***************************************************************** 12/09/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.319 ***************************************************************** 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] US pressing UN to spirit away Iraqi scientists 2 White House: Iraq Yearns for Nukes 3 2+2 Meeting to Address SOFA 4 A Quiet Serenade 5 Int'l conference opens in Tokyo on nuclear safeguard measures 6 EDITORIAL: Japan-North Korea ties 7 UNMOVIC/IAEA Press Statement on the Handover of the Iraqi Declaratio 8 Nuclear lessons for China 9 U.S. concerned at nuclear smuggling in Central Asia 10 US: Destroying Weapons of Terror 11 US: Analysis Did Bush miss his exit on Iraq?* 12 Iraq admits nuclear bomb plan* 13 Iraq dares U.S. to rebut arms report 14 Wolfowitz Says Inspectors Cannot Scour Every Inch of Iraq 15 IAEA Receives Iraq's Nuclear-related Declaration 16 Celebrities to ask President Bush to stop Iraq war plans 17 US: Federal court dismisses GAO, Cheney suit 18 US: Bush's next target 19 US analyzes Iraqi arms declaration, suppliers named NUCLEAR REACTORS 20 US: NRC: Maine Yankee ASLB formation 21 US: Indian Point report faults plant security 22 US: FR Doc 02-30999 23 US: DAVIS-BESSE: Monthly update on plant moved to Camp Perry* 24 US: Nuclear officials to meet with Millstone reps 25 US: FR Doc 02-31000 26 US: NRC Finds No Significant Environmental Impact from Extended NUCLEAR SAFETY 27 US: More rare childhood cancer cases reported in Nevada 28 US: More rare childhood cancer cases reported 29 Ministers to issue advice on gas and radiation attacks advice 30 US: Analysis finds very low Amchitka cancer risk 31 US: Postal workers question need for pills NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 32 US: Nevada outlines opposition to waste site 33 2002 Yearend: Yucca decision looms large* 34 *Nevada officials say Yucca Mountain law firm had conflicts* 35 US: AU: Heathgate to search for more uranium 36 US: Westinghouse given waver on transporting u-235 37 Columnist Jeff German: New allies aid state in Yucca struggle 38 Grove: Yucca rhetoric is heating up on both sides 39 Berkley eyes probe of Yucca worker's charges 40 US: Waste-dump racism is destroying our planet NUCLEAR WEAPONS 41 [toeslist] Fw: SOCADA Event 42 US: PHILIP BERRIGAN, R.I.P -- AF&O 12.07.02 43 [southnews] Iraq shows weapons proof 44 Smoke n'mirrors:US SEEKS ONE EXCUSE FOR WAR IN 12,000 45 US: Partners in Preventing Nuclear Proliferation? 46 U.N. Inspectors Return to Iraq Nuke Site 47 Nuclear Deterrence, Then and Now 48 *North said to solicit nuclear-fuel chemical * US DEPT. OF ENERGY 49 [radiation-survivors] S. Carolina: Plutonium law has a loophole 50 LANL Floodplain barrier proposal 51 Rocketdyne: group to dig into perchlorate 52 New director at ORNL plans changes 53 Congress probes irregularities at Los Alamos 54 Ambassador notes importance of Y-12 OTHER NUCLEAR 55 Book Review: How NATO was enlarged* 56 Court Dismisses Congressional Suit Against Cheney ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 [southnews] US pressing UN to spirit away Iraqi scientists Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 00:22:02 -0600 (CST) Bush's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Blix on the issue of providing asylum to Iraqi scientists in exchange for information. The Times said the arrangement under discussion in Washington and New York, the UN inspectors could identify Iraqi scientists who are believed to have critical knowledge of secret weapons. They would be flown out the country. ---------- US pressing UN to spirit away Iraqi scientists Washington - US officials are pressing UN inspectors to spirit weapons scientists out of Iraq so they can be offered asylum in exchange for information on banned weapons in their country, The New York Times said on Friday. The Pentagon and the White House want the UN team to be aggressive in identifying scientists and demanding that they leave the country, perhaps without their consent, unnamed US and UN officials told the daily. Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix is arguing that the United Nations cannot, in effect, abduct people against their will, and his view is backed by most UN officials and the US State Department, the officials said. Discussions on how UN weapons inspectors should handle the issue began on Monday in New York when President George W Bush's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice met with Blix, the officials said. The United States has offered to set up a witness protection program for defecting Iraqi scientists and help them resettle in any country willing to take them. In exchange the scientists would provide information on where Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is hiding the banned weapons, the officials added. The Times report comes a day ahead of Iraq's announced disclosure to the United Nations of its weapons programme, and amid US charges that UN inspectors are not aggressive enough in their searches - Washington believes Hussein is lying about not having any weapons of mass destruction. Under US pressure, the UN Security Council on November 8 issued a resolution demanding that Iraq come clean about its weapons program. The United States is pressing for military action if Iraq is found to have such weapons. The UN resolution set a December 8 deadline for full Iraqi disclosure, but Baghdad has promised to provide a declaration a day earlier, making it understood it will confirm it has no biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. The UN resolution demands that Iraq provide unimpeded access "to all officials and other persons" whom UN inspectors decide to interview "inside or outside Iraq". It is this clause the United States would like the UN inspectors to implement fully, officials told the Times, adding that the message given Blix was that he should "make it a priority". The chief aim of getting Iraqi scientists to talk, the daily said, is to achieve a breakthrough in gathering fresh evidence about Iraq's weapons program. "The United States is concerned with the safety, welfare and non-intimidation of people who may wish to cooperate" with inspectors, the daily said an unidentified senior UN official told it late Thursday. "We take this issue seriously," the official continued, "and we hope the international community would also attach the same importance to the issue." - Sapa-AFP ---------- Baghdad is arming its citizens for war The New York Times Friday, December 6, 2002 WASHINGTON Iraq is preparing for war and has distributed "hundreds of thousands, if not millions" of guns to its people to fend off an American-led attack, the country's deputy prime minister said. The official, Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam Hussein's closest advisers, said that while Baghdad hoped to avoid a war, "we are taking all necessary precautions to defend our country." In an interview Wednesday with Ted Koppel, broadcast by ABC News, Aziz asserted that virtually every Iraqi household had weapons to use against an invading force. "We are the only country in the world, the only government in the world, who gives weapons to its people," Aziz said. "And that's because we are sure of the attitude of our people. You can find a gun in every house in Iraq." Asked whether war was inevitable, Aziz said it would take a "miracle" to avert an attack. Copyright ) 2002 The International Herald Tribune [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 White House: Iraq Yearns for Nukes Las Vegas SUN December 09, 2002 ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON- Underpinning the U.S. review of Iraq's 12,000-page arms declaration, "there's skepticism and there's fear" about Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions, President Bush's spokesman said Monday. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer withheld judgment on the massive documentation that Iraq turned over to the United Nations on Saturday. The United States wants to study the material "thoroughly, completely and fully and thoughtfully," Fleischer said. Over the weekend, a military adviser to Saddam suggested that Iraq was close to building an atomic bomb a decade or so ago - a "wistful" admission of how much Iraq "yearned to get nuclear weapons," as Fleischer described it, and proof that the United States is right to be skeptical of Iraqi denials now. Saddam's regime in Iraq insists it has no programs for developing banned nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. Bush says Saddam is lying. Under a U.N. Security Council resolution unanimously approved last month, international weapons inspectors are in Iraq trying to validate those claims along with the information submitted on Saturday. "On the broader picture yes, there's skepticism and there's fear about Iraqi intentions and abilities," Fleischer said. On the narrower question of determining the validity of Iraq's declaration to the U.N. Security Council, "that process deserves respect and it deserves thoughtful judgment and we will not rush to it," Fleischer said. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 3 2+2 Meeting to Address SOFA Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English Updated Dec.9,2002 19:48 KST by Kim Min-bai (baibai@chosun.com) The government decided to press ahead with the issue of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) improvements at a "2+2 meeting" on December 11, which is to be attended by the Korean vice ministers of foreign affairs and trade, and national defense, and the US consul and the 8th Army commander. The government also plans to bring up the issue to the SOFA Korea-US Joint Committee criminal affairs sub-committee meeting on December 12. A comprehensive conference is also to be held during the December 10 visit of US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on the subject of the clandestine North Korean nuclear project and the subject of the two states' cooperation in case of an Iraqi attack. Government officials also plan to talk to Deputy Secretary Armitage on easing Korean anti-Americanism. In relation to this the central government held a working level "SOFA improvement measures" meeting with related bureau directors. Also, President Kim met Senators Inouye and Stevens and said he hoped for active cooperation from the US Congress on SOFA improvements and measures to prevent similar accidents. Kim added that although both governments are seriously working to solve related problems, he didn't understand why no one took responsibility for the deaths of the students. He said the two countries should make efforts so that the deaths will not damage the basis of their relationship. ***************************************************************** 4 A Quiet Serenade Pravda.RU A Quiet Serenade ¹ Dec, 09 2002 Placidity marked the summit between Vladimir Putin and Atal Behari Vajpayee at Delhi last week. Barring the media, neither side expected spectacular conquests. The outcome should not surprise any observer who cares to go beyond the immediate event and considers the context that informed the meeting. The decade of the nineties saw the world change drastically and without notice. Europe is in a drift posing dilemmas for Russia that is at once European and Asian. Russia is as different from the old Soviet Union as the Bharatiya Janata Party (India’s ruling party) is from the Indian National Congress. These shifts plus a new world, where every country except the United States is groping for a firm grip, explain the copy book interaction between the two countries last week. The Delhi Declaration Putin and Vajpayee signed is eloquent on familiar issues but it is the silences of the texts that yield sense and not just meanings. Putin’s interviews to the media on the eve of the summit set the limits of expectations, as did media kite flying in India. Clear formulations were available relating to defense, trade and terrorism. But there was neither denial nor confirmation of the speculation on a triangular axis with China. In the end, one has to concede that the annual summit itself is a unique feature indicating that the relations between the two countries are headed for a rediscovery of the old glory and romance of bilateral ties in the Soviet era. In the altered scenario, India is less of a player in the international arena than Russia, which, despite its economic worries, has not lost any of its influence either with Europe or the US. Putin has done excellent work in repairing domestic economy and rebuilding equations with the United States and China. This shows how weak is the perception that regards the reference to a Russia-India-China axis as directed against Washington. The future of bilateral relations depends on building a strong and mutually beneficial trade base. Growing at a rate of more than 5 per cent, the Russian economy offers an excellent market for Indian merchandise. The unmanageable demand for consumer goods in India ought to interest the czars in the Russian private sector. Today, trade is the weakest link between the two countries. India’s exports to Russia fell to 2 per cent from 18.3 per cent in 1980-81 while Russia’s exports to India also slumped from 8.1 per cent in the Soviet era to just 1 per cent last year. In the words of Putin “our trade turnover is not just low, but inadmissibly low.” This grim situation should serve as an invitation to the private sector in both countries to play a big role. Both sides signed a joint declaration on strengthening and enhancing economic, scientific and technological co-operation identifying nine areas to increase business interaction. India needs to immediately recapture the market for its tea that it has lost to Sri Lanka. India’s information industry must begin to look Moscowwards too. In his address to the captains of Indian industry, Putin called for a breakthrough in mutual trade abjuring the trade relationship based on rupee debt. He referred to Indian collaboration in major oil projects such as Sakhalin I and to the involvement of Russian companies in oil exploration in the Bay of Bengal. Delhi, of course, is eager to seize the trade opportunities Russia offers. Putin told newsmen that his country was willing to step up co-operation to increase the capacity in nuclear power generation beyond the Koodanakulam project within the framework of international rules and regulations. Much noise preceded the negotiations on defense deals. Parleys on the sale of aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov and the T-22 bomber are hanging fire over the price of retrofitting the carrier and equipping it with 40 aircraft. Linked to this deal are the two Akula-class nuclear submarines. Russia is expected to replace the submarines’ 3,000-km-range cruise missiles with 300-km-range missile to respect the missile control regime. The talks gained some momentum after Russian minister Ilya Klebanov met India’s defense minister George Fernandes last month. The Delhi Declaration was silent on Gorshkov and several defense deals under negotiation. Indian Navy badly needs the aircraft carrier. Moscow continues to be Delhi’s biggest supplier of defense needs. India is also interested in the speeding up of the process of licensing the production of Sukhoi-30 fighter planes, their first squadron already operational. But Hindustan Aircraft Limited is waiting for a Russian license to make 140 more planes, transfer of technology, supply of raw material and support technicians. Other things awaiting delivery are two Krivac stealth frigates and Smerch multi-barrel rocket delivery system. They will go a long way in forging stronger defense bonds. None of these deals bind Russia or India to any exclusive and strategic relationship. On both sides, these are businesslike deals. In the defense area, each needs the other. The computing of trade turnover between the two countries depends on whether defense supplies are regarded as commercial or strategic. The Moscow-Delhi-Beijing axis is a proposal Russia made long before Putin became the Russian president. It received life from a meeting between the foreign ministers of the three countries in the backrooms of the UN General Assembly last September. The anti-American lobby plays with the idea despite the impracticability of such a plan. Impracticable because all the three countries need the goodwill of the United States in several areas. None of them, singly or jointly, are inclined to take on Washington which has closer ties with each one of them than any two of them have between themselves. India does not seriously consider such a proposal. India’s foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal told the media, “there is no proposal for any strategic configuration that you are speaking of.” Terrorism and secessionism worry both countries and generate common responses. They regard terrorism at once as a national and international phenomenon, gradually betraying the hand of a common culprit. Putin called for strengthening the international non-proliferation regime to prevent weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists. The Indian media saw this as a subtle reference to Pakistan. This inference was not necessary because Putin clearly told an Indian newsman that “one such concern that we have is the weapons of mass destruction in Pakistan. We have to have a clear picture of where these weapons are and of what will happen to them in the future.” Moscow was more forthcoming and unambiguous in endorsing Delhi’s stand that any dialogue with Pakistan can only begin after Islamabad completely checks cross-border infiltration by terrorists and dismantles terrorist infrastructures in its territory. There was also an acknowledgement that any meaningful Indo-Pak dialogue could take place only within the framework of the Shimla agreement and the Lahore declaration. Experts in India believe that in return for this support, India has endorsed Moscow’s stance on weaponization of space. The Delhi Declaration called for early start of multilateral talks aimed at preparing a comprehensive arrangement on non-deployment of weapons in outer space, not using or threatening to use force in respect of space-based objects etc. Putin’s trip is a lesson in post 11/September diplomacy dedicated to Russian recovery, a goal that subordinates petty rivalries and prejudices to national interest. It is a model, if one were needed, the Indian side could imitate fruitfully. In contrast, India’s development, economically and internationally, is hostage to partisan politics, overenthusiastic media and a variety of charlatans masquerading as NGOs and peaceniks. In the end, a country’s success depends on how objectively it can consider itself, its strengths and weaknesses. This is Putin’s strong point and, therefore, of Russia. Dasu Krishnamoorty contributed this article to PRAVDA.Ru Articles on the same subject on News.Google.Com: Copyright ©1999 by " [http://www.pravda.ru/] ". When ***************************************************************** 5 Int'l conference opens in Tokyo on nuclear safeguard measures english.eastday.com A two-day international conference began today in Tokyo on measures to safeguard against proliferation of nuclear weapons, Japan's Kyodo News reported. The meeting, hosted by the Japanese government with the cooperation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will focus on issues related to the IAEA's so-called Additional Protocol, Kyodo said. The protocol aims to strengthen the IAEA's capability to detect undeclared nuclear materials and activities. Participants at the conference will discuss steps to strengthen the Additional Protocol, which 67 countries have signed. The protocol has taken effect in 28 countries. During the meeting Monday morning, IAEA Director General Mohamed El Baradei said that the inspections in Iraq have gotten off to a good start and he hopes Iraq continues to cooperate. Xinhua News Copyright (C) 2000 www.eastday.com. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 EDITORIAL: Japan-North Korea ties Asahi Shimbun [http://www.asahi.com/] JAPANESE Negotiations must serve our national interests. We believe that the process of negotiation toward normal diplomatic relations, which would involve Japan providing economic assistance to North Korea, should be used to encourage reforms. That negotiation should also be used as leverage to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program. It has been nearly three months since Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Kim Jong Il, the leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) met in Pyongyang for talks. The process of negotiating talks on establishing diplomatic relations that Koizumi and Kim agreed upon was stalled even before it was begun because of disagreements over whether the families of five abducted Japanese will be allowed to come to Japan. When it was disclosed that North Korea is pursuing development of nuclear weapons, dialogue between the United States and North Korea was also suspended, and shipments of fuel oil to North Korea were held up. These are serious circumstances. North Korea's explanation that eight of the 13 Japanese it acknowledges abducting from Japan had died had a traumatic effect upon the people of Japan. Japanese have been sympathetic toward the abducted people and their relatives and angry at North Korea. North Korea's attitude is inappropriate for a nation that is supposed to be apologetic about the crimes that the state committed. In the past few months, our whole nation seems to have become engulfed in resentment over this situation. Time for a rational assessmentAt the same time, however, many people became interested in the oddball regime that runs North Korea and the tragic circumstances behind its sanctioning of kidnapping of Japanese and developing nuclear weapons. We believe it is time for a rational assessment of how best to deal with the North Korean leadership and make the relationship with them serve our national interests. North Korea is, in a word, dangerous. The people are suppressed under Kim's dictatorship and cult of personality. The North Korean economy is on the brink of collapse. While North Korea's people struggle with poverty and food shortages, the government pursues its development of nuclear weapons and missiles, and is engaged in brinksmanship in the hope of obtaining economic aid from Japan, the United States and the Republic of Korea (South Korea), using the nuclear weapons and missiles in a bid to gain leverage. Many North Koreans are said to be kept in concentration camps as political prisoners. The country has abducted an estimated 500 South Koreans. North Korea would argue that the Korean War has not yet formally ended, and Japan has not yet settled accounts for its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, and for that, it is prepared to deal with what it perceives to be threats from the United States, Japan and South Korea. But such circumstances do not justify such quirky approaches to foreign policy. The people of North Korea, Japan and other nations of East Asia would benefit most from a remaking of North Korea from its present regime into a democratic society, with an open economy and human rights free to flourish. While this is a truism, the challenge is in how to make it happen. The U.S. government once considered one swift military strike to change the regime in North Korea. Such an approach was considered in the spring of 1994 to thwart North Korea's nuclear development, but it was abandoned at the last minute. At the time, it was estimated that more than 500,000 casualties could be expected among U.S. and South Korean military and both North Korea and South Korea would sustain tremendous collateral damage. Could such an approach be tolerated? Our limited optionAgain, some are arguing that a continued hard line toward Pyongyang will eventually lead to the collapse of the Kim regime. But things are never so simple that they can be satisfactorily resolved simply by driving the present regime into a corner. Since the early 1990s, many analysts have been predicting that North Korea would implode within several years. That has not happened. And there is no clear suggestion that Kim's regime is unraveling. Considering the situation North Korea finds itself in, the prospect of Kim's regime actually coming apart one day cannot be entirely ruled out. But that possibility raises the prospect of other kinds of dangers. If North Korea were to be thrown into chaos, the effects would be felt over the whole Korean Peninsula and in Japan as well. The military might feel compelled to launch its missiles. Tidal waves of refugees could be expected. With these possibilities, our options are necessarily limited to one: to encourage reform and opening North Korea to promote a regime change led by both moderate and hard-line policies that seek to prevent North Korean military adventure. We must, in short, diminish the prospect of danger from a dangerous nation and accelerate change in a less dangerous nation. There were signs that North Korea, faced with difficulties, was gradually moving toward its own reforms and opening to the rest of the world. Such reforms must be encouraged to bring about change in the regime, even if that takes a long time. We believe that the process of negotiation toward normal diplomatic relations, which would involve Japan providing economic assistance to North Korea, should be used to encourage reforms. That negotiation should also be used as leverage to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program. With the prospect of early resolution of negotiations on normalization of diplomatic relations gone, however, we must be aware that there is less reason for North Korea to speed up the process of negotiating with Japan. Through all this, though, Japanese economic assistance is as important to North Korea as it has ever been. There would be much less harm in maintaining a dialogue between North Korea and Japan than in breaking off negotiations. Irrational emotions don't workOne key question concerns how to resolve the issue of bringing family members of the five abducted Japanese to Japan. There is no easy answer. Resolution of this issue could take time as the two governments stand firm on their basic principles and engage in diplomatic maneuvers. The feelings of the people involved in this issue must also be considered. It is important for Japan to refrain from adopting a policy of obstinate refusal to give up anything. Irrational emotions will not work in a diplomatic campaign that should have its objectives firmly grounded in the national interest. North Korea should be looking to Washington, as it prepares for an attack against Iraq. President George W. Bush's administration is now insisting that the program to provide two light-water nuclear reactors to North Korea should be suspended. We urge the Americans to use caution and not push North Korea too far. At the same time, international cooperation must extend beyond the relationship of Japan, the United States and South Korea. In a recent meeting, leaders of China and Russia issued a united call for the removal of all nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula, clearly criticizing North Korea for its nuclear program. Koizumi should also ask China and Russia to increase their pressure on North Korea. Japan should also ask that Canada, Britain and other European nations that recognize North Korea diplomatically to cooperate in this campaign. North Korea's regime badly underestimated the anger Japanese feel about the abduction of their fellow citizens. The degree of their anger also exceeded the expectations of our own government. It is not necessarily a bad thing to have diplomatic policy driven by public opinion. But diplomacy will fail unless those who conduct it maintain a clear understanding of international relationships in the heat of public opinion. History has proven that time and again. --The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 8(IHT/Asahi: December 10,2002) (12/10) [Copyright Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 UNMOVIC/IAEA Press Statement on the Handover of the Iraqi Declaration 7 December 2002 Media Advisory 2002/40 - [www.iaea.org] For more information, see the latest press release and previous media advisories of 7 December, 6 December, 4 December, 3 December, 2 December, 20 November, 18 November and 15 November. For full coverage, see the pages on [http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/Press/Focus/IaeaIraq/index.html] . 8 December 2002 -- An UNMOVIC team carried out an inspection of the Falluja III site of the Al-Tariq Company. This site is located in the Falluja district about 100 km west of Baghdad. Falluja III is a chemical factory engaged in the production of pesticides, insecticides and rodent poisons. A research and development department is also located at the facility and is concerned with new formulations and synthetic processes for local production of active ingredients. The site contains a number of tagged dual-use items of equipment, which were all accounted for. Additionally, all key buildings at the site were inspected. The objectives of the visit were successfully achieved. The IAEA inspection team went to the State Establishment for Geological Survey and the associated Geo-Pilot plant facilities. These facilities had previously been involved in the mapping of ore assays and developmental processing of those ores. The team conducted its inspections without delay. An additional 25 inspectors arrived in Baghdad today. 21 are from the IAEA and 4 from UNMOVIC. The total number of inspectors currently in Iraq is 15 UNMOVIC inspectors and 27 IAEA inspectors. Another 25 to 30 inspectors, all from UNMOVIC, are expected to arrive in Baghdad on 10 December. Hiro Ueki Spokesman for UNMOVIC and the IAEA in Baghdad ***************************************************************** 8 Nuclear lessons for China IHT: The Economist Monday, December 9, 2002 China has a lot to fear from an economic collapse in North Korea and so is likely to resist any further tightening of economic sanctions. If so, that will be shortsighted. Sustaining North Korea's dodgy regime forever just puts off the problem rather than solving it. If you permit, or even encourage, the proliferation of the deadliest weapons or the long-range missiles with which they can be delivered, such acts are liable to boomerang against you. That is what has happened to China. For North Korea's uranium enrichment capability has almost certainly been obtained from Pakistan in exchange for missile technology, and Pakistan obtained its nuclear know-how from - China. China and America can present a united front in persuading Pakistan never to deal again with Kim Jong Il. More important still, they can put the task of reviving and revamping the world's anti-proliferation regimes firmly on the joint agenda of all the nuclear powers. Awareness of that common interest is the silver lining to terrorism's cloud. Copyright © 2002 the International Herald Tribune All ***************************************************************** 9 U.S. concerned at nuclear smuggling in Central Asia Reuters 10 December, 2002 08:35 GMT+08:00 By Adam Tanner GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany - Radioactive material that could potentially be used to make so-called "dirty bombs" has been seized at border posts in Central Asia in the past 12 months, a senior U.S. Defense Department official said on Monday. The smuggled material, contaminated metals, was confiscated at checkpoints along the Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan borders, Harlan Strauss, director of International Counterproliferation Programmes at the Defense Department, told Reuters. "It is possible to be reprocessed and to be utilised in a way that radioactive material can be used for a dispersal device or a small weapon to contaminate an area," he said. Dirty bombs scatter radioactive material using conventional explosive devices. "There continues to be movement of material across borders which is of concern," Strauss said on the sidelines of a conference on terrorism. "We have recently, particularly in Central Asia, stopped some shipments of radioactive material exiting the region. "In this case it was contaminated metals. How radioactive is a question of debate and discussion. Where it was going was unclear because the papers were not legit." The United States has been concerned since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 that instability and economic hardship could prompt low-paid scientific workers to smuggle material that could be used to make nuclear or biological weapons. Worries that a fundamentalist Islamic group such as al Qaeda could acquire such destructive items have increased hugely since last September's attacks on the United States. Over the past decade at least 40 kilograms of weapons-usable uranium and plutonium has been stolen from poorly protected nuclear facilities in the former Soviet Union, according to a report published by Stanford University's Institute for International Studies earlier this year. While most of this material was subsequently retrieved, at least two kilograms of highly enriched uranium stolen from a reactor in Georgia remains missing. In Russia, U.S.-funded radiation detectors installed at eight border crossings have detected more than 275 cases involving contaminated scrap metal, irradiated cargo and other radioactive materials that could pose a proliferation concern, a General Accounting Office official told a U.S. congressional committee in October. The United States has spent about $86 million to help about 30 countries, mostly in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe, combat the threat of smuggling of nuclear and other metals that could be used in weapons of mass destruction. ***************************************************************** 10 Destroying Weapons of Terror The New York Times December 9, 2002* The threat of terrorists' getting hold of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons used to be the stuff of Hollywood melodramas. Now it is a daily nightmare for national security and law enforcement officials around the world. That changed reality adds urgency to the 11-year effort, pioneered by Senator Richard Lugar and his former colleague Sam Nunn, to secure and destroy unconventional weapons left over from the cold war. Despite an impressive success record, these programs need more money and more flexible spending rules to achieve their ambitious goals. Unfortunately, several powerful House Republicans did their best to hobble the programs before heading home for the holidays. Thanks to the handiwork of these lawmakers, especially Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania and Duncan Hunter of California, financing for urgently needed steps to secure or destroy weapons is jeopardized by inflexible bureaucratic requirements. House opponents have also blocked the transfer of funds for removing weapons materials from countries that weren't part of the former Soviet Union. That is a bad idea. Earlier this year Washington was forced to raise private money to remove bomb-grade uranium from Belgrade, Yugoslavia. House Republicans this year denied the administration the permanent authority it sought to waive record keeping and other restrictions that Russia has not yet been able to meet. They also held up long-term financing for a plant the administration wants to build in Russia to destroy nerve gases. Some of the toxic chemicals are stored in canisters small enough to be carried away in a briefcase. The same site also holds hundreds of chemical warheads designed to be fitted onto Scud missiles. These damaging restrictions can be overturned in the coming session of Congress if the White House is willing to spend political capital doing so. It will have a strong ally in Senator Lugar, who will become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. More money is also needed to protect and eliminate portable tactical nuclear warheads and the small Russian nuclear generators that contain ideal ingredients for terrorist manufacture of radiological dirty bombs. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush has come to better appreciate the danger that portable and destructive munitions might fall into the hands of terrorists. He ought to summon Mr. Weldon and Mr. Hunter and tell them to stop undermining programs that protect American security. Copyright The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 11 Analysis Did Bush miss his exit on Iraq?* Seattle Times Company Nation & World: Sunday, December 08, 2002 *By Patrick E. Tyler* /The New York Times/ WASHINGTON ? The arrival of Iraq's encyclopedic declaration of weapons data this weekend impels the Bush administration toward the last offramp along the road to war. Even as the United States mobilizes for a campaign to disarm and decapitate Iraq's government, President Bush is facing final determination of whether the Iraqi arms declaration is an honest rendering ? a step toward disarmament ? or a capricious lie that establishes the basis for disarmament by force, a step Bush says he will take as a last resort. Therefore the last offramp ? the expression is a favorite of Secretary of State Colin Powell ? is the one that leads to a relentless U.N. inspection program, backed by a credible threat of force, that persuades Saddam Hussein to surrender everything that could be construed as illicit weapons or the banned tools for making them. It may be wishful thinking that Saddam can ever change or abandon his ambition to lead the Arab world. But the question that clings to the capital is whether anything will be enough for Bush. "Everyone in this town who claims to know the president's mind says he is determined to finish off the Saddam weapons-of-mass-destruction problem and the regime," said Fritz Ermarth, who was chairman of the National Intelligence Council under the first President Bush and is now a resident at the Nixon Center. Still, he added: "We are at a colossally important milestone. How this plays out is extremely important for the international order, for the credibility of the United States as a power and as a consensus-leading power, or not." Diplomats and statesmen were seized by the momentousness of the deliberations over Iraq. Many echoed Ermarth, saying decisions made in coming weeks will heavily influence the rules for security, war and intervention at a time of unrivaled U.S. power. Yet most Americans seem to focus more on whether there will be another military dash across the desert like the one the president's father ordered in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Polling data show an impressive majority of Americans are game. They would like Bush to work within the U.N. system in confronting Iraq but also realize he may not be able to abide constraints on the goals he has set for changing the Iraqi government. Ermarth sees the possibility of delay and obfuscation by Saddam. "Saddam is playing for delay, and a lot of other international actors are playing for that, too," he said. Other nations, some close allies, want time to see what the inspections yield. Still others want to see more intelligence on whether Iraq has the capacity to develop a *nuclear* weapon over the next five years. At the United Nations, there was a substantial measure of skepticism that Bush was looking for an offramp at all. Some officials questioned whether the administration, with its bellicose statements on regime change, was trying to undermine the diplomatic and inspection track. "There is a very fine line between showing a seriousness of intent and conveying the impression that you are going to war no matter what happens, and that fine line should not be crossed," said a U.N. official who spent the week trying to evaluate the statements emanating from Washington. What seemed new this season was that Bush, in an interview with the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, extended earlier public remarks on how fighting terrorism would be the focus of his presidency into a broader vision that seems almost quixotic. Bush described his presidency as one devoted to confronting the remaining despotic regimes in the world. He said he loathed Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, for "starving his people." Bush told Woodward, "They tell me we don't need to move too fast" to take action to free oppressed peoples. "I just don't buy that," he said. "Either you believe in freedom, and want to ? and worry about the human condition, or you don't." These comments suggest Bush is not engaged in an opportunistic whipping up of an Iraq crisis, as some of his critics allege, as a way to divert the country from a troubled economy during the election campaign. They also suggest Bush might not be willing to take the last offramp, even though a timely exit would allow him to pocket the credit for bringing Iraq back under U.N. supervision. The hawks in the administration are nervous, some observers say. "They are nervous that he will not pull the trigger," said Michael McFaul, a professor of political science at Stanford University who has advised the Bush and Clinton administrations on Russian policy. "They thought they were in the driver's seat," he said, "and now they are panicked" because they agreed to drive Bush to the United Nations, which is now in charge on the ground in Iraq. War could still break out, but Ermarth, asked to assess the odds, said, "By a hair, I would bet that things get dragged out." But there is always the winter after next. Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 12 Iraq admits nuclear bomb plan* KurdishMedia.com - United Kurdish Voice Updated: 11/12/2002 08:45:19 GMT Home | News 09/12/2002 KurdishMedia.com - By P. Jaff London (KurdishMedia.com) 09 December 2002: In Iraq’s dossier to the UN, which is a report of almost 12,000 pages, Iraq admits that it had begun work on making a nuclear bomb. Saddam Hussein’s adviser said the declaration proved Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction - but he suggested Baghdad might have been close to developing a nuclear bomb. "We have the complete documentation from design to all the other things. We haven’t reached the final assembly of a bomb nor tested it", Amir al-Saadi said. The dossier has arrived at the United Nations in New York and UN experts got down to work on analysing Iraq’s declaration of its arms programmes. *© Copyright KurdishMedia.com 1998 - 2001.* All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 Iraq dares U.S. to rebut arms report Top Hussein aide calls papers complete, true [http://sfgate.com] [chronfeedback@sfchronicle.com] Monday, December 9, 2002 Baghdad -- An Iraqi general who is a top adviser to President Saddam Hussein challenged the United States on Sunday to produce any evidence it has that Iraq still has any weapons of mass destruction or programs to develop them. But he strongly implied that U.S. intelligence was right in contending that Iraq came close to building at least one Nagasaki-size atom bomb by 1991, at the time of the Persian Gulf War. The Iraqi officer, Gen. Amer al-Saadi, told a news conference that Iraq's 12,000-page declaration to the U.N. Security Council denying any banned weapons or programs was entirely accurate. The long declaration landed at U.N. offices in Vienna and New York, and arms experts immediately began the daunting job of determining whether the material reveals any illegal activity. Late Sunday, the Security Council agreed to give the United States, Russia, France, China and Britain full access to the declaration. The Bush administration has alerted the CIA and national laboratories to be ready to go into overdrive, homing in on a few key Iraqi claims that the United States believes it can show to be false. But in private, administration officials concede there is no single piece of dramatic intelligence that Iraq has continued to try to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Al-Saadi implied that Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who have led the pressures for Iraq to meet its disarmament obligations or face attack, will be shown to have no hard evidence. "We hope they will be investigating, that it will satisfy them, because it's entirely accurate, it's truthful," al-Saadi said of the Iraqi document. PRODUCED UNDER DEADLINE It was produced under a 30-day Security Council deadline and handed over at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad on Saturday night, a day ahead of the deadline. With the declaration's mass of top-secret technical detail and its history of Iraq's weapons programs going back to the 1980s, it is expected to establish a new baseline in the confrontation between the United States and Iraq, helping to settle one way or another whether there will be war. "If they have anything to the contrary, let them come up with it to the Security Council," al-Saadi said. "Why play this game?" U.N. inspectors are in Iraq hunting down any Iraqi secret weapons programs that may survive; they are swooping every day on plants, research institutes and laboratories suspected of harboring banned programs. Twenty-five new investigators arrived Sunday, doubling the team's staff. The Iraqi officer spoke mostly in English, aiming mainly at television audiences in the United States, but he took care to offer his rebuke to the Bush administration in Arabic, too. "We don't understand the rush to judgment," he said. "A superpower should study and take its time in judging, especially as everyone is looking on it as it prepares for a huge military campaign, for an aggression against Iraq. It should behave wisely." BLIZZARD OF PAPERWORK With the news conference, Iraqi officials appeared to have settled on a strategy of a bold verbal counter-attack to accompany the blizzard of Iraqi paperwork and computer disks they have unloaded in the declaration. The Bush administration has said it intends to take time to analyze the documents, and no doubt will seize on the most startling of the admissions that came out of al-Saadi's news conference: his acknowledgment of how far Iraq had progressed by 1991 toward acquiring a nuclear bomb. On that topic, the 64-year-old general, a chemical engineer who rose to become Hussein's most trusted lieutenant in the secret weapons hierarchy, seemed proud, even regretful that the Persian Gulf War with the United States, and the bombing of Iraq's most coveted nuclear sites, had disrupted its most ambitious weapon venture of all. Al-Saadi was asked how close Iraq had come to acquiring a nuclear weapon. Speaking in word-perfect English acquired during doctoral studies at the University of London in the 1960s, he replied: "We haven't reached the final assembly of a bomb, nor tested it," and added, "If you follow the documents we have given, there is no guarantee that you would succeed." Yet he danced close to the idea that considerable progress had been made. "We don't know, it's for others to judge, it's for the International Atomic Energy Agency to judge, how close we were. If I tell you we were close, it's subjective, maybe promotional." CIA HAS NUCLEAR-BOMB DETAILS That Iraq made headway toward acquiring a nuclear weapon, and its cloak-and- dagger stratagems, have been chronicled in detail by the international atomic agency and the CIA. A CIA report made public in October said Iraq launched a crash program to build a bomb immediately after its invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, planning to divert highly enriched uranium from internationally safeguarded research reactors that France and the Soviet Union supplied. The general devoted a large part of the one-hour news conference to spelling out details of Iraq's nuclear program as described to the Security Council. Chronicle news services contributed to this report. ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.   Page A - 1 ***************************************************************** 14 Wolfowitz Says Inspectors Cannot Scour Every Inch of Iraq [International Information Programs] Washington File 09 December 2002 (Urges change of attitude in Baghdad) (4040) Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz told the World Affairs Council and the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco December 6 that it is not the responsibility of weapons inspectors in Iraq "to scour every square inch." That would be "beyond their means," as well as their responsibility, he said. "The bottom line is that Saddam Hussein and his regime must fundamentally change their attitude and finally implement a disarmament that they agreed to more than a decade ago," the deputy secretary said. Over more than a decade it has become clear, he said, that the Iraqi leader will only give up his weapons of mass destruction "if he believes that doing so is the only way for him and his regime to survive." "The debate is not between those who desire peace and those who love war, " Wolfowitz said, "I know of no one…except the terrorists, who loves war. The issue we face…is how best to increase the chances of a peaceful outcome." Having recently returned from a three-day trip to London, Ankara and Brussels, the deputy secretary talked about the symbolism of each capital in the war against terrorism. "Brussels symbolizes the importance of the coalition in the war on terror; London, what we need to do to hopefully peacefully disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass terror; and, finally, Ankara symbolizes the importance of supporting moderate Muslims, in order to build a better world beyond the war on terrorism." Following is the transcript of Wolfowitz's remarks: (begin transcript) Building the Bridge to a More Peaceful Future Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, The World Affairs Council and the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, CA Friday, December 6, 2002. Thanks, Bill [Perry, former Secretary of Defense]. Bill, of course, is now at Stanford and can certainly appreciate this story I used to tell when I was at Johns Hopkins. It came to me from my former boss, [former Secretary of State] George Shultz, who, I understand, may have had something to do with my getting an invitation to speak here today. George was once asked: "What's the difference between managing in the private sector, government, and academia?" And he reportedly replied: "It's sort of like this: "In the private sector you have to be very careful what you ask people to do because they're going to go out and do it-so be sure you ask them what you want. In government, you don't have to worry about that-you ask people to do something and check back a couple months later to find that nothing's happened. In the university, you ask some people to do something, and they look at you strangely and say, 'Who do you think you are giving us orders?'" Wednesday night, I returned from a three-day trip to London, Turkey and Brussels. According to my body clock, I think we're still somewhere over the Atlantic. I'd like to take a brief look at each city we visited because each one of these three major capitols symbolizes, in its own way, an important dimension of the war on terrorism. Brussels symbolizes the importance of the coalition in the war on terror; London, what we need to do to hopefully peacefully disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass terror; and, finally, Ankara symbolizes the importance of supporting moderate Muslims, in order to build a better world beyond the war on terrorism. Brussels: The Importance of the Coalition Brussels, of course, is the headquarters of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which is why I stopped there. I remember the first press conference of President George H.W. Bush after the Berlin Wall came down 13 years ago. He was asked pointedly what need there was for NATO now that the threat had seemingly gone away. I remember that many people discounted his wise answer that a threat did remain, and that threat was called "uncertainty." Looking back, I recall my own thoughts about NATO at the time in terms of one great fear and two great hopes. First, the fear that NATO, would, in fact, disappear, if the world made the mistake of thinking, like the naysayers at that press conference, that just because the threat we had feared for so long had disappeared, that there was nothing more to worry about-and that the mechanism that had been so effective at dealing with threats-NATO-would no longer be available. Alongside that fear, I had two great hopes. The first was the hope that NATO could help the new democracies that were emerging in Central and Eastern Europe, to move forward with confidence to build free institutions and representative self-government. The second hope was that this consolidation of democratic progress in central Europe would not erect a wall against Russia, but instead could build a bridge to Russia-a democratic Russia that would have no security conflicts with NATO. To the contrary, Russia's security concerns would tend to overlap those of the West. Well, here we are, 13 years later. And history records those two hopes have come true, and the great fear has been overcome. NATO not only survived. It adapted-dealing effectively, with a new kind of threat, the threat of ethnic cleansing and genocide in the Balkans. NATO has grown, welcoming new democracies and encouraging the democratic process by doing so. NATO has established an unprecedented relationship with Russia that has contributed to better relations between Russia and the countries of the Atlantic Alliance, including countries of the former Warsaw Pact. NATO has demonstrated that an alliance based on common values of freedom and democracy has more staying power than any previous alliance built purely on a narrow coincidence of interests. And now, at the beginning of the 21st Century, NATO has been an instrument not only for solidifying peace in Europe and building bridges across the continent, but also for responding to the extraordinary new threat posed by international terrorism. The attacks of September 11th not only killed thousands of Americans, but also citizens of some 80 nations. This global attack required a global response. And the world responded. NATO invoked Article V from its charter-the one that states that an attack against one is an attack against all-for the first time in its history in response to something that NATO's founders probably didn't envision, an attack on U.S. soil. Many countries have contributed to the significant progress we've made in the last year. Some have joined us publicly; others have chosen more quiet forms of cooperation. Seventeen nations have contributed some 6,000 troops to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and to the international peacekeeping force in Kabul, that country's capitol. Just as important, if not more so, the work of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies with more than 90 countries has resulted in the arrest of some 2,400 dangerous individuals worldwide. We are not alone in defense of freedom and justice and peace. The coalition will remain vitally important as we face other dimensions in the war on terrorism-a commitment that was reaffirmed-in very strong language-by our allies in Brussels. London: Coalition's Role in Disarmament of Iraq's Arsenal of Terror In London, our discussions focused on how to achieve that goal of disarming Iraq's weapons of mass terror, peacefully if at all possible, but by force if necessary. President Bush and Prime Minister Blair have been the leaders of that effort. When I saw Prime Minister Blair, he'd just met with a group of 10 Iraqi women, who'd given him their own accounts of the intimidation, torture and murder inflicted on their families by the current regime in Baghdad. It was plain that Blair had been profoundly moved. In Iraq, the experiences of those 10 women, unfortunately, is multiplied a thousand fold. Theirs is part of a larger story told, in part, in a dossier released this week by the British government, outlining brutal human rights abuses in Iraq. The former U.N. weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, recently spoke about that horror. He did so reluctantly, because, as he puts it, he's "waging peace now." It was a scene more horrible than he was willing to say, but what he did say was bad enough. He described a prison in Baghdad whose stench was unreal. It was an amalgam of "urine, feces, vomit and sweat," a hellhole where prisoners were, as he reports it, "howling and dying of thirst." The oldest prisoners were 12 years old, zthe youngest, toddlers. Their crime: being children of political enemies of the Iraqi regime. It's hard to imagine a more grim symbol of a regime that rules by terror and which embraces terror as a policy against those who oppose it than a children's prison. That regime poses a particular danger to the Iraqi people. And it poses a danger to the world at large. But, the fact that Saddam terrorizes his own people is also his greatest weakness, a crucial weakness if it should become necessary to use force to disarm his arsenal of terror. Since Saddam Hussein rules by fear and fear alone, when his people no longer fear him, he will have to fear them. But we still hope to achieve that disarmament by peaceful means, if at all possible. The UN Security Council's unanimous passage on November 8th of Resolution 1441 opened a decisive final chapter in the eleven-year struggle to achieve that goal. That strong international expression, backed up by the determination of President Bush, the strong bipartisan support from both houses of the U.S. Congress and many expressions of international coalition support, demonstrate a unity of purpose that is essential if we are to convince Baghdad in no uncertain terms that the time has come-once and for all-for Iraq to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction. Remember, though, the goal is not merely the resumption of inspections in Iraq. The goal is disarmament-the elimination of Iraq's programs to build chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. One of the questions that has been asked frequently, is "whether disarming Iraq would distract the United States from the global war on terror." The answer to that is simple and powerful: disarming Iraq and fighting the war on terror are not merely related. Disarming Iraq's arsenal of terror is a crucial part of winning the war on terror. If we can disarm or defeat a terrorist regime in Baghdad it will be a defeat for terrorists globally. Let me explain why, and I'll start with words of Secretary of State Colin Powell, when he testified before the House International Relations Committee earlier this year. "Since September 11th, 2001," Secretary Powell said, "the world is a more dangerous place. As a consequence of the terrorist attacks on that day a new reality was born. The world had to recognize that the potential connection between terrorists and weapons of mass destruction had moved terrorism to a new level of threat, a threat that could not be deterred because of this connection, between States developing weapons of mass destruction, and terrorist organizations willing to use them without any compunction and in an undeterrable fashion." The war on terrorism is a global war, and one that must be pursued everywhere. We cannot allow one of the world's worst dictators to continue developing the world's worst weapons. We cannot allow one of the world's most murderous dictators to provide terrorists a sanctuary in Iraq. Clearly, the peaceful implementation of the U.N.'s will cannot happen without a fundamental change in the attitude of the Baghdad regime. It is not and cannot be the responsibility of the inspectors to scour every square inch of Iraq. It cannot be their responsibility to search out and find every illegal weapon or system and disarm Iraq. That would be a task beyond their means and beyond their responsibility. It is the responsibility of the Baghdad regime to do so. What inspectors can do is give us some confidence if the regime has, in fact, assumed its responsibility, if it has, in fact, declared and destroyed every weapon of mass destruction and every delivery system and disclosed and destroyed every development program. The bottom line is that Saddam Hussein and his regime must fundamentally change their attitude and finally implement a disarmament that they agreed to more than a decade ago. If the inspectors are forced to go back to the old cat-and-mouse game that the world saw so often before, then the effort to resolve this problem peacefully will have failed. Let me repeat, we are trying to achieve the disarmament of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction-to eliminate this serious danger to the United States and to the world-if possible, by peaceful means. But, by one means or another, we will eliminate that threat. As President Bush made clear in Prague, Iraq must disarm-"voluntarily, or by force, that goal will be achieved." But 11 years of bitter experience with the Baghdad regime makes it clear that Saddam Hussein will give up those weapons only if he believes that doing so is the only way for him and his regime to survive. The debate is not between those who desire peace and those who love war. I know of no one, no one, except the terrorists, who loves war. The issue we face today as a nation is how best to increase the chances of a peaceful outcome. Let's acknowledge that there is a seeming paradox here. The simple truth is that our only hope, and let me emphasize-our only hope-of achieving that peaceful outcome is if we can confront the Iraqi regime with a credible threat of force behind our diplomacy. To be effective, the two must be part of a single policy. President Kennedy understood that paradox in 1962. When he began negotiating with the Soviet Union for the removal of their missiles from Cuba, he assembled a powerful force to demonstrate that, if the missiles were not removed peacefully, the United States would force their removal. That action was risky, but without it, a peaceful resolution of the Cuban missile crisis would not have been possible. Some people said back then that Kennedy should have waited until the threat was imminent. We hear that again today. But, we cannot wait to act until the threat is imminent. The notion that we can do so assumes that we will know when the threat is imminent. That wasn't true even when the United States was presented with the very obvious threat of Soviet missiles in Cuba. As President Kennedy said 40 years ago, "We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation's security to constitute maximum peril." If that was true in 1962, facing a threat that was comparatively easy to see, how much more true is it today against threats developed by terrorists who use the freedom of democratic societies to plot and plan in our midst in secret. Stop and think for a moment. Just when were the attacks of September 11th imminent? Certainly they were imminent on September 10th, although we didn't know it. In fact, the September 11th terrorists established themselves in the United States long before that date-many months or even a couple of years earlier. Anyone who believes that we can wait until we have certain knowledge that attacks are imminent, has failed to connect the dots that led to September 11th. As we seek a peaceful removal of the Iraqi threat, we recognize that we would never have succeeded in the United Nations without the support of our coalition partners. And we would have no chance of getting Saddam Hussein to take the UN's seventeenth and latest resolution seriously were it not backed up by the resolve of the brave men and women in America's armed forces and those of many other countries. When the national security of the United States is at stake, we are not playing games. We cannot tolerate the game that Secretary of State Powell has correctly dismissed as "rope-a-dope in the desert"; the game that the Baghdad regime played so adeptly over the last decade. The President of the United States has made his determination clear; his intentions are unmistakable. If Saddam Hussein and his regime underestimate our will and this coalition, they will have made a big mistake. Ankara: Moderate Islam and Building a Better World Beyond the War on Terror My visit to Ankara came during an extraordinary moment in Turkish history. It was fascinating to visit that city at one of the most critical moments in the history of modern Turkey's relationship with the rest of Europe and Turkey' aspirations to join the European Union. Ankara symbolizes the importance of supporting moderate Muslim countries and people, which is critical-in order to work for peace and to build a better world beyond the war on terror. This is also a crucial time for Turkey because that Muslim majority country has a new government headed by a party that has special appeal to Muslim voters, but which rejects the label Islamist and supports the secular principles of modern Turkey. Turkey can be a useful model for others in the Muslim world. That is because, in the long run, real success in the war on terror requires building what President Bush referred to in his State of the Union Address last January as a "just and peaceful world beyond the war on terror." It is our great good fortune that Turkey, one of our strongest, most reliable and most self-reliant allies, occupies one of the most important strategic crossroads in the world. In Ankara, we had a series of very positive and constructive discussions about Turkey's future-a future of further integration with Europe, a future of economic and democratic progress and a future of freedom and tolerance. I discussed with the head of the new governing party, Recep Tayip Erdogan, and the new prime minister, Abdullah Gul, a range of very important matters including the threat now posed by Iraq's arsenal of terror. With the cooperation of the Turks, and our other allies, Saddam Hussein should make no mistake: his regime is literally surrounded by the international community. This unity of international will is enormously important. It is the most hopeful route to achieving a peaceful resolution-with the prompt and complete disarmament of Iraq's most horrible weapons of mass terror. Turkey's strong commitment to peace is also demonstrated by peacekeeping forces in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, including the leadership of the peacekeeping force in Kabul. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, Turkey was crucial in the coalition that liberated that country. Later Turkey helped us in Operation Provide Comfort, enabling hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees to return to their homes. Turkish forces played an important role in Operation Restore Hope that rescued thousands of Somalis from famine. Modern Turkey also demonstrates that a democratic system is indeed compatible with Islam. In upholding a peaceful vision of Islam's morals and values, Turkey offers a valuable model for Muslim majority countries striving to realize the goals of freedom, secularism and democracy. Turkey's recent election has been described by some as a "political earthquake," and there is no question that it has transformed Turkey's political landscape. But, most informed observers agree that in this election Turks were casting their votes for the concept of responsible and accountable representation-not, as some fear, seeking to politicize religion. The ruling AK Party, which is best known for its Muslim identity, rejects the Islamic label. And it has strongly declared its belief in a Turkish destiny in Europe. Its leadership has traveled to 14 European capitals to argue Turkey's case for joining Europe, knowing full well what that will require of Turkey. It has repeatedly expressed its support for the separation of religion and the state, which is the basis of Turkish democracy. If AK continues to carry through with its stated positions, there is no more reason to fear this party than religious-based parties in Europe that combine religious faith with belief in tolerance and religious freedom and the separation of church and state. It was clear in our discussions this week that the new government is working to realize people's best hopes, not their worst fears. Europe now has a strategic opportunity. Turkey's success could demonstrate to the world's 1.2 billion Muslims that there is a better path-a far better path-than the path of destruction and despair that the terrorists offer. When Europe's leaders stand by Turkey, they will be making a great contribution to the war on terror and to building what President Bush called "a better world beyond." The stakes are huge. People who share the values of freedom and democracy that grew out of European civilization are seeing increasingly that these are not just Western values or European values. They are Muslim and Asian and universal values as well. They are the bridge that spans civilizations. Turkey's democratic model can also serve as an inspiration to Iraqis. It is important to democratic Turkey, and to us, that the people of Iraq should be able to govern themselves democratically, with full respect for the rights of all its citizens, and that the territorial integrity of the country be maintained. A democratic Iraq can stimulate economic growth with neighbors like Turkey and stabilize the region. Beyond the reach of Baghdad for a decade, Iraqis of the north-predominately Kurds, but Arabs and Turcomans as well-have demonstrated an impressive ability to manage longstanding differences and even develop relatively free and prospering societies. They have done this even though they labor under the same economic sanctions that have applied to the rest of that country. Once freed from Saddam's tyranny, it is reasonable to expect that Iraq's educated, industrious population of more than 20 million could build a modern society that would be a source of prosperity, not insecurity, for its neighbors. We may someday look back on this moment in history as the time when the West defined itself for the 21st Century-not in terms of geography or race or religion or culture or language, but in terms of values-the values of freedom and democracy. That great British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all of the other systems which have ever been tried." In our time, more and more people who have tried those other systems are turning, in their own different ways, to freedom and democracy. I'd like to close with one more story about our former Secretary of State George Shultz. Every new ambassador heading out to his or her post would go to George's office for a picture with the Secretary of State to hang proudly in their office in their embassy. Each time a new ambassador came in, George would take them to this enormous globe, some three or four feet tall, that sat on the floor of his office. He'd causally say, "Just for this picture, turn the globe to your country." The new diplomat would eagerly spin the globe around to France or Germany or Mali. And it was at that point that the Secretary of State would say, "No, let me explain something," as he slowly turned that giant globe back to the United States of America. I have to confess that by the time I went to Indonesia, I'd already heard the story, so I passed the exam. But, I think George's exercise illustrates two very important things. First, the security of the United States must be always be foremost in our mind. And, second, people around the world look to the United States for leadership-whether it be as an example of representative government or in fighting terrorism, the great evil of our time. When we guard our own interests, we help shape a secure and peaceful world. For people who cherish freedom and seek peace, these are difficult times. But, such times can deepen our understanding of the truth. And this truth we know: the single greatest threat to peace and freedom in our time is terrorism. So this truth we affirm: the future does not belong to the terrorists. The future belongs to those who work to achieve the oldest and noblest dream of all, the dream of peace and freedom. (Distributed by the Office of International Information Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov) ***************************************************************** 15 IAEA Receives Iraq's Nuclear-related Declaration [http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/] [www.iaea.org] PR 2002/20 (8 December 2002) Vienna, 8 December, 2002 -- The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, announced that the IAEA received this evening, Sunday, 8 December 2002, at its Headquarters in Vienna, an approximately 2400 page declaration on Iraq's nuclear programme. The declaration consists of about 2100 pages in English and 300 pages in Arabic. The declaration was submitted by the Government of Iraq in response to paragraph 3 of Security Council resolution 1441 (8 November 2002), which requires Iraq to provide to UNMOVIC, the IAEA and to the Security Council, not later than 30 days of the date of that resolution, with "a currently accurate, full, and complete declaration of all aspects of its programmes to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems... as well as all other chemical, biological, and nuclear programmes, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to weapon production or material". "The IAEA will immediately begin to assess this important new document," said Mr. ElBaradei, "including the painstaking and systematic cross-checking of the information provided by Iraq against information which the IAEA already has, information that it expects to receive from other Member States, as contemplated in resolution 1441, and results of past and present Agency verification activities." Complete assessment of the declaration will be time consuming, particularly in light of the need to translate the 300 pages of Arabic text into English. However, the IAEA expects to be able to provide a preliminary analysis of the document to the Security Council within the next ten days, with a fuller assessment to be provided when it reports to the Council at the end of January. ***************************************************************** 16 Celebrities to ask President Bush to stop Iraq war plans [http://sfgate.com] Monday, December 9, 2002 (12-09) 17:06 PST LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Actor Mike Farrell and actress Anjelica Huston plan to unveil a letter signed by many celebrities urging President Bush to halt his war rhetoric toward Iraq. The letter, to be released Tuesday, is signed by such entertainers as Kim Basinger, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Ethan Hawke, Samuel L. Jackson, Jessica Lange and Martin Sheen, according to event publicist Andrew Sousa. Huston and Farrell were to show the letter publicly at Le Deux Cafe in Hollywood. Details of its contents were not released Monday. Bush has threatened military force against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, saying the dictator has amassed weapons of mass destruction that pose a danger to the United States. United Nations weapons inspectors are searching Iraq for such devices but have turned up little so far. Farrell, who plays a veterinarian on the NBC series "Providence," previously compiled a celebrity-endorsed letter in June asking senators to vote against a plan to bury nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Co-signers of that letter included Alec Baldwin and Tim Robbins, Rob Reiner, Barbra Streisand and Harry Belafonte. On July 9, senators voted 60-39 in favor of the Yucca Mountain project. ©2002 Associated Press   ***************************************************************** 17 Federal court dismisses GAO, Cheney suit United Press International By Kathy A. Gambrell White House reporter Published 12/9/2002 6:30 PM WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- A federal judge on Monday dismissed an "unprecedented" lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney, seeking the release of records from the government's energy task force, saying that the General Accounting Office has no standing under the U.S. Constitution to bring the action. "Because the comptroller general (who runs the GAO) does not have the personal, concrete and particularized injury required ... either himself or as the agent of Congress, his complaint must be dismissed," wrote U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates. Bates said in his 43-page decision that since lawsuit did not have congressional endorsement, it "left to the realm of speculation whether there is a real need to exercise the power of judicial review." Comptroller General David Walker filed the lawsuit in February seeking a court-ordered release of the names of individuals and corporations Cheney and his energy task force consulted during development of the administration's national energy policy. The lawsuit followed the White House's refusal to hand over the names voluntarily. The GAO wanted to know who the task force had met as part of an inquiry launched at the request of Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., and Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif. Both lawmakers were concerned about the "conduct and composition" of the task force and what they considered its efforts to shield "its membership and deliberations from public scrutiny," according to court documents. The White House said that releasing the information would hamper its future decision-making processes, by making those who they might want to consult wary of giving frank advice. Walker released a statement expressing disappointment over the ruling and said he was considering what the next step would be. "We are in the process of reviewing and analyzing the decision to fully understand the bases for it and its potential implications," Walker said. "We will consider whether or not to appeal after we have completed this review and consulted with Congressional leadership on a bipartisan basis." The White House said it was happy with the outcome. "We are pleased with the court ruling. We believe it is important that the president can receive unvarnished advice in decision-making and the court has supported this," said a senior administration official. The National Energy Policy Development Group released its report in May 2001. It called for expanded gas and oil exploration, construction of nuclear power plants, and drilling in the controversial Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Democrats questioned whether environmental groups were given a fair hearing during the task force's deliberations and how much influence energy executives had over the group's final report. The task force backed the continued use of fossil fuel, as opposed to renewable energy sources favored by the environmental lobby. Bates wrote in his decision that the case raised "compelling statutory and constitutional questions concerning the authority of the comptroller general and the U.S. Congress to require the vice president to produce information relating to the president's decision-making on national energy policy. "Each side casts its position in core constitutional terms invoking competing theories of the proper balance of power between the legislative and executive branches, and insists that its opponent seeks to 'work a revolution' in separation of powers principles," the decision read. Bates went on to say that no comptroller has ever sued the executive branch, and "In that sense, this lawsuit is unprecedented." The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch in March secured the release of more than 11,000 pages of documents detailing the group's deliberations. The pages were released under court order from the Department of Energy, White House Office of Budget and Management, Department of Agriculture, and Environmental Protection Agency. The group had initially sought the documents under a Freedom of Information Act request. Copyright © 2002 United Press International ***************************************************************** 18 Bush's next target Guardian Unlimited | World dispatch | Still out in the cold Introducing a week-long Guardian Unlimited investigation of North Korea, Simon Tisdall profiles a secretive, famine-ravaged country which forms part of George Bush's 'axis of evil' Monday December 9, 2002 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, better known simply as North Korea, is neither democratic nor a republic. And it certainly does not belong to its 23 million people. The country is run by a dictator, Kim Jong-Il, son of its founder president, Kim Il-Sung, and a small, secretive clique of army and party officials. The regime espouses, in theory, a communist or socialist ideology, and despite recent attempts at reform, directs a command economy and centralised social and institutional structures in which all citizens and resources are at the disposal of the state. The tide of change that brought quiet or violent revolutions to most communist-run countries after the end of the cold war has passed North Korea by. Personal rights and freedoms of the kind enshrined in the UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights do not exist there. Once described as the "hermit kingdom", there are no free elections, no free speech, no freedom of association or travel, and no free press. Like dictatorships elsewhere, the Pyongyang regime relies on brutal repression to maintain control. Human rights groups have estimated that up to 200,000 people are incarcerated in prison camps. Arbitrary execution, torture and forced labour are routinely used to maintain the regime's authority. International agencies such as the Red Cross and the UN Human Rights Commission have been denied unfettered access. Official propaganda promotes a personality cult around the short, portly figure of Kim Jong-Il. The "Dear Leader" has a penchant for too-tight, Elvis-style jump-suits and, according to a new book by a former Russian diplomat, for lobster and other gourmet delicacies, vintage Bordeaux and dancing girls or "lady conductors". Kim's grotesquely self-indulgent lifestyle contrasts harshly with the food shortages and other hardships that affect most North Koreans. This year has seen a growing exodus of refugees and asylum seekers across the border to China. Famine caused by mismanagement of state-controlled agriculture, and exacerbated by floods and drought, caused the deaths of several million North Koreans in the 1990s, according to aid agency estimates. The country has never really recovered, in part because its ability to recuperate was seriously hindered by the growing diplomatic and economic estrangement from its former cold war patrons in Moscow and Beijing. Last week, the UN's World Food Programme said it expected to have to feed more than a quarter of North Korea's population next year, following projections of a renewed famine. It appealed for $200m in extra funding and has already been forced to reduce its per capita rations. However, this latest appeal comes on top of the much larger, developing famine emergencies in southern Africa and Ethiopia, and the continuing international effort in Afghanistan. Donor countries, dismayed by the North Korea regime's self-destructive policies, may prove reluctant to do more for a country that appears incapable of helping itself. The humanitarian aspect apart, North Korean misery and misrule might be considered of little importance for the world at large. There are, after, all many countries where misgovernance and misfortune combine with dreadful results for the inhabitants. But Kim Jong-Il, eccentric and irresponsible though he may be, is not entirely foolish. Like his father, he knows how to get the west's attention. And as the country's situation has grown more desperate over the years, he has used a number of levers to gain the west's help. One lever is friction with South Korea, the vastly more successful state from which the North was separated along the 38th parallel after Japan's surrender in 1945. Kim maintains a large army, and memories of the Korean war, which ended with an uneasy armistice in 1953, are never allowed to fade completely. North Korea has regularly provoked armed skirmishes with the South, the most recent of which was a naval clash last summer which resulted in several dozen deaths. At the same time, Kim - who in theory is committed to reunification - has given a guarded welcome to the "sunshine policy" of détente pursued by South Korea's President Kim Dae-Jung. This process reached a high point in 2000 with a summit meeting in Pyongyang. There have been further moves this year to improve cross-border links, promote trade and reduce military tensions. But Kim has never kept his promise to pay a return visit to Seoul. He apparently prefers to keep the South guessing about his real intentions with the aim of extracting more concessions and direct aid. Significantly, with Kim Dae-Jung retiring, the conservative favourite in this month's South Korean election to replace him, Lee Hoi-Chang, has threatened to cut cash aid to Pyongyang unless it modifies its behaviour in a range of areas. North Korea has exercised similar tactics in its relations with Japan, the former colonial power and now the region's economic superpower. Pyongyang is dependent on direct Japanese aid, too. But that did not stop it severely rattling Tokyo in 1998 by test-firing a ballistic missile over the sea of Japan. That intensified long-standing fears about North Korea's missile programmes and its collaboration with other states, notably Pakistan, in selling and buying related technology. Like Seoul, Japan's leaders never quite know what to make of Kim, but their instinct is in favour of broadening contacts rather than a dangerous confrontation. Thus while it was a gamble, it was not a total surprise that Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, went to Pyongyang last September to meet Kim in person. His purpose was in part to encourage the very limited free market reforms introduced by Kim earlier this year, and boost détente. Koizumi offered a generous aid package if bilateral relations were normalised. But he also got a shock, typical of Kim: North Korea admitted for the first time to abducting Japanese citizens in cold war covert operations. The subsequent angry outcry in Japan has further confused the Tokyo government about how best to handle its unpredictable neighbour. Kim has tried to play the same game with the US and almost succeeded, towards the end of the second Clinton administration, in winning more concessions when the then secretary of state Madeleine Albright was induced to visit Pyongyang. But in the Bush administration he has encountered a far less malleable sparring partner. Under President George Bush, North Korea has become a declared adversary. Bush and his top advisers disagreed over North Korea policy after coming to office, wavering between negotiation and confrontation. But September 11 changed all that. The primary reason is North Korea's continuing efforts, as the US sees it, to acquire nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction that could threaten US bases in South Korea, US allies such as Japan, and even the US mainland itself. For this reason, Bush included Pyongyang in his "axis of evil". For this reason, the US has also pressured Russia and China to exert what influence they still have on North Korea. The two countries obliged last week, issuing a joint statement urging North Korea to honour a 1994 agreement to eschew the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Bush's demonisation of North Korea's regime after September 11 was based on several factors, only one of which was its military activities. It suited Washington to highlight the link between repressive regimes or "failed" or "rogue" states like North Korea and international terrorism and weapons proliferation. It served to rally Asian countries to the US banner in the "global war on terror". The threat posed by countries such as North Korea, constantly stressed and embroidered on in Washington, also helped Bush's Republican party in November's mid-term elections, and may well help Bush's re-election bid in 2004. The Pentagon says, for example, that Pyongyang already has several nuclear warheads. There is no firm evidence for that claim. But Bush has another reason for singling out North Korea. As with Osama bin Laden, as with Saddam Hussein, he has personalised the issue. He recently told the author and reporter Bob Woodward of his "hate" for Kim and all he stands for. For Bush, Kim personifies the enemy in the great 21st century global battle between good and evil, between right and wrong, that Bush has vowed to lead and win. North Korea's recent, surprise admission that it has continued to pursue nuclear capability despite the 1994 accord has only served to entrench Bush's view. Washington's reaction has been to lobby regional allies further to isolate Pyongyang. One recent result was a decision to cut off fuel oil supplies to North Korea. This is probably just the beginning of a war of attrition. It seems likely that Kim, shielded from the world and distracted by his dancing girls and four-hour banquets, has failed so far to appreciate that his old game of making threats and conjuring spectres in order to win concessions will not wash with the Bush administration. Most probably, he believes his nuclear "confession" will persuade the west to engage with him on his terms and try to buy him off with more assistance and aid. If so, this is a potentially regime-changing miscalculation. Until Iraq is sorted out, one way or another, the US is unlikely to move against North Korea in any concerted way. But once its hands are free of Saddam, America's attention may turn to North Korea in ways that Kim could find terminally uncomfortable. That in turn presents a deeply disturbing and dangerous prospect for South Korea, Japan, and others who may be within striking distance of Pyongyang's zany "Dear Leader". · Simon Tisdall is the Guardian's foreign affairs leader writer simon.tisdall@guardian.co.uk [simon.tisdall@guardian.co.uk] Useful links United Nations [http://www.un.org/] European Union [http://europa.eu.int/] US government [http://www.firstgov.gov/] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 19 US analyzes Iraqi arms declaration, suppliers named Reuters AlertNet - 10 Dec 2002 01:15 (Adds listing of arms suppliers, Democratic comment) By Steve Holland and Hassan Hafidh WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD, Dec 9 (Reuters) - U.S. officials began analyzing a 12,000-page dossier detailing Baghdad's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs on Monday as U.N. inspectors resumed their hunt for banned Iraqi arms with visits to several industrial sites. The United States received an early unedited copy of the Iraqi weapons declaration after a deal was struck to override a U.N. Security Council decision to keep the report under wraps. The huge document appeared to contain the names of foreign arms suppliers in a long declaration on Iraq's past weapons programs -- something that could prove embarrassing for the countries involved, including members of the Security Council. The council had wanted to delay release of the Iraqi document until it had been screened for technical secrets on making nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, for fear that the information might fall into the wrong hands. In a surprise move on Sunday, an arrangement was suddenly made to hand over the voluminous document to the United States, which is making copies for the other four permanent Security Council members. Britain and France received their copies late on Monday and Washington was expected shortly to deliver copies to Russia and China in New York. The report, which is supposed to give a full accounting of Iraq's past and present weapons programs, was ordered by the Security Council as part of a tough new resolution to disarm or face war. In the index, Iraq listed procurements for its nuclear programs as well as imported chemical precursors and foreign technical assistance for its chemicals weapons programs. "There are lots of pages devoted to procurement information," said Gary Milholling, director of the Washington-based Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, commenting on the dossier's information on suppliers. "If they have listed all their suppliers, that is quite important and should be made public. If you expose this network, it means it is harder for them to continue." COMPANIES NEVER IDENTIFIED In the past such information has been submitted but not disclosed by U.N. weapons inspection units. Companies around the world that co-operated with the United Nations did so on condition they would not be publicly identified. It is not known whether the United States or other council members might try to suppress this part of the Iraqi report, but after distribution to all of the Security Council's 15 member states, there is a good chance it will leak to the media. Meanwhile, U.N. experts in New York and Vienna were poring over the report to judge whether it contained enough to satisfy U.N. demands for disarmament and perhaps to avert war with the United States. U.S. experts are expected to search for discrepancies between the disclosures made by Iraq and what U.S. intelligence believes it knows about Baghdad's continuing efforts to develop banned weapons. American officials say they have evidence of continuing Iraqi illegal weapons and insist Washington will take military action if necessary to rid Iraq of them. Iraq says the declaration shows it has no weapons of mass destruction -- an assertion that puts it on a collision course with the United States. In Washington, however, a group of Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill challenged the Bush administration to prove its assertions by releasing intelligence showing that Iraq still has weapons of mass destruction. "If the administration has evidence that counters the Iraqi disclosures, they should provide such evidence to the United Nations," said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat. "The administration does not do well if it bypasses the United Nations and prepares to engage in war no matter what the U.N. findings." WAR GAME IN QATAR Strikes on Iraq are among the military scenarios to be tested in a major U.S. war game that began on Monday in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, site of Gen. Tommy Franks' new mobile headquarters for U.S. Central Command. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said President George W. Bush had "patience." "He would much prefer to have Iraq disarm herself," he told reporters during a visit to Tokyo. "But, as the president said, if Iraq won't disarm, then eventually, Iraq will be disarmed." Bush was taking new steps to solidify support against Iraq, and will host a visit on Tuesday by Turkey's new political leader, Tayyip Erdogan, who is from an Islamic-related party. A top aide to President Saddam Hussein hinted on Sunday that Iraq once came close to making a nuclear bomb. He invited the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to decide for itself how close. "We have the complete documentation from design to all the other things. We haven't reached the final assembly of a bomb nor tested it," Amir al-Saadi told journalists. IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told Reuters in Vienna that this statement "was consistent with what we found between 1991 and 1998" and was no surprise to the U.N. agency. The arms inspectors, who have resumed work in Iraq for the first time in four years, on Monday searched al-Tuweitha Nuclear Research Center, 12 miles (20 km) south of Baghdad, the heart of Iraq's efforts to make nuclear weapons. Other experts inspected a military industrial complex near Fallujah, 55 miles (90 km) northwest of Baghdad, repeatedly investigated by the United Nations and bombed by Western warplanes in the 1990s as a suspected chemical weapons center. Yashuhiro Ueki, spokesman for UNMOVIC and IAEA in Baghdad, said the site, known as Fallujah 2, contained tagged dual-use equipment that was all accounted for. "The objectives of the visit were successfully achieved," Ueki said in a statement. The IAEA team also visited two other sites, called Ash Shakyli and al Qa Qaa. Asked about estimates the inspection process could take up to a year, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said in Tokyo: "I think that's accurate." The arms inspectors must report to the Security Council by Jan. 26 under U.N. resolution 1441, which threatens Iraq with "serious consequences" if it fails to comply. ***************************************************************** 20 NRC: Maine Yankee ASLB formation FR Doc 02-31003 [Federal Register: December 9, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 236)] [Notices] [Page 72983] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr09de02-120] NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION [Docket Nos. 50-309-OM & 72-30-OM; ASLBP No. 03-806-01-OM] Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company, Maine Yankee Atomic Power Station; Establishment of Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Pursuant to delegation by the Commission dated December 29, 1972, published in the Federal Register, 37 FR 28710 (1972), and sections 2.105, 2.700, 2.702, 2.714, 2.714a, 2.717, 2.721, and 2.772(j) of the Commission's Regulations, all as amended, an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board is being established to preside over the following proceeding: Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company, Maine Yankee Atomic Power Station. This Board is being established pursuant to a November 15, 2002, petition to intervene and request for hearing submitted by the State of Maine. The petition was filed in response to an NRC staff ``Order Modifying Licenses (Effective Immediately)'' published in the Federal Register (67 FR 65150 (October 23, 2002)). The order requires licensees who currently store, or who have near-term plans to store, spent nuclear fuel in an independent spent fuel storage installation to maintain the security procedures specified in attachment 2 to the order. The Board is comprised of the following administrative judges: Ann M. Young, Chair, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Richard F. Cole, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Thomas D. Murphy, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. All correspondence, documents, and other materials shall be filed with the administrative judges in accordance with 10 CFR 2.701. Issued in Rockville, Maryland, this 3rd day of December, 2002. G. Paul Bollwerk, III, Chief Administrative Judge, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel. [FR Doc. 02-31003 Filed 12-6-02; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 21 Indian Point report faults plant security Democrat &Chronicle: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (December 9, 2002)  NEW YORK  Security guards at the Indian Point nuclear plant do not think they could protect the plant from attack, a published report said. Only 19 percent of the security officers stated that they could adequately defend the plant after the terrorist event of Sept. 11, said a report conducted for the plants owner and obtained by The New York Times. The report also said that 59 percent of the guards described a chilled environment for raising security concerns, and that 12 percent said they had suffered retaliation for doing so. Entergy Nuclear Northeast, the company that owns Indian Points two active reactors, commissioned the report in November 2001 in response to complaints by guards made before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Entergy spokesman James Steets said that many of the security concerns have been resolved since the report was completed in January. But several current and former guards told the paper that security problems -- from faulty alarms to guards poor physical fitness -- persist. The New York Times got a copy of the report from Riverkeeper, an environmental group that wants the plant closed. [http://www.democratandchronicle.com ***************************************************************** 22 FR Doc 02-30999 [Federal Register: December 9, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 236)] [Notices] [Page 72984-72985] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr09de02-122] NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION [Docket Nos. 50-445 and 50-446] TXU Generation Company, LP; Comanche Peak Steam Electric Station, Units 1 and 2; Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact The U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering issuance of amendments to Facility Operating License Nos. NPF-87 and NPF-89, issued to TXU Generation Company, LP, for operation of Comanche Peak Steam Electric Station (CPSES), Units 1 and 2, respectively. CPSES, Units 1 and 2, are located in Somerville and Hood Counties, Texas. Therefore, as required by Section 51.21, the NRC is issuing this environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact. Environmental Assessment Identification of the Proposed Action The proposed action would change the CPSES Facility Operating Licenses as follows: Section 2.C.(4)(b) would be changed to be consistent with the license conditions stated in the NRC Order and Safety Evaluation dated December 21, 2001, which approved the direct transfer of ownership interest and operating authority for CPSES to TXU Generation Company LP; Section 2.E which requires reporting any violations of the requirements contained in Section 2.C of the licenses would be deleted. Additionally, Technical Specification Table 5.5-2 ``Steam Generator Tube Inspection,'' Table 5.5-3, ``Steam Generator Repaired Tube Inspection for Unit 1 Only,'' and Section 5.6.10, ``Steam Generator Tube Inspection Report,'' would be revised to delete the requirement to notify the NRC pursuant to 10 CFR 50.72(b)(2) if the steam generator tube inspection results are in a C-3 classification. The proposed action is in accordance with the licensee's application dated July 25, 2002. The Need for the Proposed Action The proposed action is needed to make the facility operating licenses consistent with the license conditions stated in the NRC Order and Safety Evaluation dated December 21, 2001, and to delete unnecessary reporting requirements. Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action The NRC has completed its evaluation of the proposed action and concludes that the proposed amendments are administrative in nature. The proposed action will not significantly increase the probability or consequences of accidents, no changes are being made in the types of effluents that may be released off site, and there is no significant increase in occupational or public radiation exposure. Therefore, there are no significant radiological environmental impacts associated with the proposed action. With regard to potential non-radiological impacts, the proposed action does not have a potential to affect any historic sites. It does not affect non-radiological plant effluents and has no other environmental impact. Therefore, there are no significant non- radiological environmental impacts associated with the proposed action. Accordingly, the NRC concludes that there are no significant environmental impacts associated with the proposed action. Environmental Impacts of the Alternatives to the Proposed Action As an alternative to the proposed action, the staff considered denial of the proposed action (i.e., the ``no-action'' alternative). Denial of the application would result in no change in current environmental impacts. The environmental impacts of the proposed action and the alternative action are similar. Alternative Use of Resources The action does not involve the use of any different resource than those previously considered in the Final Environmental Statement related to the operation of CPSES, Units 1 and 2, dated September 1981. Agencies and Persons Consulted On September 24, 2002, the staff consulted with the Texas State official, Mr. Arthur Tate of the Texas Department of Health, Bureau of Radiation Control, regarding the environmental impact of the proposed action. The State official had no comments. Finding of No Significant Impact On the basis of the environmental assessment, the NRC concludes that the proposed action will not have a significant effect on the quality of the human environment. Accordingly, the NRC has determined not to prepare an environmental impact statement for the proposed action. For further details with respect to the proposed action, see the licensee's letter dated July 25, 2002. Documents may be examined, and/ or copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible electronically from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web site, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html] . Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov [pdr@nrc.gov] . Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 19th day of November, 2002. [[Page 72985]] For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Robert A. Gramm, Chief, Section 1, Project Directorate IV, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. 02-30999 Filed 12-6-02; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 23 DAVIS-BESSE: Monthly update on plant moved to Camp Perry* Regional News | Article published Monday, December 9, 2002 PORT CLINTON - This month?s community update about the Davis-Besse situation will be tomorrow in a new location: Camp Perry. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission chose the clubhouse at the military complex for at least this month?s oversight panel meeting - possibly more - because of scheduling conflicts at Oak Harbor High School. The agency also thought more people might be able to attend on Tuesday nights, Jack Grobe, oversight panel chairman, said. Tomorrow?s meetings will be at their normal times: 2 to 5 p.m. and 7 to 9:30 p.m., with the same format in place. The afternoon meeting will be primarily a discussion between FirstEnergy Corp. officials and the regulator, with questions from the public taken if time allows. The night meeting will be entirely a question-and-answer session between NRC officials and the public. Camp Perry is in Ottawa County, along Lake Erie just west of Port Clinton and the nuclear plant. Its main entrance is along State Rt. 2. Visitors will be required to show a driver?s license or other form of identification. The clubhouse is near the lake, at 1000 Lawrence Rd., Building 600. The NRC?s oversight panel has been meeting monthly since April 29. It was formed in response to the massive corrosion - the worst in U.S. nuclear history - found March 6 on Davis-Besse?s reactor head. The intent is to give the public a chance to hear periodic updates about ongoing investigations and the company?s efforts to restart the plant, Mr. Grobe has said. Attendance has been consistent at recent meetings, with usually about 100 spectators during the daytime and fewer at night. Christine Lipa, another oversight panel member, said the NRC noticed the turnout tended to be better when meetings were held on Tuesdays. The agency shifted meetings to Wednesdays during October and November because of problems that federal holidays those months caused in scheduling flights for federal employees, she said. The Oak Harbor High School auditorium has ample seating, but the facility is often booked for school events on most nights other than Wednesdays. The NRC is trying to veer away from Wednesdays due to a number of church activities in the Oak Harbor area that could make it difficult for residents to attend Davis-Besse meetings, said Ms. Lipa, head of reactor oversight for the NRC?s Midwest regional office in Lisle, Ill. Tomorrow?s meeting will be sort of a test run for the NRC. The agency has the Camp Perry clubhouse booked for its next two tentative meeting dates - Jan. 14 and Feb. 11 - but might look for a new locale if the logistics and times aren?t conducive, she said. "If we find that Camp Perry is a deterrent, we?ll try to find another place," Ms. Lipa said. "We?re hoping we don?t solve one problem by creating another." ©2002 The Blade. Privacy Statement . By using this service, The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660, (419) 724-6000 ***************************************************************** 24 Nuclear officials to meet with Millstone reps 1998-2002 The Day Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 25 FR Doc 02-31000 [Federal Register: December 9, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 236)] [Notices] [Page 72983-72984] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr09de02-121] NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION [Docket No. 50-261] Carolina Power & Light Company; H. B. Robinson Steam Electric Plant, Unit No. 2; Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering issuance of an exemption from Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) part 55, section 55.59(c) for Facility Operating License No. DPR-23, issued to Carolina Power & Light Company (the licensee), for operation of the H. B. Robinson Steam Electric Plant, Unit No. 2 (HBRSEP2), located in Darlington County, South Carolina. As required by 10 CFR 51.21, the NRC is issuing this environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact. Environmental Assessment Identification of the Proposed Action The proposed action would exempt the licensee on a one-time basis from the schedular requirements of 10 CFR 55.59(c) for conducting the licensed operator requalification annual operating test and biennial comprehensive written examination at HBRSEP2. The proposed action is in accordance with the licensee's application for exemption dated October 11, 2002. The Need for the Proposed Action The proposed action would extend the date for the licensee to complete the licensed operator requalification annual operating test and biennial comprehensive written examinations at HBRSEP2. The proposed action would extend the date for completing the examinations from December 31, 2002, to March 31, 2003, therefore extending the examination schedules by 3 months over the schedules required by 10 CFR 55.59(c). This proposed action is needed to allow HBRSEP2 to complete an unusually heavy workload associated with a plant refueling outage and a power uprate, including conducting associated additional training and modifying the plant-specific simulator, in a timely and safe fashion without undue hardship to plant personnel and licensed plant operators. Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action The NRC has completed its evaluation of the proposed action and concludes, as set forth below, that there are no significant environmental impacts associated with the extension of the operator requalification examinations from December 31, 2002, to March 31, 2003. The proposed action will not significantly increase the probability or consequences of accidents, no changes are being made in the types of effluents that may be released off site, and there is no significant increase in occupational or public radiation exposure. Therefore, there are no significant radiological environmental impacts associated with the proposed action.With regard to potential non-radiological impacts, the proposed action does not have a potential to affect any historic sites. It does not affect non-radiological plant effluents and has no other environmental impact. Therefore, there are no significant non- radiological environmental impacts associated with the proposed action. Accordingly, the NRC concludes that there are no significant environmental impacts associated with the proposed action. Environmental Impacts of the Alternatives to the Proposed Action As an alternative to the proposed action, the staff considered denial of the proposed action (i.e., the ``no-action'' alternative). Denial of the application would result in no change in current environmental impacts. The environmental impacts of the proposed action and the alternative action are similar. Alternative Use of Resources The action does not involve the use of any different resources than those previously considered in the Final Environmental Statement for HBRSEP2. Agencies and Persons Consulted On November 26, 2002, the staff consulted with the South Carolina State official, regarding the environmental [[Page 72984]] impact of the proposed action. The State official had no comments. Finding of No Significant Impact On the basis of this environmental assessment, the NRC concludes that the proposed action will not have a significant effect on the quality of the human environment. Accordingly, the NRC has determined not to prepare an environmental impact statement for the proposed action. For further details with respect to the proposed action, see the licensee's letter dated October 11, 2002. Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible electronically from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading Room on the internet at the NRC Web site, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html] . Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov [pdr@nrc.gov] . Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 2nd day of December 2002. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Allen G. Howe, Chief, Section 2, Project Directorate II, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. 02-31000 Filed 12-6-02; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 26 NRC Finds No Significant Environmental Impact from Extended Operation of Surry and North Anna Nuclear Plants NRC: News Release - 2002-141 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov [opa@nrc.gov] www.nrc.gov No. 02-141 December 9, 2002 The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued its final environmental impact statements on the proposed renewal of the operating licenses of the Surry and North Anna nuclear power plants. In the reports, the NRC staff found that the adverse environmental impacts of license renewal for the plants are not so great that preserving the option of license renewal for energy planning decision makers would be unreasonable. The current operating licenses for Surry, Units 1 and 2, located 17 miles northwest of Newport News, Virginia, in Surry County, will expire on May 25, 2012, and January 29, 2013, respectively. The current operating licenses for North Anna, Units 1 and 2, located 40 miles northwest of Richmond, Virginia, in Louisa County, will expire on April 1, 2018, and August 21, 2020, respectively. Dominion Generation submitted its application for license renewal of the Surry and North Anna plants on May 29, 2001. As part of its environmental review of the applications, the NRC held public meetings near both plants concerning the scope of the review and a draft version of the environmental impact statement for each plant. Comments were received from members of the public, local officials and representatives of other agencies. The reports are available electronically on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html through the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS). Help in using ADAMS is available by contacting the NRC Public Document Room staff at 301/415-4737 or 1/800/397-4209, or by sending a message to pdr@nrc.gov [pdr@nrc.gov] via e-mail. The reports also are available for public inspection at the NRC's Public Document Room, located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. Tuesday, December 10, 2002 ***************************************************************** 27 More rare childhood cancer cases reported in Nevada Las Vegas SUN December 09, 2002 ASSOCIATED PRESS RENO, Nev. (AP) - State health officials are monitoring a surge in a rare form of childhood cancer in Nevada, with at least five cases reported over the past two years, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported Monday. The cancer known as RMS, or rhadbdomyosarcoma, attacks muscles. In addition to the five confirmed cases, the newspaper located a sixth case that apparently has gone unreported. Officials for the Nevada Center for Health and Data Research said they are watching the situation to see if the disease is on the upswing or whether the numbers will average out in the next few years. "It's hard to make conclusions from so few cases, but if we get more cases well be in trouble," said Wei Yang, state bio-statistician and director of the center. The cases of rhabdomyosarcoma also have been showing up in towns nationwide that have childhood leukemia clusters, including Fallon. In that community, 16 youngsters have been diagnosed with childhood leukemia since 1997. One case of RMS was diagnosed there in January. In all, there were 16 reported cases in Nevada of the rare cancer among people under 18 between 1995 and 2001. Of those, at least five attacking children under 14 were reported in the last two years. "Three cases in children under age 14 is higher than what we would expect to see in two years, but averaging out the seven years (1995 to 2001) we are still within the normal range for that age group," Yang said. The newspaper last week documented a sixth case of rhabdomyosarcoma in a child under 14 that doesn't show up in the state statistics. In addition, the paper confirmed a case in Fallon, diagnosed early this year. That case does not show up in state statistics either because the Nevada Cancer Registry takes about two years to complete its count. Yang said even with two extra cases, the states numbers still are within expected levels. He said he did not know why the case from 2000 didn't show up in the cancer registry. Robert Johnson's son, Lane, was born in 2000 with the disease, but state statistics do not include his case. "My son is apparently invisible to the Nevada Cancer Registry," said Johnson of Sun Valley. He said the discrepancy shows more attention needs to be paid to tracking cancers. Lane, now 2, began showing symptoms of RMS while still in the womb and has recovered from the disease. His diagnosis was made at the University of California, Davis, Medical Center in December 2000. "My son, and a child from Palomino Valley, and a child from Spanish Springs were all diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma within the last three months of 2000," Johnson said. State officials said Washoe County cases diagnosed in California in 2000, while not available to Nevada officials at the time, have since been added to the Nevada registry. But they could not explain why the registry shows only two cases in Washoe Country for that year, instead of three. Including the Fallon boy diagnosed in January, there's been a surge of four cases in northern Nevada in the last 15 months. "It's strange to have four cases in a 65-mile radius with a small population within such a short period of time," Johnson said. "And those are just the ones we know about." In Nevada, the expected rate of RMS in children under age 14 is about 1.81 cases per year, state health officials said. Nationally, the incidence rate for rhabdomyosarcoma hasn't changed over the last few decades, according to the American Cancer Society. The society said about 250 new cases of childhood RMS are diagnosed each year, and the disease accounts for about 3.4 percent of all childhood cancers. "Four cases for every million children is in the right ballpark for the expected numbers of rhabdomyosarcoma," said Dr. Doug Taylor, a pediatric hematologist-oncologist at UC-Davis Medical Center. "Whether little groupings of rare cancers define a cluster or not is a matter for statisticians. It's a harder thing to determine than it would initially appear." Cancer doctors and researchers said all childhood cancer is rare and RMS is the rarest of the rare, so with so few cases its hard to tell if there's a problem. But they said any situation that seems out of the ordinary suggests further study is needed. "Rhabdo is unusual, so seeing more than the expected number of cases could be a statistical blip, or it could be way out of line," said Dr. Michael Link, chief of hematology, oncology and stem cell transplantation at Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, Calif. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 28 More rare childhood cancer cases reported [fmullen@rgj.com] RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL 12/8/2002 09:57 pm [With his cancer now in remission, Lane Johnson, 2, is a bundle of energy most days. Behind the young survivor of rhabdomyosarcoma are his mother, Marla, father, Robert, and brother, Robbie, 8. - Marilyn Newton/RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL] [mnewton@rgj.com] /RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL With his cancer now in remission, Lane Johnson, 2, is a bundle of energy most days. Behind the young survivor of rhabdomyosarcoma are his mother, Marla, father, Robert, and brother, Robbie, 8. Cases of a rare childhood cancer have surged in Nevada over the last two years to at least five, not including one that state officials said they missed in their tally. State health officials said the unexpected clustering of new cases of rhabdomyosarcoma calls for close monitoring to determine whether the muscle-attacking disease is on the upswing, or whether the surge will average out to the expected number over time. “It’s hard to make conclusions from so few cases, but if we get more cases we’ll be in trouble,” said Wei Yang, state bio-statistician and director of the Nevada Center for Health and Data Research. A Reno Gazette-Journal story last month showed ases of rhabdomyosarcoma also have been showing up in towns nationwide that have childhood leukemia clusters, including Fallon. In that community, 16 youngsters have been diagnosed with childhood leukemia since 1997. One case of RMS was diagnosed there in January. In all, there were 16 reported cases in Nevada of the rare cancer among people under 18 between 1995 and 2001. Of those, at least five attacking children under 14 were reported in the last two years. “Three cases in children under age 14 is higher than what we would expect to see in two years, but averaging out the seven years (1995 to 2001) we are still within the normal range for that age group,” Yang said. The newspaper last week documented a sixth case of rhabdomyosarcoma in a child under 14 that doesn’t show up in the state statistics. In addition, the newspaper confirmed a case in Fallon, diagnosed early this year. That case does not show up in state statistics either but because the Nevada Cancer Registry takes about two years to complete its count. Yang said even with two extra cases, the state’s numbers still are within expected levels. But he couldn’t explain why the case from 2000 verified by the Gazette-Journal didn’t show up in the cancer registry. Father wants answers Robert Johnson’s son Lane was born in 2000 with the disease, but state statistics do not include his case. “My son is apparently invisible to the Nevada Cancer Registry,” said Johnson of Sun Valley. Johnson said the discrepancy in the state’s numbers shows more attention needs to be paid to tracking cancers. Lane, now 2, began showing symptoms of RMS while still in the womb and has recovered from the disease. His diagnosis was made at the University of California, Davis, Medical Center in December 2000. “My son, and a child from Palomino Valley, and a child from Spanish Springs were all diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma within the last three months of 2000,” Johnson said. State officials said Washoe County cases diagnosed in California in 2000, while not available to Nevada officials at the time, have since been added to the Nevada registry. But they could not explain why the registry shows two cases in Washoe Country for that year, when the newspaper confirmed a third case. Including the Fallon boy diagnosed in January, there’s been a surge of four cases in northern Nevada in the last 15 months. “It’s strange to have four cases in a 65-mile radius with a small population within such a short period of time,” Johnson said. “And those are just the ones we know about.” State: Nevada’s rate in line In Nevada, the expected rate of RMS in children under age 14 is about 1.81 cases per year, state health officials said. Nationally, the incidence rate for rhabdomyosarcoma hasn’t changed over the last few decades, according to the American Cancer Society. The society said about 250 new cases of childhood RMS are diagnosed each year, and the disease accounts for about 3.4 percent of all childhood cancers. “Four cases for every million children is in the right ballpark for the expected numbers of rhabdomyosarcoma,” said Dr. Doug Taylor, a pediatric hematologist-oncologist at the University of California, Davis Medical Center. “Whether little groupings of rare cancers define a cluster or not is a matter for statisticians. It’s a harder thing to determine than it would initially appear.” Cancer doctors and researchers said all childhood cancer is rare and RMS is the rarest of the rare, so with so few cases it’s hard to tell if there’s a problem. But they said any situation that seems out of the ordinary suggests further study is needed. “Rhabdo is unusual, so seeing more than the expected number of cases could be a statistical blip, or it could be way out of line,” said Dr. Michael Link, chief of hematology, oncology and stem cell transplantation at Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, Calif. Link, who is treating the Fallon boy for RMS, said he sees between six and eight children a year with the disease. “We see so few cases, and it’s so rare, what should the baseline be?” he asked. “If you flip 10 coins and seven of them come up heads it doesn’t mean anything. But if you flip 1,000 coins and 700 of them come up heads, then there must be something wrong with the coins.” State health officials said the Nevada numbers for rhabdomyosarcoma aren’t out of line with expected rates. They said because no cases were reported in Nevada in 1998 and 1999, the recent bulge in cases may eventually average out to be in line with the expected rates. That depends on the number of cases diagnosed in the next few years. Other cancer experts and doctors said while it’s hard to say if the RMS cancer statistics are significant or if the cases found alongside leukemia clusters mean anything, the raw numbers underscore that more research should be done. Cause is elusive A rare genetic condition exists in which rhabdomyosarcoma and acute lymphocytic leukemia occur in the same families, but that has to do with an inherited susceptibility to the diseases rather than environmental factors, Link said. While some studies suggest that the children of fathers who smoke or are exposed to chemicals have a higher incidence of RMS, the cancer isn’t linked to specific environmental causes. Other researchers said the appearance of RMS alongside leukemia clusters in Fallon and Sierra Vista, Ariz., and in conjunction with suspected leukemia outbreaks in Elk Grove, Calif., and Hoisington, Kan., may provide clues to the causes of both diseases. Johnson said that not enough is being done to investigate the possible environmental causes of childhood cancer. He said he doesn’t smoke, but was exposed to jet fuel while he was an aircraft engine mechanic for the Marine Corps from 1987 to 1993. Jet fuel is also a suspect in the Fallon cluster of 16 children, three of whom have died. The Fallon Naval Air Station uses 32 million gallons of jet fuel each year which is pumped to the base through a pipeline that runs through the middle of the town. Johnson said better cancer data and environmental monitoring is needed throughout that nation. The discrepancy in the number of cases in Nevada for the year his son was diagnosed, he said, underlines the need for a national tracking system for cancer and other diseases. State cancer tracking a failure A Reno Gazette-Journal investigation of the Nevada Cancer Registry last year showed the agency collects data without analyzing the numbers and reports less information to the public than the registry did 10 years ago. For example, the registry formerly published reports every two years that listed cancer incidence for each of Nevada’s 17 counties. But the agency now only reports numbers for Washoe, Clark and “all other counties” and the last two reports were published in six- and four-year intervals. “The state’s numbers are confusing and I think with the way the numbers are reported it’s easy to hide things,” Johnson said. “When your son is sick all you can think about is getting him well again so you don’t question what’s happening with reporting cancers or worry how many cases were diagnosed all at once or whatever. But now I’m mad. “The government needs to do a better job.” Nevada health officials said they have improved the cancer registry and are working to make it a good public health tool. They said Nevada cancer incidence data is now available on the Nevada Health Division Web site at http:\health2k.state.nv.us. They have said they would like to routinely analyze the cancer data but don’t have the funds to do so. This year, the state received a grant for a national disease tracking pilot program. Officials said the grant will help restore the state’s birth defects registry and lay the groundwork for monitoring diseases like asthma, which aren’t currently tracked. Johnson, who said his son has a 95 percent chance that the RMS won’t reoccur, said more should be done with existing resources. He said he was shocked when he realized his son was the third case of the rare cancer diagnosed within three months. “It’s pretty darn strange in an area our size,” he said. “It’s something that the health officials should be on top of. And then two years later all they have is two Washoe County cases from 2000 when I know there were three. That’s outrageous.” Johnson told the Gazette-Journal about the Washoe cases after reading a story about the Fallon boy with RMS. Yang, at the newspaper’s request, analyzed the statistics last week and compared them with state population averages and national rates. “I’m glad we looked at this,” Yang said. “The state’s rate for rhabdomyosarcoma is not statistically significant now, but it certainly bears watching.” © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a [http://www.gannett.com] ***************************************************************** 29 Ministers to issue advice on gas and radiation attacks advice Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Lucy Ward, political correspondent Monday December 9, 2002 The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk] British householders are to be given government advice on coping with a biological, nuclear or chemical attack under a wholesale updating of cold war-era emergency planning in the face of the threat of global terrorism. Legislation to be put before parliament early in the new year will compel local authorities to revise outdated emergency procedures to reflect new risks in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The shake-up, which will replace current advice based on civil defence legislation dating back to 1948 and 1986, is expected to involve the delivery of leaflets to Britain's 24 million homes within 18 months with the message to "go in, stay in, tune in", in the event of an attack. Ministers hope the evidence of apparent government readiness in the face of increased threats will reassure the public, though making such information available also risks stirring panic. Householders will be advised to have a reserve supply of food and water and be shown how to access evacuation plans if there is a danger of radiation or gas poisoning. The advice will bring back memories of the Protect and Survive leaflets produced by the Conservative government in the 1980s, which showed how a family could shield itself from a nuclear attack under the kitchen table. The new plans demonstrate government certainty that Britain is a potential target for supporters of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network. The local government minister, Nick Raynsford, told the Sunday Times: "We want people to know we are ready for any eventuality, without alarming the public." Preparations for the legislation have been led by the civil contingencies secretariat in the Cabinet Office, set up by Tony Blair shortly before September 11 to help deal with unexpected emergencies. It is ex pected to be introduced to parliament within two or three months. A Cabinet Office spokesman said: "The government does take this very seriously and is looking for a structure for the 21st century. "We are consulting with the local authorities who have to plan on the ground for major emergencies. "It will be a fairly substantial piece of legislation, coming out next year and going through parliament as soon as time permits. Events on September 11 and afterwards have shown the need to plan for these sorts of catastrophic incidents." Under the new plans, emergency powers will be enacted to create "community assistance zones" to help move people faster in the event of an emergency. Local authorities will have to draw up plans for mass evacuation. Mr Raynsford said that UK Resilience, a body set up after September 11 to help draw up contingency plans for the country, was creating a network of "gatekeepers" - trusted members of the community who would inform local people on the nature of an attack and help in any evacuation. The new seriousness with which civil defence is being treated comes after a post-cold war period in which the government has let slide the issue of protecting the population from catastrophic attack. [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 30 Analysis finds very low Amchitka cancer risk Alaska Newspaper Kenai Peninsula Online - ANCHORAGE (AP) -- A risk analysis by a U.S. Department of Energy contractor finds that the odds of a person contracting cancer caused by a nuclear leak at Amchitka Island are ''infinitely low.'' --> Web posted Sunday, December 8, 2002 ANCHORAGE (AP) -- A risk analysis by a U.S. Department of Energy contractor finds that the odds of a person contracting cancer caused by a nuclear leak at Amchitka Island are ''infinitely low.'' The study, however, hasn't convinced a number of scientists, state officials and Aleutian residents who worry about residue from three underground atomic tests on Amchitka more than 30 years ago. Amchitka is unpopulated but people who live on other islands in the Aleutians fish in Amchitka waters. Steller sea lions have rookeries there, and other marine mammals that are taken by subsistence hunters migrate through area waters. Critics say the Energy Department's risk analysis and a related study of groundwater movement under the island are based on outdated information collected in the 1960s and early 1970s. What they want is actual onsite sampling of subsistence foods, and environmental monitoring. The study was unveiled last week at a series of meetings in Anchorage. The Energy Department will accept comments on the studies until Jan. 31 and then consider revising its work as it begins to develop a long-term management plan. ''This is just an initial step,'' said Monica Sanchez, the Energy Department's environmental project manager for Amchitka. ''We will be back.'' The U.S. set off three nuclear explosions beneath Amchitka between 1965 and 1971. The last one, 5-megaton Cannikin, was America's largest underground test, a Spartan missile warhead detonated at the bottom of a mile-deep shaft. The nuclear residue will remain radioactive for thousands of years. Exposure to them can cause cancer and other diseases. Federal scientific models at the time of the tests suggested the radionuclides could begin leaking anywhere from 10 years to thousands of years later. The new studies attempt to estimate the likelihood that radionuclides could leak into the ocean and the degree of risk posed to humans through consumption of subsistence and commercially caught foods if they do. The groundwater study was done by Jenny Chapman, a hydrogeologist at the University of Nevada's Desert Research Institute. It concludes that radionuclides could reach the sea floor sometime in the next 1,000 years, or not. If that happens, says the risk assessment by consultant Barney Cornaby of Oak Ridge, Tenn., strong currents and the enormous volume of water surrounding Amchitka would quickly dilute the radioactive substances to harmless levels. A 1977 study shows there is little mud on the ocean floor to capture and hold radionuclides, Cornaby's report says, and he also looked at whether kelp might keep radionuclides near the island longer. Cornaby's evaluation included estimates of the amounts of radionuclides that could be taken in by fish, marine mammals and birds through absorption from the ocean around Amchitka or by eating smaller organisms. He said he factored in the proportion of fish and marine mammals eaten by subsistence dependent residents and analyzed the potential risk to humans. ''We chose to overestimate risk,'' Cornaby said. He found that the risk of a radionuclide leak from Amchitka causing cancer in a human is one in 10 billion, vastly smaller than the one in 1 million level the federal government considers an acceptable public health risk. Chapman, however, said she is confident that her groundwater model is accurate, even if it is based on old data. ''Hydrogeologic systems don't change fast,'' Chapman said. Sanchez and other federal officials said the groundwater study and risk assessment will be reviewed by independent teams of scientists, as well as a consortium of university experts that will help the government plan its long-term strategy for Amchitka. State officials and the Aleutian Pribilof association will review them. ''This has not changed our position that there needs to be actual field work to sample and analyze subsistence and commercial food species, and a thorough program on risk assessment, and a good long-term program, approved and financed, that will meet the needs and concerns of the people of Alaska,'' said Doug Dasher, environmental radiation manager with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. Bob Patrick, the Aleutian Pribilof environmental manager for Amchitka, said the energy department should address the simplest, most important questions first. ''The main question our people have asked from the beginning is: Is the food safe to eat?'' ------ On the Net: www.osti.gov/bridge/product.biblio.jsp?osti--id804671. [clarion@alaska.net] Box 3009 Kenai, AK 99611 907-283-7551 Copyrighted by Peninsula Clarion, a Division of Morris Communications Privacy and terms of use. ***************************************************************** 31 Postal workers question need for pills Connecticut Post Monday, December 09, 2002 - 3:42:17 AM MST By PETER URBAN WASHINGTON - A U.S. Postal Service plan to protect workers against thyroid cancer in the event of a radiological emergency is drawing a skeptical eye from its Connecticut employees. "Frankly, I don't know why they are doing that," said Tom Robertson, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, Branch 32, in Bridgeport. "I don't believe terrorists would attack post offices with nuclear weapons." The Postal Service plans to purchase 1.6 million potassium iodide pills from Tampa-based Anbex Inc. for distribution to workers who want to have the tablets if a radiological emergency occurs. The pills will cost about $300,000. Radioactive iodide, released during some nuclear emergencies, can be absorbed by the thyroid gland where cancer may form. Those harmful iodide isotopes won't be absorbed if a person takes potassium iodide pills at the time of the exposure. "Employees are out there in all of these communities nationwide and we wanted to err on the side of caution," Postal Service spokeswoman Sue Brennan said. The Food and Drug Administration-approved tablets are being offered to all 750,000 postal workers nationwide. Any employee who wants the pills in case of emergency will get two tablets. "It's a proactive approach regarding the safety, health and well-being of employees nationwide," Brennan said. Chuck Page, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers in North Haven, said radiation exposure has not been a major concern among his union members but he is not surprised the Postal Service is being so cautious. "After the anthrax scare, they are more concerned. There is a heightened sensitivity for our safety," Page said. Robertson said that he had not been informed officially of the program and is not certain when the pills may be made available. "No one has asked for it and it is nothing the union pushed for," Robertson said. John Dirzius, president of the American Postal Workers Union in North Haven, said that most of his members particularly those who work in the distributing center in Wallingford are wary of taking more pills. Anthrax spores were found in the center a year ago after an Oxford woman died from the disease. Experts believe she was exposed to anthrax through the mail. "Around the plant people are saying 'no more pills' and 'no more guinea pigs.' They don't know what purpose these pills would serve," Dirzius said. Moreover, Dirzius said that the state is already providing potassium iodide pills to people who live within a 10-mile radius of the state's nuclear power facilities. Those people presumably face a higher risk of exposure to radioactive iodide than others who live farther away from the plants. Dirzius said that some workers are also concerned that they may get pills but none will be provided for their family members who would also be in danger from exposure if a nuclear weapon is fired or a nuclear plant attacked. Brennan said the pills are being offered much like free flu shots were offered in the wake of the anthrax scares after the Sept. 11 attacks. The recommendation came up in meetings of the mail security task force, comprised of representatives of postal unions, management associations and the Office of the Inspector General, along with safety and medical specialists and members of the mailing industry. In January, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced it would provide free potassium iodide to 33 states that had residents living within a 10-mile radius of each of the nation's 102 nuclear reactors. Like any medication, overdoses of potassium iodide can be dangerous. Some people may experience allergic reactions, including nausea or rashes. The Associated Press contributed to this report. ©1999-2002 MediaNews Group, Inc. All rights to republication are Connecticut Post incorporates The Bridgeport Post, The Telegram and The Valley Sentinel ***************************************************************** 32 Nevada outlines opposition to waste site AP Wire | 12/03/2002 | [macon.com - The macon home page] By H. JOSEF HEBERT Associated Press WASHINGTON - A decision to bury thousands of tons of nuclear waste in Nevada should be overturned because the government cannot assure the site's geology will keep radiation from seeping into the environment, the state of Nevada argues in a court filing. The brief, filed in a suit challenging the decision to entomb the waste at Yucca Mountain, maintains that the Energy Department violated the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act by resorting to "engineered barriers" to contain the waste. In papers filed Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, the state argues that the Bush administration was "essentially abandoning" the 1982 law's "mandate that the site's geology form the primary isolation barrier" in selecting the Yucca Mountain site for waste burial. The mountain is a ridge of volcanic rock and ash about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, adjacent to the Nevada Test Site. Last February, President Bush declared it scientifically suitable and safe as the nation's central repository for 77,000 tons of waste from commercial reactors and the government's nuclear weapons program. After Nevada challenged the decision, Congress endorsed the president's declaration in July and overturned what could have been a veto of the site by Nevada. The Energy Department is seeking a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and hopes to open the waste repository by 2010. But Nevada, joined by the city of Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County, has promised to continue the fight in court and filed a number of lawsuits challenging the project. In a 100-page filing in support of its lawsuit before the appeals court, Nevada contends that the 1982 law that directed construction of a federal nuclear waste repository specifically required that natural geology at the site "form the primary barrier keeping waste from people and the environment" over tens of thousands of years. The suit also argues that the Energy Department conducted a "flawed environmental review" of the Yucca site, disregarded procedures required under the law in determining the site's suitability and failed to assess adequately problems involving the transportation of waste to the site. Yucca Mountain initially was chosen because Energy Department scientists believed it had the geology required to contain the waste. They later found it did not and adopted a "total system performance" approach in violation of the 1982 law, the state argues in its suit. Now, the suit maintains, the project relies extensively on manmade barriers - metal alloy waste containers and drip shields, for example - to keep waste from escaping. The Energy Department had no immediate response to the Nevada court filing. Nevada officials have made similar arguments repeatedly in public meetings and in outlining their opposition to the Yucca Mountain project over the years. Energy Department officials have maintained the site is in full compliance with the 1982 requirements, it relies on geology to contain the waste and the engineered barriers only provide additional protection. Congress declared in 1987 that Yucca Mountain should be the only site to be considered for nuclear waste disposal. Since then, nearly $7 billion has been spent on studying the area's geology and developing a waste package and design. On the Web: Energy Department's Yucca Mountain site: http://www.ymp.gov/ [http://www.ymp.gov/] Nevada Yucca Mountain site: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/yucca/state01.htm [http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/yucca/state01.htm] ***************************************************************** 33 2002 Yearend: Yucca decision looms large* United Press International By Phil Berardelli Deputy Science and Technology Editor Published 12/10/2002 10:09 AM (Part of UPI's Special Report reviewing 2002 and previewing 2003) WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The most notable science news item of 2002 could be regarded as either a sign of extreme confidence in the ability of scientists to overcome great challenges or an infamous decision that will be condemned by our descendants for millennia to come. The Bush administration -- over the objections of Nevada officials but based on the best science available -- decided to go ahead with construction of a centralized repository for America's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain 100 miles from Las Vegas, America's fastest-growing metropolis. Expected to be operational within 10 years, the site is supposed to contain and isolate about 40,000 tons of extremely dangerous waste products from nuclear reactors for up to 10,000 years -- longer than the entire history of civilization. Of the merits or demerits of this particular scientific effort one can say, literally, only time will tell. Other, unambiguously ominous developments have marked the year. First and foremost: AIDS has become a truly worldwide epidemic. The disease, which already has claimed more than 20 million lives over about as many years, threatens to double that toll within a much shorter time as many sub-Saharan Africa's countries, as well as India and China, have acknowledged the spread of HIV infection within their borders is out of control. In addition, U.N. researchers reported in 2002, for the first time, women accounted for half of the victims of AIDS. Investigators, meanwhile, still have been unable to trace the origins of the anthrax spores that made their way through the U.S. mail in the fall of 2001 and infected 22 people, killing five. A year later, anthrax remains a potential threat as an instrument of bioterrorism, as does smallpox and two other related organisms -- camelpox and monkeypox - that might be used instead because smallpox vaccines might not be as effective against them. Two other diseases made headlines this past year: West Nile virus, the mosquito-borne illness that claimed 216 lives in 23 states and the District of Columbia in 2002, and chronic wasting disease, an illness, whose means of transmission continues to elude researchers, that has infected an unknown but presumed large number of deer and elk across a vast section of the nation's heartland. In the United States and other developing countries, another epidemic has begun to threaten human health: obesity, a condition that has pervaded all economic classes and brings with it increased risks of heart disease, diabetes and cancer. One culprit, according to health organizations, is the burgeoning popularity of "super-sized" portions at restaurants and fast-food outlets. Bad news for post-menopausal women arrived with several studies showing the practice of taking artificial estrogen puts them at increased risk for both ovarian and breast cancer. Much of the U.S. medical research community took as a major setback the decision by the White House to limit human embryonic stem cell research to about 70 select lines of cells that existed before the decision. All other research must be conducted on cells taken from live donors, a prospect that has elicited almost no interest by the venture capital community. This ethics-based attempt to block certain areas of research might succeed only in isolating U.S. researchers as efforts continue unimpeded overseas. Reports have persisted -- albeit unsubstantiated -- that doctors have succeeded in implanting cloned human embryos into women who are expected to give birth any day now. As in every year, 2002 in science also was marked by hopeful news, as well as some spectacular discoveries. Researchers reported progress both in understanding the mechanism of the human immunodeficiency virus and in developing new ways to fight it. For example, a new vaccine that can defeat the equivalent of HIV in cats is showing promise to fight the virus in humans -- although it is several years away from clinical trials. The fight against cancer took some important steps forward. One new experimental treatment that involves transplanting disease-fighting T-cells, while at the same time neutralizing the immune system, has been shown to wipe out tumors in terminally ill patients. Another treatment technique under study, based on an organic compound, has been shown to destroy tumors by starving them to death. Following publication of the human genome in 2001 has come a flood of new discoveries. Researchers have tracked the role of genes in the growth of the brain, in deafness, in body shape, in how we sleep and remember, in conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism and even stress, in diseases such as malaria, asthma, heart disease and many types of cancer. Just this month, genetic scientists achieved another milestone: sketching the map detailing the genome of the humble house mouse, a heroic effort that required placing in proper order some 2.5 billion subunits of DNA that make up the rodent's complete set of genes. The achievement places some 25 million laboratory mice -- which share about 80 percent of their genes with humans -- at the disposal of researchers seeking to reveal the secrets of a wide range of ailments, from heart disease, diabetes and obesity to schizophrenia, learning abnormalities and memory disorders. In the transportation area, several car-makers announced plans to move forward with fuel-cell-powered vehicle projects. Fuel cells, which combine hydrogen and oxygen to make water, are virtually pollution-free. A prototype vehicle actually made a successful run from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., last spring powered only by its fuel cell and retaining all its original parts. Perhaps the most astounding discoveries of the year occurred not on Earth but in space by two of the jewels in NASA's crown -- the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The orbiting spacecraft have proven a super-massive black hole does indeed lurk at the center of our galaxy. They also have detected a pair of the monsters drifting in tandem at the heart of one of the Milky Way's neighbors, a phenomenon that might prefigure the fate of our own galaxy. Using Hubble's exquisitely sensitive instruments, astronomers have been able to measure the mass of a distant planet with unprecedented precision, and Chandra's ability to peer inside vast clouds of interstellar dust has allowed scientists to spy planets and stars in formation, including the stunning discovery of Jupiter-sized planets that seem to be able to congeal within mere centuries instead of eons. Also, despite several more bumps and compromises along the way, construction of the International Space Station continues. Last, in a disclosure that speaks volumes about the human tendency to hold irrational fears, experts reported last summer that, worldwide, people are about 15 times more likely to be killed by falling coconuts than by sharks. Maybe that statistic will inspire a new blockbuster movie: "Clonks." Copyright © 2002 United Press International ***************************************************************** 34 *Nevada officials say Yucca Mountain law firm had conflicts* LAS VEGAS, NV, December 9 Nevada lawmakers are calling for an investigation into conflict-of-interest issues with a Yucca Mountain Project law firm. The law firm was hired in May 2001 to investigate a project manager who said he was trying to blow the whistle on the energy Department's mishandling of project concerns. The Morgan Lewis law firm later signed on to lobby Congress in favor of the project just weeks after completing a report that led to the man's firing. The latest claims come over the investigation into personnel disputes and allegations in the project's quality assurance program. Morgan Lewis officials say they did everything by the book and say they had no conflict of interest. Nevada officials have said it was a conflict for the department to hire a pro-Yucca Mountain law firm before the department had officially approved the site. (Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) All content © Copyright 2001 - 2002, WorldNow and KRNV. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 35 AU: Heathgate to search for more uranium The Advertiser: 09 December 2002 THE Beverley mining region is being searched for more uranium, in the first intensive exploration program carried out in the area for more than three decades. Heathgate Resources, owner of the Beverley mine, is undertaking drilling several kilometres south of the mine "with the objective of adding to the known Beverley resource". "Given that there has been no exploration in the area for almost 30 years – and with the potential we have identified for locating additional Beverley-style mineralisation – the program is quite exciting," Heathgate Resources vice-president David Brunt said. But Nuclear SA said the exploration was pointless. "According to State Government policy there is to be no more uranium mining in South Australia," spokesman Dr Dennis Matthews said. Meanwhile, a website and pamphlet highlighting environmental problems with uranium mining was released in Adelaide yesterday.The NuclearSA website is http://nuclearsa.ccsa.asn.au ***************************************************************** 36 Westinghouse given waver on transporting u-235 FR Doc 02-31001 [Federal Register: December 9, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 236)] [Notices] [Page 72985-72987] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr09de02-123] NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION [Docket No. 70-1151] Environmental Assessment and Final Finding of No Significant Impact of License Amendment for Westinghouse Electric Company LLC AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Amendment of Westinghouse Electric Company LLC, Materials License SNM-1107 to exempt the licensee from the fissile material package standards for shipment of certain bulk materials (e.g. radwaste) containing low concentrations of uranium-235 contamination and to impose limits on these shipments. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering the amendment of Special Nuclear Material License SNM-1107 to exempt the licensee from the fissile material package standards for shipment of certain bulk materials (e.g. radwaste) containing low concentrations of uranium-235 contamination at the Westinghouse Electric Company LLC facility located in Columbia, SC, and to impose limits on these shipments, and has prepared an Environmental Assessment in support of this action. Environmental Assessment 1.0 Introduction 1.1 Background The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff has evaluated the environmental impacts of the exemption of Westinghouse Electric Company from the fissile material package standards for shipment of certain bulk materials (e.g. radwaste) containing low concentrations of uranium-235 contamination, with limits placed on the shipments to ensure adequate controls for nuclear criticality safety. This Environmental Assessment (EA) has been prepared pursuant to NRC regulations (10 CFR Part 51) which implement the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969. The purpose of this document is to assess the environmental consequences of the proposed license amendment. The Westinghouse facility in Columbia, SC, is authorized under NRC Materials License SNM-1107 to manufacture nuclear reactor fuel utilizing Special Nuclear Material (SNM), specifically low-enriched uranium, and to receive, possess, use, store and transfer source material. These activities generate low-level, radioactive waste. Examples of this waste include, but are not limited to, dry activated waste such as pipes, building debris, insulation, wire, concrete, plastic, ductwork, cabinets, furniture, and some flowable materials like dirt and blasting sand. 1.2 Review Scope In accordance with 10 CFR Part 51, this EA serves to (1) present information and analysis for determining whether to issue a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) or to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS); (2) fulfill the NRC's compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when no EIS is necessary; and (3) facilitate preparation of an EIS if one is necessary. Should the NRC issue a FONSI, no EIS would be prepared. 1.3 Proposed Action The proposed action is to amend NRC Materials License SNM-1107 to exempt the licensee from the fissile material package standards for shipment of certain bulk materials containing low concentrations of uranium-235 contamination and to impose limiting conditions to ensure adequate controls for nuclear criticality safety. These materials would be exempt from fissile material classification and the fissile material package standards of 10 CFR 71.55 and 71.59, but subject to other requirements of 10 CFR part 71 and the further limiting conditions. A Safety Evaluation Report (SER) has been prepared by the NRC staff and contains a discussion of the safety considerations for approval of the amendment. The SER will be included in the license amendment when it is issued. 1.4 Need for Proposed Action Westinghouse is currently manufacturing nuclear reactor fuel at its Columbia, SC facility. It is requesting the exemption for transportation of low level radioactive waste (LLRW) generated during normal, routine operations. The reason for this request is to better utilize shipping containers and transportation. On February 10, 1997, the NRC issued an emergency direct final rule (62 FR 5913) changing the fissile material exemption specifications of 10 CFR part 71. The revised rule limits the fissile-material mass in a consignment and restricts the presence of select moderators with very low neutron-absorption properties (i.e., special moderators). Under this rule, specifically 10 CFR 71.53(a), Westinghouse is limited to 400 grams of U-235 per consignment. The imposition of this 400-gram U-235 limit per consignment increases the number of shipments required to dispose of LLRW. Westinghouse must make many small LLRW shipments to comply with the current SNM limits. With this amendment, Westinghouse will be able to utilize the entire volume of a strong-tight, twenty-foot sea/land van; thus, shipping, in one shipment, LLRW that currently takes ten shipments. Therefore, Westinghouse submitted this license amendment request for a specific exemption from the requirements of 10 CFR 71.55 and 71.59 for specified SNM shipments with greater than 400 grams U-235 per consignment. On April 15, 2002, the Westinghouse facility in Hematite, MO (SNM- 33), received a fissile material exemption for use in decommissioning the Hematite facility (NRC, 2002). This action requests the same exemption for the Columbia, SC facility (SNM-1107). 1.5 Alternatives to the Proposed Action No Action (i.e., deny the request). 2.0 Affected Environment The affected environment for the proposed action would be the immediate vicinity of the vehicle used to transport the material to a licensed disposal facility. The affected environment for no action is the Westinghouse site. A full description of the site and its characteristics is given in the 1995 Environmental Assessment for the Renewal of the NRC license for Westinghouse (NRC, 1995). The Westinghouse facility is located on a site of about 1200 acres in Richland County, South Carolina, approximately 8 miles southeast of the city of Columbia. 3.0 Environmental Impacts of Proposed Action and Alternatives 3.1 Occupational and Public Health Proposed Action The risk to human health from the transportation of all radioactive material in the U.S. was evaluated in the Final Environmental Impact Statement on the Transportation of Radioactive Material by Air and Other Modes (NRC, 1977). The principal radiological [[Page 72986]] environmental impact during normal transportation is direct radiation exposure to nearby persons from radioactive material in the package. The average annual individual dose from all radioactive material transportation in the U.S. was calculated to be approximately 0.5 mrem, well below the 10 CFR Part 20 requirement of 100 mrem for a member of the public. The proposed action would result in fewer shipments. Fewer shipments would expose fewer members of the public to radiation, reduce nonradiological truck emissions, and reduce the risk of injuries from traffic accidents. However, the reductions would be so small that the differences would be negligible. Occupational health was also considered in the Final Environmental Impact Statement on the Transportation of Radioactive Material by Air and Other Modes (NRC, 1977). The average annual occupational dose to the driver(s) is estimated to be 8.7 mSv (870 mrem), which is below the 10 CFR Part 20 requirement of 50 mSv (5000 mrem). The Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations in 49 CFR 177.842(g) require that the radiation dose rate may not exceed 0.02 mSv (2 mrem) per hour in any position normally occupied in a motor vehicle. The proposed action would not cause dose rates to the driver exceeding the DOT limit. The NRC staff evaluated the possibility of a criticality accident due to transportation of this material. Based on the statements and representations in the application, the staff concluded that limiting the contents as described in the application will provide adequate assurance that an inadvertent criticality cannot occur if the materials are exempt from the fissile material classification and fissile material package standards of 10 CFR 71.55 and 71.59. A detailed discussion of this analysis can be found in the Safety Evaluation Report for this amendment. Under the proposed action, the doses to the public and to the workers are not increased beyond those considered in the Final Environmental Impact Statement on the Transportation of Radioactive Material by Air and Other Modes (NRC, 1977). Therefore, shipment of these materials as proposed would be consistent with the assessment of environmental impacts and the conclusions in the Final Environmental Impact Statement on the Transportation of Radioactive Material by Air and Other Modes (NRC, 1977). No Action Denying this amendment request would not result in any significant difference in the risk to the public health from radiological materials. If this amendment request is denied, the licensee would be required to ship the contaminated waste more frequently in smaller containers. The larger number of shipments also is consistent with the assessment of environmental impacts and the conclusions in the Final Environmental Impact Statement on the Transportation of Radioactive Material by Air and Other Modes (NRC, 1977). As noted above, the level of nonradiological truck emissions and the risk of injuries from traffic accidents would be higher, but the differences would be negligible. The occupational health impacts would not change significantly as a result of denial of this amendment request. Occupational doses at the facility may be slightly higher as a result of the larger number of packages that workers must prepare and handle; however, the facility will continue to implement NRC-approved, radiation safety procedures for handling radioactive materials. Thus, the dose to workers under the no action alternative will remain within acceptable regulatory limits. 3.2 Effluent Releases, Environmental Monitoring, Water Resources, Geology, Soils, Air Quality, Demography, Biota, Cultural and Historic Resources Proposed Action The NRC staff has determined that the approval of the proposed amendment will not impact effluent releases, environmental monitoring, water resources, geology, soils, air quality, demography, biota, or cultural or historic resources under normal transport conditions. No Action The NRC staff has determined that denial of the proposed amendment will not impact effluent releases, environmental monitoring, water resources, geology, soils, air quality, demography, biota, or cultural or historic resources at or near the Westinghouse site. 3.3 Conclusions Based on its review, the NRC staff has concluded that the environmental impacts associated with the proposed action are not significant and, therefore, do not warrant denial of the license amendment request. The staff has determined that the proposed action, approval of the license amendment request as submitted, is the appropriate alternative for selection. Based on an evaluation of the environmental impacts of the amendment request, the NRC has determined that the proper action is to issue a FONSI in the Federal Register. 4.0 Agencies and Persons Contacted The NRC provided the draft Environmental Assessment and FONSI to staff from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) on September 27, 2002. NRC staff provided the licensee's exemption request and NRC's Safety Evaluation Report supporting the exemption. During a conference call with DHEC staff on October 17, 2002, NRC staff confirmed that the proposed action would not affect the regulation in 10 CFR 70.42 requiring Westinghouse to verify that waste disposal facilities are authorized to receive their shipments. DHEC had no comments or concerns with the proposed action. Because the proposed action is entirely within existing facilities and roadways, the NRC has concluded that there is no potential to affect endangered species or historic resources, and therefore consultation with the State Historic Preservation Society and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was not necessary. 5.0 References U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), December 1977, ``Final Environmental Impact Statement on the Transportation of Radioactive Material by Air and Other Modes.'' U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), July 1995, ``Environmental Assessment for Renewal of Special Nuclear Material License SNM-1107.'' U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), April 2002, ``Westinghouse Electric Company, LLC, Hematite Amendment 41 to Authorize Exemption to Fissile Material Classification and Package Standards in Transport,'' ADAMS no. ML021060797. Final Finding of No Significant Impact The Commission has prepared the above Environmental Assessment related to the amendment of Special Nuclear Material License SNM-1107. On the basis of the assessment, the Commission has concluded that environmental impacts associated with the proposed action would not be significant and do not warrant the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement. Accordingly, it has been determined that a Finding of No Significant Impact is appropriate. In accordance with 10 CFR 2.790 of the NRC's ``Rules of Practice,'' the Environmental Assessment and the documents related to this proposed action will be available electronically [[Page 72987]] for public inspection from the Publicly Available Records (PARS) component of NRC's document system (ADAMS). ADAMS is accessible from the NRC Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html] (the Public Electronic Reading Room). The NRC contact for this licensing action is Kevin M. Ramsey, who may be contacted at (301) 415-7887 or by e-mail at kmr@nrc.gov [kmr@nrc.gov] for more information about the licensing action. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 29th day of November 2002. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Daniel M. Gillen, Acting Director, Division of Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. [FR Doc. 02-31001 Filed 12-6-02; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 37 Columnist Jeff German: New allies aid state in Yucca struggle Las Vegas SUN: December 06, 2002 Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com [german@lasvegassun.com] or (702) 259-4067. FEW WOULD argue that Nevada is an underdog in its fight to stop Washington from sending the nation's dangerous nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. But now that the battlefield has switched from Congress to an independent federal court in Washington, the state is finding more allies than it ever could have imagined. Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Nuclear Waste Projects Office, says more than a dozen whistle-blowers who have worked on the massive Yucca Mountain Project, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, have stepped forward in recent weeks. Some of the project's critics remain anonymous, and the names of others are being carefully guarded out of fear of retribution from the Department of Energy. "They have information about wasted money at the project, health concerns that were ignored or scientific data that either was done incorrectly or falsified," he says. The increase in whistle-blowers, Loux surmises, is the result of the state's aggressive legal challenges. "People are seeing opportunities to come forward and talk about what they think has gone wrong with the project," he says. "They haven't done that to this extent before." The impact of the whistle-blowers on the federal litigation still is unclear. The state's three suits are regarded as administrative law cases, which means they will be decided solely on the record of the DOE's actions during the lengthy site selection process. The whistle-blowers are prohibited from testifying in the cases. But Nevada lawyers are in a position to use the inside information that's surfacing to bolster their legal arguments that the process has been flawed and manipulated by the DOE. At the same time state leaders are encouraging Yucca Mountain workers who uncover fraud and corruption in the massive project to file for whistle-blower status under the U.S. False Claims Act, which not only protects their jobs, but can lead to large monetary rewards if their allegations are substantiated. With validated claims the whistle-blowers also will be able to help the state challenge the DOE's license to operate Yucca Mountain when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission holds public hearings in 2004. The emergence of these new allies has raised the spirits of those leading the charge against Yucca Mountain. "It's giving us a morale boost," says Joseph Egan, the state's chief Washington lawyer in the legal battle. "It's basically confirmation that things really are as screwed up as we think they are." Egan is brimming with confidence about Nevada's chances of prevailing, even though he knows the state is taking on the unlimited resources of the federal government. "I'm very encouraged at how powerful the facts are in this case," he says. Nevada, he explains, has a strong argument that the DOE circumvented the will of Congress during the site selection process. Congress instructed the DOE in 1996 to focus on whether the site was scientifically suitable to store nuclear waste and not work on the NRC license application. "The DOE did exactly the opposite," Egan says. "It put all of its eggs in the license application to speed up the repository's development." Then just a couple of months before Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommended Yucca Mountain, the DOE changed the suitability rules so that Yucca Mountain would more easily qualify to take the waste. "They had a duty to terminate the site, and they failed to execute that duty," Egan says. And now, with a little help from some new allies, Nevada leaders are in a better position to prove that the DOE tried to jam Yucca Mountain down the state's throat. Suddenly, the odds have improved. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 38 Grove: Yucca rhetoric is heating up on both sides Photo: Joseph Egan listens at Bob Loux answers questions Las Vegas SUN December 06, 2002 Benjamin Grove covers Washington, D.C., for the Sun. He can be reached at grove@lasvegassun.com [grove@lasvegassun.com] or (202) 662-7245. FIVE MONTHS after Congress stamped its final approval on Yucca Mountain, the public relations battle over the nuclear waste dump project still simmers. Perhaps it has boiled over into your mailbox or e-mail. As Gov. Kenny Guinn and other prominent Nevada politicians are committing to a lengthy legal challenge to the project, a Las Vegas-based group called Nevadans for Nuclear Safety and Benefits has been quietly pining for the dump (they prefer to call it a "highly sophisticated engineered facility"). The group has launched a statewide mailing campaign to convince people that Nevada should throw in the towel. "Whether we approve or disapprove of Yucca, it's inevitable," said Rebecca Smith, a group spokeswoman from Pahrump. "At this point, it's time we should sit down with the federal government and find out what's in it for us." One of the group's top messages: Tax Yucca, not Nevadans. The group, which is backed by money from the pro-Yucca Nuclear Energy Institute, says that instead of haggling over how to raise tax revenue in Nevada, officials should negotiate to tax the $58 billion Yucca project. (In its November mailing, the group specifically took aim at Sun Editor Brian Greenspun and the rest of Guinn's Task Force on Tax Policy just for mulling other new tax options.) Smith said she is convinced that a majority of Nevadans -- especially in struggling rural counties -- now support abandoning the legal fight and negotiating for all kinds of benefits and terms. The grassroots group has a 15,000-member mailing list, Smith said. In its latest mailing the group argued that: + Waste will never travel through the Las Vegas Valley on its way to Yucca -- as many fear -- because the state will negotiate safer transit routes. + Several thousand jobs for Nevadans are at stake, including "plum" union construction jobs (group chairman Bill Vasconi is a retired union electrician). + Nevada wasted $4 million to fight Yucca prior to the hopeless showdown in Congress this year. Of course Nevada officials don't buy the arguments. They say the state has a solid chance of killing Yucca Mountain in court. And to trumpet the message, Guinn's camp has a new communique of its own: "The Yucca Mountain Update," an e-mail newsletter unveiled last week, to be sent to media, environmentalists and other officials nationwide. In addition to dispatches from the legal battlefront, the e-letter also promises to "highlight previous transgressions and missteps by the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, not only in Nevada, but throughout the country." The first edition outlined the state's "case in chief," the complex lawsuit filed last week in federal court that combines all the state's long-held arguments against the Energy Department's case for Yucca. "This is just the opening salvo," Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa says in the briefing. The state will send out a new edition of the Update once every few weeks, said Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects. Loux said he launched the newsletter to keep interested parties up-to-speed on the state's complex legal proceedings. In addition to the Energy Department suit, the state has lawsuits pending against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency. Del Papa is contemplating a constitutional challenge. "I can't think of a greater way to end my tenure as attorney general," Del Papa said. "I'm very proud of the work our team has done, and I think we will win." And you thought Yucca rhetoric on both sides had faded with the debate in Congress. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 39 Berkley eyes probe of Yucca worker's charges Las Vegas SUN: December 09, 2002 LAS VEGAS SUN WASHINGTON -- Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., has asked the Office of Government Ethics to investigate a new allegation of impropriety by the Energy Department. Berkley requested the probe after the Sun on Friday reported that the international law firm Morgan Lewis &Bockius, which was hired by the Energy Department to investigate a Yucca manager who was raising concerns about the project, had long-standing ties to the pro-Yucca nuclear industry. Yucca quality assurance manager James Mattimoe said he was trying to raise concerns about how complaints inside the program were handled when the department hired Morgan Lewis to investigate him last year. The firm's report was critical of Mattimoe's on-the-job behavior and, as a result, he was fired. Mattimoe appealed to the Labor Department Labor, which agreed that Mattimoe had been unjustly dismissed and ordered him reinstated. That appeal is now being heard by the Yucca contractor that employed -- and fired -- Mattimoe, Navarro Research and Engineering Inc. Nevada lawmakers say that a law firm with a long history of representing pro-Yucca nuclear utilities could not conduct a completely independent investigation of a worker who was raising concerns about the project. The appearance of impropriety warrants investigation, Berkley wrote in a letter late last week to the Office of Government Ethics, which investigates allegations of conflicts of interest in federal departments. Berkley also plans to ask the District of Columbia Bar Association to look into the matter, and she and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., may ask for an investigation by the Energy Department's inspector general. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 40 Waste-dump racism is destroying our planet [http://www.taipeitimes.com] By Tsai Chih-Wei ½²§Ó°¶ Monday, Dec 09, 2002,Page 8 Besides the semi-official alliance treaty he signed with 11 major aboriginal representatives for his campaign on Orchid Island on Sept. 10, 1999, President Chen Shui-bian (³¯¤ô«ó) made quite a number of promises to foster indigenous self-determination and to initiate the development of indigenous groups. One of them was to remove the nuclear waste facility on Orchid Island. To date, nothing has been done. It is the worst kind of environmental racism to force our tribe to live with the dangers of nuclear waste simply because no one else will. Indigenous advocates are currently lobbying the Legislature for a bill that will state simply, "Nothing is to be manufactured, used, or reproduced in Taiwan that cannot be safely disposed of." Is that too simple a thing for a legislator to understand? Probably it is, but it makes sense, doesn't it? The government indigenous people for several reasons: their lands are some of the most isolated, they are some of the most impoverished and, consequently, most politically vulnerable. We indigenous peoples have a sacred obligation to our fellow creatures. For this reason, it is both painful and disturbing that the government and the nuclear power industry seem intent on forever ruining what little land we have left. As a native person, I am concerned about the survival of our people just as Mother Earth is concerned about the survival of her children. There is legislation, however, that would allow new buildings if arrangements are made for the waste. Is this the legacy that we want to leave for our children and for our Mother Earth? The Iroquois say that "in making any decision one should consider the impact for seven generations to come." How ironic that, after centuries attempting to avoid and destroy it, the government is suddenly interested in promoting indigenous peoples' sovereignty -- just so it can dump its lethal garbage. All negotiations between the government, whether it is KMT or DPP, and indigenous peoples have been broken. Today's indigenous peoples remember the broken promises. Today's political situation in Taipei is an example of how volatile Taiwan policy decisions can be. Indigenous peoples' rights have assumed an important place in international human rights law. The UN Sub-Commission for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights approved the draft UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 1994. All governments, in furtherance of their Rio earth summit commitments and human rights obligations, must move towards its early adoption by the General Assembly. This is a major political goal within the UN Decade for Indigenous Peoples (1995-2004), and an important activity under Agenda 21, "Strengthening the Role of Indigenous People and their Communities" for World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002. Its achievement will signal a real openness and seriousness by governments to enter into a "New Partnership" with indigenous peoples for sustainable development. At the sixth Asian-Pacific Non-governmental Organization Conference on the Environment, Chen declared that "Taiwan will firmly anchor itself within the world community by shouldering its share of international responsibility on environmental concerns." Therefore, for its fulfillment of international obligations, Taiwan government will need to implement and make political reforms toward nuclear abolition. We should stop generating it. We should keep it where it is generated. Store the material at the plants. This material is too dangerous to be transported on our highways and railways, thereby exposing others to the hazards. Tsai Chih-wei is an Aboriginal who belongs to the Taruku tribe. This story has been viewed 412 times. Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 41 [toeslist] Fw: SOCADA Event Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 00:29:11 -0600 (CST) ----- Original Message ----- From: Alliance4dem@cs.com To: voice@adnetsol.com ; adirrim@ix.netcom.com ; RaKi01@aol.com ; ofla@pacbell.net ; ANDYCHAKIR@aol.com Sent: Friday, December 06, 2002 9:09 PM Subject: SOCADA Event SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AMERICANS FOR DEMOCRATIC ACTION Presents BEYOND THE BATTLEFIELD: THE REAL COSTS OF WAR A conference to explore the impact that war with Iraq will have on: The Economy Civil Liberties The Environment Health, Education, Welfare and Other Social Programs SPONSORED BY: The Ploughshares Fund; UCLA Labor Center; KPFK Radio SPEAKERS: Scott Ritter, Former Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector James Kenneth Galbraith, Professor of Economics, U of Tx. Tom Hayden, Former State Senator Antonio Villaraigosa, Speaker Emeritus, CA Assembly Arriana Huffington, Columnist Ross Altman, Singer/Songwriter - New song "Connect the Dots" Luisa Gratz, President, Warehouse, Processing and Distribution Workers Union, Local 26 International Lonshoremen Workers Union Hon. Diane Watson, Congresswoman Hon. Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles City Councilmember Angela Oh, Former Pres. of Korean American Bar Assoc. Hon. Jackie Goldberg, Member, California State Assembly Bruce Jansson, Author, The 6 Trillion Dollar Misunderstanding Mike Farrell, Actor (Partial List) * = Invited Workshops: The War and the Media: Robert Greenwald, Producer; Bernie Weinraub, New York Times; Robin Abcarian, Los Angeles Times Effective Lobbying Techniques: Scott Wildman, Lobbyist; Jim Provenza, Lobbyist; Erin Sikorsky,CA Peace Action; Moderated by Maria Armoudian Direct Action & Grass Roots Organizing: Ralph Fertig, Former Freedom Rider; Larry Frank, UCLA Labor Center; John Jackson, ACORN and others Impact on Third World Nations (Shin Bom Lee/Korea; Francisco Bauer/Guatemala; and Nyma Ardalan/Kurdistan) WHEN: Saturday, December 7, 2002; 10:30 am WHERE: Westwood United Methodist Church - 10497 Wilshire Blvd. (Corner of Warner - Just West of Beverly Glen) $10.00 Suggested Donation For updated information, please check our website at www.socalada.org. RSVP via e-mail socalada@earthlink.net or at our Event Hotline: (323) 852-9190 Endorsed by: ACORN; the Coalition for World Peace; CA Peace Action ***************************************************************** 42 PHILIP BERRIGAN, R.I.P -- AF&O 12.07.02 Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 00:31:13 -0600 (CST) Progressive news and commentary site ALL FACTS & OPINIONS has a new, FASTER LOADING look! And new news too... Anti-war Activist Phil Berrigan Dies: A lengthy tribute to a uniquely principled man of conscience and action; UK's plan for same-sex partnerships; Switzerland says YES to gay unions too!; The Iraq report is OUT -- UN keeping info close to its chest; News Grab Bag; BOYCOTT the SALVATION ARMY; REVOLUTION! Free your mind and build a better world!; and SO MUCH MORE! There is much to read and learn and do... Don't miss it! ALL FACTS & OPINIONS http://gratefuldread.net/fando/ Eight Nights of Miracles!, Natalie Davis ***************************************** All Facts & Opinions - Progressive News & Commentary - http://gratefuldread.net/fando The Armchair Activist & Armchair Activism GLBT - http://www.armchair-activist.org BE PART OF THE SOLUTION! Webmasters: Check out FREE content for your site! ***************************************************************** 43 [southnews] Iraq shows weapons proof Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 00:35:13 -0600 (CST) Amin,said developments since the previous disarmament commission quit the country in December 1998 were included in the 11,807-page dossier. Two annexes were also displayed to the press -- 529 megabytes of CD-ROMs comprising Iraq's back reports for the four years UN weapons inspectors were out of the country, and a 325-page dossier on the fate of long-term monitoring of suspect sites. "There is nothing that is prohibited," Amin stressed."This declaration will answer all the questions which we have been asked concerning the activities and equipment during the inspector's absence. ---------- Iraq shows weapons proof The Australian 07dec02 THE Iraqi government has presented to the rest of the world a mass of documents detailing its nuclear, chemical and biological activities and formally declaring to the United Nations that it has no weapons of mass destruction. Iraqi officials displayed the giant declaration, totalling more than 12,000 pages, to the international media in the mid-afternoon. It was expected to be handed over to UN officials in Baghdad by late today and flown out tomorrow on a UN plane to reach UN headquarters in New York and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna by late tomorrow. The UN Security Council had set tomorrow as the deadline. On a table in a government office, reporters were shown bound copies of volumes devoted separately to nuclear, chemical, biological and missile activities titled in English, "Currently Accurate, Full and Complete Declarations". The mass of paper, in volumes spread across the table, was accompanied by computer disks, presumably with additional information. A dozen Iraqi officials who worked on the declaration stood by, but refused to comment. Later today, according to an Iraqi state television announcement, a message to the Kuwaiti people from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was to be broadcast. No other details were immediately available. The thousands of pages of technical detail will shift the Iraq crisis into a new stage, as Washington and Baghdad move step by step toward a crossroads between war and peace. Under the same Security Council resolution calling for the report, teams from the New York-based UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC, and the UN nuclear watchdog resumed inspections on November 27 after a four-year interruption. After a two-day break for a Muslim holiday, they resumed their inspections this morning, visiting uranium storage sites and an Iraqi factory that once made munitions for chemical or biological weapons. At the munitions factory, the UN team was presumably checking to ensure banned activities have not resumed in the last four years. The inspectors at what Iraqi Information Ministry officials said were "uranium storage sites" near the major Iraqi nuclear research centre at al-Tuwaitha, south-east of Baghdad, may have been interested in large amounts of low-grade uranium that have been sealed and monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency since the 1990s. Although not bomb-grade material, such fuel could be enriched to that level if major technological hurdles were overcome. As usual, the UN inspection agency issued no immediate information about the visits. Iraq's report on past weapons programs and industrial activity will take UN experts weeks to analyse and UN inspectors months to verify inside Iraq. And UN officials said weeding out data that might help others produce chemical, biological or nuclear weapons would further delay handover of material to the Security Council's 15 member nations. Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix told reporters in New York yesterday: "No member will get it on Monday." For all the expectation, the document will be an anticlimax, since it's known that Baghdad will declare it has no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. "We have absolutely no weapons of mass destruction," Lieutenant General Hossam Mohammed Amin, the Iraqi official who oversaw production of the declaration, told reporters. Bush administration officials say they're sure Iraq still harbours such arms. If it doesn't disarm, they say, they will seek Security Council sanction for military action against Iraq. Failing that, they say, Washington would initiate such an attack on its own. US officials have not presented conclusive evidence that Iraq has banned weapons. A White House spokesman said on Thursday, however, that "solid evidence" would be turned over to UN inspectors, without elaborating. "We would like to have as much information from any member state as evidence that (Iraq) may have weapons of mass destruction," Blix said. The United States yesterday offered to protect Iraqi scientists who cooperate with international weapons inspectors searching for hidden arms. The Security Council resolution under which weapons inspectors are working allows them to solicit information from Iraqi scientists without Iraqi officials being present. The Security Council resolution adopted on November 8 required Iraq to file by tomorrow an "accurate, full, and complete declaration" of all weapons programs. Iraq was also required to report on "all other chemical, biological, and nuclear programs", even if not weapon-related. "It will be really a huge declaration," said Amin, chief Iraqi liaison to Blix's UN inspectors. He said the material, possibly including computer disks, covered the 1991-98 history of UN weapons and equipment destruction, as well as "new elements". In the 1990s, after Iraq's defeat in the Persian Gulf War, UN inspectors destroyed many tonnes of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and dismantled its program to try to build nuclear bombs. But the monitoring regime collapsed amid UN-Iraqi disputes, and the inspectors suspect they may have missed some chemical and biological weapons. The weapons inspectors hope the Iraqis at least will help them answer open questions by, for example, supplying convincing documentation on the fate of 550 artillery shells filled with poisonous mustard gas. Iraqi and UN accounts contain many such discrepancies from the 1990s. The UN resolution provides that "false statements or omissions" in Iraq's declaration would constitute a "material breach", that is, a potential cause for military action, but only if coupled with Iraqi non-cooperation. That would seem to exempt inaccuracies shown to be inadvertent. If Iraq is eventually found to have cooperated fully with the inspectors, UN resolutions call for the Security Council to consider lifting economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990. [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/ ***************************************************************** 44 Smoke n'mirrors:US SEEKS ONE EXCUSE FOR WAR IN 12,000 Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 01:38:37 -0600 (CST) http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,856166,00.html The Observer (London) Sunday December 8, 2002 Peter Beaumont and David Rose in London, Ed Vulliamy in Washington and Rory McCarthy in Baghdad As Iraq insists it has no weapons of mass destruction, Washington is losing patience with anyone who wants to prevent another conflict ================= Iraq's Tuwaitha nuclear centre, 11 miles from south-eastern edges of Baghdad, spreads out in a vast extended 'E'. A few trees break up the long, low wings of concrete, set in the yellow dirt, that enclose clusters of buildings, rusting towers and haphazard piles of building materials. Heavily damaged by allied aircraft during the first Gulf war, Tuwaitha - once the epicentre of Iraq's nuclear infrastructure - is the most potent symbol of Iraq's ambitions to acquire devastating weapons of mass destruction. Tuwaitha once housed uranium enrichment programmes, reactors and 'hot cells' - the safety chambers that allowed Iraqi scientists to manipulate fissile material - material removed by UN inspectors before they left in 1998, who shattered and sealed the chambers, filling the handling gloves with concrete and epoxy resin. In early September, amid the US-led clamour for a war to depose Saddam Hussein and strip Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, Tuwaitha was catapulted again into the headlines. The International Atomic Energy Authority had released satellite images suggesting new building work at the site. Although the IAEA drew no conclusions from the pictures, the White House did, putting forward spokesman Ari Fleischer who said the images could indicate Saddam 'may seek to develop nuclear weapons and may be making progress'. Within days, those images had become part of the received knowledge about Iraq: evidence that Saddam was rebuilding his nuclear weapons capability. Last week Tuwaitha was in the news again. This time, however, it was because UN inspectors had visited the site of the new construction at the plant. According to western intelligence sources, they found nothing untoward - certainly 'no smoking nuke'. In fact, in a week of inspections, the inspectors of Unmovic (charged to find chemical and biological weapons and their components) and the IAEA (which is looking for Saddam's nuclear programme) so far have not found very much at all. To the irritation of the US administration of George Bush, they have poked around some well-known sites, sniffed some sweets found in a cupboard in the wrecked Muthanna chemical weapons site, and provided some entertainment for the bored international press corps camped out in Baghdad, assiduously following their every move. But last week's inspections at Tuwaitha have been the preamble to what many Washington hawks hope will be the main event that will catch out Saddam without the need for lengthy and difficult searches for where Iraq has stashed its weapons of mass destruction. That main event is the complete disclosure of Iraq's programmes for weapons of mass destruction demanded by UN resolution 1441. Yesterday General Hasam Amin, the officer in charge of Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate, handed Iraq's massive self-declaration of its clean bill of health, including, say officials, the emphatic denial that Iraq possess any weapons of mass destruction. Displaying the documents to journalists a few hours before they were handed over, he said: 'We declared that Iraq is empty of weapons of mass destruction. I reiterate Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction. This declaration has some activities that are dual-use.' Last night two copies of that enormous document - written in Arabic - were on their way by courier to the IAEA in Vienna and Unmovic in New York, where it will first be translated and assessed by the weapons inspectors before being handed on to the 15 members of the UN Security Council. At upwards of 12,000 pages long, there are few who believe that it is likely to be anything other than a slippery affair. Over the years Iraq has made numerous 'final declarations' of its weapons of mass destruction, all of them containing significant omissions - not least the entire Iraqi biological weapons programme. The question now is what is actually in that document. Few in London and Washington are optimistic that Saddam will be more honest this time round. 'It is incredibly hard to foresee what he will do in the document itself,' said one British source. 'But there was a good chance that he would give a fraudulent headline declaration, while giving enough detail to cause problems on the Security Council when it evaluates the information. There may be enough new stuff declared to slow up the deliberations and give ammunition to those like Russia and France who oppose a war. That is how Saddam works.' Another suspicion is that Iraq will argue it has no weapons of mass destruction complete and assembled, and therefore 'no weapons of mass destruction', second-guessing what components the US and Britain believes it has while hiding away small numbers of chemical and biological weapons for domestic use if the regime is threatened. As intelligence agencies and government scientists waited for their translations of the document on both sides of the Atlantic, it became clear that the veracity of the Iraqi declaration - and the prospect of a second Gulf war - will be judged against the undisclosed intelligence held by the US and the UK, both of which continue to insist they have 'solid evidence' that Iraq still has weapons of mass destruction. It is an insistence that is exacerbating the already fraught relationship between the Bush administration and the UN's chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, a Swedish career diplomat for whom Washington hawks have little time. They have accused him of not having pursued the first 10 days of investigations with sufficient vigour. In private, Blix says, he has had only 'heard supporting words' from the Bush administration. In public, however, the past seven days have seen an increasingly tense series of exchanges with the chief inspector and the main cheerleaders among the Bush administration hawks who have heckled Blix and his team from the sidelines on an almost daily basis, insisting, not least, that he use his powers to remove Iraqi scientists and their families from the country for interview by US officials. By Friday that heckling had began to irritate Blix, who delivered a series of rebukes to the Washington hawks. 'We are not going to abduct anyone,' he said on Friday after meeting the Security Council. 'The UN is not a defection agency.' Blix's irritation has not been limited to the issue of defections. He has complained sharply too that if the US has evidence that Iraq retains weapons of mass destruction then it should share it with the UN's inspectors so that they can investigate. But if Blix is frustrated in his relations with the Bush administration, it is a frustration that mirrors a tension with Bush's government itself - between hawks in the Pentagon, who regard Blix's business as being to provide them with the excuse they need to quickly go to war, and the State Department, which has aligned itself with the inspection process and the UN. At the centre of that split is what the Iraqi declaration will allow Bush to do. Administration hawks in the Pentagon and White House greeted the prospect of Iraq's unseen declaration with confidence that it would lock America inexorably on a short path to war. Pentagon sources close to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, insisted it was now 'likely' that Bush would declare Iraq in 'material breach' of last month's security Council Resolution, reveal intelligence of its alleged weapons of mass destruction programmes, and prepare for an attack within weeks. 'Historically, this administration seems to have a Rumsfeld face and a [doveish Secretary of State Colin] Powell face,' one source said. 'Bush has always done what Powell has recommended first, and when that has failed gone on to adopt the Rumsfeld approach. On that basis, history tells us he is going to follow Rumsfeld now. I think that is much more likely than he accepts the declaration and carries on playing cat-and-mouse with the Unmovic inspectors. 'As to whether Bush has to go back to the Security Council for UN approval before going to war, the key word in the resolution is "assess". The UN has to assess whether it agrees Iraq is in material breach of its obligations, but it does not have the power to decide this issue. That gives the President the freedom he needs.' In a further sign of a probable hardening of attitudes, analysts said there were strong domestic reasons to move towards war. 'If you look at the polling numbers, they're very clear,' one Republican Party aide said. 'The American people are quite happy to go along with the President for war at the moment, but are also getting sick of this thing dragging out. The longer he leaves it, the greater the political risk.' This view is in sharp variance with the both the State Department line and the understanding of Bush's closest ally on Iraq, the British government, which believes that it secured from the US in the negotiations for the wording of UN resolution 1441 the agreement that not only would the inspectors report back to the UN, but that it would be the Security Council, not the US, that would be able to declare Iraq in 'material breach' of the resolutuion, thus triggering a war. British officials also insist that omissions from the declaration in itself are not enough to trigger war - a view that appeared last week to be supported by Wolfowitz, one of the Pentagon's leading hawks, while visiting London and Nato. 'The resolution talks about a false declaration or omission plus non co-operation or compliance,' said one UK source. 'Plus is the important word. There is an awful lot of rhetoric on the US side, but you would expect that if you wanted Saddam to comply. But we feel comfortable in the agreement we made with the US. The document itself is not a trigger for war.' If there are conflicting noises coming from the US, then Rumsfeld, did little to clear up the confusion at the heart of the administration last week, commenting archly instead: 'It depends on who you talk to and when you talk to them.' They are comments that applied as much to differences among Bush's closest foreign policy advisers as between Britain, the UN and the US. Last Thursday as those advisers - Vice-President Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice - sat down in the White House's Oval Office, that fault line was running through the room and the heart of the Bush administration itself. For far from reflecting the pessimism expressed by Bush at the start of the week that the inspections had not got off to an encouraging start, the State Department holds a rather different view. Talking to The Observer on Friday, officials said that staff remained behind Powell's judgment that the weapons inspectors were 'off to a good start'. Like British officials, Powell's loyal but increasingly isolated office insists that no military action can justifiably be taken until the inspection process has been exhausted, even if - as Powell himself concedes - the US is 'convinced [Iraq] has weapons of mass destruction'. In this Powell finds himself on his own in the Bush Cabinet, aware that the White House and Pentagon are preparing to make a case for war whatever the outcome of tomorrow's declaration. Indeed, at the Pentagon in particular, divisions over Powell's role run deep and bitter, with many among the professional military chafing under the civilian hawks, privately joking that they still regard Powell as their chief of staff - his role in the first Gulf war - even as they prepare for a second Gulf conflict. Civilian political appointees working under Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, however, talk about Powell with derision; one senior official described him as 'yesterday's man'. And it is Cheney who has taken up the most belligerent position, insisting to the President that any omission - no matter how minor - will constitute a material breach, that 'deception will not be tolerated'. For his part, Bush yesterday further muddied the waters by steering a line between the two camps in his weekly radio address, telling listeners that he would 'judge the declaration's honesty and completeness only after we have thoroughly examined it, and that will take some time'. Yesterday, as Iraq prepared to hand over its declaration, the inspectors were back at Tuwaitha for a second time in four days, hoping Washington would give them time to complete the job. ====================== *** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Feel free to distribute widely but PLEASE acknowledge the original source. *** ***************************************************************** 45 Partners in Preventing Nuclear Proliferation? Opinion / Comment Monday, Dec. 9, 2002. Page 10 By Rose Gottemoeller To a rogue state or terrorist trying to get nuclear weapons, Ukraine must look pretty good right now. According to the U.S. State Department, President Leonid Kuchma personally approved the sale of the Kolchuga early warning radar system to Iraq. If the Ukrainian president could sell a radar system to Saddam Hussein that endangers his putative friends, would he not be capable of selling Iraq nuclear materials? And then there is Yury Orshansky, one of Ukraine's most notorious businessmen, who has been quoted as saying about the Iraqis, "Even if they want to create a nuclear bomb, we will study this." So it's lucky that the last nuclear weapon left Ukraine in June 1996, the result of a hard-won trilateral deal between Kiev, Moscow and Washington. Launched by U.S. Secretary of State James Baker in the last months of the administration of Bush senior, it came together during the Clinton administration as a pragmatic package deal. The deal included security assurances for Ukraine (the United States would be there if Russia tried to bully it), assistance to destroy the missiles and bombers that were left in Ukraine, and fuel for Ukraine's nuclear power plants. In return for this, Ukraine would let the 1900 nuclear weapons on its territory go back to Russia to be dismantled. And that is what happened. The point of the story is that the right combination of incentives and demands, advanced with careful diplomacy, can prevent nuclear capabilities from falling into the wrong hands. The stars lined up in this case: Ukraine was eager to make its way into partnership with the United States, Russia was desperate for help in dealing with the nuclear consequences of the Soviet Union's breakup and the U.S. administration was intent on getting the job done. In addition, the problem was easily definable: 1,900 nuclear warheads had to be taken off missiles or out of storage, be loaded onto trains and shipped out of Ukraine. Today, the problem is not so easy to define. There are little caches of nuclear or radiological material scattered all over Ukraine, such as the 75 kilograms of highly enriched uranium at the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology. Some of the material could be made into nuclear weapons, but most could only go into a "dirty bomb." These devices would sow more contamination and panic than death and destruction, but they could exact a high price in public morale and economic damage. What is more, the stars are not very well aligned any more. For one thing, Ukraine has turned its quest for partnership away from the United States. The United States has pushed hard for democratization, economic reform and the rule of law in Ukraine, and the Ukrainians, sadly, have responded at best in fits and starts. Mostly, they seem to have turned elsewhere. Russia, for example, is today viewed less as a threat to Ukrainian sovereignty than as a source of foreign investment and industry orders. On the nuclear front, Russia has had 10 years of living with the Soviet Union's breakup. Thanks to the trilateral deal, and similar deals with Kazakhstan and Belarus, Russia has avoided having any new nuclear weapon states on its periphery. It continues to make progress in its joint work with the United States to protect nuclear weapons and materials and to dispose of them over time. In short, the acute sense of nuclear crisis that drove Moscow in the early 1990s has dissipated. The Bush administration has not been much at peace with the amount of attention that these problems require. A good deal of heavy lifting, starting with the president and extending to the vice president, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense and a constellation of high-level officials, is what it took to get the nuclear weapons out of Ukraine. Although that amount of attention cannot be sustained for every proliferation problem, keeping nuclear weapons away from terrorists and rogue states won't be accomplished on bureaucratic autopilot. To push the stars back into alignment and get control of Ukraine's nuclear proliferators, the United States will have to try some new ideas. Most important will be to re-engage Russia in the effort. Russia has the commercial links to knock heads in the Ukrainian business community, and it should be urged to do so. Although the Bush administration has vilified the relationship between Vice President Al Gore and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomydin, Chernomyrdin was influential in the denuclearization deal in the mid-1990s. Now ambassador to Ukraine, Chernomyrdin's influence among Ukrainian businessmen could be useful in stopping nuclear leakage. Second, while the United States does not want to endorse Kuchma's current leadership style, it should recognize the need to act fast against proliferation threats in Ukraine. In other words, although there are concerns about Kuchma and aid to Ukraine has been cut, we should make sure that there are U.S. funds available to spend quickly on high-priority nuclear projects. If we have to wait for a decision to grind through the annual budget cycle, we'll lose. Finally, the Bush administration needs a tiger team to work on this problem. It should be made up of highly motivated technical experts from around the government, but they should have daily access to higher-level decisionmakers who can break logjams, particularly about spending money. The tiger team's first order of business should be to set priorities -- i.e. the nuclear materials that are the greatest threat and most at risk. Then they should set the strategy -- what needs to be moved, how quickly and at what cost. It will be up to a higher level, however, to devise a way to get the job done, to get the Kuchma administration to agree to work out the nuclear problem. Since the U.S.-Ukrainian relationship is currently so troubled, this will not be easy. However, Kuchma's clear desire, voiced at the recent NATO summit in Prague, to show that Ukraine still desires partnership could be an important catalyst for progress. A special U.S. negotiator, focused on getting specific projects in place, could work wonders. If the United States succeeds in getting Ukraine to face up to the proliferation threat that its nuclear capabilities still pose, then we might be on the road to restoring the U.S.-Ukrainian bilateral relationship. And if Russia proves to be a good partner in this effort, then it might open up some important possibilities for the future. In particular, if this works, then maybe we could try it next on North Korea. Rose Gottemoeller, assistant secretary of energy for nonproliferation and national security during the Clinton administration, is a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She contributed this comment to The Moscow Times. © Copyright 2002, The Moscow Times. All Rights Reserved. Visit ***************************************************************** 46 U.N. Inspectors Return to Iraq Nuke Site Las Vegas SUN: December 09, 2002 By BASSEM MROUE ASSOCIATED PRESS BAGHDAD, Iraq- U.N. arms inspectors paid a return visit Monday to Iraq's huge al-Tuwaitha nuclear complex, where scientists in the 1980s worked to produce the fissionable material for nuclear bombs. On Sunday, a top science adviser to President Saddam Hussein said Iraq's arms report to the United Nations documents Baghdad's drive to develop a nuclear bomb until 1991. Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi said Iraq no longer has such ambitions. "It's for the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to judge how close we were" to a nuclear bomb, al-Saadi said. The U.N. teams want to ensure that Iraqi specialists, in the four years since U.N. monitors were last in Iraq, have not returned to research in areas that would contribute to nuclear weapons-building. Recent satellite photos show new construction at al-Tuwaitha, buildings whose purposes the U.N. investigators would want to check. Last Wednesday, in their first visit to al-Tuwaitha in the two-week-old new round of U.N. inspections, specialists of the International Atomic Energy Agency spent five hours going "room to room," team leader Jacques Baute reported afterward. But they needed more time to complete their inspection of the complex of more than 100 buildings, he said. Many buildings at al-Tuwaitha, 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, were destroyed in heavy U.S. bombing in the 1991 Gulf War. Through the 1990s, it was scrutinized by U.N. nuclear agency inspectors under a postwar U.N. monitoring regime to ensure Iraq did not develop weapons of mass destruction. Those inspections stopped in 1998 amid U.N.-Iraqi disputes. The current round began Nov. 27 under a new, tougher U.N. Security Council resolution. From Baghdad Monday, a second U.N. team went to an undisclosed destination. They headed west, in the direction of an area of chemical plants and other facilities with past connections to Iraq's old chemical and biological weapons programs. The U.N. operation received reinforcements on Sunday, 25 new inspectors who doubled the staff, allowing a rapid expansion of field missions. Over the weekend, the U.N. teams also got the first of an expected eight helicopters that will enable them to range farther afield on their unannounced inspections. The daily inspections continue as the monitors' headquarters offices in New York and Vienna begin their review of the massive arms declaration, more than 12,000 pages, submitted by Iraq to the United Nations on Saturday. Analysis of the declaration, whose submission was required by last month's U.N. resolution, is expected to suggest new sites for inspections, especially facilities that can alternate between civilian and military use. If Iraq is eventually found to have cooperated fully with the inspectors, U.N. resolutions call for the Security Council to consider lifting economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990. If Iraq is found in noncompliance, on the other hand, the council may consider military action to forcibly the Baghdad government. In Baghdad Monday, peace activists from the Chicago-based Iraq advocacy group Voices in the Wilderness gathered before U.N. offices in for a demonstration urging the United States and Iraq not to interfere in the U.N. weapons inspectors' work. The inspections process "is the main source of help right now to avoid war," said Kathy Kelly, leader of the 17-member delegation from the United States and several other countries. In his comments to reporters Sunday, presidential adviser al-Saadi said the Iraqi declaration was "accurate" and "truthful" and that it reiterated Iraq's contention that it has no weapon of mass destruction. Washington says it has "solid evidence" Iraq retains weapons of mass destruction, but U.N. inspectors indicate they have seen no conclusive evidence thus far from U.S. or other sources. Al-Saadi challenged the United States to present its evidence. He criticized Washington's rush to judge that Iraq has illegal weapons, saying U.S. officials should first read the arms dossier Baghdad submitted to the United Nations. "A superpower should study and take its time in judging, especially since everyone is looking on as it prepares for a huge military campaign for an aggression against Iraq," he said. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 47 Nuclear Deterrence, Then and Now by Daniel Gouré - Policy Review, No. 116 [http://www.policyreview.org] The cold war consensus on the role of nuclear arms in American national security has dissolved, a casualty of the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet empire itself. In place of a threat posed by an adversary commanding superior conventional forces, the United States now faces the prospect of multiple potential opponents with variable motives, shifting sources of conflict, and evolving alliance relationships. In this environment, even assuming sharply lower levels of nuclear warheads, the U.S. needs a more flexible nuclear doctrine, based on approaches that simultaneously assure friends of a steadfast U.S security commitment, prevent prospective enemies from pursuing weapons of mass destruction, deter direct threats against America’s interests and allies, and promise the defeat of any attack. These new realities dictate a more nuanced role for nuclear weapons, both in terms of the capabilities we pursue and the scenarios governing their use, even as we retain an unmistakably robust, diversified, balanced, and flexible nuclear force structure. The end of Cold War deterrence or more than 40 years, the U.S. defense community held a shared view regarding the purposes for which this country maintained strategic nuclear forces. The overriding purpose of the forces was to deter war between the United States and the Soviet Union. This had to be accomplished in the face of an overwhelming Soviet conventional capability and under conditions dictated by the presence of vulnerable allies close to Soviet territory. As a result, U.S. forces had to be positioned forward to defend those allies, a situation that made them vulnerable to a Soviet offensive. Because it was difficult to have confidence in Western conventional defenses, it was necessary to threaten the Soviet Union with the possible use by the United States (and later by Great Britain and France) of nuclear weapons, including escalation up to a massive strike on the Soviet homeland. American nuclear forces needed to be of sufficient size and robust character such as to impose on the Soviet leadership the unassailable fact that no conflict with the United States could end with anything less than unacceptable damage to the Soviet Union. Once the Soviet Union acquired nuclear weapons, it was also necessary to convince Moscow that it could not hope to gain an advantage by their use. American retaliation had to be assured, even in the face of a “bolt-out-of-the blue” attack by the Soviet Union. For this reason the United States invested in the now familiar triad of strategic bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, along with the early warning and command, control, and communications (c3) that guarded against surprise attack. In addition, the United States developed and deployed an array of tactical and theater nuclear weapons. The purpose of these was to ensure that at any point in the conflict, the United States had a credible escalatory option. Over the past decade, the strategic rationale that guided the development of U.S. nuclear forces throughout the Cold War has been slowly eroding. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the demise of the Soviet Union ended the conventional threat to America’s European and Asian allies. No longer did the United States need a stout ladder of escalation based on directly linking conventional defenses to the massive U.S. strategic nuclear capability. Without the threat of conventional conflict and first-use of nuclear weapons by the United States to avoid a conventional defeat, there was also a reduced concern regarding the possibility of a Soviet preemptive strike against the U.S. homeland. As a result, it was possible for the United States to consider altering the size and posture of American nuclear forces. The first Bush administration began the process — in cooperation with President Boris Yeltsin’s regime in Russia — by detargeting U.S. ballistic missiles, removing nuclear weapons from strategic bombers, withdrawing almost all tactical nuclear weapons from forward positions, and agreeing to the start ii treaty that promised to reduce the number of available nuclear weapons in the force to 3,500. The Clinton administration pursued implementation of these decisions as well as a variety of so-called threat reduction measures designed primarily to reduce risks associated with the arsenal of the former Soviet Union. Yet the Bush and Clinton administrations were reluctant to seriously challenge the nuclear doctrines of the Cold War. Both were concerned that Russia’s political transformation might not succeed, resulting in the emergence of a hostile and revanchist power. In its 1994 Nuclear Posture Review and a 1997 Presidential Decision Directive, the Clinton administration maintained a classic view of the role of nuclear weapons as a means of deterring war. To that end, the United States still was required to maintain a relatively large strategic nuclear force capable of holding at risk a wide range of strategic targets and ultimately of inflicting unacceptable damage on an opponent.1 It was this view of the nature of nuclear deterrence that also led the Clinton administration repeatedly to defend the Anti-Ballistic Missile (abm) Treaty as the “cornerstone of stability.” George W. Bush came to office determined to recast U.S. defense policy in light of the realities of a new international security environment. In particular, the Bush administration argued that the threats of the twenty-first century were fundamentally different from those the United States had confronted in the past. The 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review contained a stark warning about the threats of the future: Although U.S. military forces enjoy superiority in many dimensions of armed conflict, the United States is likely to be challenged by adversaries who possess a wide range of capabilities, including asymmetric approaches to warfare, particularly weapons of mass destruction. The United States cannot predict with a high degree of confidence the identity of the countries or actors that may threaten its interests and security. The Bush administration’s response to this threat assessment was to propose the transformation of the U.S. military. Although the principal focus of transformation efforts was on conventional forces, the administration was also intent on altering the doctrine and character for strategic forces. Two events, occurring nearly simultaneously, signaled a doctrinal revolution with respect to American strategic nuclear forces. The first was the decision by the Bush administration on December 14, 2001 to withdraw from the abm Treaty. By so doing, the administration rejected perhaps the most central premise of Cold War nuclear doctrine: that deterrence is best achieved by the ability of U.S. forces to threaten unacceptable damage. In making his announcement, President Bush declared: The 1972 abm Treaty was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union in a much different time, in a vastly different world. One of the signatories, the Soviet Union, no longer exists and neither does the hostility that once led both our countries to keep thousands of nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, pointed at each other. Today, as the events of September 11 made all too clear, the greatest threats to both our countries come not from each other, or from other big powers in the world, but from terrorists who strike without warning or rogue states who seek weapons of mass destruction. The second event was the publication of the Bush administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (npr) on January 9, 2002. The npr began by acknowledging that the central strategic reality of the Cold War, the East-West conflict, had been replaced by uncertainty. The United States faced the prospect of multiple potential opponents with differing or uncertain motives, new sources and loci of conflict, and shifting alliance relationships. As a result, the ability of existing U.S. strategic forces to deter potential aggressors — deterrence defined as the ability to inflict damage on an opponent in a retaliatory strike — could not be assured. A more flexible doctrine was needed, one based on capabilities and approaches that simultaneously assured friends and allies of the U.S commitment to their security, dissuaded prospective proliferators from pursuing weapons of mass destruction (wmd), deterred direct threats against the U.S., its interests, and its allies, and promised the defeat of any attack. The desired force structure to meet these new requirements would be based on a spectrum of capabilities rather than focusing on a single threat and able to respond to a wide range of contingencies. As Denis Bovin, vice chairman of Bear Stearns and a well-known Wall Street defense sector expert, observed, “What was striking about the npr was its call for a new strategic triad based on non-nuclear strike forces, strategic defenses, and strategic nuclear forces.” This new triad presented the potential of meeting doctrinal requirements in fundamentally new ways. Defenses were one way to address emerging threats and deterrence uncertainties. Another way was to exploit advances in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (isr) and precision targeting to employ conventional weapons in lieu of nuclear weapons. According to Assistant Secretary of Defense J.D. Crouch: The non-nuclear strike forces, we believe, have the potential, if fully exploited, fully developed, to reduce our dependence on nuclear forces for the offensive strike leg of the force. And even defenses give us some options that allow us to do the same. Nevertheless, the npr confirms that strategic nuclear forces will remain a central element of the new strategic doctrine. Indeed, the npr made it clear that the role of strategic nuclear forces in the new doctrine would be more nuanced than had been the case over the past decade. The new, smaller strategic nuclear force posture would be structured to address a wide range of immediate and potential contingencies. Adaptive planning would supplement or even replace the traditional Single Integrated Operational Plan (siop) with its emphasis on pre-planned, relatively inflexible, and often massive strike packages. In addition, the npr spoke of exploiting synergy between the elements of the new triad. The npr’s findings and recommendations were generally accepted without much criticism. The only seemingly controversial aspects of the npr were the set of contingencies for nuclear planning and the recommendation that the United States begin development of new types of nuclear weapons. As reported by the Los Angeles Times (March 9, 2002), the classified version of the npr identified a set of possible contingencies, including an Arab-Israeli conflict or a threat from seven so-called rogue states. Even here, knowledgeable observers were quick to point out that the npr’s recommendations were a logical extension of the post-September npr security environment and made sense in terms of the new threats confronting the United States.2 The npr’s strong commitment to a large and flexible strategic nuclear capability must be welcomed by all those concerned about the broad range of potential threats that face the United States in the new century. Nevertheless, the npr failed to explicitly define the purposes of those strategic nuclear forces. It speaks only of immediate, unexpected, and potential contingencies. Such contingencies could include “surprise military developments.” These formulations are insufficient as the basis for sustained support of nuclear forces and their supporting infrastructure. There is no context on which to draw in order to understand reports that the military has been ordered to develop contingency plans to strike rogue states or to employ small nuclear weapons in limited numbers as so-called “bunker busters.” The traditional political consensus on the role of strategic nuclear weapons in U.S. defense policy is gone. During the Cold War it was generally agreed that for deterrence to be effective the threat to use nuclear weapons had to be credible — in other words, it had to make sense militarily. There are many who now argue that nuclear weapons have no military purpose. There also is a strong abolitionist streak in the current debate on American defense policy. Denuclearization would undoubtedly prove much more difficult to achieve than its advocates suggest. It would certainly be very unwise. However, those who continue to see a need for strategic nuclear weapons in a twenty-first century U.S. defense policy have yet to make a convincing case. They have yet to argue a theory of deterrence for the new century. A new rationale he new strategic circumstances confronting the United States today are markedly different from those that obtained during the Cold War. At that time, the United States was the status quo power, defending a global alliance against the threat of all-out war. Western conventional inferiority demanded reliance on nuclear weapons. The stakes were absolute and reliance on the threat of massive nuclear retaliation to deter Soviet aggression was a necessary and appropriate defense strategy. Now, albeit reluctantly, the United States finds itself in the role of sole superpower, engaged throughout the world. It has repeatedly intervened in local and regional conflicts in which it has only limited stakes. In so doing, moreover, the United States has been able to exploit its significant and growing conventional superiority over potential adversaries. The lesson for potential adversaries of the Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, and, most recently, Afghanistan is that they cannot hope to stand against the United States on a modern conventional battlefield. It is the impossibility of countering U.S. conventional power that has sent potential adversaries scurrying in search of so-called asymmetric means of warfare. Chief among these are wmd, possibly combined with a method of long-range delivery. Such weapons could be quite primitive, for their primary purpose is not to achieve results on the battlefield but to deter or complicate any potential U.S. military action against the state deploying such means. The potential adversary need only threaten to raise the stakes for the United States in circumstances where vital interests may not be involved. As Robert Walpole, national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (September 16, 1999): Acquiring long-range ballistic missiles armed with a weapon of mass destruction will enable weaker countries to do three things that they might otherwise not be able to do: deter, constrain, and harm the United States. To achieve these objectives, the missiles need not be deployed in large numbers; with even a few weapons, these countries would judge that they had the capability to threaten at least politically significant damage to the United States or its allies. They need not be highly accurate; the ability to target a large urban area is sufficient. They need not be highly reliable, because their strategic value is derived primarily from the implicit or explicit threat of their use, not the near certain outcome of such use. Although the United States currently enjoys unquestioned conventional superiority over any potential adversary, it cannot count on that superiority alone to deter possible aggressors. Moreover, it must reckon with the efforts of a number of so-called rogue states and even terrorist groups who intend to acquire wmd precisely to counter U.S. conventional superiority. Such weapons could be delivered against U.S. forces or even the homeland by a variety of means, including covert. The ability to deter covert or terrorist employment of wmd will clearly depend on the ability both to identify the source of the attack and to respond appropriately. In some instances this could mean a nuclear response, in others the use of defenses, conventional strike systems, Special Forces, or even the cia. At all costs, the United States must avoid being self-deterred — that is, unwilling to project military power as necessary in pursuit of its national interests — by the asymmetric threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a lesser power.3 In addition to the threat from so-called rogue states, the United States must also guard against the possibility, however slight, that it might find itself in a military confrontation with either Russia or China. Russia has sought to offset its conventional military weakness by relying more heavily on nuclear weapons. Moscow has renounced the no-first-use pledge made by the Soviet leadership and has focused in its new military doctrine on the use of limited nuclear options as a means of controlling or deescalating a regional conventional conflict.4 Chinese military writings suggest similar scenarios in which nuclear weapons are employed in local conflicts by the weaker side to counter the opponent’s conventional superiority. The threat of direct attacks on the opponent’s homeland is meant to “cap” the conflict.5 Although it did not — indeed, could not — say so, the npr lays out the framework for a defense policy and nuclear strategy designed both to shape the future strategic environment in ways congenial to the preferred U.S. strategic approach to employing military power, and to ensure U.S. strategic advantage in the event of war. Its unparalleled conventional capability allows the United States to prosecute a strategic campaign without resort to nuclear weapons. Nonnuclear strike forces are capable not only of dominating the conventional battlefield but of holding at risk a broad range of strategic targets. This alone may be sufficient to deter the use of wmd. But if not, the combination of strategic defenses and nonnuclear strike capabilities can deny an adversary any credible escalatory options. Even limited defenses, both missile and air defenses, can defeat an aggressor’s “cheap shot.” If strategic or theater defenses are successful at defeating an adversary’s use of wmd, the United States could potentially rely solely on conventional forces to achieve its war aims. What then are the roles of strategic nuclear forces in supporting a defense strategy intended to solidify nascent U.S. strategic advantage? The first role is to maximize the strategic space available to the United States in exploiting its conventional military advantage for the purposes of dissuasion, deterrence, or the defeat of aggression. Simply put, this means maintaining a strategic nuclear force of sufficient size, flexibility, and responsiveness so that any opponent, regardless of the size or character of his wmd arsenal, will be deterred from attempting to use such weapons to counter the U.S. conventional advantages. This includes having credible limited nuclear strike options that can reasonably be expected to deter the use of wmd by an opponent facing conventional defeat.6 It also means developing the intelligence capabilities to support retaliation in the event of the covert use of wmd by such a state. It is noteworthy in this context that the United States recently announced that it was dropping its 1978 pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. American strategic nuclear forces serve in a number of other roles. A second role is to hold at risk those targets that are most highly prized by a potential adversary but that are not accessible by conventional means. A third role is to neutralize a proliferator’s wmd. A final role, in combination with strategic defenses and nonnuclear strike capabilities, is to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing wmd options or, in the cases of Russia and China, from using their strategic forces as a means of escalation control. So long as Russia’s conventional defense capability remains weak, and the country maintains a large strategic nuclear arsenal, the United States will be required to maintain a strategic nuclear posture sufficient to deter any resort to nuclear weapons by Russia. U.S. strategic nuclear forces also provide reassurance to America’s friends and allies. Extended deterrence may be even more important today, in an era marked by the proliferation of wmd and long-range strike systems, than it was during the Cold War. Unless the United States maintains its extended deterrence for our allies, they could be tempted to pursue their own wmd capabilities as a means of deterring regional threats. In addition, the United States is increasingly dependent on foreign bases to support its strategy of conventional power projection. Such bases may become targets for an adversary’s wmd attacks. High-confidence assurance to allies and coalition partners confronted by wmd threats will almost assuredly require the extension to them of nuclear guarantees. The principal strategic problem likely to confront the United States for the next several decades is deterring or defeating local aggression, including the possible limited use of wmd. This requires retaliatory threats appropriate to these reduced circumstances. The traditional threat of massive retaliation is increasingly implausible as a response to even limited use of wmd against the U.S. homeland. Yet, it is not clear that the threat of a proportional response would be sufficient to deter some adversaries. A recent study of the rationale and requirements for U.S. nuclear forces noted that the dynamic international environment makes it difficult to arrive at a force-sizing criterion adequate for the broad range of potential situations in which nuclear weapons might be relevant: [T]he types of U.S. threats and underlying capabilities that may be necessary over the next twenty-five years will be as varied as the challenges and contexts likely to confront Washington. Some foes in the future may be deterred by threats to their counter-value targets, requiring few if any U.S. nuclear weapons. Other foes, highly motivated and notably cost and risk tolerant, may be deterred only by severe threats to many types of targets, requiring significant U.S. nuclear capabilities.7 Regardless of where on the threat spectrum future foes may lie, it is almost inconceivable that the United States will be required to execute the kind of assured destruction strike that was the basis of the Cold War deterrent. Indeed, such a threat appears less and less credible as the Cold War recedes into memory. Instead, deterrence of regional adversaries and nuclear powers alike is likely to be sustainable to the extent the promised response to aggression is both proportionate and tailored. Should deterrence fail, in most instances the United States will have an interest in containing the conflict. This means the selective rather than massive use of nuclear weapons. As one longtime nuclear strategist observed, “Nuclear doctrine cannot lock a president into any unalterable course or give him only unacceptable options.”8 Finally, strategic nuclear forces can serve as a powerful hedge against surprise. Conventional deterrence has a history of failing, particularly in circumstances in which the aggressor doubts the resolve of his adversaries. A robust and flexible U.S. strategic nuclear posture can dramatically alter a potential aggressor’s cost-benefit calculus. This is particularly true insofar as U.S. strategic nuclear forces have the kinds of characteristics that make the threat of use credible, even in limited conflicts. A force posture for the future he United States has reduced its nuclear arsenal by more than half — from some 27,000 weapons in the stockpile at the height of the Cold War. The number of weapons actually deployed on launchers has declined even more and will be further reduced to between 1,700 and 2,200 by 2012. To a large degree these changes reflect the reality of the post-Cold War era. The number of strategic targets that needed to be held at risk has fallen sharply as, first, the Warsaw Pact and, second, the Soviet Union collapsed. The subsequent decline of the Russian military further shrank the prospective strategic target list, as did the abandonment by the Russian military of the Soviet-era doctrine of seeking to fight and win a major nuclear war. At the same time, the range of contingencies that U.S. strategic nuclear forces may have to address has, if anything, expanded. As a result, it has become more difficult to define an appropriate force structure and associated force posture for the remaining strategic nuclear forces. The basic design characteristics central to the development of Cold War strategic nuclear forces appear germane today. First, the forces must be safe and secure. Second, they must be responsive to political control. This feature takes on even greater importance in light of the uncertainties regarding when and how the United States might become involved in a nuclear crisis. Third, the forces must be effective against any and all potential targets, allowing the United States to strike when, where, and how it sees fit to defend vital interests. Finally, as the Center for Counterproliferation Research study notes, both the forces themselves and their associated command and control must be survivable, denying the potential attacker any hope of limiting damage to himself by means of a preemptive attack. Even at the reduced numbers proposed by President Bush, the United States would be well advised to maintain the existing triad of strategic bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles (icbms), and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (slbms). As the National Institute for Public Policy study notes, a force structure based on a variety of platforms insures against sudden changes in the threat that might make one leg of the triad vulnerable. It also provides for flexibility and responsiveness, critical characteristics in a force that must deal with uncertainty and even surprise. Each leg of the triad continues to provide important contributions to the overall ability of U.S. strategic nuclear forces to dissuade, deter, and, if necessary, defeat any potential adversary. slbms remain the most survivable part of the triad. They pose the ultimate deterrent in the event that an adversary with a large nuclear arsenal would attempt to destroy the United States. Their deployment on a relatively small number of ballistic missile submarines makes them less responsive and flexible than are the other legs of the triad. Strategic bombers, although no longer maintained as an active element of the triad, should be retained primarily as a hedge both against the failure of one of the other two legs and in the event that potential adversaries are able to deploy highly effective missile defenses. The Bush administration has announced its decision to make the b-1 a conventional-only bomber. This would leave fewer than 100 b-2 and b-52 bombers that could be pressed into service as nuclear delivery systems should the need arise. At the proposed lower numbers, icbms may come to play an even more crucial role in the future than they did during the Cold War. They possess features that make them particularly well suited to the challenges posed by an uncertain future. They are the leg of the triad that can most readily respond to the new demands for adaptive nuclear targeting. Admiral Richard Mies, commander-in-chief of Strategic Command (stratcom), described the reasons why icbms remain so important in U.S. strategic nuclear plans thus: Intercontinental ballistic missiles continue to provide a reliable, low cost, prompt response capability with a high readiness rate. They also promote stability by ensuring that a potential adversary takes their geographically dispersed capabilities into account if contemplating a disarming first strike. Without a capable icbm force, the prospect of destroying a significant percentage of America’s strategic infrastructure with a handful of weapons might be tempting to a potential aggressor in a crisis.9 A robust and capable icbm force can also contribute in new ways to stability. Large, mirved icbms were once considered to be destabilizing because they held out the possibility that an attacker could destroy a large number of opposing strategic nuclear forces, including icbms, with the expenditure of only a small fraction of his own force. In a world in which mirved icbms are banned, an attacker will need to expend more of his weapons than he can hope to destroy on the defending side. Moreover, the sheer magnitude of such an attack would make a major retaliatory strike all but inevitable. For these reasons, as the Center for Counterproliferation Research study argues, it makes sense to preserve most, if not all, the present force of some 500 icbms. The icbm force is also the leg of the triad best suited to respond to any potential contingencies, the term used by the npr to signify a renewed nuclear arms race. Should the need arise, the icbms could be uploaded with two additional warheads apiece. This would allow the U.S. strategic nuclear force to expand by up to 1,000 warheads, assuming the current complement of 500 Minuteman iiis is maintained. Also, the icbm would be the delivery system of choice for new types of warheads such as an earth-penetrator with which to hold at risk deeply buried or hardened structures.10 In light of the range of strategic contingencies that could confront the United States, it seems only prudent to maintain a strategic nuclear force posture that is highly ready, flexible, and large. The size of the American strategic arsenal may be an important contributing factor to both dissuasion and deterrence. A large force structure could dissuade any would-be competitor, most particularly China, from attempting to achieve strategic parity with the United States. Such a force structure, particularly deployed in multiple basing modes, will serve to complicate any would-be attackers’ strike planning. In the event of a nuclear conflict, a large arsenal can ensure that no potential adversary would see any advantage from attacking the United States in the aftermath of a U.S. nuclear strike. Still a heavily armed world s the events of September 11 clearly demonstrate, despite the end of the Cold War the world remains a dangerous place. While the threat of a massive nuclear attack on the United States has receded into the dim recesses of probability, this does not mean that the homeland is safe. The end of the Cold War brought with it a new set of threats, not well defined or understood. While U.S. military power is unequalled in the world, new threats are arising that may not be deterrable by traditional measures. In some ways, the threat of aggression has increased over the past decade. As Robert Walpole noted, “the probability that a missile with a weapon of mass destruction will be used against U.S. forces or interests is higher today than during most of the Cold War.” A recent intelligence community assessment of future ballistic missile threats warned that in the next 15 years “the United States will most likely face icbm threats from North Korea and Iran, and possibly Iraq.”11 In preparing to confront these and other twenty-first century threats, the United States will need a full range of military capabilities, including strategic nuclear forces. Although the size of the nuclear arsenal continues to decline, nuclear weapons may actually become more important to American security. Some potential adversaries are unlikely to be deterred by the threat of conventional retaliation alone. They and others may seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction in order to counter U.S. conventional superiority. While strategic defenses and nonnuclear strike capabilities can contribute to deterrence and broaden the range of options available to U.S. leaders in defeating wmd-armed adversaries, these capabilities cannot fully substitute for credible strategic nuclear forces. The United States must have a strategic nuclear force posture that is large (relative to the size of the anticipated arsenals of other states), responsive, flexible, and credible. To that end, the United States needs to maintain the existing triad of strategic bombers, icbms, and slbms. Each leg of the triad provides unique attributes that support overall force utility. stratcom must have the intelligence and adaptive planning capabilities to permit the development of a wide range of employment options, including for the highly selective use of new types of nuclear weapons. Finally, the nuclear infrastructure must be sufficient to ensure not only the safety and surety of remaining nuclear weapons but to assure the long-term viability of U.S. strategic nuclear forces. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Notes 1 On the views of the Clinton administration, see Keith Payne, “Post-Cold War Requirements for U.S. Nuclear Deterrence Policy,” Comparative Strategy (1998), 250–254. 2 Loren Thompson, “How to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," Wall Street Journal (March 17, 2002). 3 On this problem, see the Center for Counterproliferation Research’s U.S. Nuclear Policy in the Twenty-First Century: A Fresh Look at National Strategy and Requirements (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, July 1998), 14–15. 4 Stephen A. Blank, “Undeterred: The Return of Nuclear War,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs (Summer/Fall 2000). 5 Major-General Wu Jianguo, “Nuclear Shadow on High-Tech Warfare,” in Michael Pillsbury, ed., Chinese Views of Future Warfare (Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 1999). 6 It should be remembered that Iraq used chemical weapons extensively during its war with Iran to defeat that country’s conventional forces. 7 National Institute for Public Policy, Rationale and Requirements for U.S. Nuclear Forces and Arms Control, Volume I: Executive Report (January 2001), 12. 8 Frank Miller, “Future Nuclear Doctrine,” in Hans Binnendijk and James Goodby, eds. Transforming Nuclear Deterrence (National Defense University Press, 1997), 43. 9 “The Changing World of Nuclear Deterrence,” Air Force Magazine (September 2001). 10 Walter Pincus, “Nuclear Plans Go Beyond Cuts,” Washington Post (February 19, 2002), a26. 11 National Intelligence Council, Foreign Missile Developments and the Ballistic Missile Threat Through 2015 (Central Intelligence Agency, December 2001), 5. [http://www.policyreview.org/contact.html] . [http://www.policyreview.org/] 818 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite #601, Washington, DC 20006 (202) 466-6730 FAX: (202) 466-6733 Published by the [http://www.hoover.org] ***************************************************************** 48 *North said to solicit nuclear-fuel chemical * December 10, 2002 WASHINGTON -- North Korea is seeking to buy from Chinese companies a chemical that can be used in the process of producing nuclear weapons fuel, the Washington Times reported Monday, quoting unnamed intelligence sources. Pyeongyang reportedly tried to buy tributyl phosphate, or TBP, from several Chinese firms. The chemical has commercial uses, but the U.S. intelligence community believes that the North wanted it to advance its uranium-based nuclear weapons program. A CIA spokesman declined to comment. Leonard Spector, deputy director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California, told the newspaper, "North Korea is getting ready to exploit the demise of the Agreed Framework." The 1994 agreement was to have halted the North's nuclear programs, but it has admitted to continuing them. About Us <./aboutus/about01.html> | Contact Us ¨Ï 2002 JoongAng Ilbo , Joins.com . All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 49 [radiation-survivors] S. Carolina: Plutonium law has a loophole Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 09:39:34 -0600 (CST) http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/news/local/4693279.htm Posted on Sun, Dec. 08, 2002 Nuclear expert: Plutonium law has a loophole The Associated Press '[The] purpose was to make sure South Carolina did not receive the plutonium without a pathway out.' U.S. Rep. Lindsey Graham A new law that would require the federal government to pay South Carolina fines for failing to remove plutonium from the Savannah River Site near Aiken has a loophole, the president of an anti-nuclear arms group says. The federal government could store its stockpile of surplus plutonium at SRS for more than 700 years without paying any penalties, despite legislation designed to force its removal, said Edwin Lyman, president of the Washington-based Nuclear Control Institute. The law allows the U.S. Energy Department to use a small amount of its 34 metric tons of surplus weapons-grade plutonium each year in a program to make commercial nuclear reactor fuel called mixed-oxide, or MOX. The legislation spells out how much of the MOX fuel must be produced and not how much plutonium must be consumed in the process, Lyman said. It takes 44 kilograms of plutonium to make 1 ton of MOX. U.S. Rep. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a U.S. senator-elect, said Saturday he wrote the bill to provide the state with some protection should the federal government fail to build the MOX facility at SRS. The "purpose was to make sure South Carolina did not receive the plutonium without a pathway out," Graham said. "My concern was that we would receive the material, and the federal government would not build the MOX facility." The MOX program is designed to dispose of U.S. weapons-grade plutonium by converting it into fuel for nuclear power plants. Russia has agreed to dispose of the same amount of its surplus plutonium using a similar program. Graham said his hope would be that the facility would process even more material than is currently at SRS because that would limit the amount of weapons-grade plutonium out in the world. The legislation came after Democratic Gov. Jim Hodges threatened to block plutonium shipments if the government did not commit to a legally enforceable agreement to remove the processed material. Hodges said earlier this year the law did not go far enough to protect the state. A U.S. District Court judge in June rejected Hodges' attempt to stop the shipments, an order Hodges has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Morton Brilliant, a spokesman for Hodges, compared the new law to requiring a man who dumps a large amount of trash on his neighbor's lawn to remove it at a rate of one soda can per decade. "That's about what it's saying," he said. Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Energy Department, could not be reached Friday by The Greenville News. President Bush signed the legislation into law Monday. The law requires that if the program does not meet its 1-ton goal by 2009, the agency must produce 1 ton within two years or remove 1 ton of plutonium from the state. If the department does not produce 1 ton of MOX, the state can collect an "impact fee" of $1 million a day, up to $100 million a year until the requirement is met. Lyman's organization favors immobilizing plutonium instead of producing MOX. Immobilization would mix the plutonium with ceramic material, forming glass logs that would be stored at the nation's nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain. ***************************************************************** 50 LANL Floodplain barrier proposal FR Doc 02-31007 [Federal Register: December 9, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 236)] [Notices] [Page 72926] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr09de02-44] DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY National Nuclear Security Administration, Office of Los Alamos Site Operations; Notice of Floodplain Involvement for the Proposed Installation of a Permeable Reactive Barrier Within Mortandad Canyon at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM AGENCY: Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, Los Alamos Site Office. ACTION: Notice of floodplain involvement. SUMMARY: The Department of Energy (DOE), National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Office of Los Alamos Site Operations plans to construct a multiple permeable reactive barrier within Mortandad Canyon at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The permeable reactive barrier (PRB) would be located within a floodplain area for the purpose of reducing the contaminant load within shallow groundwater. The PRB would be operated for about five years as a site-specific technology demonstration project. The site chosen for the PRB is in the central portion of LANL. In accordance with 10 CFR part 1022, DOE has prepared a floodplain/wetland assessment and will perform this proposed action in a manner so as to avoid or minimize potential harm to or within the affected floodplain. DATES: Comments are due to the address below no later than December 24, 2002. ADDRESSES: Written comments should be addressed to: Elizabeth Withers, Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, Office of Los Alamos Site Operations, 528 35th Street, Los Alamos, NM 87544, or submit them to the Mail Room at the above address between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Written comments may also be sent electronically to: ewithers@doeal.gov [ewithers@doeal.gov] or by facsimile to (505) 667-9998. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Everett Trollinger, Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, Office of Los Alamos Site Operations, 528 35th Street, Los Alamos, NM 87544. Telephone (505) 667-5280, facsimile (505) 667-9998. For Further Information on General DOE Floodplain Environmental Review Requirements, contact: Carol M. Borgstrom, Director, Office of NEPA Policy and Compliance, EH-42, Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585-0119. Telephone (202) 586-4600 or (800) 472-2756, facsimile (202) 586-7031. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In November 2002, NNSA considered a proposal for constructing a PRB system at a narrow constriction in Mortandad Canyon within LANL where contaminated groundwater is confined to a small cross-section of alluvial materials. The entire PRB structure would extend about 120 feet from side-wall to side-wall within the canyon bottom. The PRB would consist of a ``funnel and gate'' system to direct contaminated groundwater into a centrally-located gate area of reactive materials. The impermeable funnel would be constructed of sheet piling driven to a depth of approximately 27 feet on either side of the canyon. The permeable gate would contain multiple buried cells of selected media designed to react with and reduce the concentration of contaminants in groundwater passing through the gate. The PRB would be left in place for about five years and its function would be monitored through a system of shallow monitoring wells that would be installed at the same time the PRB was constructed. Construction of the PRB and associated monitoring wells will commence in 2003 and be completed in less than 6 months. In accordance with DOE regulations for compliance with floodplain and wetlands environmental review requirements (10 CFR part 1022), NNSA has prepared a floodplain/wetland assessment for this action, which is available by contacting Elizabeth Withers at the previously identified addresses, phone and facsimile numbers. The floodplain/wetland assessment is available for review at the DOE Reading Room at the Los Alamos Outreach Center, 1619 Central Avenue, Los Alamos, NM 878544; and the DOE Reading Room at the Zimmerman Library, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131. The NNSA will publish a floodplain statement of findings for this project in the Federal Register no sooner than December 24, 2002. Issued in Los Alamos on November 26, 2002. Ralph E. Erickson, Director, U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, Office of Los Alamos Site Operations. [FR Doc. 02-31007 Filed 12-6-02; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 51 Rocketdyne: group to dig into perchlorate Ventura County Star: Simi Valley Rancor-riven panel to begin meeting again By Roberta Freeman, rfreeman@insidevc.com [rfreeman@insidevc.com] December 9, 2002 The recent discovery of perchlorate in 15 Simi Valley wells, and the ongoing debate about cleanup of the Boeing Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Lab, continue to leave local residents with nagging questions about potential risks to public health and frustration about the lengthy process of resolving complex issues. "All those chemicals up there, it just makes you wonder," said Moorpark resident Ralph Lopez. He said the recent discovery of perchlorate in Simi Valley ground water and the chemical's association with rocket fuel have him wondering about his own health problems. While the source of perchlorate contamination in Simi Valley wells has not been linked to Rocketdyne, Lopez said he is concerned about the chemical and its link to thyroid disorders. While he has had a few other jobs since then, Lopez worked at the Santa Susana lab for 17 years and was exposed to various chemicals. He was recently diagnosed with a thyroid disorder that will require lifetime medication. Perchlorate, and its causes and effects, is one of several topics to be addressed at the public Santa Susana Work Group meeting, scheduled for Wednesday evening. The work group, made up of representatives from federal and state agencies and a citizens oversight committee, is charged with working out a plan, agreeable to all, to clean up chemical and radioactive contamination at the Rocketdyne site. Agreement among participants, however, has been hard to come by. The meetings came to a halt earlier this year when the forums turned into bitter arguments between members of the panel and angry outbursts from the audience. The meetings have now been revamped in a way that officials hope will be more productive. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is serving as the referee of sorts for the work group meetings and has issued a plea for participants to try to "agree to disagree." An open house has been added to the program format so citizens can meet with government officials individually. While the Rocketdyne facility is the primary source of debate, Rocketdyne officials are conspicuously absent from the cleanup panel. Rocketdyne officials said they were asked to step down a few years ago, when events surrounding contamination at the site became so controversial it was determined the proceedings would move along better if they sat quietly in the audience and observed. "It's too bad," said Rocketdyne spokeswoman Blyth Jameson, "I think we would have a lot to offer." Jameson said Rocketdyne has cleaned up 99 percent of the contamination at the site and has been waiting for the past two years for the U.S. Department of Energy to decide what to do with the remaining 3 acres that need to be cleaned up. Most of the disagreement continues to center around the level of cleanup for the former nuclear test site that suffered a nuclear accident in the 1950s. Mike Lopez, DOE project manager responsible for Rocketdyne and issues regarding the remaining radioactive and chemical contamination at Rocketdyne, said the department has still not made a final decision about cleaning up the site. The DOE still favors a lesser environmental study and level of cleanup than what the EPA recommends but claims it will adequately protect the public. The EPA has proposed a more stringent cleanup program but does not have authority over the DOE, which is responsible for the Rocketdyne issues. "We feel there is additional work that needs to be done, but we are not the regulating authority," said John Beach, spokesman for the EPA. "We are going to try to come to some resolution." Critics say the DOE's proposal is woefully inadequate, leaving 99 percent of the contamination behind. Without a proper environmental assessment, they fear homes will one day be built on the site. Dan Hirsch, president of an oversight committee concerned with cleanup of the site, said citizens have reason for concern. "That is one of the only places in the world that suffered a partial reactor meltdown, and they are refusing to do an environmental impact study," Hirsch said. Hirsch said he is also increasingly concerned that perchlorate, found in high concentrations at the Santa Susana Lab, is migrating from the site into Simi Valley and Ahmanson Ranch ground water. Rocketdyne officials maintain studies conducted by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control do not show a link between the findings in Simi Valley and the field lab. Acceptable levels of perchlorate in drinking water is currently a topic of debate. Early monitoring by the state Department of Health Services has identified 284 contaminated wells in 10 counties served by the Colorado River, which affects primarily areas of Riverside and San Bernardino counties, as well as Nevada, Arizona and northern Baja. State health officials identify the source of pollution in the Colorado River as a perchlorate manufacturing plant in Henderson, Nev. Jonathan Parfrey, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility, said the proposed acceptable levels of perchlorate under debate range from 2 ppb to 6 parts per billion. The current "action level" is 4 ppb. Samples from Simi Valley ground water indicate levels five times higher than the action level and 600 times higher at the Rocketdyne site. 2001 © The E.W. Scripps Co. Ventura County Star ***************************************************************** 52 New director at ORNL plans changes News-Sentinel photo by Michael Patrick Alex Fischer, director of technology transfer and economic development at ORNL, listens to facilitator Jean Schelhorn during a recent creative strategy session. Fischer says no conflict ever existed By Larisa Brass, News-Sentinel business writer December 9, 2002 Ask Alex Fischer about Oak Ridge National Laboratory's technology transfer and economic development program, and he quickly lauds the progress made under the past two years of UT-Battelle's leadership. Then he talks about all the changes he has up his sleeve. Fischer came to the job in September, taking the reins from former tech transfer director Jan Haerer, who has left the lab to launch her own consulting firm in Oak Ridge. ORNL Technology Transfer and Economic Development Director: Alex Fischer Employees: 27 Budget: $3.5 million Revenues: $1.5 million Companies launched: 30 Fischer said he's impressed with the program's efforts to launch new businesses. Since the University of Tennessee and Ohio-based research and development company Battelle began managing the lab in April 2000, the tech transfer has spun out 30 new companies using ORNL technologies or scientists. The program also has strengths in technical and legal analysis of the lab's intellectual property. "We've done a lot of good things," he said. "I'm not trying to come in and suggest that things haven't gone well." But, he said, it's time for the technology transfer program to start operating more like a business. "How do we best position our intellectual property and research and development for marketplace opportunities?" he said. "At the end of the day our office has got to drive the activity so that we can get our research and development aligned closer to the marketplace." Fischer has several initiatives in mind. + First, he intends to reorganize the program around the lab's six core research capabilities: life science, neutron science, computer science, energy, homeland security and advanced materials. Today, while many commercialization managers have specialties, they don't have responsibility for all the patents in a particular area, said Fischer. With that reorganization, he wants to develop a business analysis of each portfolio, projecting the profit and loss potential for each set of technologies and creating a five-year strategic plan, he said. Fischer said he also wants to gather more "competitive business intelligence" about each technology. He's discussing the possibility of using students in UT's master's of business administration graduate program to do basic market analysis for ORNL's patents. He's hiring that expertise as well. Bob Quinn, formerly vice president of commercialization for Battelle Corp., has joined UT-Battelle as head of the tech transfer office's commercialization program. + Fischer intends to separate commercialization from the office's work-for-others and cooperative research and development agreement or CRADA work. These types of agreements allow ORNL researchers to do work in the private sector. This will allow managers to develop specific areas of expertise, he said. + UT-Battelle's partnership with six universities can help the lab's tech transfer program in addition to its research programs, Fischer said. Those universities include Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, North Carolina State, Oak Ridge Associated Universities, University of Virginia and Virginia Tech. Fischer said he's spoken with tech transfer officials at several of these partner universities about packaging similar technologies together for licensing to private industry. "I think there is tremendous opportunity to work with those core universities to understand how we can bundle our technologies together," said Fischer. He said ORNL currently has a "master agreement" in place with UT for this type of partnering, and he said other university officials are interested in forging similar types of agreements. + Commercialization takes money, and Fischer hopes to nurture sources of capital for start-up companies formed around the lab's technology. Building on Battelle Corp.'s relationship with venture capital groups, Fischer said he's hoping to attract financing to the lab. + To run ORNL's tech transfer program more like a business, it must have a better strategy for both investment and revenues, said Fischer. "We're also trying to take a look at the mix of the deals we do," he said. That means not just focusing on one particular kind of licensing deal, but creating an effective mix of fee-based, royalty-based and equity-based licensure. "We remain firm in our agreement to start up companies," Fischer said. But "we've also got to have a mix of license opportunities with medium-sized companies and larger companies, (which produce) quicker and safer returns." Revamping the tech transfer program has led to questions about the current measurements of the lab's commercialization efforts. Until now, the Department of Energy, which owns the lab, has asked for an accounting of small business start-ups, but Fischer said he believes goals should be spelled out more broadly. "We've always gotten an outstanding rating for the number of new companies," he said. "I have suggested there's perhaps a broader approach." That approach would include the number of patents received, how many of those progress into licenses and the long-term growth of start-ups. "I'm a big believer in accountability," Fischer said. "We're rethinking, with the Department of Energy, those measurement criteria." ORNL has also presented a proposal that could change the way certain technologies are transferred out of the lab. The proposed "contractor-funded technology transfer" would allow UT-Battelle to fund tech transfer efforts itself in exchange for the rights to certain intellectual properties, he said. That proposal - a similar program is already in place at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory - is still in the early discussion stage, Fischer said, and he expects it won't gain momentum until early next year. These types of changes can be tough to manage, Fischer admitted, but he wouldn't speculate on what the reorganization would mean for tech transfer personnel. He said the proposed changes have been announced to his employees, and he's asked them to think about which positions they would like to fill. "I'm confident that we've got good capabilities in-house at the laboratory - that with the right type of coaching, mentoring and management can organize to achieve the expectations that I have," he said. Larisa Brass may be reached at 865-342-6318 or brass@knews.com. The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 53 Congress probes irregularities at Los Alamos UC asked to turn over records relating to cases of theft, fraud [http://sfgate.com] [chronfeedback@sfchronicle.com] Monday, December 9, 2002 --> Washington -- Congressional investigators, following up on a criminal probe launched by the FBI, have asked the University of California for dozens of records relating to allegations of illegal procurement practices, theft and misuse of government funds at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Three employees of the nation's oldest nuclear weapons facility are on administrative leave, and several others are under investigation, officials said last week. Two lab employees who filed a whistle-blower complaint about the lab's handling of their reports of irregularities were fired Nov. 25. Saying the events have raised serious questions about procurement policies and oversight practices, Rep. James Greenwood, R-Pa., requested the records in a letter to Richard Atkinson, president of the University of California, which manages the lab under a contract with the federal government. Greenwood, who is chairman of the oversight and investigations subcommittee of the House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce Committee, gave the university until today to provide the material. He said staff investigators would be sent to Los Alamos as early as this week to interview officials. "We're determined to get to the bottom of this mess," said committee spokesman Kenneth Johnson. The discovery in 1999 that Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee had downloaded classified nuclear information onto portable computer disks that could not all be accounted for prompted demands for improved controls at one of the world's premier government laboratories. Officials said there is no evidence of security breaches or loss of classified material in the new allegations, and no one has been charged with a crime. But several investigators said the disclosures and the lab's response suggest that management problems still may exist. "In terms of specific issues at Los Alamos right now, the university is determined to get to the bottom of any problem and respond appropriately," said Jeff Garberson, a spokesman for the University of California. On Oct. 31, FBI agents armed with search warrants entered the homes of two employees attached to the lab's nonproliferation and international security division. Sources said investigators are attempting to determine whether thousands of dollars worth of goods recovered, ranging from hunting knives and clothing to lock-picking devices, may have been acquired through the improper use of government purchasing orders. Investigators are also looking into whether a third employee, also on leave, may have tried to use a government credit card to buy an automobile. The employee denied the charge, sources said. Greenwood said his staff was also concerned about the lab's recent firing of Glenn Walp and Steven Doran, who had joined the lab's Office of Security Inquiries earlier this year. Walp, a retired commissioner of the Pennsylvania state police, said last week that he learned of a major theft problem at the lab soon after arriving. Separately, he said, informants inside the lab also contacted the FBI, which began an investigation in July. But Walp said he and Doran were taken off the investigation several days before the FBI search. Subsequently, Walp said, lab officials were reluctant to press criminal charges against an employee suspected of falsifying a purchasing voucher. Walp and Doran received top evaluations in October, Walp said. But he said lab officials may have been angered when a memo he had written in March outlining his concerns about theft and misuse of taxpayer money had been leaked to the media. He denied responsibility. ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.   Page A - 3 ***************************************************************** 54 Ambassador notes importance of Y-12 The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News -- 12:52 p.m. on Monday, December 9, 2002 Linten F. Brooks R. Cathey Daniels Oak Ridger staff Over $100 million has recently been invested in modernization of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, and for good reason, said Linten F. Brooks, former ambassador of the U.S. delegation to the nuclear and space talks, and now acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. Brooks was featured speaker at the East Tennessee Economic Council annual meeting, held Friday at the Oak Ridge Mall. "The partnership between this community and this government facility is important to the economic health of the region, but it's much more important to the long-term national security of our country," said Brooks. He noted that though the mission at the Y-12 complex has significantly changed over the past two decades, "with no new weapons in development and none planned," recent developments show "there's no question about the importance of the work done here." Brooks listed two primary indications: The president's Nuclear Posture Review shows "an important intellectual change" backed up by "significant financial commitments" to infrastructure of nuclear stockpile stewardship and nonproliferation efforts; and the Treaty of Moscow is "radically different" from treaties negotiated in the past, with this agreement between the United States and the Russian Federation "moving toward partnership in reducing the amount of weapons we will have deployed." Brooks said that in the recent past investments "have not always been made" to keep Y-12 and its counterparts across the Department of Energy complex "healthy," but that efforts now are under way to ensure the "strength" at Y-12 "that we had a decade ago. ..." "These facilities will be critically important for the long term," said Brooks. Brooks noted that the partnership between the Y-12 plant and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in nonproliferation efforts is a "remarkable model." During the first Bush administration, Brooks was responsible for final preparation of the START I Treaty, which was signed by Presidents Bush and Gorbachev in Moscow on July 31, 1991. In December 1992, he performed a similar function during the final preparation of the Jan. 3, 1993, START II Treaty. Thereafter, he served as a consultant on START II ratification to the Clinton administration. Prior to heading the NNSA, Brooks directed the NNSA's nonproliferation programs involving nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. Brooks served from 1994 to 2001 as vice president and assistant to the president for policy analysis at the Center for Naval Analyses, a federally funded research and development center located in Alexandria, Va. BWXT Y-12 manages the Y-12 complex for the NNSA, a quasi-independent agency that oversees the nuclear weapons complex. R. Cathey Daniels can be contacted at (865) 220-5515 or danielsrcd@oakridger.com [danielsrcd@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 55 Book Review: How NATO was enlarged* United Press International By Martin Walker UPI Chief International Correspondent From the Life & Mind Desk Published 12/9/2002 1:54 AM View printer-friendly version WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- The book at a glance: Opening NATO's Door by Ronald Asmus. Columbia University Press, $30.00, 372 pages. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and it took another 10 years before the first three countries from the old Soviet Empire -- Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic -- joined NATO. About halfway through that long, slow decade, in January, 1994, former President Bill Clinton declared that enlarging NATO was "not a question of if, but of when." This extraordinary and insightful book gives the ultimate insider's view of that process, what took NATO so long, and the long bureaucratic battles with allies and within the American bureaucracy. Ron Asmus, a smart young academic and analyst with the RAND Corp., was hired by the Clinton team to ride shotgun on the process as a deputy assistant secretary of state. To write this book, he was given rare permission to use and reprint State Department documents -- and to use the documents from other sources, like the National Security Council and other official bodies that sent copies to the State Department. As a result, this is about as well-sourced and well-documented as any work of scholarly contemporary history can be. This is a view from the inside of the way the American foreign policy machine works -- and it works pretty well. It may be slow, but there were serious questions to be asked about NATO enlargement, and not just the prospect of ruining relations with Russia, where NATO remains a dirty word. Moreover, the NATO alliance is not a club. NATO members pledge under Article V to come to one another's aid if attacked, and for U.S. legislators and policy-makers, that means giving little-known countries like Hungary an American nuclear guarantee. Small wonder that the process took some time. Moreover, NATO's very seriousness meant that the prospective new members had to shape up. Their obligations were clear -- and not to be achieved overnight. They had to reform their Soviet-style military hierarchies, ensure full civilian control over the soldiers, and establish a clearly irreversible process to free market democracy and full human rights. They also had to resolve any outstanding border problems. To their credit, they met the goals -- even though there was some gulping when their entry into NATO, which they had seen as a security guarantee against war -- immediately required them to show solidarity with NATO's first war, the attack on Serbia over Kosovo. If this book has any heroes, they are Czech President Vaclav Havel, whose moral authority and persistence never let the issue drop, and Czech-born Madeleine Albright, the Secretary of State in Clinton's second term, who drove it through the allies, the bureaucracy and the Senate. Clinton himself is given considerable credit, for his skill at convincing Russia's Boris Yeltsin that NATO enlargement could be good for Russia -- a proposition that Yeltsin swallowed only because of his personal trust in Clinton. As a reporter who followed the issue closely and covered it throughout the 1990s in Washington and Europe, Asmus's account comes as a revelation to this reviewer. Most of us outside the bureaucracy tend to assume hat when a U.S. president, secretary of state and defense secretary all agree on something, it will happen. Not so. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, and that all-purpose diplomatic task force, Richard Holbrooke, were both required to help push NATO enlargement through. Asmus recounts two remarkable meetings that reveal the inimitable Holbrooke style. At the first, he summoned the senior State Department staff who had questioned enlargement in the past and informed them that NATO enlargement was now policy and they either got on board or looked for another job. Then, he convened a very high-level inter-agency meeting and did the same thing, going around the table to ask the assistant defense secretaries and other Potomac heavyweights if they understood the president's will. When Gen. Wesley Clark, who was about to become NATO's Supreme Commander, questioned Holbrooke's mandate, Holbrooke replied brutally that if Clark disagreed with his commander-in-chief, that would be insubordination. "The participants sat in stunned silence. This was clearly not your average interagency meeting," writes Asmus. Asmus is equally good on the tough confrontations with the established NATO allies, and France's unhelpful role in pushing the cause of Romania (then palpably unready for NATO membership), largely because Paris through that the Romanians were Latins who would be susceptible to French influence. The French suspected that most Eastern European countries would be instinctively pro-American voices in NATO, with little time for grandiose French hopes of a separate Europe-based security system, led from Paris. The fear was that if the French got their way, that could have been NATO's first and last enlargement -- leaving out the thoroughly deserving causes of the Baltic States. Asmus tells a complex tale well, and he and his old boss Strobe Talbott with his own memoir "The Russian Hand," have set the bar for Clinton administration memoirs very, very high. It remains to be seen whether Clinton is equally frank and equally useful -- at least on matter of policy -- in his own $10 million memoirs. At least in Asmus he will find an indispensable source to one of the unquestioned triumphs of his presidency. Copyright © 2002 United Press International ***************************************************************** 56 Court Dismisses Congressional Suit Against Cheney [NewsMax.com] Wires Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2002 WASHINGTON – A federal judge Monday dismissed an "unprecedented" lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney that sought the release of records from the government's energy task force. The General Accounting Office has no standing under the U.S. Constitution to bring the action, the judge ruled. "Because the comptroller general [who runs the GAO] does not have the personal, concrete and particularized injury required ... either himself or as the agent of Congress, his complaint must be dismissed," wrote U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates. He said in his 43-page decision that since lawsuit did not have congressional endorsement, it "left to the realm of speculation whether there is a real need to exercise the power of judicial review." Comptroller General David Walker filed the lawsuit in February seeking a court-ordered release of the names of individuals and corporations Cheney and his energy task force consulted during development of the administration's national energy policy. The lawsuit followed the White House's refusal to hand over the names voluntarily. The GAO wanted to know who the task force had met as part of an inquiry launched at the request of Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., and Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif. Both lawmakers said they were concerned about the "conduct and composition" of the task force and what they considered its efforts to shield "its membership and deliberations from public scrutiny," according to court documents. The White House said that releasing the information would hamper its decision-making processes by making those who they might want to consult wary of giving frank advice. Walker released a statement expressing disappointment over the ruling and said he was considering what the next step would be. "We are in the process of reviewing and analyzing the decision to fully understand the bases for it and its potential implications," Walker said. "We will consider whether or not to appeal after we have completed this review and consulted with Congressional leadership on a bipartisan basis." The White House was happy with the outcome. "We are pleased with the court ruling. We believe it is important that the president can receive unvarnished advice in decision-making, and the court has supported this," said a senior administration official. The National Energy Policy Development Group released its report in May 2001. It called for expanded gas and oil exploration, construction of nuclear power plants, and drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Democrats questioned whether pro-Democrat environmental groups were given a fair hearing during the task force's deliberations and how much influence energy executives had over the group's final report. The task force backed the continued use of fossil fuel, as opposed to renewable energy sources favored by the environmental lobby. Bates wrote in his decision that the case raised "compelling statutory and constitutional questions concerning the authority of the comptroller general and the U.S. Congress to require the vice president to produce information relating to the president's decision-making on national energy policy. "Each side casts its position in core constitutional terms invoking competing theories of the proper balance of power between the legislative and executive branches, and insists that its opponent seeks to 'work a revolution' in separation of powers principles," the decision read. Bates noted that no comptroller had ever sued the executive branch. "In that sense, this lawsuit is unprecedented." The watchdog group Judicial Watch in March secured the release of more than 11,000 pages of documents detailing the task force's deliberations. The pages were released under court order from the Department of Energy, White House Office of Budget and Management, Department of Agriculture, and Environmental Protection Agency. The group had initially sought the documents under the Freedom of Information Act. Copyright 2002 by United Press International. 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