***************************************************************** 11/05/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.286 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 [southnews] Support for attack on Iraq falls to new low 2 George Monbiot: Why Blair is an appeaser 3 North Korea Set to Get Fuel Shipment Under '94 Pact It Violated 4 A hint of discord on fuel to North* 5 SE Asian leaders hold first-ever summit with nuclear India 6 British Energy proposal approved* 7 N. Korea told to stop N-project immediately - 8 Green lobby attacks rise in BE loan limit 9 British Energy rivals offer rescue 10 No Decision Yet on Letting U.S. Use Bases, Saudi Says 11 AU: Canberra's plutonium plan lambasted - 12 Ministers likely to renew BE rescue 13 US: Clinton White House official lobbies agencies to release UFO dat 14 North Korea Threatens to End Talks 15 U.S. Gains Mexican Support on Iraq 16 US: PLAYING "GOTCHA" WITH NATIONAL SECURITY 17 Third Economic Cooperation Talks to Be Held with NK 18 Oil Shipment to NK Loads in Singapore 19 US: James Bowman on Hart-Rudman Report & Terrorism & Media on 20 British Energy proposal approved 21 With dominion over all 22 US: The Impossible War* 23 US: Defense Department Briefing Transcript 24 Seoul Views NK¡¯s Response as `Step Forward¡¯ 25 US: The Real Cost of War 26 U.S. suspects North Korea can develop several bombs within 1 to 2 NUCLEAR REACTORS 27 US: NRC Oversight Panel to Hold Two Meetings on Davis-Besse Reactor 28 US: Executive speaks on reactors 29 US: NRC Staff to Hold Public Meeting to Discuss Inspection of Fort NUCLEAR SAFETY 30 UK lawyers to visit Nuclear test veterans 31 US: NRC Proposes Alternative Fire Protection Rule 32 US: VA shifts on Gulf War illness 33 Hiroshima survivor recalls cataclysm 34 Survivor recalls the horror of nuclear attack on Japan 35 US: Radium fix will cost city $20 million - NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 36 Uranium-processing company raises concerns about proposed plant 37 US: Transuranic waste shipments on hold 38 US: Goshute Gamble 39 US: Fate of radioactive waste tax initiative in voters' hands* 40 US: Low-Level Radioactive Waste Dumped In Local Landfills NUCLEAR WEAPONS 41 Chief U.N. arms inspector could get one tough assignment 42 Iraq may accept new resolution 43 Gulf News says: America's hiatus 44 US: Judge: Navy free to put nukes at Bangor 45 US Undersecretary to Discuss NK Nuclear Issue 46 PYONGYANG WATCH Guns or butter? 47 US: Rumsfeld gives endorsement to new aircraft carrier design 48 Ukraine to eliminate hundreds of nuclear missiles and dozens of 49 Bush again asks Fox to support the U.S. resolution on Iraq US DEPT. OF ENERGY 50 Flats runoff study to aid conversion 51 Ceremony marks end of DR Reactor's cocooning 52 PNNL wants to manage Level-3 lab 53 Packing glitch slows plutonium shipments 54 Plutonium Packaging System Frustrates Flats Managers* * 55 Plutonium-packing system slows job OTHER NUCLEAR 56 Fusion advisory meeting 11/26 57 Conservation ratings assailed as partisan -- 58 What Will Russia Bring to the WTO? 59 The Eve Of A New Era In Physics ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 [southnews] Support for attack on Iraq falls to new low Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 19:41:40 -0600 (CST) Support for attack on Iraq falls to new low Alan Travis and Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Tuesday November 5, 2002 The Guardian Support for military action against Iraq has slumped to its lowest since Tony Blair first seriously raised the prospect of war in August, according to the results of this week's Guardian/ICM tracker poll. Approval for a military attack on Iraq has fallen six points, from 38% to 32%, in the past week demonstrating that support melts away as the prospect of war appears to recede. Opposition to the war has, however, increased slightly over the past week - up one point to 41%. The main swing in opinion has been the move from those who support military action to those who are sceptical. The proportion of those who replied to ICM that they "don't know" whether military action is justified is up from 21% to 27%. The weekly Guardian/ICM tracker poll, which started on August 23, shows a longer term trend of support for military action settling down at around one in three of the electorate, with approval peaking at 42% in the aftermath of the Bali nightclub bombing. Opposition to the war started at 50% but has settled at around 40%, which it has maintained for three weeks. The gender gap continues. Women split 43% to 27% against war, while opinion among men is more evenly divided, with 39% opposed to military action and 38% in favour. While backing for the war remains "soft", this may be a lull before the storm as the UN is expected to agree its resolution on Iraq later this week. The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, yesterday pledged zero tolerance to any lapse by Iraq in complying with a new UN weapons inspection regime, and said a decision to go to war could come within weeks. In an interview with the Guardian and other international journalists, Mr Powell said Washington could make up its mind on whether to go to war before the 30-day deadline for Saddam Hussein to provide an exhaustive account of his military arsenal. "We will know early on whether or not Iraq is intending to cooperate or not to cooperate," Mr Powell said. "It could be within a few weeks after the resolution is passed. If Iraq... starts to place all kinds of conditions on the UN resolution then we would know in a very short period of time that Iraq is not planning to cooperate and that would say something to the security council." 7 ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,003 adults aged over by telephone from November 1-3. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results weighted to the profile of all adults. Guardian Unlimited ) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ---------- washingtonpost.com New Group Aims to Drum Up Backing for Ousting Hussein Effort Seeks to Reverse Decline in Support for Attacking Iraq By Peter Slevin Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, November 4, 2002; Page A15 The Bush administration, anticipating a successful U.N. Security Council vote on an Iraq resolution, plans to embark soon on a campaign to build public support in the United States to challenge and most likely unseat Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, U.S. officials said. At a time when polls suggest declining enthusiasm for a U.S.-led military assault on Hussein, top officials will be urging opinion makers to focus on Hussein's actions in response to the United Nations resolution on weapons inspections -- and on his past and present failings. They aim to regain momentum and prepare the political ground for his forcible ouster, if necessary. The public relations effort "has to focus on all the things that have gone on in Iraq, the threats it presents and the way people have had to live. And the fact that things could be a lot better if he wasn't around," a senior administration official said. "We want to make sure Iraq is tested." With the administration's blessing, a new group is forming to press the case in the United States and Europe for ejecting Hussein from power. Called the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, the organization is modeled on a successful lobbying campaign to expand the NATO alliance. Members include former secretary of state George P. Shultz, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and former senator Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.). Committee Chairman Bruce P. Jackson called the Iraqi government "a tyranny that needs to be changed" and said the group will be "useful for education, for talking to people about what's at stake." He said one purpose will be to lobby for resources to rebuild Iraq and restructure the country as a democracy, a White House ambition sure to take years, if it succeeds at all. Despite campaign-trail criticism of Iraq by President Bush and Vice President Cheney, polls released last week showed a decline in support for U.S. military action to topple Hussein. The Pew Research Center found that 55 percent of Americans support an attack on Iraq, down from 64 percent in August. A Fox News poll showed a decline to 62 percent from 72 percent. Only 27 percent of 1,751 Pew respondents said they would favor the use of force if the United States were acting alone, down from 33 percent in mid-September. Sixty percent of opponents and supporters alike said they fear Iraq would use chemical or biological weapons if attacked. "There is a great deal of concern about the consequences of war," said Pew researcher Carroll Doherty, who also noted a widening partisan divide, with 51 percent of Democrats opposing action and 40 percent in favor. "The public effort by the White House has not been prominent in recent weeks. Most of the action has been behind closed doors at the U.N. and coverage has been overshadowed by the sniper." A more prominent effort is just what the administration intends, once the sensitive U.N. Security Council debate and Tuesday's elections are over. White House officials emphasize that Bush has made no decision about how to proceed against Hussein, and in recent weeks, officials have left open the possibility that Hussein could change sufficiently to preserve power. But leading administration officials privately give the Iraqi leader virtually no chance of coming clean. U.S. contingency planning continues for a wide array of possibilities, from coup d'etat to abdication to armed American invasion, with a follow-up military occupation to help install a new government. Aware that a resumption of U.N. weapons inspections could take months to resolve, the administration wants to keep the pressure on Hussein while building support for a possible war. Critics have warned that a military move against Hussein could cost American and Iraqi lives, destabilize the Middle East, incite anti-American feeling and deliver Iraqis into an uncertain future. A series of upcoming briefings of foreign policy groups, Iraq specialists and other opinion makers will be a "new phase," said a White House spokesman, who described the goal as building fresh public support for U.S. policy. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, will be much involved. The administration is determined to avoid a repeat of August when they ceded the stage to opponents of military action in Iraq and found themselves racing to announce their case against Hussein. Cheney delivered a public indictment of Hussein at the end of August, while Bush presented a bill of particulars to the opening session of the U.N. General Assembly two weeks later. "There's going to be a huge need in the post-election vacuum to make sure that what happened in August doesn't happen in November and December," said Randy Scheunemann, executive director of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. He said Capitol Hill offices have been "getting a lot of calls against and not many for." The White House declined to release its call records. The committee is just getting started, installing telephones and computers last week to go with fresh business cards and stationery. Its mission statement calls for the replacement of Hussein with "a democratic government that respects the rights of the Iraqi people and ceases to threaten the community of nations." Its methods will borrow heavily from the NATO effort, including sessions with opinion makers, contacts for journalists and mass marketing when the time is ripe. The approach is a familiar one to the Bush administration. Hadley, Bush's deputy national security adviser, co-founded the NATO project. Its board members included Rice, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick. Cheney and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell advised the group, Jackson said. While the Iraq committee is an independent entity, committee officers said they expect to work closely with the administration. They already have met with Hadley and Bush political adviser Karl Rove. Committee officers and a White House spokesman said Rice, Hadley and Cheney will soon meet with the group. Retired Gen. Wayne A. Downing, a member of the committee who recently left the National Security Council, said he hopes the group can help the administration overthrow Hussein. Kerrey, president of the New School University, described the committee as "a group of people who will talk to Americans about why the liberation of Iraq is something the United States ought to do." ) 2002 The Washington Post Company [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/ ***************************************************************** 2 George Monbiot: Why Blair is an appeaser Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Britain plays poodle partly because the US is stitching up the world's oil supplies George Monbiot Tuesday November 5, 2002 The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk] Tony Blair's loyalty to George Bush looks like slow political suicide. His preparedness to follow him over every precipice jeopardises Britain's relationships with its allies, conjures up enemies all over the world and infuriates voters of all political colours. And yet he never misses an opportunity to show what a trusting friend he is. There are several plausible and well-established explanations for this unnatural coupling. But there might also be a new one. Blair may have calculated that sticking to Bush is the only way in which our unsustainable economy can meet its need for energy. Britain is running out of time. According to the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre the UK's North sea production has been declining since 1999. Nuclear power in Britain is, in effect, finished: on Saturday the EU revealed that it had prohibited the government's latest desperate attempt to keep it afloat with massive subsidies. But, partly because of corporate lobbying, partly because of his unhealthy fear of "Mondeo man" or "Worcester woman", or whatever the floating voter of Middle England has now become, Tony Blair has also flatly rejected both an effective energy reduction policy and a massive investment in alternative power. The only remaining way of meeting future energy demand is to import ever greater quantities of oil and gas. And here the government runs into an intractable political reality. As available reserves decline, the world's oil-hungry nations are tussling to grab as much as they can for themselves. Almost everywhere on earth the United States is winning. It is positioning itself to become the gatekeeper to the world's remaining oil and gas. If it succeeds, it will both secure its own future supplies and massively enhance its hegemonic power. The world's oil reserves, the depletion analysis centre claims, appear to be declining almost as swiftly as the North sea's. Conventional oil supplies will peak within five or 10 years, and decline by around 2 million barrels per day every year from then on. New kinds of fossil fuel have only a limited potential to ameliorate the coming crisis. In the Middle East, the only nation which could significantly increase its output is Iraq. In 2001, a report sponsored by the US Council on Foreign Relations and the Baker Institute for Public Policy began to spell out some of the implications of this decline for America's national security. The problem, it noted, is that "the American people continue to demand plentiful and cheap energy without sacrifice or inconvenience". Transport, for example, is responsible for 66% of the petroleum the US burns. Simply switching from "light trucks" (the giant gas-guzzlers many Americans drive) to ordinary cars would save nearly a million barrels per day of crude oil. But, as the president's dad once said, "the American way of life is not up for negotiation." "The world," the report continues, "is currently precariously close to utilising all of its available global oil production capacity." The impending crisis is increasing "US and global vulnerability to disruption". Over the previous year, for example, Iraq had "effectively become a swing producer, turning its taps on and off when it has felt such action was in its strategic interest". If the global demand for oil continues to rise, world shortages could reduce the status of the US to that of "a poor developing country". This crisis, the report insists, demands "a reassessment of the role of energy in American foreign policy... Such a strategy will require difficult tradeoffs, in both domestic and foreign policy. But there is no alternative. And there is no time to waste". By assuming "a leadership role in the formation of new rules of the game", the United States will prevent any other power from exploiting its dependency and seizing the strategic initiative. The US government has not been slow to act upon such intelligence. Over the past two years, it has been seizing all the Caspian oil it can lay hands on, cutting out both Russia and Iran by negotiating to pipe it out through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Afghanistan. Last week, though all the sages of the British and American right insisted during the Afghan war that it couldn't possibly happen, the presidents of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Pakistan met to discuss the first of the Afghan pipelines. American soldiers have now been stationed in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Georgia, all of which are critical to the Caspian oil trade. According to the security firm Stratfor, "the US military presence will help ensure that a majority of oil and gas from the Caspian basin will go westward - bypassing the United States' geopolitical rivals, Russia and China". The reason why Vladimir Putin is so determined to keep Chechnya under Russian control, whatever the cost to both the Chechens and the Russians may be, is that Chechnya is one of the last available routes for Caspian oil. The US has been playing the same game in the Middle East. A recent report by the Brookings Institution notes that "US strategic domination over the entire region, including the whole lane of sea communications from the strait of Hormuz, will be perceived as the primary vulnerability of China's energy supply". Last month a senior US general, Carlton Fulford, visited Sao Tomé and Principe, the islands halfway between Nigeria and Angola, to discuss the possibility of establishing a military base there. Both nations see the base as a threatening staging post, which the US could use to help gain exclusive access to West African oil. Earlier this year, George Bush negoti ated a "North American energy initiative" with Canada and Mexico. The US is hoping to extend the arrangement to the rest of the Americas, which could help to explain the coup which nearly toppled Venezuela's president in April. Oh, and there's the small matter of the one nation in the Middle East whose oil production could be substantially increased, with the help of a little external encouragement. Last week the leader of the exiled Iraqi National Congress met executives from three major American oil companies, to start negotiations about who gets what once the US has taken over. This carve-up would mean cancelling the big contracts Russia and France have struck with Saddam Hussein. Lord Browne, the head of BP, warned that Britain might also be squeezed out of Iraq. The United States, in other words, appears rapidly to be monopolising the world's remaining oil. Every government knows this. Ours appears to have calculated that the only way it can obtain the energy required to permit the men and women of middle England to stay in their cars is to appease the United States, whatever the cost may be. Britain's role in the impending war is that of the egret in the crocodile's mouth, picking the scraps of flesh from between its teeth. In 1929 the novelist Ilya Ehrenburg observed that "the automobile can't be blamed for anything. Its conscience is as clear as Monsieur Citroën's conscience. It only fulfils its destiny: it is destined to wipe out the world." Our struggle over the next few months is to prove him wrong. · www.monbiot.com [http://www.monbiot.com] . Useful links Opec [http://www.opec.org/] International Energy Agency [http://www.iea.org/] Institute of Petroleum [http://www.petroleum.co.uk/] American Petroleum Institute [http://api-ec.api.org/intro/index_noflash.htm] [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 3 North Korea Set to Get Fuel Shipment Under '94 Pact It Violated The New York Times November 5, 2002* *By JAMES DAO* WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 ? The multinational organization that administers a 1994 agreement between the United States and North Korea is preparing to send a shipment of fuel oil to North Korea on Tuesday, despite the North's recent admission that it violated the pact by operating a secret nuclear weapons program, officials said tonight. The new shipment by the agency, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, or KEDO, underscores the difficulties the Bush administration is facing in its efforts to isolate North Korea over its weapons program. The 1994 agreement called on North Korea to freeze and then dismantle its nuclear weapons efforts in exchange for energy assistance, including delivery of 500,000 metric tons of fuel oil a year, financed mainly by the United States. Last year's shipments cost more than $80 million, officials said. The Bush administration, which holds a seat on the energy organization's executive board, would prefer to stop the shipment, but so far has been unable to persuade its fellow board members ? South Korea, Japan and the European Union ? to agree, officials said. The board's decisions are typically unanimous. "KEDO works on consensus basis," an official with the organization said. "The U.S. alone can't make this decision." But the official also said the executive board is expected to meet in New York within two weeks, which would give it time to order the ship to turn around before it unloads the fuel. The tanker, carrying 46,800 tons of heavy fuel oil, is scheduled to leave Singapore on Tuesday and reach North Korea 10 days to 12 days later. "This is still a matter under discussion by the U.S. goverment and by KEDO," a senior administration official said. "We have serious misgivings about it." The stumbling blocks to stopping the shipments are South Korea and Japan, officials said. A South Korean diplomat said his country is committed to continuing economic contacts with the north, including aid. A Japanese diplomat said his country had not yet taken a firm position on the issue. The European Union has been more receptive to the United States' position, an American official said, though it has not yet agreed to halt the fuel shipments. Copyright The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 4 A hint of discord on fuel to North* *by Kim Young-sae * November 05, 2002 Heading into a series of diplomatic meetings focused on North Korea's nuclear weapons program, government officials here hinted yesterday at disagreement between Seoul and Washington over halting shipments of fuel oil to the North. In Cambodia, officials of South Korea, Japan and China, meeting on the sidelines of a regional summit, agreed on the importance of resolving the North Korean nuclear issue, but adopted no action plan. South Korea's Prime Minister Kim Suk-soo sat down with his counterparts Zhu Rongji of China and Junichiro Koizumi of Japan. They stressed the importance of the North's becoming part of the regional community. More intense and immediate consultations are to begin later this week, a month since the secret program was made public. The talks coincide with a planned shipment of fuel from the United States to North Korea. The fuel is an installment of the 500,000 metric tons of oil provided to the North annually under an agreement between Washington and Pyeongyang. Washington has given no indication that the shipment would be postponed or canceled, but it is believed to be weighing such a move. A final decision would follow consultations with South Korea, Japan and the European Union. A senior Seoul official said that the coming multilateral talks would be an opportunity to coordinate the "next step" against the North, hinting that the supply of heavy oil would be a key issue on the agenda. Security talks by South Korea, Japan and the United States are set for Friday in Tokyo. The foreign ministers of the three countries are set to meet next week at the Community of Democracies gathering in Seoul. Asked if Seoul and Washington disagree about the next step in trying to resolve North Korea's nuclear weapons program, the Seoul official said the two had a consensus ?that the issue should be resolved peacefully, with talks by Seoul and Tokyo with Pyeongyang representing important channels. Pyeongyang and Washington "should be able to find a tangent," the official said, noting that inter-Korean talks were proceeding. The official cautiously assessed as "positive" a report over the weekend that the North might be open to negotiations and perhaps to inspections of uranium processing facilities. In Washington, the White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer, reiterated that dismantling the North's nuclear program is a prerequisite to talks, since Pyeongyang had broken its word given in previous negotiations. ¨Ï 2002 JoongAng Ilbo , Joins.com . All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 SE Asian leaders hold first-ever summit with nuclear India ANDREW CALLUS Tuesday, November 5, 2002 EDINBURGH -- *British Energy PLC *shareholders yesterday approved an increase in the financially stricken nuclear firm's borrowing limit, keeping alive its hopes of emerging from its crisis as a solvent business. British Energy has survived on government money since September after market reforms exposed power generation overcapacity and sent prices below its cost of production. Official figures from an extraordinary general meeting in Edinburgh said that more than 99 per cent of votes cast favoured setting a new fixed borrowing limit at £1.6-billion ($2.5-billion U.S.). Previously the loan limit for the company was set through a formula based on share capital and reserves. Facing shareholders for the first time since his appeal for government help sent the firm's stock plummeting in September, executive chairman Robin Jeffrey repeated that he was hopeful, but not certain, of achieving a successful financial restructuring from ongoing government talks. "We believe that there are reasonable prospects for a solvent restructuring, but there can be no guarantees," he told shareholders. Mr. Jeffrey confirmed that *Cameco Corp., *a Canadian uranium producer and its partner in the Bruce Power nuclear project there, had expressed an interest in raising its stake in Bruce, but he would not make any comment beyond saying that "all aspects of the business are under review." The U.K. government loan runs until Nov. 29. Talks continue about how to deal with the company and wider industry questions in the long term. But industry sources now see an extension of the loan running into next year as the most likely scenario. © 2002 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 N. Korea told to stop N-project immediately - NOV 5, 2002 PHNOM PENH - Thirteen Asian leaders at a summit here yesterday urged North Korea to stop its nuclear-weapons programme immediately, a senior government official said. The leaders from South-east Asia as well as China, South Korea and Japan 'expressed a strong consensus that North Korea should stop its nuclear-weapons programme immediately in accordance with its commitments in international treaties and understanding', Philippine Foreign Secretary Blas Ople told reporters. He was speaking after the meeting between the 10 Asean leaders and their three East Asian neighbours here. Washington revealed last month that North Korea had admitted it was running a clandestine nuclear-weapons programme based on enriched uranium, in violation of a 1994 arms-control deal. --AFP ***************************************************************** 8 Green lobby attacks rise in BE loan limit Independent.co.uk By Our City Staff 05 November 2002 British Energy shareholders approved an increase in the nuclear company's borrowing limit, keeping alive its hopes of emerging from its crisis as a solvent business. The move came while anti-nuclear and pro-renewable energy groups stepped up pressure on the Government to force the company out of business. British Energy has survived on Government money since September after market reforms exposed power generation overcapacity and sent prices below its cost of production. Figures from an extraordinary general meeting in Edinburgh yesterday showed that more than 99 per cent of votes cast favoured setting a new fixed borrowing limit at £1.6bn. Loan limit was previously set through a formula based on share capital and reserves. The company's financial plight has brought that limit down to just £1.1bn from over £3bn in 1997 and may have put its plans for restructuring in breach of company statutes. Facing shareholders for the first time since his appeal for Government help in September, the executive chairman, Robin Jeffrey, repeated that he was hopeful, but not certain, of achieving a successful financial restructuring. Mr Jeffrey also confirmed that Cameco, a Canadian uranium producer and its partner in the Bruce Power nuclear project there, had expressed an interest in raising its stake in Bruce last week, but he would not make any comment beyond saying that "all aspects of the business are under review". "Australia is facilitating the creation of a possible source of weapons-useful material," said Frank von Hippel, of the Science and Global Security Program at Princeton University. "I think it is an unnecessary extra burden to the world nuclear security system." Under the nuclear treaty, the Australian Government will have the right to demand Argentina oversee treatment of spent fuel from the new Sydney reactor that its state-owned company, INVAP, is building. Argentine nuclear authorities plan to process the spent fuel at the Ezeiza atomic centre on the outskirts of Buenos Aires before it is returned to Australia as radioactive waste in glass and concrete blocks. While Argentina would only partly open the $540 million Ezeiza plant, and not separate plutonium, Professor von Hippel said Australia was creating an unnecessary risk. "If Argentina wanted to acquire plutonium for weapons again, this is the plant it would use. It would be a very minor change to their process to separate out the plutonium. Australia, being holier than the Pope as far as non-proliferation, really should take this into consideration." Matthew Bunn, a nuclear terrorism expert and research associate at Harvard University, said the Australian contract could help develop expertise useful in weapons production. "Anytime you are chemically processing spent fuel at a big facility, you are gaining valuable experience. I believe Argentina is committed to a non-nuclear weapons path, but one never knows about the future." Not all US nuclear experts are critical of the deal. Fred McGoldrick, a former senior executive with the US State Department's non-proliferation branch, said he was not concerned, as long as plutonium was not separated. The US State Department declined to comment. The head of nuclear fuels at the Argentine National Commission of Atomic Energy, Pablo Adelfang, said that although the Ezeiza plant was originally built to separate plutonium, this was no longer an option. "At that time, being a reprocessing plant, it was designed to produce plutonium. Nowadays that is impossible. Now we have modified everything." Copyright © 2002. The Sydney Morning Herald. ***************************************************************** 12 Ministers likely to renew BE rescue Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Special report: public services David Gow Tuesday November 5, 2002 [http://www.guardian.co.uk] The government is under renewed pressure to extend its controversial £650m loan to British Energy beyond the end of this month as talks on restructuring the near-insolvent nuclear operator drag on. This became clear as BE secured overwhelming shareholder backing to raise its borrowing limits and the government insisted that its rescue aid was compatible with European Union rules. Ministers, who extended their initial £410m loan in late September, are seen as increasingly likely to renew the aid at least until they publish their long-awaited energy policy early in the new year. Pointing out that it took eight months to sort out the financial mess at Railtrack, industry sources said the fiendishly complex talks on restructuring BE would last beyond the November 29 deadline for the loan. "There are no formal proposals tabled yet," they said. The protracted talks centre on BE's contract with state-owned BNFL for reprocessing spent fuel which costs it £300m a year, its huge decommissioning liabilities and the climate change levy which costs it £80m a year. BE, meanwhile, won 97% backing at an extraordinary meeting in Edinburgh to increase its borrowing limits to £1.6bn after these had fallen to £1.1bn under a formula linking capital and reserves. Robin Jeffrey, executive chairman, had said the group could cease trading without the increase. "We believe there are reasonable prospects for a solvent restructuring but there can be no guarantees," he said. But Friends of the Earth said the bill would be footed by taxpayers and the time had come to put the company into administration. "British Energy is unsafe, unreliable and uneconomic," they said. Whitehall officials insisted that, while the rescue aid had been given without prior notification to Brussels, it remained compliant. The commission said Britain's technical breach of the rules did not prejudice its findings. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 13 Clinton White House official lobbies agencies to release UFO data Government Executive Magazine - 11/4/02 Clinton White House official lobbies agencies to release UFO data Daily Briefing November 4, 2002 From National Journal Former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta is now a lobbyist who most notably has been representing opponents of the proposed nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain, northwest of Las Vegas. He has said that his experience in government convinced him of the value of pruning back overly broad government-secrecy classifications. Now he has a rather unusual partner. On Oct. 22, Podesta appeared at a news conference with a coalition backed by cable TV's Sci-Fi Channel. The group's mission: opening secret government archives so that any evidence, pro or con, about unidentified flying objects can be aired in public. Podesta told the Las Vegas Review-Journal he was personally skeptical about UFOs, but added, "I think it's time to open the books on questions that have remained in the dark." ***************************************************************** 14 North Korea Threatens to End Talks Las Vegas SUN: Today: November 05, 2002 at 0:45:11 PST By ERIC TALMADGE ASSOCIATED PRESS TOKYO- North Korea threatened Tuesday to resume missile test-launches unless Tokyo stops making the North's nuclear weapons program and the fate of five Japanese abductees central to normalizing relations. Quoting a Foreign Ministry official, the North's official Korea Central News Agency said Japan's stance on the abductees and its demands that the North stop developing nuclear weapons "is now creating very serious issues as it is illogical." Officials from the two countries met in Malaysia on Oct. 29-30 for their first round of normalization talks in two years. The talks followed an unprecedented summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Sept. 17. But the talks soon bogged down over Tokyo's demands that the North end its nuclear program and allow five people who were abducted by North Korea in 1978 to train spies be allowed to go back to Japan permanently. The date for the next round of talks has not been set. The five abductees are in Japan in their first homecoming, allowed by Pyongyang but on the expectation it would last only a week or two. Tokyo now says it has no plans to return them to the North. The five are the only known survivors of 13 such kidnappings Kim confessed his country carried out in the 1970s and '80s. The North Korean Foreign Ministry official, who was not identified, said that if Japan is willing to break its promise on the abductees, the North is not obliged to stick to the test-launch moratorium. "If any party ceases to implement its commitment, it is impossible for the other party to continue to fulfill its commitment," the official said. Since 1999, the North Koreans have been under a self-imposed moratorium on long-range missile test flights, which are usually a prerequisite for deploying a usable weapon. While earthbound missile tests have continued, North Korean leaders have repeatedly reaffirmed the flight moratorium in public statements. At the summit with Koizumi, Kim said he would extend the moratorium until after 2003. But the North had said the moratorium was contingent on progress in talks with the United States. Japan is particularly concerned by North Korea's development of long-range missiles because the North is believed to have missiles that could strike virtually any point in this country, and as far away as Alaska or Guam. Japanese officials said they would not change their approach. "We intend to continue to discuss the abductions and security issues, including nuclear issues, based on our agreement in Pyongyang" at the summit, said Misako Kaji, a spokeswoman for Koizumi. Commenting on the round of reconciliation talks, the North's official said "no progress was made in the discussion on the essential problems." Tuesday's report, the first official response from the North since the talks ended, called Japan's stance "damaging" to confidence between the two countries. It accused Tokyo of failing to atone for the "big crimes committed against the Korean people in the past" - a reference to Japan's brutal colonization of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 until its World War II defeat in 1945. The North Korean official suggested that the abduction issue be dealt with later, and accused Japan of breaking a promise to send the five back to North Korea. Though originally expected to stay only a week or two, Tokyo now says it has no plans to return them to the North. But the official reiterated the North's position that the nuclear issue can only be resolved through dialogue with the United States. Instead of focusing on such issues, he said Japan must settle its own "crime-woven past" before formal relations can be forged. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 15 U.S. Gains Mexican Support on Iraq Las Vegas SUN Today: November 05, 2002 at 3:35:31 PST By EDITH M. LEDERER ASSOCIATED PRESS UNITED NATIONS- The United States won over Mexico, a key vote on the U.N. Security Council, with a revised resolution on Iraq, but Russia and France are waiting to see if the new U.S. draft meets their main demand, preventing an automatic attack on Baghdad. The Bush administration has been going over the revised text, hoping to circulate it to the U.N. Security Council later this week and vote on it within 48 hours. The Bush administration picked up Mexico's support in its quest for unanimous support from Security Council members. For a resolution to pass, it needs nine "yes" votes and no veto by a permanent member - the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China. Mexican Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda, whose country is on the Security Council and has strongly supported the Russian and French positions, said late Monday he now believes the revised draft will be approved by 14 of the 15 council members - with Syria abstaining. The United States has been revamping its initial proposal, which would strengthen U.N. weapons inspections, declare Iraq in "material breach" of its obligations to eliminate nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and threaten "serious consequences" if it fails to cooperate with inspectors. Russia, France and China contend that the United States could use references to "material breach" and "serious consequences" to launch an attack on Iraq without Security Council authorization. They want the possibility of force only to be considered in a second resolution if Iraq fails to comply with U.N. inspectors. Castaneda told Monitor Radio that the revised draft offers a "final opportunity for diplomacy" and eliminates any mention of the use of force. It also eliminates references to "an automatic trigger," he said. In response to a Mexican proposal, and to meet a key demand by opponents of the resolution, the new draft resolution offers Iraq a "carrot" of an end to sanctions if it complies, Castaneda said. "It also says that there would be severe consequences if it does not comply." Russia's U.N. Ambassador Sergey Lavrov said there were no longer any differences over the issues of weapons inspections, but differences remain on language that Moscow believes could automatically trigger the use of force. In the new text, diplomats said the first reference to "material breach" makes clear that Iraq is being given one last chance to eliminate its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Diplomats said the second reference makes clear that any declaration that Iraq is in "material breach" of its obligations does not mean the United States has a right to go to war. Castaneda said the new draft also drops two U.S. proposals on inspections - one that would have allowed any of the five permanent Security Council members to be represented on inspection teams, and one that called for armed security forces to accompany inspectors. The search for an Iraq resolution began Sept. 12 when Bush challenged world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly to deal with Iraq's failure over the last 11 years to comply with resolutions or stand aside as the United States acted. Four days later, Iraq invited U.N. weapons inspectors to return after nearly four years. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 16 PLAYING "GOTCHA" WITH NATIONAL SECURITY AIM Report: 2002 Report # 19 - 2002 Report # 19 November 4, 2002 ABC World News Tonight played "gotcha" journalism with the U.S. Customs Service on the one-year anniversary of the September 11 tragedy. ABC's story ran twice on September 11, 2002; first on World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and later, in a somewhat longer version, during its coverage of the day's events in the observance of 9/11. ABC News says it was performing a service by alerting the public to security vulnerabilities that could permit a catastrophe worse even than 9/11. Critics said the segment was misleading. One even denounced it as "irresponsible" for teaching terrorists how to defeat Customs Service's safeguards at U.S. ports. ABC reporter Brian Ross reported he had slipped 15 pounds of depleted uranium by Customs inspectors at the Port of New York. He pointed out that depleted uranium is not dangerous, but he said that if it had been highly enriched uranium, it would have been almost enough for either a crude nuclear device or a "dirty bomb"-a radiological dispersal device (RDD). In early June, the U.S. announced the arrest of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen with possible ties to Al Qaeda, on suspicion of plotting to build and explode an RDD in the United States, which seemed to make ABC's exposé timely. Ross charged that the failure of Customs to detect the radioactive material raised serious questions about our ability to thwart a terrorist attack using nuclear weapons. He showed a video of an American anti-nuclear activist accusing Customs of "covering up" its detection failure. In its promotions for the segment, ABC told its viewers they would be "stunned to see how vulnerable we are to nuclear terrorism." Peter Jennings pronounced Ross' segment a "truly chilling report." And ABC quoted a Harvard professor saying that the "single, largest, most urgent threat to Americans today is the threat of nuclear terrorism." The segment implied that the Bush administration hasn't kept its promises to increase security against weapons of mass destruction at the nation's borders. Tough Detection Challenge ABC doesn't deny this, but it says that its intent was simply to highlight a national security threat that has plagued us for years. At a news conference the next day, citing the ABC report, Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) criticized the Bush administration for neglecting homeland security. In an op-ed article in the New York Times, Schumer charged that the administration and its friends in Congress would rather risk lives and spend billions warring on Iraq than implement security at the nation's port facilities. He also wrote a letter to Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner urging the service to "address these lapses in our security before it is too late." Through its report, ABC News highlighted the most difficult nuclear-smuggling challenge facing the U.S. government. Ross used depleted uranium as a surrogate for highly enriched uranium (HEU). HEU is classified as a "special nuclear material" by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; it is produced by processing natural uranium to make it suitable for use in nuclear warheads. HEU is an unlikely candidate for an RDD. For that terrorists are more likely to use more readily available highly radioactive materials like Cobalt-60, Cesium-137, medical isotopes or radioactive waste. Such a weapon cannot produce a Hiroshima-like explosion, but it can emit life-threatening radiation. Quantities well beyond that featured in Ross' report would be necessary to do much damage and would be readily detectable should a terrorist try to smuggle a bomb by Customs. Critics knowledgeable about nuclear materials and detection devices charge that ABC News misrepresented both the threat and our ability to counter it. They say that the story failed to credit Customs' efforts to mitigate this threat here and abroad. Beyond that, many of those interviewed by AIM thought ABC News was making sweeping conclusions from a minuscule amount of information. Ralph Anderson, a health physicist at the pro-nuclear- power Nuclear Energy Institute, told AIM that it was difficult to tell from ABC's story if this sting operation was a legitimate test of Customs' capabilities. "Taco Drop" Revisited The Brian Ross caper was reminiscent of an effort ABC News made a decade ago to disparage the efforts of Customs to intercept illegal drugs being smuggled from Mexico. The February-A, 1993 AIM Report told of an effort by ABC's 20/20 to show that the Customs Service's elaborate system of balloon-borne-radar sensors, chase aircraft and helicopters to intercept illegal drugs being flown in from Mexico was a flop. 20/20 reporter Tom Jarriel tried to prove this point by flying a taco inside a news pouch across the border into Arizona using a small plane. The plane descended to 250 feet and a news pouch containing the taco was dropped, mimicking an illegal drug drop. Customs tracked both Jarriel's plane and the ABC car that retrieved the pouch. If it had contained drugs Jarriel and his crew would have been arrested. The failure of the ABC caper was reported by the Arizona papers and the Associated Press, but not by ABC News. When 20/20 aired its segment, Jarriel didn't mention that Customs had intercepted the taco. Instead, he went on at length about how Customs' technology was failing to stop airborne smugglers. A Flawed Exercise This time around, ABC News' modus operandi was about the same. The segment opened with reporter Brian Ross boarding a train in Austria carrying a suitcase containing the depleted uranium stored inside an industrial-type pipe with two screw-on caps. Ross said the pipe was lead-lined, which would shield the low-level radioactivity emitted by the depleted uranium. Ross was shown traveling through Europe to Istanbul, Turkey, said by ABC to be a major transshipment point for nuclear smugglers. During his trip, Ross crossed several borders, but the suitcase remained untouched on a luggage rack above his head. In Istanbul, several men, Middle Eastern in appearance, were videotaped packing the suitcase inside an ornate shipping crate, which was then placed inside a larger shipping container together with other household-type items. All of this took place in a market square out in broad daylight, but the suitcase was never opened on camera to show the pipe with the uranium inside. The container was then loaded onto the Singapore Bay, a freighter bound for New York. Demonizing Depleted Uranium The depleted uranium's journey didn't begin in Europe. ABC borrowed it from the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) library, in Washington, D.C., where it had been on display for about 20 years. In addition to providing ABC with the material, the NRDC, along with a well-credentialed director of a university physics department in Austria, provided technical advice to ABC during the preparation of the segment. The NRDC is an environmental-activist non-profit organization. A number of former NRDC activists served in and others acted as advisors and consultants to the Clinton administration. It has a strong anti-nuclear agenda and favors the elimination of fissile material for both military and civilian purposes altogether. Depleted uranium is the material left over after natural uranium is enriched and separated out for use as fuel. Depleted uranium is 40 per cent less radioactive than the natural uranium commonly found in the ground, rivers and streams, or oceans. It has numerous commercial uses, such as counterweight in passenger jets like the one ABC used to ship the material to Europe. Its main health concerns stem from the potential toxicity of its chemical properties rather than from radioactivity. Fifteen pounds is the upper limit on the amount of this type of material that may be used or shipped without a specific license under Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules. Consequently, shipping the depleted uranium both out of and back into the U.S. was perfectly legal. Safeguarding HEU Has High Priority Second, nuclear smuggling is not exactly a "new" threat to U.S. national security. Nuclear-materials smuggling has been a concern for decades, but worries peaked in the mid-1990s after a German intelligence sting showed how easily such materials could be transported from Moscow into Western Europe. That set off a chain of events that led to the U.S. pouring millions of dollars into the former Soviet Union to help the Russians secure their stockpiles of nuclear materials. Millions more were spent moving such materials out of harms way, from hot spots throughout the old Soviet Union. Only recently it was disclosed that more than 100 pounds of weapons-usable material was moved from a vulnerable nuclear- research reactor in Belgrade to a secure location in Russia. Meanwhile, scientists at laboratories throughout the United States, Russia, and Europe have been developing new and improved sensor technologies to detect and prevent nuclear materials smuggling. Finally, scientists involved in the fight against nuclear smuggling credit the U.S. Customs Service with being far ahead of the rest of the government in deploying modern radiation detection technologies and procedures. Approximately 16 million shipping containers are estimated to enter the U.S. every year with 20 percent of these coming into New York and New Jersey ports. Few Americans seem ready for the major disruptions in the flow of commerce that would result from opening and inspecting hundreds of these shipping containers daily. In order to balance the dictates of commerce against the potential smuggling threats, Customs has developed a set of protocols to guide its inspectors when they encounter suspicious containers. Sailed Right Through...Or Did It? Customs also says it has deployed a multi-layered defense that extends outward to potential foreign sources of nuclear materials, and shipment points. It trains foreign border guards and customs officials to detect nuclear materials, and claims eight significant overseas seizures since 1998. This includes a Bulgarian seizure of a small quantity of highly enriched uranium in May 1999 after the inspector and his supervisors had been recently trained under the Customs Service's program. Several critics said that focusing on one aspect of Customs efforts was unfair and missed the point of the service's overall approach to combating nuclear-materials smuggling. In his World News Tonight segment, ABC reporter Brian Ross said that the package of depleted uranium "sailed right through" port authorities, but that is not quite accurate. Customs also knows what ABC knows about Istanbul as a potential shipping point for nuclear smugglers, and, following its protocol, it identified container "GTSU414048" from among 1139 on the Singapore Bay for further scrutiny. Customs says that its inspectors detected no radioactivity emanating from the container. ABC News' experts professed shock and some dismay at the putative failure. ABC's NRDC expert said, "This is what [customs is] looking for, or should be looking for...and this is what they absolutely have to stop." The longer segment shown later in the evening includes Ross' statement that the container had been "targeted for special screening." ABC News defended its conclusion that "it sailed right through" by showing that the crate had not been opened. This led Ross to conclude that Customs had failed to detect the depleted uranium. But technical experts interviewed by AIM were not surprised that Customs' detectors failed to pick up any radioactivity; they said that 15 pounds of depleted uranium would be an incredibly small radioactive source, especially when shielded with lead, no matter how close detectors got to the package. Others said that customs' equipment should be set up to detect weapons-usable nuclear materials, like highly enriched uranium or plutonium. These experts commented that since depleted uranium is not a threat, why waste detection resources on it? Following its protocol, Customs says it took x-rays and determined that ABC's container with the depleted uranium inside was too small to warrant opening the crate for a closer look. Did the inspectors make the right call? Again, technical experts told AIM that they did. In their view, the package was too small to represent a threat, although no one wanted to discuss potential sizes and shapes of nuclear warheads on the record. One expert said that ABC News shipped a worthless piece of junk. Scott Peterson, a vice president at the Nuclear Energy Institute, said that ABC "might just as well have been carrying 15 pounds of oranges" in its suitcase. On camera, however, the NRDC spokesman described Ross' suitcase as a "perfect mockup." "It replicates everything but the capability to explode." Perfect mockup of what? ABC reporter Ross referred to it as looking like a "pipe bomb," but to detonate a package of weapons-usable material this size would require high explosives, initiators, and electronics. Then the package would have the "capability to explode." But then the package would also be heavier and present a very different image to x-ray devices. ABC News may have meant a "perfect mockup" of smuggled nuclear material that could later be combined with more nuclear materials and wired up to create a terrorist nuclear device. What ABC Really Meant NRDC and ABC say, yes, that is exactly what they meant. By adding a tad more lead shielding, a terrorist could slip through enough highly enriched uranium to build a one-kiloton bomb. That's really scary, but is it accurate? On camera, Brian Ross said that depleted uranium gives off a signature much like that of highly enriched uranium, leading the viewer to conclude that if Customs couldn't detect this package, how could it pick up weapons-grade material. He included a caveat, saying that the signatures would appear similar "to detection scanners now in use" presumably by Customs officials and others. Technical experts say that too is misleading. First, no radioactivity was detected. Second, depending on the sensitivity of the detectors now in use, highly enriched uranium can be detected. Experts say that highly enriched uranium (HEU), unlike plutonium, is devilishly difficult to detect. Add enough lead shielding to packaged HEU and detection is even more difficult, but not impossible. Isotopes within the HEU do give off detectable signatures and may also give off some spontaneous fission products, also detectable, but experts refused to discuss these in detail with AIM, and presumably ABC News, due to classification concerns. Enough lead shielding could significantly reduce those signatures, which is why Customs has developed a multi-layered defense, including the use of powerful x-ray devices. Adding more lead, however, adds to the material density of the package which, in turn, presents a different image to x-ray devices. ABC Plays "Gotcha" With Customs Customs opted not to open the crate, leading ABC News to conclude that Customs had not picked up the radioactivity. Customs agrees and says that's why the package was x-rayed. Here is where ABC News couldn't resist the "gotcha" spin in putting together its segment. ABC interviewed a Customs inspector who said that "if we can't tell exactly what's in the container by those screenings, we're going to get into the container and find out for ourselves." On its Web site (ABCNEWS.com), the inspector, identified as the "chief of the contraband enforcement team," says that "we're doing whatever it takes to screen a high-risk device." In an on-camera interview, Brian Ross challenged U.S. Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner to produce evidence that his inspectors had indeed detected the material. Bonner responded that Customs had taken radiation readings, then x-rayed the container and made the call. Ross asked Bonner for the x-rays, but Bonner declined to show Ross or the viewing audience the pictures. Ross then cut to a clip of the NRDC spokesman charging that the inspectors missed the package and Bonner with "covering up" their mistakes. That editing suggested that Bonner was lying about the existence of the x-ray pictures, an allegation ABC News denies was its intention. That is one explanation. Need To Know? Or it could be that Bonner didn't want to compromise the sensitivity or sophistication of the technologies available to our inspectors or reveal too much of our protocols and procedures for countering such a threat. Customs press officers made this point, saying that, as a policy, Customs declines to reveal the sensitivities of its detection technologies to any reporter. They don't want to alert the bad guys to Customs' capabilities and make a tough job even tougher. One of the main principles governing the handling of classified information is "need to know." Individuals are supposed to be able to demonstrate "need to know" before they can access classified information. Customs judged that ABC News, and through ABC the bad guys, don't have a "need to know" these details. Customs officials did offer to show AIM copies of the x-ray pictures taken of the container. And Customs described to ABC News the configuration of the items in the x-rayed package, but ABC didn't include this in its segment. ABC News says that during the making of its segment, Customs never intimated that it possessed any technical capabilities or methods beyond those displayed during the Ross report. A Customs Service news release issued after the report stated that the service "employs an arsenal of inspection technology (other than radiation detection devices) that could potentially detect such a device. Radiation detection technology is not the only way to detect shielded uranium." Technical experts, including those engaged in the development of radiation detectors, readily agreed that Customs shouldn't reveal its capabilities to ABC News; some even termed the report "irresponsible" for discussing Customs' supposed vulnerabilities on the air. Few experts interviewed by AIM dismiss lightly the problem of detecting highly enriched uranium, if that was indeed ABC's objective. Most criticized the use of depleted uranium as a surrogate for HEU, however, to make judgments about current Customs Service capabilities. And The Point? So what was the point of the story? And why run it on the first anniversary of September 11? ABC News Vice President Jeffrey W. Schneider told AIM, "The media has always provided essential checks on claims made by the government. Our report-which exposed a dangerous hole in the Nation's security-fulfilled that fundamental mission." This suggests that ABC News is claiming that the nation has no defense against terrorists smuggling HEU into the country. Critics acknowledge the difficulty of detecting HEU, but say the task is not impossible. It is possible that Customs is shielding its vulnerabilities behind a curtain of government classification rules. Many experts AIM talked to, both in government and out, refused to go beyond generalities and categorically declined to discuss the specifics of radiation detectors now in use. AIM's interviews indicate that the handheld radiation pagers used by Customs inspectors and shown in the ABC segment are the most sensitive available for their size. The "laws of physics" will make it difficult to improve much on these. As Senator Schumer indicated, there are sensitive devices currently in research and development at the nation's nuclear labs and elsewhere, but deployment still seems some years away. The customs inspectors said they were looking for "high-risk" threats, a category that clearly does not include depleted uranium. Commissioner Bonner said that his service had determined that the package did not represent a threat, and it didn't. Did ABC intend to show that Europe has porous borders, especially the former Warsaw Pact states, like Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania? But who doesn't know that and why not mention the programs Customs has to train foreign border guards and customs officials? And what about Customs' recent successes in Bulgaria and Uzbekistan at interdicting real nuclear materials? Could Customs use more funding and personnel to expand these programs? What bureaucracy would ever turn down an increase in its budget? That probably accounts for Commissioner Bonner's admission to ABC News that his system does have some vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, ABC News offered no solutions to the "dangerous" problem it says it exposed. The NRDC offered some solutions on its Web site, mostly along the lines of getting rid of all nuclear materials or throwing a leak-proof security cordon around them. But these solutions are simply extensions of existing U.S. programs that have been underway for some time. None address the fundamental physics problem of detecting highly enriched uranium, especially if shielded, in a nuclear smuggling scenario. Some critics believe that the problem with ABC News' story was a lack of expertise on the part of ABC's experts. They say that depleted uranium is no more dangerous than the taco ABC tried to smuggle across the U.S. border ten years ago. The problem of detecting highly enriched uranium, especially when shielded, is well known and has forced Customs and other federal agencies to develop multiple, synergistic approaches to combating this threat. But ABC News said nothing about those efforts. Beyond urging homeland security upgrades, however, it is possible that ABC News was joining in with Senator Schumer and others arguing against war on Iraq by pointing to "other, more significant threats" to U.S. national security. ABC News denied that, saying that its story had been months in preparation and was timed to air on the 9/11 anniversary. That's plausible, but the public interest might have been better served by a program focusing on what Iraq is doing to develop weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. What You Can Do Send the enclosed cards or your own cards or letters to David Westin, the President of ABC News, and Fred Graham of Court TV, which failed to honor its commitment to air the Wichita Massacre trial. NOTES FROM THE EDITOR'S CUFF BY By Reed Irvine THIS REPORT ON THE EFFORT OF ABC NEWS TO DEMONSTRATE HOW EASY IT WOULD BE for terrorists to smuggle uranium into the U.S. to make either a "dirty" bomb or an A-bomb alludes to the bias in ABC's reporting on the issue of going to war against Iraq. Our friends at the Media Research Center tallied 51 pro and con sound bites by members of Congress on this subject that were used on the evening newscasts by ABC, CBS and NBC in the four weeks preceding the last day of the debate in the House and Senate on the resolution authorizing the President to use military force against Iraq. Of the 51 sound bites that either favored or opposed the resolution, 30 were in favor and 21 were opposed. CBS aired 12, evenly divided pro and con. NBC aired 32, of which 15 were pro and 17 con. ABC aired 7, every one of them opposing the use of force. The actual vote in the House and Senate combined showed that 70 percent of the members favored the resolution. One might say that CBS was being fair in giving both sides the same number of sound bites and NBC came very close, and ABC was showing its bias by excluding the supporters. A card calling this to ABC's attention is enclosed. IF ABC KEEPS THIS UP THEY WILL TAKE OVER THE BIAS CROWN THAT CBS HAS WORN FOR years. Also, ABC President David Westin should be reminded that he has not yet required George Stephanopoulos to disclose what transpired at the secret meeting he attended in the White House situation room on the night TWA Flight 800 crashed. You may recall that George mentioned this meeting when he and Peter Jennings were filling air-time on Sept. 11, 2001, saying that the meeting was held in the wake of the TWA Flight 800 "bombing." Brian Ross, who carried out the depleted uranium caper discussed in this report, promised me that he would ask George about this. As far as I know, he hasn't done so. THE OUTCOME OF THE VOTE ON AUTHORIZING THE PRESIDENT TO USE FORCE AGAINST Iraq suggests that the influence of TV network news is not what it used to be. ABC, CBS and NBC did not air President Bush's speech in Cincinnati in which he laid out the case for Congress passing the resolution. The last time the broadcast networks all failed to air an important speech the President wanted the nation to hear was on Oct. 14, 1987 when Ronald Reagan gave a speech from the Oval office to explain why he was continuing to press for a Senate vote on the nomination of Judge Robert Bork as a Supreme Court Associate Justice. It was aired only on CNN and reached only a small fraction of the voters. Peter Jennings, instead of apologizing for ABC's failure to carry the speech, pointed out that very few people had heard it and said, "It is getting harder for the President to put forward a strictly partisan view." He was telling the White House that ABC, the other networks and the opposition party would decide if the President would be permitted to address the nation from the Oval office using network facilities. If the Great Communicator had been able to deliver that speech to a national television audience, Robert Bork might be sitting on the Supreme Court today. BRIAN ROSS, WHO REPORTED THE DEPLETED URANIUM CAPER CRITIQUED IN THIS REPORT, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC News. He came to ABC in July 1994 from a stint as Chief Investigative Correspondent for NBC's news magazine Dateline. An investigative report, Cataract Cowboys, that he did for NBC in 1993 charged that some eye clinics were making big bucks with unnecessary cataract surgery paid for by Medicare. It was seriously flawed, and a clinic sued NBC. AIM reported the flaws. This year Ross has been covering the FBI's efforts to link Dr. Steven Hatfill to the anthrax letters. He reported a Newsweek story about bloodhounds rented by the FBI reacting to Hatfill after sniffing a "scent pack" which theoretically had absorbed scents from an anthrax letter using "new technology." Notra Trulock found that law enforcement officials with long experience in conducting "scent discrimination" with bloodhounds scoff at the Newsweek account. No FBI spokesman would say that the FBI was the source. These officials speculated that the FBI was trying to obtain a "confession" by making Hatfill think that a bloodhound had connected him to the anthrax letter. They say that detectives sometimes try to obtain confessions from suspects by claiming to have evidence such as fingerprints or a bloodhound's reaction that proves they are guilty. This is often seen on TV shows such as Law and Order. BELOW IS THE NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARY OF MURRAY BARON, WHO SERVED AS AIM'S president from 1976 until his death at age 94 on Sept. 23. An eloquent speaker, he was tireless in promoting AIM. He obtained the funding for our Speakers Bureau and often joined me in raising questions at shareholder meetings. He was irked by the grand obituaries the New York Times gave to dead reds like Bella Abzug and its modest obituaries for those who were heroes of the resistance to the expansion of the Evil Empire. I reminded the Sulzbergers, Arthur Sr. and Arthur Jr., of this. They saw to it that the Times gave Murray a decent obituary. Douglas Martin researched it well. He even found that Murray's name had appeared in the Times over 240 times. I supplied the story about Murray's speech at the1988 CBS annual meeting, but Doug had to leave out the punch line. Read the last paragraph of the obit before you read on. WHEN MURRAY FINISHED HIS scathing criticism of Dan Rather, the audience applauded, and Chairman Larry Tisch, said, "Mr. Baron, I'm not going to comment on the accuracy of everything that you say, but in 30 years of running annual meetings, that's the finest speech I ever heard." FROM 1978 TO 1997, WHEN Punch Sulzberger retired as chairman of the Times, Murray and I met with him annually to discuss AIM's criticisms and suggestions. These meetings were far better than the shareholder meetings as a venue for raising questions. Vice Chairman Sydney Gruson usually attended. AT ONE MEETING, MURRAY asked Gruson how he would have voted in a contest between Czar Nicholas and Lenin, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung, Batista and Castro. In each case, Gruson chose the Communist. That told us a lot about the ideological climate at the Times. Murray had read the Times since he was a young boy, and he remembered what position it had taken on almost any controversial issue. In 1984 he reminded Punch that in '78 and '79 the Times was calling for U.S. pressure to overthrow Somoza. Handing Nicaragua to the Sandinistas proved to be a disaster. Gruson insisted that the Times had no responsibility for it. At our next meeting, we gave him a 7-page memo documenting the role the Times played. ***************************************************************** 17 Third Economic Cooperation Talks to Be Held with NK Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea Updated Nov.5,2002 16:00 KST As South and North Korea get ready to hold the third round of economic talks in Pyongyang on Wednesday, a high-level official of the Seoul delegation has told local media Seoul will make it clear that North Korea must first resolve its nuclear issue for further developments in cross-border cooperation. The official went on to say South Korean delegates also plan to demand inspections at the North's rice and fertilizer distribution sites, to check if Seoul's aid supplies are being used to alleviate the severe food shortage up North, as previously agreed. The official noted though the North's nuclear issue has dampened the pace of cross-border business exchanges, there is no change in Seoul's policy to pursue economic cooperation. (Arirang TV) ***************************************************************** 18 Oil Shipment to NK Loads in Singapore Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea Updated Nov.5,2002 19:00 KST by Ju Yong-jung (midway@chosun.com) WASHINGTON - The Korea Energy Development Organization (KEDO), the multinational organization that administers a 1994 agreement between the United States and North Korea, is preparing to send a 46,000 ton-shipment of heavy oil, the November portion the US provides to North Korea, from Singapore, the New York Times reported Tuesday. As a member of the energy organization's executive board, the US would prefer to suspend the shipment, but so far has failed to persuade other membership countries such as South Korea, Japan and the European Union to agree, said the New York Times, quoting an official who said "KEDO works on a consensus basis," and "The US alone can't make this decision." The official also mentioned that an executive board meeting is scheduled within two weeks, "which would give it time to order the ship to turn around before it unloads the fuel." A Korean government official said Tuesday that Seoul, Washington and Tokyo would make a final decision whether to withhold November's share of the heavy oil at the Japan-US-ROK Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG) meeting scheduled on November 8 and 9, as well as the KEDO executive board meeting, adding that Seoul is currently pre-tuning the issue through diplomatic channels. The official said that the loading would take up to four days, and the voyage from Singapore to Nampo Port in North Korea would take at least seven to eight days, and so there is still time to make the decision, suggesting that the fuel supply could be canceled before it reaches its destination. Meanwhile, the Japanese daily Yomiuri Simbun reported that Washington was determined to nullify the 1994 Agreed Framework and suspend the light-water reactor project and heavy oil supply as a response to Pyongyang's acknowledgement of its clandestine nuclear weapons development program. The Yomiuri cited a senior State Department official said that the Geneva agreement is virtually nullified, while Washington never officially declared it dead. ***************************************************************** 19 James Bowman on Hart-Rudman Report & Terrorism & Media on National Review Online November 5, 2002, 9:00 a.m. CYA in D.C. How about telling us something we don’t already know? By James Bowman ike the great Ed Anger of The Weekly World News, I'm pig-biting mad that anyone would pay the slightest attention to the Hart-Rudman task force on homeland security of the Council on Foreign Relations or its report, "America Still Unprepared, America Still in Danger? [http://www.cfr.org/publication.php?id=5100] " Why should the thing even exist, let alone get its pronouncements listened to with respect? Who doesn't know that the committee and the report are all a charade, utterly compromised by the most fundamental of bureaucratic principles, which guarantees that any conclusions reached by either will be of one kind and one kind only. This is the principle that goes under the familiar acronym of CYA. Very well. What, then, do you suppose you will get if you charge the task force to assess, as it were independently — that is the reason for that "bipartisan" cast and the leadership of the former Republican Senator Rudman and the former Democratic Senator Hart, which is also an exercise in CYA — the state of the nation's security? Is there any slightest chance — one in a million? one in a billion? — that the report would come back saying: Everything's hunky-dory, folks; them terrorists can't touch us now? Of course not. There is nothing to be lost from predicting disaster and everything to be lost from not predicting it. Just like everybody else in Washington those task forcers are going to make darned sure that, if there is another terror attack — as of course anyone with the slightest pretension to sagacity in these matters will tell you there will be, as George Tenet has just told us there will be — nobody's going to be able to point the finger at them and say: It's your fault for not warning us, for telling us everything was as safe as safe could be. Yet when, as predictably as the sunrise, the task force comes back with a whole laundry list of dire contingencies for us to worry about, the media just as predictably treat it like a big story. Oh no! Look what might happen! This is like headlining: "Top Republican says Republicans are best party," or "Butcher says eating meat is good for you," or "Airlines say, flying is safest form of transport." If we would take none of these assurances at face value, why do we take the alarm of government or of quasi-governmental committees, which have every bit as much of a vested interest in their conclusions? We understand the reasons the media are ready to believe it. Complacency and security do not sell papers. The media fat boys get that way by making our flesh creep on every possible occasion, and viewing-with-alarm the complacency of others will do almost as well as fantasizing a nuclear or chemical-biological future, particularly if you belong (as the media do) to the party out of power. Ultimately, this may be an argument against the proposed department of homeland security, now stuck in Congress, since the force of bureaucratic inertia would force such a department to become a mere warning-issuing agency attempting to anticipate every possible threat to our security so that it could not be accused of inattention or "complacency." As such it would be engaged in a perpetual dialogue with the media, who would be trying to catch it out with unanticipated dangers. Obviously such an agency couldn't do anything more than its assembled components are doing now about the vast number of potential threats. It would simply make the media's targeting easier. All politicians must toe the line too, since they know it would be political death to be accused of complacency. So when Frank Rich, who views-with-alarm for the op-ed page of the New York Times, calls Senator John McCain and asks him what he thinks of the D.C. sniper, the senator is obliged to reply: "Even if the sniper isn't connected to Al Qaeda, he's showing our vulnerability." Duh! Is there anyone who is such a fool as not already to be aware of our vulnerability — whether to a nutcase with a sniper rifle or a foreign terrorist with a dirty bomb? Is this news? Does either the columnist or the senator really suppose that it is? No, but they still have to do their little dance, and put on their horror masks because that is the way the game is played in Washington and among those who cover Washington. Frank Rich tells us that "Mr. Hart says that what united the entire task force was the feeling that there's "no sense of urgency and we have slipped back into business as usual." But maybe it not such a bad thing to get back into the mode of "business as usual" instead of always trying to appear "prescient," as the warners do — or as the media so spent much of the early summer berating the administration for not being. The problem isn't that, as some people seem to think, there is no warning of a terrorist attack (which is why they get mad when they discover there was) but that there are constant warnings, and that if you heeded all of them you would never get anything done. That's why "business as usual," pace Mr. Hart (whom I see George Stephanopoulos is touting, unbelievably, as a Democratic presidential nominee) is a good thing — because it is in business as usual that we triumph over the terrorist in the only way we can, which is by not allowing ourselves to be terrorized. — James Bowman [http://www.jamesbowman.net] is movie critic of The American Spectator and American editor of London’s Times Literary Supplement. [http://www.nationalreview.com ***************************************************************** 20 British Energy proposal approved globetechnology.com: News ANDREW CALLUS Tuesday, November 5, 2002 EDINBURGH -- British Energy PLC shareholders yesterday approved an increase in the financially stricken nuclear firm's borrowing limit, keeping alive its hopes of emerging from its crisis as a solvent business. British Energy has survived on government money since September after market reforms exposed power generation overcapacity and sent prices below its cost of production. Official figures from an extraordinary general meeting in Edinburgh said that more than 99 per cent of votes cast favoured setting a new fixed borrowing limit at £1.6-billion ($2.5-billion U.S.). Previously the loan limit for the company was set through a formula based on share capital and reserves. Facing shareholders for the first time since his appeal for government help sent the firm's stock plummeting in September, executive chairman Robin Jeffrey repeated that he was hopeful, but not certain, of achieving a successful financial restructuring from ongoing government talks. "We believe that there are reasonable prospects for a solvent restructuring, but there can be no guarantees," he told shareholders. Mr. Jeffrey confirmed that Cameco Corp., a Canadian uranium producer and its partner in the Bruce Power nuclear project there, had expressed an interest in raising its stake in Bruce, but he would not make any comment beyond saying that "all aspects of the business are under review." The U.K. government loan runs until Nov. 29. Talks continue about how to deal with the company and wider industry questions in the long term. But industry sources now see an extension of the loan running into next year as the most likely scenario. © 2002 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 21 With dominion over all Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists November/December 2002, Volume 58, No. 6, p. 2 EDITOR’S NOTE After the Berlin wall and the Soviet Union collapsed, Colin Powell—then chairman of the Joint Chiefs—complained that the United States had scarcely any enemies left: “I’m running out of demons,” he said. “I’m down to Kim Il Sung and Castro.” No need to worry about that ever happening again. The Bush administration, itching for a fight, declared in its September 17 “National Security Strategy” that it has the right to attack anyone at any time. In the 1990s, U.S. leaders struggled to develop a reliable corps of black-hat states it could list as enemies. Tiny countries—dozens of them—were said to have amazing long-distance missiles and a suicidal desire to send them careening toward the United States. Planners declared that the country had to remain armed and dangerous enough to fight two simultaneous “major wars” in two far-flung areas of the globe—no matter that the potential opponents they were able to i.d. were not actually major players. It was all kind of fun as long as the enemies were mostly imaginary. On September 11, 2001, though, everything changed. The United States discovered that it had a wow of an enemy. Here was a legitimate foe to whom attention must be paid—or so one would have thought. It turns out, though, that the elusive Osama bin Laden and his cohort are not really the sort of folks the Bush foreign policy team wishes to fight. They consider Afghanistan more of a fly-swat on their way to take on that 1990s enemies list. And first on the list is Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Believing that any sort of offhand remark they utter should be taken as gospel, administration officials have incessantly beaten the war-with-Iraq drum. In August and September, they floated increasingly unbelievable “evidence” of recent Iraqi perfidy to an increasingly skeptical public. By September 25, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was even suggesting to the PBS NewsHour audience that Saddam Hussein had somehow been involved in the September 11 attack. Of course, she said, she was not “trying to make an argument at this point that Saddam Hussein somehow had operational control of what happened on September 11 . . . we don’t want to push this too far.” But why, given the imperial pronouncements in the National Security Strategy, are people like Rice making any attempt to convince anyone of anything? Declaring that the United States “can no longer solely rely on a reactive posture,” the document argues that declaring war on others is good for them—even if the new policy does require a little tinkering with the traditional beliefs of “legal scholars and international jurists,” who heretofore have considered preemptive attacks on other nations as legitimate only in the case of an “imminent threat.” (And anyone who disagrees with the new policy is to be tarred and feathered.) But I agree with the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Marc Racicot, who, speaking of members of Congress, said that an individual’s willingness or hesitancy to preemptively attack Iraq “reflects upon character and capacity to lead.” Indeed it does. Linda Rothstein © 2002 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ***************************************************************** 22 The Impossible War* by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. [Posted November 5, 2002] There are some things that a state just cannot do, no matter how much power it accumulates or employs. Some proposed policies are just impossible. It was Ludwig von Mises who first framed the issue with regard to socialism. A strict socialist system robs society of everything essentially economic (money prices for capital goods, the matrix of exchange, private property) and thus whatever else socialism brings about, it cannot bring about an economy, despite the best efforts of the best and brightest. So too with myriad state programs, among which is the global War on Terror. To shore up the war, there has been no shortage of rhetoric. No expense is spared on arms escalation. There is no lack of will. The effort has the backing of plenty of smart people. It is backed by threats of massive bloodshed. What is missing is the essential means to cause the war to yield beneficial results. Of all the billions of potential terrorists out there, and the infinite possibilities of how, when, and where they will strike, there is no way the state can possibly stop them, even if it had the incentive to do so. Consider the most obvious evidence of failure, as pointed out by Congressman Ron Paul in a stellar address at the Mises Institute (October 19, 2002) [Click HERE for MP3 Audio of Dr. Paul's address]. He drew attention to the irony that the Bush administration has promised to eradicate terrorism all over the globe, and meanwhile, a thug-sniper was loose in the beltway for three weeks, claiming 14 random victims before being caught by a private individual and only because the sniper all but turned himself in. What was described as a triumph of the police is actually an example of the spectacular failure of government-provided terror control. John Allen Muhammad turned out not to be an amazing sharp-shooting genius but a thug whose only training in shooting was provided courtesy of the US taxpayer. What's more, he was practically begging to be caught, calling the police to brag about a past crime, the scene from which fingerprints had been taken. The police had even checked the sniper's car 10 times at various crime scenes without anyone catching on. In the end, he was caught only thanks to a private individual who matched the license and the description from the radio aired over the objections of the police. Until he was caught, the biggest nation-state in the history of the world, armed with 10,000 nuclear warheads and funded with nearly a half trillion dollars per year, was being humiliated and left cowering in the face of one military-trained thug and a gun. It doesn't give one much hope for eradicating violence worldwide--nor does the experience of any other government in the world currently fighting terrorism. The prevalence of violence at home together with a global war on terror finds an analogy in the simultaneous existence of another government program, the War on Poverty, alongside grueling poverty in Anacostia, a few miles from the Housing and Urban Development headquarters. The more the state tried to eradicate poverty, the more it created, because the programs themselves fed (inadvertently or not) the very conditions that they were trying to alleviate. So it is with the War on Terror. Behind terrorism is political grievance, mostly having to do with frustration at the activities and arrogance of the state and its violations of rights. This is not speculation. This is the word of the terrorists themselves, from Timothy McVeigh to Osama Bin Laden to innumerable suicide bombers. The pool of actual terrorists (like the poor in the War on Poverty) is limited and can be known, and they are the ones the state focuses on. But the pool of potential terrorists (and potential poor people) is unlimited, and unleashed by the very means the state employs in its war. Hence, not only does the state not accomplish its stated goals, it recruits more people into the armies of the enemy, and ends up completely swamped by a problem that grows ever worse until the state throws in the towel. In the meantime, the target population is able to make a mockery of the state through sheer defiance. In the experience of the war on poverty, as more and more were added to the ranks of the poor and the intended beneficiaries of the programs themselves began to mock the state's benevolence, people began to speak of the failure and collapse of the Great Society. Of course the welfare state still exists, but the moral passion and ideological fervor is gone. In the same way, we will soon begin speaking of the collapse of the War on Terror. The failure to get the sniper is only the beginning. Bin Laden is still loose, and everyone knows that there are hundreds or thousands more Bin Ladens out there. Terrorism has increased since the war began. Israel suffers daily, and in constantly changing ways, ways even the notorious intelligence units cannot anticipate or prevent. The same is true of the Russians in their dealings with the Chechans. The Russians have been unable to stop the political violence, even though 80,000 Russian forces are in Chechnya facing a guerrilla army of 2,000. The theorist who first saw the collapse of the ideology of the nation-state, Martin van Creveld, was asked about the Israel in an interview for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation . He was refreshingly blunt: "If I were Arafat and the Palestinians, I would not put an end to this intafada, because the way I see it, from the first day of the first intafada they have been winning?. Nothing will work?. There is one thing that can be done?and that is to put an end to the situation whereby we are the strong fighting the weak? You do that by A, waiting for a suitable opportunity... B, doing whatever it takes to restore the balance of power between us and the Palestinians... C, removing 90% of the causes of the conflict, by pulling out...." But can't the state just kill more, employ ever more violence, perhaps even terrify the enemy into passivity? It cannot work. Even prisons experience rioting. Another bracing comment from van Creveld: "The Americans in Vietnam tried it. They killed between two-and-a-half and three million Vietnamese. I don?t see that it helped them much." Without admitting defeat, the Americans finally pulled out of Vietnam, which today has a thriving stock market . To a notable extent, the war on poverty has ended its most aggressive phases and poverty is declining . What does this experience tell us about the War on Terror? The right approach to this program, as to all government programs, is to end it immediately. But wouldn't that mean surrender? It would mean that the state surrenders its role but not that everyone else does. Had the airlines been in charge of their own security, 9-11 would not have happened. Whatever political motives the sniper has would not exist. Bin Laden would have a hard time gaining recruits. Muslim fundamentalism would be dealt a serious blow, for no longer would US policy seem specifically designed to feed the madness of its lunatic fringe. In all the talk of war on Iraq, I've yet to hear anyone claim that taking out Saddam or bringing about a regime change will make the world a more peaceful, happier place. No one really believes that. The last war on Iraq gave rise to al-Qaeda due to sanctions and Christian troops in Saudi Arabia, led to the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, and emboldened an entire generation of Muslims to devote their lives to fighting America. The next one will do the same. The War on Terror is impossible, not in the sense that it cannot cause immense amounts of bloodshed and destruction and loss of liberty, but in the sense that it cannot finally achieve what it is suppose to achieve, and will only end in creating more of the same conditions that led to its declaration in the first place. In other words, it is a typical government program, costly and unworkable, like socialism, like the War on Poverty, like every other attempt by the government, which has no tool at its disposal apart from coercion, to shape reality according to its own designs. The next time Bush gets up to make his promises of the amazing things he will achieve through force of arms, how the world will be bent and shaped by his administration, think of Stalin speaking at the 15^th Party Congress, promising "further to promote the development of our country's national economy in all branches of production." Everyone applauded, and tens of thousands of landowners and factory managers were shot pursuant to that goal, but in the end, even if he did not know it, it was impossible to achieve. Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., is president of the Mises Institute and editor of the most highly trafficked libertarian news and commentary site, Lewrockwell.com . See his Mises.org Daily Articles Archive *Ludwig von Mises Institute * 518 West Magnolia Avenue Auburn, Alabama 36832-4528 334.321.2100 *·* Phone 334.321.2119 *·* Fax *mail@mises.org* ***************************************************************** 23 Defense Department Briefing Transcript News from the Washington File [International Information Programs] [Washington File] 04 November 2002 (Election Day, Feith trip to Japan, South Korea, Afghanistan/whooping cough outbreak, Iraq/attacks on coalition aircraft/inspections, Saudi Arabia/U.S. bases, Yemen/car explosion, U.N. Security Council/Iraq inspection resolution, terrorism/sniper tactics, Horn of Africa/U.S. military presence/Task Force, National Guard/Reserves: Call-ups, Korean peninsula/U.S. troop presence, transformation/new aircraft carrier, Israel/security commitment, Central Asia/U.S. bases, V-22 Osprey/test program) (6420) Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers briefed the media November 4 at the Pentagon. Following is a transcript: (begin transcript) United States Department of Defense News Transcript Presenter: Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld November 4, 2002 (Also participating was Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff) Rumsfeld: Good afternoon. Tomorrow is an important day in our democracy, the day that Americans determine who will represent them in the U.S. Congress and in the many state and local jurisdictions. It's an important reminder of why we are engaged in the global war on terrorism. Terrorists attacked us because of the fact that we are free people, and we're determined to do what is necessary to defend our freedom and our way of life. Next, I want to point out that Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith left over the weekend for Japan and South Korea. Both nations are important and steadfast allies of the United States. He will confer on the full range of security issues affecting our respective countries, including the war on terrorism, the ongoing effort in Afghanistan and the threat posed by North Korea's weapons of mass destruction programs. Also I want to point out that last Monday, in response to an emergency request by the World Health Organization, the U.S. helped with an outbreak of whooping cough among children in northern Afghanistan. An estimated 70 children had already died of the bacterial infection in a remote part of Darwaz district, and it's estimated that as many as 100 to 200 more children could have died each week if untreated. To reach the isolated region normally takes three or more days on horseback. And since the vaccine has a shelf life of only two days when it's not refrigerated, it might well not have survived the trip. The photographs give you a sense of the difficult terrain. To stop the spread of the whooping cough, U.S. helicopters transported a team of WHO Personnel with vaccine to treat some 2,000 people. U.S. military forces performed an important mission to save lives, and they deserve and have our appreciation. Meanwhile, Iraq continues to violate U.N. resolutions by firing at coalition aircraft patrolling the northern and southern no-fly zones. General Myers will give you the latest operational details. It seems to me that it tells a great deal that today, at the very time that the United Nations is debating and discussing a new U.N. resolution on Iraq, that the Iraqi regime continues to attack coalition aircraft and crews. General Myers? Myers: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. As operations -- as Operation Enduring Freedom continues, coalition forces in Afghanistan continue to recover weapons, and at the same time, experience rocket attacks on their compounds there. In the Persian Gulf, maritime intercept operations continue, and this week alone, there were 73 diverts of primarily what we call the dhows, the smaller ships that were smuggling illegal oil and dates from Iraq. And that effort, of course, by Iraq was not in accordance with U.N. resolutions. Moving to Iraq proper, anti-aircraft weapons continue to fire upon coalition aircraft as they have. We have two video clips where we see firing on coalition aircraft, and we have one video clip where we respond. The first clip was taken on October 24th, and shows two Iraqi Ringbacks firing at Operation Northern Watch aircraft just west of Mosul. Ringbacks are 122-mm multiple-rocket launchers modified for use as surface-to-air missiles. There are two launchers, one near the center of the screen, and one at the lower left. The center one fires first. And so we can begin the video. Q: It just went. Myers: Did it go? Rumsfeld: It's happened? Myers: It's happened. Rumsfeld: That was quick. Myers: That was quick. Okay? Q: What's their range, General -- Myers: I'll get that for you. (Answer: Maximum altitude: 56,000 feet for 122 multiple rocket launcher; 41,000 feet for 100-mm AAA.) The second clip was taken on October 22nd, and shows Iraqi 100-mm AAA firing at coalition F-16 aircraft from orchards located northeast of Mosul. You've got to watch the top center of the screen. Has it rolled yet? The top center will show the firing. Roll the video. The top center. (Pause.) Okay. And then the last clip was taken on October 30th, and shows two of our F-16 aircraft dropping laser-guided bombs on two of the three AAA guns in revetments. This laser-guided bomb is a 500-pounder. And the battle damage assessment said we destroyed one gun and damaged the other. Q: Why can't they hit anything, General? Not us, but them. Myers: I'm sorry? Q: Why are they so unsuccessful in hitting us? They've been trying for 10 years. Myers: I guess given tactics and techniques and procedures, that we can avoid that. And as you know, sometimes the SAMs they send up are unguided because if they turn on the radars, then we can hit the radars. So in some cases it's cautiousness; in some cases it's probably luck; and in some cases it's good tactics on our part. But it's -- every -- let me just remind you, every mission over there -- and I'm sorry, I said they were both from the south and the north; they're actually all in the north -- Northern Watch area. Q: These? Myers: These were all Northern Watch. That every mission that our pilots go on is considered, you know, a combat mission, for obvious reasons. They have come close, they have come close to some of our reconnaissance aircraft. If you remember, it was what, about eight months ago or nine months ago, when the pilot reported feeling the shock from a surface-to-air missile, unguided, supposedly, that went off very close to the air vehicle. So with that, we'll take your questions. Charlie? Q: Mr. Secretary, the Saudi foreign minister said yesterday that Saudi Arabia -- even if the U.N. approved military action against Iraq -- which we understand that the president has not made any decision on military action. (Laughter.) But the Saudi foreign minister -- Rumsfeld: Very good, Charlie! Q: But the Saudi foreign minister said that even if the U.N. did support such action, that the Saudis would not provide basing rights or military support. Meanwhile, the Kuwaitis said that they would, said yes, that they would provide such support. Do you think that that's the final word from the Saudis? And if it is, could the United States, our coalition, launch a successful invasion of Iraq without Saudi support, military support? Rumsfeld: Well, I did not have a chance to see the foreign minister's statement, so I can't address that. And you're quite right; no decision has been made with respect to the use of force in Iraq. The U.S.-Saudi relationship is one that has gone on for many, many decades. It's been very mutually beneficial. As you know, we have a good deal of interaction with them now in the Department of Defense. I don't know that what you quoted is necessarily a change in their policy. So I don't -- I don't find it notable in any sense. And with respect to -- Q: How come it wasn't a suggestion of change? Rumsfeld: With respect to the rest of your question, sure; anything the president asks this department to do, we'll be capable of doing. Q: Even without Saudi help? Rumsfeld: I didn't say that. I said it the way I wanted to say it because -- first of all, even the quote you gave did not suggest there would be no Saudi help; it was fairly precise as to what it said. And I think it's -- I think I've been right for a year and a half in saying that it's best to let countries say what they want about what they do and how they do it, rather than for me trying to recharacterize it or for me to respond to a question from you where you characterize something that was said. We have a good relationship with Saudi Arabia and it's been mutually beneficial. Q: Mr. Secretary, what can you tell us about the car explosion that was reported today in Yemen? Were any U.S. forces involved in that? And have you learned anything about the aftermath of who was killed in that event? Rumsfeld: I've seen the reports. And the discussion in one of the reports -- I didn't notice whose report it was, but it looked like a wire service report of something out of the region -- it said that Harithi might be involved, in which case, as I recall, he was in fact one of the people that is thought to have been involved with the USS Cole. Q: Have you confirmed that through government sources? Rumsfeld: No. I have not. And needless to say, he has been an individual that has been sought after as an al Qaeda member, as well as a suspected terrorist connected to the USS Cole. So it would be a very good thing if he were out of business. Q: And the U.S. role in that? Was there any U.S. role in that operation? Rumsfeld: I think the best -- the reports have just been coming in, and what I'd like to do is to look at them and digest them and see. We, of course, have people there. But the -- it wouldn't be a wise thing to be operating off of partial pieces of information. Q: Mr. Secretary, what do your boys over in Foggy Bottom tell you about what's going on in the Security Council? I know you're reluctant to talk about it. But we get from a lot of sources that a compromise resolution has been worked out. Is that true? And if so, will it be voted on this week? And is it satisfactory to the United States and the U.K.? Rumsfeld: Well, the negotiations have been going on for several weeks now, and Colin Powell and the White House have been discussing these things with the countries that are the principal participants in the Security Council. And my understanding is that a good many of the issues have been worked out and that there are now several issues that remain and that they are being discussed, and they will be discussed, then, internally in the United States government, and then the United States government will discuss them, one would think, as they move towards a conclusion sometime this week, or whenever. But as you know, DOD is not intimately involved in that. Q: But you're in the loop as far as being an interested party, I would assume, right? Rumsfeld: Sure. Sure. Sure, we're interested. And needless to say, the purpose of these discussions that are taking place is to try to find a resolution that offers Iraq an opportunity to decide if it wants to continue to maintain and develop weapons of mass destruction, or whether it would prefer to invite in inspectors under an inspection approach that is sufficiently inclusive that the U.N. will be able to know of reasonably certain knowledge whether or not Iraq is cooperating. And therefore, the give and take on the resolution is how that ought to be teed up for the Security Council to vote on it, and that's what's taking place. Q: What's your gut feeling? Rumsfeld: Well, I'd kind of like to wait and see what it looks like when it's all over. Q: General, do you and the chiefs share the concern of some in government that the recent sniper attacks in the Washington area will become part of the kit bag of terrorists and, therefore, be under the umbrella of asymmetric warfare? And how big a weight would that be in weighing the response to Iraq? Myers: Well, I mean, I think the idea of using snipers to create uncertainty and confusion and perhaps a degree of panic in populations is no different than the anthrax attacks that we had on the Senate office buildings and the Capitol; no different, really, than what we saw on September 11th in terms of using the airplanes. So I think it's those sorts of things. So I have no idea. I mean, it's just -- it's unknowable how that will work. I think -- my personal belief is that the al Qaeda organization is interested in killing lots of Americans. They've stated that as such, I think, and therefore, I'm not sure this sniper would be the way they'd go about it. On the other hand, who knows? And I don't -- the only -- I don't know the connection to that and Iraq. I don't know where you're headed with that. What was your thought? Q: Well, in other words, if we invaded Iraq tomorrow morning, perhaps a response would be sniper attacks in cities in the United States. Therefore, it's a weight on the scale. Myers: Well, I think -- you know, job one is the war on terrorism, and we're going to have watch that very, very carefully, as we do other things in the world that we have to do. And that would fall in that category, I think, of things that you have to watch out for. Of course, here in the United States, that would be primarily a law enforcement issue, notwithstanding the information sharing that would have to go on between the department here, other intel agencies and the civil authorities. Q: Mr. Secretary, how do you assess -- (off mike) -- vis-a-vis to Iraq after the new elections in Turkey yesterday, where Mr. Erdogan, the new leader, already expressed some reservations? Rumsfeld: I have not seen any statement to that effect at all, so I don't know that even answering the question makes much sense for me. I've seen the outcome of the elections, but I've not seen any authoritative comments from any of the people who were elected with respect to that subject. Q: And one more question. Anything to say about your talks tomorrow with the chairman of the Turkish Joint Chief of Staff, General Hilmi Ozkok? Rumsfeld: Yes. He is the guest of General Myers. General Myers is going to have meetings with him, as I am and others in the administration. (To General Myers) And I believe you're hosting a dinner for him? Myers: Yes, sir. Rumsfeld: And we look forward to it. We welcome him to the United States. Yes? Q: Mr. Secretary, General, last week General Franks hinted at kind of expansion and formalization of our presence in the Horn of Africa area in the war on terrorism. Have any decisions been made that you can discuss? And can you sum up what our interest is in the Horn of Africa area? Myers: Want me to try it? Rumsfeld: Sure, go ahead. Myers: We have several interests. One is that the Horn of Africa turns out to be a fairly busy place in terms of the flow of people and other instruments of war: weapons, explosives, perhaps weapons of mass destruction, that those sorts of things -- certainly intelligence -- that it flows either through the waters there or through some of the countries. Second thing is that in the Horn of Africa there are a number of areas that you can call ungoverned or at least not under some government's tight control; where terrorists can gather and either do operational planning or training, and so forth. And so, we're very interested in the area for that reason and positioned forces there to take appropriate action. Going beyond that in terms of what the forces are going to do would get into the operational details, which I don't think I can do. Q: Have you formally decided on a creation of a special task force for the Horn? Myers: There is a task force that is -- yes. Q: (Off mike.) Myers: It's almost stood up. Q: What will the task force name be? Myers: I'm sorry? Q: What will the task force's name be? Myers: I'll get you that. Q: Mr. Secretary, you and others have said many times that Iraq is very accomplished at hiding weapons of mass destruction, moving them around. Even when this U.N. resolution passes and inspectors go back in, do you think that there's a chance that they may not find anything, because Iraq is so accomplished at that? And what happens then? Rumsfeld: Well, those are all, you know, open questions. The answer as to whether or not that's possible, I think, is a function of what kind of an inspection arrangement is finally decided upon by the Security Council. That is to say, what does the resolution contain? And does it have the prospects of being such that it would be next to impossible for Iraq to, over any sustained period of time, deny and deceive? It is -- as we've said, it's very difficult, if a country is determined to be uncooperative, it's very difficult for inspections to work, because inspections by definition are generally with a cooperative country. But we won't know, either, what the inspection program will be till the resolution's done, nor will we know what Saddam Hussein's reaction to that inspection regime is. Therefore, the question isn't answerable at -- Q: But even if it is this unfettered inspection process, do you think there's still a chance that they may not find something? Rumsfeld: Oh, goodness, I'd have to -- I really would have to see the -- what was -- I'd have to see the inspection approach, and I'd have to see what the Iraqi response to it was to have a sense of that. Q: Secretary, could we go back to Saudi Arabia just for a moment? I can see where the -- a member of the American public might be asking themselves, "Here's Saudi Arabia, a country the United States went to defend in 1990, has spent considerable time defending, and yet, appears to be such a reluctant ally in public." Now, you seem to be saying, "Don't worry about it." But doesn't it bother you at all that the public support from Saudi Arabia seems to be so lukewarm? And how would you explain that? Rumsfeld: Well, I kind of take the world like I find it. And what we have is a situation where countries all across the globe are cooperating with us in a variety of different ways, and each gets up in the morning and decides how they want to characterize that. And if that -- if accepting that maximizes the amount of assistance we get from countries, terrific; then we get the maximum amount of assistance and we have the best chance of putting pressure on terrorists and capturing them or killing them, arresting them, interrogating them, finding out more information and preventing more terrorist attacks. So the formula is not perfect, but it is clearly -- the formula of allowing other countries to explain what it is they're doing is clearly in the best interest of the United States of America. Q: But are you saying, don't read too much into these public statements from Saudi Arabia? Rumsfeld: I wouldn't want to say something like that. (Laughter.) Q: Are you saying, don't worry about it? Rumsfeld: No. I'm saying exactly what I said. And I thought I said it, you know, reasonably well. Q: Can you describe what concerns you have, what concerns the U.S. has with Yemen and its -- as a potential place where terrorists pass through, live, do deeds that are harmful to the U.S.? Rumsfeld: What our understanding is? Yeah, sure. We approached the government of Yemen -- and the president has visited here in the Pentagon, as you know -- and indicated a desire to have their cooperation in the global war on terrorism. They allowed as how they thought that was a good idea and that they would like to cooperate. And as a result, we have some folks in that country that have been working with the government and helping them think through ways of doing things. And it's been a good cooperation. And we've shared some information. And we think that over time it ought to be beneficial because there's no question but that there are al Qaeda in Yemen, there's no question but that to some extent they've take advantage of, on the one side, the sea, on the other side, borders that are sparsely populated, just as in other parts of the world borders have been used advantageously by terrorists. So the arrangement's been a good one, and it's ongoing. Q: On the most recent explosion there yesterday, just so I understand this, you have some information, but you can't share it with us, in terms of what role the United States may have played in -- Rumsfeld: I think I'll leave it the way I left it. Q: Does the cooperation between the U.S. and Yemen you describe include U.S. participation in the use of force against al Qaeda in Yemen? Rumsfeld: I'm not going to get into the arrangements we have with the government of Yemen, other than to say what I said. Yes? Q: Hi. I'm sure there's a good number of National Guard members and Reservists watching the media closely, especially amid reports that the call-up from them might be as large as the one for the Persian Gulf War, if we were to do something with Iraq. Like Charlie, I too know that the president hasn't made any decisions on that, but I'm curious if you could shed any light on the possible timing of such a call-up; whether something like that could begin even before a formal decision by the president, in sort of the guise of -- I mean in sort of the idea of prudent planning, and when we might actually begin to see some movement in that direction? Rumsfeld: Well, if you think about it, we've called up a great many people already. We've called up over 70,000 men and women in the Guard and Reserve. The numbers have been reduced now to the point of something in the 40,000 to 50,000 range. (Ed. Note: Currently 57,721: See http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Oct2002/b10302002_bt554-02.html.) Myers: Exactly. Rumsfeld: And we also have had some stop-losses of people who have not been excused from duty, who otherwise would have been. So there -- an awful lot of those people are volunteers. There is no question but that we will continue to be making various types of call-ups and -- Reserve and Guard call-ups. We do it as we look at the entire force disposition worldwide. We have folks in Kosovo, we have them in Bosnia, we have them in the Sinai, we have them in a number of places around the world and -- in the Philippines. There are an enormous number of complicated issues in doing this. And if, for example, you have an activity that involves people who require, oh, 30, 60, 90 days to go do what it is they do, then you might do some of those. If you have people that are on very short calls, you might not. You have to rotate people, and that process is going on continuously. So I would expect that there would be additional Reserve call-ups in the period immediately ahead, and I would expect also that we may very well continue to let some additional people out who have been in for some period, and we would be replacing them, for example. And it's -- an awful lot of the people, as I say, however, are in voluntarily -- I don't mean "involuntarily." (Laughter.) They are serving voluntarily, even though their units were called up. And those folks, for the most part, are not bracing at getting out right now. So it's a -- (Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness)) David Chu and the Joint Staff and I have met, I don't know, two or three times, at least -- Myers: Yes, sir. At least three times -- Rumsfeld: -- looking at all of this and trying to do a layout over a period of time as to what we think might be the demands, but I would look for additional call-ups. Q: When you say "the period ahead" -- this week, by the end of the month? Rumsfeld: Oh, I wouldn't want to nail that down. But it could be anytime. And it may very well be pieces, scraps, units, elements, activities, capabilities, those types of things. Yes? Q: Mr. Secretary, thank you. The mines were removed from DMZ in South Korea -- Rumsfeld: Yes, in one area. Q: Yes, and also North Korea is known to have a nuclear weapon. I believe these are a direct threat to national security of both the U.S. and South Korea. At the same time, 37,000 U.S. troops in South Korea are found in harm's way. I think these are a grave problem to the national security of the United States. Can you tell us how to redress the national security arrangement between U.S. and South Korea? Rumsfeld: Well, Doug Feith, as I said, will be visiting South Korea in the next day or two, and they will be talking about the full range of subjects. You're quite right, North Korea is assessed to have a nuclear weapon or two. They also have a very large army, and they have a large unconventional capability, they have a lot of ballistic missiles. They're the principal ballistic missile proliferater on the face of the earth. And we do have a large number of U.S. forces there. We intend, by our presence and by our force structure, to serve as an appropriate deterrent to any aggressive action by North Korea. And we expect that it has for the past close to 50 years, and we expect that it will prospectively. Yes? Q: Mr. Secretary, you met Friday, I believe, with the secretary of the Navy and the chief of Naval Operations for a discussion of -- Rumsfeld: True. It was an excellent meeting. Q: Well, could you tell us, in the aftermath of that meeting, what is your view now about the transformational nature of the CVN-X carrier, that ship that will be around for at least 50 years. Is it sufficiently advanced to justify a $10 billion expenditure? Rumsfeld: Look at the smile on his face. (Laughter.) Q: I'm just reacting to your smile. (Laughter.) Rumsfeld: We had a very good meeting. I have a lot of respect for the people that were in the room and the hard work they've put into this and the thought, and indeed, the creativity that they have put into their recommendations. And I would expect that -- I don't pay a lot of attention to the timetable, but as I've said here before, sometime between now and Thanksgiving, an awful lot of this stuff has to be decided. And we're getting closer and closer and closer. And I feel very good about the proposals that the Navy has put forward, and they're then going to have to go back and do some additional analytical work and punch some numbers and come back. And it's an iterative process. (To General Myers) You were there. Myers: No, I was not there. I missed -- (laughter) -- I did miss that one. Rumsfeld: Well that was a darn good meeting. Myers: But I've been in previous meetings. (Laughter.) Rumsfeld: I was thinking you'd been there. Excuse me. Yes? Q: How much of a commitment has the -- if there was to be a war in the Persian Gulf, how much of a security commitment has the U.S. made to Israel now? And I guess my question is, how much can you talk about it? Because I would assume you would want Iraq to know that you could meet that commitment. For example, can you tell us if there has been any activity by U.S. military troops training in Iraq, any prepositioning of fuel or supplies? And exactly how much of a commitment have you made to defend Israel if there was to be an Iraqi aggression against them? Rumsfeld: (Pause.) I didn't ever really answer your question on the carrier, and let me -- let me -- (laughter) -- let me say -- Q: (Off mike) -- on Yemen. Rumsfeld: Let me say -- Oh, come on, John! (Laughter.) Rumsfeld: I did my best. Q: (Off mike) -- the Saudis. Rumsfeld: On the carrier, I suspect that when all the dust settles, what you will find, in direct answer to your question, is you will find the maximum amount of new technology and transformational capabilities and not one thing more that would be sufficiently far into the future and advanced that it would be -- represent a high risk and not be able to be achieved. So, what you'll find is that we will have gone right there and found that exact balance between moving things forward and not going so far that you inject risk elements that very likely couldn't be achieved and would put in jeopardy the time schedule. Q: But you could do this by 2007? Rumsfeld: I didn't say when or how or anything else. I said the answer to your question is, the balance will be just about perfect. (Laughter.) Q: What does that mean in -- Rumsfeld: I hope. (Laughs.) Q: In plain English, what does that mean? Carrier, or no? Rumsfeld: (Pause.) (Laughter.) Q: Cut to the chase, Mr. Secretary! Rumsfeld: Sure. Well, we're going to announce all that. We have to do that in the next -- goodness gracious, it's the 4th or 5th of November already and Thanksgiving's just around the corner. Q: It sounds like you're trying to announce it now. Rumsfeld: I'm not trying to announce it now. I'm saying we've had some excellent meetings and we're going to end up with a very good proposal and you all are going to like it. Now -- (laughter) -- Q: Israel. Rumsfeld: Israel. We have a very close working relationship with the state of Israel, as you know. They come here; we go there; we have meetings. We're sensitive to the risks. They live in a difficult neighborhood. And needless to say, our interest and their interest would be in avoiding any attack on Israel. And we intend to do, as they intend to do, those kinds of things that would deter and dissuade that from happening. Q: And what might some of those be? Rumsfeld: Oh, I don't want to get into a list of unpleasantries at all, so I shan't. Pam? Q: Assuming that what we've read reported about the Saudi foreign minister is correct, and acknowledging that no decision has been made yet in Iraq, General Myers, could you tell us what capabilities the newly established U.S. -- I don't know if they count as bases, but in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan -- what impact they would have on a possible war with Iraq? How much capability do they add that wasn't there, say, in 1990, for instance, when we relied so heavily on Saudi Arabia as a base? Myers: Yeah, the problem with that, Pam, is you start getting into the operational pros and cons and capabilities and limitations, and you start to give away -- Q: Are they close enough to play a part in a war? Myers: They'll be important to the overall war on terrorism. Doubtful they'd play a major role in anything that would happen further to the West. Q: We won't tell anybody. You can tell us. (Laughter.) Rumsfeld: And furthermore, until the president makes a decision with respect to the use of force, obviously you don't go around asking people to make commitments with respect to it. Therefore, to the extent you start talking about what you need or what you'd like or that type of thing, prior to talking with them, is unhelpful, and we don't want to be unhelpful. Yes? Q: Sure. (Off mike) -- politics and capabilities. Q: Mr. Secretary, on the -- as you make these procurement decisions, one program that's in kind of a special situation is the V- 22 Osprey. It's just about three or four months into a two-year flight test program. Does that mean that no decision will be made on the entire future of that program? In other words, are you going to wait for the test results before you decide what to do about that program? Rumsfeld: I don't know for sure. But I suspect one alternative would be to make some preliminary judgments based on the expectation or the hope or the possibility, at least, that it would sail through its test program. And you could make some preliminary judgments as to in the event it does test out, you would handle it this way; in the event it doesn't, a trained ape knows what the answer is. (Laughter.) Even I do! Q: Yeah, but does that include us? Rumsfeld: (Chuckles.) Q: On the Reserve component use, apart from the post-9/11 call-ups, we're several years now into a pattern in which certain types of Reserve component units have been called up for sort of routine operations. Are you -- at your level or Dr. Chu's level, is there any serious consideration to going back and looking at the active Reserve -- Rumsfeld: Yes, absolutely. Q: Can you talk a little bit about what -- Rumsfeld: Yeah. Yeah. There's no question but that there are a number of things that the United States is asking its forces to do. And when one looks at what those things are, we find that some of the things that are necessary, in the course of executing those orders, are things that are found only in the Reserves. Now, the question is, does that make sense? Does that make good sense for the United States of America to be totally dependent on Guard and Reserve for a set of activities and capabilities that we now know, post-9/11, are clearly going to be things we're going to have to be doing on a fairly regular basis? And the short answer to that is no, it doesn't make a lot of sense. And therefore, we certainly are looking at it, and we intend to, over some reasonable period of time, come forward with some suggestions as to how we might migrate some active activities that are not always going to be needed for sure into the Guard or the Reserve, and vice versa; some things from the Guard and Reserve that we suspect will always be needed, because that's a much more appropriate use of the Guard and Reserve. Q: Any teasers? Q: Which specialties? Rumsfeld: I think I'll not. Q: Well, whatever you do, like civil affairs is an example of what you just said -- will that be decided in time for the budget that goes to Congress next year? Rumsfeld: I hope so. And if not, we ought to be smart enough to do what you've done, is to look at some of those and speculate as to how it might come out, and think about providing a budget that would allow you the flexibility to do that in some way. And -- Q: You're right, there is some opinion that the whole total -- total force concept is at risk because we can't keep calling on Reservists to go back, go back, go back. Is there any kind of master plan to kind of take the pressure off or rethink the whole total force concept? Rumsfeld: I guess you'd say when you do the kinds of things I've already responded to today, that that is a look at the total force concept. And we have to ask ourselves how ought our military to be arranged in the 21st century? And I don't know that it would necessarily -- I wouldn't want to prejudge the outcome. And I think you'd still have what one would call a total force concept; that is to say, a certain amount active, and a certain amount Guard and Reserve. But you'd have it better allocated between the two so there would be less stress on Guard and Reserve on a continuing basis, since we now ought to be smart enough to be better able to see what those things are. Q: Any appetite for a draft now, Mr. Secretary? Rumsfeld: None! (Laughter.) Last question. Q: Mr. Secretary, back to the V-22. Your answer to that, you know, indicated your inclination to keep the program going, you know, at least into that next budget cycle when -- while the testing is ongoing, rather than, you know, terminating it before the testing can be completed. Is that a correct interpretation? Rumsfeld: Oh, oh -- Q: In other words, you said that you can make prejudgments as, you know, preliminary indications that have passed testing, if testing will succeed. Rumsfeld: Well, maybe I shouldn't have said what I said. I mean my -- reasonable -- I mean, a reasonable approach to me, and I've not been intimately involved with the V-22, nor do I think I've even been briefed on it this round yet. (To General Myers) Have you? Myers: No, sir. Rumsfeld: But a reasonable approach would be, why in the world would you put in place a test program if you didn't want to know what the outcome might be? We did put in place a test program; it seemed reasonable thing to me. It's an interesting capability. And I have no idea what the test program will prove. And having put it in place and recognizing the timing of it, it seemed to me the next reasonable thing to do would be to do what I said, namely, to get your budget arranged so that those things you might want to do with the V- 22, you have the capability of doing. But you obviously would not go forward if the test program subsequently proved that the stability of the particular aircraft was such that you didn't want to do it. Q: Secretary? Rumsfeld: Thank you. Q: Thank you. (end transcript) (Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov) This site is produced and maintained by the U.S. Department of State's Office of International Information Programs (usinfo.state.gov). Links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views contained therein. ***************************************************************** 24 Seoul Views NK¡¯s Response as `Step Forward¡¯ KoreaTimes : [KoreaTimes National] By Shim Jae-yun Staff Reporter South Korea considers North Korea¡¯s recent overture for dialogue with the U.S. as a ``step forward¡¯¡¯ toward resolving the nuclear issue in a peaceful way. ``North Korea¡¯s Ambassador to the UN Han Song-ryol¡¯s recent remarks, in particular, are noteworthy as they can be accepted as an expression of willingness to resume dialogue with the United States,¡¯¡¯ a senior South Korean Foreign Ministry official said. ``Pyongyang and Washington should try and compromise on their ongoing nuclear issue.¡¯¡¯ In an interview with The New York Times, Amb. Han said, ``Everything is negotiable,¡¯¡¯ adding that the North is open-minded toward the Bush administration¡¯s demand that Pyongyang first dismantle its nuclear weapons first before any bilateral talks begin. The North Korean envoy called on the United States and North Korea to begin dialogue soon to find a solution to the deadlocked security situation on the Korean peninsula. The Bush administration refused Han¡¯s proposal. ``North Korea should not have abandoned its obligations (under the 1994 nuclear agreement with the U.S.). It needs to keep them,¡¯¡¯ said White House spokesman Ari Fleisher. Another South Korean diplomat came up with a positive outlook regarding dialogue between the two nations. ``North Korea has changed its attitude,¡¯¡¯ he said, pointing to The New York Times interview in which Han said that everything was negotiable. The official said that Seoul would ask the U.S. to engage in dialogue with Pyongyang at the upcoming consultative meeting among officials of the U.S., Japan and Korea. He said the Seoul government would continue trying to persuade North Korea to honor calls for the scrapping of its nuclear program at future inter-Korean meetings. ÀԷ½ð£ 2002/11/05 10:08 [webmaster@hankooki.com] ***************************************************************** 25 The Real Cost of War MotherJones.com | News November 5, 2002 With much of the mainstream media transfixed by the diplomatic maneuvering at the United Nations and the Bush administration's increasingly feverish wartime rhetoric, Bill Moyers offers a poignant reminder [http://www.pbs.org/now/commentary/moyers14.html] of the awful reality that rhetoric obscures. "Mr. Bush is amassing a mighty American armada in the Middle East - incredible firepower. He has to know that even a clean war - a war fought with laser beams, long range missiles, high flying bombers, and remote controls - can get down and dirty, especially for the other side." Moyers, of course, was White House press secretary during Lyndon Johnson's administration. As with the current administration, the Johnson White House "didn't talk very much about what the war would cost," Moyers writes. "We weren't sure, and we didn't really want to know too soon, anyway." Now, Moyers suggests, that same self-deceiving spirit has found a home in the Bush administration: "Ah, the glories of war; the adrenaline that flows to men behind desks at the very thought of the armies that will march, the missiles that will fly, the ships that will sail, on their command. Our Secretary of Defense has a plaque on his desk that says, 'Aggressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords.' I don't think so. To launch an armada against Hussein's own hostages, a people who have not fired a shot at us in anger, seems a crude and poor alternative to shrewd, disciplined diplomacy. Don't get me wrong. Vietnam didn't make me a dove; it made me read the Constitution. That's all. Government's first obligation is to defend its citizens. There's nothing in the Constitution that says it's permissible for a great nation to go hunting for Hussein by killing the people he holds hostage, his own people, who have no choice in the matter, who have done us no harm. Unprovoked, the noble sport of war becomes the murder of the innocent." Peter Bouckaert, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, picks up where Moyers leaves off. In a Los Angeles Times commentary, Bouckaert bemoans the limitations of the national debate, which describes as "focused on polarizing questions about the propriety of preemption, the wisdom of forcing regime change and the strength of the evidence concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." Missing from the discussion, he suggests, is any consideration of how the Iraqi people will fare before, during, and after a US assault. "Whether one favors or opposes war (my organization, Human Rights Watch, is neutral on that issue), it is equally important to consider the grave dangers the Iraqi people could face once war starts, and to develop workable strategies to minimize those dangers. ... In Iraq, civilian casualties caused by U.S. military actions would probably be only a part of the picture. The greatest threat to the Iraqi people could well come from the Iraqi army. The direct civilian death toll of allied military action during the Gulf War, Kosovo and Afghanistan combined is dwarfed by the estimated 30,000 who died during Hussein's repression of the 1991 uprisings, or by the estimated 100,000 Kurds killed in his genocidal Al Anfal campaign in the late 1980s. Hussein is the only known head of state who has used chemical weapons against his own people -- as he also did against Iranian troops -- and he is likely to do so again in any battle for his life." Reading Iraq Less than a year has passed since the Bush administration made its intentions clear concerning Iraq. But the debate over those intentions has already sparked endless inches of newspaper commentary and given birth to several books. Writing in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Andrew Cockburn considers three such books -- and the national mindset that has shaped them [http://www.calendarlive.com/books/bookreview/cl-bk-cockburn3nov03.story ] : "The gassing of the Kurds was greeted with barely more than a bleat of protest from Washington, as was his earlier use of chemical weapons in the war with Iran, but we were allies then. It took Hussein's apparent bid for control of the world oil market by invading Kuwait to turn him into "Hitler," capable, as was faithfully reported in the propaganda buildup to the last Gulf War, of tossing Kuwaiti babies out of hospital incubators. That myth, dreamed up by the PR firm Hill and Knowlton, was exposed soon after it had served its purpose. Others, such as the notion that Hussein is both ready and able to unleash some super-weapon on the United States, have proved more enduring. Now more than ever, myth looms larger than reality when it comes to Iraq, which may be why Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan has suggested that the dispute be settled in an OK Corral shootout between Bush and Hussein, flanked by their respective veeps and umpired by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan." Two of the books Cockburn reviews -- Con Coughlin's 'Saddam: King of Terror,' and Kenneth Pollack's 'The Threatening Storm,' lay out the case for war. The third, 'What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know,' by William Rivers Pitt and Scott Ritter, lays out the case against it. Cockburn neatly picks apart the arguments made by Coughlin and Pollack, and offers faint praise for Pitt and Ritter, who he notes "is now vilified, when he is not ignored, because of his assertions, backed up by detailed information from his days as a star weapon inspector, that the former U.N. inspection effort effectively destroyed all Hussein's weapons of mass destruction as well as his means for constructing them." In the end, however, Cockburn suggests that the books are less individually convincing than they are illustrative. "The very fact of Ritter's relative obscurity nowadays, compared to people with more palatable messages, such as (exiled Iraqi nuclear physicist, Khidhir Hamza), points to the lack of any real debate on the official justifications for the proposed invasion. But then, who needs justifications? In December 1989, the U.S. attacked Panama on the flimsiest of pretexts and overthrew its government, killing more than 300 Panamanians in the process. The invasion was officially code-named 'Operation Just Cause.' But, inside the Pentagon, cynics dubbed it 'Operation Just Because.' As a former defense official said to me recently, 'we invaded Panama just because it was there and we could.' Perhaps the same will be said of Iraq." A New Turkish Equation Turkey's voters have rejected the country's political establishment. The party long associated with the powerful military and its demands for a secular society has been shunted aside in favor of populist Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his once-Islamist Justice and Development Party. All of which might have Washington concerned. Turkey, the only Muslim nation in NATO, remains a vital ally for the US in the case of an attack against Iraq. Erdogan has said he strongly opposes such an attack -- although he has said Turkey would abide by any UN decision. Robert Fisk argues in The Independent that a US-led war against Baghdad could serve to widen the gap [http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=348902] between Istanbul and Washington. "Muslim Turkey will not tolerate the breakup of Iraq, and it will sympathise with the thousands of Iraqi Muslims likely to die in Washington's invasion. President-General Pervez Musharraf's participation in Mr Bush's 'war on terrorism' has already been hobbled by the Islamists' victory in Pakistan - in a poll originally billed by the White House as 'an important road map' on the return to Pakistani democracy. Now Turkey has produced another 'wrong' result as it practises the democracy so touted by the Americans. This adds another dangerous equation to President Bush's forthcoming adventure in Iraq - and yet another reason why the Americans, despite their public demand for democracy in the Middle East, will secretly hope that the contagion of democracy doesn't spread any further in the region." Of course, Erdogan's victory had little to do with the Bush administration's plans in particular. As The Christian Science Monitor's Ilene R. Prusher reports, the election result was driven by domestic concerns [http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1105/p01s04-wosc.html] . "Still, analysts say, there were 16 political parties to chose from in Turkey ... and yet voters chose the one that was known for its Islamic foundations. Perhaps most voters for [Erdogan's] Party were motivated by Turkey's internal economic issues. But some observers say that the war in Afghanistan and US plans for military intervention in Iraq, have had an impact on how many Muslims - Turks included - view their place in the world. 'Many people in Turkey and elsewhere in the Islamic world are watching Muslims suffering around the globe,' says Ozdem Sanberk, an analyst with the Turkish Economic and Social Foundation, a think-tank in Istanbul. 'The masses in the Islamic world don't have parties, don't have parliaments, and they feel besieged in their own countries. Many of them can't change their leaders - and yet they see that the US is supporting those regimes.'" California's Antiwar Candidate A recent poll of California voters found that a majority would rather not vote for either Democratic Gov. Gray Davis or Republican challenger Bill Simon. Duncan Campbell of the London Guardian suggest -- quite logically -- that the situation should "make the state a natural for a Green candidate [http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,825372,00.html] , particularly when there have been complaints that both the major parties are backing a war on Iraq." As Campbell notes, Peter Camejo, the Green Party candidate for governor in California, would seem to fit the bill: "He is regarded as a candidate with the sort of platform that should appeal to liberals disenchanted with the Democrats: opposition to a war in Iraq, support for a $10.50 minimum wage, decriminalisation of cannabis and an end to the 'three strikes' law." Still, despite the voter disenchantment, and despite the "disillusionment on the left and complaints that the Democrats have not challenged the Bush administration enough," Camejo is unlikely to even break out of the single digits in today's polling, Campbell writes. Spy Games When Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced the creation of a special Pentagon office to review intelligence on Iraq, several critics suggested the move was little more than a premeditated effort to concoct evidence supporting a US-led war. That criticism continues, highlighting a growing rift "between hard-liners long distrustful of the U.S. intelligence community and professional military and intelligence officers who fear the hawks are shaping intelligence analyses to support their case for invading Iraq," writes Leona C. Bull in the Journal of Aerospace and Defense Industry News. "A major source of contention is the Pentagon's heavy reliance on data supplied by the Iraqi National Congress. The INC, the largest group within the divided Iraqi opposition, has a mixed reputation in Washington and a stake in whether President Bush makes good on his threat to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by force. Its leader, Ahmed Chalabi, sees himself as a potential successor. Chalabi has strong backers among senior civilian officials in the Pentagon, and in Congress and the White House. But the group, and Chalabi in particular, are viewed with suspicion by many CIA and State Department officials." As Bull notes, the CIA has reason to be skeptical of Chalabi and the INC. After all, the agency severed its relationship with the Iraqi opposition group more than five years ago after the INC was unable to account for millions of dollars in covert aid. "'Our guys working this area for a living all believe Chalabi and all those guys in their Bond Street suits are charlatans. To take them for a source of anything except a fantasy trip would be a real stretch,' one official said." ***************************************************************** 26 U.S. suspects North Korea can develop several bombs within 1 to 2 years: GNP welcome to Korea Herald!!_National http://www.koreaherald.com The United States believes North Korea has the capacity to be equipped within one or two years with several nuclear bombs that are equivalent to what was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945, a group of South Korean lawmakers said yesterday. In a report on their visit to Washington last week, three members of the majority Grand National Party (GNP) said the U.S. government is preparing a set of counteractions to force Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear program. "According to circumstances, the U.S. shipments of heavy oil (to North Korea) could be suspended no later than January," the report said. Speculation is rampant that Washington will suspend the delivery of 500,000 tons of oil it provides to the North each year, as punishment for the communist country's recently disclosed nuclear weapons program. The GNP lawmakers said other U.S. countermeasures include efforts to rally international condemnation of the North's arms plan and prompt Western nations to sever relations with Pyongyang, as well as a U.N. Security Council resolution and economic sanctions. The report was compiled by Reps. Cho Woong-kyu, Park Jin and Yoon Yeo-joon of the GNP. The trio visited Washington Oct. 28-31 to hear U.S. officials and experts on issues surrounding the North's nuclear weapons program. They did not elaborate on who in the Bush administration spoke of the sanctions, although they met with such U.S. State Department officials as Undersecretary John Bolton and Assistant Secretary James Kelly. But, Rep. Cho said, "There were little differences within the U.S. government on such steps." Cho also quoted Washington officials as saying that they would oppose any inter-Korean rapprochement exchanges if the moves impeded U.S. efforts to end North Korean nuclear development. "In general, the Americans still complain that the South has provided such a huge amount of aid to the North, but have received nothing in return," he said. Rep. Park also said. "The U.S. government does not have a concrete road map yet. But we've got an impression that it is contemplating such steps." Since a senior North Korean diplomat admitted last month to having developed a uranium-enrichment program in violation of a 1994 arms control agreement, the United States has demanded the North scrap the project without any conditions. It insists that any negotiations between the two sides will take place only after the program is dismantled. North Korea has countered that both sides should first reopen dialogue to discuss the issue and that they conclude the terms of a non-aggression treaty. (jihoho@koreaherald.co.kr) By Kim Ji-ho Staff reporter 2002.11.05 (C) Copyright 2000 Digital Korea Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 27 NRC Oversight Panel to Hold Two Meetings on Davis-Besse Reactor Vessel Head Damage in Oak Harbor, OH NRC: News Release - Region III - 2002-60 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532 www.nrc.gov No. III-02-060 November 5, 2002 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] NRC OVERSIGHT PANEL TO HOLD TWO MEETINGS ON DAVIS-BESSE REACTOR VESSEL HEAD DAMAGE IN OAK HARBOR, OH The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will hold two meetings on Wednesday, November 13, to review the status and adequacy of recent activities at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station as a result of the corrosion damage to the reactor vessel head. The plant, which has been shut down since February 16, is operated by FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company. Both meetings will be at the Oak Harbor High School Auditorium, 11661 West State Route 163, in Oak Harbor. The first meeting will begin at 2 p.m. (EST), when the NRC oversight panel, set up to coordinate the agency's activities associated with the corrosion damage to the reactor vessel head, will meet with utility officials. The meeting will focus on the status of repairs at the plant, results of recent NRC inspections and upcoming activities. The public is invited to observe the business portion of the meeting and will have an opportunity to make comments and ask questions of the NRC staff before the meeting is adjourned. The second meeting will begin at 7 p.m. (EST) to update the public on NRC's activities related to the reactor vessel head degradation and will provide a summary of the earlier meeting. The public will be invited to ask questions and make comments. Transcripts of both meetings will be posted on the NRCs web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/vessel-head-degradation.ht ml. The NRC oversight panel, created on April 29, includes NRC management and staff from its Region III office in Lisle, Illinois; the NRC Headquarters office in Rockville, Maryland; and the NRC Resident Inspector Office at the Davis-Besse site. Documents on the Davis-Besse corrosion issue, including further details on NRC's oversight panel activities, are posted on the NRC's web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/vessel-head-degradation.ht ml. Tuesday, November 05, 2002 ***************************************************************** 28 Executive speaks on reactors Augusta Georgia: Metro: 11/05/02 By [eric.williamson@augustachronicle.com] South Carolina Bureau Corbin A. McNeill Jr., a retired nuclear power executive, laid out the future of reactor technology for a crowd of 650 nuclear industry professionals Monday night in Augusta. Nuclear power's immediate future as a commercial energy source in the United States is not promising, he said. "I don't think we'll see another large light water reactor," he predicted, referring to current technology. Dr. McNeill was the featured speaker at the annual Edward Teller Lecture at Radisson Riverfront Hotel Augusta. The lecture was sponsored by Aiken-based Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness, a group whose membership is composed largely of past and present Savannah River Site employees and contractors. Dr. McNeill said the current "overcapacity" of nuclear energy providers in the United States is mostly the result of the bottoming out of the 1990s technology boom. That extra capacity will last for four to eight years, he said, and he called the delay in new infrastructure "a curse and a blessing." The blessing will be in the form of research for the next generation of reactors, he said. Savannah River Site officials say they hope the site will be chosen as a location for one of those demonstration reactors. Fred Davison, the chairman of Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness, told Dr. McNeill he would like to help Dr. McNeill's colleagues make that a reality. Dr. McNeill's background is diverse, and among his claims to fame is serving as a "post-bankruptcy" Enron board member. He is the recently retired chairman and co-CEO of Exelon Corp., the nation's largest nuclear power operator. Reach Eric Williamson at (803) 279-6895 or [eric.williamson@augustachronicle.com] . --From the Tuesday, November 5, 2002 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle 1996 - 2002 The Augusta Chronicle. All rights reserved. Read our ***************************************************************** 29 NRC Staff to Hold Public Meeting to Discuss Inspection of Fort Calhoun Plant's License Renewal Programs NRC: News Release - Region IV - 2002-046 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region IV 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington TX 76011 www.nrc.gov No. IV-02-046 November 5, 2002 CONTACT: Breck Henderson Phone: 817-860-8128 Cellular: 817-917-1227 E-mail: opa4@nrc.gov [opa4@nrc.gov] Officials of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will meet with Omaha Public Power District management at 9:00 a.m. (CST) Friday, November 8, at the plants Training Auditorium, located on Highway 75 north of Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, to present the results of the NRCs first region-based inspection of the license renewal programs for the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant. The meeting is between the NRC and Omaha Public Power District but is open to observation by interested members of the public. NRC officials will also be available prior to its conclusion to answer any questions observers may have. Omaha Public Power District filed an application to renew the operating license of the Fort Calhoun plant in January 2002. If the NRC approves the plants application, it would renew the license for an additional 20 years, moving the license expiration date from 2013 to 2033. Tuesday, November 05, 2002 ***************************************************************** 30 UK lawyers to visit Nuclear test veterans 05.11.2002 Two British lawyers plan to visit New Zealand to interview veterans who witnessed nuclear testing in the Pacific nearly 50 years ago. Nuclear Test Veterans Association chairman Roy Sefton said the lawyers planned to visit between November 25 and December 1. But their trip depended on the British Legal Services Commission approving legal aid. "From what we understand it's pretty likely they'll come," Mr Sefton said. The commission met last Tuesday, and would give its legal aid decisions soon. About 551 New Zealand naval men witnessed nine nuclear detonations during Operation Grapple at Christmas Island and in the Malden Islands in Kiribati during 1957 and 1958. About 220 of the men, who served on the vessels HMNZS Pukaki and HMNZS Rotoiti, are still alive, now aged between 61 and 89. They and veterans from Britain and Fiji have taken a case of "negligence of service" against the British Government, Mr Sefton said. The two lawyers hoped to interview nuclear test veterans, their widows and their families, probably at meetings in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Palmerston North. Research into radiation-induced DNA damage among test veterans has started at Massey University's Institute of Molecular Sciences. Mr Sefton said the $163,000 research project would take about a year. - NZPA ©Copyright 2002, New Zealand Herald ***************************************************************** 31 NRC Proposes Alternative Fire Protection Rule NRC: News Release - 2002-129 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: [opa@nrc.gov] www.nrc.gov No. 02-129 November 5, 2002 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is proposing to amend its fire protection requirements for nuclear power plants to allow licensees to voluntarily adopt a new set of requirements that incorporate risk insights. The proposed rule would permit reactor licensees to use the fire protection requirements contained in the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Standard 805, Performance-Based Standard for Fire Protection for Light Water Reactor Electric Generating Plants, 2001 Edition (NFPA 805). Since 1979, the NRC has issued approximately 900 exemptions from its current fire protection requirements to licensees that submitted a technical evaluation demonstrating the adequacy of an alternative fire protection approach to satisfy NRC requirements. Under the proposed rule, a licensee may adopt NFPA 805 as its fire protection program by submitting a license amendment request to the NRC. After adopting NFPA 805 and completing the required analyses, a licensee may modify its fire protection program as permitted by NFPA 805. For alternative methods or analytical approaches not within NFPA 805, a licensee may submit a request for a license amendment. The proposed rule maintains safety, provides flexibility to existing fire protection requirements and reduces unnecessary burden. Under the proposed rule, specific hazards as provided in NFPA 805 can be analyzed by the licensee and changes made without prior NRC review and approval. The proposed rule is part of an effort by NRC to incorporate risk information into its regulations. Interested parties have until January 15, 2003 in which to comment. After that date, comments will be considered if practical to do so, but the Commission can only ensure consideration of comments received on or before this date. Additional details are available in a Federal Register notice published November 1. Comments may be mailed to the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001, Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff. They may be delivered to 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. on federal workdays. They can also be submitted via the NRC's rulemaking web site, at [http://ruleforum.llnl.gov] . Tuesday, November 05, 2002 ***************************************************************** 32 VA shifts on Gulf War illness al.com: News Birmingham News 11/01/02 DAVE PARKS News staff writer In a stunning about-face, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced Thursday a substantial research initiative based on evidence that many ailing veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War may be suffering from brain damage caused by toxic exposures. The announcement came after a British study discounted stress as a significant cause of mysterious health problems reported by Gulf War veterans and an advisory committee concluded that scientific evidence pointed to neurological damage. [http://ads1.advance.net/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/www.al.com/xml/story/Birmin gham/n/nstate/@StoryAd?x] The VA said it plans to make available up to $20 million during fiscal year 2004 for research into Gulf War illnesses. That's twice as much as the agency has spent during any previous year on the problem, the VA said. The VA cited studies that used brain-scanning technology to show a neurological basis for health problems reported by some ailing veterans. The initial studies in this area were conducted on a group of sick veterans who served in the Gulf War with a Seabee unit based in Alabama. In addition to increased funding for research, the VA said it will create a center dedicated to medical imaging technologies to better understand Gulf War illnesses as well as other conditions. "Science is finally beginning to unravel the mysteries of Gulf War illnesses," VA Deputy Secretary Dr. Leo S. Mackay Jr. said in a prepared statement. "And finally, there is reason for hope." Mackay announced the initiative at a meeting of the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans Illnesses. VA Secretary Anthony Principi appointed the committee in January. Its members include activists and scientists who have been critical for years of the government's efforts to discount Gulf War health problems as a reaction to stress. Dr. Robert Haley, a committee member and chief of epidemiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said Thursday's announcement shut the door on the stress theory. "It's dead as a doornail," he said. Haley said a study in the Sept. 14 issue of the British Medical Journal convinced VA officials. The study of 111 disabled Desert Storm veterans from Great Britain found that Gulf War illness was not a psychiatric disorder connected to stress. The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and was conclusive, he said. Meanwhile, the advisory committee filed an interim report in June indicating that between 25 percent and 30 percent of the 700,000 U.S. veterans who served in the Gulf War are now ill, with many suffering from a multitude of symptoms such as fatigue, aching joints and memory loss. "It is increasingly evident that at least one important category of illness in Gulf War veterans is neurological in character, according to recent scientific studies," the committee reported. "Magnetic resonance spectroscopy suggests a loss of neurons in selected brain areas in ill veterans, particularly in the basal ganglia and brainstem." Haley conducted the initial studies in that area on the Seabees from Alabama. The research was started with funding from Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot. Haley said the VA and other researchers have now confirmed that some veterans are suffering from neurological damage. "The evidence is strong," Haley said. Haley believes that some veterans were genetically susceptible to injury from toxins such as pesticides mixed with low levels of chemical warfare agents released during destruction of Iraqi munitions. Haley said the evidence has been growing for recognition of a distinct "Gulf War Syndrome," but he was still impressed with the VA's turnabout on the issue. ``This was an astounding event," he said. Haley credited the Bush administration for appointing strong leaders at the VA. Steve Robinson, a committee member and executive director of a leading veterans' advocacy group, the National Gulf War Resource Center, said the committee was amazed by the VA announcement. "It came as a shock to us," he said. "We were stunned." He said it's been a long wait for veterans. "Unfortunately, a lot of people have suffered, lost their homes and killed themselves in the waiting," Robinson said. Warfare changing: The government is slowly learning that the basic nature of warfare is changing and is beginning to recognize that soldiers can be wounded by methods other than bullets and conventional bombs, he said. "We need to change to the new paradigm and understand that chemical and biological weapons will be used," he said. The VA's research will benefit not only veterans but also the general public, given the threat of terrorism, Robinson said. "This event, unfortunately, may happen here in our hometown one day," he said. © 2002 al.com. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 33 Hiroshima survivor recalls cataclysm Portsmouth Herald Local News: Portsmouth, NH Tuesday, November 5, 2002 Portsmouth Herald By Darek Fanton dfanton@seacoastonline.com [dfanton@seacoastonline.com] DURHAM - About 50 students and faculty members gathered Friday in the Memorial Union Building’s Theater II, on the campus of the University of New Hampshire, to hear a presentation by a survivor of the 1945 atomic-bomb attacks on Japan. When Seiko Ikeda was 12 years old, she was working at a demolition site in Hiroshima when the first atomic bomb struck her city. Though injured and very badly burned, Ikeda managed to survive, and after years of surgeries and rehabilitation has returned to a relatively normal life. Today, now nearly 70, Ikeda is using her experience to encourage anyone who will listen to strive to find nonviolent means of solving global conflict. "I come to you with a message," she said through an interpreter. "We must abolish nuclear weapons from the earth; I know too well what war brings us." Though the attack was 57 years ago, Ikeda assured the audience that "the experience remains very vivid" to her; many in attendance wept as she recounted the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. According to Ikeda, at 7 a.m. that morning the "all clear" siren sounded and the workers at the demolition site began their day’s labor. At around 8:15 a.m., Ikeda remembered seeing an American plane fly overhead with a long tail of white trailing behind it. Ikeda said that those around her said it might be a reconnaissance mission. In the next instant there was a "tremendous flash and tremendous thump," Ikeda recalled. She was blown 15 to 20 meters (50 to 65 feet) from where she was standing and was knocked unconscious. When she awoke, Ikeda was surrounded by destruction. She was forced to crawl over rubble and bodies to an emergency hospital. Her father soon retrieved her, and she spent the next year recovering, lying in bed for more than three months before she could muster the strength to walk. Throughout her recovery, Ikeda suffered side effects from her exposure to the radiation released by the A-bomb, including nausea, high fever and vomiting. Also, her wounds were very slow to heal and became infected easily, causing massive scarring. "In a way I was lucky," she said. "I had to go home because my injuries were so bad; I didn’t stay in the center of the city very long." Those who did stay, Ikeda said - including one of her close friends, who remained at the hospital to help the wounded - became very ill and died at an alarming rate. Their cause of death was acute radiation illness, a result of their prolonged exposure to the A-bomb radiation. Between 130,000 and 150,000 people died instantly in the Hiroshima bombing; after five months the death toll had risen to 200,000, including those who died as a result of exposure to radiation. Ikeda said her experience has made her realize that war is never the answer and that if society is to survive, the leaders of the future must find a different way to settle disputes. Ikeda concluded by leaving the students with a message. "Nuclear weapons and humankind can never coexist," she said. "You young people are the ones who can change the world and make it safe in the 21st century. I’m relying on you." Copyright © 2002 Seacoast Online. All rights reserved. Please ***************************************************************** 34 Survivor recalls the horror of nuclear attack on Japan NewsAdvance.com - By Shannon Brennan / The News &Advance Nov 5, 2002 Setsuko Nakamura Thurlow was 13 when her city turned to ashes. Now 70, she has spent much of her adult life speaking out against nuclear weapons. "My city of Hiroshima was destroyed in a moment, blinded by a flash, flattened by the blast, burned by the scorching heat … and contaminated," she said. Nine years after the Aug. 6, 1945, bombing, Thurlow came to Lynchburg College on a full scholarship for 10 months. Monday, she returned to the campus to tell seniors and visitors about the horror of nuclear war as part of "Lessons from the Past: Images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." The program, co-sponsored by Randolph-Macon Woman's College, runs through Nov. 14. Thurlow described burned and blackened bodies, the faint cries of people asking for water as they lay dying with "liquefied eyes" and "strips of flesh hanging like ribbons from their bones." The bombing of Hiroshima, and three days later, Nagasaki, killed an estimated 270,000. Each time Thurlow tells her story, she is overwhelmed with memories. "It is exceedingly painful to do this," she said, but added she will continue to share the story of Hiroshima until her last breath. At the Peace Park in Hiroshima, she said, the prayer and vow of many survivors is clearly stated: "Rest in peace. The mistake will not be repeated." But dropping atomic bombs was only the first of the mistakes, she said. The U.S. military occupation of Japan after the war introduced democracy and reform, but it also brought censorship of anything critical of the U.S., including the bombing. Diaries, poems, photos and medical records were confiscated, she said. The survivors were deprived of a healthy grieving process. It was U.S. policy to study the long-term effects of radiation, she said, but not to relieve the suffering with medical care. "You can imagine the survivors' sense of outrage of twice being treated as guinea pigs," Thurlow said. It wasn't until 1952 that the U.S. returned full sovereignty to Japan. At the point, she said, the Japanese began to understand the atomic bombs had been dropped for political reasons - to deter the U.S.S.R. from entering the war. The American claim that a half million to several million American lives were saved by using the bomb was not true, Thurlow said. The U.S. Army estimated that 20,000 to 26,000 lives might have been saved, she said. The truth was, Japan - also guilty of war atrocities - was already defeated and close to surrender, she said. After coming to study in the United States, Thurlow said she was disturbed that Americans unconditionally and blindly followed the government line on the bombings. But it made her more determined to spread her message of peace. The United States continues to violate the spirit of the 1968 nuclear non-proliferation treaty, she said, by doing "subcritical testing," in which nuclear weapons are tested to the point of detonation. The United States has conducted 18 tests so far, she said, but the press rarely covers the tests and most Americans know nothing about them. Every time there is a test, many Japanese send letters of protest to the United States and stage sit-ins at the Peace Park. "President Bush talks as if he just discovered weapons of mass destruction," Thurlow said. "… Perhaps he should look into his own back yard." Bush applies different standards of judgment to Iraq, which is not known to have any nuclear weapons, and Israel, which is believed to have 200, she said. President Clinton signed Article 6 of the treaty, she said, which calls for a good faith effort to abolish nuclear weapons. But President Bush has declared that nuclear weapons will be the cornerstone of U.S. policy for the next 50 years. "What a contradiction," she said. Even the preparation for war kills millions of people, she said, by diverting resources from the hungry, the sick and the homeless. "Peace is the process of achieving justice for all," she said. Twenty percent of the world's population consumes 80 percent of its resources, she said. "Unless we in the West genuinely commit ourselves to sharing and righting the inequities of the world, we are not really working for peace," she said. Thurlow said all great social movements, whether to abolish slavery or establish civil rights, are met with scorn initially. But the movement to abolish nuclear weapons can succeed, she said. God's love extends to all, she said, "whether we live in Lynchburg or in Baghdad." When asked how she was able to come to the United States just nine years after her country was bombed, Thurlow said she was not bitter or angry. A group of Quakers had come to Japan to let her people know that the average American had nothing to do with the decision to drop the bomb, only its leaders. She is still angry at the worlds' leaders, she said, especially in Washington. "American citizens have greater responsibility," she said. "You have the power. You can vote." After her talk, Thurlow was given Lynchburg College's Distinguished Alumni Award. Joy Flowers, one of her former classmates, said she admires Thurlow for her stand. "It was such a powerful message," she said. "She has taught us so much." Contact Shannon Brennan at sbrennan@newsadvance.com or (434) 385-5561. © 2002 Media General [http://www.mediageneral.com] ***************************************************************** 35 Radium fix will cost city $20 million - 2002-11-04 - The Denver Business Journal From the November 1, 2002 print edition Paula Moore Denver Business Journal A $20 million, nine-year project to remove radium-contaminated asphalt along nine central Denver neighborhood streets is set to begin next summer. Denver issued requests for proposals from construction contractors for the first phase of the project earlier this month. Proposals are due Nov. 7. All the funding will come from the city. The project, which involves saw-cutting huge chunks of the asphalt, poses little health risk to area residents, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The city tested the process in the summer by cutting blocks of asphalt and removing them in the two-block area of 11th Avenue between Vine and Race streets. Normally, city workers grind up old asphalt, which creates dust. In the case of the radium-contaminated asphalt, such dust could be contaminated, too. But during testing, city workers were able to control dust created by cutting the asphalt and loading the asphalt blocks into containers without problems. "We used a lot of monitoring equipment to make sure nothing got in the air," said Dennis Bollmann, environmental scientist supervisor at the Denver Department of Environmental Health. Asphalt containing radium is being removed now because the streets are in poor condition and need to be repaved, rather than just patched, according to the Environmental Health department. But the city can't add another layer of asphalt because the streets have been repaved so many times over the years they can't take more asphalt. Streets with too much built-up asphalt don't drain properly. "We can't add another layer of asphalt, so we have to take some off," said Bollmann. "Therefore, we have to remediate the contaminated asphalt." The 4.5 miles of street involved are part of the Denver Radium Site, which became a Superfund site in the mid-1980s. The streets became contaminated about 100 years ago from asphalt tainted with radioactive mill tailings. Technically called Operable Unit 7, the area largely includes parts of the old, wealthy Cheesman Park, Capitol Hill and Country Club neighborhoods. It also extends to an area northeast of downtown Denver. The EPA reserves the Superfund designation for seriously contaminated areas, with current or future risks to human health. In the first phase of the project, the city's Environmental Health and Public Works departments expect to start demolishing and rebuilding 11th Avenue, from Race to Josephine streets, and Marion Street, from Sixth to 10th avenues, next summer. That's a $2.7 million job alone. In subsequent years, the following areas will be redone, at a rate of about one area per year: + Humboldt Street, between Seventh and Ninth avenues; + Lafayette Street, between First and 10th avenues; + Ninth Avenue, between Ogden and Humboldt streets; + Park Avenue, between Arapahoe and Welton streets, + York Street, between Sixth and 13th avenues, + Corona Street, between Seventh and 10th avenues, and + Downing Street, between Seventh and 10th avenues. Redoing all nine streets will take until 2010, according to Bollmann. The contaminated asphalt will be sent to a waste facility in Idaho. After the city removes the contaminated asphalt, the EPA will check the remediation to make sure it was done according to agency standards. Once the EPA signs off on the work, the city can put down new paving. The EPA also expects to help the city get a relatively low rate for disposing of the contaminated asphalt in Idaho. The Idaho facility is included in a national contract that gives low rates to federal agencies with high volumes of radioactive materials for disposal. The streets became contaminated because the asphalt used to build them in the early 1900s contained radioactive mill tailings from local radium-ore processing plants. The problem was discovered in the late 1970s, but was left alone because the contamination was contained and not considered harmful. "A risk assessment determined that as long as the asphalt was left in place and not cracked, torn or Rotomilled, the clean layers of asphalt laid on top would provide shielding from exposure to the asphalt beneath," said Jim Hanley, EPA project manager for the Denver Radium Site. Rotomilling involves grinding up old pavement and recycling it as aggregate for new paving. Radium, which has been proven to cause cancer, historically was in high demand as a "wonder drug" for treating cancer. Radium, vanadium and uranium mining thrived in the Denver area until the early 1920s, when richer deposits of the ores were found in Africa. © 2002 American City Business Journals Inc. ***************************************************************** 36 Uranium-processing company raises concerns about proposed plant MyInKy November 4, 2002 WASHINGTON- The only company in the country that enriches uranium for nuclear power plants said Monday that an enrichment plant proposed by a consortium of companies could create a glut in the U.S. uranium supply. USEC Inc. said in a letter to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it should consider national security concerns before licensing the plant. USEC plans to build its own second enrichment plant using new uranium conversion technology in either Kentucky or Ohio. A consortium of U.S. and European companies, called Louisiana Energy Services, is seeking permission from the NRC to build an enrichment plant at either the former Tennessee Valley Authority property in Hartsville, Tenn., and a site near Hollywood, Ala. It hopes to secure a NRC license by 2004 and have the plant operating by 2007. USEC argued that the consortium would likely be owned predominantly by foreign entities, and the United States should not be dependent on foreign energy sources. The consortium's plant could cause an oversupply of uranium in the domestic market because the United States already has agreed to continue buying uranium fuel from Russia that is recycled from old bombs, USEC said. Under the program, USEC buys the fuel and sells it to U.S. utilities. USEC, based in Bethesda, Md., operates one uranium enrichment plant in Paducah, Ky., after shutting down its sister plant last year in Piketon, Ohio. Britain-based Urenco is in the consortium, as are U.S. utilities Duke Power and Exelon. A spokesman from Urenco could not be reached for comment Monday evening. Nuclear power supplies about 20 percent of the nation's electricity. [http://www.scripps.com] © 2001 The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 37 Transuranic waste shipments on hold This story was published Sat, Nov 2, 2002 By John Stang Herald staff writer The state forced a face-off with the Department of Energy over shipping radioactive transuranic wastes to Hanford. DOE was poised to ship transuranic wastes to Hanford next week from a Battelle site in Columbus, Ohio. But Gov. Gary Locke and state Attorney General Christine Gregoire threatened to file a lawsuit against DOE if the shipment took place before they thought Hanford was ready. On Wednesday, DOE temporarily delayed the shipment. Now the state and the Department of Energy plan a teleconference Tuesday to discuss how and when Hanford should temporarily accept transuranic wastes from other DOE sites. The transuranic wastes -- often called "TRU wastes" -- are to eventually go to a permanent underground storage site in New Mexico. The wastes are essentially junk in barrels that has been contaminated by transuranic substances such as plutonium or neptunium. The wastes are highly radioactive and have decay rates that stretch across tens of thousands of years or longer. DOE's nationwide cleanup plan calls for small DOE sites such as Battelle's Columbus location to ship their transuranic wastes to places like Hanford for temporary storage. Hanford already has thousands of barrels of transuranic wastes. It also has a facility that can inspect barrels to see if they and their contents meet the New Mexico site's strict acceptance standards. If necessary, the Hanford facility can remove banned materials from the barrels and repack them for eventual shipment to New Mexico. Most DOE sites don't have that capability. DOE was ready to ship 150 barrels of transuranic wastes from Columbus plus another 50 barrels from a small lab near San Francisco until the state objected. Locke and Gregoire wrote to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham that the state would file a lawsuit against DOE if it shipped the wastes to Hanford before the state was assured the site was ready. The letter says the state had requested DOE to provide information on how much transuranic wastes exist at other DOE sites, how much DOE plans to ship to Hanford for temporary storage, how it will be stored and processed at Hanford and the schedule for moving those wastes to New Mexico. "DOE has not satisfactorily answered those questions," Locke and Gregoire wrote. "In addition, these shipments are proposed to take place at a time that DOE has not made adequate progress in addressing the TRU waste already stored at Hanford." The letter also requested discussions with DOE and other states on the issue. "We need time to address legitimate public concerns, but this cannot occur with the specter of TRU waste trucks heading toward Hanford within weeks," the letter says. Sheryl Hutchison, state Ecology Department spokeswoman, said the state's hard stance "is a camel's nose in the tent kind of thing." The state is concerned that accepting transuranic waste now without its concerns addressed would make it easier for DOE to ship more wastes to Hanford in the future over state objections, she said. DOE declined Friday to comment on Tuesday's upcoming talks, but provided the agency's written response to the state. On Wednesday, DOE Hanford Manager Keith Klein wrote that DOE won't ship the Columbus wastes to Hanford next week. Klein added: "I also want to assure you (that DOE) would conduct all activities concerning transportation, storage and any treatment of these offsite wastes at Hanford in full compliance with applicable statutes and regulations." On Thursday, the state wrote to DOE that it will back off from its lawsuit threat pending the upcoming talks. Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This material may not be ***************************************************************** 38 Goshute Gamble The Salt Lake Tribune -- Tuesday, November 5, 2002 After listening to and reading the debates on whether the Goshute Tribe should be allowed to contract with Private Fuel Storage (PFS) to store nuclear waste, I wanted to offer a solution that would benefit all concerned. First, the Skull Valley Reservation is a sovereign nation. Second, the reservation is located on land that was considered worthless; that is why the Goshutes were given it. Now the tribe is seeking a way to support its members, and we say no. We gave you this worthless land, but we don't want you to use it to store waste. I don't particularly want Utah to be the nation's waste dump, either. However, I do respect the fact that the Goshutes are sovereign and we have disallowed the only other way they could use their land -- for a casino. So what are we saying? We all know that we are going across the Nevada and Idaho borders in droves to gamble. Can't we face reality? I offer a statewide proposal to the Native American tribes of Utah. We will vote on an initiative to legalize gambling on sovereign tribal reservations and the tribal members will postpone nuclear waste storage plans until the votes are tallied. At that time, they can decide the best options for creating jobs for their tribal members. If the Goshutes want my help to get this plan moving, please contact me. I'm tired of seeing Utah Indians trying to help themselves while the rest of us keep them from benefiting from gaming income that we hypocritically spend in other states. ROBERT VOSE Salt Lake City © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 39 Fate of radioactive waste tax initiative in voters' hands* HarkTheHerald.com DONALD W. MEYERS The Daily Herald on Monday, November 04 Utahns will have a chance to raise taxes on low-level radioactive waste to help the homeless and education, ban higher levels of radioactive waste that already are accepted in the state and impose ethics regulations on industry regulators. Proponents say Initiative 1, the Radioactive Waste Restriction Act, will allow Utah to be adequately compensated for accepting low-level radioactive waste at Envirocare's dump in Clovis. Doug Foxley, a lobbyist with Utahns for Radioactive Waste Control, said Utah's existing tax structure makes it the cheapest place in the nation for disposing of nuclear waste. "Utah charges 10 cents a cubic foot, and only on new contracts," Foxley said. "And Utah took in 14.4 million cubic feet of radioactive waste." By contrast, the other two states that take radioactive waste, South Carolina and Washington, took in 120,000 and 58,000 cubic feet respectively while charging $235 and $20 a cubic foot respectively. But opponents, led by Envirocare, say the initiative is an attempt to put the company out of business. They also argue that the initiative violates the U.S. and state constitutions. "You could pick an industry, tax it and put it out of business," said Senate Minority Leader Mike Dmitrich, D-Price. The initiative would raise Utah's tax on Class A radioactive waste -- uranium mill tailings, used smoke detectors and some hospital waste -- from 10 cents per cubic foot to between $4 and $150 per cubic foot. Legislative fiscal analysts estimate it will raise $200 million a year in taxes, the proceeds of which proponents would use for public education, an endowment fund to help the homeless as well as pay for Envirocare's eventual closing and maintenance. The education and homeless funds would be supervised by two appointed boards. The initiative also would ban Envirocare from accepting B and C classes of nuclear waste, which have higher levels of radioactivity. The state only allows those classes of nuclear waste with approval from the Legislature and the governor. It would also bar employees from the Department of Environmental Quality from having any business dealings with the radioactive waste industry and require DEQ employees to wait three years before going to work for companies like Envirocare. Proponents say the changes are necessary to ensure that Utah gets its fair share of taxes and that there is adequate funds to cover the cost of cleaning up Envirocare, should the company go out of business. Foxley said the group chose to use the initiative process because Envirocare's lobbyists have too much sway with lawmakers. He said the Legislature watered down the tax it imposed on Envirocare after industry lobbyists applied pressure to lawmakers. But Bette Arial, Envirocare's spokeswoman, and Ken Alkema, Envirocare's senior vice president for licensing and compliance, said the initiative would literally tax the company out of business. They said the company only made an average of $120 million in annual revenue from 1998 to 2000, while the tax would take $200 million a year from the company. Arial said Envirocare already has a projected $16 million annual tax bill, and contributes an estimated $8.8 million to Utah's economy. It employs 400 people. But Jason Groenwald, head of Healthy Alliance Utah, said Envirocare tried to make the tax burden argument before when the Legislature considered taxing the company in 2000. And then, fiscal analysts said there was no danger of the company going out of business because of taxes. Initiative proponents said they do not know what Envirocare's true level of revenue is since the company will not open its books to public inspection. Alkema and Arial said the company is covering the cost of cleanup, through a $400,000 annual payment and a $35.4 million secured letter of credit issued by Wells Fargo Bank. But initiative proponents pointed out that the letter of credit is only good for one year and would be unacceptable in other states that accept radioactive waste. Arial said while Utah accepts more cubic feet of radioactive waste, it accepts less radiation than South Carolina and Washington, which accept B and C classes of waste as well. Jan Graham, a former attorney general retained by the anti-initiative Utahns Against Unfair Taxes, said the initiative violates provisions of the U.S. and Utah constitutions. She said the initiative illegally regulates nuclear waste more strictly than the federal government and interferes with interstate commerce. Graham also pointed out that it violates the state's rule that legislation can only cover one topic. She said Initiative 1 covers several areas -- tax code, environmental regulations and government conduct. Frank Pignanelli, campaign director for Utahns for Radioactive Waste Control, said the lieutenant governor's office and the attorney general both reviewed the initiative and did not cite those legal problems. The Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel, the Legislature's legal staff, did point out possible free speech restrictions by restricting state employees from working in the waste disposal industry within 3 years of leaving the state's employ and creating nonlegislative bodies to administer the tax. Pignanelli said the appointed boards would be similar to the board overseeing the Utah Transit Authority. This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A3. # News by DONALD W. MEYERS The Daily Herald ***************************************************************** 40 Low-Level Radioactive Waste Dumped In Local Landfills TheSanDiegoChannel.com - State Claims Radioactive Material Is Safe Posted: 2:11 p.m. PST November 4, 2002 SAN DIEGO -- Low-level radioactive material is being dumped in San Diego landfills, and some of it may be in your home, 10News has reported. Most Californians believe that any radioactivity is dangerous, but the state of California apparently has other ideas. Officials say low-level waste is so safe that it doesn't need to be stored in an expensive licensed facility, and it can be dumped into landfills or, if it's metal, recycled into your home. X-ray technician Bria Russman uses lead shields to prevent radioactive exposure. "It can cause cancers ... and genetic mutations in children," Russman said of radiation. A recent federal government report said that the amount of radiation in just 2.5 chest X-rays per year is enough to give one person in 1,000 a fatal case of cancer, 10News reported. But the California Health Services Department [http://www.dhs.cahwnet.gov/] said recently that such a small amount of radiation is safe. Safe enough, in fact, to allow low-level radioactive waste into landfills and metal recyclers and school yards, 10News reported. [Dan Hersch] Dan Hersch (pictured, right), a lobbyist for the Committee To Bridge The Gap, an anti nuclear organization, rails against the state health services department, and the industry that's creating the waste. "That staggers me. How can someone sleep at night saying it's acceptable in order to save money? That one in a 1,000 innocent people should die?" Hersch said. "I just think people would be outraged if they learned the department of health services says, 'It's OK for your kids to be exposed to low-level radiation,'" he added. Hersch told 10News, however, that low-level waste in schools has already happened. In 1994, the San Onofre nuclear power plant took 10 cubic meters of dirt contaminated with radioactive cobalt 60 and cesium 134, and sent it to be buried in the San Marcos Landfill. In another case, a scrap metal recycling plant in San Pedro got tons of radioactive waste from a site in Ventura County that was involved in building nuclear weapons, 10News reported. The sign on the recycling plant's gate shows that radioactive waste is prohibited, but a Los Angeles Times investigation found that radioactive waste could be taken to the plant and the operators would never know. Shortly after the Times' December 2001 report, Sen. Barbara Boxer [http://www.senate.gov/~boxer/] , D-Calif., wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy [http://www.energy.gov/] , calling it a scandal. And Los Angeles' state senator authored a bill to stop it. But six weeks ago, Gov. Gray Davis [http://www.governor.ca.gov/state/govsite/gov_homepage.jsp] vetoed the bill, issuing instead a temporary stop on low-level waste in public landfills. And he put the regional water quality control boards [http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/index.html] in charge of enforcement, 10News reported. [John Robertus] But San Diego's water quality control board [http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb9/] Executive Director John Robertus (pictured, left) told 10News that it's up to industry to regulate itself. And he said one of his own board members is working for the "other side." "I don't have the capability to regulate radioactive discharges," he said. He went on to explain that board member Terry Ghio is a lobbyist for the industry her board has been charged with stopping. Recently, 10News caught up with Ghio as she lobbied against the bill that would have prevented the dumping. Time and again, she told lawmakers the ban on radioactive waste is a bad law. [Terry Ghio] Ghio (pictured, right) refused to speak with 10News on camera. But Robertus said that if the issue comes to a vote, he'll be talking with Ghio about possible conflicts of interest. Meanwhile, concern over low-level waste generates high-level anxiety. In City Heights, strontium 90 was found in an abandoned dump last year. Since then, resident Patrick Lillo said three of his neighbors have moved out. He said he doesn't want any extra radiation, even if the state says it's safe. He said he doesn't trust that he won't be that one in 1,000. "I'd rather be safe than sorry," Lillo said. 10News has asked the state for a list of companies generating low-level waste, but the department of health services refused, citing concerns about terrorism. When 10News asked where the low-level stuff was being sent, officials claimed that it was so safe that they didn't keep track. Copyright 2002 by TheSanDiegoChannel.com [webstaff@thesandiegochannel.com] . Entire Site © 2002, Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. ***************************************************************** 41 Chief U.N. arms inspector could get one tough assignment By LISA HOFFMAN November 4, 2002 Hans Blix, newly retired from a distinguished career as a Swedish diplomat, was just a short hop from Antarctica when he got the call from the top man at the United Nations. It was 2000, and Blix and his wife, a Swedish foreign ministry expert on the Arctic and its polar opposite, were in Patagonia, preparing to embark on a long-awaited trek in Antarctica when U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan tracked them down. Annan was in a bind. His chosen candidate to head the U.N. weapons-inspection team - Swedish diplomat Rolf Ekeus - had been roundly rejected by countries on the U.N. Security Council. More than a dozen other substitute candidates also had been nixed. Only Blix, now 74, was satisfactory to all. Spurred by his sense of public service, Blix agreed to forego a leisurely life of writing and hiking the hills of northern Sweden to take the job as executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, U.N. spokesman Ewen Buchanan said. Now, if the Security Council finally votes to resume inspections for banned chemical and biological weapons in Iraq, Blix's position would become one of the hottest seats on Earth, from which he may effectively determine whether America goes to war again with Iraq. The Bush administration is insisting that if inspectors return to Iraq for the first time since they left in frustration in 1998, an attempt by Iraq to obstruct, delay or otherwise fail to cooperate fully will be justification for military action. As head of the inspectors, Blix would be the one to judge whether any intransigence is of sufficient malign intent to report to the Security Council and thus, perhaps, trigger war. Blix's supporters say the unflappable, low-profile expert on disarmament is well-suited for the job. But some critics question whether he is tough enough to stand up to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. "He is considered to be a very fair and dedicated man who has tried to be balanced," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. "If he is faulted for anything, it is by those who would want him to be more aggressive and confrontational." An international law expert born in Uppsala, Sweden, Blix studied at Columbia University in New York and Cambridge University in England, then taught law at Stockholm University. After a stint as Sweden's foreign affairs minister and member of his country's U.N. delegation, Blix served for 16 years as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a body concerned with curbing the global proliferation of nuclear weapons. Married for 40 years, the Blixes have two adult sons. Blix possesses a warm sense of humor, which he says he has found useful in diplomatic dustups. U.N. spokesman Buchanan says Blix jokes that he "lives like a monk," because he spends virtually all his time on UNMOVIC duties, and because his wife lives back in Sweden while he resides in New York City. It was as director of the atomic energy agency that Blix first intersected with Iraq. During the late 1980s, his inspectors found no sign of a nuclear weapons program. But more aggressive inspection after the Persian Gulf War turned up clear evidence that Saddam indeed was well on his way to developing nuclear arms. Blix now concedes his inspectors were bamboozled by Iraq, and vows not to let that happen again. "It's correct to say that the IAEA was fooled by the Iraqis," Blix told the Guardian newspaper in September. "But the lesson was learned. ... Not seeing an indication of something does not lead automatically to the conclusion there is nothing." (Reach Lisa Hoffman at hoffmanl(at)shns.com) The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 42 Iraq may accept new resolution * Dubai:Tuesday, November 05, 2002* Baghdad/United Nations |Reuters | 05-11-2002 * Saddam Hussain yesterday said Iraq would consider cooperating with a new UN resolution on arms inspections as long as it was not merely a pretext for the United States to attack it. "If a resolution is issued which respects the UN charter, international law and Iraq's sovereignty, security and independence, and does not provide a cover for America's ill intentions, we will view it in a way that makes us deal with it," official Iraqi television quoted the Iraqi president as telling visiting far-right Austrian politician Joerg Haider. The comment appeared to mark a shift in Baghdad's stance. Its officials have repeatedly insisted in recent weeks there is no need for a new resolution governing inspections of its alleged programmes to develop nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. The U.S. and Britain say they will make several changes this week to a revised, tougher resolution intended to give unfettered access to sites in Iraq to the inspectors, who left Iraq in 1998 complaining Iraqi authorities had consistently obstructed their work. At issue is suspicion by France, Russia and China of "hidden triggers" in the wording of the new resolution that would allow Washington to launch a military strike, overthrow Saddam and argue afterwards it had UN authorisation. Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, the most steadfast of Washington's military allies, said the five permanent members were converging on agreement. "We are reaching the point of closure, I think," Blair told a news conference. "I don't want to prejudge the negotiations but they are proceeding satisfactorily. "The absolutely critical issue for us is that we get an inspection regime in there that doesn't have the problems the last one had," he said. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other officials were to meet in Washington yesterday to go over the draft and decide which modifications were acceptable, diplomats said. Meanwhile, Kuwait said its military bases would be used in the threatened conflict but not its own troops. "If a (UN Security Council) resolution is issued, the bases will be used (by Western forces), but not the Kuwaiti military," Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah said. And Blair denied that a decision had been taken to mobilise forces for possible war on Iraq, after a newspaper reported that thousands of reservists were about to be called up. London has been reluctant to openly signal war plans as long as diplomatic wrangling continues. But it faces a deadline to begin calling up reservists if it wants to be ready to fight early in the new year, when the weather is best for combat. The Daily Telegraph newspaper said Defence Minister Geoff Hoon might announce the call-up of about 10,000 reserves, but Blair said no decision had been taken. "There are no proposals as yet to call up reservists. If there are any we will announce them in the proper way," Blair said in response to a question at a news conference. The Telegraph said the heads of military units involved in the call-up had been summoned to a meeting yesterday at the Ministry of Defence, but a ministry spokeswoman said she knew of no such meeting. ***************************************************************** 43 Gulf News says: America's hiatus Gulf News Online Edition <#> * Dubai:Tuesday, November 05, 2002* | | /05-11-2002/ With America practising bombing runs across the "no-fly" zones of Iraq and debate in Britain about calling up 10,000 reserve troops, it would seem Bush and Blair have already made up their minds. Namely, that there will be an invasion of Iraq, regardless of the outcome of the UN resolution, which has still to be voted upon in the Security Council. Apparently, although the five permanent members of the council are nearer at achieving unanimity, there is still some way to go before its outcome is a foregone conclusion. And until then, it is not likely that the resolution will be submitted to the full council for discussion and vote. Much negotiation has taken place between Britain and America, on the one side, and France and Russia on the other, with little being disclosed from either side on how the discussions have been proceeding. However, it would seem, merely from inference because of the admitted extended timetable, that America has conceded some points. Originally they were wanting an "action this day" resolution, passed immediately - as delay could not be conceded - whereby any default by Iraq would automatically result in military action by allied powers, if possible, America alone if necessary. But this sense of urgency on the part of America soon evaporated in the light of reality: that France was not on board with the concept, and Russia was leery of the necessity of need for a new resolution. So compromise had to be found, which meant delaying the public debate and vote for a couple of weeks. In conceding to the delay, Americans have been able to concentrate on matters closer to home: the U.S. mid-term elections which take place today. When the domestic infighting is over and voting is counted, Bush will be able to turn his attention again to Iraq. And that is when the rhetoric will increase once more. ***************************************************************** 44 Judge: Navy free to put nukes at Bangor The SunLink.com ENVIRONMENTAL LAWSUIT Sun Staff A federal judge, acting on a lawsuit brought by environmental and peace groups, ruled that the Navy needn't prepare an environmental impact study before deploying the Trident II nuclear missile at the Naval Submarine Base Bangor. By [cbarron@thesunlink.com] The groups were trying to force the Navy to produce a study showing the potential impact of a Trident II missile explosion during handling at Bangor. U.S. District Court Judge Franklin D. Burgess said the plaintiffs "failed to demonstrate any unlawfulness in the Navy's refusal to produce" an environmental impact study. He also said the possibility of an accident was too remote. The ruling was made late last week. "We're pleased with the judge's ruling," said Lt. Barbara Mertz, spokeswoman for Submarine Group 9 at Bangor. "The Navy was fully compliant with all the applicable environment regulations and laws." However, Dave Mann, a Seattle attorney representing the plaintiffs, said the groups might appeal the decision. "I'm obviously disappointed," he said. "I think the court recognized that there were significant environmental questions at stake, including impacts to salmon, but obviously I think there was far too much deference given to the Navy argument that it was too low of a risk for an accident over there." The Bangor submarine base has been handling Trident I nuclear missiles since the early 1980s. It recently began handling bigger, more powerful Trident II missiles, also known as the D-5, as part of an upgrade to the Trident fleet. The base stores, services and maintains the missiles and also loads and unloads them from Trident submarines. For the past month, the newly converted submarine USS Alaska and newly homeported USS Pennsylvania have been based at Bangor with Trident II missiles aboard. The lawsuit only addressed the explosive impacts of the solid rocket fuel held by one Trident II ballistic missile. Earlier this year, Burgess disallowed any discussion of the potential impact of nuclear warheads. The Navy neither confirms nor denies the presence of nuclear warheads at Bangor. Mann represents the Poulsbo-based disarmament group Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, as well as the Washington Environment Council, Waste Action Project, Cascadia Wildlands Project, Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility and Peace Action of Washington. Mann said he will review the decision with those groups before deciding whether to appeal the decision to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "The primary issue to appeal is whether or not the Navy can avoid discussing the risk of an explosion," he said. Published in The Sun: 11/05/2002 © 2002 The SUN Newspaper, Bremerton, Washington. ***************************************************************** 45 US Undersecretary to Discuss NK Nuclear Issue Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea Updated Nov.5,2002 19:09 KST by Kwon Kyung-bok (kkb@chosun.com) Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith will pay a two-day visit to Seoul, from Wednesday, to discuss current issues on the peninsula, including North Korea's nuclear weapons program in separate meetings with Ministers Choi Seong-Hong and Lee Joon of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and National Defense. A government official said Feith will be coming here to confirm the agenda of US-Korea Security Counter Measure (SCM) talks to be held in Washington next month, but the major concern will be the North's nuclear weapons program. Measures for the North to stop the nuclear program, with various views, will be discussed, he added. Feith will also visit Japan on Thursday to discuss the nuclear issue with his Japanese counterpart Shigeru Ishiba. ***************************************************************** 46 PYONGYANG WATCH Guns or butter? Asia Times By Aidan Foster-Carter North Korea has always proudly proclaimed its yuilsasang, or monolithic ideology. The entire nation is single-mindedly united behind the Leader, whose 100-percent-correct thoughts guide and solve all problems. Sure - and I'm Kylie Minogue. This of course is a sham, and it surprises me how some people take it at face value. They see North Korea as a single entity, cunning and confident. Any apparent missteps or contradictions get explained as the slitherings of a devious serpent: yet another bid to hoodwink us. I don't buy that. Not that I trust the leaders of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) an inch. Of course they try to fool us; why, with the nuclear issue they've just in effect admitted as much. My point, rather, concerns politics and the policy process in Pyongyang. Granted, they keep both of these well hidden behind the mask of unity. What passes for public politics in North Korea is essentially theater: mass displays of unity and loyalty, ad nauseam. But that's show business. I'm not saying that behind the safety curtain - a bit threadbare, these days - the North Korean masses are seething in revolt: just waiting in the wings to march on stage, hang the self-appointed stars from the scenery ropes, and write their own script instead of dutifully acting out their roles as extras. That'll be the day. Mind you, it might be unwise to think it could never happen. For now, though, our concern is the elite. No country can avoid politics or policy. Every day, someone has to answer Lenin's (actually Chernyshevsky's) question: What is to be done? Even if that someone is Kim Jong-il - and the North Korean system is indeed highly top-down - the Dear Leader, despite the official hagiography, is not omniscient. At a minimum, somebody has to write briefing papers for him. Not even the most peerless leaders decide alone. So where does Kim Jong-il thrash out his ideas? Not in parliament, of course; that only meets one day a year. Kim seems a Party pooper too. Since he took over after Daddy's death in 1994, neither the Politburo nor the Central Committee of the (nominally) ruling Korean Workers' Party (KWP) has been reported as meeting. Instead, he relies on a kitchen cabinet of trusted cronies: above all his brother-in-law, KWP CC first vice director Jang Song-taek. Who, by the way, was part of a top-level Northern team that spent last week getting a peek at major firms and factories in South Korea (see A curious tour of South Korea, November 2). Hey, what's a nuke or two between blood brothers anyway? If the Dear Leader is not omniscient, neither is he omnipotent. On the output side, there is execution - I mean of orders, not (necessarily) people. And at the input stage? I reckon the top brass of the Korean People's Army (KPA) have a policy veto. North Korean diplomats, and even Kim himself, have cited the KPA as an obstacle to this or that opening, eg across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Of course this could just be a "good cop, bad cop" ruse. Yet it might equally be true. It stands to reason that sensible technocrats in Pyongyang see the need for outreach and reform, whereas KPA hawks - with much to lose from any outbreak of real peace on the peninsula - are dead against, and have held the line so far. Such arguments must go on all the time. Occasionally a trace appears in public. In July the Seoul daily JoongAng Ilbo quoted criticism in a North Korean economic journal of those whose "placing too much emphasis on 'planning' and not enough on practical sense has caused much misunderstanding". As no one in Pyongyang can openly argue for capitalism, reformers stress common sense or creativity: in this case, to defend why it's okay for state firms to do business with each other on their own initiative. Economics is one thing, but the fundamental army-first policy of the regime is off limits. Or is it? The latest nuclear furor puts North Korea under unprecedented pressure - making the Pyongyang policy debate all the more heated, and even causing it to spill out into view. I reckon that is now happening. Take a look at the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). On October 25 it printed the DPRK Foreign Ministry's belated response to the United States' outing of its nuclear bid. This was a tortuous document, at once militant and conciliatory, that gave the impression of being drafted by committee. Two days later, KCNA summarized a pair of articles from Pyongyang's two main daily papers: Minju Joson, the government organ, and the KWP mouthpiece Rodong Sinmun. Their tone differed markedly. MJ called for talks and a treaty on nuclear issues: "If the US gives legal assurances of non-aggression including the non-use of nukes ... the DPRK will be ready to clear the US of its security concerns." Contrast the RS headline: "Staunch fight against imperialists called for". No talk of talks or treaties or clearing up concerns here, but only of "fighting to the last with the imperialists and other reactionaries ... As a stick is the best to beat a wolf, so are arms to fight with the imperialists. Countering them with arms is the only way to defend national sovereignty and peace and achieve victory of the revolutionary cause ... US imperialism looks down on countries weak in military power, [forcing] them to accept its brigandish demand". Need a friend? No: self-reliance suffices. All it needs is political, ideological and military-technical preparedness, to "turn the whole country into an impregnable fortress". If you say so, comrade general. But if you go on like that, there'll be no US$10 billion colonial compensation from Japan, no more half a million tons a year of fuel oil from KEDO (the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization), no more European Union aid. Kim Dae-jung may dangle the delights of Samsung et al, but South Korea's next president won't give new aid unless the nuclear issue at least is settled, and settled good. Your call. Might that, indeed, be how Jang Song-taek reports back to big brother-in-law: giving him some ammo to face down the brass hats? We'll see. (©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.) Nov 5, 2002 Copyright Asia Times Online, 6306 The Center, Queen’s Road, Central, Hong Kong. ***************************************************************** 47 Rumsfeld gives endorsement to new aircraft carrier design (Pilot Online/HamptonRoads.com) By DALE EISMAN, The Virginian-Pilot © November 5, 2002 ``We've had some excellent meetings and we're going to end up with a very good proposal,'' said Rumsfeld, who stopped just short of promising that the first CVNX flattop will be built on schedule beginning in 2007. Navy leaders are refining a building plan that will put as many new technologies as possible on the first ship in the series, Rumsfeld told reporters. Navy officials were publicly mum about details of that plan Monday but suggested privately that it will produce a considerably more advanced ship than their original proposal for CVNX-1. Some already were calling it ``CVNX-1.5.'' Steve Cambone, a senior Rumsfeld aide, had complained that as originally proposed the ship would be too much like today's Nimitz-class carriers to justify its $10 billion price tag. Nimitz carriers, like the as-yet-unnamed CVN-77 now under construction in Newport News, cost about $5 billion. ... Read more in The Virginian-Pilot or at PilotOnline.com ThinkIn--> WASHINGTON -- A new Navy plan for development of a ``next-generation'' aircraft carrier won a surprising public endorsement Monday from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. ``We've had some excellent meetings and we're going to end up with a very good proposal,'' said Rumsfeld, who stopped just short of promising that the first CVNX flattop will be built on schedule beginning in 2007. Navy leaders are refining a building plan that will put as many new technologies as possible on the first ship in the series, Rumsfeld told reporters. Navy officials were publicly mum about details of that plan Monday but suggested privately that it will produce a considerably more advanced ship than their original proposal for CVNX-1. Some already were calling it ``CVNX-1.5.'' Steve Cambone, a senior Rumsfeld aide, had complained that as originally proposed the ship would be too much like today's Nimitz-class carriers to justify its $10 billion price tag. Nimitz carriers, like the as-yet-unnamed CVN-77 now under construction in Newport News, cost about $5 billion. The Bush administration is pressing all the military services to pursue ``transformational'' technologies that will make future forces smaller and more agile. In addition to the carrier, Rumsfeld is studying whether the Marine Corps' V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, the Air Force's stealthy F/A-22 Raptor fighter, and the Army's Comanche helicopter should proceed as scheduled. The secretary earlier this year canceled the Army's Crusader howitzer after concluding the 70-ton system was too big and hard to move. The Nimitz-class carrier design is almost 40 years old. Navy leaders want a new design to include innovations such as electromagnetic catapults, a more efficient nuclear reactor and a hull that would make the carrier less recognizable to enemy radars. The service planned to phase in those and other improvements. But earlier this year, Cambone suggested canceling CVNX-1 and using part of the money saved to accelerate development of a more sophisticated ship, now called CVNX-2. Construction of that ship was to start around 2013, but Cambone suggested it might be advanced to 2009. The timing has enormous implications for the Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard, where the CVNXs will be built, as well as for the Navy. The yard and its supporters in Congress have warned that a delay beyond 2007 will force the layoffs of thousands of highly trained welders, pipefitters and other workers at Newport News and have a similar ripple effect through a network of subcontractors in more than 40 other states. A delay also could be devastating to the fleet, Navy officials warn, because the carrier Enterprise is scheduled to exhaust its nuclear fuel around 2013. If CVNX-1 is not ready by then, the Navy will have only 11 flattops to meet its commitments worldwide, one less than the minimum required by the Bush administration's defense strategy. Rumsfeld's remarks Monday suggested that the Navy may have won a fight to preserve the 2007 construction schedule by giving the secretary a fresh list of advanced systems it now believes can be ready by then. Rumsfeld is known for being stingy with praise for the Pentagon bureaucracy. But on Monday he hailed the ``hard work,'' ``thought'' and ``creativity'' he said went into the Navy's new CVNX plan. More refinements remain, but Rumsfeld said he is confident that when they're complete ``we will have found the exact balance between moving things forward and not going so far that you inject risk elements that very likely couldn't be achieved.'' Reach Dale Eisman at icemandc@msn.com or (703) 913-9872. [http://www.hamptonroads.com/privacy.html] ***************************************************************** 48 Ukraine to eliminate hundreds of nuclear missiles and dozens of bombers Nov 05, 2002 AP World Politics KIEV, Ukraine - Ukraine will start dismantling hundreds of missiles and dozens of strategic bombers this month as part of a U.S.-funded disarmament program, an official said Monday. The first of some 225 Kh-22 air-to-surface missiles are slated to be destroyed at the Ozerne military airfield in the central Zhytomyr region on Wednesday. Destruction of Ukraine's 31 Tu-22 strategic bombers will start Nov. 12 in the eastern city of Poltava, said Defense Ministry spokesman Oleh Mykhalko. A total of 30 Kh-22s and six Tu-22s are expected to be dismantled by the end of 2002, said Ihor Mitiayev, who heads the ministry's arms elimination program, according to the Interfax news agency. The weapons will be destroyed under a US$15 million program funded by the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, under a 1993 agreement between Ukraine and the United States to eliminate the former Soviet republic's strategic nuclear arms and bombers. Ukraine inherited the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, including hundreds of missiles and dozens of strategic bombers. In 1996, Ukraine renounced nuclear weapons and transferred all its 1,300 nuclear warheads to Russia for destruction. (ms/tv/sbg) Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 49 Bush again asks Fox to support the U.S. resolution on Iraq The U.S. trains Kuwaiti national guards in preparation for a possible U.S.-led war on Iraq. /Yasser Al-Zayyat, AFP/ EFE - 11/5/2002 President George W. Bush on Monday spoke to President Vicente Fox, in an attempt to win support for the U.S. resolution on Iraq now under consideration by the UN Security Council. Mexico, for its part, also reported the talk between the two presidents, but said it did not alter its position in favor of a two-step approach to arms inspections and an eventual use of force. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the conversation was part of Washington's desire for the United Nations to speak with one voice on the threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Fleischer is accompanying the president at campaign stops on the eve of Tuesday's mid-term legislative elections in the United States. Bush also sought Mexico's endorsement for his resolution during an Oct. 26 meeting in Mexico, during which Fox refused to back Washington's proposal. Mexico is one of 10 rotating members on the UN Security Council. The U.S. proposal before the Council calls for stringent arms inspections and serious consequences, including a military response, in the event Iraq fails to comply with the resolution. Several Security Council member countries, including Mexico, oppose an automatic military strike in the case that weapons inspectors are prevented from performing their duties or if they conclude that Baghdad is manufacturing and storing weapons of mass destruction. Mexico, as well as permanent Council members France and Russia, favors waiting for inspection results before considering military strikes. The Mexican government issued a statement saying Fox told Bush of the need for the Council to adopt a position that would allow for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. Foreign Secretary Jorge Castañeda said Monday that 14 of the 15 council members have backed a revised version of the U.S. resolution that includes changes suggested by France, Russia and Mexico. © Copyright 2002 EFE ©Copyright 2002 TheNewsMexico.com All Rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 50 Flats runoff study to aid conversion Denver Post.com Weapons site to become wildlife refuge By Joey Bunch Denver Post Environment Writer Tuesday, November 05, 2002 - Those charged with turning Rocky Flats into a wildlife refuge have a new million-dollar tool to predict where water will flow off the former nuclear weapons plant site when buildings come down, asphalt is ground up and pipes are plugged. Kaiser-Hill Co., the creator of the Site-Wide Water Balance study, briefed the Rocky Flats Coalition of Governments on Monday. Figuring out which way the water will flow is important to engineers and decision-makers involved in the cleanup of the controversial contaminated site. Surface water is the main means of exit for everything from everyday industrial solvents to more serious toxic threats from landfills and holding ponds. Rocky Flats, 16 miles northwest of Denver, will be converted into a national wildlife refuge over the next five years. Demolition and landscaping to clear away much of the 385 acres of industrial areas will change how and where water flows off the site when rain falls and snow melts. "The hydrology of Rocky Flats is a very sensitive and complex issue," Christine Dayton, Kaiser-Hill's program manager for environmental systems and stewardship, told representatives on the coalition of the seven local governments bordering Rocky Flats. The former nuclear weapons plant has been a battleground of words and gloomy, sketchy predictions of how radioactive contamination at the site will affect local communities, residents' health and the overall environment. The water study is pure science that can guide decision-makers and engineers independent of special interest or political clout, Dayton suggested. The 2 1/2-year study of Rocky Flats is the basis for software that engineers can use to map the route of water off the site. "We've developed a tool," she said. "It's up to people to determine how to use it." Boulder City Councilwoman Lisa Marzel, a geologist, welcomed the opportunity to place science above rhetoric. "We've needed good, objective information," she said. "This has been so politically charged." At its monthly meeting Monday, the coalition began updating its strategic plan for the coming year. Some members, though, are thinking further ahead to when the cleanup and conversion is done and most of the 4,000-plus workers there lose their jobs as their tasks are completed over the next five years. Arvada City Councilwoman Lorraine Anderson said the coalition should begin work now to help those people find new jobs. Otherwise, the region faces a "brain drain" of highly skilled, well-paid residents moving elsewhere. Kaiser-Hill, the main contractor at Rocky Flats, plans to meet with the coalition and economic development agencies over the next few months to help place workers who want to stay in metro Denver when their work is done. "We can't give up without a fight," Anderson said. All contents Copyright 2002 The Denver Post or other copyright ***************************************************************** 51 Ceremony marks end of DR Reactor's cocooning This story was published Sat, Nov 2, 2002 By John Stang Herald staff writer Think of DR Reactor as an Atomic Age pyramid. Something to visit in the future. To stand in awe of. That's how Bechtel Hanford engineer Mark Morton thinks of the project he helped plan. "We can bring our grandkids here in 30, 40, 50 years and have them say: 'That's neat,' " he said Friday after a ceremony marking completion of DR Reactor's cocooning. "Two down, six to go," said Keith Klein, Department of Energy Hanford manager. The ceremony was held in north-central Hanford several hundred yards from the Columbia River. Hanford finished cocooning C Reactor in 1998 and DR is the second. DOE has similar plans for eight of Hanford's nine old plutonium production reactors. The exception is B Reactor, tentatively earmarked as a museum to mark its role in creating plutonium for the first atomic bomb and for the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki. The work at DR actually finished Sept. 27 -- a year ahead of deadline. The cost was about $15 million. "Cocooning" is Hanford slang for decontaminating and demolishing most of a reactor complex so it covers about one-fifth of the ground it originally occupied. Then the 12,000- to 16,000-ton reactor core is sealed inside the concrete main chamber and a new slanted roof installed to keep out the rain. Every five years, a crew will go inside to check for problems. Bottom line: A sprawling complex becomes a single 95-foot-high concrete box with a slanted top. It will sit for 50 to 75 years as the most significant radioactivity decays. At that point, Hanford will decide whether to keep the reactors inside their chambers, or move them away from the river to central Hanford. Right now, Bechtel is working on cocooning D, F and H reactors. Work on D Reactor is expected to be done by Sept. 30 except for the roof, which will be installed shortly afterward. F Reactor also is supposed to be done by Sept. 30. And H Reactor is to be done by Sept. 30, 2004. Work on the K East, K West and N reactors will be tackled later this decade, with those efforts worked around cleanup of the two highly radioactive K Basins. At Friday's ceremony, Klein said: "This reactor used to symbolize the strength of our country in its national defense. ... Today, it signifies something different. It signifies progress in cleanup. We're changing the landscape." U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said he hoped the ceremony would be symbolic of accelerating cleanup of the whole site. Mike Hughes, Bechtel Hanford president, noted Bechtel had not suffered an accident in four years of cocooning that caused an employee to miss a day of work. Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 52 PNNL wants to manage Level-3 lab This story was published Sun, Nov 3, 2002 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has started the paperwork that would allow scientists to work with anthrax, the plague and other pathogenic microorganisms in Richland. "PNNL has the expertise to make significant contributions to the nation's efforts to combat bioterrorism," said Greg Koller, spokesman for the Department of Energy lab operated by Battelle. Over the next few years, the National Institutes of Health, the new Department of Homeland Security, DOE and other science agencies are expected to make substantial grants for biological defense and detection programs. PNNL already has about seven labs equipped to handle biological agents such as salmonella and E. coli 0157. Scientists use those biosafety Level-2 labs for projects such as developing sensors for bacteria, food safety research and science that can help verify biological weapons treaties. But "there are biopathogens out there that are more hazardous," Koller said. PNNL wants to convert a lab on the south end of Hanford into a biosafety Level-3 lab. It's in an area not accessible to the public. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control requires Level-3 safety measures for viruses and bacteria that could cause serious illness or death if they are inhaled. Costs to remodel a lab of 400 to 700 square feet would be about $500,000. Passage to the laboratory would be through a series of two locked doors with a room for changing clothes in between. The laboratory would be capable of being completely sealed, down to the seams in liquid-resistant wall, floor and ceiling coverings. A special air ventilation system also is needed. Lab workers would be required to follow more precautions than in a Level-2 laboratory and fewer people would have clearance to enter the lab. Just three or four staff members are expected to have direct contact with the organisms, with a handful of additional scientists and technicians to be allowed in the lab. The Washington state departments of Health and Ecology both would be allowed oversight of the lab, and several federal and state agencies would regulate transportation of biological agents to the lab. PNNL does not know which microorganisms might be brought to the lab because no projects or grants have yet been sought. However, research could include some similar to that being done in the Level-2 labs, such as development of sensors that are more sensitive, faster and more compact than current systems for dangerous pathogens such as anthrax. Biological research on the genomes and proteins of the pathogens also might be conducted that could help point to more effective ways to diagnose or treat the diseases they cause. "If we know how things are put together, it's easier to detect them and come up with better remedies," Koller said. Research also might be done on emerging diseases unrelated to biological defense. The state already has several biosafety Level-3 labs at the University of Washington in Seattle and Washington State University in Pullman. The state Department of Health also has one in the Puget Sound area and plans to build another. Battelle has managed much larger Level-3 labs than the one proposed for Richland. It has 6,500 square feet of Level-3 lab space in Ohio, with another 5,000 square feet of Level-3 lab space to open next month. Adding the Richland lab will require an environmental assessment by DOE, with a public comment period likely in the spring. The lab could be ready for use in fall 2004. Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 53 Packing glitch slows plutonium shipments GreenvilleOnline.com - News Posted Monday, November 4, 2002 - 11:58 pm e-mail By Tim Smith STAFF WRITER tsmith@greenvillenews.com [ tsmith@greenvillenews.com] COLUMBIA – Problems with a plutonium packaging machine have caused some delays but all of the plutonium being packaged at a closed Colorado weapons facility should be shipped to the Savannah River Site by the end of next year, federal officials say. The latest problem came in September with a packaging machine that had to be shut down, said Pat Etchart, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Energy at Rocky Flats near Denver. That delay and the time it took starting up the system have pushed back the original target date for preparing nearly 1,900 cans of surplus plutonium from January of 2003 until next summer, Etchart said. But even with the delays, all of the weapons-grade plutonium should be shipped from the site by the end of next year, U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told Rocky Flats workers last month. Officials have said all of the plutonium must be removed from the site by 2004 to have a shot at meeting a 2006 clean-up deadline. The packaging machine, a one-of-a-kind system built to containerize the Rocky Flats plutonium, was shut down in September after laser-made welds on the cans did not meet agency standards. The welds are critical to keep air from reacting with the plutonium. "There has been down time for maintenance and things like that but lately it's running good," Etchart said. "This is a slow, meticulous process and we have to make sure that we get it done right." The system's operation has cut its production rate from a target of 140 cans per month to 62 recently, Etchart said, though it had been producing an average of 100 monthly since the spring. The semi-automated system heats the plutonium, then places it inside a can that is filled with helium, welded shut and placed inside another can that is filled with helium and welded shut. The nested cans are then placed inside a third container. The packages are supposed to keep the plutonium safe and stable for at least 50 years, according to the government. John Corsi, a spokesman for Kaiser-Hill, the company hired by the government to clean up Rocky Flats, said the operation remains on schedule. "I can tell you with confidence that the machine is working and we are going to meet the 2006 schedule," he said. Officials will not talk about the shipments to SRS other than to say they have begun. The plutonium is being shipped as part of an agreement with the Russians to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium, the material used to make triggers in nuclear weapons. U.S. officials plan to use the plutonium sent to SRS to convert it to nuclear reactor fuel, called mixed-oxide, to burn in commercial power plants in North and South Carolina. Gov. Jim Hodges fought the plutonium shipments in federal court this summer, saying he did not want the material brought into the state unless the government agreed to a legally enforceable schedule for removing it after making the fuel. A federal judge ruled Hodges could not bar the shipments. Copyright 2001 The Greenville News. Use of this site signifies your agreement to the Terms of Service (updated 4/19/2000). ***************************************************************** 54 Plutonium Packaging System Frustrates Flats Managers* * 11/04/2002 * G OLDEN, Colo. ? Experts say a temperamental machine could slow down shipments of weapons-grade plutonium from the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons factory to South Carolina. * The semi-automated machine, designed to tuck the plutonium safely into shipping containers, is acting up. It was shut down for three weeks in September, and one in five containers is still failing safety checks, said Dave Hicks, a plutonium removal manager with the Energy Department, which owns Rocky Flats. "The machine is still temperamental ... but there's every reason to believe we will finish, probably in the summer," Hicks said. Rocky Flats managers have said they need to ship away the last of their weapons-grade plutonium by the end of 2003 to get the site cleaned up and closed down by a 2006 deadline. "If we complete packaging by summer, we will have no problem supporting the shipping campaign," Hicks said, adding he's confident the packaging will be done by then. But the plutonium-packing machine has definitely has been disappointing, he said. The machine automatically tucks the metal into double-barreled containers, sealing each with a laser weld. And the laser has needed continual adjustment, Hicks said. He and his colleagues had hoped to be done sealing the expected total of 1,900 barrels by January 2003 ? that was based on the machine finishing 140 barrels per month. In the 17 months the system has been operation, however, it has completed just 1,050 barrels ? an average of 62 per month. But apart from the recent breakdown, monthly production numbers have been higher recently, about 100 since spring, Hicks said. Workers are getting better at adjusting the machine, explained Allen Schubert, a manager with Kaiser-Hill, the company cleaning up Rocky Flats for the Energy Department. "We're making progress," he said. The shipments were held up for nearly 10 months between the fall of 2001 and last summer by a dispute between the state of South Carolina and the federal government. The federal government won the lawsuit, clearing the way for shipments to South Carolina, where the Energy Department wants to build a $4 billion factory to convert the plutonium into fuel for nuclear reactors. /©Santa Fe New Mexican 2002/ ***************************************************************** 55 Plutonium-packing system slows job Augusta Georgia: Metro: Web posted Monday, November 4, 2002 9:47 p.m. EST Associated Press [http://wire.ap.org/] GOLDEN, Colo. - Experts say a temperamental machine could slow down shipments of weapons-grade plutonium from the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant Rocky Flats to Savannah River Site. The semiautomated machine, designed to tuck the plutonium safely into shipping containers, is acting up. It was shut down for three weeks in September, and one in five containers still is failing safety checks, said Dave Hicks, a plutonium removal manager for the Energy Department, which owns Rocky Flats. "The machine is still temperamental ... but there's every reason to believe we will finish, probably in the summer," Mr. Hicks said. Rocky Flats managers have said they need to ship away the last of their weapons-grade plutonium by the end of 2003 to get the site cleaned up and closed down by a 2006 deadline. "If we complete packaging by summer, we will have no problem supporting the shipping campaign," Mr. Hicks said, adding he's confident the packaging will be done by then. But the plutonium-packing machine definitely has been disappointing, he said. The machine automatically tucks the metal into double-barreled containers, sealing them with a laser weld. The laser also has needed continual adjustment, Mr. Hicks said. He and his colleagues had hoped to be done sealing the expected total of 1,900 barrels by January 2003 - that was based on the machine's finishing 140 barrels a month. In the 17 months the system has been in operation, however, it has completed just 1,050 barrels - an average of 62 a month. Apart from the recent breakdown, though, monthly production numbers have been higher recently, about 100 since spring, Mr. Hicks said. The shipments were held up for nearly 10 months between the fall of 2001 and last summer by a dispute between the state of South Carolina and the federal government. --From the Tuesday, November 5, 2002 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle [http://www.augustachronicle.com/faq/copyright.html] 1996 - 2002 The Augusta Chronicle. All rights reserved. Read our privacy policy. Contact the AugustaChronicle.com is a proud member of Augusta.com ***************************************************************** 56 Fusion advisory meeting 11/26 FR Doc 02-28064 [Federal Register: November 5, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 214)] [Notices] [Page 67392-67393] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr05no02-34] DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Office of Science; Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee AGENCY: Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice of open meeting SUMMARY: This notice announces a meeting of the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Public Law 92- 463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public notice of these meetings be announced in the Federal Register. DATES: Monday, November 25, 2002, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Tuesday, November 26, 2002, 9 a.m. to 12 noon. ADDRESSES: The Marriott Gaithersburg Washingtonian Center, 9751 Washingtonian Boulevard, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20878, USA. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Albert L. Opdenaker, Office of Fusion Energy Sciences; U.S. Department of Energy;1000 Independence Avenue, SW.; Washington, DC 20585-1290; Telephone: 301-903-4927. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Meeting: The major purpose of this meeting is to finalize the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee recommendations on a plan for putting fusion-generated electricity on the commercial utility grid in 35 years. Tentative Agenda Monday, November 25, 2002 [sbull] Office of Science Perspective [sbull] Office of Fusion Energy Sciences Perspective [sbull] Report from the 35-year Development Plan Panel [sbull] Public Comments Tuesday, November 26, 2002 [sbull] Report from the Simulation/Integrated Modeling Panel [sbull] Report from the Non-electric Application Panel Public Participation: The meeting is open to the public. If you would like to file a written statement with the Committee, you may do so either before or after the meeting. If you would like to make oral statements regarding any of the items on the agenda, you should contact Albert L. Opdenaker at 301-903-8584 (fax) or albert.opdenaker@science.doe.gov [albert.opdenaker@science.doe.gov] (e-mail). You must make your request for an oral statement at least 5 business days before the meeting. Reasonable provision will be made to include the scheduled oral statements on the agenda. The Chairperson of the Committee will conduct the meeting to facilitate the orderly conduct of business. Public comment will follow the 10-minute rule. Minutes: We will make the minutes of this meeting available for public review and copying within 30 days at the Freedom of Information Public Reading Room; IE-190; Forrestal Building; 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. [[Page 67393]] Issued at Washington, DC, on October 31, 2002. Rachel M. Samuel, Deputy Advisory Committee Management Officer. [FR Doc. 02-28064 Filed 11-4-02; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 57 Conservation ratings assailed as partisan -- The Washington Times November 5, 2002 By Audrey Hudson THE WASHINGTON TIMES The League of Conservation Voters' legislative scorecard has angered Republican lawmakers, who say it shows the group cares more about Democratic politics and the upcoming election than protecting the environment.      The LCV releases a scorecard just before elections on votes they say are needed to protect the environment. This year's scorecard ignored two key environmental issues championed by Republicans: putting an end to sludge dumping in the Potomac River and preventing catastrophic wildfires that burned more than 6 million acres this year.      Sen. George Allen, Virginia Republican, said his legislative effort would have stopped the Army Corps of Engineers from making the regular sludgy discharges, just miles from the White House.      "It is clear to me that the League of Conservation Voters continues to function as a radical, out-of-touch group with policy positions that are based on political science, not sound science," Mr. Allen said.      The LCV calls itself "the political voice of the national environmental community" and has issued the scorecards since 1970.      Spokesman Dan Vicuna said his organization scores congressional votes for the two-year session and issues the results before Election Day.      "We do place value judgment on votes, but we just let voters see how their members did vote," Mr. Vicuna said.      Sludge dumping was not included because a vote has not been held and it is not a national issue, Mr. Vicuna said.      Mr. Allen, who received a zero rating, said no other water plant or business would be allowed to dump sludge like this federal government operation, and that science shows "sludge is harmful to aquatic life and to water quality."      Rep. George P. Radanovich, California Republican, said ignoring the sludge issue "just doesn't make any sense," that he is proud of his work to stop the midnight dumpings and that he is proud of his 5 percent rating.      "The LCV is a radical environmental organization designed and operated for the sole purpose of furthering a no-growth, radical environmentalist agenda," Mr. Radanovich said.      "If the LCV was truly and strictly interested in protecting the environment, it would join me in trying to stop toxic sludge dumping in the Potomac — a river LCV activists can probably see from their headquarters here in Washington. Instead, the LCV has conveniently, if not brazenly, ignored what could be the biggest point-source of pollution on the East Coast," Mr. Radanovich said.      Legislation that Republicans say the environmental group also should have scored included exemptions to environmental regulations and laws so a timber sale could proceed as an anti-wildfire measure in the home state of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat.      While that exemption became law, similar exemptions for other states, they said, were blocked by Democrats and should also have been scored.      "These groups play favorites and they are completely shameless about doing it," said Rep. James V. Hansen, Utah Republican and chairman of the House Resources Committee.      Mr. Vicuna said the Daschle exemption was an exception, because environmental groups were included in negotiations and agreed to the timber sale.      Similar legislation allowing selective tree cutting to prevent future forest fires is stalled in the House, where Reps. Scott McInnis, Colorado Republican, and George Miller, California Democrat, have yet to hammer out an agreement.      "If one of their political favorites strays from their environmental agenda, like Daschle has done, like Bruce Vento and George Miller have done in the past, they turn a blind eye. But if a conservative proposes the same idea, they castigate him," Mr. Hansen said.      "We get slammed between the eyeballs. They pick and choose the votes they score to slam the people they want to slam, while casting a hallowed light on their favorite liberals. That's precisely what they've done here," he said.      The LCV scored 16 Senate votes and eight House votes that included opposition to storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and to oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The group supported limiting farm leases to farmers in the Klamath Valley of Oregon and California so water could instead be used for endangered species. ***************************************************************** 58 What Will Russia Bring to the WTO? Pravda.RU ¹ Nov, 05 2002 It is already decided that Russia will incorporate into the WTO; however, when and on what conditions? According to some forecasts, the incorporation may take place either next year or in 2007, depending upon the incorporation conditions. It may happen that one morning we will wake up and see ourselves in quite a different country living according to different laws and regulations. What kind of life is it going to be? We should think about it and get ready for this new life now. With this view, the Tatar-American Regional Institute suggested that an international scientific conference “Marketing, Production, Sale: Topical Theoretical and Practical Problems” should be held. The Tatarstan Academy of Sciences and several ministries approved of the idea. Many scientists, governmental officials, and businessmen took part in the conference. President of the Tatar-American Regional Institute Dilyara Shakirova spoke at the forum’s opening and reported interesting facts published by UNESCO. As it turned out, the number of European adults getting advanced training is already larger than the number of students and pupils. Isn’t it this the reason why the European economic model is so much effective? Where Are We? Before thinking about where to go, Russia should first define where it is now. Unfortunately, for the past 20-30 years Russia has become much weaker on the international scene in practically all spheres of life. Within the above-mentioned period, spending on science has been reduced 30 times, and on education, it has been reduced 25 times; as a result of this sad situation, about 100,000 talented scientists left for abroad. At a time when up to a half of the GDP in the developed countries is spent on science, only 10% of GDP is spent this way in Russia. Academician from the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences Mirza Makhmutov supports the point of view of several Moscow economists and says that after the breakup of the USSR, the country followed a wrong development strategy, one imitating the US revenue policy. Russia’s income tax makes up only 15% of the GDP, but the rent is 70%. However, the Russian government already owns neither oil, nor gas, nor gold or diamonds any more; they are leased out to oligarchs who send raw materials abroad. As a result, 60% Russians are living in poverty (the average Russian wage is 30-40 USD per month, when the figure makes up 400-450 USD in the West). And the authorities somehow manage to form a state budget by raising taxes on these miserable wages. Director General of the Tatarstan Agency for Entrepreneurship Development Alexander Sergeyev thinks that even this tax regime allows one do business rather successfully. He adds that Russian people are to blame themselves for the low wages they are getting: he recommends working harder. And the director general supplied his words with a picturesque example: Yugoslav specialists in Russia are paid two or even three times more than Russians. And nobody will pay Russian specialists more. Why? Yugoslav specialists perform better and quicker. So, the conclusion is that if people want to be paid more, they should learn how to work better. Successful businessmen agree. Russia’s entry into WTO scares those enterprises that produce noncompetitive goods, because incorporation into the international trade organization means that all Russian goods should be meet international quality standards and, what is more important, ecology standards. Some goods such as tires produced in the Tatarstan city of Nizhnekamsk, KamAZ trucks, and Tatar bread are already now in low demand, but after incorporation into the WTO, they may be out of demand completely. Why is it so problematic to sell KamAZ trucks? They are unfit for international transportation as they don’t meet the international standards prescribing that trucks must be powerful enough to carry up to 40 tons of freight, which makes up a railway freight car. The trucks produced at the Naberezhnye Chelny enterprise, KamAZ trucks, cannot carry such weight. Mobile GAZelle and ZIL automobiles suit better for transportation of goods inner-city and long-distance transportation inside the country. As for bread, how to buy grain if its prime cost is higher than the selling price? It is possible to develop agriculture in a different direction. According to Sergeyev, the demand for the apple varieties that grow in Tatarstan is currently great enough. Fears and Hopes The obligations that Russia assumes upon entering into the WTO will fall upon enterprises and the regions first of all. What will they have to face in this case? The Russian Academy of Sciences developed a detailed forecast, and specialists held a poll at 100 Tatar industrial enterprises to adjust the forecast to the conditions of Tatarstan. Deputy Minister for Trade and Foreign Economic Cooperation of Tatarstan Rinat Urzayev says that if Russian laws and regulations become more clear and transparent for foreign financiers, they will invest more in the Russian economy. However, many leaders of industrial enterprises are apprehensive about competition, and they expect to get governmental support and protection. Prices for energy sources are the stumbling block during the negotiations concerning Russia’s entry into the WTO: Russian prices for energy sources are 5-6 times lower than in Europe. This is the item where no concessions are allowed only because of Russia’s particular energy structure. For instance, unlike the West, Russia has many hydro- and nuclear power plants generating cheap energy. Another sore point is changing the customs tariffs. A reduction in tariffs may increase the inflow of imported goods and considerably increase competition on the domestic market, forcing domestic goods off the market. That is why it’s suggested that tariffs should be changed gradually, especially in the aircraft and automobile industries. Agriculture needs direct governmental subsidies. The problem is especially urgent for Tatarstan, as 18% of the total production volume falls on the republic’s agricultural sector. Enterprises involved in selling raw materials are more optimistic about the future than those connected with the light industry, which is a bad competitor to the developed European industry producing mass consumption goods. However, ordinary consumers may only benefit from it. Certification and standardization of goods, knowledge of the international legislation, high-quality management and marketing – these are the requirements of the future. And how Russia will stand the upcoming changes mostly depends upon those specialists whom our educational institutions turn out. Translated by Maria Gousseva Copyright ©1999 by "Pravda.RU [http://www.pravda.ru/] ". When ***************************************************************** 59 The Eve Of A New Era In Physics Brookhaven Lab researchers are optimistic that their efforts to create a form of matter unseen since the dawn of the universe are starting to pay off By Earl Lane WASHINGTON BUREAU November 5, 2002 Upton -- After two years of operation, the huge Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory is providing tantalizing hints that re-creation of the hot, dense form of matter that existed in the first micro- seconds after the universe's birth is at hand. Cautious physicists are not ready to make any definitive claims. But some involved with the collider experiments say their goal - creation of a state of matter called the quark-gluon plasma - already may have been achieved, although it will take additional experiments to prove it. "We're not ready to raise the flag that this is it, this is the quark-gluon plasma," said Tim Hallman, spokesman for the STAR detector group, one of four collaborations of scientists taking data at the collider. Hallman said, however, there is a lot of excitement among the researchers. They have seen some phenomena that theorists had predicted would be signs of the primordial quark-gluon soup. "All the signs point in that direction, but we are being very cautious," said William Zajc, a Columbia University physicist and spokesman for the PHENIX detector group. "We are trying to assemble the case very carefully." "It's pretty clear that we are producing some kind of hot, dense matter," said Thomas Ludlam, another Brookhaven physicist who is on the STAR team. And that matter appears to have some of the properties of "the brew we set out to make," Ludlam said. "I'm thrilled tremendously with this data that has come out," said Miklos Gyulassy, a Columbia University theorist. He said he is optimistic that the era of the quark-gluon plasma may be dawning. "I think we are on the verge of nailing this thing down," agreed John Harris, a STAR physicist from Yale University. But the situation is complex, requiring multiple lines of evidence, and nobody wants to rush into print with premature claims of success, scientists said. Proof that the ion collider has created the quark-gluon plasma would be hailed by physicists as one of the first great achievements of 21st-century physics. Studying nuclear matter under extreme conditions of temperature and pressure could shed light on the very early history of the universe, experts say, and also provide insight on the collective behavior of basic building blocks of matter. Theorists believe that just a few millionths of a second after the Big Bang, the nascent universe consisted of a hot soup of building blocks called quarks and force carriers called gluons. That quark-gluon plasma quickly cooled to form subatomic particles such as the protons and neutrons that make up normal matter. At RHIC, scientists try to reverse the process, slamming nuclei of gold together at nearly the speed of light to cause protons and neutrons to "melt," allowing their quarks and gluons to briefly roam free. Each collision and its aftermath lasts for only about 0.00000000000000000000001 of a second, or ten millionths of a billionth of a billionth of a second. As the interaction region cools, a host of secondary particles fly out, providing clues to what happened during the collision. The tracks of those thousands of secondary particles can be recorded electronically by elaborate detectors such as STAR, which records the passage of particles by the electric charges they induce in an array of about 140,000 pads. High-speed computers sift such information as the direction and velocity of the particles for hints that the protons and neutrons underwent a phase transition to a new state of matter, not unlike ice cubes melting to form water. Physicists look for various signs of the quark-gluon plasma, including the temperature and energy density of the particle swarm, the type and timing of quark production and the balance between matter and antimatter. According to Hallman, one of the most persuasive signals of new physics involves phenomena called jets. In the simplest case, when physicists fire beams of protons at their antimatter twins (called antiprotons), the collisions produce sprays of particle debris, or jets, that tend to shoot out sideways from the incoming beams. Usually, there is a symmetric pattern. A jet going north will be matched by a companion jet heading south, and that is interpreted as evidence of a "hard" collision between two quarks. The quarks themselves are not seen because they "cloak" themselves as sprays of secondary particles. In the Brookhaven collider, where bunches of gold nuclei - each with 79 protons and 118 neutrons - are slammed together, the situation is much more complex. Many more particle jets are ejected sideways from the collision region. If a soup of free-roaming quarks and gluons has been created, theorists predict, some of those sprays of secondary particles will be slowed or suppressed. "This is sort of like creating a quark- gluon molasses, if you will," Hallman said. "What has to go through is going to lose more energy as it comes out." The particles in the jets will tend to be "softer," with less transverse or sideways momentum compared to those from a simple proton-antiproton collision where no quark-gluon molasses slows their escape. Moreover, Hallman said, during the key collisions in which gold nuclei hit head on rather than with a glancing blow, a jet emerging sideways from the collision region may not be matched by a companion jet heading out the other side. The second jet is "quenched," presumably because the quark that gave rise to it has been slowed within the plasma soup to such an extent that it does not send out even a cloaked signal of its presence. "This opposite-side debris cone is, in fact disappearing in the central gold-gold collisions," Hallman said. "This is very suggestive of the signature proposed by theorists" as one of the necessary conditions for the quark-gluon plasma. The PHENIX detector also has seen some evidence that opposite-side jets are being quenched, according to Zajc, but the detector group is continuing to analyze its data and is not expected to announce results for several weeks. In addition to jet quenching, physicists also have seen evidence of another sign of the quark-gluon plasma called "elliptic flow." When two fast-moving gold nuclei smash together in a nearly head-on collision, the swarms of secondary particles that are created quickly exhibit collective behavior called flow. They want to spread out, not unlike a liquid drop, to reach a state of equilibrium. But the almond-shaped region where the colliding nuclei overlap is so densely packed with matter that the expansion favors those particles taking the shortest route out of the neighborhood. The Brookhaven experiments have shown just such asymmetric or elliptic flow - with about twice as many particles heading away in one direction as the other. That pattern, theorists say, is just what would be expected during the early formation of a quark-gluon plasma. Zajc said it is not yet clear whether the two intriguing lines of indirect evidence - jet quenching and elliptic flow - will be sufficient by themselves to convince all physicists that the quark-gluon plasma has been bagged. "I think you need some direct probes from the plasma itself," Zajc said. The PHENIX experiment is particularly well-suited to that task. Photons, particles of light, are not affected by the strong force that binds quarks and gluons together. They can emerge unchanged from the deep recesses of a collision between gold nuclei, carrying direct information about the events occurring. The study of such direct photons from the plasma has barely begun. Mark Baker, a spokesman for Phobos - another of the four detector groups at the Brookhaven collider - said he doubts there will be a single "smoking gun" that convinces all. He said it may be more useful to do detailed studies on the state of matter being created at the collider for several years before deciding that it is time to pin a name on it. There is some reason for such conservatism. In February 2000, scientists at CERN, the European center for particle physics near Geneva, claimed they had created a new state of matter where quarks and gluons briefly roam free. They did not call it the quark-gluon plasma, but the researchers' claim was seen as an effort to steal a march on Brookhaven as it prepared to start up its new collider. Many physicists consider the CERN announcement to have been premature, at best, and they are wary of making similar claims until the evidence is clear and convincing. To that end, the next run of the Brookhaven collider, expected to begin in January, is designed to prove that the new information on jet quenching is real and unassailable. There is an outside chance, Ludlam said, that such quenching can occur in nuclear processes during the first instant of a collision, before the quark-gluon plasma even forms. To rule that out, the Brookhaven team will collide gold nuclei and lightweight particles called deuterons, which consist of a proton and a neutron. Such collisions will not be capable of forming the hot, dense soup of quarks, Ludlam said. But researchers will be able to search for any hints of jet quenching by other means. If they find such quenching, it will be back to the drawing board for the quark soup theorists. "I'm holding my breath to see what these guys are going to measure," Columbia's Gyulassy said. But he said he is confident that the STAR results will hold up and jet quenching will continue to be seen as one of the important signatures of the elusive quark-gluon plasma. Cosmic Soup Teams The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider is a 2.4-mile, nearly circular racetrack for ions, atomic nuclei stripped of their electrons. In the collider experiments so far, physicists have accelerated bunches of gold ions in opposite directions around the underground collider and sent them crashing together at four intersection points. At those locations, large teams of experimenters have built elaborate detectors to track and analyze the subatomic debris produced in the violent collisions. The detectors: STAR (Solenodial Tracker at RHIC) is a house-sized device weighing 1,200 tons. It can track the thousands of particles produced in each ion collision. At its heart is the Time Projection Chamber, essentially a three-dimensional digital camera made of many electronic systems. The STAR team consists of about 475 scientists and engineers from 48 institutions in 10 countries. PHENIX (Pioneering High Energy Nuclear Interaction eXperiment) is another house-sized detector, weighing 3,000 tons, that looks for many different particles emerging from the collisions, including photons, electrons and muons. The PHENIX collaboration has more than 450 members from 57 institutions in 12 countries. PHOBOS, named for a Martian moon, is a smaller experiment designed to examine a very large number of collisions and develop a broad overview of what is occurring, with an eye to detecting rare and unusual events quickly. The detector also can examine about 1 percent of the produced particles in detail. The team consists of 70 members from eight institutions in three countries. BRAHMS (Broad RAnge Hadronic Magnetic Spectrometers) is another small detector designed to study quark-containing particles called hadrons as they pass through instruments called spectrometers. It measures only a small number of particles emerging from the collisions at a specific set of angles. The team has 54 members from 14 institutions in seven countries. - Earl Lane A Glimpse Into the Beginning Physicists use the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory to study what the universe may have looked like in the first few fractions of a second after the Big Bang. Theory holds that in that instant there were no protons and neutrons, only matter called free quarks and gluons. And as the universe expanded and cooled, the quarks and gluons bound together. RHIC scientists try to re-create this state of matter, called the quark-gluon plasma, by slamming nuclei of gold together to cause protons and neutrons to "melt,'' thereby releasing their constituent quarks and the gluons. Some facts about the collider: RHIC's two criss-crossing 2.4-mile rings are made up of 1,740 superconducting magnets strung end-to-end like beads on a necklace. RHIC's beam travels at 99.995 percent the speed of light (186,000 miles per second). Thousands of subatomic collisionstake place each second. Each collision sends out a shower of thousands of subatomic particles. The temperature inside a RHIC collision is over one trillion degrees, 100,000 times hotter than the center of the sun. SOURCE: Brookhaven National Laboratory Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc. ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************