***************************************************************** 03/03/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.54 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 US: Bush Energy Plan: Dig A Bigger Hole 2 EUROPE: Belgium backs nuclear deadline NUCLEAR REACTORS 3 Lithuanian governments lacked economic foresight on nuclear 4 US: Formidable foes rally against nuclear plant 5 US: Cooper plant cited for emergency preparedness problems 6 Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant project still unimplemented 7 US: Feds study new fuel for nuclear plants 8 Canada: Details are scarce at meeting on $12-billion nuclear project 9 US: BUCHANAN, N.Y. (AP) All this talk of nuclear doom in... 10 US: Calif. San Onofre 3 nuke return delayed until Sun NUCLEAR SAFETY 11 US: Rep. Kucinich introduces bill and treaty to ban space weaponry 12 US: Radioactive fallout report causes concern 13 US: Officials to discuss best way to handle anti-radiation drug 14 Georgia Finally Gets U.S. Attention 15 US: Hanford cancer compensation: promised, elusive 16 US: Senator Urges Speedy Release of Nuclear Study 17 US: US counts nuclear test toll 18 US: Midwest bore brunt of nuclear test fallout, study says 19 US: Cold War tests linked to cancer 20 US: Since Sept. 11, potassium iodide a hot item around nuclear power 21 US: Study: Most Had Radioactive Exposure 22 US: Study: 1950s nuclear fallout worse than thought 23 US: Sick workers' aid plan gets D- - 24 US: Senator Urges Speedy Release of Nuclear Study NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 25 US: OP: Nevada site is ideal 26 US: NUKE DUMP GAINS FAVOR 27 US: Nuclear waste on your bumper 28 US: LETTER: Reid must continue to fight dump war 29 US: Yucca Mountain water rights issue heats up 30 US: NUCLEAR WASTE: Herrera joins cry against shipments 31 Russians back plutonium-to-MOX plan 32 US: Nuclear lobby leads fight for Yucca 33 US: Brian Greenspun: Get behind dump fight 34 US: Editorial: A telling moment for dump 35 US: Columnist Jeff German: Senators under the gun over nuke waste 36 US: Sometimes state's contingent agrees to disagree 37 US: Hearings Slated on Goshute N-Storage Proposal 38 US: Mayors: Nuke waste moving through towns “disturbing” 39 US: Yucca: The Senator Explodes 40 US: A Democratic senator goes nuclear on the White House NUCLEAR WEAPONS 41 US: INFO:NSA TO PROSECUTE PEACE ACTIVISTS (fwd) 42 [southnews] Nixon nuclear threat revives anti-US feelings 43 US: Is missile defence a shot in the dark? 44 Inspections May Not Deter Saddam 45 US: US Uses Sensors Amid Al Qaeda Nuclear Fear - Senator 46 US: Tricky Dicky's nuke plan 47 Ambassador: Iraq Not Hiding Weapons 48 Blair hints at Iraq action 49 US: Editorial: GOP off the deep end in its remarks 50 US: Fears Prompt U.S. to Beef Up Nuclear Terror Detection 51 US: DC At Risk of Nuclear Attack 52 Canada's Ports Open Door for Terrorists - Report 53 US: When the subs leave forever 54 The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War US DEPT. OF ENERGY 55 Army plant gets $73M ammunition contract 56 State suit urged for two UF6 sites - OTHER NUCLEAR 57 Philosopher David Hawkins Dies; Helped Manage Manhattan Project ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Bush Energy Plan: Dig A Bigger Hole ctnow.com: OPED March 2, 2002 Another bad idea. What are they, cheaper by the dozen? The Bush administration has decided to dump all the high-level nuclear waste in America into some yet-to-be-excavated tunnels at Yucca Mountain, Nev. Insomuch as you ever think about nuclear waste (a topic I prefer to avoid on the grounds that it's depressing and scary - denial seems like a good tactic), you probably thought: "Good, Nevada. They'll like it there, and at least it won't be here." Wrong on both counts. Not only are Nevadans predictably unhappy - and also seriously irate, because Bush promised during the campaign he would make the decision based on "the best science" - but this also brings nuclear garbage right to your front door. Or at least to the closest interstate highway. Putting the nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain is Nevada's problem. Getting it there is ours. There are 131 nuclear plants dotted around the nation, not to mention assorted military facilities, where the really, really bad stuff is stored. So we're taking a 131-plus-point problem and making it a several-hundred-thousand-point problem. They're going to put the really, really bad stuff into trucks and railroad cars, and send it all to Yucca - so if you're anywhere between a nuclear power plant and Nevada, you have a problem. Not only does that insanely escalate the chances for a terrorist attack - it's a lot easier to knock over a truck than it is to fly into a nuclear power plant - but it makes a nuclear transportation accident almost inevitable. How many trucks over how many highways over what period of time will produce one horrible truck crash? You can hardly drive from Laredo to Dallas on I-35 without seeing one anymore. This is not one of those deals where any fool can say, "Here's a better idea ..." No one has ever had a good idea for getting rid of nuclear waste. As far anyone knows, it can't be gotten rid of. That's the problem, as those citizens who are less into denial than the rest of us have been pointing out for some time. So far, there has only been one useful suggestion on nuclear waste - let's stop creating more of it. Unfortunately, the Bush-Cheney energy plan is not acquainted with the First Rule of Holes - they plan to keep digging. Their idea of a solution is to take an intractable problem and make it into a much bigger intractable problem. Bush's "best science" campaign promise was pathetic, in retrospect. Yucca Mountain is in an earthquake zone and leaks. Among those who question its desirability as a repository site are the General Accounting Office, Bechtel, SAIC (the Department of Energy contractor on the site), the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board and Radioactive Waste Management Associates. (For details, see the website of the Safe Energy Communication Council, at www.safeenergy.org.) Probably flying well under your radar screen was a move by Congress late last year compounding the problem still further. In late November, under a no-debate voice vote, the House of Representatives reauthorized an obscure thing called the Price-Anderson Act. Yes, the matter of campaign contributions did raise its ugly head once more. The law limits the nuclear power industry's liability in the case of an accident. No other industry enjoys this federal protection. Price-Anderson requires that each plant carry only $200 million in insurance, with $9.1 billion for the entire industry. Unfortunately, Sandia National Labs has estimated the cost of one big reactor accident at more than $500 billion. Worse, the indirect subsidy created by Price-Anderson used to cover only regulated and public utilities. By contrast, any new nuclear power plants will be built by merchant generators - like Enron - competing in the newly deregulated markets. This gives them an added incentive to build cheap. The Senate energy bill does not reauthorize Price-Anderson for commercial reactors. If the bill were to pass as it stands, existing reactors would continue to be covered, but new ones would not. The anti-nuclear energy coalition is hoping the Senate version will become law, so that the risk of doing business will actually fall on commercial reactors, instead of taxpayers. But there's no guarantee. Molly Ivins is a syndicated writer in Texas. ctnow.com is Copyright © 2002 by The Hartford Courant ***************************************************************** 2 EUROPE: Belgium backs nuclear deadline Financial Times; Mar 2, 2002 By DANIEL DOMBEY Europe's anti-nuclear drive took a tentative step forward yesterday when the Belgian government formally backed a 2014-2025 timetable to phase out nuclear power - but left itself a huge get-out clause to alter its plans Belgium's Liberal-Socialist-Green government came to power in 1999 promising to end nuclear power, but only now has prepared a draft law to decommission reactors after 40 years of use. No new nuclear power station has come into operation since 1985. After a bout of Belgian government infighting, the legislation allows the timetable to be altered in case of "force majeure". This means a subsequent government, acting on the advice of the country's energy regulator, could delay the decommissioning of the reactors. A spokesman for Olivier Delueze, Belgium's Green energy minister, said the priority was to discourage further investment in nuclear energy, rather than setting a timetable in stone. "We have got what we wanted," he said. "It won't be industry that will be able to cite force majeure." The government hopes the bill will be approved by the end of June. At present, the country's seven reactors supply about 60 per cent of Belgium's electricity. The government plans to help fill the gap with proposals on energy efficiency and new investment in the non-nuclear sector in coming months. Countries such as Germany and Sweden are struggling with their own programmes to phase out nuclear energy. Paavo Lipponen, Finland's prime minister, has warned that Europe risks becoming a "fossil (fuel) monster", dependent on gas, if it does not maintain a role for nuclear energy, while the European Commission also argues that nuclear should be preserved as an option. France still gets 80 per cent of its electricity through nuclear power stations. One argument is that nuclear power will help Europe meet the Kyoto protocol on climate change because it avoids carbon emissions - although many environmentalists say radioactive waste is at least as serious a problem. Copyright: The Financial Times Limited 1995-2002 ***************************************************************** 3 Lithuanian governments lacked economic foresight on nuclear plant - paper BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 1, 2002 The decommissioning the Lithuanian nuclear power plant, which was earlier seen as an indisputable condition for EU membership, has now aroused debates among the top officials of the state. The latest studies suggest that after the closure of the nuclear power plant the price of electricity may triple. The fact that this is only considered now is described by the Lithuanian newspaper Verslo Zinios as inadequate economic foresight. The following is the text of the editorial entitled "Simpletons or smart chess players" and published on 28 February: Several days ago, the prime minister, Algirdas Brazauskas, announced that we should stop delaying the decision on the decommissioning of the Ignalina nuclear power plant. The time, he said, is running out fast and we have to decide by July. Then we will have to tell the EU when and how the power plant will be closed. While the prime minister talked only about the necessity to make a decision, the president, Valdas Adamkus, soon presented his much stronger opinion. The smart president said that Lithuania should not make any statements with regard to the decommissioning of power unit No 2. He also touched upon the rudiments of the Lithuanian patriotism. "I refuse any pressure. It is we who have to decide on our energy sources and our future by taking into account the needs of the state," the president said. The chairman of the Seimas [Lithuanian parliament], Arturas Paulauskas, who felt an argument between the prime minister and the president is arising, somewhat obscurely reacted by saying: "I have no doubt that we may discuss various options - when and how we will decommission the nuclear power plant and whether we will construct a new modern and safe nuclear station." This indirect discussion by the three top officials of the state has raised several issues never heard before. One is that the closure of power unit No 2 of the Ignalina plant has so far been considered an indisputable condition for EU membership. The condition was not so much about setting a specific date for closing power unit No 2 but the very fact of decommissioning. Second, there are now talks that Lithuania may not totally refuse atomic energy. "I do not think that we should burn all bridges and never be able to use such energy in the future," the president said. Let us remember that several years ago such ideas were not even considered either by the Seimas or the government. In 2000, a law on decommissioning power unit one by 2004 was adopted without any major debate. The then governing party, the Conservatives [Homeland Union - Lithuanian Conservatives], argued that such a law was essential if we wanted to attract donors for the decommissioning. Donors did indeed come to Vilnius and carried out their noble mission. However, just a week ago, scientists of Kaunas Technological University announced the price for the closure that no donor has even dreamed of. If Lithuania stops using atomic energy by 2009, electricity tariffs may double or triple and the general losses of the economy may amount to 40bn litas [10bn dollars], the specialists of the Kaunas Technological University said. In reaction to this, Verslo Zinios would like to pose several questions. First - were all the former Lithuanian governments just sitting and watching the world go by? It does not seem they were, as they drafted Lithuanian energy development strategies, prepared economic forecasts including predictions for energy consumption and social consequences of the decommissioning to be felt by the inhabitants of [the town of] Visaginas. However, the possibility that the tariffs may become so high has only been mentioned now. For several years, Lietuvos Energija [national energy group] has kept saying that after full closure of the Ignalina plant, electricity prices will only increase by 1.5 times. If the previous governments really were just sitting and watching, then can we trust the current politicians when they start talking about, say, construction of a safe nuclear reactor? But again, maybe they did have some common sense? Maybe they were pulling the wool over the eyes of the EU promising to close the Ignalina nuclear power plant and now, when the EU accession has gained momentum and is not easy to turn back, they started talking about realistic alternatives? If they were really just sitting and watching, the former simpletons could now be presented as smart political chess players. This is what you have public relations for. Source: Verslo Zinios, Vilnius, in Lithuanian 28 Feb 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. ***************************************************************** 4 Formidable foes rally against nuclear plant Chicago Tribune | March 3, 2002 Sept. 11 rekindles concerns about industry's safety By Stevenson Swanson Tribune national correspondent BUCHANAN, N.Y. -- As American Airlines Flight 11 sped toward the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, it flew within a few miles of another set of twin towers, the domes of the Indian Point nuclear power plant on the banks of the Hudson River. That fact became chillingly relevant to New Yorkers last month when the federal government issued a warning that terrorists could be targeting a nuclear plant for attack with a hijacked passenger jet. Since then, Indian Point has become the most beleaguered of the nation's 103 nuclear generators. No other plant has been the focus of more intense scrutiny and repeated protests, and, in a development that could pose a serious threat to the revival of the nation's nuclear power industry, the concerns go beyond traditional anti-nuclear groups. An array of politicians and public figures have called for the plant to be shut down, and state and local officials are studying proposals to distribute anti-radiation pills to hundreds of thousands of area residents in case of disaster. "With the no-fly zones [around nuclear plants] . . . and the recent alerts, it's reminded people that nuclear power is a hazard," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, which often has criticized nuclear power. "There's not the same kind of debate going on around dams or other kinds of power plants. That makes it harder to make the argument that we should build new ones." Workers support generator Indian Point's owner and other supporters have been equally vociferous in defending the plant. Entergy, which owns Indian Point and seven other U.S. nuclear plants, has run full-page ads in local newspapers arguing that the facility is safe. Many of the twin-reactor site's 1,500 workers recently staged a demonstration to emphasize the economic importance of the plant to Buchanan, a blue-collar village of 2,100 people about 35 miles north of New York City. James Kallstrom, a former FBI assistant director who is in charge of New York's Office of Public Security, has said the plant's reinforced concrete domes could withstand the impact of a commercial jet. Indian Point bears many similarities to the shuttered Zion nuclear station in north suburban Chicago. Both were built in the early 1970s, making them among the oldest nuclear plants in the country. Both are in densely populated areas; about 300,000 people live within 10 miles of each plant, the highest number near any nuclear facility in the nation. And both have had significant operating problems. The Zion plant for several years was on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's watch list of troubled plants before the costs of addressing the plant's problems led Commonwealth Edison to shut it down in 1998. That list has since been replaced with a new color-coded evaluation system. One of Indian Point's two reactors now holds the nation's only red rating, the worst possible. The bad marks are the result of a release of radioactive steam two years ago. Late last month the NRC issued another warning to the plant based on an October evaluation of control room workers. Four of seven control room teams failed the test. Such internal problems only add to the challenges that Entergy faces in convincing jittery New Yorkers that the plant is safe. Following Sept. 11, the NRC announced that nuclear power plants were not specifically designed to withstand direct attacks by large commercial jetliners. Security was tightened at plants across the nation. At Indian Point, concrete barriers direct vehicles through a series of turns before they reach the guardhouse, where National Guard troops back up plant security personnel. Entergy spokesman Larry Gottlieb said that the company has spent an additional $3 million on security since the terrorist attacks and that concerns about the plant's vulnerability to an air attack are exaggerated. "The site is almost like hitting a pin," he said. "Indian Point is very low to the ground. It's not as easy a target as people think." Plan flawed, critics say But if an attack spread a radioactive plume, opponents say the plant's emergency plan is woefully inadequate to deal with the 300,000 people who live inside the 10-mile evacuation zone, much of which takes in suburban Westchester County, where narrow, winding parkways are frequently clogged with traffic. "Obviously, it's a paper plan," said Stephen Kent, coordinator of the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition, which has called for closing the plant permanently. "Anyone who lives in this area will tell you that in the case of a nuclear accident, there's no way you're driving out of this area." Richard Brodsky, a state legislator, charged recently that the plan was based on outdated census data and failed to consider the consequences of a radioactive release from the plant's storage facility for spent fuel rods. Such facilities have become a focus of concern because they are typically less shielded than reactors. With plans for a permanent storage site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain now decades behind schedule, tons of dangerously radioactive fuel have piled up at the nation's nuclear plants. Company updating strategy Gottlieb said Entergy has been working to update the plan since it bought Indian Point. "The emergency plan has been an evolving, growing document for many years," he said. "The most dangerous game that opponents are playing is that when you go out there and tell people the plan won't work, that's playing with people's lives." The protests and calls for the plant to be shut down have silenced for the time being talk of a resurgence for nuclear power, which generates about 20 percent of the nation's electricity. Last year, as rolling blackouts plunged Californians into darkness, the Bush administration's energy plan foresaw the need for additional nuclear plants to prevent blackouts elsewhere. Ralph Beedle, of the industry's Nuclear Control Institute, predicts the NRC will likely require extra protection, such as thicker concrete containment structures, on any new nuclear power plant, but he remains confident that new plants eventually will be built. "The fundamental need for energy has got to be met by some big, baseload units," he said. "And nuclear will play a part in that." Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune ***************************************************************** 5 Cooper plant cited for emergency preparedness problems Omaha.com March 2, 2002 BY NANCY GAARDER WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER Persistent problems with Cooper Nuclear Power Plant's ability to respond to emergencies have prompted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to place the facility under tighter supervision. On Friday, the NRC issued two citations against Cooper for problems with the way the plant reacted to a fire in June. The citations mark an event that presents a low-to-moderate safety risk. The June fire occurred in a transformer, causing one of the reactor's recirculation pumps to shut down, compromising safety equipment. Although the fire was extinguished in about 15 minutes, the NRC said plant operators didn't notify local and state officials quickly enough and didn't activate emergency facilities fast enough. Friday's citations mark the fourth against Cooper's emergency preparedness in the past 16 months, said Ellis W. Merschoff, NRC regional director. Because problems have persisted, the NRC is calling for substantially more oversight. "We're comfortable today that the problems that have been identified have been corrected," Merschoff said. "The concern is, do they have a vigorous program to assure that any other problems that might arise are identified promptly and correctly?" Cooper's staff has corrected the problems and is working on a plan to improve its performance, said Bill Mayben, president and chief executive officer of Nebraska Public Power District, owner of the plant. "I want to personally assure our neighbors around Cooper that an emergency response plan is in place and working to protect public safety," Mayben said. The NRC's findings indicate that Cooper officials should have known that the plant had a problem getting its emergency center up and running. In 10 of 25 simulator exercises in 2000, workers failed to activate the emergency paging system within 15 minutes. In three of six drills from February 2000 to March 2001, workers failed to get to emergency posts quickly enough. The NRC will send a team of inspectors to the plant this summer. They will spend at least a week going over Cooper's ability to respond to an emergency. The NRC also is reviewing the way Cooper relicensed plant operators. Merschoff said Cooper had operators take a sample test. Some questions on the sample test may have been too similar to those on the actual test. ©2002 Omaha World-Herald. All rights reserved. Copyright | Terms ***************************************************************** 6 Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant project still unimplemented The Daily Star Volume 3 Number 884 Sun. March 03, 2002 Anwar Ali, Natore Unusual delay in implementing the 'Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant' (RNPP) project has raised doubt about its future while power shortage still remains a big hurdle to industrialisation of northern Bangladesh. Conceived in the early 60s to provide plentiful energy, the RNPP project -- an ambitious plan remains still a dream of a few enthusiastic scientists working in Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC). While talking to The Daily Star a senior BAEC official involved with the project preferring anonymity speaks of the 'sensitivity' of the issue. "The dream project, adopted during the Ayub regime of Pakistan in 1961, was lying unimplemented due to lack of political will," he said, but he did not elaborate. It will take five to seven years to complete the project redesigned in 1996 with a plan for a 600 megawatt nuclear power plant at a cost of about US 900 million dollars, he added. The nuclear power plant had been on agenda since 1971, but not moved much in the past 31 years. Successive governments have shelved the project, but still spend Tk 35 lakh each year on salaries and maintenance of the project establishment at Rooppur. The authorities concerned, however, say that lack of funds stands in the way of implementation of the project, now a four decade old plan. The power plant was supposed to be set up on 292-acre of land near Hardinge Bridge in Pabna. At least 72 buildings including administrative buildings and residential quarters to house the employees, administrators, scientists and guest houses were put in place in the early 70s. About 22 lakh bricks were piled up for further construction work. But much of the infrastructure has now lost its luster. Almost all the houses have gradually been abandoned, being unsuitable for habitation. A portion of the project site has turned into a grazing field while farmers from the neighbouring villages use about 260 acres of the project land for cultivation on lease. In last 41 years, feasibility studies were done many times, all of which spoke in favour of establishing a nuclear power plant at Rooppur. Rooppur, an expert says, could be a major political issue for the northern region of the country. The generation cost of nuclear power will be half of the average price of electricity, now produced mostly with fast depleting natural gas. A lot depends on Rooppur, if the issue of giving the energy starved northern region a chance to move forward by establishing industries. The Daily Star ***************************************************************** 7 Feds study new fuel for nuclear plants By ROGER WITHERSPOON THE JOURNAL NEWS (Original publication: March 01, 2002) The Department of Energy is evaluating a new type of fuel for commercial nuclear reactors which, if successful, could help eliminate plutonium from spent fuel pools and weapons stockpiles. Proponents of the fuel, called thorium, say Indian Point in Buchanan and other nuclear power plants should be kept open because thorium could end the production of weapons-grade plutonium and reduce plutonium's long-term threat. But the use of reformulated thorium, an element with properties similar to uranium, is seen by critics as an excuse to continue a nuclear-based energy policy. The new fuel is the project of the Washington, D.C.-based Thorium Power, which has received about $1.7 million from the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. John Rooney, the program's associate deputy administrator at the security administration, said the project's goal is to evaluate the effectiveness of thorium-based fuel bundles for use in commercial nuclear reactors. The institute built Soviet atomic weapons and is being used to test thorium as a way of utilizing the skills and knowledge of former Soviet bomb builders, rather than have them seek work with hostile governments. "We are trying to find meaningful, sustainable employment for weapons scientists in the former Soviet Union," Rooney said. If successful, the fuel would be bundled with plutonium retrieved from weapons or spent fuel. The plutonium resulting from this process would not be weapons grade, and decays in about 700 years, instead of 20,000. "We are trying to evaluate the claims being made," Rooney said. "This is the initial testing phase, as far as I am concerned. There has been no commitment on the Department of Energy to embrace this or any other technology. The jury is still out on what is best and what will be available for the next generation of reactor." Yolanda Pollard, a spokeswoman for Entergy Corp., the parent company of Entergy Nuclear, which owns Indian Point, said the company was unfamiliar with the thorium product and could not comment. Joel Grae, chairman of Thorium Power, said in an address to the Rotary Club of Peekskill yesterday that "our aim is to stop producing plutonium and cut down on spent fuel. "You can't make atom bombs from this fuel. It can't be stolen by terrorists to make bombs. There is a legitimate dispute about whether to close Indian Point or keep it open. But there is no debate about sitting under a nuclear plant or under a nuclear explosion. We have to get rid of plutonium." Indian Point critics said eliminating plutonium was no reason to keep the plant open. "Disposing of plutonium is a difficult question," said Marilyn Elie of the Citizens Awareness Network. "Keeping the reactors open to burn it is not the answer." Kyle Rabin, of the environmental group Riverkeeper, which is leading a coalition of groups that want Indian Point closed, called the idea of using the fuel to protect plutonium "a myth." "We should focus on safeguarding the fuel, not reusing it," Rabin said. "The nuclear power industry has had its day, and we should use new technologies to phase out nuclear power." Thorium was used as a fuel in the now-closed Indian Point 1, built in the late 1950s, and a few other early commercial reactors, though it was more difficult to use than uranium. "It was first thought that uranium was not available in great quantities," said David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C. "Thorium was more abundant and a cheaper fuel." Initially, he said, the former Atomic Energy Commission promoted the use of thorium in commercial reactors, while saving uranium for military uses. The discovery of huge deposits of uranium in the United States and Canada changed that. Seth Grae, Thorium Power's president, said the thorium fuel would cost no more than existing fuels. Nuclear power plant owners would simply replace their existing fuel with the thorium-based product. Reprocessing plants would have to be built, however, to remove the plutonium from existing spent fuel so it could be recycled into the thorium fuel mix. No commercial reprocessing plants exist in the United States. The most significant problem associated with nuclear power is the production of plutonium, considered by most scientists to be the most lethal substance on earth. The atom-splitting process that takes place in a nuclear reactor changes uranium into several radioactive substances, including long-lasting plutonium suitable for use in weapons. Grae said the fuel being tested by the Russians utilizes a mix of thorium and 40 percent plutonium. The spent fuel from this mixture does not contain weapons-grade plutonium, but is still dangerous and subject to a meltdown from a terrorist attack or accident. "This does not address the pool fire issue in any meaningful way," Grae said, referring to the fears of many Indian Point critics. "The world is awash with spent fuel that has been created and stockpiled ... The current generation of reactors will probably keep running another 20 years or more, and you have to decide what's the best fuel to use in them. You're not going to be able to put this on your cereal. But what can you do, given the reality of what's out there?" Roger Witherspoon [rwithers@thejournalnews.com] Copyright 2002 The Journal News, a Gannett Co [http://www.gannett.com/] . ***************************************************************** 8 Canada: Details are scarce at meeting on $12-billion nuclear project Thestar.com > News > Canada Mar. 2, 2002. 01:00 AM Regulators reluctant to give initial approval Peter Calamai SCIENCE REPORTER OTTAWA — The information provided about a proposed $12-billion experiment in nuclear fusion near Toronto is far too skimpy to make an informed decision about the first step in approving the project, federal nuclear regulators complained yesterday. "This isn't a regular nuclear reactor. It's a facility costing billions of dollars and involving a new technology," said Chris Barnes of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. But the documents given the commissioners and also available to the public contained no substantive explanation about the experimental fusion reactor or about the competence and financial backing of the promoters, he said. The Ontario government has pledged $300 million toward Canada's estimated $2-billion portion of the project, formally called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). Ottawa has contributed $3 million and has also endorsed the Canadian bid against rivals in Japan and France. Barnes's complaints came as five Sierra Club activists sat in the front row at the Ottawa meeting, their mouths closed by yellow sticky tape bearing the international symbol for radioactive hazard. Afterward, Sierra nuclear campaign chief David Martin said they were protesting the commission's refusal to allow them to supplement their written objection with oral testimony. "They're clearly dancing around their own regulations, hurrying along an enormous new facility on an unprecedented scale," Martin said. `This isn't a regular nuclear reactor. It's a facility costing billions of dollars and involving a new technology.' Chris Barnes Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission Commission president Linda Keen said the detailed information sought by Barnes and other commissioners was available but had not been included in the materials prepared for the public meeting. The commission was under no legal obligation to hold this meeting or even to ask for public comment at this early stage, she explained. The federal regulators were asked by commission staff to approve guidelines for gauging the environmental impact of the world's first demonstration fusion reactor, which an industry-dominated Canadian group wants built beside the Darlington nuclear power station east of Toronto. The broad-brush environmental screening would be carried out by the ITER promoters, under the supervision of staff at the nuclear safety commission. The commission received more than 100 letters from individuals urging instead a full-scale environmental review by an independent panel, with public funding for citizen groups and activists to hire experts. But commission staffer Barclay Howden told the meeting that an environmental review required "significant public concern or significant environmental effects" and these conditions didn't yet exist. Earlier at the meeting, an identical argument was used to rebuff calls for an independent environmental review into plans to restart two of the older reactors at the Bruce nuclear power station without overhauling the aging pressure tubes. Commission member Yves Giroux challenged the staff to justify keeping the ITER environmental review as narrow as the Bruce one. "This is a new kind of reactor with which we have much less familiarity than the Candu," Giroux said. But the commission staff contended that ITER is experimental and not designed to produce continuous energy. Legal Notice:- Copyright 1996-2002. Toronto Star Newspapers ***************************************************************** 9 BUCHANAN, N.Y. (AP) All this talk of nuclear doom in... By Jim Fitzgerald, Associated Press, 3/1/2002 13:17 BUCHANAN, N.Y. (AP) All this talk of nuclear doom in the New York City suburbs is putting money in Troy Jones' pocket. ''Indian Point has been my bread and butter,'' says Jones, president of NukePills.com, which is selling thousands of potassium iodide tablets a day in recent weeks, many to people near the Indian Point nuclear plants 35 miles north of Manhattan. The pill, better known by its chemical symbol KI, is meant to prevent thyroid cancer, one of the most common radiation-caused illnesses. Since Sept. 11, when an airborne terrorist attack on nuclear plants suddenly seemed possible, the widespread distribution of KI has gained credibility here and across the country as a means of public protection. Nine states Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont have requested a total of 3.7 million tablets from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is offering enough to treat everyone within 10 miles of a nuclear reactor. KI was proven effective, especially in children, after the 1986 accident at Chernobyl. NRC Spokesman Neil Sheehan said the commission still believes ''sheltering and evacuations would be the best way to go in the event of a serious nuclear accident but potassium iodide is another tool.'' Some states are skeptical, saying distribution of KI distracts the public from the more vital issues of plant safety and evacuation. Mike Sinclair, planning chief for the Illinois Nuclear Safety Department, said KI ''doesn't add anything in terms of public health.'' And Mel Fry, North Carolina's director of radiation protection, worries that using KI pills would delay an evacuation. ''I'd just as soon they don't stop and pop pills,'' he said. ''I just want them to get out of harm's way.'' But buying potassium iodide, available without a prescription at a cost of about $1 a pill, is one of few things people can do to get ready for a nuclear plant problem. And every time the news gets more frightening, more people shell out. ''The moment (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld or somebody comes out and says `terrorists, nuclear plants,' boom! Our calls go through the roof,'' said Jones, whose Internet company is based in Mooresville, N.C. ''We had a big surge at 10 p.m. one night because somebody said something scary on CNN.'' KI works by filling the thyroid gland, which absorbs iodine, with harmless iodine before any radioactive iodine can get in. Dr. Donald Margouleff, chief of nuclear medicine at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., cautioned that potassium iodine offers no protection against any form of radiation illness other than thyroid cancer. Still, Margouleff said, ''It's not expensive, it doesn't have a short shelf life, large amounts are not required, the side effects are going to be minimal, if any, in most people, and the protection far outweighs the risk. Robin Tinkhauser of Chappaqua bought KI from her neighborhood pharmacy. A mother of two, she keeps the pills in her medicine cabinet, her car and at her 8-year-old son's school, where she persuaded reluctant officials to administer it in case of radioactive fallout. Tinkhauser said she had never heard of potassium iodide until recently. ''If it's out there and it's available to protect us, especially the children, who are most vulnerable, I want to take advantage of that,'' she said. The states that requested pills are still planning distribution. Roseanne Pawelec, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Department of Health, said officials from five adjoining states just met to consider ''a coordinated New England-wide approach.'' Tentatively, drug stores would be used to predistribute pills to households, while separate stockpiles would be maintained at schools in case of a nuclear accident or attack during the school day, she said. In Arizona, plans call for the pills to be distributed only after exposure, at reception areas outside the danger zone. ''We don't want people taking time to hunt down their pills. The best thing to do is get out of there,'' said Aubrey Godwin, director of the state's Radiation Regulatory Agency. Also at issue is the size of the danger zone. A lawyer for an anti-nuclear group in Connecticut said it ''borders on criminal negligence'' not to make the pills available to everyone within 50 miles of a reactor, not the 10 miles prescribed by the NRC. New York, which requested 1.2 million pills, is leaving the planning to the counties around its three nuclear stations. Westchester County, home of Indian Point, is asking schools, hospitals and other institutions to help draft a strategy, emphasizing that the distribution of pills cannot be allowed to delay an evacuation. ''We're looking to make KI so widely available,'' County Health Commissioner Joshua Lipsman said, ''that it becomes the last thing the public has to worry about or think about.'' On the Net: http://www.nrc.gov ***************************************************************** 10 Calif. San Onofre 3 nuke return delayed until Sun Yahoo - Friday March 1, 11:37 am Eastern Time LOS ANGELES, March 1 (Reuters) - The restart of the 1,080-megawatt Unit 3 at the San Onofre nuclear plant in southern California has been delayed until Sunday, a plant spokesman said on Friday. The unit had been expected to return to service either late Thursday afternoon or early Thursday evening. ``As we were going through testing we found we had some additional work to do,'' the spokesman said. The unit automatically shut down on Wednesday morning due to a transmission problem in the electrical switchyard. Southern California Edison, a unit of Edison International, operates and has a 75 percent stake in the plant while Sempra Energy unit San Diego Gas &Electric has a 20 percent stake. The cities of Anaheim and Riverside own the balance. Copyright © 2002 Yahoo! Inc. ***************************************************************** 11 Rep. Kucinich introduces bill and treaty to ban space weaponry Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2002 16:43:23 -0600 (CST) And Kucinich is vegan! In a message dated 2/27/02 9:57:56 AM Pacific Standard Time, elanaji@earthlink.net writes: On Saturday evening, Feb. 23rd the most extraordinary experience happened in Mailbu, CA.. About 250 (I expected 30-50) people showed up to meet Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) who introduced about the most exciting news any of us have heard in years: H.R. 3616, the Space Preservation Act of 2002 and the compatible world treaty that will replace the ABM Treaty, the Space Preservation Treaty. We now have a way to literally end the arms race, cap it, BEFORE space-based weapons can be deployed (which is possible any time after June 13th when Bush has announced he will unilaterally break the ABM Treaty between the US and USSR). The house sat 80 comfortably, so it was standing room only and the room felt like it was filled with light. The congressman was clearly blown away, too. And what a message. For the first time, we have a real chance to take a real step, to get U.S. national and WORLD law to ban space-based weapons, to prohibit the use of weapons against objects that are in space in orbit, and to literally transform, Aikido style, the war industry (and mindset) into a space industry. We can only do it this year, really, because as of June 13th, the U.S. administration can legally deploy weapons into space pointed down all our throats, even under the guise of it being "MERELY testing or MERELY research." The language and purpose of the legislation and the treaty are the same. The treaty also includes language of the Outer Space Treaty of '67 and the great Chinese proposal for a treaty to ban space-based weapons. Most country leaders of the world have already expressed the desire to ban space-based weapons. And now is our chance...and it's a once in a lifetime chance. Hearing Congressman Kucinich gave most of us chills. He's incredible. He's champion of all progressive issues as Chairman of the House Progressive Caucus, and is learning a lot about what IS in space and what CAN BE in space that will be exciting enough, fulfill enough contracts for industries, businesses and entrepreneurs in order to shift us from a war based economy into a space economy, and he travels to other countries...and knows that it's better to base security on enhancing communication, to the applications of clean and safe technology to solving urgent human and environmental problems, and he can see the value of banning space-based weapons while we still can. He's clearly a man of heart and integrity, and we were more blown away than he was at seeing this unexpected turn-out. He and his partner are vegan vegetarians. I mean, he is conscious and caring, and he walks his talk. If I could, I would insist that everyone read, no, study the Space Preservation Act of 2002, and the Space Preservation Treaty. They are milestone pieces, works of art, and they will lead us into a new space paradigm, a new way of thinking, that will awaken and shift consciousness. You can read the text on www.peaceinspace.com . One of the most unique parts of the bill and the treaty is that the bill requires the U.S. President to negotiate a treaty, and the treaty establishes a world space peacekeeping agency that will monitor and enforce the ban. That kind of agency was missing from other treaties, so now when people ask "How would this be enforced" there is an answer. Both the bill and treaty call for the immediate implementation of the ban on space-based weapons and for the stopping of research and development, testing, manufacturing and production of ALL space-based weapons (more than what the ABM Treaty called for, and it was only between the US and USSR), but allows for everyone to work cooperatively worldwide on space research and development, manufacturing, production, and deployment of civil, commercial and defense related projects that are NOT of a space-based weapons nature. In other words, the bill and treaty provide for a win-win. People have been unable to stop the war machine for decades. The largest R&D program in history is now mandated to weaponize space. The nuclear industry, and other dangerous technolgies continue to be developed. Standing on a launch pad with posters saying stop the rocket fumes didn't work. We can now shift the consciousness as we cap off the arms race, IF we go for it now. All we are doing as a FIRST STEP to actually shifting the consciousness is removing the mandate to weaponize space. Then we can back up and use the satellites to see where the sick waters are so we can clean them up, to see where the people have migrated to so we can send in food and medicine, and to see where troops are so they can be in real service helping people and other animals who are suffering so (and wouldn't that provide us with better security than will going in to bomb...), and to see where the arsenals are so we can reduce and eventually eliminate earthbound weapons and other dangerous technologies. But what's really unique here is that the military industrial complex can proceed ahead as our species evolves into space (there is no stopping that now), in a whole new way that has already begun...with NO weapons in the space frontier above all our heads! The people got really excited when Congressman Kucinich said NOW is the time to call your congress representatives in the House and tell them you want them to sign-on, to co-sponsor H.R. 3616. Now is the time to call Senators and tell them you want them to introduce and help to get co-sponsors of a Senate version of H.R. 3616. And now is the time to call all of your friends around the world, get a copy of the Space Preservation Treaty into the hands of all nation-state leaders, and tell them to introduce it and agree publically to sign-on to it. This congressman is one of the people. His father was a truck driver for 35 years. His mother was a mom of seven children, of which he was the oldest. He was the youngest mayor in the country at 31, in Cleveland Ohio. He's numberous won awards including one from the International Order of the Eagles for being the outstanding politician. He's champion of conscious issues and is determined to get peace on this planet not only through this bill,, but by creating a Department of Peace. He gives presentations that are so present, calm yet powerful, and he's the most amazing man I've met in my 28 years of working the Hill. He is devoted to getting this ban on space-based weapons in the world arena, which will pressure this administration and congress to do the same. And we have one chance in time to make this ban a reality. Our Institute for Cooperation in Space, ICIS, will announce the details of a full-on action campaign next week, but meanwhile, people are activating already. I've recieved countless emails from people who attended that event who are really really excited about this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join a worldwide movement in solidarity. In fact, people there agreed to rise above their different perspectives and other vitally important issues to join in solidarity to get this Space Preservation Act of 2002, H.R. 3616, and the compatible Space Preservation Treaty into everyone's hands we know, into the media, supported and turned into law in 2002! And once we've got this ban turned into law, we will also have the collective consciousness shifting, and our networks who have joined in solidarity to get the ban on space-based weapons will move on in the same way to focus on getting alternative energy and propulsion systems, and to feeding and healing everyone on this planet, and more. First step, since there is a time sense of urgency, June 13th, people will do everything we know how to do to get the H.R. 3616, the Space Preservation Act of 2002, the Space Preservation Treaty, co-sponsored and signed and turned into law, If anyone has any questions or needs an emailed copy of the legislation or the treaty, just let me know. Times are looking up! We will have peace on earth through peace in space!! Love and peace, Carol Rosin rosin@west.net www.peaceinspace.com ICIS institute for cooperation in space PO Box 25040 Ventura, CA 93001 Tel: 805-641-1999 Fax: 805-641-9669 http://www.peaceinspace.com rosin@west.net ***************************************************************** 12 Radioactive fallout report causes concern The Tullahoma News BRIAN JUSTICE, The Sunday News Staff WriterMarch 02, 2002 FRANKLIN COUNTY - If Franklin County has a problem with Cold War nuclear fallout, everything possible should be done to improve conditions, according to County Executive Monty Adams. A federal study has revealed that Franklin County is one of 28 in Tennessee with high levels of radioactive cesium-137 fallout from Cold War nuclear weapons tests. Part of an unreleased report was obtained by a nationally circulated newspaper and was published in a Thursday edition. Franklin and other Tennessee counties - most along the Cumberland Plateau and along the Alabama and Georgia borders - were listed in the report as having the highest fallout levels. The report's findings were based on computer-generated analyses of "fallout patterns, population trends and other data." The report said from where the fallout originated could not be determined. Adams said if fallout is here, precautions need to be taken. "If there's a problem, it's a concern, and if a solution is needed, we need to be a part of it," he said. "We want to be involved in it. "Protecting the welfare of our citizens is what we do." Adams said he was surprised at the report. "I knew there had been testing done, but I didn't know what extent they were done and what the exposure signs were," he said. The report concluded that at least 15,000 cancer deaths and about 20,000 non-fatal forms of cancer nationwide may be linked to radiation from hundreds of above-ground nuclear blasts that were detonated before 1963. No one born in the United States after 1951 escaped exposure because of highly radioactive elements that fell over large portions of the country, the report said. The study measures exposure to an array of fallout elements based on county of residence, birth date and factors such as consumption of foods that absorb fallout. It concluded that about 22,000 cancer cases, half of them fatal, probably occurred from external exposure to radioactive fallout. The types range from melanoma to breast cancer. The study attributed thousands of additional cancer cases to internal radiation exposure, such as inhalation or eating tainted food. The list included 550 fatalities from leukemia and about 2,500 thyroid cancer deaths. Bertrand Brill, a reasearch professor in radiology and physics at Vanderbilt University, told a Nashville newspaper that the increase in cancer deaths that the study suggests was theoretical and represented less than one tenth of a percent increase in the national cancer rate. "People shouldn't worry about it," he said, adding later: "There is absolutely nothing one can do at this point to mitigate any of these consequences. "There isn't anything you can do right now to alter the theoretical risks of previous exposures." ©The Tullahoma News 2002 ***************************************************************** 13 Officials to discuss best way to handle anti-radiation drug The News-Herald Dino DiSanto Staff WriterMarch 03, 2002 Peter Crane recalls the event like it was yesterday. A generation ago, as a nuclear disaster unfolded in Pennsylvania and 140,000 people fled the area, pharmaceutical executives were rousted from bed by a plea for help. At the federal government's request, they cranked up production lines in Illinois at 3 a.m., and hours later, thousands of bottles of potassium iodide were rushed to Harrisburg, Pa., by military jet. Ultimately the nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island was controlled and the anti-radiation drug was not needed. Policymakers in Washington, D.C., vowed to stockpile Ki, saying they would not be caught short again. "It never happened," said Crane, a former attorney with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Now, 23 years later, the plan to stockpile the pills has become reality because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "I wouldn't have dreamed it would take this long for them to figure it out," Crane said. The debate has shifted to how Ki will be distributed to those living within 10 miles of the 104 nuclear reactors in the United States. "It's better to have this debate than the other," said Frank Kellogg, director of environmental health programs for Lake County General Health District. This discussion will take place in Northeast Ohio at 1 p.m. Friday at Lakeland Community College in Kirtland. At the hearing, residents will have a chance to weigh in on how the pills should be distributed to more than 50,000 people affected in Lake, Geauga and Ashtabula counties. How does Ki help? Nuclear reactors produce many radioactive substances that can harm people. One, radioactive iodine, poses a particular worry because the thyroid gland uses iodine as a fundamental building block of hormones that play critical roles in metabolism. The body cannot distinguish the safe form of iodine present in food and table salt from the radioactive form. The principle behind Ki is that the thyroid can store only so much iodine. A potassium iodide pill given near the time of radiation exposure floods the gland with safe iodine and reduces or eliminates the absorption of radioactive iodine. Anyone can buy the pills, though they are not widely available. Potassium iodide is not a panacea; it can protect people only from radioactive iodine, not other kinds of radioactive fallout. Distribution Ohio, in its first rough draft of its distribution plan, will hand out the pills to every household within 10 miles of the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in North Perry Village. How it will do that will most likely be left to local health officials. Various methods are being considered. The first idea is to make the program voluntary. This means residents would be responsible for picking up the pills at a specific location. An idea touted elsewhere is to mail the tiny pills to residents with adhesive on the back of the gel packages and instructions to stick the packages on the fuse box. That way every household would know where their pills are. "It would help eliminate rushing to find things in medicine cabinets," Crane said. However, that idea so far has not been discussed in Lake County. Officials' preliminary plan is to distribute the pills through local drug stores. Not only would the pills be available free to people who reside within 10 miles of the plant, but those who live outside the 10-mile zone would be able to purchase them. But Kellogg said before any conversations turn serious, the state must tell the federal government it wants the pills. "These are just some preliminary things we have talked about," he said. "Nothing is set in stone." Other suggestions are sending people vouchers to redeem for the pills or simply including the pills with electric bills. No matter which way is chosen, residents living near the Perry Nuclear Power Plant, which is owned by Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp., aren't going to have the pills until next year. Concerns The Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade association for the nuclear industry that has long opposed stockpiling, says it can live with the new policy, but its experts remain skeptical. "Concern No. 1 is that people not get confused that this is some sort of panacea for any kind of radiation exposure," said Ralph Andersen, chief health physicist at NEI. Instead, NEI is worried that people will delay evacuation because they have the pills. "We don't want people not to evacuate," Anderson said. "If anything goes wrong at a plant the primary goal is to evacuate and we don't want the people delaying that." Verne Higaki, supervisor of emergency planning at the Perry Nuclear Power plant, says another concern is dosage. The pills contain 130 milligrams of Ki. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recommended that an adult take one; children between ages 3 and 12 take half a tablet; children between 1 month and 3 years should take a quarter of a tablet; and newborns through 1-month-olds should take one-eighth of a tablet. Higaki points out it is almost impossible to break up the tablets into the smaller doses. "That is a major concern," he said. Some believe there are other options. Kellogg said liquid Ki may be made available for youngsters. Crane and David Lochbaum, with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C., say a larger dosage shouldn't hurt a child or an adult. "It's not like a person would be taking the pills every four hours for a couple of days," Crane said. "It would be only a one-time thing." Also since Ki is most effective if taken in the first 30 minutes of exposure, what would happen if an event occurs while children are at school. Schools aren't allowed to dispense aspirin - how are they going to be allowed to hand out Ki? Others have wondered about a plan for people who move in and out of the area. "The transient population will be very difficult to track," Higaki said. All of the concerns are legitimate ones, but after waiting 23 years, most involved would rather debate concerns over distribution than not hand out the pills at all. "Whether to stockpile the pills should have been the easy issue," Crane said. "How to distribute them should be the hard one. It shouldn't have been the other way around." ©The News-Herald 2002 ***************************************************************** 14 Georgia Finally Gets U.S. Attention Las Vegas SUN March 02, 2002 TBILISI, Georgia- The former Soviet republic of Georgia long has courted the attention of the United States to make up for the seeming cold shoulder offered by neighboring Russia. In the decade since the Soviet Union's dissolution, Georgia has battled massive economic troubles, become awash in corruption and crime and seen its Pankisi Gorge used by alleged al-Qaida members and rebels fighting for Chechnya's independence from Russia. Now, after eight years of trying, Georgia is getting what it wants. Pankisi, a sparsely populated, 36-square-mile patch of rocky mountains bordering Chechnya, could become the next front in the U.S.-led war against terrorism. In line with President Bush's vow to hunt down terrorists everywhere, between 100 and 200 U.S. troops are headed to the region to start training Georgian forces in anti-terrorism tactics for use in Pankisi and other regions. The Americans will work with four Georgian battalions of 300 men each in a $64 million program that could last up to a year. U.S. troops will not be deployed in Pankisi. The plan also includes equipping Georgian infantry and border guards with communications equipment, light weapons such as pistols and rifles, ammunition, and vehicles, according to a western official in Moscow speaking on condition of anonymity. "We have waited a long time, eight years, for the United States to activate cooperation with Georgia in the military sphere," Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze said Thursday. U.S. officials hope to start training by mid-March. Georgia is primarily interested in the United States as a counterbalance to Russia, whose offers of help to crack down in the gorge were refused. Shevardnadze on Thursday lashed out bitterly at Moscow, which he accused of leaving Georgia without defenses. "The Americans are thinking how Georgia can be strengthened. Why doesn't Russia think about this? Russia pulled out everything that could be taken from Georgia," he fumed. "There was a lot of equipment here, thousands of tanks, two air divisions with planes.... And what remained? Rusted weapons, nothing else." The United States is deeply interested in the security of the Caucasus region, which straddles gas and oil deposits. Several pipelines run through Georgia itself. The United States also is troubled by the porous borders allowing alleged terrorists to transport weapons and money and smugglers to spirit out radioactive substances. Shevardnadze's government has virtually ceded control of the gorge to criminal gangs. "Georgia is an interesting country for the United States, since it's flanked on one side by Russia, and on the other it's in proximity to Iran and Iraq," Georgian security expert David Darchiashvili said. The latter two nations were dubbed by Bush to be part of an "axis of evil" with North Korea. Although many Russian officials grumble that the United States is invading their traditional sphere of influence, President Vladimir Putin said Moscow backs any efforts to control the Pankisi Gorge situation. "If we are talking about a fight against terrorism in the Pankisi Gorge, then we support this fight no matter who is participating in it," Putin said Friday after meeting with Shevardnadze at a summit of the 11 former Soviet republics, according to Russia's Interfax news agency. Russia has long accused separatist rebels in Chechnya of being Islamic terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. Georgia long denied that rebels were in the gorge, but Shevardnadze conceded in June that 200-300 Chechen fighters might be there. U.S. military aid to Georgia predated the new program. Georgian Defense Ministry spokesman Miryan Kiknadze said Friday that Georgian armed forces already had received about $50 million in U.S. assistance to boost their defense capability. The most visible donations have been the 10 U.S. Iroquois military transport helicopters transferred to Georgia last October. The program also included training Georgian helicopter pilots and providing uniforms and other supplies, Kiknadze told The Associated Press. Anywhere from 20 to 30 U.S. military instructors are in Georgia on a rotating basis to aid the country's military reform, he said. The United States also has provided about $45 million in assistance to Georgian border guards since 1998, including three patrol boats and equipment intended to prevent the smuggling of radioactive devices. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 15 Hanford cancer compensation: promised, elusive The Seattle Times: Local News: Sunday, March 03, 2002 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific By Hal Bernton Ray Samson, 75, suffers from skin cancer that erupted in his right nostril. A sliver of radioactive graphite had lodged there when he worked at Hanford in 1974. KENNEWICK — Every time he looks in the mirror, electrician Ray Samson thinks of that 1974 job at a Hanford nuclear reactor. The job was simple enough — changing overhead light bulbs. But a sliver of radioactive graphite lodged in his right nostril, and it took three hours and a trip to the hospital to extricate the fragment. Samson, 75, of Kennewick, now suffers from an aggressive skin cancer that erupted inside that same nostril. He's had five operations to cut out cancerous tissues and faces another to reconstruct what's left of his nose. Samson is one of thousands of former federal nuclear workers who may be eligible for $150,000 plus medical-expense payments as compensation for cancer that may have been triggered by radiation exposure on the job. But for Samson and many other aging former Hanford employees, proving their eligibility for that money has turned into an arduous process — and for some of the sickest, a race against time. The compensation program was launched last July to make amends to nuclear workers who fell ill as a result of hazardous work during the Cold War. But before most cancer claims can be evaluated, the government must be satisfied that the workers were involved in federal nuclear projects. That verification process has bogged down in slow, sometimes futile, searches of old employment records stored in warehouses in Seattle and around the country. Samson filed his claim in January but federal officials still haven't confirmed his Hanford employment. Other workers filed claims six months ago — and still haven't received verification. "I've been tearing my hair out trying to figure out what I can do," Samson said. "It disturbs me that that they're making it so tough to prove that you worked out there." Labor Department officials acknowledge the verification is taking a lot longer than anticipated. HAL BERNTON / THE SEATTLE TIMES Ken “Steamboat” Staley, 76, of Richland, has urged other former Hanford workers to file for compensation. “I’ve buried three or four friends in the last year,” says Staley, who has cancer. "The records from the early '70s and back to the '40s — those are paper records, and sometimes no one knows exactly where the paper is," said Vardas Nathaniel, who directs a Seattle-based Labor Department team handling compensation claims. Since opening last July, the Seattle office has received more than 4,100 claims for compensation from Western states, Alaska and the South Pacific — including more than 1,200 from Washington. • 0nly 85 people have received final approval for compensation checks. All were part of a special program to pay those at a few very high-risk sites, not including Hanford. • Just under 900 claims have been verified for employment and covered medical conditions. If the illness is judged "as likely as not" due to work, most claims will be eligible for payment starting later this year. • Another 493 claimants have been recommended for rejection because the government could not document that they worked at a federal nuclear facility or that they have a medical condition covered under the act. Nathaniel said at least a few of those rejected might have had valid claims that federal officials couldn't authenticate. • Another 2,700 claims — including Samson's — remain in limbo as contractors employed by the Energy Department try to document employment and medical records. An about-face The compensation effort reflects a dramatic change in federal policy. For more than half a century, the federal government rarely conceded that former nuclear workers who became sick merited compensation. A 1994 General Accounting Office report found that the Energy Department had spent as much as $40 million a year contesting the claims of workers who blamed their illness on exposure to radiation, beryllium or toxic chemicals. HAL BERNTON / THE SEATTLE TIMES Bob Pitman has been struck by three cancers. In his worst radiation exposure, in 1953, Pitman says he worked in an area so hot that he had to shed his clothes for burial. Then two years ago, Congress approved legislation to make amends to those who had helped produce nuclear weapons. The legislation noted that more than two dozen scientific reports had indicated that federal nuclear workers suffered increased risks of cancer, and that a large number of workers were put at risk "without their knowledge or consent." The legislation authorized payments to any worker whose radiation exposure had at least a 50 percent chance of triggering a cancer. It also authorized payment for beryllium disease and silicosis. Federal officials say they have tried to make the claims process as friendly as possible, setting up special offices in Kennewick and other cities to help applicants. But if the record searches don't pan out, the burden of proof falls on the claimant. So Samson and some of his cancer-stricken buddies are searching for old pay stubs and mailing them to the Labor Department. They're contacting union halls for papers. And they're filing Freedom of Information Act requests with the Energy Department to obtain radiation-monitoring reports, medical records or other information that might help bolster their case. "Some of the people are getting frustrated," said Eunice Godfrey, a federal contract worker who manages the Kennewick claims office. "They were given the impression that this was going to be a very simple process from beginning to end. While we can make it easy to fill out the application form, the burden of proof is not always easy." Godfrey says some of the toughest cases involve workers who died in the 1950s and '60s. The children of these workers may be entitled to compensation, but the medical records to document the cancers are often long gone. And death certificates may offer only the sketchiest of details. Tracking down old job records also is difficult. Since the 1943 groundbreaking at the Hanford facility, which was built to produce plutonium for the atom bomb, the sprawling nuclear reservation has employed hundreds of thousands of workers through a vast network of contractors and subcontractors. A sizeable number of those records have been assembled in a Seattle warehouse — but are far from complete. "We've been doing a lot of detective work," said Manny Van Pelt, a spokesman for the Energy Department. "With a couple of applicants from last August, our contractors have been looking nonstop for the records — and they're still looking." The verification is intended to guard against fraud. Hesitant to file Some of the claimants who've come to the Kennewick office have been uneasy about the whole idea of compensation. They did their time at Hanford, accepted the risk — and never expected anyone to pay them for cancer or other maladies. One cancer victim was so skeptical of the idea that only after he died did his wife dare to fill out a claim, according to Godfrey, the manager of the Kennewick office. Samson said he's never been one for handouts. He spent more than 50 years doing union electrical jobs from Alaska to Louisiana. He's still on call for union work. "I loved my work all these years," Samson said. "It's been one the best things that ever happened to me." But he's been thinking a lot about the time that he and his friends spent at Hanford. He said that in the early years no one liked to talk about the risks of radiation. If the government is now ready to take some responsibility, he's willing to serve up his nose as evidence. Samson is a big burly man with a shock of unruly gray hair and a death-defying, skull-and-cross-bones tattoo on his right arm. Operations have left his nose pushed down against his face and gnarled his nostrils. The cancer is unlikely to spread further, according to his physician. A widower who lost his wife to Alzheimer's, Samson spends much of his time repairing cars and trucks parked behind the double-wide trailer home that he shares with the family of his eldest son. If he gets compensation, Samson would pass some of the money on to his four children and blow a bit on himself. He'd like to make a long tour of the drag-racing circuit. In applying for compensation, Samson has been aided by an old buddy, Ken "Steamboat" Staley of Richland. Staley, 76, also has skin cancer. But he's most upset about all the friends who worked at Hanford and have died of cancer — and those he still might lose. So he makes phone calls and house visits, badgering everyone to file claims. Staley's support made a big difference to electrician Bob Pitman, a veteran of more than 40 years of electrical work at Hanford. In his worst radiation exposure back in 1953, Pitman said, he worked in an area so hot that he had to shed his clothes for burial. The truck that took him into the site also ended up buried after several failed attempts — stretching over a month — to decontaminate the vehicle. Pitman, 75, of Richland, has been struck with three cancers. He's survived several years beyond what his doctors predicted and is undergoing intensive chemotherapy. Pitman said he initially wasn't going to file a claim. But after Staley paid a visit, he changed his mind. After several months of correspondence with Seattle — and after mailing in a bunch of pay stubs saved in a cardboard box — Pitman appears close to gaining his work verification. Staley remains committed to seeing more former Hanford workers get their payments: "I've buried three or four friends in the last year — and I keep looking into the obituaries to see how many more are going to die before the government starts compensation." Hal Bernton can be reached at 206-464-2581. seattletimes.com home ***************************************************************** 16 Senator Urges Speedy Release of Nuclear Study Yahoo! News - Fri Mar 1, 5:30 PM ET By Alicia Ault WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) - Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) is "exploring all his options" to speed up the release of a full report on the extent of fallout from nuclear testing and its consequences on Americans' health, a spokesman for the Senator said Friday. Harkin requested the report in 1998, after initial studies by the National Cancer Institute (news - web sites) (NCI) showed that people who lived in states far to the north and east of Nevada had an elevated risk of thyroid cancer. Nevada was the site of atomic bomb testing in the 1950s. Harkin's home state of Iowa was a particular hot spot, and four of his six siblings have died of cancer. The new report, to be conducted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) (CDC) and the NCI, was supposed to be done by late 1999. The two agencies completed an interim analysis in August 2001, but did not send the results to Harkin until February, said the Senator's spokesman. No explanation has been offered for the delay, which was first reported in USA Today on Thursday. The agencies found that fallout reached an area much wider than previously thought. The analysis included not just US-based test fallout, but other major sources of radioactive isotopes including global detonations by the US, Soviet Union, and Britain between 1951 and 1962. The CDC and NCI concluded that "any person living in the contiguous United States since 1951 has been exposed to radioactive fallout, and all organs and tissues of the body have received some radiation exposure." Based on their preliminary estimates, fallout appears to have the greatest impact on risk for thyroid cancer, with a slightly lower risk for leukemia. Risk estimates for other cancers are more difficult, said the two agencies. The fallout likely caused 11,000 excess deaths from all cancers, including leukemia, in Americans alive between 1951 and 2000, according to the report. Another scientist, Arjun Makhijani, puts the excess death rate at 15,000, and says that 80,000 cancers total in the US are attributable to fallout. Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, is an expert on fallout patterns and health consequences, and consulted with the CDC and Harkin's office on the CDC/NCI report. The nonprofit Institute, based in the self-declared nuclear-free zone of Takoma Park, Maryland, advocates for nuclear disarmament. But Makhijani said Americans should not panic about the cancer estimates. "This is not a cause for alarm--it's a cause for health intervention," he told Reuters Health. Armed with the fallout data, physicians and patients can jointly decide if a patient might have a higher cancer risk, and if screening or other tests are necessary, Makhijani said. Harkin agreed, and will push for release of the full report, citing its ability to help with early intervention against cancer. The CDC said the report is finished, and will "soon" be passed on to the National Academy of Sciences (news - web sites) for peer review. "We have nothing to hide on this," said a spokeswoman for the agency, adding, "It will come out." Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 17 US counts nuclear test toll BBC News | AMERICAS | Friday, 1 March, 2002, Radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons tests probably caused 17,000 cancer deaths in the United States in the latter half of the 20th century, a US-based environmental watchdog reports. The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) drew its conclusion after studying a US government report which has yet to be published. Now the US Government's job is to take the news to small towns all over this region and help unsuspecting people whose health has been damaged by nuclear weapons Margaret Macdonald Stewart Idaho environmentalist Fallout from tests by the US, the Soviet Union and Britain between 1951 and 2000 were reportedly responsible for a total of 80,000 cancer cases in the US alone. Environmentalists have welcomed the government report as the first extensive study of the effect of test fallout on population by a nuclear power. The report was conducted over two years and at a cost of $1.85m by the National Cancer Institute and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Nuclear test sites studied US: Nevada Marshall Islands Johnston Atoll Former USSR: Semipalatinsk Novaya Zemlya UK: Christmas Island Using complex computer analyses, it estimated radiation doses from sites used until overground nuclear weapons tests were banned in 1963 by an international treaty. 'Bad as Chernobyl' The head of the IEER, Dr Arjun Makhijani, believes the study showed that people living thousands of miles from nuclear tests had been affected. "Hot spots were scattered across the United States from California and Oregon, Washington in the west to New Hampshire, Vermont and North Carolina in the east," he said. ground in the 1990s In some instances, Dr Makhijani added, farm children drinking goat's milk in high fallout areas in the 1950s were as severely exposed to radiation as the worst exposed children after the Chernobyl power plant disaster in the USSR in 1986. Another IEER official, Lisa Ledwidge, commended the US Government as the only nuclear power to have "been honest enough to say that it has harmed its own people". But she called on Washington to provide greater information. Campaigners in Idaho, where fallout was particularly high, are calling for a full government public information programme and for compensation awarded in the immediate Nevada area to be extended nationwide. "Now the job - the US Government's job -is to take the news to small towns all over this region and help unsuspecting people whose health has been damaged by nuclear weapons," said Margaret Macdonald Stewart, Development Director of the Snake River Alliance. "The United States has a compensation program for Nevada Test Site neighbours who are geographical downwinders. But this is clearly not enough. There are hot spots thousands of miles from test sites and the new definition of 'downwinder' should include all of them." ***************************************************************** 18 Midwest bore brunt of nuclear test fallout, study says Kansas City Star | 03/02/2002 | By RICK MONTGOMERY and SCOTT CANON The Kansas City Star Nearly all Americans, and especially Midwesterners, have been exposed to radioactive fallout lingering from nuclear weapons tested a half-century ago, an ongoing federal study suggests. An unpublished report prepared for Congress shows that central and Rocky Mountain states fielded the brunt of low-level radiation that floated in from the Nevada Test Site and perhaps from other atomic testing areas around the globe. Since 1951 the radioactive fallout nationwide might have been responsible for 11,000 deaths, mostly from thyroid cancer, the study estimates. But the report by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention goes on to stress that "the uncertainties associated with these estimates (are) extremely large" because so little is known about the effects of chronic, low-level radiation on human organs. Researchers attribute the higher-than-average radiation dose in Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska to wind patterns and rainfall. However, the federal report said no part of the country had been unaffected by atmospheric nuclear tests, which were banned in 1963. "Any person living in the contiguous United States since 1951 has been exposed to radioactive fallout, and all organs and tissues of the body have received some radiation exposure," the report states. Congress in 1998 requested the $1.18 million study as a follow-up to a 100,000-page report issued by the National Cancer Institute. It had found that many states, including Missouri and Kansas, were dusted with fallout from the release of radioactive iodine from the Nevada tests in the early Cold War years. The new study measured other radioactive elements, including some that take decades to disappear completely. The expanded list included elements that would have drifted in from weapons testing in the Pacific Ocean and Central Asia, said Tarek Rizk, communications director for Physicians for Social Responsibility. The report states that the highest rate of cancer deaths related to fallout probably would occur in "that group of persons born in 1951 because, on average, this group received higher doses at younger ages than groups born earlier or later." The total number of cancer cases attributable to nuclear testing is small, however, relative to other causes. For example, among the 3.8 million Americans born in 1951, testing is expected to account for an estimated 1,000 additional cancer deaths. Smoking, in comparison, is expected to account for about 250,000 cancer deaths in the same group. The report notes that, even in the regions most affected, exposure to fallout would be minor compared with the radiation that average Americans since 1951 have received from X-rays and other medical procedures. The CDC report also concludes that nuclear testing has been responsible for about 550 leukemia deaths since 1951. The progress report from the CDC, dated August 2001, has yet to be published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The delay has prompted complaints from U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, who told USA Today: "No more stalling .... We need to fully assess the threats posed by the radioactive (fallout)." Physicians for Social Responsibility is among advocacy groups calling for the federal government to take responsibility for the potential effects of radioactive fallout and to educate the public on dealing with the hazards. The group Friday provided a copy of the report summary to The Kansas City Star and other newspapers. "For people in the highest level of exposure, the radiation is equal to getting a chest X-ray every year for the rest of your life," Rizk said. Some scientists on Friday questioned that assessment. Tracking nuclear fallout can be a nearly impossible task, said Jonathan Katz, a Washington University astrophysicist and sometime defense consultant. Where the low-level radiation ends up depends on cross-continental currents that carry clouds from Nevada to Missouri, as well as the smaller breezes and rain showers that disperse it. "It's really hard to reconstruct," Katz said. He said the majority of the scientific community saw the relatively low radiation exposure from fallout as posing an insignificant cancer risk. Although the fallout added to people's exposure, the amount is typically less radiation than they would receive from natural environmental factors. "In science you always have to look out for surprises," he said. "But it's not something you probably have to be concerned about." A 1999 study led by Eduardo J. Simoes, an epidemiologist with the Missouri Department of Health, found no supporting evidence that Missourians had an increased risk of developing or dying of thyroid cancer, compared with average Americans. "Currently, there is no risk of thyroid cancer associated with atomic bomb `fallout,' " Simoes reported. The release of the much wider federal study will follow, looking at the feasibility of understanding a greater range of health risks from radiation exposure that might linger from above-ground nuclear testing. Bernadette Burden, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control, said release of that broader study will come "soon." "I just can't say if that's days or weeks or months," she said. But, Burden said, its release will come after the technical report is shared with Congress and reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences. The point of the study is not to weigh the health hazards caused by nuclear fallout, she said, but rather to gauge whether it is feasible to conduct further research on the hazards of fallout. Preston Truman, who grew up in Enterprise, Utah, not far from the Nevada Test Site, has long argued that the federal government put much of America in peril with its nuclear detonations. He described the study as a small step toward alerting people to what he believes is their increased cancer risk from fallout exposure. "This gets us closer to eventually coming to terms with what happened and dealing with the people who may have been harmed," Truman said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. To reach Rick Montgomery, national correspondent, call (816) 234-4410 or send e-mail to rmontgomery@kcstar.com [rmontgomery@kcstar.com] . To reach Scott Canon, national correspondent, call (816) 234-4754 or send e-mail to scanon@kcstar.com [scanon@kcstar.com] . Updated Sunday, Mar 03, 2002 ***************************************************************** 19 Cold War tests linked to cancer Orange County Register - Nation & World Sunday, March 3, 2002 Radioactive fallout from nuclear blasts exposed nearly everyone in the United States. March 2, 2002 The Associated Press ATLANTA -- Radioactive fallout from Cold War nuclear testing exposed virtually everyone in the United States and contributed to about 11,000 cancer deaths, an unpublished study by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concludes. The radioactive exposure also contributed to a minimum of 22,000 U.S. cancer cases overall, according to a progress report the CDC provided Congress last year. The report first came to light Thursday in USA Today. The study is the first to consider the health effects of nuclear detonations - including those performed by foreign countries - from 1951 to 1962, when above- ground testing was banned. It is also the first to consider forms of radioactive fallout other than iodine-131, the most serious public-health threat posed by atmospheric nuclear tests. A 1997 assessment by the National Cancer Institute found that 11,300 to 212,000 thyroid cancers could have been caused by iodine-131 produced in nuclear explosions at the Nevada Test Site. The new CDC research does not challenge that result and suggests iodine-131 fallout is responsible for almost all ill health effects from nuclear testing. The CDC report does conclude, however, that nuclear testing has been responsible for about 550 leukemia deaths since 1951. The number of cancer cases attributable to nuclear testing is small, relative to other causes. Smoking, in comparison, is expected to account for about 250,000 cancer deaths in the same group. The Orange County Register ***************************************************************** 20 Since Sept. 11, potassium iodide a hot item around nuclear power plants heraldsun.com: www.nrc.gov [http://www.nrc.gov] By JIM FITZGERALD : Associated Press Writer Mar 1, 2002 : 4:42 pm ET BUCHANAN, N.Y. -- All this talk of nuclear doom in the New York City suburbs is putting money in Troy Jones' pocket. "Indian Point has been my bread and butter," says Jones, president of NukePills.com, which is selling thousands of potassium iodide tablets a day in recent weeks, many to people near the Indian Point nuclear plants 35 miles north of Manhattan. The pill, better known by its chemical symbol KI, is meant to prevent thyroid cancer, one of the most common radiation-caused illnesses. Since Sept. 11, when an airborne terrorist attack on nuclear plants suddenly seemed possible, the widespread distribution of KI has gained credibility here and across the country as a means of public protection. Nine states -- Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont -- have requested a total of 3.7 million tablets from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is offering enough to treat everyone within 10 miles of a nuclear reactor. KI was proven effective, especially in children, after the 1986 accident at Chernobyl. NRC Spokesman Neil Sheehan said the commission still believes "sheltering and evacuations would be the best way to go in the event of a serious nuclear accident but potassium iodide is another tool." Some states are skeptical, saying distribution of KI distracts the public from the more vital issues of plant safety and evacuation. Mike Sinclair, planning chief for the Illinois Nuclear Safety Department, said KI "doesn't add anything in terms of public health." And Mel Fry, North Carolina's director of radiation protection, worries that using KI pills would delay an evacuation. "I'd just as soon they don't stop and pop pills," he said. "I just want them to get out of harm's way." But buying potassium iodide, available without a prescription at a cost of about $1 a pill, is one of few things people can do to get ready for a nuclear plant problem. And every time the news gets more frightening, more people shell out. "The moment (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld or somebody comes out and says `terrorists, nuclear plants,' boom! Our calls go through the roof," said Jones, whose Internet company is based in Mooresville, N.C. "We had a big surge at 10 p.m. one night because somebody said something scary on CNN." KI works by filling the thyroid gland, which absorbs iodine, with harmless iodine before any radioactive iodine can get in. Dr. Donald Margouleff, chief of nuclear medicine at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., cautioned that potassium iodine offers no protection against any form of radiation illness other than thyroid cancer. Still, Margouleff said, "It's not expensive, it doesn't have a short shelf life, large amounts are not required, the side effects are going to be minimal, if any, in most people, and the protection far outweighs the risk. Robin Tinkhauser of Chappaqua bought KI from her neighborhood pharmacy. A mother of two, she keeps the pills in her medicine cabinet, her car -- and at her 8-year-old son's school, where she persuaded reluctant officials to administer it in case of radioactive fallout. Tinkhauser said she had never heard of potassium iodide until recently. "If it's out there and it's available to protect us, especially the children, who are most vulnerable, I want to take advantage of that," she said. The states that requested pills are still planning distribution. Roseanne Pawelec, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Department of Health, said officials from five adjoining states just met to consider "a coordinated New England-wide approach." Tentatively, drug stores would be used to predistribute pills to households, while separate stockpiles would be maintained at schools in case of a nuclear accident or attack during the school day, she said. In Arizona, plans call for the pills to be distributed only after exposure, at reception areas outside the danger zone. "We don't want people taking time to hunt down their pills. The best thing to do is get out of there," said Aubrey Godwin, director of the state's Radiation Regulatory Agency. Also at issue is the size of the danger zone. A lawyer for an anti-nuclear group in Connecticut said it "borders on criminal negligence" not to make the pills available to everyone within 50 miles of a reactor, not the 10 miles prescribed by the NRC. New York, which requested 1.2 million pills, is leaving the planning to the counties around its three nuclear stations. Westchester County, home of Indian Point, is asking schools, hospitals and other institutions to help draft a strategy, emphasizing that the distribution of pills cannot be allowed to delay an evacuation. "We're looking to make KI so widely available," County Health Commissioner Joshua Lipsman said, "that it becomes the last thing the public has to worry about or think about." Copyright 2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not :: privacy statement : © 2002 The Durham Herald ***************************************************************** 21 Study: Most Had Radioactive Exposure Augusta Georgia: Sci-Tech News from the Associated Press ATLANTA -- Radioactive fallout from Cold War nuclear testing exposed virtually everyone in the United States, and contributed to about 11,000 cancer deaths, an unpublished study by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concludes. The radioactive exposure also contributed to a minimum of 22,000 U.S. cancer cases overall, according to a progress report the CDC provided Congress last year. The report first came to light in USA Today on Thursday. The study is the first to consider the health effects of nuclear detonations -- including those performed by foreign countries -- between 1951 and 1962, when above-ground testing was banned. It is also the first to consider forms of radioactive fallout other than iodine-131, the most serious public health threat posed by atmospheric nuclear tests. A 1997 assessment by the National Cancer Institute found that 11,300 to 212,000 thyroid cancers could have been caused by iodine-131 produced in nuclear explosions at the Nevada Test Site. The new CDC research does not challenge that result, and suggests iodine-131 fallout is responsible for almost all ill health effects from nuclear testing. The CDC report does conclude, however, that nuclear testing has been responsible for about 550 leukemia deaths since 1951. The number of cancer cases attributable to nuclear testing is small, relative to other causes. For example, among the 3.8 million Americans born in 1951, who would have been exposed to the highest fallout levels in their most vulnerable early years, testing is expected to account for an estimated 1,000 additional cancer deaths. Smoking, in comparison, is expected to account for about 250,000 cancer deaths in the same group. 1996 - 2002 The Augusta Chronicle. ***************************************************************** 22 Study: 1950s nuclear fallout worse than thought CNN.com - - March 1, 2002 TAKOMA PARK, Maryland (CNN) -- Radioactive fallout from 1950s above-ground nuclear weapons testing spread farther than researchers previously realized and most increased cancer rates in the United States, according to a scientific report. "Any person living in the contiguous United States since 1951 has been exposed to radioactive fallout, and all organs and tissues of the body have received some radiation exposure," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute said in a progress report prepared for Congress. The report was reviewed by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. The preliminary report -- the actual study is not yet complete -- has alarmed some members of Congress, including Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. CNN's Natalie Pawelski reports on a scientific study of the toxic effects of Cold War nuclear testing, which one senator says contributed to at least 15,000 U.S. cancer deaths. (March 1) "What we know is maybe the tip of the iceberg here," Harkin said. "We know that there's been upwards of perhaps 15,000 deaths that are attributable to these nuclear tests." Congress received the preliminary report last August. More than 2,000 nuclear tests have been conducted worldwide since the first nuclear bomb was built in the Manhattan Project in World War II, but the CDC/NCI study considered only those above-ground tests that took place between 1951 and 1962. The United States and the Soviet Union agreed in 1963 to restrict nuclear tests to underground sites. "What is surprising and very new is that it has created intense hot spots in the continental United States all the way from California and Washington to Vermont, New Hampshire and North Carolina," said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of the IEER. And yet, the government has yet to formulate a public health response, according to IEER outreach director Lisa Ledwidge, a biologist. She noted that officials in the 1950s notified suppliers of photographic film of expected fallout patterns so they could protect their film, but did not share the information with milk producers, for example. A 1997 report by the National Cancer Institute, which dealt with only one radionuclide -- iodine-131 -- indicated that "farm children ... who drank goat's milk in the 1950s in high fallout areas were as severely exposed as the worst exposed children after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant accident," Makhijani said. The IEER called for the government to expand its compensation program for test site "downwinders" to include hot spots thousands of miles from the test sites themselves, and to formulate and implement a comprehensive response to the public health threat posed by the fallout. Harkin agreed. "People have a right to know if they were exposed where the big areas of fallout were and they need to be screened and told what to do to protect their health," the senator said. © 2002 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. ***************************************************************** 23 Sick workers' aid plan gets D- - The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Saturday, March 02, 2002 A group told the Department of Labor that some illnesses of nuclear workers aren't covered, and the lump sum is small. By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650 An activist group says a new program to help sick nuclear workers is too narrow and doesn't provide adequate compensation. The group, headed by Vina Colley, a former uranium enrichment worker at Piketon, Ohio, has compiled a "report card" giving the program a D- grade. Colley delivered the information Thursday to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao in Washington, D.C. Among other things, the report card claims last year's Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Plant Act: Does not cover enough illnesses, such as those from exposure to heavy metals, fluorides and other chemicals. The law provides compensation for various cancers related to radiation exposure, and for beryllium- and silica-related diseases. Provides an inadequate lump sum of $150,000, particularly when compared with the terrorist victims' fund. The law also affords medical benefits. Has inequities because some cancer victims' claims have been denied or delayed by the Department of Labor's final adjudication board. "DOL appears to be finding loopholes to deny claims due to semantics, poor records and the discounting of expert diagnosis," which hurts credibility. Has other problems, notably troublesome cases that require reconstructing job exposures or fall under state workers' compensation programs. U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Hopkinsville, who helped push the legislation, declined comment Friday on the group's claims. Shelby Hallmark, head of worker compensation programs for the U.S. Department of Labor, said the programs are bound by congressional rules. "Obviously, those are decisions Congress made for us," he said. "I think it's widely known there are lots of other toxic materials that were used in the nuclear complex, but Congress chose not to cover them." Instead, proposed Department of Energy regulations address conditions not covered by federal compensation. If a doctors' panel finds that such a condition arose from plant employment, DOE will not oppose a state workers' compensation claim and in some instances will tell its contractors to do the same, Hallmark said. He said the Department of Labor has reached final decisions on 1,875 claims, out of which 121 have been denied. So far, to expedite the program, the cases have been those easiest to decide, which means subsequent claims may be more contestable, Hallmark said. "We try to do the very best we can, and people who don't receive the benefits are obviously not happy," he said. "No cases have been taken to court, but that is one avenue people have when we deny a case." Don Throgmorton, a former 18-year employee of the Paducah uranium enrichment plant, said he is soliciting signatures on a petition to support broadening federal law. He can be reached at 554-6638. Although Throgmorton is disabled and has filed a Department of Labor claim, conflicting results of several beryllium-disease tests cloud his chances of collecting. He said he has early-stage emphysema and a spot on one lung, which are signs of the disease. Throgmorton said he is concerned about many borderline workers like himself and many others exposed to substances not reflected by the list of compensated diseases. "I think if they can send money overseas to guys like Arafat, they can take care of guys like us," he said. "They want you to play dead and roll over, and I'm not going to do that. I'm sick and tired of it." ***************************************************************** 24 Senator Urges Speedy Release of Nuclear Study Yahoo! News - Senator Urges Speedy Release of Nuclear Study Fri Mar 1, 5:30 PM ET By Alicia Ault WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) - Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) is "exploring all his options" to speed up the release of a full report on the extent of fallout from nuclear testing and its consequences on Americans' health, a spokesman for the Senator said Friday. Harkin requested the report in 1998, after initial studies by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) showed that people who lived in states far to the north and east of Nevada had an elevated risk of thyroid cancer. Nevada was the site of atomic bomb testing in the 1950s. Harkin's home state of Iowa was a particular hot spot, and four of his six siblings have died of cancer. The new report, to be conducted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news [http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news? p=%22Disease%20Control%20and%20Prevention%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw] - web sites [http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22Disea se+Control+and+Prevention%22&h=c] ) (CDC) and the NCI, was supposed to be done by late 1999. The two agencies completed an interim analysis in August 2001, but did not send the results to Harkin until February, said the Senator's spokesman. No explanation has been offered for the delay, which was first reported in USA Today on Thursday. The agencies found that fallout reached an area much wider than previously thought. The analysis included not just US-based test fallout, but other major sources of radioactive isotopes including global detonations by the US, Soviet Union, and Britain between 1951 and 1962. The CDC and NCI concluded that "any person living in the contiguous United States since 1951 has been exposed to radioactive fallout, and all organs and tissues of the body have received some radiation exposure." Based on their preliminary estimates, fallout appears to have the greatest impact on risk for thyroid cancer, with a slightly lower risk for leukemia. Risk estimates for other cancers are more difficult, said the two agencies. The fallout likely caused 11,000 excess deaths from all cancers, including leukemia, in Americans alive between 1951 and 2000, according to the report. Another scientist, Arjun Makhijani, puts the excess death rate at 15,000, and says that 80,000 cancers total in the US are attributable to fallout. Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, is an expert on fallout patterns and health consequences, and consulted with the CDC and Harkin's office on the CDC/NCI report. The nonprofit Institute, based in the self-declared nuclear-free zone of Takoma Park, Maryland, advocates for nuclear disarmament. But Makhijani said Americans should not panic about the cancer estimates. "This is not a cause for alarm--it's a cause for health intervention," he told Reuters Health. Armed with the fallout data, physicians and patients can jointly decide if a patient might have a higher cancer risk, and if screening or other tests are necessary, Makhijani said. Harkin agreed, and will push for release of the full report, citing its ability to help with early intervention against cancer. The CDC said the report is finished, and will "soon" be passed on to the National Academy of Sciences for peer review. "We have nothing to hide on this," said a spokeswoman for the agency, adding, "It will come out." Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 25 OP: Nevada site is ideal Omaha.com March 3, 2002 One of the more admirable qualities of President Bush is his willingness to make the hard decisions. A specific example is his determination to end years of governmental indecision and approve the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada as a graveyard for high-level radioactive waste. Under the plan, caverns deep in the mountain would be used to store 77,000 tons of spent fuel and other nuclear waste from 131 temporary storage facilities at commercial, military and research installations in 39 states. These materials would be sealed away for 10,000 years to permit them to decompose and lose their radioactivity. These should not be confused with the low-level wastes that have been at the center of a Nebraska battle for many years. The Department of Energy has estimated that the OPPD Fort Calhoun station has about five years' worth of remaining storage space for high-level waste; the NPPD plant at Brownville has space for about 10 years of operation. Yucca Mountain, the department says, is an ideal solution. It is far from population concentrations, geologically suited for isolation and safety and not in a position to endanger the purity of drinking water. The radioactive material would be stored 1,000 feet underground, making it safe from conceivable acts of war or terrorism; it would be packaged in such a way as to be retrievable should some future technology make it useful to mankind. There are many reasons to have a permanent site, not the least of which is to remove the possible safety and security risks of the current situation. Whether the project will go forward, however, depends on Congress, which has shown considerable deference to the State of Nevada's opposition to the project. (Pause for a moment for someone to hurl the rhetorical question, "Well, would you want all that dangerous stuff in your back yard?" We have it now. Right here at Fort Calhoun and Brownville, and without any of the horribles that the NIMBY people obsess about. The issue is that these temporary sites won't last for the 10,000 years it takes for the radioactivity to reach a safe level; accordingly, the waste must be placed somewhere that will.) No one is going to tell the people of Nevada how to think. But we hope they proceed with sound science, which isn't always present when people discuss radioactive waste (and, indeed, was not a determining factor in much of the Nebraska debate over the low-level variety). Sometimes the burdens of citizenship fall unequally as Americans pull together for the general good. Washington state has a nuclear weapons factory. South Carolina, among other states, stores low-level waste. Nebraska and many other states are still cleaning up contamination left from the ammunition factories that helped the Allies win World War II. Nevada already has done a lot, being the site of open-air and underground nuclear weapons testing. But it is well-suited, without danger or serious inconvenience, to take this additional step for the common good. Bush has chosen wisely. We hope, in time, that good science and the gratitude of other Americans help anxious Nevadans to come to terms with that. ©2002 Omaha World-Herald. All rights reserved. Copyright | Terms ***************************************************************** 26 NUKE DUMP GAINS FAVOR The Bristol Press March 03, 2002 By Lolita C. Baldor Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- Connecticut lawmakers, faced with growing amounts of radioactive waste being stored at the state's nuclear power plants, are slowly shifting away from their opposition to the creation of a massive storage site under Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Two years ago, three of the state's U.S. House members and both senators voted against a bill that set a schedule for siting a long-term waste facility on federal land about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Last week, both senators softened their opposition and said they are considering the proposal, and at least one House member -- Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4 -- said he is now leaning toward the plan. The mood shifts coincide with new worries about national security and increased pressure from the Bush administration to move forward with plans to create a long-term storage facility for the radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel assemblies now stored all across the country. In Connecticut, there are about 1,582 metric tons of nuclear fuel being stored at the two operating nuclear power plants and the two that are closed. Nationwide, there are 40,000 metric tons of commercial spent fuel at 72 plants in 36 states, and 100 million gallons of Department of Energy-owned radioactive waste and 2,500 metric tons of spent fuel from weapons development and research. About two weeks ago, after years of federal study and debate, Energy Secretary Spence Abraham recommended the Yucca Mountain site. President Bush gave it his stamp of approval a day later. But Nevada officials have vowed to block the move in the courts. Once Nevada officials file their formal opposition, Congress will have 90 days to pass a resolution overriding the state's objections. In 2000, the House and Senate approved the plan, but it was vetoed by President Clinton and the Senate did not have enough votes for an override. This time, with full administration backing, there is no threat of a veto. And, fueled by the national security arguments, support is growing in Congress. "You can't have nuclear power and not have a place to take the nuclear waste," said Shays, who voted against the Yucca proposal in March 2000. "This is a potential target for terrorists. We need to get it to a site that is safe." So, while he said he understands why people in Nevada are against the proposal, he said he is now "leaning towards it." Both Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman and Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., voted against the plan in 2000, but were not willing to repeat that opposition last week. "We're at the beginning of an important fact-finding process," said Lieberman. "I have been against making (Yucca) a temporary site; I was worried about the environmental impact, but now we're at the final decision." While he said there still is a lot of "contrary evidence" about the site's suitability and the stability of the ground, he won't rule it out. Instead, he said, he is looking at it, and Dodd is doing the same. "This is important issue both for our state and the country," said Dodd spokesman Marvin Fast. "As such, this is an issue that Senator Dodd intends to study in great detail in the weeks and months ahead to examine it fully and thoroughly before deciding upon a course of action." Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, who voted against the plan in 2000 and rejected efforts to study it more last year, also is now seriously considering the plan. She said she wants to talk to state officials to help determine how she will vote, and added, "We're going to do what is best for the state." Others are staunch backers of the plan, including Gov. John G. Rowland, Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-6, and Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2, whose district includes the state's four nuclear power plants -- in Waterford and Haddam. "I am absolutely voting to open Yucca Mountain as a federal facility," said Simmons, the only state lawmaker to visit Yucca Mountain. The key, said Rowland, is that it will be easier to guard one site loaded with nuclear material than the dozens of storage sites now being used across the country. "It's safer to get it out of Connecticut than to have it sit there," he said. Right now, the enriched uranium fuel assemblies that are used to generate heat at the nuclear plants are removed when they become inefficient, and are placed in pools of water near the plants. About one-third of the fuel in a reactor is removed each year. According to Pete Hyde, spokesman for the Millstone power plants in Waterford, there are more than 2,900 fuel assemblies stored in pools at the three Millstone sites. Dominion Resources Services Inc., which owns Millstone, has asked for permission to use additional space in the pool at Millstone Unit III. But he said they will run out of space at Unit II before the Yucca facility opens. At that point they will have to use dry storage casks. "We believe (Yucca Mountain) is the best long-term solution," he said. "Our best option is to put this (material) under 1,000 feet of volcanic rock. . . . It has the best geological and physiological setup." Simmons agrees. "It has everything we need for a safe and secure facility . . . I don't have to be a nuclear scientist to see that the geology and the location lend itself to this purpose," he said. No one disputes the fact that the hour-long ride from Las Vegas to the Yucca Mountain passes over desolate, unpopulated desert land. There, on a 5,400-square-mile tract of federal land sits the expansive Nevada test site, where the government once conducted above- and below-ground nuclear tests. Simmons, who traveled to Nevada last June with officials from the Energy Department and Allen Benson, president of the closed Connecticut Yankee nuclear plant in Haddam, said they took a small train into the 5-mile tunnel into the mountain to see the caverns where the canisters of spent fuel would be stored. "It's like a mine," he said. "There will be sensors where they can visually watch the rooms, and if there's any problem with a canister they can pull it out." Environmentalists and the General Accounting Office, however, say there are still unanswered questions about the site and the canisters. In a December report, GAO said the Energy Department should delay its recommendation until further study is done on the flow of water through the site, the stability of the area - particularly earthquake concerns - and the solidity of the rock. Lisa Gue, policy analyst for Public Citizen, a public interest group actively opposing the Yucca Mountain storage, said federal authorities have weakened environmental requirements on the site's ability to contain radioactivity. And that, she said, could threaten the aquifer below the tunnels. But the concern raised most often by lawmakers and environmental activists is the transportation of the radioactive material from the plants to Nevada. According to maps developed by the Energy Department showing possible routes to Yucca Mountain, the material would pass through as many as 43 different states and within half a mile of 50 million people's homes. The routes include travel along Interstates 91, 84 and 95 in Connecticut. Moving the waste, said Gue, makes it more difficult to protect, and endangers areas of the country that may not have emergency capabilities to handle nuclear accidents. "Severe and unexpected accidents do happen, it's only a matter of where and when," said Gue. Pointing to a fiery truck accident (not involving nuclear waste) in a Baltimore tunnel last year that shut down traffic for days, she added, "to what end is this risk being imposed? It doesn't seem worth it." Nuclear experts dismiss those concerns, saying they have been shipping nuclear material across the country for decades. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, there have been more than 3,000 shipments of used nuclear fuel in the United States since 1964. "The shipping containers are tested for durability. There are no regulations as stringent as those for (transporting) nuclear waste," said Hyde. "It will be extraordinarily secure. Nobody can say it is totally invulnerable, but the same thing can be said about the spent fuel pools." ©The Bristol Press 2002 ***************************************************************** 27 Nuclear waste on your bumper Molly Ivins Creators Syndicate 03.01.02 Bush’s Yucca Mountain plan is a radioactive nightmare AUSTIN, Texas -- Another bad idea. What are they, cheaper by the dozen? The Bush administration has decided to dump all the high-level nuclear waste in America into some yet-to-be excavated tunnels at Yucca Mountain, Nev. Insomuch as you ever think about nuclear waste (a topic I prefer to avoid on the grounds that it's depressing and scary -- denial seems like a good tactic), you probably thought: "Good, Nevada. They'll like it there, and at least it won't be here." Wrong on both counts. Not only are Nevadans predictably unhappy -- and also seriously irate, because Bush promised during the campaign he would make the decision based on "the best science" --- but this also brings nuclear garbage right to your front door. Or at least to the closest interstate highway. Putting the nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain is Nevada's problem. Getting it there is ours. There are 131 nuclear plants dotted around the nation, not to mention assorted military facilities, where the really, really bad stuff is stored. So we're taking a 131-plus-point problem and making it a several-hundred-thousand-point problem. They're going to put the really, really bad stuff into trucks and railroad cars, and send it all to Yucca -- so if you're anywhere between a nuclear power plant and Nevada, you have a problem. Not only does that insanely escalate the chances for a terrorist attack -- it's a lot easier to knock over a truck than it is to fly into a nuclear power plant -- but it makes a nuclear transportation accident almost inevitable. How many trucks over how many highways over what period of time will produce one horrible truck crash? You can hardly drive from Laredo to Dallas on I-35 without seeing one anymore. This is not one of those deals where any fool can say, "Here's a better idea ..." No one has ever had a good idea for getting rid of nuclear waste. As far anyone knows, it can't be gotten rid of. That's the problem, as those citizens who are less into denial than the rest of us have been pointing out for some time. So far, there has only been one useful suggestion on nuclear waste -- let's stop creating more of it. Unfortunately, the Bush-Cheney Energy Plan is not acquainted with the First Rule of Holes -- they plan to keep digging. Their idea of a solution is to take an intractable problem and make it into a much bigger intractable problem. Bush's "best science" campaign promise was pathetic, in retrospect. Yucca Mountain is in an earthquake zone and leaks. Among those who question its desirability as a repository site are the General Accounting Office, Bechtel, SAIC, the Department of Energy contractor on the site, the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board and Radioactive Waste Management Associates. (For details, see the website of the Safe Energy Communication Council.) Probably flying well under your radar screen was a move by Congress late last year compounding the problem still further. In late November, under a no-debate voice vote, the House of Representatives reauthorized an obscure thing called the Price-Anderson Act. Yes, the matter of campaign contributions did raise its ugly head once more. The law limits the nuclear power industry's liability in the case of an accident. No other industry enjoys this federal protection. Price-Anderson requires that each plant carry only $200 million in insurance, with $9.1 billion for the entire industry. Unfortunately, Sandia National Labs has estimated the cost of one big reactor accident at over $500 billion. Worse, the indirect subsidy created by Price-Anderson used to cover only regulated and public utilities. By contrast, any new nuclear power plants will be built by merchant generators -- like Enron -- competing in the newly deregulated markets. This gives them an added incentive to build cheap. The Senate energy bill does not reauthorize Price-Anderson for commercial reactors. If the bill were to pass as it stands, existing reactors would continue to be covered but new ones would not. The anti-nuclear energy coalition is hoping the Senate version will become law, so that the risk of doing business will actually fall on commercial reactors, instead of taxpayers. But there's no guarantee. You can read Molly Ivins' past columns here. To respond to this article, report a problem or provide general feedback to the editors of this site, click here. Bush's "best science" campaign promise was pathetic, in retrospect. Yucca Mountain is in an earthquake zone and leaks. © 2002 Creators Syndicate Printer-friendly Version © 2001 Working Assets. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 28 LETTER: Reid must continue to fight dump war Sunday, March 03, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal To the editor: There are times when life's opportunities and challenges present themselves in curious proximity. This was brought home for me when I read the Review-Journal's disturbing editorial, "Reid and Yucca Mountain" (Feb. 24). The editorial suggests that Sen. Harry Reid may have led the state down the wrong path by not negotiating with nuclear waste dump proponents. I strongly disagree and am compelled to express my support for Sen. Reid's efforts. Furthermore, the editorial claims that President Bush offered "virtually the same promise made by Democrat Al Gore" about Yucca Mountain. I know this to be false. I know because I voted for President Bush. Mr. Bush promised to base his Yucca Mountain decision on "sound science." At the time, that looked a lot like Al Gore's promise to veto any Yucca recommendation. In retrospect, that turned out not to be the case. To my dismay, I believe the president has betrayed us on the Yucca Mountain project. The decision was not based on the "sound science" he promised us. While I may not agree with Sen. Reid on every issue, I am with him all the way on the Yucca Mountain project. Sen. Reid has been and will continue to be our most effective leader fighting the dump. I recently graduated from UNLV, married an incredible woman, and became the father of a little girl who is the sweetest thing since Georgia peaches. I am a homeowner for the first time. I feel incredibly fortunate for the bounty and love in my life, and when I look at my wife and daughter, my heart fills with a love that is so powerful, I am at a loss for words to describe it. In short, I've been wonderfully blessed. So why do I feel such a sense of dread? Faced with President Bush's decision to dump nuclear waste on Nevadans (after transporting it through just about every state in the Union), I find myself worried sick about what this decision means to my family and our future. I wish I had paid attention earlier. The dump should absolutely not be a partisan issue. Most Nevadans can agree that our congressional delegation is united in opposition to the Yucca Mountain project. The Review-Journal, however, seems to suggest that Sen. Reid should have spent his time negotiating a financial settlement. What can a father say to his daughter about this cynical view of her futureâ "It's OK, honey, the cancer clusters came with a check"? I came to Nevada in 1994 as a security policeman stationed at Nellis Air Force Base. I met my wife here in church, and I planned to raise my family here. In a nutshell, here's why I'm rooting for Sen. Reid in his uphill battle to stop President Bush from dumping nuclear waste on us: If he doesn't, I'm not risking my family's future on the sly assurances of an administration that can't be trusted to keep its word. TOM DeRUSHA webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 29 Yucca Mountain water rights issue heats up Saturday, March 02, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL It's crunch time for water at Yucca Mountain. Saying there is only enough left for the next five weeks, a government lawyer urged a federal judge Friday to act quickly on a case involving permits for water needed to build and operate a nuclear waste repository in the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "The United States is in a position where it is in dire need of water in the next four or five weeks," Justice Department trial attorney Stephen Bartell told U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt. The judge instructed Nevada's lawyers to file an answer to the Justice Department's complaint by March 29, which means there could be a lapse in pumping water while the Yucca Mountain issue is aired by Gov. Kenny Guinn and Congress. In anticipation that temporary water permits for the project will expire April 9, federal crews constructed and filled a 1 million-gallon tank last month. The supply could last several months for use in dust-control, scientific studies and potable water for workers, project officials estimate. But the Justice Department is concerned that subsequent court motions could drag the issue out well beyond the time when the temporary permits to use the water expire and the reserve dwindles. "The United States feels very strongly that any further delay by the state is inappropriate," Bartell told the judge by phone from his office in Washington, D.C. During the 30-minute teleconference hearing in an empty courtroom, Nevada attorneys argued that if Hunt were to rule quickly, any decision might be rendered moot by actions in Congress. The case, which involves permanent water rights, should be delayed until then, they said. The denial of permanent water rights at Yucca Mountain was made by former State Engineer Michael Turnipseed. The Justice Department filed suit, which reached the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco before being sent back to Hunt. Turnipseed denied permits two years ago that the Energy Department wanted for pumping 430 acre-feet of water, or a total of 140 million gallons per year, from five wells in Nye County. At the time, he said he turned down the request because it was not in the state's best interest to use the water for operating a repository where highly radioactive waste would be handled. He said his decision was not based on the possibility that some of the water would become contaminated. The matter instead centers on Nevada's prohibition on using water to operate a repository for spent nuclear fuel. Nevada Senior Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams asked Hunt to delay the case because the legal landscape surrounding the Department of Energy's plans for Yucca Mountain changed with President Bush's recommendation to Congress on Feb. 15 to build a repository. The president's decision triggered a clock that gives Gov. Kenny Guinn 60 days or until April 16 to veto the recommendation. If that happens, and Guinn has stated he will cast a veto, then Congress would have 90 legislative days to override the veto through majority votes in the House and Senate. "We're looking at a five-month hiatus ... that could render the case moot," Adams told Hunt. Justice Department attorneys claim the government's need for the water is consistent with federal law and the intent of Congress and thus overrides Nevada's water laws. State Engineer Hugh Ricci said he rejected DOE's request to extend temporary permits because those permits were issued only to see if the site was suitable for safe storage of high-level nuclear waste. That process ended Jan. 10 when Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham notified Guinn that he would recommend the site to President Bush. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 30 NUCLEAR WASTE: Herrera joins cry against shipments Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera, left, makes a point Friday to John Schlegel, director of the Clark County Comprehensive Planning Department, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Associated Press Saturday, March 02, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal County Commission chairman tries to interest other states in Nevada's fight By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Dario Herrera on Friday became the latest Nevada elected official to tell a national group that the state does not want to store the nation's nuclear waste. Herrera, chairman of the Clark County Commission, gave presentations to leadership panels at a National Association of Counties conference. He criticized the federal government's plan to transport radioactive spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain, located 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Passing around maps of transportation routes from commercial power plants to the proposed Nevada repository, Herrera told the county officials the Energy Department has yet to solidify plans for emergency responses to potential accidents. Addressing a perennial pocketbook issue among county officials, Herrera also questioned the degree to which the government will reimburse local communities to prepare for nuclear waste shipments. "It's unlikely that communities in 43 states will be reimbursed actual costs of anticipating and preparing for any kind of incident," he said. "This is pure and simple an unfunded mandate." Herrera was accompanied by John Schlegel, director of the Clark County Comprehensive Planning Department. Herrera said Clark County expects to spend $360 million for emergency equipment to prepare for nuclear waste shipments. He said the county expects to spend $2.7 billion during the entire period that spent fuel might be traveling through Southern Nevada. At a morning session of NACO's emergency management subcommittee, several commissioners in a group of two dozen expressed interest in gathering additional informa- tion. "This does concern me, the unanswered questions," said Mike Selves, a commissioner from Johnson County, Kan. The national county association approved a resolution in 1999 urging the government to select nuclear waste transportation routes with the smallest impact and to work with counties and states on the matter. Several officials said maybe it was time to strengthen the policy. "I agree we need to have a transportation policy in place wherever (a repository) is," said Joe Fuller, a commissioner from Rapides Parish, La. Herrera ran into some resistance at a second presentation later in the day. Leo Bowman, from Benton County, Wash., said nuclear materials have been safely moved from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. He didn't agree with Herrera's characterization of transportation risks, according to several participants. Since the beginning of the year, Gov. Kenny Guinn, Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, Reno Mayor Jeff Griffin and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman have used forums provided by national groups in Washington to argue against plans to build a repository at Yucca Mountain. Meanwhile Friday, Clark County's director of emergency management met for a half-hour with aides to Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge. Bob Andrews said they discussed proposals for dividing among states and counties $3.5 billion proposed by President Bush for homeland security projects. Andrews also serves as president of the International Association of Emergency Managers. Allocations probably will be determined after study by Congress, Andrews said. He met with Duncan Campbell, Ridge's assistant director for intergovernmental affairs and Mike Byrne, senior director for response and recovery. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 31 Russians back plutonium-to-MOX plan GreenvilleOnline.com - News Posted Sunday, March 3, 2002 - 2:21 am e-mail By James T. Hammond CAPITAL BUREAU jhammond@greenvillenews.com [jhammond@greenvillenews.com] They're distrustful of the alternative, immobilization, says the U.S. official in charge of disposing of nuclear bomb material. COLUMBIA -- Converting nuclear bomb cores to commercial nuclear reactor fuel remains the only sure way to win Russian cooperation to also dispose of weapons material, the chief of the U.S. plutonium disposition program said. Meanwhile, the removal of the spent plutonium fuel from reactors in the Carolinas depends on Congress, Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said. "It's going to come down to whether Congress wants the experts at NRC to consider whether Yucca Mountain should be built. They'll have a chance to do that later this year. "There are 131 sites around the country that contain high-level nuclear waste. Congress will decide whether to move spent nuclear fuel away from waterways and metropolitan cities to an arid, desolate location like Yucca Mountain, or to leave it where it is," Davis said. Ed Siskin, the Energy Department executive working out the details of rendering the bomb cores safe for permanent storage, said senior Russian officials reaffirmed their commitment to a bilateral nonproliferation program last week. In a report to Congress dated Feb. 15, the National Nuclear Security Administration invoked the U.S. commitment to the treaty with Russia as a primary reason for choosing a $3.84 billion, 18-year program to turn the pure plutonium at the heart of a nuclear bomb into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel. The Bush administration calls for the MOX fuel to be used in six privately owned electric-power-generating reactors. Four of the reactors, two in York County and two near Charlotte, have been committed to the program by Duke Energy Co. The fifth and sixth reactors have not yet been identified, Davis said. In choosing a MOX-only option, the Bush administration rejected a parallel method of plutonium disposal, called immobilization, that is both cheaper than MOX and preferred by some nonproliferation groups. "As long we're willing to get rid of our material by MOX, they are willing to get rid of the material, too. We are more concerned with the Russian material's safety than we are concerned with our own. Our plutonium is well protected. The same is not true for the Russians. We want to get that material disposed of once and for all so it can't fall into the hands of undesirable people," Siskin said. He said the Russians don't like immobilization because they believe a nation like the United States can easily extract that plutonium in the future. Critics remain concerned that the Russians will not live up to the treaty. Tom Clements, spokesman for the nonproliferation group the Nuclear Control Institute, said it still is not clear that cash-poor Russia will be able to dispose of the 34 tons of plutonium specified under the treaty. But the NCI also has other concerns about the MOX program, which calls for two plants to be built at South Carolina's Savannah River Site near Aiken, and annual federal spending on the program of between $118 million and $874 million through 2020. Fabrication of plutonium into MOX fuel is to begin in 2008. In a letter to South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges, Clements urged the governor to insist that federal officials conduct a supplemental environmental impact study before the MOX program goes forward. Clements said the report raises new questions about the amount and composition of waste generated by the MOX plants; plans for a waste solidification plant at SRS that has not previously been considered; and an accelerated schedule for using MOX in commercial reactors. Clements said the changes don't meet current legal requirements and "indicate that DOE plans to push ahead with a flawed program without clarifying the numerous questions and troubling inconsistencies that surround the program." Siskin said the Energy Department will do what is required by U.S. environmental laws. "We have a formal evaluation under way right now. We will ensure that whatever changes or additional work that is required will be done," Siskin said. None of the 34 tons of plutonium to be converted into MOX fuel is now at the Savannah River Site. According to the report to Congress, the material would be shipped there from the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Hanford Site in Washington. "At the same time, disposition is very important to the State of Colorado because it enables shipment of surplus plutonium from the Denver metropolitan area (site of the Rocky Flats plant) to the Savannah River Site and the subsequent closure of Rocky Flats by 2006," the report states. Cleaning up Rocky Flats is important to the Bush administration politically, because it would be the first final closure and cleanup of a former nuclear weapons facility. The pressure to finish the Rocky Flats cleanup caused alarm among South Carolina leaders, who feared the material would be moved here and stranded without adequate commitment from the federal government to eventually remove the plutonium to a permanent repository in another state. After Hodges threatened to use Highway Patrol troopers to block shipments of plutonium into South Carolina, Congress passed a law requiring the Energy Department to consult with South Carolina leaders and to submit the Feb. 15 report on plans for plutonium disposition. Bush administration officials have moved from a confrontational stance of negotiating with Republican leaders from South Carolina instead of the governor to a conciliatory meeting last week between Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Hodges. Davis said Abraham is committed to "getting this agreement done quickly. We are going to provide the level of detail that makes the governor comfortable. We are going to do what the governor wants. We are not going to do anything to slow down the process." "MOX is important because it reduces the amount of plutonium so that we will have less plutonium stored at a plant in North Carolina, at a Duke Power plant, than when you put it into the reactor," Davis said. He said the final home of the plutonium and other spent nuclear fuel will depend upon whether Congress allows Yucca Mountain to be considered as the permanent national repository for the high-level nuclear waste. The current timetable to open Yucca Mountain is 2010, about the same timetable for the final conversion of the weapons-grade plutonium to be converted to MOX fuel and used in the Duke Energy commercial reactors. "In order to meet our goals and to ensure that the Russians cooperate in the program, we had to move with a program that was faster, cheaper and something that is agreeable to the Russians. Proliferation of nuclear materials is very, very serious. We believe any reasonable person in South Carolina would understand that getting rid of weapons-grade plutonium here and in Russia meets our nonproliferation goals," Davis said. [http://www.usatoday.com] ***************************************************************** 32 Nuclear lobby leads fight for Yucca Las Vegas SUN March 01, 2002 By Benjamin Grove WASHINGTON -- Angelina Howard, one of the nuclear industry's top Capitol Hill lobbyists, was speaking at a conference in London late last year when an anti-nuclear activist threw her a question: Would you live in Las Vegas if the government buries highly radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain? "I said, 'Well, no, I'm not sure I would live in Las Vegas,' " recalled Howard, who commutes to her downtown Washington job from a sleepy community outside the Beltway. " 'Las Vegas is a bustling, busy place, and I don't much like the big city. But I would live in Amargosa Valley, which is a lot closer to Yucca Mountain.' " She smiles after telling the story. "And that," she says, "was an honest answer." Howard, Nuclear Energy Institute executive vice president, is one of a platoon of industry-backed lobbyists answering lawmakers' questions about Yucca Mountain and trying to secure Congress' support for the proposed nuclear waste dump. Nevada lawmakers, environmentalists and other anti-Yucca players view the institute as their most powerful foe in the battle to delay and ultimately kill the repository in Nevada. NEI relentlessly lobbies lawmakers, hands them campaign money and pays their travel expenses to destinations all over the world, critics say. As the most vocal supporter of Yucca Mountain, the institute has a budget of about $28 million, a staff of 130 and a handful of lobbying firms on its payroll. "The nuclear power industry has very deep pockets and they are mounting a full-court press," said Richard Bryan, a former Nevada governor and U.S.senator who battled 8-year-old NEI and its predecessors for years. "(It is) extremely powerful, with unlimited amounts of money to retain lobbyists and initiate PR campaigns." This year its political power takes on new meaning because of the critical vote on Yucca in Congress. Nevada is preparing to file an official objection to President Bush's endorsement of Yucca, and Congress then will vote on the state's objection. Bob Shaeffer, spokesman for Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, an anti-Yucca group, called NEI's financial resources "immense." "How well that translates into votes, we'll see," he said. "But they are a serious player and they've been at it for years." NEI's influence has grown with a Republican in the White House, critics say. Nuclear industry officials, who overwhelmingly backed Bush for president, were elated when he and Vice President Dick Cheney were elected. When the administration's proposed energy strategy was released in May, it endorsed expanded nuclear power, tax credits for nuclear plants and a completed Yucca Mountain. Cheney said nuclear power was a "very important part" of U.S. energy policy. NEI President Joe Colvin said Cheney's support was "an exhilarating rallying point for the industry when Americans are looking for energy solutions." With the words "nuclear renaissance" on the lips of energy officials, NEI organized a conference -- also in May -- where industry leaders announced an ambitious plan to build 50 nuclear plants in America by 2020, even though no new plants have been commissioned since the 1970s. But the future of nuclear energy is tied to Yucca Mountain, energy officials say. And that makes lobbying on the issue a high-stakes game. "It's very important to have available, affordable, safe sources of energy, and nuclear plays a big part of that," Howard said. "To do that, we must manage our byproducts, just as they do in any other industry. Nuclear needs to continue to be a part of the energy mix. There is no way to produce enough energy for the nation without nuclear. "Nuclear energy has proven its success and will continue to prove its success." To tout that message NEI officials use a variety of strategies. Lobbying As the industry's top trade group, NEI synchronizes the lobbying efforts of 42 nuclear utility companies that own the nation's 103 nuclear reactors. Some of those companies send their own pro-Yucca lobbyists to Washington. NEI adds its own lobbyists -- it wouldn't say how many -- and will hire outside lobbying firms. Last year, it hired eight lobbying groups, although not all were active on Yucca, according to congressional records. The net effect of this small army: Within the next few months, at least one or more lobbyists from the NEI or coordinated by it will meet with every lawmaker -- or at least their top aides -- in the 535-member Congress, Howard said. As out-manned environmental lobbyists try to catch up, NEI already is blanketing Capitol Hill with a carefully orchestrated pro-Yucca lobbying campaign. "NEI has big guns," said Anna Aurilio, legislative director for Public Interest Research Group. "It will be a very, very tough fight." Many Yucca watchers say lobbyists on both sides are intently focused on where the vote could be close: the Senate. Attention has fallen particularly on the Senate's 11 newest members -- minus John Ensign, R-Nev., who will vote against the project. But NEI officials will not say which senators they are targeting and decline to give details about lobbying strategy. After the Sun interviewed Howard, NEI Vice President John Kane sent out an e-mail to several hundred members warning them that a Sun reporter was seeking lobbyists for this story. "I strongly recommend that you do not talk to him or any press on a 'so-called' industry strategy," Kane cautioned in the e-mail obtained by the Sun. A few offered some insights. Bill Carney, who has been a contracted lobbyist for NEI for 15 years, plans to talk to between 100 and 200 House members and roughly 24 senators or aides. For face-to-face meetings, Carney likes to bring along executives from nuclear utilities in the lawmakers' districts. "This issue really illuminates (former House Speaker) Tip O'Neil's cardinal rule: 'All politics is local.' And you use the local people to talk to the congressman." The local angle will be important for the nuclear industry. Thirty-four states have nuclear plants. Bryan, who's heading the Washington office of a state law firm, said that among NEI's most effective strategies is encouraging governors to pressure lawmakers. Governors don't have to deal with the federal implications of the energy policy and can focus on what's good for the state, which, for most states, is getting rid of nuclear waste. Howard said NEI officials often review the history of the issue when they meet with lawmakers. The lobbyists stress that this year marks the 20th anniversary of the nation's Nuclear Waste Policy Act, in which Congress made a legal promise to construct a permanent waste dump. Lawmakers also promised to haul waste away from nuclear plants by 1998. That date passed, and now the government faces staggering lawsuits brought by nuclear utilities, NEI officials argue. "It is important that people understand that it wasn't like it was last year when we decided to put the thing in Nevada," Howard said. Transportation The nuclear industry will have to overcome what Yucca critics say is among their strongest arguments: Transporting nuclear waste to Nevada would be dangerous. Opponents have rebutted the industry's argument that nuclear waste transportation has been proven safe, and they are trying to lobby congressional members from the 43 states on likely waste transportation routes. Anti-Yucca forces say transporting waste risks accidents and terrorist attacks. Those arguments are unfair fear-mongering, NEI officials say. "What are we trying to do, just scare people to stop (Yucca) -- or provide for the nation's energy?" Howard asked. "Everybody has their agendas." NEI has sent nine-minute videotapes to local TV stations and chambers of commerce nationwide that show nuclear waste shipping containers being dropped, burned and hit by a train -- all without cracking. The campaign, called "An American Success Story: The Safe Shipment of Used Nuclear Fuel," has a simple message: It is safe to ship nuclear waste cross-country to Nevada. Carney said he and other lobbyists will hammer home the argument that waste transportation is safe, he said. Campaign money To make sure its message is heard, NEI also gives politicians money. Common Cause, the Washington group that lobbies against big-money special interests in Congress, said NEI was an influential voice on Capitol Hill, although it is not among the top campaign contributors. "(It seems) to be a major player in terms of lobbying," Common Cause senior policy analyst Celia Wexler said. "(It has) some very heavy hitters as members. They know how to use their money in Washington and get their message heard." Common Cause said NEI gave about $643,000 in soft money to candidates between 1994, when it formed, and June. That does not rank it among the top soft-money contributors. No. 11 Enron, for example, gave more than $2 million to candidates in the 2000 election cycle alone, Common Cause said. NEI in the 1999-2000 election cycle gave roughly $160,000 to congressional candidates, about 70 percent to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which also tracks campaign money. NEI has given nearly $43,000 so far for the 2002 election, according to the center. Recipients include the leading Yucca advocates in Congress, including Sens. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. Nevada officials and environmental activists often decry the NEI donations. "The nuclear industry has been purchasing votes in Congress for as long as the project has existed," Rep. Shelly Berkley, D-Nev., said in a recent interview. "The nuclear industry is spending millions of dollars to their well-paid lobbyists to do their dirty work. Instead of plying our colleagues with money, we'll be plying them with facts." Free trips NEI officials also serve up facts -- on NEI-sponsored trips to Yucca Mountain and various nuclear sites throughout the world. In 2001 NEI spent more than $242,000 on flights, meals and hotels for 74 House and Senate aides -- plus a few of the lawmakers themselves accompanied by spouses -- according to a Sun analysis of congressional records. Forty-five trips spirited lawmakers and aides to Las Vegas for Yucca Mountain tours at a cost of nearly $44,000. NEI officials have said the trips are two-day, all-business affairs. Trips for lawmakers paid by special interests are legal and common, but critics say they unfairly buy NEI a valuable commodity: time with key decision-makers. NEI officials say the trips give lawmakers valuable first-hand information. Among the trip-takers last year were two top Hastert staffers. The aides took a $340 helicopter ride from Las Vegas to Yucca instead of the typical $25 bus ride most aides take. "We hope that you will continue to consider NEI as a resource to you in your work on energy policy," NEI wrote in a follow-up note to Hastert aide John McGovern. NEI also paid for a handful of lawmakers and aides to travel overseas for tours of nuclear power plants, uranium processing centers and other nuclear facilities in France, the United Kingdom and Japan. In less exotic ways, NEI is also organizing everything from courtroom fights to press conferences in support of Yucca Mountain. As Nevada officials attempt to tie up the project in court, NEI has filed to be a party in one lawsuit that challenges Energy Department rules. NEI officials want to defend in court the rules they consider favorable. And as anti-Yucca grass-roots groups muster in Washington, NEI is energizing a diverse coalition of organizations that support Yucca -- an effort to widen its net of influence in Congress. Last week NEI held a press conference that featured an assortment of groups including the African-American Environmentalist Association, Citizens Against Government Waste and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which has 15,000 members nationwide who work in the nuclear industry. As the Yucca vote in Congress nears, NEI will also buy advertisements in the Washington Post and other publications widely circulated on Capitol Hill, officials said. NEI has purchased ad space for other issues and targets lawmakers in Washington publications. When lawmakers returned to Congresss in January for this year's session, NEI bought several quarter-page advertisements in the front section of the Post featuring three gun-toting nuclear power plant security officers. The ad's message was aimed directly at lawmakers: Guards at nuclear plants are already highly trained and armed -- so don't federalize nuclear plant security, a proposal pitched by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. Lobbying groups such as NEI have long been an important part of lawmaking. While groups such as Common Cause may decry their increasing influence, lobby groups of widely varying size and scope defend their constitutional right to advocate issues. Bryan hinted that in the end, while lobby groups such as NEI are formidable, they can be beatable. "The fact that the nuclear industry would retain high-profile people such as former Gov. Bob List belies the argument that they make to the public that (Yucca) is inevitable," Bryan said. "If it's inevitable, why are they mobilizing all these forces? The answer is that they're scared." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 33 Brian Greenspun: Get behind dump fight Las Vegas SUN March 01, 2002 Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun. NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV was wrong when he said that the Soviet Union would bury us. But that guy who said we would likely bury ourselves, now, he knew what he was talking about. Am I the only person in this state who caught the irony on the front page of the Las Vegas Sun last Thursday? Surely there must be thousands of others who saw the two headlines: "Support lacking in Yucca fight" and just below that: "Fallout likely killed 15,000." The 15,000 number is a minimum of deaths caused by nuclear testing during the Cold War explosions around the world, including the Nevada Test Site, less than 100 miles from Las Vegas and a stone's throw from Yucca Mountain, where President George W. Bush recently decided to send the nation's nuclear waste. The story acknowledged tens of thousands of other cancer cases that may not yet have resulted in death. The one thing we all know about government estimates, especially with bad news, is that they are very, very conservative. Who knows the real death toll from all those tests and the resulting lies and cover-ups that emanated from the Department of Energy and its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission? You know the lies, the ones that told us everything was safe? So let's go back to that other story that reported on the lack of desire by many in the business community to get behind Gov. Kenny Guinn and the Nevada Resort Association's efforts to stop Bush's plan to shove the nation's radioactive garbage down our throats. The NRA raised $750,000 the other day to start a fund to help defeat the Bush administration's plan to bury us beneath 77,000 tons of high-level waste. That, together with the $5 million the governor got from the legislature should last a month or so in this fight. In other words, we are going to need a lot more money to fund the legislative and legal fights that lie ahead. Those dollars need to come from the tourist industry and every man, woman and child who wants to live free and die in Nevada without the constant fear of environmental disaster that may result from Bush's decision. That's the backdrop for the story which quotes many banking, utility, homebuilding and other industry spokesmen who basically say that this isn't their fight, and who cares anyway. What was really surprising was Tim Snow's reaction. Tim runs the development company owned by the Thomas and Mack families, two generations of whom have helped build this community to a level that is the envy of the country and a third generation all set to continue the good that the patriarchs, Parry Thomas and Jerry Mack, have done. Rather than step up with a contribution to the fight of a couple hundred thousand dollars -- which the families can easily afford -- he spoke for them by saying, "I don't feel there is a groundswell within commercial real estate to fervently support the opposition to Yucca Mountain." Here's a hint, Tim. If you and the Thomas boys got out in front of this thing, there would be a groundswell. Now is the time for leadership, not a continued head-in-the-sand mentality. There is work to be done and as powerful as Sen. Harry Reid is, he cannot do it alone. So many of the people in real estate, banking and utility industries are huge supporters of the Republican members of the U.S. Senate. We need at least a dozen of those senators to live up to their conservative leanings and support the concept of a state's right to decide for itself how it wants to live. When Gov. Kenny Guinn vetoes Bush's decision -- which he should do at the very last moment to give us enough time to mount the best defense we can -- it should be the Republicans who stand up for Nevada. As it stands today, only two from the GOP have made that commitment. Reid needs help, guys, so rather than stick your heads in the sands of wasted time, get out front and lead for a change. All of these businesses who are afraid to rock the boat will be packing their bags if those trucks start rolling our way and the worst happens. And don't think for a moment that they won't start rolling this year or next rather than the 10-year number being bandied about. The Republican Congress tried three times in the 1990s to send that stuff out to Nevada on a temporary basis, and if it hadn't been for President Bill Clinton's veto and Harry Reid's and Dick Bryan's efforts to find 34 votes in the Senate, we would already be hip-deep in that which no one else in this country wants. It doesn't take a genius to realize that if we are unsuccessful this time that those bills for a temporary site will be passed fast and furiously and signed in the blink of an eye by the man who told us he wouldn't do to us exactly what he is now doing. So come on, guys, it may take a while to prove the case, but it is a certainty that the government lies to us about bad things and the government kills innocent people when it thinks it needs to do so. Ask the downwinders in Utah if you don't believe me. Do our children and grandchildren have to read similar headlines 50 years from now about how wrong the Bush administration was in 2002 and how many hundreds of thousands of deaths -- including the death of Las Vegas -- that governmental arrogance caused? Instead of passing the buck like the business community always likes to do, why don't you folks step up to the plate and pass some big bucks into the kitty that will help fight our way out of this mess. As the man says, you can pay now or you can pay so much more later. Assuming there is a later, that is. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 34 Editorial: A telling moment for dump Las Vegas SUN March 01, 2002 One of the most revealing episodes about Yucca Mountain's fate came during the 2000 election season. It didn't occur out on the presidential campaign trail, and it didn't take place in Nevada, which had been targeted for nuclear waste. No, the telling moment happened far away in Washington, D.C. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said on the Senate floor in July 2000 that a nuclear waste dump would be built within six to eight months if George W. Bush was elected president. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., pounced on Domenici's statement and warned Nevadans about the prospect. But Nevada's Republican leaders assured the state's residents that Bush would base any Yucca Mountain decision on "sound science." It turns out Reid was much closer to the truth: Just a year after being sworn into office, Bush has signed off on a permanent nuclear waste dump in Nevada despite an array of scientific evidence that has questioned Yucca Mountain's suitability. The Yucca Mountain battle now shifts to Congress. The GOP-led House is expected to approve the president's recommendation, but the vote is anticipated to be closer in the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats. Reid, now that he is assistant majority leader of the Senate, is under pressure to repeat a similar performance from 2000, when he and then-Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., were able to get 34 senators -- 32 Democrats and two Republicans -- to sustain President Clinton's veto of legislation that would have begun sending nuclear waste to Nevada by 2007. The task is much tougher this time because the Nuclear Waste Policy Act would require a majority in both house of Congress --- 51 votes in the Senate -- to block Yucca Mountain's selection by the president. Reid has received much of the attention in the fight in Congress, but we shouldn't overlook the role played by the state's other senator. When John Ensign ran for a U.S. Senate seat in 2000, he suggested that his election would improve Nevada's chances of derailing a nuclear waste dump. Ensign noted that for 12 years the state's two senators had been Democrats. With his election, Ensign said, a Republican voice from Nevada finally would be added to the debate in the Senate. "Now we'll have a Nevadan in the same room with the Republicans when these discussions are held," Ensign said shortly after his election. Well, that day of reckoning is here, and it's time for Ensign to make good on his campaign promise. If Reid this time can hold on to the 34 senators who sustained the veto of the nuclear waste legislation in 2000 -- no small feat since a popular wartime president favors the dump -- then all Ensign has to do is get 17 additional Republicans to go along with him. But the reality is this will be an uphill battle for Ensign because the Republican leadership in Congress has made getting a nuclear waste dump built in Nevada one of its top priorities. If only enough Nevadans had listened to Domenici's prediction and ignored Bush's false assurances that he would treat us fairly on Yucca Mountain, the presidential election's outcome might have been different and we wouldn't have to pin so much of our hopes on the persuasion skills of a freshman senator. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 35 Columnist Jeff German: Senators under the gun over nuke waste Las Vegas SUN March 01, 2002 Jeff German is the Sun's senior investigative reporter. He can be reached german@lasvegassun.com [german@lasvegassun.com] or (702) 259-4067. WHETHER THEY like it or not, Nevada's two senators, Harry Reid and John Ensign, have been thrust into the lead role in the latest battle against Yucca Mountain. It's a role that's going to test their political mettle, as the fight to keep the nation's deadly nuclear waste out of Nevada moves to the Senate. Within the next 45 days Gov. Kenny Guinn is expected to veto President Bush's recommendation to store the waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Once that happens, the Senate and the House will have an opportunity to override the governor with a simple majority vote. Everyone has written off the Republican-controlled House as a pawn of the wealthy nuclear industry. But the Senate, run by the Democrats, is a different story. It's viewed as the state's best chance of sustaining Guinn's veto and killing the multibillion-dollar Yucca Mountain Project. Reid wields much clout in the Senate as its assistant majority leader, and so he's bearing the brunt of the responsibility in the fight. But Ensign, a Republican, is being counted upon to rally much-needed support within his party. Together, Reid and Ensign believe they have as many as 34 senators on their side, 31 Democrats and 3 Republicans. They need another 17 votes to prevail over the president, but with nuclear plants in 34 states looking to unload their waste, that's going to be a difficult task. Reid and his top aides were busy last week working their inside game in Washington to firm up the state's complicated and delicate strategy. But their efforts were slowed because Ensign was missing in action on Capitol Hill for undisclosed personal reasons. Ensign's absence also stalled attempts by the casino industry to find a couple of big-name lobbyists to help the senators round up their 17 votes. Ensign is expected back this week, which means the pace should pick up inside the Beltway. The casino industry, which has set aside $500,000 in its anti-Yucca Mountain war chest in Washington, has had a tough time finding lobbyists to do the job. It seems that just about every major lobbying firm in the nation's capital at one time or another has been on the nuclear industry's payroll. But gaming's political operatives, now deeply involved in the fight, said late last week they believe they have found the right people, one from each party, to help Reid and Ensign. Nobody, however, wants to tip off the nuclear industry and disclose the identities of the lobbyists until they're under contract. There's no need to give the bad guys a chance to derail any agreements. Indeed, most of last week those on the Nevada side were revealing little about the state's game plan heading into the Senate battle. It was an example of how serious the fight has become and how big a threat the nuclear industry poses to Nevada on Capitol Hill. Reid, meanwhile, continued to put his own political career on the line last week. He kept up his verbal attacks on Bush, this time calling him a "liar" in the national media for breaking his Yucca Mountain pledge to Nevadans. Taking after the president, though it plays well at home, is a risky endeavor for Reid on the national political scene, considering how popular Bush is these days leading America's war on terrorism. But that didn't seem to bother the senator last week. He also took the bold step of joining a General Accounting Office lawsuit seeking to compel Vice President Dick Cheney to reveal which energy executives advised a task force that formulated the administration's energy policy. Reid believes the disclosures will explain why Bush double-crossed Nevadans on Yucca Mountain. The senator's participation in the GAO suit leaves little doubt that he has decided to play hardball with the administration. It's something you have to do when you're thrust into the lead role in probably the most important battle ever for Nevada. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 36 Sometimes state's contingent agrees to disagree Las Vegas SUN March 01, 2002 Benjamin Grove covers Washington, D.C., for the Sun. He can be reached at grove@lasvegassun.com [grove@lasvegassun.com] or (202) 628-3100, Ext. 269. WASHINGTON -- Nevada's Democrats and Republicans in Congress often unite when it comes to two issues: Yucca Mountain and gaming. But not always. Consider last week. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., started the week by firing a shot at President Bush, vowing to join a lawsuit against his Republican administration. Reid said he planned to file a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the General Accounting Office, which sued to obtain information about secret meetings between energy industry executives and White House officials. The administration has refused to release the documents. Reid said he wants to know if nuclear energy industry officials inappropriately pushed the Yucca Mountain project on the administration. Of course, the move was also designed to score a few political points by tweaking the Republican White House again for being close to the nuclear industry, and for endorsing the Yucca project this month. Reid put Nevada's Republican lawmakers, Rep. Jim Gibbons and Sen. John Ensign, in an awkward spot. Should they join Reid and attack the administration? Or pass up an opportunity to demand documents that may illuminate Bush's Yucca Mountain decision? In the end, Reid didn't make them choose -- he didn't even ask the two if they wanted to co-sign his brief, Gibbons and Ensign aides said, and they quietly let the matter pass. (Gibbons, for the record, supports Reid's lawsuit, just not enough to sign it. Ensign never came to work at all in Washington last week, remaining in Nevada to sort out an undisclosed "personal matter.") Somewhat more strangely, Reid also didn't ask his Democratic ally in the House, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., to join him in signing the amicus brief -- at least not initially. By week's end Berkley said she would join Reid, after Reid had gobbled up all the media attention. It's not clear if Reid's press machine accidently jumped without Berkley, or if Reid wanted the spotlight to himself. One Reid aide said he was secretly hoping CNN pundit Robert Novak or some other conservative mouthpiece would slam Reid -- thereby garnering the Nevada senator even more attention as a brave Democratic maverick. Of course, outside Nevada circles all this stuff hardly matters in the grand scheme of things -- the court doesn't care if an amicus brief is signed by Nevada Democrats or Republicans, as Gibbons press secretary Amy Spanbauer noted. And the GAO lawsuit itself may be yesterday's news. In a separate lawsuit filed by an environmental group, a federal judge last week told the Department of Energy to turn over the agency's records about the energy task force's meetings, giving the department until March 25 to comply. In another development, Berkley created some political friction when she announced she would form a "Casino Entertainment Caucus" to complement the House Gaming Caucus, a lackluster group of 14 lawmakers who meet occasionally. Congress has more than 100 caucuses, mostly informal groups of lawmakers with similar interests who band together. Some have serious, far-reaching policy goals (Black Congressional Caucus, Pro-Life Caucus), others are more narrowly focused (Bicycle Caucus, Beef Caucus, Portuguese American Caucus). Berkley irked Gibbons, who said her new group would duplicate the work of the bipartisan Gaming Caucus. Gibbons is chairman of the Gaming Caucus (Berkley is a member, too), which embraces a variety of issues, including jai alai and horses. Gibbons aides chided Berkley for launching a Democrats-only club. Berkley staffers shot back that anyone could join, and insisted that there was plenty of room in the House for a scrappy new caucus specifically focused on casino issues. Meanwhile last week Gibbons held a campaign event on Capitol Hill for Berkley's opponent, Lynette Boggs McDonald. Is it any surprise this is an election year? All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 37 Hearings Slated on Goshute N-Storage Proposal The Salt Lake Tribune -- Saturday, March 2, 2002 BY JUDY FAHYS Debate about plans for storing nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation will get a public airing April 8 through May 17, with special focus on earthquakes, wilderness, peregrine falcons, airplane crashes and Goshute Band culture. The federal agency considering a license for the $3.1 billion storage pad, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, also has scheduled two days for hearing from citizens about the proposal, April 8 in Salt Lake City and April 26 in Tooele. The hearings originally were expected last year, but the board delayed them. Difficulty booking space during the Olympics was one problem. So, too, were the Sept. 11 attacks, which suggested new safety questions. An out-of-state consortium of nuclear utilities has leased 125 acres on the reservation, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, to store as many as 4,000 casks of spent power-plant fuel. The waste -- an amount roughly equal to all of the used reactor rods ever produced during the four decades of the U.S. commercial nuclear program -- would be stored above-ground on a concrete pad until a permanent disposal site is constructed. The license review has been underway for nearly five years. Noting the waste is now scattered at 100 reactor sites, supporters insist the Utah storage would be the safest option for up to 40 years and a way to revitalize the Goshute reservation. Critics, led by the Utah state government, insist the "storage" could become permanent given the ongoing national controversy over the plan to build a waste facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The board wants to hear more about the state's view that earthquakes threaten the pad and the steel-and-concrete casks might be vulnerable to airborne accident from commercial jets, military aircraft or stray bombs from military facilities on both sides. The panel also will hear about possible water contamination by nonradioactive hazards, impacts on a rare pair of nesting peregrine falcons and degradation of wilderness qualities by a rail spur that would haul the waste to the storage site. In addition, the board will consider complaints raised by members of the 127-member Goshute band who say the project benefits have not been shared and siting of the facility would offend their religious beliefs. People who want to address the panel must request time to speak, specifying the day and a three-minute slot in either the afternoon or evening sessions. Instructions are available by calling 301-415-1101 or by e-mail, at hearingdocket@nrc.gov. The Salt Lake City public appearance hearing will take place April 8, 2-5 p.m. and 7-9:30 p.m., in Room 251 of the Salt Palace Convention Center, 100 S. West Temple. The Tooele hearing is set April 26, 3:30-5:30 p.m. and 7-9:30 p.m., in the Tooele High School Auditorium, 240 W. 100 South. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune ***************************************************************** 38 Mayors: Nuke waste moving through towns “disturbing” [RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL] March 3, 2002 WASHINGTON — Eighteen mayors have sent a letter to President Bush that raised safety concerns about moving the nation’s nuclear waste across the country to dump it at Yucca Mountain, Nev., and requested the administration conduct a transportation analysis. The leadership committee of the U.S. Conference of Mayors signed the letter at the behest of Reno. Mayor Jeff Griffin. The group was concerned about incidents such as last year’s tunnel fire in Baltimore, where a train burned for five days before firefighters could gain access to the conflagration. “Several studies have been done to determine the environmental impact if that train had been carrying spent nuclear fuel — and the results have been disturbing,” the mayors said in their letter sent late last month. “Given the long-term nature of the Yucca project, it seems only natural that the (Department of Energy) would include transportation analysis and an environmental impact study in its final report.” The mayors — including those from New Orleans, Chicago and Fort Worth, Tex. — stopped short of calling for a halt to the approval process for Yucca Mountain. Under the DOE plan, at least 100,000 truckloads or nearly 20,000 train shipments of nuclear waste would be shipped across the United States to Yucca Mountain over a 38-year period. The Department of Energy performed a preliminary transportation analysis but did not consider specific routes. The department has been reluctant to do a detailed analysis until Congress endorses the facility and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses Yucca Mountain as the nation’s nuclear waste dump. Department officials said conducting a transportation study now would create the appearance that the facility is a done deal, while critics counter that DOE is dragging its feet to avoid controversy in communities along rail lines and interstates. “My guess is the White House will conduct some kind of a study to make sure it’s a safe thing to do,” said Ray Martinez, mayor of Fort Collins, Colo., who signed the letter to Bush. “We just want them to know we’re concerned and we want to make sure that there is some research being done.” © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett ***************************************************************** 39 Yucca: The Senator Explodes (washingtonpost.com) By Mary McGrory Sunday, March 3, 2002; Page B07 George W. Bush has lately become accustomed to a certain amount of deference. Since Sept. 11 it is politically incorrect to speak to or about him without a glowing tribute to his war leadership. But he got none of that from Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, who steamed into the Oval Office on Feb. 7 and delivered "the unvarnished truth" that Vice President Dick Cheney craved for his secret energy huddles. The president, Reid told him, had lied to the people of Nevada about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, which the state vehemently opposes. He and Cheney campaigned on a promise that science would determine whether the resting place for 77,000 tons of nuclear waste would be in a mountain 90 miles from Las Vegas. Reid charges that the standards applied in the recommendation offered by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham were, according to experts,"weak to moderate" and inadequate for radioactive storage. Reid, who is the Senate Democratic whip, was included in the meeting at the request of Nevada's Republican governor, Kenny Guinn, and Nevada's other senator, Republican John Ensign, both of whom are equally opposed, if less outspoken. They talked science to the president; Reid talked politics, telling Bush and his astonished chief of staff, Andy Card, that he wouldn't have won the presidency without Nevada's four electoral votes and had he not lied about Yucca Mountain. If he went ahead with the site, Reid warned the president, he would do everything he could to remind Nevada that Bush had broken his word. As he was leaving, Bush grabbed Reid's arm and told him, "I appreciate a frank-spoken man." But he did not heed Reid's counsel. Just eight days later, the president made it official: Nevada had won the booby prize, the privilege of receiving and storing the nation's radioactive nuclear waste. Reid's rejoinder, fashioned after a sojourn in his native hills, was to announce he was filing a friend-of-the-court brief in the famous case being brought against Vice President Cheney by the General Accounting Office, which persists in the belief that the public has a right to know how Cheney reached decisions about energy policy that devastated environmentalists, who noticed all the face time Enron got with Cheney. Strongly as they feel about Mt. Nuke, Reid's constituents were nervous about his giving grief to the president. "He could help us on roads," they murmured. Colleagues were even less enthusiastic. No one at the Democratic Caucus lunch mentioned his bold move. "Probably think it is suicidal," says Reid, sitting in his whip office under a portrait of another iconoclast, Mark Twain. "I'm separate but equal," he explains. "I'm a senator from the sovereign state of Nevada, and I don't have to kowtow to anybody." He's proud that his 30-year-old son, a Stanford law graduate, is preparing the brief in the Cheney lawsuit. He hopes others will take heart and take on Bush. The president's phenomenal popularity has tied the tongues of Democrats. They have been largely mum on the administration's assault on the environment, the justice system and the press. Since Attorney General John Ashcroft informed a Senate committee in December that people resisting the proposal for secret military tribunals for terrorists "give our enemies ammunition," the administration has been reinventing government in a style of obsessive secrecy worthy of the Soviets. Invoking wartime security, it limits citizens' right to know to that which the government chooses to tell them, which is often nothing. Ashcroft has turned one of the bedrock principles of our justice system on its head. He has reversed the constitutional dictum that a defendant is innocent until proved guilty. Uncounted numbers of black-haired men who were rounded up after Sept. 11 are held in jails without charges while FBI bunglers fish around for more reasons to keep them longer. We can't know how many there are, or their names. You think this land is your land? Dick Cheney doesn't think so. How he formulated plans for the environment is classified. Thank heaven Reid disagrees. But the most grotesque development is the Bush attempt to put the Afghan war off the record. The Pentagon regards the press as a nuisance, not as a conduit to tell the people how their tax dollars are being spent in the field. In the Gulf War, the Pentagon put a choke hold on it. Now, in Afghanistan, it's seeking extermination. Reporters can't cover events without credentials the military refuses to give them. The issue came to a boil in Zhawar, a village we bombed and otherwise clobbered under the mistaken impression that it harbored al Qaeda. The new government protested. When U.S. reporters appeared to check matters out, Washington Post correspondent Doug Struck was stopped by a U.S. soldier at gunpoint. Things will only get worse if nobody complains, as Harry Reid has concluded. © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 40 A Democratic senator goes nuclear on the White House Salon.com Politics Nevada's Harry Reid talks with Salon about why he joined the GAO lawsuit against Dick Cheney and why he called George W. Bush a liar. By Jake Tapper March 1, 2002 | WASHINGTON -- It's nuclear war. Or nuclear waste war, at any rate. It began on Feb. 15, when President George W. Bush announced that he would formally recommend Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada, as the site where the United States would bury its nuclear waste. And it has accelerated this week, as Sen. Harry Reid, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, filed a "friend of the court" brief with the General Accounting Office's lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney, which seeks to compel Cheney to provide information to the Congress about the meetings that task force had with energy executives while formulating the policy. That information, Reid believes, will explain the Yucca Mountain decision. When it was announced, Reid was angrily outspoken. "President Bush has broken his promise," said Reid, shortly after Bush's decision. "All Americans should be concerned, not just because he lied to me or the people of Nevada and indeed all Americans, but because the president's decision threatens American lives." Copyright 2002 Salon.com ***************************************************************** 41 INFO:NSA TO PROSECUTE PEACE ACTIVISTS (fwd) Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2002 22:56:00 -0600 (CST) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2002 20:45:19 -0800 (PST) From: MichaelP To: cag@spock.peak.org Subject: INFO:NSA TO PROSECUTE PEACE ACTIVISTS Thanks KG: ================== Subject: NSA TO PROSECUTE PEACE ACTIVISTS (from GLOBAL NETWORK AGAINST WEAPONS & NUCLEAR POWER IN SPACE. Baltimore Emergency Response Network, 325 E. 25th Street, Baltimore, MD 21218 PHONE: [410] 377-7987 PRESS RELEASE-FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 2, 2002 CONTACT: Max Obuszewski 410-323-7200 or 410-377-7987 or mobuszewski@afsc.org or Jonah House 410-233-6238 NSA FINALLY GOES AFTER FOUR PEACE ACTIVISTS WHO: The Baltimore Emergency Response Network and Baltimore's Jonah House have been organizing demonstrations at the National Security Agency since 1996. See James Bamford's book BODY OF SECRETS, which details the spy agency's response to these nonviolent protests. As part of the INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PROTEST TO STOP THE MILITARIZATION OF SPACE, organized by the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space in Gainesville, Florida, BERN members Ellen Barfield and Max Obuszewski and Jonah House activists Sister Carol Gilbert, O.P. and Sister Ardeth Platte, O.P. went to the National Security Agency [9800 Savage Road, Fort Meade, Maryland]on October 12, despite the fact the area was on highest alert. At 7 AM, they walked through an open gate to try to deliver a letter to Lt. General Michael V. Hayden, head of the National Security Agency, demanding a meeting. BERN has tried to obtain a meeting with the director of the NSA each year since 1996. WHAT: However, a security breach alert was sounded, and at least nine vehicles, soldiers with drawn weapons and dogs soon arrived. The NSA officials would not permit a meeting with Gen. Hayden, so Gilbert and Platte poured their own blood on the asphalt to represent all victims of the NSA's work. Obuszewski held a sign "Unmask the Body of Secrets...No Star Wars...Nonviolence Now...International Day of Protest - Oct. 12-13, 2001," while Barfield's banner read "No War On Afghanistan, Iraq, Whomever; No Spying, No Star Wars, Work for Peace, Please!" Each demonstrator was arrested and charged with trespass [six months/$2500 fine], destruction of government property [one year] and conspiracy [five years]. The protesters were eventually released on personal recognizance, but waited almost five months before receiving notice to appear in federal court. WHEN: Friday, March 22, 2002 at 10 AM WHERE: U.S. District Court, Room 1B, 101 West Lombard St. in Baltimore WHY: One can only speculate why the Department of Defense decided to finally prosecute the activists. It is suspected, though, the continued antiwar protests by the NSA Four may have played a role. All four defendants returned to the NSA on October 13 to join a protest. Gilbert and Platte were arrested at the White House, after the U.S. started bombing Afghanistan. BERN organized an antiwar demonstration on October 15 at the Warfield Air National Guard Base in Middle River, and Barfield and Brian Barrett were arrested. On February 13, they were convicted of trespass and failure to obey a lawful order. They then served ten-day sentences in Baltimore County. On January 29, 2002 BERN went to Baltimore's Fallon Federal Building to visit the office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service to protest the Department of Justice's treatment of the September 11 detainees. Six BERN members were evicted from the building, and Obuszewski was told he was banned from returning. Obuszewski, raised in Erie, Pennsylvania, attended Erie Cathedral Preparatory School for Boys, the same high school as Tom Ridge, the head of the Office of Homeland Security. He and the others went to the NSA and hoped Gov. Ridge would hear of the protest and heed their call for real security: NO THEATRE MISSILE DEFENSE! NO NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE! NO STAR WARS RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT! KEEP SPACE FOR PEACE! NO WAR! FUND HUMAN NEEDS! The four defendants hope to use their trial to expose the NSA cloak of secrecy, its covert actions, confrontations, undisclosed annual budgets and interceptor sites throughout the world. They will argue the secret activities of the intelligence agency actually make this country less secure. ##### Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 90083 Gainesville, FL 32607 (352) 337-9274 http://www.space4peace.org globalnet@mindspring.com ***************************************************************** 42 [southnews] Nixon nuclear threat revives anti-US feelings Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2002 23:13:35 -0600 (CST) Buy Stock for $4. No Minimums. FREE Money 2002. http://us.click.yahoo.com/BgmYkB/VovDAA/ySSFAA/7gSolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ---------- Nixon nuclear threat revives anti-US feelings [SMH] Date: 03/03/2002 Tapes which reveal former US President Richard Nixon considered using nuclear weapons against Vietnam yesterday revived lingering bitterness over the war in the country. The tapes, released last week from official US archives under freedom of information legislation, include one from 1972 in which Nixon raised the idea of a nuclear strike against communist North Vietnam. The conversation with the then national security adviser Henry Kissinger came just weeks before Nixon ordered a major escalation of the US campaign in Vietnam. It is not clear from the tapes how serious Nixon was about resorting to the nuclear option. But they nevertheless triggered an angry official reaction in the country, despite the recent reconciliation between the former foes. "If what is heard in the tapes is true, it is further evidence of the extreme brutality of a number of warlike forces in the then US administration towards the Vietnamese people during the US war of aggression in Vietnam," foreign ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said in a statement published by the official press today. "The aggressive war waged by the US caused much suffering and losses for the Vietnamese people and has been condemned by all people of conscience across the world", the spokeswoman added. During the Vietnam war, the United States dropped around 1.5 million tonnes of bombs on Vietnam and between 1962 and 1971 the US Airforce sprayed 72 million litres of toxic chemicals in southern Vietnam. A first ever joint scientific conference between Vietnam and the United States on the controversial wartime chemical defoliant Agent Orange is due to open tomorrow in Hanoi. AFP ---------- Nuclear Terror is Back! New book by Francis Boyle Following U.S. unilateral abrogation of the ABM Treaty, the entire edifice of international agreements regulating, reducing, and eliminating weapons of mass extermination has been shaken to its very core. The prospect of yet another round of the multilateral and destabilizing nuclear arms race now stares humanity directly in the face. The resumption of nuclear testing in outright defiance of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty regime and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Article VI might soon begin. As the U.S. War on Terrorism hurtles into uncharted waters, challenging accepted norms of international law and setting a pattern for peremptory state behavior, could a nuclear strike against a non-nuclear "rogue state" become an American option? Could conflicts between other nuclear states such as India and Pakistan go nuclear? The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence by Francis A. Boyle, Foreword by Philip Berrigan, will give the reader the intellectual tools necessary to battle the U.S. nuclear empire. A special introduction, "George Bush, Jr., September 11th and the Rule of Law" clarifies the illegal and dangerous trajectory of the present Bush , Jr. administration. As a leading American professor, practitioner and advocate of international law, Francis A. Boyle is uniquely qualified to address the issue of nuclear deterrence. Twenty years of anti-nuclear advocacy have earned him what may be the worlds track record for anti-nuclear acquittals. Recently, his testimony persuaded a Scottish Judge in the UK to direct a verdict against the UK Trident 2. Through his exacting international legal analysis, prolific writings and tireless advocacy, he has succeeded in establishing the criminality of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence reflected in the recent World Court Advisory Opinion of 1996. Prof. Boyle was responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. He has lectured on nuclear weapons and international law to the U.S. military at West Point and to Russian and foreign lawyers through two lecture tours sponsored by the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy and the Association of Soviet Lawyers. Philip Berrigan has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize at least six times. The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence by Francis A. Boyle: ISBN: 0-932863-33-7. US$14.95 For more information, please visit the publisher's website at http://www.claritypress.com. The book can be ordered directly through Ingram, amazon.com, or the publisher's distributor, at: SCB Distributors 15608 South new Century Drive Gardena, CA. 90248 Tel: 310-532-9400 Fax: 310-532-7001 Toll-free: 800-729-6423 Email: victor@scbdistributors.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: southnews-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 43 Is missile defence a shot in the dark? Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2002 07:24:59 -0600 (CST) INDEPENDENT (London) 01 March 2002 The US Congress is investigating claims of a cover-up over test results from the nation's missile defence programme. Owen Dyer looks at the controversial system ======== The advocates of "son of Star Wars" -- a defence system to shoot down incoming missiles -- claimed a couple of notable victories in 2001. Two trials ended with successful interceptions, bringing the tally to three direct hits out of five attempts. The explosions high over the Pacific Ocean sent hostile critics in Washington running for cover. The July test was timed to coincide with the appropriation of a further $8.3bn for the project, and the successful interception shot down any opposition that was brewing on Capitol Hill. "They hit a bullet with a bullet," said Trent Lott, the Senate Minority Leader. "We can develop that capability." This year, however, has brought a sudden reversal of fortune. The US Congress's General Accounting Office is investigating claims that a scientific cover-up may have been perpetrated at the very heart of the missile defence programme. The programme's two prime contractors, the American aerospace firms TRW and Boeing, have been accused of manipulating data to hide the stark fact that their system cannot tell the difference between warheads and the decoys that accompany them. The controversy dates from the first flight test in 1997, which the Pentagon said was a complete success. Although an interceptor missile was launched in that trial, it made no attempt to hit the dummy warhead. Rather, the mission was a fly-by designed to test the computer algorithm that recognises the target and the sensors on board the intercepting missile. Scientists who have seen the flight data are said to be confused because vital seconds appear to have gone missing from each successive report. From a minute's worth of data released soon after the test, only 18 seconds were left in the 60-day review presented by Boeing, and these did not include the crucial last 11 seconds of the interceptor's flight. Moreover, of nine decoys that had accompanied the warhead, one was inexplicably absent in the figures. The data fell into the hands of Professor Theodore Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a long-time critic of "Star Wars" defensive shields. He claims to have found that during the missing seconds the interceptor was fixing on various dummies instead of the warhead. In fact, its attention was hopping almost randomly from one target to another. It appeared that the contractors simply chose those periods when it happened to be looking at the right target. The dummies that accompanied the warhead were spherical "balloons" of various sizes. Unsure of the system's ability to discriminate the balloons from the warhead, the contractors had fed the dynamic characteristics of the objects into the system's computer. Unfortunately for them, one of the balloons failed to fully inflate. To the infrared eye of the interceptor missile, this object looked more like the warhead than the warhead itself. Even after this awkward impostor was removed, they found that two other balloons were still preferentially selected by the discrimination algorithm. So they requested that the following tests include only four balloon decoys, a figure that was later changed to two. In the end, last year's missile tests involved only one decoy, a spherical balloon seven times bigger than the warhead. Since the Missile Defence Agency tells the guidance computers that the warhead is the smaller of the two targets, it simply has to choose the dimmer of two bright infrared sources and make the intercept. It's clever, but it tells us nothing about the system's ability to identify a warhead in a cloud of unknown objects. Philip Coyle, a consultant for the Center for Defence Information, and until last year the head of the Pentagon's Office of Operational Test and Evaluation, is worried about the system's reliance on information that just isn't available in the real world: "Obviously, our enemies aren't going to tell us which one is the real warhead." The contractors promised a system that could reliably identify any warhead in any "threat cloud". Nira Schwartz, an engineer who worked for TRW, claimed before the first test that they could not come close to meeting this requirement. It was Schwartz's claims that led US Congressmen of both parties to demand an official investigation. The Defence Department's Criminal Investigation Service (DCIS) also took Schwartz's claims seriously. They concluded that the discrimination technology "cannot and will not meet the contract requirements" and that TRW was "willing to repeatedly falsify documents submitted to the United States on this program". In a letter sent to the Missile Defence Agency, the DCIS investigators wrote: "There is no crime in producing a failed algorithm. The crime is in producing a failed algorithm and knowingly covering up its failure." One might expect the Pentagon to take action, but instead the Army Department persuaded the Justice Department not to intervene, saying that its consultations with the DCIS led it to believe there were no grounds to proceed. In fact, the DCIS indignantly denies having been consulted. Boeing, still the Lead System Integrator of the missile defence programme, refused to comment. A spokesman for TRW, which still holds the contract for the ground-based computer systems, said: "I can't comment on the congressional investigation, since the results aren't out yet. But the FBI looked into this and said there was no evidence of fraud." The Boeing interceptor has since been replaced by a Raytheon model. Postol says this is no improvement. "The Boeing vehicle actually had better sensors." In any case, he says, no amount of technical tinkering could overcome the problem. "Decoys are the Achilles' heel of missile defence," says Michael Levi, who studies the problem for the Federation of American Scientists. But the deadliest countermeasure is to put the warhead inside one of the balloons. "The empty balloons can be fitted with weights and electric heaters to mimic the loaded one," says Levi. "Better yet, make all the balloons different sizes and temperatures. There's no way to tell which one contains a warhead." This cheap and simple countermeasure, he says, cannot be defeated with today's technology. The only response would be to shoot at all of the objects, but, says Coyle, "the system is really designed to launch one missile at a time". This raises another issue. Any chemical or biological missile would contain numerous bomblets to spread the lethal agent. Even without decoys, multiple bomblets threaten to swamp the missile defence shield. "The best decoy of all," says Coyle, "is another live warhead." The missile defence establishment will be dreading the glare of publicity that surrounds congressional investigation. There is another flaw in their tests, one that came to light last summer. Every warhead intercepted so far carried a Global Positioning System (GPS) beacon that broadcasts its position to the ground computers. The Pentagon knows the beacon could be a public-relations disaster. "They want to get rid of it," says Coyle, "because it creates the impression of cheating, but it looks like we're stuck with it for the foreseeable future." Now if they could just persuade the Iraqis and North Koreans to put beacons in their warheads, the "son of Star Wars" missile defence might actually work. ====================== *** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Feel free to distribute widely but PLEASE acknowledge the original source. *** ***************************************************************** 44 Inspections May Not Deter Saddam Newsday.com - By CAROLYN SKORNECK Associated Press Writer March 1, 2002, 4:11 PM EST WASHINGTON -- Inspectors who once searched Iraq for weapons of mass destruction told lawmakers Friday that new inspectors -- backed by the Bush administration -- are unlikely to deter Saddam Hussein. Many U.S. allies don't support the Bush policy, and the idea is drawing criticism from Congress as well. Iraq has been under U.N. sanctions since it invaded neighboring Kuwait in 1990. Those sanctions cannot be lifted until U.N. inspectors verify that Baghdad has dismantled its weapons of mass destruction. The inspectors left in December 1998, ahead of U.S. and British airstrikes, and Iraq has barred them from returning. The Bush administration, accusing Iraq of trying to rebuild its weapons programs and supporting terrorism, is demanding that inspectors get back in. That, said Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., is "the worst thing in the world that can happen." "It just means another cat and mouse game, at which point he would run to the United Nations and get his friends there to protect him with regard to whatever he's doing," said Thompson, the top Republican on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee's proliferation panel. "It puts off any chance for regime change, which is the ultimate resolution," he said, adding later: "Why wouldn't he let inspectors back in and buy himself a year or two?" Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, the subcommittee's chairman, supported new inspections, saying they could constrain Iraq's weapons program and help the United States learn more about Saddam's plans. "Keeping Saddam Hussein bottled up and forcing him to confront obstacles in every direction is not a bad outcome as we consider our long-term strategy," Akaka said. Iraq experts, including former nuclear and biological weapons inspectors, said there's no indication Saddam will drop plans to develop weapons of mass destruction and the ability to deliver them to distant shores. And they questioned what good new inspectors would be. "It appears that most of the proposals for getting inspectors back into Iraq are based on the premise that 'any inspectors are better than none,'" said Richard Spertzel, who was the United Nations' chief biological weapons inspector in Iraq from 1994 to 1999. "To be blunt, that is pure garbage." The Iraqis constantly hindered the U.N. inspectors, and future inspectors could expect the same, he said. That would lead to "a farce that would be worse than no inspectors at all" because they might give the illusion that Iraq is complying with U.N. requirements, further undermining the coalition opposing Saddam, Spertzel said. David Kay, the chief U.N. nuclear weapons inspector from 1991 to 1992, said it was almost 11 years to the day since he led the first inspection team into Iraq. Kay said getting rid of Saddam is the only way to end Iraq's weapons program. "Time is not on our side," he said. Kay believes Saddam will use a weapon of mass destruction if he thinks the United States is trying to get rid of him. Spertzel disagreed: "I don't think he is yet convinced the United States will act unilaterally" in the face of opposition from allies in Europe and the Middle East. Kay predicted Saddam would bar new inspectors because, in addition to their work, previous inspectors represented a kind of freedom to the Iraqi people who defied Saddam. But Robert Einhorn, assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation from 1999 to last August, said Saddam probably will make conditional offers for inspectors, if only to aid his public relations battle. Einhorn said the danger is real. Within five years, he said, Saddam could threaten the entire Middle East and most of Europe with missiles. "The current regime won't give up weapons of mass destruction," illustrated by Saddam's willingness to forgo $100 billion in international trade just to keep inspectors out, he said. Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press ***************************************************************** 45 US Uses Sensors Amid Al Qaeda Nuclear Fear - Senator March 3, 2002 By REUTERS Filed at 9:31 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States placed sophisticated radiation sensors at the Winter Olympics and at the Super Bowl amid concern Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network may have access to nuclear devices, a U.S. senator said on Sunday. ``Do we know that they have those devices? No, we don't. Did we deploy radioactive detection equipment in Salt Lake? Yes, we did. And at other places, at the Super Bowl? Yes we have,'' Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig said on CNN's ``Late Edition.'' Craig's comments followed a Washington Post report the Bush administration had been deploying radiation sensors at key locations around Washington and at U.S. border positions, prompted by fears al Qaeda may be making progress in obtaining nuclear weapons. The sensors, known as gamma ray and neutron flux detectors, have been deployed since November, the newspaper said, citing U.S. government policymakers. ``We know that our enemies seek to acquire means to harm us. The president is focused on preventing attacks from whatever source and I won't discuss any details or specifics,'' White House spokesman Taylor Gross said when asked about the Post report. Speaking on condition of anonymity, another administration official said some U.S. Department of Energy laboratories had been involved in developing radiation sensors. Time Magazine reported on Sunday an intelligence alert sent in October to the Energy Department's top-secret Nuclear Emergency Search Team and other agencies warned that terrorists planned to smuggle a nuclear weapon into New York City. But the magazine said intelligence officials believed the source of the warning, an agent code-named dragonfly, was of ``undetermined'' reliability. In the CNN interview, Craig and Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, both noted that the United States had uncovered information that al Qaeda was, at the very least, seeking nuclear weapons designs and materials. Saudi-born extremist bin Laden and his al Qaeda network are blamed by Washington for the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. landmarks that killed thousands of people. ``We clearly are in heightened alert and we should be,'' Craig said. ``We know that the Taliban and the terrorists were very interested in radioactive material and nuclear devices.'' ``I'm not sure that it's a reason for panic, but I think it's a reasonable precaution that should be taken,'' McCain added. ``But I have seen no hard evidence that any terrorist organization has acquired these weapons.'' The Washington Post also reported that the Bush administration has placed the elite U.S. commando unit Delta Force on a new standby alert to seize any nuclear materials that radiation sensors may detect. The Delta Force has been given the task of killing or disabling anyone with a suspected nuclear device and turning the bomb over to scientists to be disarmed, the Post added. Copyright 2002 Reuters Ltd. | Privacy Information Advertisement ***************************************************************** 46 Tricky Dicky's nuke plan [ 02mar02 ] Herald Sun: MARYLAND -- A few weeks before ordering an escalation of the Vietnam War, former US president Richard Nixon raised the idea of using a nuclear bomb. The notion was shot down by national security adviser Henry Kissinger. Nixon's abrupt suggestion, buried in 500 hours of tapes released yesterday by the National Archives, came after Dr Kissinger had laid out a variety of options for stepping up the war effort. "I'd rather use the nuclear bomb," Nixon said. "That, I think, would just be too much," Dr Kissinger replied. "The nuclear bomb. Does that bother you?" Nixon asked. "I just want you to think big." The conversation was in the archives' largest-ever release of Nixon tapes. Also revealed is that Nixon doubted the authenticity of the famous photograph of a young girl running naked down a street, fleeing a napalm attack in South Vietnam. On June 12, 1972, Nixon and chief of staff H.R. Haldeman briefly discussed the Vietnam War photo. "I'm wondering if that was fixed," Nixon said. AP ***************************************************************** 47 Ambassador: Iraq Not Hiding Weapons Las Vegas SUN March 02, 2002 UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Iraq's invitation to Britain to search for banned weapons will show the world that Saddam Hussein's government is not hiding nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, Iraq's U.N. ambassador said. Ambassador Mohammad Al-Douri said late Friday the government issued the invitation because Britain is "one of two permanent members of the Security Council who accused Iraq of having these weapons of mass destruction." The other is the United States. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has claimed to have evidence that Iraq has such weapons, but Iraq believes he "cannot present any evidence," Al-Douri said. Iraq's offer to Britain was first reported in Friday's official al-Thawra newspaper. It quoted an unidentified official spokesman as saying Iraq was challenging Britain to prove it is developing weapons of mass destruction. "This is, I think, a very good gesture, a very positive gesture from Iraq," Al-Douri said. "We are confident that what we are saying to the international community - that Iraq is clean from any kind of weapon of mass destruction - is true." The surprise invitation came days before U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan scheduled March 7 meeting with Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri to discuss the return of weapons inspectors to Baghdad and Iraq's demand for lifting sanctions imposed after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Under Security Council resolutions, sanctions cannot be lifted until inspectors determine that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction have been dismantled. But inspectors left Baghdad in December 1998, ahead of U.S. and British air strikes punishing Iraq for not cooperating with the inspections program, and Saddam's government barred them from returning. Al-Douri said the Iraqi government was not inviting the new U.N. weapons inspection agency or its chief inspector, Hans Blix, to visit Baghdad because of Iraq's experience with the previous inspection agency, which it accused of being compromised by spies. That position could complicate Sabri's talks with Annan. Another complicating factor is the growing speculation that Iraq may become a target of U.S. military action, especially after President Bush called it part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and North Korea. He warned Baghdad to let inspectors in or face consequences. Iraqis "do not belong to an axis of evil," Al-Douri said. "I think America is the evil of our world today, not Iraq. We have no army abroad. The United States has armies over the whole world." Al-Douri said he doesn't believe the United States wants to see Iraq and the United Nations find a solution leading to the lifting of sanctions. Next week's meeting will be followed by another in April. "We are always optimistic," Al-Douri said of the possibility of ending the standoff over sanctions and inspections. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 48 Blair hints at Iraq action BBC Thursday, 28 February, 2002, [UK Prime Minister Tony Blair (l) and US President George W Bush] Blair and Bush: Concern at Iraq's weapons Prime Minister Tony Blair has spoken of the importance of taking action against Iraq and other states which spread weapons of mass destruction. He stopped short of endorsing US President George W Bush's characterisation of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil". But he praised the president's leadership since the terrorist attacks of 11 September, and said he was "absolutely right" to raise the weapons issue. Those who are engaged in spreading weapons of mass destruction are engaged in an evil trade and it is important that we... take action Tony Blair During an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Mr Blair was asked whether he endorsed Mr Bush's "axis of evil" statement. He did not answer the question directly, but said it was vital to take action against all states which spread nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. "I certainly agree with him very strongly that weapons of mass destruction represent a real threat to world stability. "Those who are engaged in spreading weapons of mass destruction are engaged in an evil trade and it is important that we make sure that we take action in respect of it. "I think that George Bush has shown tremendous leadership since 11 September. "He has acted always in a very measured way, in a calm way, but he is right to raise these issues and certainly he has our support in doing so." The accumulation of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq poses a threat, not just to the region but to the wider world Tony Blair Downing Street later said Mr Blair would be speaking to Mr Bush on Thursday in one of their regular telephone calls. The prime minister's spokesman said no decisions on possible action against Iraq had been taken but said discussions would continue on countries which "produce weapons of mass destruction". Mr Blair said that while there was no direct evidence connecting Iraq to the events of 11 September, there was no doubt that Baghdad and its accumulation of such weapons was a concern. "Saddam Hussein's regime is a regime that is deeply repressive to its people and is a real danger to the region. "Heavens above, he used chemical weapons against his own people, so it is an issue and we have got to look at it, but we will look at it in a rational and calm way, as we have for the other issues. "The accumulation of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq poses a threat, not just to the region but to the wider world. "And I think George Bush was absolutely right to raise it. "Now what action we take in respect of that, that is an open matter for discussion." But asked if Britain was ready to use force against Iraq, Mr Blair said: "When we're ready to take action then we'll announce it. It is a real issue. It is a real threat. How we deal with it is an open matter." Attack 'unwise' US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said Washington was determined to see the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, removed from power and was "reserving all options" as to how that might be done. And Mr Bush has threatened unspecified consequences against Iraq unless UN weapons inspectors are allowed back into the country. [Iraqi President Saddam Hussein] Saddam Hussein has accused the US of bullying On Wednesday the Egyptian news agency Mena quoted diplomatic sources as saying Britain still hopes a diplomatic drive will allow the inspectors back in. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is to meet Iraq's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, in New York on 7 March to discuss the possible return of weapons inspectors to Iraq. Mr Annan told reporters on Wednesday "any attack on Iraq at this stage would be unwise". Washington meeting Last weekend it was reported that Mr Blair will travel to Washington in April to discuss military action against Iraq with Mr Bush. The Observer newspaper said Mr Blair would support action against Saddam Hussein if the Iraqi leader continued to ignore demands that he destroy his weapons of mass destruction. Downing Street refused to discuss Mr Blair's travel plans but reportedly said: "The meeting will be to finalise phase two of the war against terrorism. "Action against Iraq will be at the top of the agenda." According to The Observer, London is preparing to publish detailed evidence of Iraq's nuclear capabilities, in order to convince a reluctant public. ***************************************************************** 49 Editorial: GOP off the deep end in its remarks Las Vegas SUN March 01, 2002 On Thursday Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said that the Bush administration should provide Congress with a "clearer understanding" of where the war on terrorism is going. Daschle's assessment was reasonable and, if anything, mild to a fault. Nonetheless, the South Dakota Democrat's view resulted in a fusillade of criticism from Republicans. Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott's take: "How dare Sen. Daschle criticize President Bush while we are fighting our war on terrorism, especially when we have troops in the field? He should not be trying to divide our country while we are united." House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Daschle's comment was "disgusting." Daschle and other Democrats have been strong supporters of the president's overall policy in his war on terrorism, so it is disturbing that Republicans would come unglued over what has been a valid concern about Bush's expansion of these efforts. The administration hurriedly -- without much consultation with Congress and not much communication with the public -- has sent or is sending military "advisers" to the Philippines, Yemen and Georgia. So, yes, we should be asking questions before we get in too deep. Unfortunately the Bush administration also has wrapped domestic policy proposals in patriotism, suggesting that drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is important for national security and that a nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain is essential for homeland security. These over-the-top characterizations are transparent efforts to stifle disagreements. This is dishonorable in a democracy that derives much of its strength from its willingness to honestly debate differences. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 50 Fears Prompt U.S. to Beef Up Nuclear Terror Detection (washingtonpost.com) Sensors Deployed Near D.C., Borders; Delta Force on Standby [Colonel-General Igor Valynkin] According to Col. Gen. Igor Valynkin, head of his country’s nuclear safeguard agency, any claim Russia has lost intact nuclear warhead is "barking mad." (Itar-Tass Photos) By Barton Gellman Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, March 3, 2002; Page A01 Alarmed by growing hints of al Qaeda's progress toward obtaining a nuclear or radiological weapon, the Bush administration has deployed hundreds of sophisticated sensors since November to U.S. borders, overseas facilities and choke points around Washington. It has placed the Delta Force, the nation's elite commando unit, on a new standby alert to seize control of nuclear materials that the sensors may detect. Ordinary Geiger counters, worn on belt clips and resembling pagers, have been in use by the U.S. Customs Service for years. The newer devices are called gamma ray and neutron flux detectors. Until now they were carried only by mobile Nuclear Emergency Search Teams (NEST) dispatched when extortionists claimed to have radioactive materials. Because terrorists would give no such warning, and because NEST scientists are unequipped for combat, the Delta Force has been assigned the mission of killing or disabling anyone with a suspected nuclear device and turning it over to the scientists to be disarmed. The new radiation sensors are emplaced in layers around some fixed points and temporarily at designated "national security special events" such as last month's Olympic Games in Utah. Allied countries, including Saudi Arabia, have also rushed new detectors to their borders after American intelligence warnings. To address the technological limits of even the best current sensors, the Bush administration has ordered a crash program to build next-generation devices at the three national nuclear laboratories. These steps join several other signs, described in recent interviews with U.S. government policymakers, that the Bush administration's nuclear anxieties have intensified since American-backed forces routed Osama bin Laden's network and its Taliban backers in Afghanistan. "Clearly . . . the sense of urgency has gone up," said a senior government policymaker on nuclear, biological and chemical terror. Another high-ranking official said, "The more you gather information, the more our concerns increased about al Qaeda's focus on weapons of mass destruction of all kinds." In "tabletop exercises" conducted as high as Cabinet level, President Bush's national security team has highlighted difficult choices the chief executive would face if the new sensors picked up a radiation signature on a boat steaming up the Potomac River or a truck heading for the capital on Interstate 95. Participants in those exercises said the gaps in their knowledge are considerable. But the intelligence community, they said, believes that al Qaeda could already control a stolen Soviet-era tactical nuclear warhead or enough weapons-grade material to fashion a functioning, if less efficient, atomic bomb. Even before more recent discoveries, some analysts regarded that prospect as substantial. Some expressed that view when the intelligence community devoted a full-day retreat to the subject early last year in Chantilly, Va., according to someone with firsthand knowledge. A majority of those present assessed the likelihood as negligible, but none of the more than 50 participants ruled it out. The consensus government view is now that al Qaeda probably has acquired the lower-level radionuclides strontium 90 and cesium 137, many thefts of which have been documented in recent years. These materials cannot produce a nuclear detonation, but they are radioactive contaminants. Conventional explosives could scatter them in what is known as a radiological dispersion device, colloquially called a "dirty bomb." The number of deaths that might result is hard to predict but probably would be modest. One senior government specialist said "its impact as a weapon of psychological terror" would be far greater. These heightened U.S. government fears explain Bush's activation, the first since the dawn of the nuclear age, of contingency plans to maintain a cadre of senior federal managers in underground bunkers away from Washington. The Washington Post described the features of the classified "Continuity of Operations Plan" on Friday. Bush's emphasis on nuclear terrorism dates from a briefing in the Situation Room during the last week of October. According to knowledgeable sources, Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet walked the president through an accumulation of fresh evidence about al Qaeda's nuclear ambition. Described by one consumer of intelligence as "an incomplete mosaic" of fact, inference and potentially false leads, Tenet's briefing raised fears that "sent the president through the roof." With considerable emotion, two officials said, Bush ordered his national security team to give nuclear terrorism priority over every other threat to the United States. Tenet told Bush that Pakistan's nuclear weapons program was more deeply compromised than either government has acknowledged publicly. Pakistan arrested two former nuclear scientists, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Abdul Majid, on Oct. 23, and interrogated them about contacts with bin Laden and his lieutenants. Pakistani officials maintain that the scientists did not pass important secrets to al Qaeda, but they have not disclosed that Mahmood failed multiple polygraph examinations about his activities. Most disturbing to U.S. intelligence was another leak from Pakistan's program that has not been mentioned in public. According to American sources, a third Pakistani nuclear scientist tried to negotiate the sale of an atomic weapon design to Libya. The Post was unable to learn which Pakistani blueprint was involved, whether the transaction was completed, or what became of the scientist after discovery. Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is believed to include bombs of relatively simple design, built around cores of highly enriched uranium, and more sophisticated weapons employing Chinese implosion technology to compress plutonium to a critical mass. At the October briefing, Bush learned of a remark by a senior member of al Qaeda's operational command. The operative had been an accurate, though imprecise, harbinger of al Qaeda plans in the past. After U.S. bombing began in Afghanistan, an American official said, the same man was reliably reported to have said "there will be another attack and it's going to be much bigger" than the one that toppled the World Trade Center and destroyed a wing of the Pentagon on Sept. 11. "What the hell did that mean?" the official said, recalling the stunned reaction of those briefed on the remark. Other reports reaching Washington described al Qaeda references to obtaining, or having obtained, special weapons. "The benign explanation is bucking up the troops" with false bravado, the official said, but the Bush administration took the report "extremely seriously." Searches of al Qaeda sites in Afghanistan, undertaken since American-backed forces took control there, are not known to have turned up a significant cache of nuclear materials. The New York Times reported that U.S. personnel in Afghanistan sent three suspected samples to American labs for analysis but found no significant radioactive source. There is evidence that some of al Qaeda's nuclear efforts over the years met with swindles and false leads. In one case, officials said, the organization was taken in by scam artists selling "red mercury," a phony substance they described as a precursor, or ingredient, of weapons-grade materials. If al Qaeda has a weapon or its components, U.S. officials said, its whereabouts would be the organization's most closely guarded secret. Addressing the failure of American searchers to find such materials in abandoned Afghan camps, one policymaker noted that "we haven't found most of the al Qaeda leadership either, and we know that exists." The likeliest source of nuclear materials, or of a warhead bought whole, is the vast complex of weapons labs and storage sites that began to crumble with the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russia has decommissioned some 10,000 tactical nuclear weapons since then, but it has been able to document only a fraction of the inventory. The National Intelligence Council, an umbrella organization for the U.S. analytical community, reported to Congress last month that there are at least four occasions between 1992 and 1999 when "weapons-grade and weapons-usable nuclear materials have been stolen from some Russian institutes." Of those thefts, the report said, "We assess that undetected smuggling has occurred, although we do not know the extent or magnitude." Victor Yerastov, chief of nuclear accounting and control for Russia's ministry of atomic energy, has said that in 1998 a theft in Chelyabinsk Oblast made off with "quite sufficient material to produce an atomic bomb." An American official, commenting on that theft, said that "given the known and suspected capabilities of the Russian mafia, it's perfectly plausible that al Qaeda would have access to such materials." The official added, "They could get it from anybody they could bribe." Col. Gen. Igor Valynkin, chief of the Russian organization responsible for safeguarding nuclear weapons, said on Oct. 27 that any claim Russia has lost an intact warhead is "barking mad." The U.S. government is not accepting that assurance at face value. "We don't know with any confidence what has gone missing, and neither do they," said one American official. Thefts of less threatening nuclear byproducts, especially isotopes of strontium, cesium and partially enriched uranium, have been reported more frequently. In November 1995, Chechen rebels placed a functioning "dirty bomb" using dynamite and cesium 137 in Moscow's Izmailovo park. They did not detonate it. Al Qaeda is closely aligned with the Chechens. There are limits, "governed by the laws of physics," as one official put it, to American technology for detecting these materials. In broad terms they have to do with sensing radioactivity at a distance and through shielding, and with the balance between false positives and false negatives. There are classified Energy Department documents that catalogue what one of them called "shortcomings in the ability of NEST equipment to locate the target materials which if known by adversaries could be used to defeat the search equipment and/or procedures." The Post has agreed to publish no further details. A division of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, known as NIS-6, is leading efforts to build an improved generation of sensors. Some will use neutron generators to "interrogate" a suspected object, and others are planned for long-range detection of alpha particles. A measure of the government's grave concern is the time devoted by top national security officials to developing options for a crisis involving nuclear terrorism. One hypothetical scenario, participants said, began with a sensor detecting what appeared to be the radiation signature of a nuclear weapon amid a large volume of traffic on a highway such as I-95. According to two participants, the group considered how the Energy Department's NEST teams, working with Delta Force, might find and take control of the weapon without giving a terrorist time to use it. Roadblocks and car-by-car searches, for example, would create chaos, require hours, and give ample warning to those hiding the device. But without roadblocks the searchers might fail to isolate the weapon within a radius defined by the limits of sensor technology. If commandos found the device, they could expect to encounter resistance. Would the president delegate to on-scene commanders a decision that might result in nuclear detonation? Which officials, meanwhile, should be evacuated? Would government inform the public of the threat, a step that would wreak panic without precedent in any country and complicate the job of finding the weapon? "Evacuation is one of those issues you throw your hands up and say, 'It's too hard,' " said one participant in a tabletop exercise. "Nobody wants to make that decision, certainly not in advance." © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 51 DC At Risk of Nuclear Attack Commentary, by John Aravosis The March 1, 2002 Washington Post revealed a secret many of us in Washington, DC already suspected. The US government has determined that there is a real risk that terrorists might just be able to launch a nuclear attack on Washington, DC. According to the Post article, in the wake of September 11, President Bush has sent about 100 senior government officials to work and live in a series of secret locations outside of Washington, to ensure the survival of the US government in case of a nuclear terrorist attack on the capital. The article says that "U.S. intelligence has no specific knowledge of such a weapon... but the risk is thought great enough to justify the shadow government's disruption and expense." (What the article also implies is that the threat of a nuclear terrorist attack on the US capital is also the reason Vice President Cheney has so often been spirited to a "secure undisclosed location.") [And if you really want to scare the pants off yourself, read the follow-up article in the March 3, 2002 Washington Post that details why the US government believes the Al-Qaeda nuclear threat is credible.] Foreign observers of the US should pay close attention to that one sentence quoted above, for it speaks volumes about US policy as it concerns the war on terror, and all foreign affairs. I was in Paris and Morocco recently, and was surprised at how little the locals understand what's motivating Washington's foreign policy. Moroccan friends suggested to me that while the attack on the World Trade Center was terrible, only 3,000 people died, and after all, more than that have died at the hands of violence in the Arab world, so why were the Americans acting like it was such a big deal. And even American friends in Rabat and Paris didn't completely understand why folks back home were going so ballistic and belligerent with declarations about the "axis of evil," etc. Yes, the WTC and the Pentagon were attacked, but that was six months ago. Can't we just move on? But we can't move on, because the attacks are hardly over. Americans back home, especially those of us on the east coast, are honestly concerned that, some day soon, some Al-Qaeda cell will be poisoning a big city's water supply, or setting off a portable nuclear weapon in some populated downtown neighborhood, with the intent of killing millions of Americans. When faced with the real threat of an enemy trying to murder millions of your citizens in one fell swoop, a president's response necessarily becomes both swift and extreme. And this is what the war on terror, and American policy is all about. Europeans and Asians and Middle Easterners can complain all they want about how US policy is simplistic, isolationist and war-mongering. But we all know that if someone were actively plotting to kill a million Parisians, Moroccans, or Japanese with the push of a button - and they very well may be - those countries would counterpunch with a "war on terror" that would make the US battle to date look like child's play. Hell, several years back the French blew up Greenpeace's boat simply because they disagreed with the environmental group's political views. Imagine what they'd do to someone intent on nuking Paris. Until our allies understand that current American policy has very little to do with September 11, and very much to do with September 12 and beyond, they will never grasp the seriousness of this battle for the United States, nor the reason why the president is being such a hard ass about going it alone. And before anyone complains about the US being too gun happy, for years the world community permitted Al-Qaeda to rule Afghanistan and train thousands of terrorists with impunity, and the US sat back and did nothing. Had we gotten off our duff a bit earlier and taken them out, rather than spent years debating the niceties of international diplomacy, 3,000 more people would still be alive in New York and Washington, DC. That fact has not been lost on America, and rest assured the mistake will not be repeated. Copyright © 2002 About, Inc. About and About.com ***************************************************************** 52 Canada's Ports Open Door for Terrorists - Report Yahoo! Fri Mar 1, 4:51 PM ET By Randall Palmer OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's ports are so riddled with organized crime that they are fertile ground for terrorists and potentially for the smuggling of nuclear weapons, a Canadian Senate report said on Friday. The report on Canadian security and military preparedness in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks found a disturbingly high number of workers with criminal records at Canada's ports, through which many foreign goods head to the United States. Anywhere from 15 to 39 percent of stevedores and checkers at major ports were found to have criminal records. At one smaller port more than half of those workers had records. These high percentages prevent authorities from exercising effective control, the report said. "Clearly, this lack of control creates fertile ground for terrorist activity, including covert immigration, and potentially the covert importation and shipment of weapons and other agents of mass destruction," it said. Canadian Deputy Prime Minister John Manley, responsible for cross-border security, reacted with dismay to the idea that so many workers have criminal backgrounds. "If it's true, it's absolutely disturbing, and it's something the (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) are going to want to turn their attention to," he said. The report, by the Senate defense committee, also urged a 33 percent -- or C$4 billion ($2.5 billion) a year -- increase in defense spending. It said the armed forces should be boosted to 75,000 members from a current effective strength of 55,000. "Our committee doesn't think that the 11th (of September) was a one-off. Our committee doesn't think that this is a stable or a safe world," committee chairman Colin Kenny told a news conference. "We think that it's a really dangerous world out there, and we think that Canadians should really focus on it." Kenny framed the debate over ports not only in terms of domestic security but also in terms of the ability to continue to sell goods to the United States, where more than 80 percent of Canadian exports go. "Security is going to trump trade. If you don't have secure ports, you're not going to have a functioning port," he said, adding that U.S. members of Congress had made that clear in conversations with the Canadian senators. "Sixty percent of the throughput of the port of Halifax (Nova Scotia) ends up in New England or in the Midwest. Now if something bad comes through the port and ends up in Chicago, we think there's going to be a shutdown," Kenny said. He spoke of how easy it is for stolen cars to move through ports. "If you can move a car into and out of a port, you can move a nuclear device, which is one-quarter the size of this table, into and out of a port in the same container." The committee heard testimony that organized crime is able to hide entire containers at the ports and that government inspectors rarely work alone because of the danger that something will happen to them. "Containers had been known to be suspended over their vehicles during an inspection, to be 'accidentally' dropped close to inspectors -- a brutal warning that their lives are at risk," the report said. Police estimate that at the port of Montreal 15 percent of the stevedores have criminal records, as do 36 percent of the checkers -- those who ensure a container goes where it should. Fifty-four percent of the employees of one company with a contract to operate tenders servicing ships moored in open water outside Montreal harbor had criminal records, the report said. A sample of longshoremen in Halifax turned up almost 39 percent with criminal records, and 54 percent in the smaller port of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Kenny said the United States inspects only 1 or 1-1/2 percent of its containers. Canada visually inspects 3 percent, though it actually unloads only 1/2 of one percent of the containers. But he said the United States now recognized its problem and had begun moving on it. Transport Minister David Collenette also noted the difference between the two countries in how many containers are inspected, and pointed to the fact that Canada's December federal budget included C$60 million for beefing up port security. The problem at the ports is part of the broader issue of national security, Kenny said. "We do not have the military capacity to defend against and deter military and terrorist threats." Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. ***************************************************************** 53 When the subs leave forever Last modified at 11:14 p.m. on Saturday, March 2, 2002 Camden County awaits economic blow when an estimated 2,000 residents leave town later this year By Gordon Jackson Times-Union staff writer ST. MARYS -- The upcoming year holds more uncertainty than any other in recent memory for the Camden County business community. People such as Debbie Hulett know her business, American Barber Shop, will be affected when two Trident submarines are permanently reassigned from nearby Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base to Bangor, Wash., later this year. Hulett's shop is located less than a mile from Kings Bay and she estimates 95 percent of her customers are sailors from the base. Assuming her customer base is evenly distributed among the crews on the 10 submarines, Hulett estimates she could lose nearly 20 percent of her business once the USS Pennsylvania and USS Kentucky leave. "There's not much I can do," Hulett said. "I'll let the Lord take care of it." The Navy hasn't set a timetable for the Tridents' conversion because project funding is still being discussed, Navy officials said. The Navy first planned to decommission the four oldest Trident submarines -- Ohio, Michigan, Georgia and Florida -- after the START II treaty with Russia was signed in 1993. The treaty was negotiated to reduce the number of nuclear warheads in each country and included plans to reduce the Trident fleet from 18 to 14 boats. Though President Bush decided not to ask for ratification of the treaty last year, Navy officials concluded 14 Trident submarines was an adequate deterrent for nuclear war. But even if the START II treaty wasn't negotiated, Navy officials said they planned to decommission four boats because it was too expensive to refit all eight older Tridents, all ported in Bangor, which are equipped with aging C-4 Trident missiles. The boats at Kings Bay all have more accurate D-5 Trident II missile systems. Camden County now knows when the boats will be leaving. U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston said Monday the USS Kentucky will leave for Bangor in May, followed by the USS Pennsylvania in July. "We knew the day was coming this year, but are certainly disappointed that it has arrived," Kingston said. "The good news is that the conversion of all four 'extra' SSBN's to SSGN's is on track and moving as fast as possible to restore the Trident fleet to its full size of 18." Most Camden County businesses will be affected somewhat once the two boats leave, though not as profoundly as Hulett, said Bob Noble, executive director of the Camden County Joint Development Authority. Some predict struggle Others, however, say many businesses will struggle when the 45,000 population county loses an estimated 2,000 residents -- more than 600 sailors assigned to the two boats, along with their wives and children and an annual payroll estimated at more than $19 million -- in late summer and early autumn. "We've all had enough time to prepare, but a business like mine, it's hard to make an adjustment," said Sheila McNeill, owner of Sheila's Hallmark, a St. Marys greeting card and gift shop. McNeill expects a 10 percent loss in business once the boats leave. The business will reduce its inventory and possibly cut back on new products offered, McNeill said, to deal with the loss of revenues. "Close to half my business is made up of sailors," McNeill said. "Everyone will be affected by this." Francine Murray, president of the Camden/Charlton Board of Realtors, said the boat departures is a regular topic at the organization's meetings. "I think we'll see more homes on the market," Murray said. "But we have a lot of buyers who are not military members." It's unclear how the housing market will be affected because some sailors stationed at Kings Bay didn't buy homes in anticipation of the move to the West Coast, Murray said. Others put their homes on the market as early as a year ago. Carla Carper, executive director of the Camden/Kings Bay Area Chamber of Commerce, predicted the extra houses on the market would favor new residents seeking to buy a home. "We don't have a lot of products on the market," Carper said. "We will go back to a buyer's market." Realtors said the mass exodus of sailors and their families will be offset by the growing demand for housing in Camden County, where home sales averaged 70 per month last year. The last time the county's home sales were that high was in 1993 while the base was still adding a submarine a year to Kings Bay. Realtors said the trend shows no sign of slowing. County officials said retirees are moving into the county because of low housing costs, lower gas prices, close proximity to Jacksonville and a small-town atmosphere not found in surrounding areas. Probably the most uncertainty lies with education officials who were surprised with the results of a survey earlier this month. The survey, which was distributed to nearly 500 sailors aboard the two boats, indicates the school system will lose fewer children than expected, said Will Hardin, assistant superintendent for finance operations in Camden County schools. Only 107 children -- less than half the predicted number -- will transfer to Bangor schools, Hardin said. "We thought it would be higher," Hardin said. "Whenever the subs came in, those [enrollment] numbers were greater." Edwin Davis, assistant superintendent of Camden County schools, said school officials expected the number of transfers to be much higher. School officials estimated the arrival of each boat added at least 300 new students to the enrollment. "We were absolutely floored when [Hardin] did his assessment," Davis said. "I'm still in shock at the low number of transfers. We hope those numbers are true." If the study underestimates the number of transfers, Davis said it would only create problems two months or later after the next school year begins in August. A last resort, if the student/teacher ratio is affected by an unexpected number of student transfers, is there could be some teacher layoffs. But Davis believes the study is accurate. "I'm heartened by what Mr. Hardin reveals to us," Davis said. "I'm looking at a very small percentage [of enrollment] moving." Some sailors with less than a year remaining in their enlistment plan to leave their families behind until they re-enlist and get new orders, Navy officials said. The impact on the base's civilian workforce of about 5,000 is expected to be minimal, if there are any cutbacks at all, Gabos said. "The contractor is actually hiring to fill jobs," Gabos said. Long voyage ahead One of Camden County's newest residents knows what's in store for the sailors relocating to Bangor later this year. Petty officer 2nd class Eldon Pollard was serving at Bangor Naval Submarine Base when he asked to trade duty stations with another sailor at Kings Bay. "I got tired of being cold and rained on," Pollard said. Pollard, who will serve as a storekeeper on the USS Maryland, said the weather may not agree with him and housing prices are higher, but the crews headed to Washington will like their new duty station. The base is near Seattle, for those who like big cities. There's skiing, hiking, hunting and camping, along with the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, for those who like the outdoors. And the residents are strong supporters of the Navy, Pollard said. "I think they will be real happy," Pollard said. Despite the Washington base's reputation as a good duty station, some sailors have opted to stay at Kings Bay. The Navy allows sailors who want to stay at Kings Bay the opportunity to trade with other sailors who want to go to Bangor. So far, eight sailors have asked for reassignment to another boat, so they can remain in Georgia, said Petty Officer 1st Class James Phillips, a career counselor aboard the USS Pennsylvania. Phillips has helped the sailors fill out the paperwork and find another crewman with the same rank and job duties to agree to trade. Petty Officer 2nd Class Samuel Beard asked to stay at Kings Bay because he is a single father who has help from his parents in Atlanta raising his daughter. His parents' help is especially important when he is serving at sea for 70 days or more at a stretch. Beard said he was "pretty sure" he'd be able to find someone to trade boats. "It was easy," Beard said. "I'm excited it went so smooth." Phillips is one of the sailors, however, who extended his sea duty tour to go to Bangor. "I wanted to remain loyal to my boat and crew," Phillips said. "For me, it was an easy decision." Staff writer Gordon Jackson can be reached at (912) 729-3672 or via e-mail at gjackson@jacksonville.com [gjackson@jacksonville.com] . © The Florida Times-Union ***************************************************************** 54 The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War Independent News UK © 2002 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd Allen Lane, £16.99, 234pp John Murray, £25, 351pp by Peter Hennessy Know Your Enemy by Percy Cradock Cold War spin and subterfuge darken our view of history, says Robin Ramsay 02 March 2002 Buy The Secret State The British state is slowly releasing some of its previously classified paper. Nothing really interesting seems to have emerged yet. (The really interesting stuff was all "weeded" years ago.) No one, not even the splendid Norman Baker MP, has seen his or her MI5 file. No politicians are involved in the process of selecting what is kept, what is released and what is destroyed. The British state is disposing of its material as it sees fit. Some material is deposited in the Public Record Office, and sometimes, if you ask for documents and the material isn't too sensitive, something pops out of the system. It's the usual in-house, ad hoc British sort of thing. And these two books are based on some of those releases. Peter Hennessy is the leading historian of the post-war British state, but he rarely discusses the intelligence and security services. Yet he writes books that sound as though Whitehall's secret warriors are his subject. One of his recent works was The Hidden Wiring, a decent metaphor for them; but they were missing from it. And here's another: The Secret State, an expression often used in the past 30 years for the security services. But although MI5 flits across a couple of chapters, once again Hennessy's title misdirects us. The "secret state" here isn't the security and intelligence empires built since 1945, but some of the responses by Whitehall to the nuclear Cold War. The basic problem in writing with a partial set of official documents is deciding how much of your own material to put in around them. Hennessy has some documents on MI5's view of the anti-nuclear movement of the 1950s and 1960s, so we get a short potted history of CND's early days, with official nuggets embedded. But MI5's view as presented here is banal: there was no secret to CND for MI5 to discover. Equally banal are the glimpses of MI5's view on Communist Party infiltration of the trade union movement in the 1950s. There is important material on MI5 penetration of the CPGB, but it isn't here. There is just one fascinating comment: "As late as 1991... more than one MI5 officer could be heard to claim that (a) the British Secret Service 'had been virtually running the CPGB at the end', and (b) to bemoan how much the pensions of its former agents within the CPGB were absorbing from current budgets." One of Hennessy's chapters skims across some recently released assessments made by the Joint Intelligence Committee. He constructs a couple of chapters on the Anglo-American nuclear relationship and the British state's acquisition of nuclear weapons; and one on some espionage aspects. But we knew all this already, didn't we? The citations may now refer to official papers – PRO this and PRO that – but it all feels familiar. And he gives us civil defence: deep bunkers under the Cotswolds, preserving a handful of Britain's élite to enable them to emerge from their shelters and resume running the radioactive remains of the UK after the Soviets had done their worst. This may be the first time we have seen any of the official paperwork, but it is tedious stuff. Duncan Campbell's 1983 book War Plan UK dealt with civil defence in infinitely greater, though unofficial, detail. Sir Percy Cradock uses a set of Joint Intelligence Committee assessments in his portrait of its view of the major incidents of the Cold War. This returns us to the world of the good guys and bad guys: the Soviet threat to the world was met by Western resolution. The reader of Know Your Enemy would never know that in 1960 the outgoing President, Dwight D Eisenhower, warned the American people of their military-industrial complex in his farewell address – or why. The postwar American empire is missing from Cradock's account; there is no CIA, and no coups. Omission on this scale amounts to falsification. Take the million or so people killed in Indonesia by a US- directed purge of "communists" in 1965. The events leading up to it get half a page in which Cradock rehearses the official cover story, which not even the US state is bothering with these days. As for the slaughter, Cradock merely comments: "A gruesome pogrom followed throughout the country as opponents of the [communist] PKI took their revenge." "Opponents"? There's a nice neutral word. The story of US involvement in the "gruesome pogrom", using declassified American documents, can be read online at the National Security Archive: www.gwu. edu/~nsarchiv. Cradock's view of things would be positively nostalgic if it were not such a delusion. This is how Sir Percy Cradock, former ambassador and chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, saw the Cold War, sprinkled with quotations from the committee's papers. And in Sir Percy Cradock's world view, it is not possible to deal with the reality of American foreign policy. The Soviet empire was a horrible place to live for many people, and good riddance to it – but most of the people killed since 1945 have been killed by the Americans and their allies. Robin Ramsay is the author of 'The Rise of New Labour' (Pocket Essentials) ***************************************************************** 55 Army plant gets $73M ammunition contract The Hawk Eye Special: IAAP Saturday, March 2, 2002 [Unknown dangers at IAAP] By Mike Augspurger The Hawk Eye The federal government has awarded a $73 million contract to the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant to make two additional types of ammunition. U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D–Iowa, made the announcement Friday. The funding is in addition to a previous contract — technically a procurement contract. The Army is committing $73 million and maybe as much as $328 million to buy weapons made at IAAP. The funding will pay for making two kinds of 120 mm ammunition — M831A1 TP–T and M865 TPDSCS–T cartridges. A Harkin spokesman did not know if the weapons would be used in the war on terrorism. The initial funding will pay for about a year's worth of making the cartridges, Harkin's office said. "The state of our nation's defenses are strong, in large part, because of the hardworking men and women in Iowa who help to build them," Harkin said. "This funding underscores Iowa's role in protecting our nation, and will also help Iowa at a time when many Iowans are feeling the pinch of a slowing economy." The plant covers more than 19,000 acres. The 950 workers on three shifts make missile warheads, cratering charges, artillery rounds and other ammunition. From 1949 to 1975, operations included the assembly and disassembly of nuclear weapons. American Ordnance is the company that manufactures ammunition at the army–owned plant. The company is a subsidiary of Mason &Hanger, a Lexington, Ky.–based company that has operated the plant since 1951. Harkin is a senior member of the Senate Committee that funds defense, and has been an advocate for providing the necessary resources to uncover plant records, conduct health screening and studies and cleaning up the IAAP site. The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington Iowa 52601 319-754-8461 Front Desk · 319-754-6824 FAX · 1-800-397-1708 Toll Free ***************************************************************** 56 State suit urged for two UF6 sites - The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Saturday, March 02, 2002 By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650 Union workers at the Paducah uranium enrichment plant want the state to go to court to force the Department of Energy to clean up almost a half-million metric tons of uranium hexafluoride waste. "The foot-dragging on this major cleanup project is simply inexcusable," said Leon Owens, president of Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Local 5-550. "From our perspective, it appears that the prospect of fines and penalties is one of the few avenues of recourse available to the state." Owens made the comments in a Thursday letter asking Kentucky Natural Resources Secretary James Bickford to intervene. He copied the letter to Gov. Paul Patton and the Kentucky congressional delegation that pushed the 1998 federal law requiring that plants be built at Paducah and Piketon, Ohio, to convert the waste, known as depleted UF6, into a safer form. DOE has delayed the project repeatedly during the last four years. On Thursday, it told the three finalist bidders for the two plants that it will now consider building only one, and not make a decision until at least 2003 on how many and where. The law requires construction to begin at the two sites by Jan. 31, 2004. Each plant would create 150 to 200 jobs, largely involving blue-collar labor. "The union is very disturbed in regard to the announcement made Thursday," Owens said in an interview. "We'll continue our legislative efforts, and hopefully the state of Kentucky will consider some formal action against DOE to pressure them to heed this law." He asked Bickford to determine if the cylinders should be regulated as hazardous waste, requiring an enforceable plan to clean them up. Some of the Paducah plant's 37,000 cylinders of plant production byproduct have been stored since the plant started operating in the early 1950s. Natural Resources Cabinet spokesman Mark York said he had not seen the letter, but state officials have urged DOE "at every opportunity" to address the cylinder problem. He said Bickford met recently with DOE headquarters officials about environmental issues, including the cylinders. Kentucky has traditionally used diplomacy rather than legal action on hazardous waste issues at the plant, but York said the cabinet will explore the union's request to consider the waste material hazardous. Owens' letter said Ohio previously concluded the waste can lawfully be considered hazardous. The letter said the one-plant option makes little economic sense. "This is largely due to the new Department of Transportation rules that require 'overpacking' and will drive up the costs of relocating the tens of thousands of 14-ton (UF6) cylinders from Kentucky to Ohio or vice versa. The Bush administration has received an economic assessment pointing out the fallacy that a single plant would save money over the life span of this 20-year project." Paducah has about two-thirds of all the waste cylinders. The rest are at Piketon and another closed enrichment plant at Oak Ridge, Tenn. ***************************************************************** 57 Philosopher David Hawkins Dies; Helped Manage Manhattan Project (washingtonpost.com) By Martin Weil Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, March 2, 2002; Page B07 David Hawkins, 88, a philosopher who was brought to Los Alamos during World War II to help run the project that built the atomic bomb and was one of the most eloquent witnesses to the history that was made before his eyes, died Feb. 24 in Boulder, Colo. The cause of death was not reported. Dr. Hawkins, a man of broad and deep intellectual interests, was on the faculty of the University of Colorado in Boulder from 1947 until his retirement in 1982. During the prewar years at the University of California at Berkeley, Dr. Hawkins, who was finishing his philosophy doctorate, met J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was teaching physics and was to lead the crash program to build the bomb at the secret laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M. The two men became friends. One day early in 1943, Dr. Hawkins received a long-distance telephone call. The line was scratchy, but the message clear. It was Oppenheimer. "We need you," he told Dr. Hawkins. "I knew immediately that this thing was on, and I didn't want to be excluded from knowing about it," Dr. Hawkins said years later, as recounted by Larry Calloway in the Albuquerque Journal. He and his wife moved to New Mexico. "I was intrigued by the thought of being part of this extraordinary development. And it was still of course in those days entirely focused on the terrible thought that the Germans might get this weapon and win World War II." Soon he was amid the foremost physicists of two continents, those who already dominated physics and those who would go on to do so. Dr. Hawkins mingled with them all, imbibing their knowledge, gauging their personalities, eventually writing a history of what was said and done. At first, his assignment as an aide and all-around troubleshooter for Oppenheimer was to provide a bridge between the scientific community at Los Alamos and the military officials who ran the project for the federal government. As Dr. Hawkins recounted it, Army officers considered that they were in charge and found it difficult "to accept the attitude of the scientists, which was that the military were their servants." Another of the assignments Dr. Hawkins handled for Oppenheimer was maintaining the secrecy of the project while offering the authorities reasons to keep the physicists from being drafted. In leaving California for the deserts and mesas of New Mexico, Dr. Hawkins was coming home. He was born in El Paso but raised at La Luz, N.M., in the barren country not far from where the first nuclear explosion was set off July 16, 1945. As a child, he told the Albuquerque newspaper, he ranged all over the surrounding area, on horseback or in a Ford Model A pickup truck, searching for fun, adventure, minerals and rattlesnakes. When in early 1945 the time came to find a place to test the product of the months of cogitation and labor, Dr. Hawkins, according to the Journal, remembered his boyhood roaming and may have been the first to suggest the general area where the age of atomic weapons began. On the fateful day, though, Dr. Hawkins was not there with Oppenheimer and Edward Teller and Enrico Fermi and the rest. "I didn't want to see it," he said. "I didn't want to be a personal part of it," he told the Rocky Mountain News 40 years later. "I was disturbed by the enthusiasm many people seemed to have. They seemed to have lost sight of the grave consequences of doing this job." After the war, he was involved in efforts to control nuclear energy. Dr. Hawkins received bachelor's and master's degrees in philosophy from Stanford University and a doctorate from Berkeley, where he worked in probability theory. In a memoir, Stanislaw M. Ulam, a brilliant mathematician who made major contributions to nuclear weapons development, called Dr. Hawkins "the most talented amateur mathematician I know." In 1950, according to the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper, Dr. Hawkins testified before a House of Representatives committee investigating subversion and acknowledged that he had been a member of the Communist Party in California from 1938 to 1942. He was a widely admired professor at Colorado and received one of the so-called genius grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Dr. Hawkins and his wife, Frances, founded a center to advance the teaching of science, and he was credited with influencing scholars in areas from biology to political theory. The university's provost, Phil DiStefano, was quoted in the Boulder newspaper as lauding Dr. Hawkins for embodying "everything that we look for in a faculty member. He was a wonderful teacher and a wonderful scholar." Survivors include his wife, of Boulder, and a daughter, Julie Peck of Lebanon, Ohio. © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************