this major incident. Others would take up the formidable task of diverting thousands of gridlocked motorists to alternate routes. For months leading up to Sunday night's official start of T-REX, highway officials, law enforcement agencies and contractors for the $1.67 billion project have been crafting an "incident response" plan to deal with emergencies. The plan, not yet finalized, not only must deal with fender-benders - which now can cause significant delays and backups on Interstate 25 - but the shipment of nuclear waste through the corridor. If those shipments get caught in a major traffic jam, the trucks will get police escorts that could take them through residential areas. If there is a major accident or incident that involves grind-to-a-halt congestion for at least two hours or the actual shutdown of the highway, T-REX officials and police and fire agencies will direct backed-up traffic onto alternate roadways. It will not be a pretty sight, Denver police Sgt. Bob Aultman told a recent meeting of the incident response group. "If it's closed for five hours, it is the end of the world as we know it," Aultman said, to laughter from fellow emergency responders. "It will be gridlock down to Trinidad." No true alternate routes Officials have mapped locations of fire and rescue stations and hospital emergency rooms in the T-REX corridor to efficiently coordinate the routes of emergency responders. The challenge will be to clear accidents as quickly and efficiently as possible, Aultman said. If the roadway is so jammed that emergency vehicles can't get through, they may be routed through the cordoned-off construction zone. Greg Fulton, president of the Colorado Motor Carriers Association, which represents the state's trucking companies, agrees that construction will present unique problems to his members and other motorists. "The difficulty and challenge on I-25 is that we do not have any true alternate corridors," Fulton said. "We'd love to see pricing more attractive on E-470," but right now, the highway's tolls are too high for most truckers, he added. Construction on T-REX, which stands for Transportation Expansion Project, starts Sunday with the closing of some I-25 on- and off-ramps in Denver and the narrowing of North Buchtel Boulevard, which parallels a portion of the highway. Waste shipments a concern In all, the project includes 19 miles of highway expansion and light-rail construction on Interstates 25 and 225 and will take five years to complete. In December, contractors will knock down the first bridge, where Franklin Street crosses I-25 in Denver. That could close I-25 in that area for up to three consecutive nights. As many as 10 other bridge demolitions and rebuilds will follow in the coming months and years. Another challenge for area planners is to coordinate the safe transit of hazardous materials - including nuclear waste shipments from Rocky Flats - through the corridor. Since July 1999, at least 200 shipments of plutonium-tainted nuclear waste have traveled through the corridor from Rocky Flats to the federal Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, known as WIPP, near Carlsbad, N.M., said Pat Etchart, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Energy. The waste that Rocky Flats ships to WIPP is a "midlevel" variety that includes clothing, glass, tools and other materials that may have come in contact with plutonium during weapons manufacturing at the Denver-area facility, Etchart said. Rocky Flats was averaging about one shipment a day before they were halted this week when U.S. forces began attacks on Afghanistan. Once they resume, plans eventually call for shipments to increase to 15 to 18 a week. Officials considered getting regulatory approval to divert WIPP shipments around the T-REX corridor during construction - possibly on C-470. But it would have taken too long to get federal approval for such a switch and there likely would have been community opposition since I-25 is designated as a nuclear materials transit corridor but C-470 is not, said Capt. Allan Turner, commander of the Colorado State Patrol's hazardous materials section. Once WIPP shipments resume, federal, state and local officials will closely monitor construction activities so trucks carrying the nuclear waste materials can move optimally through the corridor, Turner said. Cameras, markers planned A combination of new and old technologies could help get traffic flowing again following an accident, the Colorado transportation department and contractors on T-REX say. Officials plan to have dozens of video cameras monitoring the highway project so emergency responders can be notified quickly after an incident. Every 0.1 mile in the corridor soon will be marked so motorists can tell emergency personnel precisely where an accident is located, said T-REX spokeswoman Karen Morales. Officials also will strictly enforce the state's "move-it" law, Morales said. It calls for motorists who are involved in an accident on a divided highway to immediately remove their vehicles from the roadway - if they're drivable, there are no injuries and no drugs or alcohol are involved, she said. The key reason to enforce the move-it law, according to Morales: Every minute a car is left on the roadway results in four or five minutes of additional backup congestion. All contents Copyright 2001 The Denver Post or other copyright ***************************************************************** 14 Mexican lab gets ORNL's used parts KnoxNews: Business By Georgiana Vines, News-Sentinel deputy managing editor MEXICO CITY - Mexico's national nuclear science lab is in mountains that are green, misty and lonely, quite a contrast to the desert valley below teeming with 18.1 million people. The lab is protected by a high fence, its entrance featuring observation decks and gates that are manually operated. Guards open the gates to approaching vehicles, letting drivers and passengers through only when satisfied they have business there. And if visitors look closely between the fringe of the woods and the open space where buildings have been constructed, they can see deer munching on grass. The lab in the suburb of the world's second largest city has the look and feel of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, only its younger and smaller and its facilities are not as modern. And for the latter reason, Oak Ridge scientists attending the fourth Latin American Symposium on Nuclear Physics held here in late September had a special interest in the lab - officially the National Institute of Nuclear Research. Some surplus parts of a Van de Graaff accelerator at Oak Ridge are slated to be sent to Mexico's national institute, subject to working out some details. The metal/glass acceleration tubes and massive magnets will allow the Mexican scientists to improve spectrometric techniques and nuclear reaction analysis. The Van de Graaff accelerator at Oak Ridge, which preceded the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility, was state-of-the-art equipment for nuclear physics research when installed in the 1960s. With the parts, "our system will be improved," said Juan Jaime Vega Castro, director of the accelerator program here. The magnets in his lab are handmade, Vega explained, while those coming from Oak Ridge were produced by companies. "They are better because (they contain) high quality iron," he said. The tubes for Vega's Van de Graaff are old, part of the original machine and designed in the 1950s. The tubes at Oak Ridge are newer models manufactured in Great Britain. To bring this to a non-scientist's level, among the issues for which scientists use the accelerator is the study of air pollution in Mexico City. Vega credits two Oak Ridge scientists for assisting Mexico's national lab in getting the equipment, including Alfredo Galindo-Uribarri, a speaker at the conference. Galindo said as programs develop or change, "the scientific community tries to find the best use" of equipment. For example, Oak Ridge and the University of California at Berkeley benefited when the Canadian nuclear laboratory at Chalk River, Ontario, no longer needed certain equipment, he said. As for the Oak Ridge equipment, "no one at Oak Ridge would use it. It has become salvage equipment," Galindo said. However, it's not as simple as deciding this is what should happen although there seems to be a consensus. Lee Riedinger, ORNL's deputy director for science and technology, said the Oak Ridge office of the U. S. Department of Energy is trying to find the right mechanism for turning over the parts, either as a donation or a loan. There also has to be a determination made on whether other U.S. universities or government laboratories need to be notified the parts are available. Then there's a matter of locating the money for dismantling the equipment, checking for radioactivity and decontaminating it, if necessary. This could cost up to $500,000, he said. Mexico has offered to pay shipping costs, Riedinger said. "There has not been a final statement or decision but we've got to do this at some point. We need the space," he said. Efrain Chavez Lomeli, a physics professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City and a co-chairman of the symposium, said the Oak Ridge equipment can help with the Mexican lab's future. Chavez did research at ORNL in 1990-91. "Mexico hasn't decided its policy on nuclear power. Until a clear decision is reached, this institution will remain small and under-funded. There is potential here for research and technical expertise. "The United States has the Spallation Neutron Source (Oak Ridge's latest scientific attraction) pulling people to it. We don't have anything like that. We have old equipment, about 35 years old. It shows Mexico hasn't been able to do better, yet this is the best (nuclear science lab) in the whole country. "The equipment coming here was designed in the 1980s. It's not going to be a dramatic change but will help us do better work," Chavez said. Georgiana Vines may be reached at 865-342-6343 or by e-mail, vines@knews.com. Copyright 2001 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 15 INEEL Researchers Clean Plutonium From Soil Using Carbon Dioxide ScienceDaily Magazine -- Source: Idaho National E &E Laboratory (http://www.inel.gov/) Date: Posted 10/15/2001 INEEL Researchers Clean Plutonium From Soil Using Carbon Dioxide Even dirt can be dirty, and researchers have found a way to clean soil contaminated with two radioactive elements produced by past nuclear weapons development and nuclear energy research. The method takes advantage of an industrial process called supercritical fluid extraction to clean up long-lived radioactivity that could persist well after the hills have crumbled. Potentially, this method could help the nuclear industry and the federal government clean up contaminated soil. INEEL researchers used pressurized, heated carbon dioxide and an added metal binding chemical compound to clean radioactively contaminated soil. The method removed more than 69 percent of the plutonium and americium from spiked, local soil, report two chemists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory in the October 2001 issue of Radiochemica Acta. Supercritical fluid extraction is already used to decaffeinate coffee, purify spices and dry clean clothes -- and has been shown to remove plutonium from stainless steel -- but this is the first time it has been used to remove plutonium from soil. Supercritical fluid extraction is industrially safe and environmentally friendly. For these experiments, carbon dioxide and soil were mixed, heated and pressurized. Under these conditions, carbon dioxide flows like a gas, dissolves like a liquid, but behaves with chemical properties unlike gases or liquids. A chemical agent added to the carbon dioxide flowed through the soil and grabbed the plutonium and americium, whisking the compound back into the fluid-like carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide was then shunted out of the soil and depressurized, dropping the compound into a vial on its way back into the atmosphere. In an industrial-scale setting, the carbon dioxide would be recycled. Also, the researchers added ethanol and can add different chemical agents to improve the efficiency of extraction. Unlike harsher methods of extraction, supercritical fluid extraction leaves the soil intact, making it suitable for cleaning up plutonium-contaminated soil at DOE sites. "The DOE has the technology to isolate plutonium contaminated soils. However, there are no effective extraction technologies for removing strongly adsorbed and recalcitrant radionuclides from soil," INEEL chemist Robert Fox said. "They tried nitric acid extraction, but that dissolved 25 percent of the soil mass. They weren't left with anything resembling soil after the extraction." In fact, he explained, dissolving soil in nitric acid creates a radioactive sludge that must still be disposed of. In contrast, the supercritical extraction method is nondestructive-no soil mass is lost in the process. How effectively this supercritical fluid extraction removes radioactive elements from soil depends partly on the chemistry of the soil. Though a handful of soil looks uniform, soil particles are made up of minerals from both rocks and clay, which react differently with the radioactive elements. Also, the plutonium that is bound near the surface of a particle is easier to remove than that bound inside the mineral lattice. The efficiency of the process on the INEEL soil surprised the authors of the study. Said INEEL chemist Bruce Mincher, "We didn't think we'd get such high percentages right off the bat. Plutonium is fairly difficult to remove sometimes. I thought we'd get the easy plutonium. We perhaps got the plutonium that migrated into the mineral lattices of the soil, where it's almost impossible to get out." In fact, Mincher said the amount of radioactivity left on the soil is below the levels required by the government for clean up, in spite of the fact that the spiked sample started out with more radioactivity than is commonly found on INEEL soil. "Our follow-up experiments removed almost 100 per cent of the americium and plutonium," said coauthor Robert Fox. "Someone needs to give us a harder problem or a harder sample." Since actual contaminated INEEL soil was unavailable for this initial work, the chemists spiked clean INEEL soil with the two radioactive materials. They verified that the spiked soil resembled real contaminated soil by subjecting the spiked soil to the same characterization method that has been used on contaminated INEEL soil previously. Based on their characterization of the spiked soil, the researchers found that it was a suitable surrogate for a real-world sample. However, weather and age can affect the chemistry of the materials bound to the soil, a criticism the two chemists readily acknowledge. "The obvious next step is to obtain real-world samples and demonstrate the method is effective on all manner of soils," said Fox. "We also want to have a fundamental understanding of the chemistry that occurs -- why does it work that way, and what is inhibiting it from working faster and better." Mincher and Fox were funded to investigate plutonium extraction by the BNFL Group. BNFL Group's subsidiary BNFL, Inc. is the company contracted by DOE to run INEEL's Advanced Mixed Waste Facility. BNFL, Inc. is always looking for inexpensive, practical technologies to clean up contaminated materials such as those found at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex at INEEL's desert site. Use of supercritical carbon dioxide in industry goes back to the 1920s, when it was first used to extract asphalt from oil. Since then, it has been used to remove the caffeine from coffee beans and as an alternative to hazardous dry cleaning solvents. Since the methods are industrially mature, Fox and Mincher expect scaling up the method would be relatively easy. The INEEL is a science-based, applied engineering national laboratory dedicated to supporting the U.S. Department of Energy's missions in national security, environment, energy and science. The INEEL is operated for the DOE by Bechtel BWXT Idaho, LLC, in partnership with the Inland Northwest Research Alliance. Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Idaho National E &E Laboratory for journalists and other members of the public. If you wish to quote from any part of this story, please credit Idaho National E &E Laboratory as the original source. You may also wish to include the following link in any citation: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/10/011012073634.htm Copyright © 1995-2001 ScienceDaily Magazine | Email: ***************************************************************** 16 Lab must share more results, DOE says This story was published Tue, Oct 16, 2001 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland needs to do a better job of sharing research results from its Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, according to a report by the Department of Energy's inspector general. EMSL was opened in 1997 for use by DOE and non-DOE scientists, with a mission that included educating researchers in molecular sciences. For-profit users, such as national companies that want to use the lab's state-of-the-art equipment, are required to pay the full cost for work at the lab. Nonprofit users, such as university researchers, are not charged but must document and provide research results to EMSL. "The scientific work done at the EMSL is not in question," said the inspector general's report. "However, it is questionable whether DOE and the scientific community have fully benefited from the nonproprietary research done at the EMSL." Under federal rules, officials at EMSL are supposed to collect and forward the results of nonproprietary research done there to DOE's Office of Science and Technology Information. That office is charged with making information available to the general scientific community. An audit of the procedure found that EMSL officials had not received research results for 94 of 153 completed research projects. Even when EMSL officials did receive the results, they often did not send them to the information office, according to the report. "Without full dissemination of research results to the scientific community, future researches may not benefit from past discoveries," the report said. "Therefore, DOE may not receive full value from the $48 million it costs annually to operate the EMSL." Such problems are not exclusive to EMSL. The report noted that audits at other DOE labs have found similar results. EMSL officials and Richland DOE officials were generally not aware of reporting requirements of DOE's information office, according to the report. However, research information from the lab was reaching scientists in other ways. "(Most) significant research results have been published in the open scientific literature and are available in technical libraries at many public universities, including the University of Washington and Washington State University," lab spokesman Greg Koller said. EMSL staff take seriously their responsibility to publish nonproprietary research results in open scientific literature or in technical reports, he said. As a result of the report, the lab will improve its system for tracking projects, including those conducted by guest researchers at the lab and make sure results are forwarded to the DOE information office. The work should be completed by the end of the year, Koller said. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 17 Nuclear Attacks Also a Threat The Salt Lake Tribune -- Tuesday, October 16, 2001 KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE WASHINGTON -- The canister found buried under leaves and snow in a Moscow park was not very big, but its contents sent a chilling signal about how easy it might be to spread nuclear terror. Inside was a small amount of cesium-137, a radioactive isotope used in cancer research and radiation therapy. Television reporters were told of the canister's location in 1995 by the commander of rebel forces in the breakaway region of Chechnya. He later threatened to blow up 167 pounds of such material to contaminate a large area of Russia. While the possibility of terrorists using chemical or biological weapons has received extensive attention recently in light of the anthrax scare, experts said nuclear terrorism could be just as likely -- and more dangerous. Many of those experts caution that the possibility of nuclear terrorism remains low. But after the boldness and complexity of the Sept. 11 attacks, they warn that nuclear weapons, radioactive material and nuclear power plants hold too much destructive ability and symbolism to be ignored as potential weapons. Terrorists probably would not be able to acquire, build or detonate a sophisticated, high-yield nuclear device, such as a thermonuclear warhead from a missile, according to experts on terrorism and nuclear proliferation. The easiest means to spread radioactive terror, experts said, would be to do what Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev threatened to do six years ago -- build a so-called "dirty bomb" containing nuclear waste or other radioactive material surrounded by traditional explosives. In a worst-case scenario, such a bomb would spread enough radiation to cause hundreds of deaths and significantly increase instances of cancer for thousands of other people. In 1998, Osama bin Laden issued a statement titled The Nuclear Bomb of Islam. It said that "it is the duty of Muslims to prepare as much force as possible to terrorize the enemies of God." Experts differ on the likelihood of terrorists building or acquiring nuclear weapons. "Nations have difficulty doing it; nobody expects terrorist groups to," said Milton Leitenberg, a senior fellow at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland. Iraq spent from $40 billion to $50 billion over 15 years and was unable to acquire enough weapons-quality plutonium or highly enriched uranium to construct a nuclear bomb before the Persian Gulf War in 1991, he said. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 18 Memo to Bush: A Plan to Prevent Weapons of Mass Destruction Col. Stanislav Lunev Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2001 MEMO TO: President George W. Bush FROM: Col. Stanislav Lunev DATE: Oct. 16, 2001 RE: Prevent the Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction In September, just over a month ago, international terrorists used the "cheapest" way to attack America – hitting symbols of American financial and military power. By doing this, the terrorists have demonstrated to the world just how vulnerable we are. Their success is now a powerful symbol to others – America can be hit by the "weak" at its very center. The arrest of more than 600 people here in the U.S. over the last month suggests that terrorists number in the thousands or even tens of thousands. Some "experts" have argued that we have seen the worst. Had the terrorists really possessed nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, they surely would have used these first. Such thinking is wrong and dangerous. Remember, the terrorists of Sept. 11 and their network members were no amateurs. They hatched their plan over years and trained well for it. They used "cheap" weapons not because they did not have "expensive" weapons of mass destruction; all evidence indicates they have such weapons. The terrorists also have the resources to buy them. Even President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt told journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave that Osama bin Laden has as much a $1 billion in assets from his opium trade. Bin Laden also has the backing of one or more rogue nations, including Iraq. It has been reported that Israel’s Mossad has evidence that bin Laden’s organization obtained several tactical nuclear weapons using Russian "mafia" intermediaries. For sure, Russian mafia actions would have the full backing of the Russian intelligence agencies and government. So the answer is yes, these terrorists could have hit New York with a weapon of mass destruction, but they chose not to. Why not? I believe bin Laden, and perhaps his backers, want a much bigger war. They most certainly want to destroy America – at least its financial power and its military might. Bin Laden wants a war between Islam and the West. Other nations, such as Russia or Red China, also want to see the U.S. brought to its knees – but for different reasons. The terrorists and their backers understand that wars do not happen in vacuums or materialize out of nothing. These evil people are clever. Bin Laden wants to win the hearts and minds of the ordinary Muslim. Of the 1 billion Muslims on earth, only 100 million are fundamentalist, and many of these don’t agree with bin Laden’s own fundamentalist views. But to unite the Muslim/Arab world, to bring all fundamentalists together with the many secular Muslims, America must be perceived as the aggressor, victimizing Muslims. To a degree, bin Laden has achieved this. He has shown to the rogue nations, the fundamentalists, and others that using nothing more than box cutters, he can make huge strikes into the very heart of America. Now, with America’s justified bombing of targets in Afghanistan, bin Laden and his allies will try to turn the tables on America. No doubt our bombings, as strategic and surgical as they may be, will be played up in the Arab press as "America, the evil aggressor" – killing innocent poor people in Afghanistan for the actions of some crazy terrorists. If that perception becomes strong in Arab and other countries, bin Laden has laid the groundwork for more "expensive" strikes against America. Had bin laden and his backers used a weapon of mass destruction on Sept. 11, this act would have most assuredly backfired and led to his loss of support among the Muslim faithful. But since Sept. 11, the Arab press has been rife with reports of Americans mistreating people of the Muslim faith (which we know to be untrue). With the advent of the bombing campaign, his open Al-Qaeda network has released statements saying, through Al-Jazeera, that they will counterattack with bigger attacks against America because they are now justified, in their minds and the minds of many Muslims, in doing so. How do we prevent such weapons from being used against us? Right now, there is no way to assure America that such weapons will not be used. We must be honest and admit that time may have already run out. The terrorists have had a huge time advantage over us. They had almost the whole past 10 years to move without sanction from the U.S. government. For all practical purposes, these terrorists may have already deployed weapons of mass destruction here. My experience in Russia’s GRU led me to believe that Russia had already deployed small suitcase bombs into the U.S. This is not so difficult and was even easy under the previous administration. Already, you are doing many wise things. You understand it is important for America not to play bin Laden’s game and not to go to war with Islam. You understand the importance of re-creating America’s intelligence capabilities. Still, these are proactive measures that may not prevent a weapon of mass destruction from being used. Already, I have encouraged you to warn all backers of Al-Qaeda, including any and all backers of terrorist groups and nations, including Iraq, Iran, Syria and others, that the use of weapons of mass destruction on American soil will cause the U.S. to use such weapons against any and all backers of these terrorists. You should tell them the U.S. will retaliate without investigation and go after "likely suspects." As terrible as this sounds, it should be done because the terrorists and their backers believe they can strike America with impunity because they have "distance" from these acts. They don’t believe that if they hit New York with a nuclear weapon, the U.S. will hit Baghdad or other centers. America must quickly disabuse these nations of this. You should not just warn rogue nations, you must have your Pentagon begin to prepare to use such weapons against these nations. If you do, the many spies in the U.S. government will report back to rogue nations that you are serious and if a weapon of mass destruction is used against America, you will respond with fury. Then no one will be safe. I can assure you that this will be unsettling to America’s enemies. In the early 1960s, President John Kennedy was faced by a similar nuclear threat from rogue nation Cuba. Kennedy did not warn Castro that he would hit Cuba if the U.S. was so attacked. Kennedy went right for the jugular. He warned Nikita Krushchev in no uncertain terms that any nuclear attack by Cuba on the U.S. would require a "full retaliatory" strike at Soviet Union. When the Soviets heard the "bad news," that Kennedy was not going to be a pushover, weapons of mass destruction were immediately removed from Cuba. You must emulate Kennedy now. You should do so sooner than later. Editor's Note: NewsMax has just released the new audiotape set "CIA Files: Defector Reveals Russia's Secret War Plans." You can hear for yourself exactly what Col Lunev told the CIA. NewsMax.com Privacy Statement ***************************************************************** 19 -Engineer contracts for SNS awarded Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:16 p.m. on Monday, October 15, 2001 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff Four local firms have been awarded contracts for engineering and design support services in connection with the Spallation Neutron Source, which is being built atop Chestnut Ridge. Receiving the contracts were Alexander &Associates Inc., Pro2Serve and Theta Technologies, which are all based in Oak Ridge, and MK Technologies Inc. of Knoxville. Each agreement has the potential value of $500,000 and is effective through March 31, 2003, according to a press release from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The $1.4 billion SNS will be used for scientific research and development of a variety of industrial materials. Neutron scattering research has been responsible for improvements in jets, computer disks, shatterproof windshields, and stronger, lighter plastics. Neutrons have also been used in medical research for such studies as determining how bones mineralize during development and how they decay during osteoporosis. Six Department of Energy laboratories are collaborating on the design and construction of the SNS. After construction is complete in 2006, ORNL will be responsible for operating the facility. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 20 Concerned citizens question representatives about te safety of Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository Mason Valley News - October 12, 2001 By Kay Jenney Staff Writer Yerington citizens, had the opportunity last Friday to meet with both proponents and adversaries of the proposed federal nuclear waste depository at Yucca Mountain. The U.S. Energy Department has scheduled public field hearings in each county in Nevada (and one California county) to receive input to the proposed Yucca Mountain Project and a second public hearing in Lyon County is scheduled for today (Friday) from 3-8 p.m. at the Lyon County Administrative Complex. Environmental scientist Kurt Rauenstruach said the Yucca Mountain site would most likely have to be monitored for three to 500 years and that early radiation detection systems, would be in place to monitor well water. He said that eventually the outer casting -- titanium drip shield -- would corrode by water dripping on it. Rauenstruach said everything must be handled remotely; that no human being could go inside due not only to the radioactivity, but also the intense thermal heat generated. Rauenstruach said the design was created for the nuclear waste to stay there forever, but that Congress had been looking at the possibility of a process not yet developed to negate the levels of radiation, so the engineering may be redesigned so the waste could be retrieved at some point in the future. Resident Sue Porter asked what could be done with the waste, if someone should be able to get hold of a truck a carrying radioactive nuclear waste. Rauenstruach said first of all anyone who handled the stuff would die from the radiation, and even if some were stolen, it could not be used for energy or weapons. "All they could do is blow it up and spread the radiation," said Rauenstruach. He noted there are no rail routes. that go directly to the site, but there is an ongoing study of three possible rail routes. "If they choose rail transportation, it's a few years away for the decision," Rauenstruach said. He explained that federal regulations say the fastest route, which is a highway, should be used but the states have the authority to change that after submitting a safety analysis. Rauenstruach added that the State of Nevada has not entered into any discussion about possible compensation for allowing the site; in the state. The State of Nevada Governor's Office Agency for Nuclear Projects opposes the Yucca Mountain site because of scientific uncertainties and its position that it is unsafe. They say the dump must last for 10,000 years,. twice as long as mankind's recorded history. The State said in its brochure available at the hearing says that accidents happen and that 69.4% of those polled are against the project. Scientists for the U.S. Department of Energy think the nuclear repository will work. They say based on observance of fossilled remains of uranium ore, they believe that rock and soil is the best substance to isolate the radioactive waste. They also say that people live with radiation contamination every day and the US average dose is 360 millirems per year and exposure is not expected to increase to persons near the repository for the first 10,000 years. Millirems are extremely tiny amounts of energy absorbed by tissues in the body. The public comment period on the project has been extended until Oct. 19 to allow for comments from these public hearings to be included. Yucca Mountain is a six-mile long, 1,200 foot high, flat-topped volcanic ridge about 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The U.S. Department of Energy has been studying Yucca Mountain scientifically for many years to determine if it's a suitable place to build a geologic repository for the nation's commercial and defense spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. It is the only site being studied for a nuclear waste dump. Additional information on these public hearing sessions and the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management program may be obtained at the Yucca Mountain web site at www.ymp.govor by calling 1-800-967-3477. ***************************************************************** 21 Possibilities for nuclear terror too real to ignore SV.com Posted at 10:52 p.m. PDT Sunday, Oct. 14, 2001 Mercury News Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- The canister found buried under leaves and snow in a Moscow park was not very big, but its contents sent a chilling signal about how easy it might be to spread nuclear terror. Inside was a small amount of cesium-137, a radioactive isotope used in cancer research and radiation therapy. Television reporters were told of the canister's location in 1995 by the commander of rebel forces in the breakaway region of Chechnya. He later threatened to blow up 167 pounds of such material to contaminate a large area of Russia. While the possibility of terrorists using chemical or biological weapons has received extensive attention recently in light of the recent anthrax scare, experts said nuclear terrorism could be just as likely -- and more dangerous. ``If terrorists can acquire the nuclear material, then the delivery and use and consequences would be relatively more predictable and relatively easy compared to chemical and biological,'' said Bruce Blair, director of the Center for Defense Information. Many of those experts caution that the possibility of nuclear terrorism remains extremely low. But after the boldness and complexity of the Sept. 11 attacks, they warn that nuclear weapons, radioactive material and nuclear power plants hold too much destructive ability and symbolism to be ignored as potential weapons. ``Suddenly nuclear-related terrorism became a vivid and a very real threat,'' said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., as she convened a congressional hearing earlier this month on safeguards against nuclear terrorism. Terrorists likely would not be able to acquire, build or detonate a sophisticated, high-yield nuclear device, such as a thermonuclear warhead from a missile, according to experts on terrorism and nuclear proliferation. But there are several ways that terrorists could obtain and potentially use nuclear or radioactive material. Crude, low-yield bombs Smaller battlefield nuclear weapons -- some believed to be no larger than a suitcase -- could be stolen or bought on the black market from Russia. The collapse of the Soviet Union has reduced the security surrounding the world's second-largest nuclear arsenal. The potential instability of Pakistan's government raises questions about the security of that nation's small nuclear arsenal and weapons-quality fissile material as well. Terrorist organizations like Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida network could construct a crude, low-yield nuclear bomb if it acquired enough fissile nuclear material, some experts maintain. There is evidence that bin Laden's organization has attempted to acquire uranium and other nuclear material on several occasions in recent years. The 103 nuclear power plants across the United States also make prime targets for attacks by terrorists using bombs or hijacked airliners. Such an attack could lead to a devastating nuclear meltdown spreading a toxic radioactive cloud. Since Sept. 11, security has been dramatically increased at plants nationwide. And the easiest means to spread radioactive terror, experts said, would be to do what Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev threatened to do six years ago -- build a so-called ``dirty bomb'' containing nuclear waste or other radioactive material surrounded by traditional explosives. In a worst-case scenario, such a bomb would spread enough radiation to cause hundreds of deaths and significantly increase instances of cancer for thousands of other people. At the least, it would spread enough low-level radiation to make part of a city or a symbolic location uninhabitable without protective gear for months or longer because of the contamination. ``Imagine if they did it in the middle of New York City. It would make that whole area unusable until they decontaminated it, which could take years,'' said Gary Ackerman, an expert on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. ``Imagine the psychological impact of that,'' he said. ``There are two things that people fear: getting sick and getting irradiated. They're invisible.'' Along with the damage and panic, a nuclear or radiological attack would have great symbolism for bin Laden. In the video released last Sunday, bin Laden referred to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II as an example of the hypocrisy of the United States. Islam's `nuclear bomb' In 1998, bin Laden issued a statement titled ``The Nuclear Bomb of Islam.'' It said that ``it is the duty of Muslims to prepare as much force as possible to terrorize the enemies of God.'' U.S. officials have publicly warned about terrorists' use of nuclear weapons for several years. In 1996, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Deutch, warned a congressional committee that although there was no evidence that any terrorist group had obtained nuclear materials, ``we are concerned because only a small amount of material is necessary to terrorize populated areas.'' Experts differ on the likelihood of terrorists building or acquiring nuclear weapons. Some dismiss it as improbable. Others say it would not be so difficult. ``Nations have difficulty doing it; nobody expects terrorist groups to,'' said Milton Leitenberg, a senior fellow at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland. Iraq spent from $40 billion to $50 billion over 15 years and was unable to acquire enough weapons-quality plutonium or highly enriched uranium to construct a nuclear bomb before the Persian Gulf War in 1991, he said. But David Albright, who helped inspect Iraq's nuclear program in 1996, said terrorists would have an easier task. Iraq spent most of its time and money trying to make its own plutonium and uranium. Terrorists could try to steal it or buy it, most likely from former states of the Soviet Union, said Albright, a physicist who is president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. In addition, Iraq was trying to build a sophisticated implosion type of nuclear weapon, which requires setting off a series of highly explosive charges inside the bomb at precise intervals to create the nuclear explosion. Terrorists likely would try for a much simpler ``gun-type'' device. It would produce a much smaller explosion but still would approximate the power of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. ``They aren't stupid people, and they recruit scientists,'' Albright said. ``They probably are capable of making a crude gun-type device and probably have a research facility in Afghanistan working on it.'' Russia poses the best potential targets for terrorists to steal or acquire either nuclear weapons or the fissile material required to make them. The United States has spent about $5 billion since the end of the Cold War to help dismantle thousands of Russian nuclear weapons and better secure existing weapons and weapons-grade material. Estimates vary widely about how much weapons-grade material there is throughout the former Soviet Union -- as much as 1,000 metric tons of enriched uranium and 200 metric tons of plutonium. ``The Russians don't know how much plutonium they have, let alone where it is. That's a matter of some concern,'' said Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. Pakistan's arsenal is less of a concern because of its small size and indications that the weapons are stored in pieces in separate, highly guarded locations, said Gaurav Kampani, a research associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies who has studied the Pakistani nuclear program. Threat to U.S. plants Of bigger concern is the security of U.S. nuclear power plants. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has told all plants to go to their highest level of security. National Guard troops have been sent to protect nuclear power plants in New Jersey, while California has dispatched California Highway Patrol officers to guard its two nuclear power plants, Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo, and San Onofre, south of Los Angeles. On Thursday, the commission shut down its Web site to review the type of material available. The site had included thousands of pages of detailed information about the nation's nuclear power plants, including the exact latitude and longitude of each facility. ``We realize that nuclear plants are a very symbolic potential target for terrorists,'' said NRC spokesman Victor Dricks. But the biggest threat is the one that experts said would be the simplest: a dirty bomb containing radioactive material. The types of radioactive materials are numerous, ranging from isotopes used by hospitals to nuclear waste produced at power plants. ``These things don't require technical proficiency since you don't have to make anything,'' Leitenberg said. ``You just have to get your hands on something, wrap high explosives around it and blow it up.'' © 2001 KnightRidder.com About SV.com | ***************************************************************** 22 Pakistan prepares for possible use of nuclear, biological weapons BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Oct 15, 2001 Text of report by Abdul Rauf Chaudhry entitled "Contigency plan against nuclear, biological weapons" by Pakistani newspaper Ausaf on 15 October Islamabad: The federal government has started to take precautionary steps against the use of nuclear and biological weapons by the United States and India. All the government departments have been directed to evolve contingency plans in this respect. The Ministry of Health has issued notifications to all hospitals. According to sources, while India can launch a nuclear attack, the United States might also use chemical and biological weapons in Afghanistan. Such an attack would not only affect Afghanistan, but also the neighbouring countries, with Pakistan poised to receive the brunt of such attacks. The government has issued a red-alert warning to all hospitals. A three-member committee has, for this purpose, been constituted in Islamabad's Policlinic Hospital. The sources further said that every hospital has been asked to provide for the facility of 100 beds, 20 doctors and 40 paramedics round-the-clock. Besides, sufficient medicines for 90 days are also to be made available all the time. They have also been instructed to provide well-equipped operation theatres, ambulances and emergency kits. Directives for blood donation would also be issued soon. Source: Ausaf, Islamabad, in Urdu 15 Oct 01 pp 1,7 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 23 Tramp's nuclear secret The Times OCTOBER 15 2001 BY PHILIP PANK A TRAMP who lived on a park bench has in death been revealed as a nuclear physicist who participated in pioneering bomb tests. Bernard Downhill, 72, was found ill on the shopping-centre bench where he took up residence five years ago, and died shortly afterwards in hospital. In the 1950s he worked at the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment and in the South Pacific. Relatives said he witnessed at least three nuclear tests. Mr Downhill left his family in the mid-1960s, going overseas before moving to Lancaster, where he became well known. Poems and bouquets dedicated to him were left on the bench after his death. Tony Hennessy, of Lancaster Homeless Action Centre, said: “He was a perfect gentleman.” Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. 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