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06/13/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.149
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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 Problems Mount for Japan's Koizumi
2 US: New US Budget Dumps Conversion of Russian Plutonium Reactors
NUCLEAR REACTORS
3 US: New security around decommissioned nuke reactors
4 Inferior-part probe begins in Kaohsiung
5 Closure of Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania to cause many
6 Inferior-part probe begins in Kaohsiung
NUCLEAR SAFETY
7 US: Fines for Nuclear Security Lapses
8 US: Feds Stockpile Anti-Radiation Pills
9 US: Government buys nuke treatment pills
10 US: Experts: 'Dirty bombs' would cause varying damage --
11 A floating target for al-Qaeda?
12 US: Nuclear Power Risks
13 US: Bomb scare makes campuses rethink security / Radioactive
14 Nuclear threat lurks abroad
15 US: Nuclear breaches cause concern
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
16 US: Plutonium case goes to court
17 US: US Senate Candidate Crosby Allen Press Releases
18 US: Tracking Nuclear Material Difficult
19 US: DOE plan makes Piketon central site for storage -
20 US: Yucca: A little thing called 'democracy'
21 US: YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Uphold custom, Ensign tells GOP
22 US: Plan may bring nuclear waste through dam: Route ends at storage
23 US: Nuclear waste route passes through city
24 The best radioactive dump in Russia
25 US: South Carolina, feds face confrontation of nuclear proportions
26 US: Greenspun: waste Website exposes facts
27 US: Ensign urges colleagues to block Yucca vote
28 US: Nevada mayors to lobby against Yucca at conference
29 US: Nuclear waste route passes through city
30 US: DuPage may get $100 mil. toxic cleanup
31 US: Can nuclear waste be transported safely? -
32 US: Nuke-waste routes in Ohio protested
33 US: Group wants nuclear waste to stay on site, not be shipped to
34 US: UCI closely guards radioactive waste
35 Sinn Fein Sellafield call
36 Student appeals to Prince Charles on Sellafield plant closure *
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
37 US: Peace Action: Time for a Change in Direction
38 Accidental Armageddon
39 US: The fear of terrorism*
40 US: Intelligence expert says terrorists could pose nuclear threat
41 Russia: Tried in absentia
42 US: Landmark ABM Treaty Expires
43 Moscow Opens Spy Trial in Absentia
44 UK anti-terror force plans unveiled
45 Russia scraps Typhoons
46 Pasko in the Supreme Court
47 US: IEER | Past and Future of Nuclear War
48 Trudeau cabinet wrestled with eliminating Canada's nuclear
49 IEER | Multilateral Treaties Are Fundamental Tools for Protecting
50 Japan: Koizumi under nuclear smokescreen
51 US: IEER Release | Radiological Warfare Suspicions Point Up Need for
52 How Pakistan’s nuclear strategy went for a six
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
53 Moon unit: Rocky Flats cleanup left to 'spacemen'
54 Bungled building leaves toxic waste in tents
55 NIF may fire laser in December test Project one year ahead of
56 DOE plan available for public review
57 Our secretive government
58 DOE Report: Gaseous Diffusion Plant not a threat
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 Problems Mount for Japan's Koizumi
Las Vegas SUN
June 13, 2002
TOKYO (AP) - Things would appear to be looking up for Japan's
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. With his country co-hosting the
World Cup, he's getting lots of favorable photo opportunities.
The economy is improving, and this month he'll be on the world
stage again at a summit in Canada with the leaders of the
industrialized world.
But appearances can be misleading.
Koizumi has watched his public approval drop to new lows this
month and his Cabinet come under attack for loose remarks about
nuclear weapons. Four key policy packages are stalled in
Parliament, which is set to close its session next week. At the
G-8 summit in Canada, he could be broadsided over Japan's
increasingly strident position on commercial whaling.
"It's a mess," said Shigenori Okazaki, a political analyst with
UBS Warburg. "Koizumi is not able to chart the course of events
anymore."
For a man who rose to power on populist promises to go his own
way, that's a big handicap. For a while, the outspoken,
shaggy-haired Koizumi actually invigorated a jaded public by
filling his Cabinet with a record number of women, cultivating a
near celebrity status and pledging bold reforms.
Now some of the reforms are Koizumi's most pressing problem.
Getting the bills passed is seen as an important step toward
rekindling public trust in his administration, but doing so will
likely require a last-ditch extension of Parliament.
Koizumi has already won a partial victory as a reformer by just
getting two of the bills - one to reform the state medical
insurance system and the other to privatize the postal service -
up for debate. Both were opposed by the nation's medical industry
and provincial postal officials, big support groups for Koizumi's
Liberal Democratic Party.
The proposals have popular appeal and could win Koizumi some
points - if he can shepherd them through.
The other two bills appease the LDP's conservative core, however,
and are seen as a political trade for their support on Koizumi's
other reforms.
Of those two, one that outlines the military's role in case of
attack is criticized as potentially threatening civil rights and
rekindling militarism. Opponents say the other, which protects
the privacy of personal records, would muzzle the media and help
politicians hide illegal slush funds.
Koizumi is also working on two economic projects, a second
anti-deflation package and a tax reform bill. But they haven't
entered the legislative stage and are likely to wait until the
next Parliament session at the earliest, sometime this fall.
His failure to deliver so far is already hurting him with the
voters.
A poll released this week indicated 52 percent of Japanese don't
support his government because he's seen as caving into his
party's anti-reformers. It was the worst rating since Koizumi
took office in April last year and far below the 70 percent
approval ratings he enjoyed back then.
Though he started off as the most popular leader in decades,
Koizumi's tenure has been marred by bickering among Cabinet
ministers and a spate of corruption scandals that led to the
resignations of two high-profile LDP lawmakers, including popular
Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka.
Another controversy erupted this month when Koizumi's chief
Cabinet secretary indicated Japan might someday change its policy
against possessing or building nuclear weapons.
Koizumi has called rumors of a Cabinet reshuffle "premature." A
change may be one way to appease a disenchanted public, but also
risks surrendering influence to old-guard members of the LDP who
have blocked many of Koizumi's more radical reforms.
Simply waiting is another option.
Unemployment and corporate bankruptcies are still at record highs
in Japan. But just last Friday, Japan reported its strongest
economic growth in two years - 1.4 percent growth for the first
quarter, and a brisk annual rate of 5.7 percent.
If the economy continues to mend, people may be more forgiving of
Koizumi.
"He's only been in the driving seat for a year," spokeswoman
Misako Kaji said. "The economy is picking up. Maybe the support
will bounce back."
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
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2 New US Budget Dumps Conversion of Russian Plutonium Reactors
Reprocessing at Zheleznogorsk
The Mining and Chemical Combine in Zheleznogorsk still operates
one of its three plutonium-producing reactors. This section also
delivers information on spent nuclear fuel handling and the
incomplete reprocessing plant RT-2. Jump to section [The
Arctic Nuclear Challenge]
MOSCOW-OSLO - In Eastern Siberia, three reactors continue to
churn out weapons grade plutonium at the rate of 1,500 kilograms
a year. The conversion of these reactors, which until recently
had been the responsibility of the decade old, Pentagon-run
Cooperative Threat Reduction act (CTR), have come no closer over
the past decade to reaching fruition.
Charles Digges, Igor Kudrik, 2002-06-12 20:35
Meanwhile, the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from these reactors
continues to be shipped to local radiochemical plants, where it
is reprocessed for weapons grade plutonium. These three reactors
— one in Zheleznogorsk (Krasnoyarsk-26) and two at Seversk
(Tomsk-7) — are imperative, insist local plant directors, to
maintaining heat and electricity through the winter, regardless
of the plutonium they produce.
Enter the US Department of Energy (DOE) — to which this program
has been transferred — with a $49.3 million budget to not
refurbish, but shut down these reactors altogether and build or
refurbish fossil fuel plants to meet local energy needs, which
the plutonium producing reactor have been supplying.
The DOE may also get another $75 million in unspent Pentagon, or
Department of Defence (DOD), funds that remained in DOD coffers
when the program was transferred.
The reshuffled programme will also reduce the non-proliferation
risks associated with the waste from the three reactors, which
creates another 1,500 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium a year
— adding to Russia's unofficially estimated 125 tonnes.
Official calculations for an exact figure are underway at Physics
Energy Institute in Obninsk, but the preliminary results are
still classified. The US, by comparison, has produced about 100
tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium beginning from 1945. The
plutonium produced at the Seversk and Zheleznogorsk reactors is
currently stored on-site.
According to a report on the Bush Administrations
non-proliferation budget requests released in April by the
Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council (RANSAC) — a
non-governmental agency that advises both governments — this
reactor elimination program was taken out of DOD hands because of
Congressional restrictions prevent the use of CTR funds for
purposes beyond weapons security and destruction.
Just this week, DOE officials were in Moscow to lay groundwork
for the new plan. These officials declined to discuss the project
"at this stage," but Russian officials interviewed by Bellona Web
see a number of looming issues before the reactors — which are
located in closed nuclear cities — are shut down for good in
about 2006.
Among them are concerns for job that will be lost once
radiochemical plants — which reprocess the fuel from these
reactors — are shut down. Vladimir Kuznetsov, a former Nuclear
Regulatory inspector and now with the NGO Green Cross, said in an
interview with Bellona Web that the SNF from these reactors is
reprocessed for weapons-grade plutonium.
Further quarrels are bound to erupt when it comes time to chose a
place to build the fossil fuel plants — in the closed cities, or
on surrounding civilian territory, plant officials and
environmentalists said.
"A conventional heat plant, called Sosnovoborsk, is located 20
kilometres from Zheleznogorsk and has been under construction
since late 1980s," Anatoly Mamaev, member of a Siberian NGO
Citizens' Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation, told Bellona Web.
The construction of the plant was later frozen after the collapse
of the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, until the fossil fuel plants are built — which may
take $300 million by Duma Deputy Sergei Mintrokhin's reckoning —
the reactors will continue to operate and produce plutonium.
History of the Pentagon programme transfer
About a decade ago Russia operated a total of 13 plutonium
reactors. Since then, 10 of these reactors have been shut down.
The ones at Seversk and Zheleznogorsk have been allowed to
continue operation thanks to the heat and energy they supply the
surrounding region. By comparison, the United States has closed
all of its 14 plutonium producing reactors.
In 1997, Russia and America signed an agreement under the aegis
of CTR with the Russian Nuclear Ministry to convert the remaining
three reactors in a way that they stop generating additional
volumes of weapons-grade plutonium — the so-called core
conversion project. The DOD, with cash and advice, was to
implement that program, and a target date for full conversion of
the reactors was set for Dec. 31, 2000 — a date that came and
went with little progress made.
More clouds began to develop over the project. All three reactors
were on average 32 years old and pioneers of the Chernobyl type
RMBK reactor. The reactor in Zheleznogorsk went into service in
1964. Seversk's reactors followed in 1965 and 1967. They were
simply getting old.
Russia's Nuclear Power Ministry, Minatom, began dragging its feet
as the original conversion deadline of Dec. 31, 2000 approached
because of the radiochemical reprocessing plants that would be
closed, sending hundreds of workers home for New Year's without
jobs perspectives.
Meanwhile, Gosatomnadzor (GAN), Russia's increasingly
marginalized nuclear regulatory agency, was bellowing its
protests of the conversion program and threatened to withdraw the
reactors' operation licenses.
BACKGROUND
The former Soviet Union did produce 45,000 nuclear warheads. In
this report we reveal the information on both terrible accidents
and conditions in facilities for storage of nuclear waste at the
Mayak plant, and in the cities of Zheleznogorsk and Seversk.
In a rare accord, Minatom agreed with GAN and reported to the DOD
that conversion was not expedient. DOD officials proposed the
alternative plan of funding the construction of conventional
fossil fuel plants through taking care of regional energy needs
by 2006, and so the programme was reassigned to the DOE.
Meanwhile, the reactors would continue to operate, producing
heat, energy and plutonium. Minatom's erstwhile alliance with
GAN, therefore, had a silver lining for the Nuclear Ministry:
Minatom will gain another eight years of plutonium from the
reactors.
Program "mismanaged"
Aside from the Congressional stipulations that CTR focus on
weapons security and destruction, it also became clear, according
to one official close to the process, that DOD was getting set to
take a bath.
The program was "mismanaged — one word, mismanaged," said the
official speaking on the condition of anonymity.
"In the end a good feasibility study was not performed," by the
Russians for the core conversion project, he said.
"The original cost estimate for it when it was under DOD control
was $75M — but they never realized that in addition to whatever
conversion was required, the reactors also would require a
different type of fuel — and that was a $100 million cost. That
was not accounted for."
In the end, the official said, the repeated feasibility studies
had ballooned to $300 million and the schedule kept slipping,
but, said the official, it was up to the Russian side to
determine these fine points of the core conversion program.
"We cannot do their feasibility study, we cannot come up with
their cost analysis? only they can tell you," the official said.
"They say 'you you' and we say its not our program, you are
managing it. You tell us what the schedule is. You tell us what's
feasible, what's required. We will review and decide whether we
going to pay for it. So, in other words it was a fundamentally
flawed approach."
Plutonium until 2006
If all goes according to schedule under the new DOE stewardship
of the "Elimination of Russian Weapons Grade Plutonium
Production" the reactors will continue to produce plutonium in
exchange for local power while the fossil fuel plants are being
built.
At the end of that time, the reactors themselves will have to sit
for another 50 years, loaded with spent fuel, until radiation
reached levels acceptable for their dismantlement.
From now until the reactor's closure date, they will have
produced another 6000 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium, which
begs the question — why isn't SNF from these plants put into
conventional storage instead of reprocessed into basically
worthless plutonium?
According to the anonymous official, the decision taken
bilaterally by the Russians and Americans to continue
reprocessing instead of opting for storage came out of space
considerations at plants.
"It's easier to store it in plutonium oxide form after its been
reprocessed," he said. "— It's very uneconomical to just store
spent fuel. It's very bulky, it's something that cannot be easily
handled, it's very hot."
But even though the expected shut down date for the reactors is
projected for 2006, experience shows such deadlines can be less
than binding. The reactors, therefore will most likely die of
natural causes. Minatom has managed to keep the worthless
radiochemical plants operating so far and may succeed in doing so
for another eight years.
Publisher: Bellona Foundation [bellona@bellona.no] , President:
Frederic Hauge [frederic@bellona.no] Information: info@bellona.no
[info@bellona.no] , Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no
[webmaster@bellona.no] Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22
38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
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3 New security around decommissioned nuke reactors
KnoxNews: National
By THOMAS HARGROVE
June 12, 2002
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission ordered heightened
security measures at a dozen decommissioned atomic reactors two
weeks after the May 8 arrest of a former Chicago gang member
linked to an al Qaeda plot to build a "dirty bomb."
At the same time, the NRC quietly issued "update
advisories" to dozens of nuclear plants still in operation. The
commission will not comment on the content of those advisories,
but has said it is reviewing security measures at more than 100
sites where high-grade nuclear waste is stored throughout
America.
Reactor waste cannot be used to make a nuclear bomb,
experts agree. But authorities fear terrorists might try to use
it in a dirty bomb that uses a conventional explosive device to
distribute toxic radioactive material through a several-block
urban area.
"We have sent out orders to those decommissioning
facilities that still contain uranium in their spent fuel pools,"
said NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner.
FBI agents arrested Jose Padilla, a former gang member,
at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago on May 8. Authorities
said he met with senior al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan to discuss
construction of a "radiological weapon."
Gagner said the new security orders were "in no way
related to that person who was arrested." But commission
documents issued May 24 to the idled-reactor operators indicate
the new precautions were ordered after reviewing "information
provided by the intelligence community."
"The commission recognizes that you have voluntarily and
responsibly implemented additional security measures following
the events of Sept. 11," Samuel Collins, director of nuclear
reactor regulation, told the plant operators. "However, in light
of the current threat environment, the commission concludes that
the security measures should be embodied in an order."
The NRC said it sent the new orders to decommissioning
plant operators in San Francisco, Herald and Rosemead, all in
California; East Hampton and Waterford in Connecticut,
Warrenville, Ill., Wiscasset, Maine, Auburn, Mass., Jackson,
Mich., White Planes, N.Y., Portland, Ore., and La Crosse, Wis.
Gagner confirmed that "update advisories" were sent at
the same time to the operators of America's 104 power-generating
reactors. "We are not commenting on the nature of these
advisories because they contain sensitive information," she said.
She said the commission is also reviewing security
measures throughout the nuclear power plant community and pointed
to a March 25 NRC order for new "compensatory security measures"
to be taken at the Honeywell International uranium conversion
facility in Metropolis, Ill. Neither the government nor the
company will comment further about the order.
"We respectfully will have no comment about our security
measures or anything else about the NRC order," said Honeywell
spokesman Tom Crane.
Despite the recent precautions, the Nuclear Energy
Institute is discounting the threat that spent nuclear fuel could
be used as the radiation source in a dirty bomb.
"Even if terrorists were able to gain access to used
nuclear fuel ... fuel assemblies are large, heavy, inflexible
housings built in a way that would prevent terrorists from
wrapping (them) around an explosive charge," said Joe Colvin,
president of the nuclear industry's policy group.
Colvin said terrorists would be killed by radiation if
they attempted to remove the material from the reactor facilities
and remove their protective wrappings.
On the Net: www.nrc.gov
(Contact Thomas Hargrove at HargroveT(at)shns.com or on the Web
at http://www.shns.com.)
The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
4 Inferior-part probe begins in Kaohsiung
The Taipei Times Online: 2002-06-13
NUCLEAR MALFEASANCE: China Shipbuilding Corp said yesterday it
welcomed an investigation into how inferior materials made their
way into a pedestal the firm made for the Fourth Nuclear Power
Plant
By Chiu Yu-Tzu STAFF REPORTER
Officials at the China Shipbuilding Corporation (¤¤²î) yesterday
welcomed the onset of an investigation by prosecutors into the
company's alleged use of inferior materials in the construction
of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, saying that the results would
prove the firm's innocence.
The materials in question were used in the construction of a
reactor pedestal for the plant.
A prosecutor from the Kaohsiung Prosecutors' Office, surnamed
Hsiao, yesterday visited Kaohsiung-based China Shipbuilding to
look into procedures for awarding contracts to subcontractors.
"Although the government is looking into China Shipbuilding for
the misuse of materials, it is neglecting the New Asia
Corporation, which also deserves a thorough and comprehensive
investigation."
Bill Sun, KMT legislator
Hsiao declined to answer questions yesterday, saying he could
not yet comment on the investigation.
The probe was prompted by accusations brought by TSU Legislator
Su Ying-kwei (Ĭ¬Õ¶Q) on Tuesday. According to Su, four lawmakers
from the south interfered with the procedure on behalf of four
subcontractors -- an arrangement in which they stood to benefit
financially.
`Clean hands'
"One thing is certain -- we received no message from any
legislator when inviting bids for the plant's construction," said
China Shipbuilding Vice President Fan Kuang-Nan (S¥ú¨k).
Meanwhile, the Commission of National Corporations (°êÀç·|), an
agency that oversees the nation's state-run enterprises under the
Ministry of Economic Affairs, yesterday continued with its probe
of China Shipbuilding. It is to finish tomorrow, after about 10
workers and managers are interrogated.
In addition, investigators collected samples of the inferior
parts of the reactor pedestal to ascertain how less
pressure-resistant materials were installed during welding in
February.
Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Yi-fu (ªL¸q¤Ò) said yesterday
that the probe's report would be released next week with a list
of culpable officials.
The pedestal for Unit 1 of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant
contains five layers. In April, the Atomic Energy Council (AEC)
received a report from a retired engineer confirming that
inferior materials were indeed discovered in the second to the
fifth layers, now at China Shipbuilding. In May, a hairline crack
caused by inappropriate welding was found on the first layer, now
at the construction site in Kungliao township, Taipei County.
Yesterday, nine lawmakers from the legislature's Economics and
Energy Committee visited the Kungliao construction site.
Lawmakers seek wider investigation
KMT lawmaker Bill Sun (®]°êµØ) criticized Taipower for its
reluctance to release information to legislators about the board
of directors of its largest domestic contractor, the New Asia
Construction and Development Corp (·s¨È«Ø³]).
New Asia is reportedly building the structures that will house
the nuclear reactors and turbines under a contract worth NT$10.5
billion.
New Asia awarded the bid for construction of the pedestal to
China Shipbuilding.
"Although the government is looking into China Shipbuilding for
the misuse of materials, it is neglecting the New Asia
Corporation, which also deserves a thorough and comprehensive
investigation," Sun told the Taipei Times.
AEC Vice Chairman Chiou Syh-tsong (ªô½çÁo) was with Sun and said
that the procedure of awarding construction contracts to
subcontractors was indeed "a big headache."
This story has been viewed 324 times.
URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/06/13/story/0000140141]
Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
5 Closure of Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania to cause many
problems
Pravda.RU
Jun, 13 2002
The closure of the first and second units of the Ignalina Nuclear
Power Plant /NPP/ will cause many technical, financial and social
problems, NPP's Managing Director Viktor Shevaldin has been
quoted as saying.
According to him, an agreement between the Lithuanian government
and European Union /EU/ to close the second unit in 2009 did not
come as a surprise for the NPP management, although the unit
could operate for another two decades. Lithuania has taken an
obligation to close the first unit by 2005.
Shevaldin said that the town of Visaginas with a 30,000
population almost completely depended on the NPP. The shutting
down of two reactors will result in the firing of more than a
half of the plant's personnel.
Long negotiations between Lithuania and EU resulted in the
Wednesday conclusion of an agreement to close the NPP, which
produces almost 70% of the country's energy.
In compliance with the agreement, 2.4 bln. euro will be allocated
to Lithuania by 2020 to carry out works relating to the NPP's
closure, stockpiling of processed fuel and other purposes. Later
on, Lithuania will need another 3 bln. euro.
© RIAN
Pravda.RU:Former USSR
*****************************************************************
6 Inferior-part probe begins in Kaohsiung
* Thursday, June 13th, 2002*
/www.taipeitimes.com/news>
NUCLEAR MALFEASANCE: China Shipbuilding Corp said yesterday it
welcomed an investigation into how inferior materials made their
way into a pedestal the firm made for the Fourth Nuclear Power
Plant
*By Chiu Yu-Tzu*
STAFF REPORTER
Officials at the China Shipbuilding Corporation (¤¤²î) yesterday
welcomed the onset of an investigation by prosecutors into the
company's alleged use of inferior materials in the construction
of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, saying that the results would
prove the firm's innocence.
The materials in question were used in the construction of a
reactor pedestal for the plant.
A prosecutor from the Kaohsiung Prosecutors' Office, surnamed
Hsiao, yesterday visited Kaohsiung-based China Shipbuilding to
look into procedures for awarding contracts to subcontractors.
*"Although the government is looking into China Shipbuilding for
the misuse of materials, it is neglecting the New Asia
Corporation, which also deserves a thorough and comprehensive
investigation." * / Bill Sun, KMT legislator/
Hsiao declined to answer questions yesterday, saying he could not
yet comment on the investigation.
The probe was prompted by accusations brought by TSU Legislator
Su Ying-kwei (Ĭ¬Õ¶Q) on Tuesday.
According to Su, four lawmakers from the south interfered with
the procedure on behalf of four subcontractors -- an arrangement
in which they stood to benefit financially.
*`Clean hands'*
"One thing is certain -- we received no message from any
legislator when inviting bids for the plant's construction," said
China Shipbuilding Vice President Fan Kuang-Nan (S¥ú¨k).
Meanwhile, the Commission of National Corporations (°êÀç·|), an
agency that oversees the nation's state-run enterprises under the
Ministry of Economic Affairs, yesterday continued with its probe
of China Shipbuilding. It is to finish tomorrow, after about 10
workers and managers are interrogated.
In addition, investigators collected samples of the inferior
parts of the reactor pedestal to ascertain how less
pressure-resistant materials were installed during welding in
February.
Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Yi-fu (ªL¸q¤Ò) said yesterday
that the probe's report would be released next week with a list
of culpable officials.
The pedestal for Unit 1 of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant
contains five layers. In April, the Atomic Energy Council (AEC)
received a report from a retired engineer confirming that
inferior materials were indeed discovered in the second to the
fifth layers, now at China Shipbuilding.
In May, a hairline crack caused by inappropriate welding was
found on the first layer, now at the construction site in
Kungliao township, Taipei County.
Yesterday, nine lawmakers from the legislature's Economics and
Energy Committee visited the Kungliao construction site.
*Lawmakers seek wider investigation*
KMT lawmaker Bill Sun (®]°êµØ) criticized Taipower for its
reluctance to release information to legislators about the board
of directors of its largest domestic contractor, the New Asia
Construction and Development Corp (·s¨È«Ø³]).
New Asia is reportedly building the structures that will house
the nuclear reactors and turbines under a contract worth NT$10.5
billion.
New Asia awarded the bid for construction of the pedestal to
China Shipbuilding.
"Although the government is looking into China Shipbuilding for
the misuse of materials, it is neglecting the New Asia
Corporation, which also deserves a thorough and comprehensive
investigation," Sun told the /Taipei Times/.
AEC Vice Chairman Chiou Syh-tsong (ªô½çÁo) was with Sun and said
that the procedure of awarding construction contracts to
subcontractors was indeed "a big headache."
This story has been viewed 323 times.
URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/06/13/story/0000140141]
Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
7 Fines for Nuclear Security Lapses
Las Vegas SUN
June 13, 2002
WASHINGTON- Security lapses involving radioactive materials have
led to scores of enforcement actions against universities,
construction companies, hospitals and even the U.S. Army in
recent years, according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission records.
In at least 16 cases violators were fined thousands of dollars.
But NRC officials said that the breaches either did not lead to a
loss of radioactive material, or involved amounts so small they
could not have been useful to terrorists seeking to craft a
"dirty bomb."
NRC officials acknowledge they cannot say for certain that no
radioactive material has been diverted. Tracking of most of these
industrial-use materials is left largely to private industry.
With 2 million radioactive sources in commerce, there is no
certainty all of it can be accounted for, the officials say.
"The reality is it's a very large volume of material that's out
in the community and I can't give you any assurance that (some)
material might not have been diverted by now," said Richard
Meserve, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in an
interview Wednesday.
Meserve said he was reasonably certain that no large radiation
sources - such as the foot-long "pencils" of cobalt-60 used to
irradiate food, or larger amounts of cesium-137 used in medicine
- have been stolen. None has been reported missing, although the
NRC gets on average 300 reports of small amounts of radioactive
materials - usually material in gauges or other equipment -
missing each year. About half eventually is recovered.
As for the larger sources, the materials are highly radioactive
and must be heavily shielded. "It is a very difficult (material)
for a terrorist to handle without receiving a lethal dose
himself," said Meserve. Nevertheless, he said, transporters and
users of these materials have been told to boost security.
NRC enforcement records show more than 54 cases requiring
"elevated enforcement actions" over the last five years because
of security violations involving industrial nuclear materials.
Violators facing fines from $2,500 to $15,000 included government
agencies, universities, hospitals, military facilities and
construction and engineering companies.
Three days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a New Jersey
dentistry school was fined $3,000 for "failure to ... maintain
constant surveillance" on its nuclear material. Three months
later the University of Wisconsin-Madison was fined $3,000 for
not securing radioactive material.
The Army was fined $8,000 for not properly securing nuclear
materials at its Rock Island Arsenal. In 1997, an employee at the
Defense Logistics Agency in Pennsylvania was found to have stolen
an item containing radioactive material; in 1999, the Interior
Department was cited by the NRC for security lapses. Neither of
those cases involved fines.
Construction and engineering firms in a number of states were
cited for not keeping track of moisture gauges that contain small
amounts of cesium-137. Last November alone, three companies were
fined $3,000 each for not properly securing portable moisture
gauges.
John Hickey, of the NRC office dealing with industrial nuclear
materials, said the enforcement actions - as well as virtually
all the missing material reports - involved extremely small
amounts of material.
For example, according to the NRC, between 1996 and 2001 a total
of 11.3 curies of cesium-137 was reported missing. Most - perhaps
all - of that material reflects thefts of gauges used in
construction and medicine, each of which would contain a small
fraction of a curie of cesium.
While the NRC must license all users of these materials, it does
not keep track of the radioactive material, relying largely on
self-regulation. Hickey said users are required to inventory the
material every six months and report if anything is missing.
MDS Nordion, a supplier of medical isotopes that ships
radioactive material to 80 countries, says it keeps constant
check on where its material is located across the globe.
Referring to its shipments of cobalt-60, company spokeswoman
Paula Burchat said, "We know where every `pencil' is. We recycle
the cobalt and it comes back to us.
"We have very tight security."
--
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
8 Feds Stockpile Anti-Radiation Pills
Las Vegas SUN
June 13, 2002
WASHINGTON- Federal agencies in Washington ordered 350,000
potassium iodide pills this week from a North Carolina company to
protect people from cancer caused by radioactive iodine, which
can be released in nuclear explosions.
The agencies are stockpiling the pills "in case of a nuclear
event," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the Office of
Homeland Security.
"It's been an ongoing effort," Johndroe said, adding that it is
not a direct result of the arrest of Jose Padilla, a suspected
al-Qaida member who may have been planning a "dirty bomb" attack
on Washington.
The government orders Monday and Tuesday represent 9 percent of
NukePills.com's business this year and were 18 percent higher
than the company's total 2000 sales, said owner Troy Jones.
Private citizens are buying as well.
"In 2000, who ever heard of potassium iodide?" Jones said
Thursday. Until then, his only clients were survivalists and
those who lived near reactors.
After Sept. 11, many people were ordering the pills that protect
the thyroid gland from radioactive iodine, a cancer-causing agent
that can be released in huge plumes in atomic explosions.
The orders have nearly overwhelmed Jones' three-person sales team
since Monday, when Attorney General John Ashcroft announced
Padilla's arrest.
However, experts believe a "dirty bomb" would release other kinds
of radiation. Potassium iodide, which sells for about $1 a pill,
would be helpful only if a dirty bomb used radioactive iodine
instead of other radioactive substances, and then only for people
close to the explosion.
People aren't buying this product because they think they're
going to protect themselves from a dirty bomb, Jones said.
"They're buying it because they think something worse is going to
happen to this country, (such as) an attack on a nuclear plant or
a suitcase (nuclear) bomb."
Johndroe isn't going that far, but he acknowledged the government
is making large buys of potassium iodide.
The purchases were made by agencies including the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, the Federal Emergency Management Agency,
the Department of Energy and the Department of Health and Human
Services.
The Food and Drug administration approved over-the-counter sales
of potassium iodide in 1982. It recommends that anyone exposed to
radioactive iodine take one tablet daily for up to 14 days, and
recommends smaller doses for children.
Jones said he was getting about one order per minute online, and
most of the new clients were from the Washington area. The
Padilla arrest, Jones said, "was a wake-up call."
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
9 Government buys nuke treatment pills
-- The Washington Times
June 13, 2002
Government buys nuke treatment pills
WASHINGTON, June 13 (UPI) -- Federal government agencies
early this week ordered hundreds of thousands of pills intended
to help people exposed to radioactive iodine, the Washington
Times reported Thursday.
Some 350,000 doses of potassium iodine were purchased from
a Mooresville, N.C., Internet company on Monday and Tuesday. On
Monday, U.S. officials announced the arrest of a man they say
was planning to set off a "dirty" bomb -- a device with
radioactive material wrapped around conventional explosives --
in the United States.
Troy Jones, president of NukePills.com, which sold the
pills, told the Washington Times: "I think that what happened is
that these people are privy to information that neither you or I
know. Anytime an unsolicited government agency calls to make a
mass purchase of potassium iodine, that's a signal something is
amiss.
However, Homeland Security office spokesman Gordon Johnroe
told the newspaper the purchases were part of an ongoing program
and not related to the May 8 arrest of Jose Padilla, suspected
in the "dirty" bomb plot. He said the government has been buying
the pills for some time.
Johnroe told the Washington Times purchases were made by
the Nuclear Regulatory Commissions, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, the Department of Energy and the Department
of Health and Human Services.
NukePills.com reported that it had sold about 4 million
pills nationally and internationally so far in 2002, with about
half the buys being made by U.S. government agencies. In 2000,
the company sold a total of 20,000 pills.
Potassium iodine pills are sold in packages of 14 for
$9.95, the Washington Times reported, making this week's
purchases worth more than $248,000, barring bulk purchase
discounts.
*****************************************************************
10 Experts: 'Dirty bombs' would cause varying damage --
The Washington Times
June 11, 2002
From combined dispatches
While "dirty bombs" may not wreak destruction on the scale of an
atomic weapon, experts say they could cause panic, enormous
economic damage and spread toxic radioactive waste.
Dirty bombs are conventional explosive devices with radioactive
materials wrapped around them. When they explode, the radioactive
material contaminates the area over which it is dispersed.
Such a bomb is relatively easy to make. Whereas a nuclear bomb is
made with highly enriched uranium and plutonium — both of which
are usually under tight security — a dirty bomb would probably be
made with a less-secure isotope, such as cesium, cobalt-60 or
strontium-90, found in waste material or used in medicine and
research.
The arrest yesterday of an al-Qaeda-affiliated man suspected of
planning to use a dirty bomb in an attack on the United States
has sparked discussion about the destructive power of such a
device and its impact on people.
Much depends on the type and size of the bomb, the radioactive
material it contains and the weather conditions at the time of
the attack, said Henry Kelly, president of the Federation of
American Scientists. Some materials are more likely to cause
cancer than others, and some persist longer.
A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies
found that a 4,000-pound bomb detonated in a bus parked on the
Mall — the center of tourist attractions in Washington — could
contaminate a small part of the downtown area, which would have
to be evacuated.
Many would probably die in car accidents fleeing the scene, and
hospitals could be inundated with people suffering from radiation
sickness, which begins with vague, flulike symptoms, said Andrew
Karam, a radiation expert at the University of Rochester in New
York.
"It can cause nausea, vomiting, weakness, lethargy — not too
different from what most people experience after a hard night of
partying," Mr. Karam said.
Attorney General John Ashcroft described the suspect, Abdullah al
Muhajir, as a known terrorist and operative of al Qaeda, the
network run by Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the September 11
terrorist attacks on the United States. The suspect is a U.S.
citizen who was born in New York as Jose Padilla.
Last month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission disclosed that it
received an average of 300 reports a year of small amounts of
radioactive materials missing from construction sites, hospitals
and other places where these radioisotopes are used.
NRC officials said they have no evidence of anyone collecting
this material to have enough for a dirty bomb. But critics say no
one is sure of that.
The NRC said even a small amount of radioactive material, if
properly milled into fine particles and dispersed by a
conventional explosive, could spread radioactive particles over
several blocks.
A piece of radioactive cobalt from a food irradiation plant
could, if blasted apart in a bomb in New York, contaminate 380
square miles.
"The entire borough of Manhattan would be so contaminated that
anyone living there would have a 1 in 100 chance of dying from
cancer caused by the residual radiation. It would be decades
before the city was inhabitable again, and demolition might be
necessary," Mr. Kelly said.
All site contents copyright © 2002 News World Communications,
*****************************************************************
11 A floating target for al-Qaeda?
BBC News | UK |
Wednesday, 12 June, 2002, 09:00 GMT 10:00 UK
[A BNFL ship loads ]
Security fears have heightened over nuclear shipments
Ryan Dilley
BBC News Online
When British ships carrying nuclear fuel to Japan first stirred
controversy, it was feared they might sink, or at the very worst
meet pirates. Then al-Qaeda came along...
When the Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal set sail for Japan in
1999 with a cargo of mixed oxide (Mox) fuel rods, the BNFL ships
were expected to be intercepted by no one more threatening than
the eco-warriors of the Nuclear Free Seas Flotilla. With the
unused rods about to begin their return voyage to the UK (Japan
rejected the cargo saying documentation had been falsified) more
sinister eyes could be tracking the British ships' progress.
[A BNFL ship]
The Pacific Teal and Pacific Pintail could sail the 15,000 miles
back from Japan via:
+ the Panama Canal and Caribbean Sea;
+ the South Pacific, Tasman Sea and Africa's Cape of Good Hope;
+ or around South America's Cape Horn
When Jane's Foreign Report published an article in 1999
questioning the security of the shipments, critics forced it to
concede in a later issue that: "No 'Goldfinger'-style
international master-criminal is likely to seize them and hold
the world to ransom."
In the new asymmetric world order, born on 11 September, concerns
about the transportation of nuclear material on commercial
vessels now seem anything but hysterical - particularly to those
nations on the ships' route.
Mox is made by reprocessing spent concentrated uranium fuel rods,
separating them into plutonium, radioactive waste and the
remaining unused uranium. Recombining the plutonium and uranium
in Mox pellets creates a fuel capable of being returned to a
power plant's reactor.
Easy pickings?
While the economics of such reprocessing - an industry in which
Britain has invested heavily - have long been argued over, the
interest a terrorist organisation such as al-Qaeda might show in
Mox shipments has leapt to the top of the agenda.
BNFL's purpose-built ships are the most heavily armed merchant
craft to set sail since World War II.
Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal each boast three 30mm cannons
capable of tackling attacking boats and aircraft. Armed officers
from the UK Atomic Energy Constabulary are also on guard against
boarders.
[HMS Jupiter] Should a frigate accompany the Mox?
Should the guards on both freighters be over-powered, would-be
thieves would have to crack open the loaded vessels' reinforced
hatch covers to get to the 14-inch thick steel and lead fuel
flasks which are bolted to the ship's hold.
Any attempt to unload the rods would have to be made without the
aid of deck cranes, which are removed before the cargo departs
port.
Though such an audacious assault - even in the wake of 11
September - may seem improbable, Jane's Foreign Report concluded
that even with their 30mm guns the freighters were "capable of
repelling only a lightly armed attack".
Escort duty
A 1992 nuclear shipment from Europe to Japan was escorted by a
large and heavily-armed Japanese patrol craft carrying two
helicopters. Yet it still prompted critics to call for the job to
be given to an even more formidable naval frigate.
Al-Qaeda is already thought to have been behind one daring
suicide attack on a naval target, blowing a hole in the USS Cole
in Yemen and killing 17 sailors. And the Moroccans say they have
foiled a similar al-Qaeda plot against shipping in the Straits of
Gibraltar.
[USS Cole] Is the USS Cole attack a warning?
In light of the heightened concerns, BNFL has told BBC News
Online that it has "reviewed security arrangements and made the
appropriate changes".
But what could terrorists gain by attempting to hijack the Mox
shipment?
A paper by the Oxford Research Group suggests a "second-year
undergraduate" could extract enough plutonium from Mox to make a
crude nuclear bomb.
Edwin Lyman, of the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington DC,
agrees that a captured Mox shipment could be used to create a
devastating atomic device.
Dirty bomb fear
"It could also serve as a radiological dispersal device, a
so-called 'dirty bomb'," he told BBC News Online.
In May, the US authorities arrested an American citizen, Abdullah
al-Mujahir, whom they suspected of plotting to detonate a dirty
bomb - an explosive intended to scatter radioactive material
packed around it.
[Nuclear flasks]
The flasks may not deter terrorists
Mr Lyman says terrorists would not even need to remove the Mox
from the rugged flasks to create a dirty bomb.
"There are munitions - shaped explosive charges - capable of
breaching the casks," he says. Such an explosion would then
disperse radioactive material from the ruptured container.
Mr Lyman says even a fire started around the flasks could cause
the fuel pellets inside to oxidise and form an easily dispersed
radioactive powder.
So how likely is an al-Qaeda attack aimed at nuclear material?
"Shipment is the weakest link," says Mr Lyman, "I definitely
think it is irresponsible to move Mox right now, given the
situation."
*****************************************************************
12 Nuclear Power Risks
New York Times Opinion
*June 13, 2002*
To the Editor:
Re "A Message in an Arrest" (news analysis, front page, June 11):
You say a "dirty" bomb ? a bomb that uses conventional explosives
to spew potentially lethal radioactive material ? could
contaminate "a wide area" and while probably not causing many
deaths, would necessitate cleanup costs and other effects like
those after the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Given this scenario, I find it inexplicable that our government
allows nuclear reactors to operate.
Millions of dollars and years have been spent to deny the
consequences and risks of reactor accidents. Does our government
believe that a terrorist act is the only possible cause of
reactor accidents?
*****************************************************************
13 Bomb scare makes campuses rethink security / Radioactive
materials in ample supply for research and medical purposes
[http://sfgate.com]
[carlhall@sfchronicle.com] Thursday, June 13, 2002 -->
College campuses and medical research centers that routinely
handle radioactive materials are checking their security after
the suspected al Qaeda "dirty bomb" plot came to light this week.
They are finding, for the most part, that their facilities are as
secure as they can make them, but there is always the caveat that
something could go wrong.
Northern California is a region loaded with sophisticated medical
centers, academic labs and corporate research facilities that use
radioactive materials every day for legitimate purposes.
At UC Berkeley, about 2,000 people are authorized to handle such
materials as carbon-14, tritium and other radioactive isotopes
used in research. Between 2,000 and 4,000 parcels are received at
a central campus facility each year and shipped to about 200
individual labs.
Quantities are generally very small. Packages are logged,
transported and stored according to what was described as a
strict set of regulations imposed by the university following
state and federal guidelines.
Despite all the precautions, however, campus security officials
conceded that they cannot rule out the possibility of a theft if
someone tried hard enough.
"We have controls," said Paul Lavely, director of radiation
safety for the Berkeley campus. "Everything is locked or guarded.
But could someone break into a lab and get something? Sure. We're
not talking about Fort Knox here."
U.S. authorities said the alleged al Qaeda operative planning the
attack was hoping to obtain ingredients from unnamed "university
labs." The purported plot apparently was discovered before any
theft was attempted.
Some critics maintain that academic and industrial users of
radioactive materials follow security protocols designed for a
simpler time -- when the biggest perceived dangers were sloppy
record-keeping and unsafe waste disposal.
Now, the big worry is that would-be suicide bombers could turn an
unsuspecting laboratory or industrial plant into a
radioactive-munitions supply depot.
"There's definitely a need to secure these materials more than
they are now, " said Jaime Yassif, research associate at the
Federation of American Scientists, a nonprofit research and
advocacy group in Washington, D.C. "There are breaks in the
armor."
Research labs make frequent use of radioactive forms of carbon,
phosphorous, sulfur, hydrogen and other materials to track
metabolic processes or analyze minerals. Radioactive sources such
as cobalt-60 and cesium-137 emit gamma rays used to kill cancer
cells and bacteria. Alpha emitters, notably americium, are used
by the oil industry to detect hydrocarbons underground.
These are valuable materials that users are not likely to leave
lying about, even without security concerns to keep them on
guard. Disposing of waste materials can be more lax, however, as
the Federation of American Scientists noted in recent
congressional testimony. The main health risk from radiation is
cell damage and elevated risk of cancer or genetic defects.
State and federal authorities regulate how materials must be
transported and stored. Couriers have to be registered and
receive special training, while researchers have to show they
follow adequate tracking procedures and use appropriate storage
methods.
The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has authority over the
28 research reactors operating around the country, including one
run by UC Davis near Sacramento at the old McClellan Air Force
Base.
Security officers said they had already tightened up procedures
after Sept. 11, but many are taking a new look after the latest
disclosures.
"It's raised the level of awareness, certainly," said Jerrold
Bushberg, a medical physicist who oversees radiation safety at UC
Davis Medical Center in Sacramento.
Ara Tahmassian, assistant vice chancellor for research services
at UC San Francisco, said controls include use of a central
facility at the medical center to receive and disperse
radioactive substances to the 1,800-plus researchers registered
to handle it.
Some of the highest-powered radiation sources on campus are
encapsulated in heavy shielding that would take a blowtorch to
penetrate or heavy equipment to transport.
"We have done everything that reasonably can be done to secure
the material, " Tahmassian said. "I would be very, very surprised
if someone would walk into a facility and walk out with material
without being challenged."
But Tahmassian readily conceded that some risk will always be
present.
"Can you say with 100 percent confidence nothing could happen?
The answer is no. If someone is determined to do something they
will do it, one way or the other."
Wade Richards, director of the UC Davis McClellan Nuclear
Radiation Center, said only 15 people have access to the fuel
used in the small 2-megawatt research reactor.
They are all ex-military employees with secret or top-secret
security clearances, he said, adding that the reactor fuel
consists of radioactive uranium chemically bound to zirconium
hydride, making it impossible to turn into a nuclear weapon.
However, such material theoretically could be used to contaminate
shrapnel from a conventional bomb blast. So the doors are still
locked -- and vehicle barriers and extra video surveillance were
installed after Sept. 11.
"We have a fully approved security plan to make sure no one has
access to any of the reactor fuel, except for the people
authorized to handle it," Richards noted. "This is just not an
attractive target for a terrorist."
Many safety experts said they were concerned as much about
unwarranted fears as they were of terrorist schemes. One concern
is that fear of radiation could delay rescue attempts or make
medical personnel reluctant to treat blast victims. And so
radiation specialists urge people to keep fears in reasonable
check.
"It would be very hard to steal enough radioactive materials from
a laboratory to make a really effective weapon," Lavely said.
"But it's easy to steal enough to make a weapon that inspires
fear, and of course that's often the point anyway."
E-mail Carl T. Hall at [chall@sfchronicle.com] .
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle. Page A - 22
*****************************************************************
14 Nuclear threat lurks abroad
USATODAY.com -
06/12/2002 - Updated 09:06 PM ET
By Mansoor Ijaz
Danger signs
Worldwide incidents involving radioactive material since 1991:
673 illicit trafficking incidents
115 cases of missing material
80 cases of loss of control, fraud or malevolent acts
Source: Stanford University Database on Nuclear Smuggling, Theft
and Orphaned Radiation Sources
The announcement Monday of the arrest of American Abdullah Al
Muhajir, who may have been planning a dirty nuclear bomb
explosion in the United States, is a coup for U.S. intelligence
officials. But Muhajir, who studied explosive devices in Pakistan
and Afghanistan, is likely just one of many al-Qaeda recruits
trained in radiation-dispersion devices.
Trying to capture every terrorist with a dirty bomb is not the
answer. The United States needs to attack the problem at its
root: unsecured radioactive waste in Pakistan and India.
Muhajir's arrest momentarily focused attention on al-Qaeda's
efforts to get the key material for a dirty bomb from sources
inside the USA. But al-Qaeda's modus operandi — cells of two or
three men who know little about each other or each cell's
responsibilities in the larger plot — does not lend itself to
stealing nuclear elements from institutions with a heightened
sense of alert, such as those in the USA today.
The greater danger lies afar. Radioactive material, easily
obtained from waste, either of enriched uranium or bomb-grade
plutonium processing, is a necessary part of the most effective
dirty bomb. Both are plentiful in Pakistan's unsecured nuclear
facilities or at India's poorly safeguarded enrichment plants.
Al-Qaeda's quest for such waste was at the root of the Kashmir
flare-up — a reminder of how critical it is for the United States
to help the two countries get such material under control.
Reducing the risks
To counter this threat from abroad, the USA should:
+ Find a way to create closer ties with Pakistani and Indian
nuclear scientists and make them more aware of the dangers of
spreading nuclear materials.
A program modeled on the International Military Education and
Training program (IMET) could do this. The U.S. military used
IMET to train senior officers of the Pakistan army during the
1980s. It helped us to understand them and them to understand and
appreciate us. A similar exchange between Pakistani and Indian
nuclear scientists and those in the USA and its allies would let
them see more of our way of life, our concerns and the dangers
involved. This would be the best approach, because no country
would, or should, allow direct monitoring of their nuclear
scientists.
+ Help improve independent monitoring of Indian and Pakistani
nuclear sites to ensure that nuclear-waste materials don't fall
into the wrong hands.
The Bush administration should make available U.S. alarms,
sensors, vaults, tamper-proof seals, closed-circuit cameras and
labels to identify, track and secure the subcontinent's nuclear
materials. Such technology would give the two countries the
capability to better monitor waste materials and weapons
themselves, minimizing the big-power-interference issues.
Alter sanctions
Since 1990, however, U.S. sanctions have blocked the sale or
transfer of military technologies, including those that would
improve nuclear security. So the USA would have to waive some
export-license controls and compliance rules from the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation and Comprehensive Test Ban treaties.
If India and Pakistan can accept U.S. technology to monitor the
Line of Control in Kashmir to prevent war, as Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld offered Wednesday, they should be willing to
accept technology to prevent the theft of their nuclear
materials.
Such precautions would dramatically reduce the probability that
an al-Qaeda sympathizer inside a Pakistani nuclear power plant or
a raid on an Indian enrichment facility would get far in trying
to deliver stolen uranium or plutonium waste to terrorists.
Unless we assist these nuclear-club newcomers in securing their
scientists and materials, we face the very real possibility of
terrorist militias obtaining more than blueprints to build and
detonate dirty bombs. No development could be less in our
interest.
Mansoor Ijaz, an American of Pakistani origin, is chairman of The
Crescent Partnerships, which invests in U.S. national security
technologies.
© Copyright 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
*****************************************************************
15 Nuclear breaches cause concern
State inspectors have found a growing number of security problems
with radioactive materials used in Massachusetts hospitals,
universities, and other facilities, raising new concerns about
what terrorists might be able to steal and fashion into a weapon.
1 Terrorists feared in medical thefts B Nuclear breaches cause
concern
6/13/2002 By Gareth Cook, Globe Staff >
Boston Globe Online / Metro | Region /
Terrorists feared in medical thefts
By Gareth Cook, Globe Staff, 6/13/2002
[S] tate inspectors have found a growing number of security
problems with radioactive materials used in Massachusetts
hospitals, universities, and other facilities, raising new
concerns about what terrorists might be able to steal and fashion
into a weapon.
In 2000, inspectors uncovered six security breaches involving
radioactive material, and in 2001 they found five, according to
the Radiation Control Program of the Department of Public Health.
Previous years had averaged fewer than two breaches.
Violations ranged from unlocked laboratory doors to a radioactive
vial from a Massachusetts hospital that was found in a New
Hampshire junkyard.
None of the material was potent enough to be used by terrorists,
officials said. But the incidents displayed a carelessness they
call unacceptable, especially with the threat of terrorism.
''When employees don't do what they are supposed to, it raises
the potential of material falling into someone else's hands
outside the facility,'' said Robert M. Hallisey, director of the
Radiation Control Program.
The control of radioactive materials has come under particular
scrutiny since Monday, when the federal government announced it
had foiled a terrorist plot to build a ''dirty bomb,'' a
conventional explosive designed to spread radioactive material.
To build such a bomb, scientists say, terrorists would probably
try to get a highly radioactive substance, such as cesium-137 or
cobalt-60, which are used for sterilization in hospitals or for
food irradiation. Several Massachusetts institutions have
substantial quantities of these materials, said Hallisey, though
he declined to identify them.
''This is no place for sloppiness,'' said Michael Levi, a
physicist and dirty-bomb specialist at the Federation of American
Scientists. ''This isn't just going to be some Joe off the
street.''
Even if terrorists know where to look, the cesium found in
hospitals would be difficult to remove, Levi said, because it is
kept inside heavy machines.
In Massachusetts, the handling of most radioactive materials has
been monitored by the state since 1997, under broad guidelines
set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The state is not
responsible for the extremely radioactive material used in
nuclear plants, which are still overseen by the NRC.
There are about 550 institutions in the state, from universities
to private companies, which are licensed to work with radioactive
material, Hallisey said. To receive a license, the institution
must state what materials it wants to use, how much, and why. It
also must show it has a good security plan in place.
The state conducts frequent surprise inspections - 170 last year
alone - to make sure the materials are being used safely.
Hallisey explains with obvious relish that his team has been
known to appear at hospitals at 5 or 6 in the morning to look for
problems.
''Knowing that we are here, and can arrive at your facility at a
moment's notice and unannounced,'' said Hallisey, ''is like at
home, where the presence of your parents keeps you on the
straight and narrow.''
The inspection reports compiled by Hallisey's team provide a
window into how careless the people trusted with radioactive
materials sometimes are.
In one incident late last year, a lab technician working in a
Lahey Clinic Medical Center facility in Burlington placed a vial
of iodine-131 into his lab coat, and then, apparently forgetting
about it, put the lab coat in the trunk of his car, according to
Hallisey and a spokesman for the clinic. The technician then
apparently forgot about the coat, they said, and had the car
taken to a New Hampshire junkyard, where workers discovered the
material.
Since then, the clinic has instituted a variety of new
safeguards, including remedial training for people who work with
radioactive materials, according to Jeff Doran, a senior vice
president at Lahey.
''We are very serious about making sure this does not happen
again,'' said Doran. ''We take these things very seriously.''
Also last year, the state found that Brandeis University had lost
a small amount of phosphorus-32 that had been placed in an
unlocked room, even after a similar incident in 2000. The state
has also found problems at private companies, including a
violation last year at the Gillette Co., according to a list of
recent security breaches compiled by the state at the request of
the Globe.
The inspectors have only found one security breach so far this
year, according to the list, which covers through the month of
April.
The types of problems being seen now are not new, Hallisey said.
In 1996, a worker at the New England Medical Center transported
iridium-192 to a Veterans Administration Medical Center by taxi
without the proper packaging. Other Boston institutions cited
previously include Children's Hospital, Boston University Medical
Center, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute - all of which fixed the
problems found in the inspections, Hallisey said.
Gareth Cook can be reached at [ cook@globe.com] .
This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 6/13/2002. ©
Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
*****************************************************************
16 Plutonium case goes to court
Moon unit: Rocky Flats cleanup left to 'spacemen'
Rocky Mountain News: Local
DOE has right to ship Rocky Flats waste to S.C., law experts say
By Berny Morson, News Staff Writer
June 13, 2002
Constitutional law experts say the U.S. Department of Energy is
likely to win the right to ship plutonium from Rocky Flats to
South Carolina in a court case that opens in Aiken, S.C., this
morning.
But the shipments could be delayed for months if U.S. District
Court Judge Cameron McGowan Currie requires the DOE to prepare a
new environmental impact statement.
South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges has threatened to lie down in
front of the trucks. In the court case, he is asking Currie to
issue an injunction halting the shipments.
At the same time, U.S. Department of Justice lawyers are seeking
an injunction barring Hodges from lying down in the road.
They argue that the federal government has exclusive authority to
regulate radioactive materials under the Atomic Energy Act of
1954. And under the "supremacy clause" of the Constitution,
states may not interfere, they argue.
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University
who has followed Rocky Flats issues, agrees.
"A dozen governors can lay in front of these trucks, but those
trucks at the end of the day will deliver this material," Turley
said.
Moving the plutonium to the DOE's Savannah River Site is a major
step in the plan to close the defunct Rocky Flats nuclear weapons
plant by Dec. 15, 2006.
The case also has national significance as states increasingly
try to block nuclear shipments.
Nevada is battling a plan to store nuclear reactor waste at Yucca
Mountain. Some Colorado officials have objected to shipments
passing through the state on the way to Yucca Mountain or to a
disposal site for lower-level waste near Carlsbad, N.M. "I think
nobody wants to be the one to have the burden of dealing with a
common problem like this," said Richard Stewart, who was the
assistant attorney general for environmental and natural
resources in the first Bush administration. Stewart, who argued
some of the Yucca Mountain cases, teaches at New York University
Law School.
Plutonium shipments from Rocky Flats could begin as early as
Saturday if Currie turns aside Hodges' injunction motion. The
exact times and routes are secret.
Much of the plutonium was manufactured at the Savannah River
Site. About two metric tons of it are stored there in vaults,
according to federal documents filed in the legal case. Hodges
has said he doesn't want the Rocky Flats plutonium shipped to
South Carolina unless the DOE has a plan to take it someplace
else for permanent use or storage.
The DOE has repeatedly assured Hodges that the plutonium will be
turned into fuel for nuclear reactors, pumping $3.8 billion into
the Aiken economy and creating hundreds of jobs over the next 20
years. The fuel will be used at reactors in other states.
Lawyers for Hodges argue that the federal government must do an
environmental analysis as required by the National Environmental
Policy Act.
The government did an analysis in the mid-1990s, but it assumed
different processes for treating and disposing of the plutonium,
the South Carolina lawyers argue.
Turley, the George Washington University lawyer, said the
environmental claim is South Carolina's best strategy. But
forcing the federal government to do an environmental impact
statement will only delay the inevitable, he added.
"I promise you, the state has no expectation that the NEPA
challenge could materially change the outcome of this dispute,"
Turley said. "The (federal) government views it as a purely
tactical effort -- and I think it probably is."
Stewart, the former assistant attorney general, agreed. "But if
you're in South Carolina's position, at least you can delay, and
maybe you'll stir up enough questions that the government will
have to do some new studies and maybe they'll reconsider -- who
knows?" Stewart said.
"While the federal government has the legal authority to store at
Yucca Mountain, they're still doing tests, people have raised
questions," he said.
2002 © The E.W. Scripps Co.
*****************************************************************
17 US Senate Candidate Crosby Allen Press Releases
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 6, 2002
LANDER, WY – Wyoming Republican US Senatorial Candidate, Crosby
Allen said today that he is opposed to the upcoming bill in the
Senate that would call for the development of Yucca Mountain,
Nevada to store 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste and
spent fuel from throughout the United States and 42 countries.
“Spent fuel rods are very dangerous and this bill would call for
them to be transported through Wyoming to Nevada via Interstate
80. Even though the shipping containers are said to be
leak-proof, there have been cases of nuclear radiation leakage
during transportation of spent fuel rods from France to Japan.
There is no sense in taking this chance because the technology
now exists to allow for the full depletion of these rods,”
continued Allen.
“Simply burying this problem in a cave does not lend itself well
to forward thinking. Also, it’s a heck of a way to treat our
neighbors in Nevada when they have made it clear that they don’t
want the spent fuel rods stored in their State. I support the
use of nuclear energy and I want to see it’s continued use,” said
Allen. “We must, however, use it responsibly so that the
benefits outweigh the costs in terms of human safety. Many
people don’t realize that nuclear fuel rods emit much more potent
radiation than does yellow cake uranium when it is mined. Also,
research has shown that this type of radiation does in fact
migrate through rock formations, which means that to store it is
at best risky. We still don’t know enough about nuclear waste to
be sure of exactly what we are dealing with.
It is estimated that the proposed site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada
will be immediately filled to capacity. Then what do we do? Will
Wyoming be the next site for a nuclear waste depository when the
Nevada site is full? You can bet if we support this legislation,
our friends from Nevada will not come to our aid when the US
Department of Energy comes knocking on our door. The problem is
the creation of toxic nuclear waste, not finding a place to store
it. It’s our responsibility to use, and improve on, existing
technology to fully deplete spent nuclear fuel rods,” finished
Allen.
Contact US Senate Candidate Allen: cros@allen4senate.org
[cros@allen4senate.org]
Copyright © 2002 webmaster@allen4senate.org
[webmaster@allen4senate.org]
This website is paid for by Crosby Allen, and was last updated:
*****************************************************************
18 Tracking Nuclear Material Difficult
Las Vegas SUN
June 12, 2002
WASHINGTON- Federal regulators have fined universities,
construction companies, hospitals and even the U.S. Army for
failing to safeguard radioactive isotopes that could be used for
a "dirty bomb."
But they say these violations involve only very small amounts of
material and there is no evidence any significant amounts -
enough to be useful to terrorists - have been stolen or
misplaced.
Still, the tracking of radioactive substances that could be used
in a dirty bomb is left largely to private industry. And with 2
million radioactive sources in commerce, there is no certainty
all of it can be accounted for, officials acknowledged Wednesday.
"The reality is it's a very large volume of material that's out
in the community and I can't give you any assurance that (some)
material might not have been diverted by now," said Richard
Meserve, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in an
interview.
Meserve and other NRC officials emphasized they have no
indication that any large quantities of radioactive material -
such as the foot-long tubes of cobalt-60 used to irradiate food,
or larger amounts of cesium-137 used in medicine - have been
stolen or have been reported missing.
Meserve said that shippers and users of the larger radiation
sources have been told to increase security.
The NRC's enforcement records show numerous security lapses in
recent years.
The agency cited at least 54 cases requiring "elevated
enforcement actions" because of security violations involving
industrial nuclear materials. Among those cited - with 16 of them
involving civil penalties - were government agencies,
universities, hospitals, military facilities and construction and
engineering companies.
Three days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a New Jersey
dentistry school was fined $3,000 for "failure to ... maintain
constant surveillance" on its nuclear material. Three months
later the University of Wisconsin-Madison was fined $3,000 for
not securing radioactive material.
The Army was fined $8,000 for not properly securing nuclear
materials at its Rock Island Arsenal. In 1997, an employee at the
Defense Logistics Agency in Pennsylvania was found to have stolen
an item containing radioactive material; in 1999, the Interior
Department was cited by the NRC for security lapses. Neither of
those cases involved fines.
Construction and engineering firms in a number of states were
cited for not keeping track of moisture gauges that contain small
amounts of cesium 137. Last November alone, three companies were
fined $3,000 each for not properly securing portable moisture
gauges.
On average about 300 cases of missing radioactive materials are
reported to the NRC each year, with about half of the items
eventually being recovered.
But John Hickey, of the NRC office dealing with industrial
nuclear materials, said those numbers are misleading because,
without exception, the reports - as well as the enforcement
actions - involved extremely small amounts of material.
For example, according to the NRC, between 1996 and 2001 a total
of 11.3 curies of cesium-137 was reported missing. Most - perhaps
all - of that material reflects thefts of gauges used in
construction and medicine, each of which would contain a small
fraction of a curie of cesium.
These gauges are portable and susceptible to theft, said Hickey.
"We see no indication of a pattern" suggesting someone is trying
to accumulate these devices, he said.
While the NRC must license all users of these materials, it does
not keep track of the radioactive material, relying largely on
self-regulation. Hickey said users are required to inventory the
material every six months and report if anything is missing.
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
19 DOE plan makes Piketon central site for storage -
chillicothegazette.com
Thursday, June 13, 2002
Strickland concerned with proposal
By RAMI YOAKUM [ryoakum@nncogannett.com]
Gazette Staff Writer
PIKETON -- Nuclear waste or potentially valuable and reusable
uranium?
That is the question.
And if a Department of Energy plan to make the Piketon uranium
enrichment plant the centralized storage location for excess
uranium from its sites around the nation goes through, Pike
County residents will soon find out the answer.
Although the Programmatic Environmental Assessment -- a document
outlining the DOE's plan -- is not yet final, it does describe
Piketon as its "preferred site."
That is because there are already about 4,400 metric tons of
reusable uranium being stored there. Much of that has come from
the Fernald site near Cincinnati, and a former enrichment plant
at Hanford, Wash. Both of those have ceased operations and are in
the midst of cleanup activities.
"They're saying it's reusable, but I call it nuclear waste," said
Rep. Ted Strickland. The Lucasville Democrat said the DOE, has in
the past, used the potential for job creation as justification to
ship the uranium to Piketon.
He's also concerned that if the 14,200 metric tons of uranium --
which will come from more than 150 other sites in the U.S. -- is
accumulated at Piketon it will drastically reduce the chances of
future economic uses for the plant.
"They say it has future uses and are refusing to call it waste. I
challenge them to come up with one case of any of it being
reused," Strickland said. "If this happens it will make the site
much less attractive in the future for development."
The excess uranium will not include depleted uranium,
Uranium-233, highly enriched uranium or any irradiated material.
However, Strickland pointed out that some of the materials will
actually be from foreign sources and is currently being stored at
three U.S. ports.
(Yoakum can be reached at 772-9364, or via e-mail at
ryoakum@nncogannett.com) [ryoakum@nncogannett.com] Originally
published Thursday, June 13, 2002
*****************************************************************
20 Yucca: A little thing called 'democracy'
Thursday, June 13, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
COLUMN: Steve Sebelius
Those raucous Founding Fathers may have led a war to create a
constitutional republic with representatives chosen by democratic
elections. They may have had rhetorical battles over the wording
of the founding documents. They even had to publish arguments for
the Constitution anonymously. And the fight over that Bill of
Rights sure did take a long time.
Thank God, Nevada has found a way to improve on the process.
Gov. Kenny Guinn and some state lawmakers have decided that --
instead of calling a special session laden with hard work, reams
of reading and interminable hearings to hash out the medical
malpractice crisis -- a better solution is to let those most
closely affected by the issue come up with a solution. If the
trial lawyers, doctors and insurance companies succeed, Guinn
will promptly call the Legislature into session for a day or so
to wield the rubber stamp, and then it's Miller Time.
Nevada. What a state.
Sure, it's a little like the president of the United States
telling Israel and the Palestinians to work out their problems
and then America will get engaged. (Oh, wait ... )
Where is Guinn's plan to solve the medical malpractice crisis?
Where is the tough-talking governor who told the Legislature
exactly what he wanted to see on his desk when it came to
electricity deregulation? No one saw Guinn saying during the 2001
Legislature that he'd wait to act until the utilities and the
ratepayers worked out their differences. (By the way, Guinn got
the bill he wanted in that case, which suggests he might be able
to use his considerable clout to do it again.)
Where is the Legislature's plan? Certainly a few lawmakers must
have some ideas about how to deal with the crisis? But the
newspaper reports that leaders such as Republican Assemblyman
Lynn Hettrick of Gardnerville and Democratic Assembly Speaker
Richard Perkins also want to wait for a consensus before they
tread onto the floor of the Assembly chambers in Carson City.
"If we can go in in one day and do it, yes I would support (a
special session)," Hettrick actually said. "If we don't have an
agreement, there's no use haggling over the issue with 63
people." No use? But that's the point of representative
government that Republicans claim to cherish, isn't it?
"For us to jump into a special session without some kind of
consensus makes no sense at all," Perkins added. No sense? But
solving problems is the essence of democracy that Democrats claim
to cherish, isn't it?
We don't need to see Vice President Dick Cheney's secret energy
task force records to know that laws written by members of an
industry to regulate that industry are seldom good policy. That's
why we elect ostensibly independent lawmakers -- not to forge a
foul stew of bad law by building a consensus of the regulated,
but to do what's in the best interests of the people.
Why is Nevada so afraid of spirited debate and discussion? Why is
there always a tendency to work things out behind closed doors?
(These are not, after all, personnel deliberations that could
embarrass someone or kill their future job prospects: This is
public policy that has a direct consequence on the health and
welfare of the general public.)
The days of smoothing things out must end, now. Guinn should call
the Legislature into special session whether the doctors, lawyers
and insurance companies agree or not. In the end, Nevada doesn't
belong to them, but to the people. It's time our elected
officials let those spines of Jell-O calcify a bit.
• The Environmental Working Group has done Nevada a great service
in putting up a Web site that allows users to find out precisely
how close they live to a potential route for trucking radioactive
garbage to Yucca Mountain. My own research found that the
Review-Journal building sits just 0.1 miles from such a route.
(What are the odds that a nuclear-laden truck will fly right off
the Interstate 15/U.S. Highway 95 overpass into the cramped
warren of offices where the editorials are written every day?
Irony of ironies.)
Most people, unfortunately, don't care about an issue such as
nuclear waste in the abstract. Now, however, thanks to the
Environmental Working Group every person with a computer can
learn that Disneyland, the happiest place on Earth, could become
the most irradiated place on Earth, should an accident take place
nearby. (Like the R-J building, it's just 0.1 mile from a
transport route, but far more fun.)
If only we could count on our fellow citizens to care whether
nuclear waste was being shipped past anyone's house, not just
when it comes rumbling by theirs. But that's a philosophical
matter. As the battle in Congress winds down, Nevada needs every
ally it can get. The state's leaders can worry about motives
another day.
(To see for yourself, point your browser to
http://www.mapscience.org.)
Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His
column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 383-0283
or by e-mail at ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
21 YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Uphold custom, Ensign tells GOP
"If we can pick off a few here and there, it will help."
JOHN ENSIGN - U.S. SENATOR
Thursday, June 13, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Colleagues to set bad precedent, senator argues
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., on Wednesday made his
final big plea to Republicans to help Nevada's senators kill the
Yucca Mountain Project.
With a vote coming in weeks, Ensign appealed to GOP senators to
oppose the Nevada nuclear waste repository on procedural grounds,
though most of them favor the program.
Ensign urged them to respect Senate custom that holds only the
majority leader calls up bills for debate.
In effect, he asked Republicans to bow to their foe, Majority
Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who has said he will refuse to call
up a resolution that finalizes the choice of Yucca Mountain, 100
miles northwest of Las Vegas, for waste burial.
Several senators said after the meeting they doubted Ensign would
be able to persuade enough colleagues.
"I say let's get it up and let's vote on it and let the chips
fall where they may," said Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont.
The appeal, made at a weekly Republican luncheon, reflects a
strategy by Ensign and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., that relies on
Senate process and help from Daschle to block the repository. The
Nevadans have concluded they are unlikely to gain 51 votes to
kill the project by direct vote.
About 30-35 Democrats have indicated they would vote against
Yucca Mountain. Only one Republican, Ben Nighthorse Campbell of
Colorado, has said he will do so.
Ensign and Reid have said they will rely on Daschle, a Reid ally,
to keep a Yucca Mountain resolution bottled up on the Senate
calendar until July 25, when a 90-day deadline would expire and
kill the nuclear waste plan.
Ensign told Republican colleagues they would break a long
tradition by defying the majority leader by calling up the Yucca
bill themselves. He said Republicans will be sorry if they set a
precedent that could return to haunt them when they reclaim the
Senate majority.
"If you do this, you are setting a general precedent," Ensign
said he told the Republicans. "This is what really makes the
majority leader the majority leader. I want you all to think
about that."
Earlier in the day, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, tried to blunt the
Nevada argument.
Craig said the authors of the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act
anticipated such a scenario and set up a process that allows for
senators other than the majority leader to force a repository
vote "so Congress can work its will."
Of a half-dozen Republicans interviewed as they were leaving the
hour-long luncheon, none counted themselves as converts to
Nevada's side, and several echoed Craig's speech.
Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., said most Republicans committed to
vote for the Yucca Mountain Project years ago before Nevada had a
GOP senator who could argue the other side.
"The problem is, people have voted on this before, and they've
committed to one position," Fitzgerald said. "It's hard to change
people's votes later with new information. There's no question if
Ensign had been here five years ago, this might be headed in a
completely different direction."
At the luncheon, Ensign gave each senator a sheet showing
research that on five occasions since 1987, the Senate had a
chance to break the tradition but chose not to do so.
Ensign said one senator he would not name told him he was swayed.
"If we can pick off a few here and there, it will help," Ensign
said. "I think it's going to take a little bit of time for them
to really mull it over and have it sink in."
Craig continued to argue in favor of Yucca Mountain during the
closed-door debate, witnessed by about three dozen of the 49
Republican senators,
Craig gave each senator a pro-Yucca "flash card" that had been
printed by the nuclear industry. The card listed 10 points that
would support a 'yes' vote.
The card said nuclear power is emission free and contributes 20
percent of the nation's electricity. It described Yucca Mountain
as "one safe, central, remote repository in the Nevada desert."
Attempts by Nevada and environmental groups to kill the Yucca
Mountain Project continued on another front Wednesday.
Jim Hall, a former top transportation safety official now leading
an anti-Yucca group, warned directors at 15 ports that nuclear
waste may be shipped through their facilities to the proposed
Nevada repository.
Hall said the May 26 Oklahoma barge accident that collapsed a
bridge over the Arkansas River "would have been far more
catastrophic than it was" had the barge been carrying nuclear
waste.
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
22 Plan may bring nuclear waste through dam: Route ends at storage
complex in Nevada
By Stephanie Hoops
NYT Regional Newspapers
June 13, 2002
The Tennessee River would be used to take shipments from Browns
Ferry through Wilson Dam. Alabama is one of 18 states that would
serve as a host to barge traffic. TimesDaily, File photo
Wilson Dam and the Tennessee River are on a proposed route for
transporting nuclear waste to a future storage complex in Nevada.
The route was made public in a new study based on an
environmental impact report conducted by the U.S. Department of
Energy.
The study forecasts that barges, trains and trucks carrying spent
nuclear fuel and other radioactive materials would travel on
Alabama freeways, rivers and rail lines to the proposed Yucca
Mountain storage complex in Nevada. The complex is the first
long-term dump for high-level radioactive waste.
The government has not disclosed the routes that the waste would
take to the planned underground repository, even though it has
been discussing the shipments since February, when the Department
of Energy began talking to President Bush about the project.
In the new report released Monday, the Environmental Working
Group, a Washington-based watchdog organization, said proposed
waste pickups would come from Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in
Athens.
The Tennessee River would be used to take shipments from Browns
Ferry through Wilson Dam. Alabama is one of 18 states that would
serve as a host to barge traffic.
The proposal has some fishing enthusiasts and river watchers
leery of its implications and risks.
"The Tennessee River has enough problems now," said Bob Freeman,
who helped organize a lake watch group for Wilson and Pickwick
lakes. "No one wants nuclear waste coming through their area.
"My first reaction would be let's get more facts before we go
farther with it. Who's going to be in charge of it? What kind of
safety mechanisms would be in place?"
Freeman said his group formed as a result of the Sept. 11
terrorist attack and is establishing a relationship with the
Tennessee Valley Authority regarding lake and river activity. TVA
oversees operations at Browns Ferry and Wilson Dam.
"TVA has a 1-800 number posted at the boat ramps and docks that
you can call to report suspicious activity," Freeman said. "All
the fishermen on the river know the river and we're out there.
Security is our main concern."
Floyd Sherrod, who fishes along the Tennessee River, said the
news about the proposed route "has me a bit concerned" while
acknowledging that officials "have got to figure out what to do
with (nuclear waste).
"It's a complicated issue," he said. "There are always questions
about what kinds of precautions have to be taken ... for
something like that."
The Environmental Working Group said rail lines in Limestone and
Mobile counties, Interstate 65 heading north through Limestone
and Interstate 10 heading east through Mobile would meet federal
safety standards for nuclear shipments.
Waste would also be transported from the Joseph M. Farley twin
nuclear power station, 17 miles west of Dothan in Houston County.
In all, the report estimated that nuclear shipments via rail and
truck would pass within a mile of 86,332 Alabama homes, as well
as 71 schools and two hospitals.
Department of Energy and Department of Transportation officials
said Monday none of the routes to Yucca Mountain, which is north
of Las Vegas and east of Death Valley, have been formally
designated yet. Extensive security and safety measures would be
in place before shipments begin in 2010.
"This is very preliminary information and is not a true
reflection of any plan," said Joe Davis, a DOE spokesman. "We
have eight years to work with the states on these decisions. By
then, there could be new roads and rail lines in place."
The Tennessee Valley Authority was not involved in DOE's disposal
plans, TVA spokesman Gil Francis said.
TVA nuclear plants store spent fuel on site because there has
been no national central repository for the fuel, Francis said.
Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, like all of TVA's nuclear power
plants, stores spent fuel on-site, said TVA spokesman Craig
Beasley. He did not know the exact amount of spent fuel stored
there but said a reactor generates 28 tons of spent fuel per
year.
Browns Ferry has three reactors, two of which are operating. The
plant has been on-line periodically since the late 1960s.
Beasley said the TVA board has authorized the construction of dry
storage facilities for spent fuel at Browns Ferry and Sequoyah.
Spent fuel is not kept in wet storage. The dry storage will be
built around canisters that can also be used to transport spent
fuel, he added.
"Fifteen plants in the U.S. use dry storage," Beasley said.
Sequoyah's dry storage facility should be ready in 2004 and
Browns Ferry's in 2005, he said.
For the proposed Yucca routes, the DOE plans 3,979 truck and 978
rail shipments in Alabama for 38 years, beginning in 2010.
"This is a right-to-know issue," said Laura Chapin, Environmental
Working Group spokeswoman. "President George W. Bush and the
Energy Department are asking Congress to approve Yucca Mountain
before people have all the facts on the routes and the risks."
The proposed Browns Ferry route sits in a district belonging to
Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Ala. of Huntsville.
"I'm committed to making sure we have a reliable and safe
transportation program in place before nuclear material is moved
from Browns Ferry to the designated permanent nuclear waste
repository at Yucca Mountain in 2010, the earliest year in which
the site could be ready to hold the nuclear waste," Cramer said.
The U.S. House of Representatives last month voted overwhelmingly
to back Bush and rebuff an attempt by Nevada officials to veto
the Yucca Mountain plan.
A final Senate vote on Yucca Mountain is expected before the end
of July and possibly as soon as June 25.
For more than 20 years, officials have debated where to store
77,000 tons of waste byproducts from 131 nuclear reactors
throughout the United States.
DOE officials said spent fuel and other waste would be
transported in specially designed, lead-lined containers that can
withstand fire and collisions. All shipments would be closely
monitored, with advance notice given to local public safety
officials.
However, because of concerns over terrorist attacks, notification
of nuclear waste shipments would not be given to the general
public.
"In 30 years, we have conducted 2,700 shipments of nuclear
materials covering 1.6 million miles and have never had a serious
accident or a significant release of radioactivity," Davis said.
He also argued that centralized storage at Yucca Mountain is
safer than housing materials at 131 nuclear plants and other
sites in 31 states.
The report cited the potential risk of spent nuclear fuel, noting
that the contents of a single shipping container could pack 200
times the level of radiation generated by the atomic bomb that
was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. It estimated that an
unprotected person standing within three feet of unshielded spent
nuclear fuel would receive a lethal dose of radiation within two
minutes.
The public can go online for information from the study. Go to
[http://www.mapscience.org] and type in an address and ZIP code
to get customized information about proximity to possible routes.
TimesDaily Staff Writers Robert Palmer and Sherhonda Allen
contributed to this report.
Stephanie Hoops is a staff writer for The Tuscaloosa News.
Copyright © 2002 TimesDaily
*****************************************************************
23 Nuclear waste route passes through city
*The Front Page*
By Mindie Paget , General Assignment Reporter
Thursday, June 13, 2002
Three schools, Lawrence Memorial Hospital, the Kansas River and
plenty of homes lie within a mile of railways that could be used
to transport high-level nuclear waste to a proposed dump site in
Nevada.
A new searchable database devised by the Environmental Working
Group, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog organization, shows the
proximity of the proposed nuclear disposal routes to any address
in the country. Under one of the proposals, shipments from the
eastern United States would go through Lawrence over Union
Pacific railroad tracks on their way to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles
northwest of Las Vegas. The route would pass less than a mile
from Woodlawn, Pinckney and New York schools.
A Senate decision whether to proceed with the dump site could
come as early as the end of June. The House approved the site on
May 8. Shipments are forecast to begin in 2010.
The prospect of shipping spent nuclear fuel cross-country should
disturb people, especially in the aftermath of Sept. 11, said Bob
Eye, a Topeka attorney who has been involved in nuclear power
litigation.
"Even if before Sept. 11 we believed that transportation of
radioactive waste was relatively safe, I think we now know the
shipments ? each one ? would be a potential target," he said.
"The canisters that would be used to transport this waste are not
impenetrable. They are not indestructible. They carry an enormous
inventory of radiation in every one of them. Losing one on a
bridge across the Kaw River, for example, would be a real
catastrophe on a monumental scale."
But Ben Friesen, coordinator of Kansas University's Environment,
Health and Safety Council, isn't worried about that risk, which
he contends is minute. Friesen spent more than 30 years as the
university's radiation safety officer, sitting at a desk on the
same floor as a nuclear reactor in Burt Hall.
"I guess I personally wouldn't feel uncomfortable with the
transportation of those (nuclear waste containers) under the
requirements that are put on them," he said. "You can't ever say
never about an accident. All I'm saying is I think the
precautions are very, very high."
*Potential nuke routes* Want to find out how close to your home
or school nuclear waste could pass if Congress approves a dump
site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada? Go to www.mapscience.org
to access a searchable database that
allows you to enter any address in the country and determine its
proximity to potential transportation routes for spent nuclear
fuel. It also identifies schools and hospitals within one, two
and five miles of possible routes.
The Yucca Mountain project Web site details the strenuous tests
the transportation casks must undergo: a 30-foot free fall onto
an unyielding surface; a puncture test, during which the
container must fall 40 inches onto a steel rod six inches in
diameter; a 30-minute exposure to fire at 1,475 degrees
Fahrenheit that engulfs the entire container; and submergence of
the same container under three feet of water.
The Energy Department claims that containers tested under such
conditions have transported 2,700 spent nuclear fuel shipments
more than 1.6 million miles since the 1960s without any harmful
release of radioactive material.
The department has projected that over a 24-year period there
could be as many as 2,200 long-distance shipments of nuclear
waste per year if most of it moves by highway. There could be as
few as 175 shipments a year if almost all move by dedicated
trains, the department said.
Those shipments, the Environmental Working Group's study says,
would pass within a mile of 146,161 Kansas homes, 246 schools and
20 hospitals.
Carey Maynard-Moody, chairwoman of the Wakarusa Group Kansas
Chapter Sierra Club, worries it might take a disaster to get
people to rethink the way energy is produced in this country.
"I don't think nuclear waste can ever be safe," she said.
"Accidents happen, and they have happened. Three Mile Island
happened. Chernobyl happened. It's not fool-proof. Accidents
happen with the best intentions and the best protection."
The slight probability that a container could become compromised
in transit is part of the reason emergency personnel in Douglas
County receive continued training in dealing with radiological
incidents. Awareness here also is fueled by Lawrence's proximity
to Wolf Creek Nuclear Power Plant northeast of Burlington
"The first responders are aware of the radiological risk," said
Paula Phillips, Douglas County Emergency Management director. "A
year ago, when an unclassified shipment of nuclear waste was
going to be coming through the area, we all went through
specialized training. We've rehearsed these scenarios; we've
discussed them. Even this week, fire and medical is doing
radiological training."
Even so, Margaret Turner, who lives a few blocks away from the
Union Pacific tracks in North Lawrence, would rather emergency
workers not have to put their training to the test.
"I wouldn't particularly care for it," she said of the
possibility that nuclear waste could pass less than a mile from
her front door. "I'd like to live a lot longer."
Eye said there was no good answer to the question of what to do
with spent nuclear fuel, which now is stored at commercial
nuclear power plants and Energy Department facilities throughout
the country.
"But we've got hundreds of thousands of years to come up with an
answer," Eye said. "With Yucca Mountain, in terms of radiological
time, we're rushing to judgment. I'm afraid we're going to be
very sorry about that."
Copyright © 2002, the Lawrence Journal-World. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
24 The best radioactive dump in Russia
SEVERODVINSK - Russian Ministry for Nuclear Energy says leaking
submarine radwaste storage site in Arkhangelsk region is the
safest in Russia.
Andrey Mikhailov, 2002-06-12 23:30
A leaking radioactive storage facility filled with the submarine
shipyard's Sevmash radioactive waste is located just 12
kilometres south from Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk region. Russian
Energy for Nuclear Energy, or Minatom, claims the facility is the
best among other 26 sites in Russia.
Citizens of the Arkhangelsk region consider this area
superstitiously dangerous, those fears trace back to ancient
times. Going to the Mironova Heights could bring bad luck.
Despite that dachas were flourishing in the area, and only ten
years ago, people did not even realise that they were growing
their carrots and potatoes next to a radioactive dump. This site
— a top secret object in the Soviet times and an abandoned dump
in the turbulent times of the Perestroika — gave birth to many
legends and horrible rumours.
Nuclear technologies were being developed in the early 1960s, and
there were a lot of misunderstood and unclear things around
radioactive wastes. The site for constructing a complex of
buildings to store radwaste from nuclear submarines was selected
in September 1957, 12 kilometres south of the city of
Severodvinsk. Such location would never be approved nowadays by
the nuclear regulatory — it should be at least 50 to 70
kilometres away from a nearest settlement.
The storage was designed with use of the latest know-how of that
time. The construction, however, lacked most part of the
innovations — fire fighting systems, ventilation, water drainage
and other systems have never been completed. The site was being
put into operation in two stages: in December 1961 and in October
1962. The facility was filling up with radioactive waste very
fast until 1968. The operation of the facility was allegedly
stopped at the end of 1968, but the construction of nuclear
submarines continued, and more waste kept arriving until 1979.
The storage site in the Mironova Heights. photo by the author
The storage site was off the agenda until 1990. That year a
geological exploration found spots of increased levels of gamma
radiation in that area. When the storage was unsealed in 1991,
water was found inside. If the water penetrated into the storage
facility, then there must be a way out as well — radiation has
been leaking out every spring with underground water.
In 1992, Sevmash was forced to take the responsibility for the
storage site again. In 1994, Sevmash engineers carried out
examination of the site and a contract was signed with a research
institute in St Petersburg to develop technical solutions to
decommission the storage.
Radio Liberty shocked the world with its message in 1995:
"Mushroom pickers found a secret deposit of nuclear wastes. The
storage is in a dilapidated condition; its future is uncertain."
After that, the site was provided with extra security: its "roof"
was covered with another layer of asphalt, and radiation
monitoring was performed on regular basis.
Today the storage site holds 1,840 cubic meters of low- and
medium-level radioactive waste. Minatom says that there are 26
similar storage sites in Russia, and Mironova Heights is one of
the most secure.
Minatom earmarked six million roubles ($200,000) to Sevmash
shipyard in 2002. The storage will be equipped with additional
system of isolation and improved protection. Solid waste will be
unloaded and put into container, whereas liquid waste will be
drained out and processed. The soil will be decontaminated, grass
will be planted, fences with threatening signs will be removed —
that is the big plan. Given funding is in place, it will take
three years to fulfil remediation of the site.
In the meantime, leakages of cesium-137 and cobalt-60 continue in
spring time. It is also unclear how much soil will have to be
removed and how much it would cost.
In the long run, all the waste removed will have to be placed
into a repository. Current Minatom's plans suggest such
repository will be built in the permafrost of Novaya Zemlya
archipelago in the Russian Arctic. Minatom even says the
repository will be built in 36 months — again given funding is in
place.
Publisher: Bellona Foundation [bellona@bellona.no] , President:
Frederic Hauge [frederic@bellona.no] Information: info@bellona.no
[info@bellona.no] , Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no
[webmaster@bellona.no] Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22
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25 South Carolina, feds face confrontation of nuclear proportions
Duluth News Tribune | 06/13/2002 |
[http://www.duluthsuperior.com]
BY JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
LOS ANGELES TIMES
AIKEN, S.C. - Imagine 12,000 pounds of bomb-grade plutonium, some
of the most dangerous stuff on Earth, barreling down Interstate
20 in heavily fortified trucks.
Dozens of state troopers stand in the way, their squad cars
barricading the highway.
The governor of South Carolina lies in the road, in his signature
seersucker suit, daring the feds to cross the state line.
It's an absurd scenario. But it could come down to that.
At a time when FBI officials are warning of imminent terrorist
threats, the Department of Energy is planning the largest
shipment of plutonium ever, to a nuclear facility outside Aiken.
And Gov. Jim Hodges has vowed to keep it out -- even if it takes
a roadblock. He has sued the Energy Department, ridiculed the
federal government in TV commercials and mobilized state
troopers. The shipments, destined for the Savannah River Site, a
sprawling nuclear complex on the Georgia line, are supposed to
begin this month.
"I've certainly made some dramatic gestures," Hodges said
recently. "But disposing nuclear weapons, well, that's a dramatic
problem."
Hanging in the balance is enough bomb-making material to produce
at least 5,000 nuclear weapons, an arsenal larger than any
country's except for Russia and the United States.
U.S. government officials, under arms control agreements with
Russia, have promised to decommission 34 metric tons of surplus
plutonium. Energy officials have said the plutonium will be
promptly converted into fuel for nuclear power plants, a safer
and more stable form.
Hodges doesn't trust them.
The Democratic governor, who believes the Bush administration is
trying to torpedo him politically, said he will allow the
plutonium into the state if the Department of Energy commits in a
formal consent decree to recycling the bomb material -- something
that has never been done before -- or removing it should that not
happen.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has promised not to abandon the
highly radioactive matter in South Carolina. He even put his
pledge in a letter. But Abraham has refused to enter into a
court-monitored consent decree, saying national security issues
don't belong in front of a judge.
Then there's the Colorado connection.
Sen. Wayne Allard, a Colorado Republican running for re-election
this year, is pushing the Bush administration to get surplus
plutonium out of his state -- it's stored at the Rocky Flats
Environmental Technology Site near Denver. The cleanup of the
aging weapons plant is a key part of Allard's platform. Allard
insists, along with energy officials, that money will be saved by
moving plutonium from Colorado to South Carolina.
But some people in South Carolina don't buy that. They say the
Bush administration is sacrificing the interests of their state,
a reliable Republican stronghold, to make friends and win votes
in Colorado, historically more of a swing state.
"This isn't about national security, the Russians or what's good
for our country," said Dell Isham, executive director of the
South Carolina chapter of the Sierra Club. "It's about politics."
Allard called that "ridiculous."
"I wasn't the one who dreamed up this issue right before the
election. He did," Allard said, referring to Hodges -- who's also
up for re-election in the fall. "If all the states began to
follow his example, our country would have serious problems."
BURNING ISSUE
The issue goes back to 1997, when energy officials began looking
for ways to dispose of surplus plutonium. With the Cold War over
and the U.S. nuclear arsenal shrinking, there was no need for all
of the plutonium triggers, or "pits," that lie at the heart of
thermonuclear weapons. Many of these grapefruit-sized pits, which
are small atomic bombs that trigger much bigger thermonuclear
explosions, were manufactured at Rocky Flats. They're so
dangerous to handle that one whiff results in a 100 percent
probability of cancer, scientists say. They're also coveted by
terrorists -- and guarded very tightly.
Under pressure from arms control advocates, American and Russian
officials agreed in September 2000 to dispose of 34 tons each of
pits, plutonium shavings and other bomb-making nuclear material.
The U.S. side of the project is estimated to cost $3.8 billion
over 20 years and create 1,300 jobs. Officials chose South
Carolina's Savannah River Site because of its technical expertise
and secure facilities. For years, its five reactors produced
plutonium and tritium, another bomb material; now the
310-square-mile facility specializes in processing radioactive
waste.
Yet the bomb-to-fuel project is new science. France, England,
Germany and India burn similar nuclear fuel, but nowhere is there
a large-scale process to convert weapon-grade plutonium into fuel
for nuclear power plants.
"This is a minefield, politically and scientifically," said
Steven Dolley, research director of the nonprofit Nuclear Control
Institute in Washington. "It's not clear how commercial reactors
will handle this stuff."
Energy officials say the process -- called MOX, for "mixed oxide"
-- is safe. The plutonium is made less reactive by mixing it with
oxygen.
Originally, a portion of the surplus plutonium was going to be
"immobilized" in molten radioactive glass set in stainless steel
canisters. It's a process that the Clinton administration
favored. But earlier this year, the Energy Department decided to
convert all surplus plutonium into fuel, ignoring environmental
groups concerned about the expansion of nuclear energy.
That change is one of the grounds of Hodges' lawsuit, filed May 1
in federal court in Aiken, S.C. Hodges says the government needs
to submit a new environmental impact study before shipments can
begin.
Already, he's forced a shipment delay until Saturday, the
earliest date the trucks can leave Rocky Flats. The Colorado site
will be the first to send plutonium to South Carolina and will be
followed by other facilities scattered across the United States.
The plan is to house the material in a closed-down reactor at the
Savannah River Site while a MOX facility is built.
Lawyers for Hodges and the United States will meet in court
today.
READY TO FIGHT
Hodges is hatching plans for a major confrontation -- or at least
that's what he wants people to think. Last month, he had the
South Carolina Highway Patrol stage a drill along a highway near
the Savannah River plant in which two dozen troopers practiced
blocking a semi.
He also has taken out TV ads, financed with $100,000 of campaign
money, painting the federal government as reckless.
Hodges lays out a scenario in which the plutonium arrives, the
MOX processing gets stalled or tabled, the promised jobs never
come and South Carolina gets stuck with 34 tons of deadly gray
powder.
Tactics aside, he may not have the law on his side.
In 1988, Cecil Andrus, then governor of Idaho, blocked a boxcar
full of nuclear waste from entering his state. The action later
was ruled unconstitutional and the boxcar rolled in. The Energy
Department eventually signed an agreement providing Idaho a
timetable for waste processing and sanctions if deadlines weren't
met.
"Until there is a legally enforceable agreement that holds the
federal government to its word, I will do everything I can to
keep that plutonium out of South Carolina," Hodges said. "Once
it's here, we lose every bit of leverage."
About DuluthSuperior.com |
*****************************************************************
26 Greenspun: waste Website exposes facts
Las Vegas SUN: Where I Stand -- Brian
June 13, 2002
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE the desire of the American people to know in
advance what is bad for them.
So far, the United States government, through the Congress and
the Department of Energy, has done just that as it relates to the
transportation of 77,000 tons of nuclear waste to our Yucca
Mountain. Our government has tried to keep U.S. citizens in the
dark, preferring to give them the old "trust us" line in the
hopes that before we know what is bad for us it has already
happened.
That has been the decades-long conduct of those in the DOE, their
puppetmasters in the nuclear power industry and the congressmen
hellbent on shoving the radioactive waste down our throats. Those
who want Yucca Mountain understand the drill: "Tell the people it
is safe, don't give them the facts and bluff our way past sound
science and common sense."
So far, those tactics have worked well for the people who want
nothing more than to build more nuclear power plants around the
country and who know that an answer to the nuclear waste problem
is essential before their profits can start rolling in.
They have convinced President George W. Bush to abandon a promise
he made to Nevadans to decide, based on science, whether to
approve Yucca Mountain as the dump of choice until the end of
time.
They have convinced, through the persuasiveness of their $30
million in campaign contributions, the House of Representatives
to vote overwhelmingly against Nevada's rights as a state to say
"no," and they think they are poised to win a vote in the Senate
sometime in the next few weeks.
And they may win that vote. But, and here may be the fatal flaw
in their heavy-handed plan to railroad an entire country toward
their bottom lines, they didn't count on the power of the facts.
I don't know if it is too late or not, but I do know that every
hour hundreds and thousands of Americans are logging on the
Internet to mapscience.org to see if their homes, their
children's schools and their hospitals, parks and businesses are
within the geographical harm's way of the thousands of trucks and
trains that will roll across America for decades should the
Senate do the wrong thing.
What the Environmental Working Group has done - with the help of
Sen. Harry Reid - has put information vital to America in the
living rooms of every citizen interested enough to find out the
truth about this debacle waiting to happen.
And given the land-speed record which the President set in making
this all-too-hasty decision to dump the nation's garbage on
Nevadans, I wouldn't doubt the benefit that would accrue to the
White House if the folks within it looked at the website, too.
All President Bush has to do is punch in the addresses of his
friends and supporters and he will learn that many of them live
in the kill zones and the just "get real sick" zones along the
myriad routes that this radioactive garbage will travel on its
way to Nevada. He will learn that his friends in the nuclear
power industry included him in on the hoodwinking they gave to
most of the elected leadership in this country.
And that, by itself, should make him mad. Mad enough to change
his mind and do what responsible leadership would do under these
circumstances. Step back from the brink of a very bad and
disastrous decision and find out the facts before committing the
country on a course from which it cannot turn back.
In the meantime, mothers and fathers in every state of the union
are now able to see just how much they have not been told by
their government about the adverse effects of shipping
radioactive waste across this country. They can learn the
hollowness of the industry claim that Yucca will get the waste
"out of their back yards" because they will see in black and
white and living color that when Yucca is full of waste so, too,
will be their power plants that will keep on churning for the
next 40 years.
And they will learn how any terrorist looking for the makings of
a "dirty" atom bomb will no longer have to look far and deep. He
need only look to our highways and railways for his prize -
courtesy of the United States government.
Over the next few days and weeks the American people will learn
how bad life can get for them if the Senate votes to approve
Yucca Mountain. They will learn this, not from the government,
which has the obligation to tell them these things, but from a
website cobbled together by citizens who know what the government
wants to hide.
And, as they learn the facts, the people will get mad. Mad enough
to do something about it?
We will know the answer soon enough.
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
27 Ensign urges colleagues to block Yucca vote
Las Vegas SUN
June 13, 2002
Parliamentary maneuver seen as last-ditch effort
By Benjamin Grove
WASHINGTON -- With his battle to persuade Republican senators to
oppose Yucca Mountain all but lost, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., has
shifted strategies and is now trying to rally them behind an
effort to block a Yucca vote from happening at all.
A Senate vote on Yucca is expected this month or next, and a
majority -- including all but two of the Senate's 49 Republicans
-- is expected to approve Yucca.
GOP leaders on Wednesday allowed Ensign to make his well-known
anti-Yucca pitch in the Senate Republicans' weekly policy
luncheon, where issues are debated behind closed doors.
Ensign made a few familiar arguments: that Yucca is not a safe
site to store the nation's nuclear waste; and that transporting
waste to Yucca is dangerous.
But Ensign spent most of his allotted time urging his colleagues
to support him in a parliamentary maneuver he and Sen. Harry
Reid, D-Nev., are planning.
By Senate tradition, only the Majority Leader -- currently Sen.
Tom Daschle, D-S.D. -- has been allowed to call for a vote. Only
in rare instances has federal law allowed any senator to call for
a vote. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act is one such law.
Daschle has vowed not to call for a Yucca vote, but a Senate
Republican -- it's not known who -- is expected to call for a
vote. At that point, Ensign and Reid plan to object on the
grounds that the action would break Senate tradition and
undermine the power of the leader.
"Do we really want that if we have the majority next year?"
Ensign wrote in a briefing paper he handed to Republican
colleagues.
"My argument was that you are setting a dangerous precedent,"
Ensign said in an interview after the closed-door meeting.
Ensign and Reid say their best hope is that 51 senators agree
with their argument, and that they vote to not vote.
Ensign may only need to convince a few Republicans if Reid can
rally the vast majority of the Senate's 50 Democrats behind their
plan.
Ensign said one GOP senator pledged support for Ensign's
vote-blocking effort. Ensign would not name the senator.
But several Senate Republicans who emerged from the meeting said
few if any other senators had bought into Ensign's argument. The
law clearly allows any senator to call for a vote in this rare
instance, Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, said.
"While it is contrary to Senate tradition, it is not contrary to
Senate rules," said Murkowski, a leading Yucca advocate.
Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., said he sees no support for Ensign's
parliamentary tactic.
"We have to deal with this (Yucca) site, and I say, 'Let's get
it up (for a vote,)' " Burns said.
Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., was non-committal on Ensign's
argument. "I need to look at that before I commit," he said.
In a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Larry Craig,
R-Idaho, blasted Ensign's plan.
Craig said calling for a vote on Yucca would not forever
undermine the Majority Leader because in rare cases in recent
years senators have been allowed to move forward without the
leader's support.
"Exercising a senator's right under the statutory authority in
the Nuclear Waste Policy Act should be considered extraordinary
-- and not a general assault on the normal prerogatives of the
Majority Leader," Craig said. "The law expressly permits someone
else to act so Congress can work its will before a statutory
deadline (July 25) passes."
A vote by the full Senate will be the last congressional hurdle
for Yucca Mountain, the controversial proposal to haul the
nation's nuclear waste from 131 temporary storage sites to the
Nevada mountain for permanent burial. The House approved Yucca
last month.
Asked if it felt lonely in a room full of senators almost
unanimous in their support for Yucca, Ensign said, "absolutely."
In other Yucca news, the pop band the B-52s became the latest
group to lend their star power to the fight against Yucca. Singer
Kate Pierson and bassist Sara Lee planned to meet today with Sen.
Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and staffers for Sens. Max Cleland,
D-Ga., and Zell Miller, D-Ga., and urge them to vote against
Yucca. The band has roots in Georgia.
The B-52s, known for its single "Love Shack," plan to urge their
audiences to oppose Yucca, said Erica Hartman of activist group
Public Citizen, which helped arrange Pierson and Lee's visit to
Capitol Hill. The B-52s kick off a tour June 21 at the Horseshoe
casino in Robinsonville, Miss.
A number of rock stars and Hollywood celebrities have lent their
names to the Yucca fight. Actors James Cromwell ("Babe," "Sum of
All Fears") and Mike Farrell ("M*A*S*H," "Providence") have
appeared on Capitol Hill in the last month, urging Senate
opposition to Yucca. Farrell compiled a list of 70 stars who
object to Yucca, including Richard Dreyfuss, Tim Robbins and
Barbra Streisand.
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
28 Nevada mayors to lobby against Yucca at conference
Photo: Dario Hererra looks on as Oscar Goodman talks
Las Vegas SUN
June 13, 2002
By Diana Sahagun
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman will join Reno's mayor in Madison,
Wis., at the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors to help lobby for a
resolution urging the Senate to postpone a decision on Yucca
Mountain.
The resolution, sponsored by Reno Mayor Jeff Griffin and Salt
Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, is scheduled to be heard by a
14-member committee of mayors this weekend.
Goodman plans to help Griffin and Anderson lobby the committee
members to approve the resolution, then forward it to
approximately 200 U.S. mayors at the conference for a final vote
on Monday.
"I'll try to show them that they're going to be affected and get
their votes in the committee," said Goodman, who has also written
a letter to the mayors of more than 200 U.S. cities urging them
to approve the resolution.
Approval by the mayors is critical to Nevada's fight, Goodman
said, with only days or weeks left before the Senate is expected
to vote on the proposed nuclear waste repository 90 miles
northwest of Las Vegas.
The resolution asks the Senate to postpone plans for the site
because the Department of Energy "has no feasible plan for
transportation of these materials to the Yucca Mountain
repository ..."
The resolution also alleges that during the course of
transporting high-level waste to Yucca Mountain, a single
terrorist attack could result in thousands of cancer deaths and
cost up to $17 billion in cleanup costs.
The resolution is the latest tactic to increase pressure on key
officials to side with Nevada. This week a new website was
unveiled that allows users to track how close nuclear waste could
travel to their homes if the repository is approved. Goodman last
month traveled to Salt Lake City for a massive media campaign to
increase awareness of the dangers of transporting nuclear waste
across the country.
Griffin, who is active in the mayors conference as a board
member and a committee chairman, said he is confident the
resolution will be forwarded to to the mayors for a final vote.
While the state has its own legal fight, much can be accomplished
by lobbying mayors, who then put pressure on their leaders,
Griffin said.
"I think it's a lot more effective to have the mayors of America
on your side complaining to your state legislature and
congressional delegation to say wait a second, don't vote for
this," Griffin said.
Griffin plans to cite last summer's accident in Baltimore -- in
which a train hauling toxic material derailed in a tunnel -- as
cause for a delay by the Senate. The accident led to a fire that
shut down a portion of the city for more than a week.
"What if it were high-level nuclear waste?" Griffin said.
"That's really the point I'm going to make."
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
29 Nuclear waste route passes through city
Lawrence Journal-World:
By Mindie Paget, General Assignment Reporter
Thursday, June 13, 2002
Three schools, Lawrence Memorial Hospital, the Kansas River and
plenty of homes lie within a mile of railways that could be used
to transport high-level nuclear waste to a proposed dump site in
Nevada.
A new searchable database devised by the Environmental Working
Group, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog organization, shows the
proximity of the proposed nuclear disposal routes to any address
in the country. Under one of the proposals, shipments from the
eastern United States would go through Lawrence over Union
Pacific railroad tracks on their way to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles
northwest of Las Vegas. The route would pass less than a mile
from Woodlawn, Pinckney and New York schools.
A Senate decision whether to proceed with the dump site could
come as early as the end of June. The House approved the site on
May 8. Shipments are forecast to begin in 2010.
The prospect of shipping spent nuclear fuel cross-country should
disturb people, especially in the aftermath of Sept. 11, said Bob
Eye, a Topeka attorney who has been involved in nuclear power
litigation.
"Even if before Sept. 11 we believed that transportation of
radioactive waste was relatively safe, I think we now know the
shipments — each one — would be a potential target," he said.
"The canisters that would be used to transport this waste are not
impenetrable. They are not indestructible. They carry an enormous
inventory of radiation in every one of them. Losing one on a
bridge across the Kaw River, for example, would be a real
catastrophe on a monumental scale."
But Ben Friesen, coordinator of Kansas University's Environment,
Health and Safety Council, isn't worried about that risk, which
he contends is minute. Friesen spent more than 30 years as the
university's radiation safety officer, sitting at a desk on the
same floor as a nuclear reactor in Burt Hall.
"I guess I personally wouldn't feel uncomfortable with the
transportation of those (nuclear waste containers) under the
requirements that are put on them," he said. "You can't ever say
never about an accident. All I'm saying is I think the
precautions are very, very high."
Potential nuke routes Want to find out how close to your home
or school nuclear waste could pass if Congress approves a dump
site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada? Go to www.mapscience.org
[http://www.mapscience.org] to access a searchable database that
allows you to enter any address in the country and determine its
proximity to potential transportation routes for spent nuclear
fuel. It also identifies schools and hospitals within one, two
and five miles of possible routes.
The Yucca Mountain project Web site details the strenuous tests
the transportation casks must undergo: a 30-foot free fall onto
an unyielding surface; a puncture test, during which the
container must fall 40 inches onto a steel rod six inches in
diameter; a 30-minute exposure to fire at 1,475 degrees
Fahrenheit that engulfs the entire container; and submergence of
the same container under three feet of water.
The Energy Department claims that containers tested under such
conditions have transported 2,700 spent nuclear fuel shipments
more than 1.6 million miles since the 1960s without any harmful
release of radioactive material.
The department has projected that over a 24-year period there
could be as many as 2,200 long-distance shipments of nuclear
waste per year if most of it moves by highway. There could be as
few as 175 shipments a year if almost all move by dedicated
trains, the department said.
Those shipments, the Environmental Working Group's study says,
would pass within a mile of 146,161 Kansas homes, 246 schools and
20 hospitals.
Carey Maynard-Moody, chairwoman of the Wakarusa Group Kansas
Chapter Sierra Club, worries it might take a disaster to get
people to rethink the way energy is produced in this country.
"I don't think nuclear waste can ever be safe," she said.
"Accidents happen, and they have happened. Three Mile Island
happened. Chernobyl happened. It's not fool-proof. Accidents
happen with the best intentions and the best protection."
The slight probability that a container could become compromised
in transit is part of the reason emergency personnel in Douglas
County receive continued training in dealing with radiological
incidents. Awareness here also is fueled by Lawrence's proximity
to Wolf Creek Nuclear Power Plant northeast of Burlington
"The first responders are aware of the radiological risk," said
Paula Phillips, Douglas County Emergency Management director. "A
year ago, when an unclassified shipment of nuclear waste was
going to be coming through the area, we all went through
specialized training. We've rehearsed these scenarios; we've
discussed them. Even this week, fire and medical is doing
radiological training."
Even so, Margaret Turner, who lives a few blocks away from the
Union Pacific tracks in North Lawrence, would rather emergency
workers not have to put their training to the test.
"I wouldn't particularly care for it," she said of the
possibility that nuclear waste could pass less than a mile from
her front door. "I'd like to live a lot longer."
Eye said there was no good answer to the question of what to do
with spent nuclear fuel, which now is stored at commercial
nuclear power plants and Energy Department facilities throughout
the country.
"But we've got hundreds of thousands of years to come up with an
answer," Eye said. "With Yucca Mountain, in terms of radiological
time, we're rushing to judgment. I'm afraid we're going to be
very sorry about that."
Copyright © 2002, the Lawrence Journal-World. All rights
*****************************************************************
30 DuPage may get $100 mil. toxic cleanup
Chicago Sun-Times - News
June 12, 2002
BY DAN ROZEK STAFF REPORTER
Chemical firm deal would rid waterways of radioactive thorium -->
A $100 million, four-year cleanup of the last pockets of
thorium-contaminated land in western DuPage County could start
later this year under a preliminary agreement local officials
have reached with an Oklahoma chemical company.
The project to remove radioactive thorium residue from along
Kress Creek and the west branch of the DuPage River would end a
15-year struggle to rid parts of West Chicago and several
surrounding areas of the industrial contamination.
"It's been an environmental nightmare hanging over people's
heads for years," DuPage County Board Chairman Robert
Schillerstrom said Tuesday after the board signed off on the
framework plan to remove the thorium contamination.
Thorium residue from a West Chicago plant that made gaslight
mantles was dumped around the factory and surrounding residential
neighborhoods starting in the 1930s and continuing for decades.
Exposure to thorium has been linked to accelerated cancer rates.
A grass-roots effort that began about 15 years ago ultimately
prompted Kerr-McGee Corp., which inherited the contamination
problems when it bought the factory site in 1967, to agree to
remove the contaminated soil.
The Oklahoma-based gas and energy company has spent about $400
million in the last seven years to excavate more than a million
cubic yards of thorium-tainted dirt, which has been shipped to a
disposal site in Utah.
That effort has involved removing soil surrounding more than 600
houses, the factory site and Reed-Keppler Park.
With that cleanup effort winding down, officials have focused on
thorium that reached Kress Creek and worked its way downstream
into the DuPage River. River sediment and some of the banks along
nearly four miles of the waterways are contaminated with thorium,
officials said.
Removing the contaminated soil and restoring the waterways to
their original condition could cost as much as $100 million,
estimated attorney Joseph Karaganis, who represents DuPage
County, West Chicago, Warrenville and several local agencies
whose land was contaminated.
The county and local municipalities have agreed to negotiate to
finalize cleanup plans for the land along Kress Creek and the
DuPage River. Although details are still being negotiated with
Kerr-McGee, local officials earlier won a key victory when the
company agreed to meet the same standards in the riverside
cleanup as it did in the work in residential neighborhoods.
Kerr-McGee spokeswoman Debbie Schramm declined to comment on the
final cost of the riverside project or when the work would start,
but said company officials were "pleased with the pace of
negotiations" to complete the details of the cleanup plan.
Karaganis, though, said local officials think the cleanup could
begin this year.
Daily Southtown Pioneer Press Post-Tribune Star Newspapers
Copyright 2002, Digital Chicago Inc.
*****************************************************************
31 Can nuclear waste be transported safely? -
CNN.com -
June 12,
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Senate must decide soon on whether
to move ahead with plans to build the nation's first permanent
nuclear waste storage site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
A divided Senate energy panel last week approved a resolution
supporting President Bush's decision on the Yucca Mountain
nuclear site. The full Senate has until July 25 to act on the
resolution if the project is to continue. The House already has
agreed to set aside Nevada's veto of the Bush plan.
Opponents said they fear transporting nuclear waste to Nevada
could create a target for terrorists. With news this week of an
alleged "dirty bomb" plot, these critics question whether it's
the best time to put nuclear waste on the nation's railroads and
roadways. "Crossfire" hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala debate
the issue.
CARLSON: I have to say that transporting nuclear waste across the
country sounds terrifying, and of course I understand it. I feel
sorry for Sen. John Ensign [a Nevada Republican]. The people of
his state are against it, but let's be honest here. There are
nuclear materials everywhere. They're in doctors' offices.
They're used to irradiate food. They're in all sorts of technical
instruments. They're in your smoke detector in your house.
They're in the granite on the street.
This is a scare tactic devised by people who represent the voters
of Nevada. That's all it is.
BEGALA: If that material is just as safe as you say ...
CARLSON: I'm not saying it's safe.
BEGALA: If it's just as safe as mother's milk, why do we have to
put it in these impregnable casks? Why? Because it's high-level,
radioactive waste. It is highly lethal and highly attractive to
terrorists. I love the idea that they've designed these shipment
containers, but we don't need to put them on wheels ...
CARLSON: But ...
BEGALA: Leave them right at the site. By the way, as Sen. Ensign
pointed out, there's still going to be waste at those sites
anyway. So now instead of 131 sites ...
CARLSON: I love this.
BEGALA: ... we're going to have 132, plus hundreds of trucks
rolling around --Winnebagos with nuclear waste in them.
CARLSON: You're making two arguments simultaneously. The first is
because it's not perfect, we shouldn't do it all. And the second
is the same argument made for Social Security ...
BEGALA: It's ...
CARLSON: ... it's just too darn scary. Let me put it this way.
France ... moves vast amounts of nuclear waste around the country
every year, far more than the United States does. And like the
United States, it has done it for many decades without a single
injury. This is a very dangerous product, but it is handled in a
very safe manner by the federal government. And I think it will
continue to be.
BEGALA: You have great faith in the federal government, my
friend. On that front, you're learning. But no, not enough faith
to let this stuff roll around. Besides, the political aspect of
this is most aggravating to people in Nevada and I think the rest
of America ...
CARLSON: The rest of America.
BEGALA: ... Bush lied. He went to Nevada ...
CARLSON: Oh, please. Oh, please.
BEGALA: Dick Cheney went to Nevada before the election and said,
"We won't put the nuclear storage facility in your state unless
the science gets better, improves it."
CARLSON: Oh ...
BEGALA: The science has gotten worse. Bush went back on his word.
2002 Cable News
*****************************************************************
32 Nuke-waste routes in Ohio protested
[http://cincinnati.com]
Thursday, June 13, 2002
By Carrie Spencer
The Associated Press
COLUMBUS — About 2 million Ohioans live within a mile of
highway and rail routes proposed for transporting nuclear waste
from power plants to Yucca Mountain in Nevada, if Congress were
to approve opening the storage facility.
The Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C.,
organization, published maps of the preliminary routes on a Web
site Monday. The group also reported that in Ohio, 2 million
residents, 1,117 schools and 47 hospitals are within a mile of
the proposed routes for the radioactive waste.
“If you look at the northern tier of Ohio, we're very
nervous about this proposal,” said Chris Trepal, executive
director of the Earth Day Coalition in Cleveland.
“There's some serious funneling (of nuclear waste) right
through Cleveland,” she said.
Almost all the proposed routes cross northern Ohio —
except for a rail route that roughly follows U.S. 30 to just west
of Mansfield, then goes south through Columbus to the Ohio River.
Nuclear waste has been transported through the state an
average of five times a year since 1992, said Dick Kimmins,
spokesman for the state Emergency Management Agency. The Yucca
Mountain project, consolidating 77,000 tons of nuclear waste now
in 39 states, could bring hundreds of trucks and rail cars from
the east and northeast yearly, he said.
“Ohio's right in the middle,” Mr. Kimmins said. “The
public does not need to learn any precautionary measures, but the
public should be concerned.”
Just how much more nuclear waste will be moving is in
dispute, and state agencies say they don't yet know how many
shipments would come through Ohio.
The state trains all local emergency agencies along the
route, Mr. Kimmins said.
The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio inspects all
nuclear shipments at state lines. If traffic increased by
hundreds of shipments, the agency would need more workers, said
Carlisle Smith, supervisor of hazardous materials enforcement.
There have been eight accidents nationwide with no
harmful releases of radiation in more than 30 years of
transporting nuclear waste, U.S. Department of Energy spokesman
Joe Davis said.
Despite that safety record, more trips raises the
probability of accidents, Mr. Kimmins said.
It will be more than a decade before any waste leaves
Ohio's two nuclear plants, since the oldest plants would ship
their waste first, said Todd Schneider, spokesman for FirstEnergy
Nuclear Operating Co.
Both Ohio plants have enough storage, he said, but all
on-site storage is meant to be temporary.
“The fuel will be transported in canisters that are
virtually indestructible,” Mr. Schneider said.
But Ms. Trepal, citing congressional testimony and Energy
Department documents, questioned the canister safety.
“The people carrying out this program are telling us
there's going to be accidents,” Ms. Trepal said. “We're
especially concerned after September 11. There's an unacceptable
ongoing security risk for putting this stuff on the road.”
Several Ohio cities along the route have passed
resolutions opposing the Yucca Mountain plan, Ms. Trepal said, as
have Ohio Turnpike toll collectors.
“They're less than arm's length from this very highly
dangerous waste,” she said.
Five of Worthington's 19 public schools are within a mile
of the proposed rail line, district spokesman Greg Viebranz said.
If it were approved, the district would need to update its
disaster plan, which includes derailments, he said.
Assurances of container safety would “eliminate much of
the fear,” he said.
Pike Community Hospital near Waverly is within a mile of
the proposed rail route, but it also is near the closed Piketon
nuclear site, which has been shipping radioactive soil as part of
a cleanup.
“I'm fairly confident the movement of nuclear waste is
under fairly secure and safe conditions,” hospital President and
Chief Executive Richard Sobota said.
[http://cincinnati.com]
*****************************************************************
33 Group wants nuclear waste to stay on site, not be shipped to
Nevada |
The Winston Salem Journal - Journal Now
By Michael Biesecker
JOURNAL REPORTER
Several members of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League
gathered yesterday in a local parking lot in front of a
20-foot-long, 8-foot-high mock shipping cask mounted on a truck
trailer and emblazoned with the universal three-triangle symbol
that warns of nuclear radiation.
The display was meant to protest the possibility that
tractor-trailers loaded with spent fuel rods from nuclear-power
plants may someday travel down Interstate 40 through
Winston-Salem on their way to Yucca Mountain, the controversial
radioactive-waste burial site set to open in Nevada.
Members of the group said they feared that a traffic accident or
terrorist attack could someday cause deadly levels of radiation
to be released in the community. And even if a mishap doesn't
occur, the activists say, the stainless-steel containment casks
will likely leak smaller amounts of radiation.
"This thing will be like an X-ray machine with no off-switch,"
said Louis Zeller, a member of the group who lives in Glendale
Springs. "I wouldn't want to be stuck next to this thing in
traffic."
Though the governor and congressional delegation from Nevada
vehemently oppose opening a subterranean waste-burial site at
Yucca, the Bush administration and a majority in Congress support
the $58 billion project.
If given final approval, the site could start accepting the
nation's nuclear waste about 2010.
The radioactive contaminants in the waste from nuclear-power
plants can have a half-life of 24,000 years. Spent fuel rods and
other waste are now stored on-site at the power plants. The
nation's nuclear electric-generating companies, including Duke
Power, support moving the waste to a government-run site.
"It's a liability issue," said Zeller, who wore a bright orange
jumpsuit to the protest. "They made the stuff, but they don't
want to keep it."
If the project goes forward, 96,000 truck and rail-car loads of
waste now in storage could be sent to Yucca. Possible transport
routes from nuclear plants located near Raleigh, Charlotte and
Wilmington could take the waste along Interstates 40 and 77.
The Blue Ridge group supports keeping the waste where it is.
"They have said for years that it is perfectly safe (stored at
the plants), which are already contaminated," Zeller said. "If
that's true, why risk transporting it just to contaminate a new
site?"
• Michael Biesecker can be reached at 727-7338 or at
mbiesecker@wsjournal.com
© 2002 Winston-Salem Journal. The Winston-Salem Journal is a
*****************************************************************
34 UCI closely guards radioactive waste
Orange County Register - Local
June 13, 2002
By GARY ROBBINS
The Orange County Register
IRVINE – The University of California, Irvine, is increasing
security to prevent potential terrorists from breaking into a
campus building housing low-grade radioactive waste that could be
used to build a "dirty bomb."
UCI officials said Wednesday that they are fortifying security in
response to the federal government's announcement this week that
it has detained Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member who is
alleged to have been working with al-Qaida to explode a "dirty
bomb" in the United States.
Such bombs are built by combining conventional explosives and
small amounts of radioactive waste. Many universities produce the
waste as a byproduct of biomedical research. UCI mainly uses
small amounts of radioactive phosphorous 32 to label DNA and
sulfur 35 to mark proteins.
"We don't store much of the waste, but we want to make sure that
people who shouldn't enter the building where it's kept don't
gain access," said Tom Vasich, a UCI spokesman.
The move comes about six months after UCI began requiring
visitors to the school's small nuclear reactor to provide their
Social Security numbers for security reasons. UCI and other
campuses are more carefully screening visitors at the request of
the U.S. Justice Department.
The Orange County Register
*****************************************************************
35 Sinn Fein Sellafield call
*NEWS HEADLINES*
THURSDAY 13/06/02 14:28:08
Sinn Féin Environment Spokesman Mick Murphy has expressed concern
at the first report from the Office for Civil Nuclear Safety,
which he claims discloses protection deficiencies. * *
The South Down MLA said the report highlighted staff shortages
and security problems that were hampering attempts to protect
British nuclear plants from attack.
He added that the nuclear safety report said that there were
"difficulties" with recruitment and several security
"deficiencies".
He said these issues should be a matter for concern for anyone in
Ireland who was concerned about the implications of an attack on
British nuclear plants such as Sellafield.
He said: "The report, in black and white, states that ?a
successful sabotage attack on a nuclear facility could cause
widespread radioactive contamination and loss of life?.
"The safety report gives evidence of a sabotage attempt two years
ago when a security guard tried ?to compromise the station?s
access control system? but no further details are given.
?It also highlights delays in inspections due to staff shortages
with two experienced inspectors leaving in the last 18 months and
a further four either retiring or leaving in the next year.
"Planned inspections have now been suspended since last September
and are not expected to start again until next month ?at the
earliest?.
?Dermott Nesbitt has recently visited Sellafield. I would again
urge him to support the call for the closure of Sellafield. The
evidence points to a facility that is not safe.
"The potential risk to people in Ireland should not be
underestimated. I will be pressing the Minister on these issues
and would encourage all concerned individuals to contact the
Department of the Environment demanding answers.?
_Greenpeace on Sellafield
*****************************************************************
36 Student appeals to Prince Charles on Sellafield plant closure *
online.ie home
/The Irish Examiner 13 Jun 2002/
*By Michael O'Farrell*
A STUDENT has made a personal appeal to Prince Charles to close
the Sellafield plant because of the threat of pollution. Tara
Dunne wrote to the Prince of Wales asking him as a father to
think of future generations.
"I got really upset about the whole thing and wanted him to know
I was concerned about it," said the 17-year-old Dublin student.
The letter was one of thousands sent to authorities in Britain
and will be followed up by another anti-Sellafield publicity
assault on the Cumbria nuclear facility by Ali Hewson.
Although details are being kept under wraps, a spokesperson for
Ms Hewson said that there was more to come. "There will certainly
be another element to this campaign and it will be in Britain.
What we're doing at the moment is bringing all aspects of the
postcard campaign together before launching the next phase," said
the spokesperson.
Meanwhile, the pressure on Tony Blair's government continues
unabated, with the current edition of the Parliamentary Monitor -
a news magazine for British MPs - carrying a two-page spread by
Ms Hewson.
And apart from the 1.5 million postcards still being received by
Sellafield, Downing Street and Prince Charles, thousands of
letters have also been penned by concerned Irish citizens.
"It's really great to see. When we went down to the sorting
office we saw lots of people had written an additional note or
letter. I saw one person who wrote to Prince Charles, saying 'PS,
sorry to hear about you're granny'," said the spokesperson.
The Examiner Logo
*****************************************************************
37 Peace Action: Time for a Change in Direction
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 00:16:50 -0500 (CDT)
Action Alert Time for a Change in Direction In recent months, the
Bush administration has shown an increased reliance on aggressive
nuclear policy: Star Wars, "bunker busters," and targeting non-nuclear
countries. This dangerous shift is moving our country in the wrong
direction.
In response, Jonathan Schell, Randall Caroline Forsberg, and David
Cortright - leaders of the 80's movement for disarmament that helped
to pull us back from the nuclear brink - have put forward an urgent
call to limit the threat of nuclear weapons. "The drift toward
catastrophe," they warn, "must be reversed. Safety from nuclear
destruction must be our goal. We can reach it only by reducing and
then eliminating nuclear arms under binding agreements."
Their urgent call is timely. This week marks the end of the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty - the first time in its history the
United States has withdrawn from an international treaty. Also this
week, the Bush Administration plans to break ground at Fort Greely,
Alaska, to create a testing site for the Star Wars project.
Unfortunately, Missile Defense is not a modern solution to foreign
threats, but instead a Cold War relic.
For more information see: http://www.peace-action.org/home/direction.html
Call your member of Congress Last month, the Senate Armed Services
Committee cut $812 million from the Defense Authorization bill's
$7.6 billion appropriation for Missile Defense.
In the coming weeks this decision could be threatened. You can
reach your member of Congress through the congressional switchboard
at (202) 224-3121.
To find out who represents you, check out congress.org.
Tell your Congressperson:
It's important that the cuts to the Star Wars program remain,
whether it be in the upcoming Senate vote, or later in conference.
Unchecked military spending, especially for unproven and potentially
dangerous initiatives like Star Wars, will only waste our money,
threaten our security, and undo decades of international coordination
and weapons reduction.
Working Assets Customer?
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In order to nominate Peace Action, you need to send Working Assets
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Action if you have not already done so.
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mailto:cbenzschawel@peace-action.org http://www.peace-action.org
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The Peace Action Education Fund works for global elimination of
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military spending in order to address human needs.
*****************************************************************
38 Accidental Armageddon
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 11:07:50 -0500 (CDT)
[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 12-Jun-2002
Contact: Claire Bowles claire.bowles@rbi.co.uk 44-207-331-2751 New Scientist
Accidental Armageddon
What if the world's first nuclear war broke out by mistake?
THE threat of all-out war between India and Pakistan appears to be receding
this week. But despite this, fears are growing that the fragile stand-off may
yet degenerate into a nuclear exchange. And all through carelessness.
While weapons experts differ widely on how likely that scenario is, many have
told New Scientist that they are extremely concerned about the state of India
and Pakistan's nuclear arsenals, which lack many of the safeguards put in
place by more established nuclear powers. They say it is too easy for rogue or
misinformed commanders to unleash a nuclear missile or bomber. What's more, a
warhead could detonate by accident, making its owner think it had been bombed,
and triggering a counterstrike.
India is thought to possess some 35 warheads, and Pakistan between 24 and 48.
Both countries claim to keep the warheads "disassembled", with the
conventional explosive that initiates the chain reaction stored elsewhere from
the nuclear material.
The risk of an accidental detonation depends on how readily the warheads can
be reassembled. The Pugwash organisation, which campaigns for nuclear
disarmament, quotes Pakistani generals as saying late last year that their
warheads can be put together "very quickly", and have no "permissive action
links", a security mechanism designed to prevent unauthorised access. The same
seems likely to be the case in India.
But aside from fears about unauthorised attacks, simply moving warheads around
or loading them onto aircraft or missiles can be risky. Geoff Forden of the
Security Studies programme at Massachusetts Institute of Technology notes that
the US had to perform many tests on its conventional explosives before it
arrived at nuclear warhead designs that would not go off if some of the
explosive accidentally ignited. But neither India nor Pakistan has done any
such testing. "An accidental explosion would leave little evidence that it was
accidental," says Forden. "The government would naturally assume it had been
attacked, and retaliate."
American satellites that monitor launches could in theory reassure the
aggrieved side that there had been no missile attack. But experts wonder if
their advice would be believed, even if it came in time to avert a
counterstrike. A joint US-Russian centre for providing such information, which
was due to open in May, would add credibility to any reassurance. But it is
not yet up and running.
There's no question that accidents do happen. Warheads in the US and the
Soviet Union have been engulfed by devastating fires and explosions, though
none has ever fully detonated. But M. V. Ramana of Princeton University in New
Jersey notes that even if the very sensitive conventional explosives used in
Indian and Pakistani warheads blew up without causing a chain reaction, the
explosion would contaminate a large area with nuclear material and could cause
thousands of cancers.
If there were a full nuclear explosion, it could also trigger events that
might lead to a wider war, with China, the US and others rushing to support
their allies after the supposed attack.
###
Author: Debora MacKenzie
New Scientist issue: 15 JUNE 2002
PLEASE MENTION NEW SCIENTIST AS THE SOURCE OF THIS STORY AND, IF PUBLISHING
ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A HYPERLINK TO: http://www.newscientist.com
*****************************************************************
39 The fear of terrorism*
deseretnews.com
Opinion
Thursday, June 13, 2002
*Deseret News editorial*
A "dirty bomb," much like hijacked airplanes targeted at
major buildings, would cause more psychological injury to the
United States than anything else. True, hundreds, perhaps even
thousands, of people might die. Depending on where the bomb
detonated, large sections of a city may remain uninhabitable for
months, or even years, because of radioactive contamination. But
it would not qualify as a weapon of mass destruction.
Al-Qaida knows it has no chance of matching the firepower
of the U.S. military. As a movement, it is relatively small. Like
any worthy magician, its operatives labor to create an illusion.
If Americans feel unsafe, if they begin to doubt their own
institutions, if they feel their precious freedoms no longer are
worth keeping in place, the terrorist wins.
In some disturbing ways, Americans already are
demonstrating they have let terrorists make important gains. A
newly released Gallup poll shows one third of Americans believe
authorities should have more sweeping access to private telephone
conversations and e-mail messages. A whopping 70 percent or more
believe all Americans should be required to carry an I.D. card
with their fingerprints on it. Never mind what may happen if the
card is stolen.
This is disturbing. Americans always have operated under
the belief that basic freedoms are worth the risk that a few
guilty people might go free. The ugly side to a secure police
state is that too many innocent people might not go free. Now, it
seems, those basic principles are at risk, and for a war that
never has been declared and whose end is not in sight.
The nation owes a debt of gratitude to federal
law-enforcement agencies and intelligence gatherers for thwarting
an apparent attempt by a U.S. citizen to build and detonate a
dirty bomb. Jose Padilla, a two-bit street gangster in Chicago
who likely converted to Islam while in prison and developed a
perverted sense of that religion's teachings, is particularly
dangerous because he is an American. He holds a U.S. passport. He
is of Hispanic origin and could mingle freely among other
Americans without prompting suspicions even from those most
likely to profile people on the basis of appearances.
He was caught because of a tip from Abu Zubaydah, the
highest ranking al-Qaida operative known to be in U.S. custody.
It was, from all appearances, a nice piece of detective work that
may well have saved the nation considerable torment and grief.
Dirty bombs are conventional explosives wrapped with radioactive
material. They are not nuclear devices, but they would seriously
disrupt the nation and its economy.
But now the administration must decide what to do with
Padilla. Attorney General John Ashcroft has announced that he is
considered an "enemy combatant" and is being held indefinitely at
a military facility.
Clearly, these are extraordinary times. Government
officials felt Padilla was a significant risk, but they admit he
had yet to formulate his planned attack at the time of his
arrest. They likely don't have the evidence needed to obtain a
conviction in court.
U.S. citizens shouldn't be held indefinitely. If Padilla
can remain under lock and key without anyone having to
demonstrate why, every American is a little less safe, and a
little less free. The question is whether one safety is worth the
sacrifice of another. The answer this generation gives could
shape the future in profound ways.
© 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
40 Intelligence expert says terrorists could pose nuclear threat
to U.S.
KnoxNews: Local
Afghan Journal
By Fred Brown, News-Sentinel senior writer
June 13, 2002
BAYEUX, France - John Patrick Quirk, an American national
security and intelligence expert, says he fears the next
terrorist attack will involve a nuclear device, possibly against
a target like Oak Ridge.
Quirk, who teaches at the prestigious Center for Diplomatic and
Strategic Studies in Paris, made his comments to a group of
University of Tennessee students studying in France for the next
two weeks.
The 14 students are part of UT's Normandy Scholars program who
are on their annual field trip to Normandy to study the D-Day
landings of World War II and the invasion of France.
The students arrived in Normandy June 8 and are taking part in a
series of seminars, lectures, and trips to the invasion beaches,
museums and memorials. They return to Knoxville June 21.
Quirk, 56, who also has a home in Boca Raton, Fla., and divides
his time between Normandy and Florida, said the attacks on the
World Trade Center were "an intelligence failure, just like Pearl
Harbor during World War II."
He told the students that experts and scholars within the
intelligence community are just now discovering how important the
Normandy Invasion was in terms of what it means to today's
post-Sept. 11 world.
Prior to WWII, he said, the United States did not have an
intelligence-gathering capacity, unlike Great Britain, Germany
and France, Russia and China.
And in a sense, America has been playing catch-up in the spy
game, through World War II, the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam and the
Gulf War.
Quirk, who has written books on the CIA and FBI as well as
national security, said the intelligence community should have
handled operations like the Gulf War and Afghanistan long before
they reached a state of war and conflict.
Part of the reason the United States has been so far behind
Europe and other nations in the spy service game, he said, is
because it takes decades, if not hundreds of years, to develop
what he called "trade craft," the art and science of spying.
Quirk said laxity in U.S. spying "trade craft," which is just now
getting back to the sort of intensity that involves covert
operations, led to the Sept. 11 disaster at the World Trade
Center and Pentagon.
The beginning of the slide in the spy service began in 1971 when
Congress curtailed its covert operations, he said. But after
Sept. 11, he said, "Congress took the handcuffs off of the CIA."
That move hasn't come too soon, he said. Some Islamic countries,
he said, are working to "obtain and to deploy a nuclear device in
the U.S., and the chances of that happening are very high. We are
in a race against the clock."
Quirk said he does not see another conventional-type weapon being
deployed against the United States, because international
terrorist cells have had more than a decade to prepare inside the
United States undetected.
"It will be nuclear, and it could be in some place like Oak
Ridge," he said.
He told the students that America's spying apparatus was so
hamstrung that even though the United States has given billions
to the CIA, the country is so disliked worldwide that the nation
was caught flat-footed Sept. 11.
"The Saudi Arabians and Pakistanis didn't warn us," he said.
"Most of the men that delivered those weapons to the World Trade
Center were Saudis. And no one told us.
"There are more than 30 nations that hate us. And no one knows
where this is leading."
At the same time he said he worries about the United States
facing an unknown nuclear threat from terrorist cells, he said he
is also concerned that the recently passed Homeland Protection
Act and the Patriot Act could create the rudiments of a police
state and turn the FBI into a foreign counter-intelligence
organization, something it is not equipped to do.
"This is a tremendous question for our democratic society.
Hopefully we will come back to a middle road."
Quirk said the world today is quite unsafe with the rise of
anti-Muslim attitudes in France, the increase in the right wing
in Germany and other nations.
"This is how Hitler came to power," he said.
Fred Brown may be reached at 865-342-6427 or brownf@knews.com.
The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
41 Russia: Tried in absentia
June 12, 2002
Another case of a Russian accused of revealing classified
information will be heard in a Moscow court tomorrow, but when
the trial begins, the defendant won?t be there. Oleg Kalugin, an
ex-KGB operative, is charged?in absentia?with high treason for
the disclosure of state secrets. Kalugin, who now lives in the
United States, said ?The FSB, which is behind this mockery of a
trial, wants to show the whole world that it is still working,?
(Interfax, June 4).
The hearing was postponed until June 13 so that the court could
review a petition filed by Kalugin?s lawyer to suspend the trial
because prosecution in absence of the defendant would be unfair.
Kalugin has never met his lawyer.
The FSB, the successor organization of the KGB, maintains that
Kalugin disclosed state secrets in his testimony in the trial of
a U.S. Army officer accused of spying for the Soviet Union and
Russia. Kalugin maintains he disclosed nothing that had not
already been divulged by a previous defector.
Under the current Russian criminal code, defendants who refuse to appear
in court can still be sentenced in absentia. But this Khrushchev-era
criminal code remains in force only until July 1, when it will be
replaced by one approved last year that bans in-absentia trials.
Kalugin?s case is one in a string of many brought by the FSB. In the
March/April 2001 /Bulletin/, Michael Flynn reported on the case of Igor
Sutyagin, a Russian arms control expert accused of treason, writing that
?The FSB is pursuing a number of espionage cases against academics,
journalists, and environmentalists.?
In 1993, Natalia Gevorkian reported in the /Bulletin/ that although the
KGB had been dissolved in August 1991, the organization was actually
undergoing a rebirth. ?It is not so easy to kill the secret police,?
Gevorkian wrote.
Energy's true colors
When Congress voted in October 2000 to compensate workers made sick
while building the country's nuclear arsenal, activists, legislators,
and workers lauded the Energy Department's role in pushing the
legislation ("A Debt Long Overdue," July/August 2001 /Bulletin/).
In May, the Energy Department, now under new leadership, issued draft
regulations for the compensation program that promote the exact opposite
of the legislation's original intent. Instead of urging contractors not
to contest approved claims, the Energy Department now proposes assisting
them in challenging claims made by workers who were exposed to toxic
substances. "The entire concept of the legislation is on its head,"
analyst Richard Miller told the /Nashville Tennessean/ (May 14).
June 6, 2002
Plutonium pit production planned
The Energy Department has begun design work on a new facility for the
production of plutonium pits, the ?triggers? in nuclear weapons. In its
May 31 announcement, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
says it wants the plant online by 2020.
Plutonium pits had previously been manufactured at the Rocky Flats
facility in Colorado, but when that plant shut down in 1989 for safety
and environmental reasons, pit production was basically cut off.
Since then, the TA55 facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory has
produced ?development? pits on a small-scale basis. Although TA55 is
slated to increase production and is scheduled to make a certifiable W88
pit by 2003, the output will not be enough for NNSA?s projected needs.
The directive to make new plutonium pits comes from the Bush
administration?s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which was leaked earlier
this year. The NPR reveals ?an ambitious expansion in potential nuclear
targets, new and different weapons, and more ?flexible? nuclear war
planning,? as Stephen Schwartz wrote in the May/June 2002 /Bulletin/.
www.thebulletin.org
*****************************************************************
42 Landmark ABM Treaty Expires
Las Vegas SUN
June 12, 2002
WASHINGTON- The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, long the
centerpiece of nuclear equilibrium between the United States and
the Soviet Union and a strong deterrent to other nations with
nuclear aspirations, is officially being put to rest. Barring
last-minute court intervention, the 1972 treaty expires
Thursday, six months after President Bush invoked a provision
allowing either side to withdraw upon such notice. It is 30 years
and one month old.
Not gravediggers' shovels, but those of construction workers and
Pentagon officials will mark the passing of the treaty at a
ceremony Saturday in Delta Junction, Alaska, breaking ground on a
test site for the administration's $64 billion missile defense
system. The treaty had banned such construction.
"We have moved beyond an ABM Treaty that prevented us from
defending our people and our friends," President Bush asserted
recently. He was expected to mark its passing with just a written
statement Thursday, White House aides said Wednesday, a
toned-down gesture in deference to Russia and other treaty
supporters among U.S. allies.
Bush and his congressional allies claim the treaty - between the
United States and a nation that no longer exists, the Soviet
Union - outlived its usefulness long ago.
But there are many mourners, including much of the international
community, many U.S. lawmakers and arms control advocates. Until
recently, NATO foreign ministers had routinely described the
treaty as the "cornerstone of strategic stability," and many
Europeans still support it.
"The ABM Treaty pullout at this stage appears neither prudent nor
necessary," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms
Control Association. "Missile defense is an expensive and
unreliable method to deal with what is now considered a
low-probability threat."
The treaty "has served world security well for 30 years," said
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, one of 31 House members who sued
Bush in federal court Tuesday in a last-ditch effort to preserve
the treaty.
Still, initial anger on the part of some U.S. allies has given
way to apparent resignation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, an outspoken defender of the
treaty, relented and signed an agreement with Bush in Moscow last
month pledging future missile defense cooperation.
"The Russians will benefit, we will benefit, the world will
benefit. Because this missile defense will basically be aimed at
terrorists and rogue states," said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., a
longtime missile defense advocate. "Civilized nations, and
hopefully that will eventually include China, will come together
and work on this technology as partners."
President Nixon signed the treaty with Soviet leader Leonid
Brezhnev in the Kremlin in May 1972.
Brezhnev "used a red pencil to sketch missiles on the notepad in
front of him," as over a three-day period they negotiated both
the ABM Treaty and the companion SALT I pact to limit offensive
nuclear weapons, Nixon recalled.
"The ABM Treaty stopped what inevitably would have become a
defensive arms race," Nixon wrote in his memoirs. "The other
major effect ... was to make permanent the concept of deterrence
through `mutual terror.'"
The concept was that both countries had enough missiles to
destroy each other many times over, with or without a missile
defense system. Any attack by one thus would amount to joint
suicide.
That policy of mutual assured destruction, known as MAD, not only
produced superpower stability but also helped discourage other
nations from becoming nuclear powers, suggest arms control
analysts.
It provided as well the underpinning for a series of arms
reduction treaties, right up through the one in May in which Bush
and Putin pledged to cut their long-range nuclear arsenals by
two-thirds, to 1,700 to 2,200 warheads, over the next decade.
Republicans have made missile defense a high priority since 1983,
when President Reagan outlined an ambitious Strategic Defense
Initiative that included space-based interceptors. It was
ridiculed by critics as "Star Wars" and GOP efforts to bring it
about withered in a succession of Democratic-controlled
Congresses.
The world changed in 1998.
Then, India and Pakistan conducted back-to-back nuclear tests.
North Korea tested a surprisingly sophisticated long-range
missile. Evidence suggested Iran was working on a similar
capability.
President Clinton, under pressure from Republicans, signed
legislation in 1999 to deploy a limited missile defense when one
was technologically feasible. Near the end of his term he
deferred a decision on deployment to the next president.
Bush ran with it, notifying U.S. allies and Russia early in his
term that he intended to withdraw from the ABM Treaty and build a
missile defense.
Missile defense defenders said the Sept. 11 attacks and
subsequent terror alerts only reinforce the need to strengthen
defenses and relegate the treaty to what Sen. Jesse Helms,
R-N.C., called "the dustbin of history."
But arms control activist Jonathan Schell of the Nation Institute
warns of "a whole chain of further consequences" to scrapping the
treaty, including putting pressure on China to increase its
nuclear arsenal. "And that sends a bad signal to the whole
world," he said.
On the Net: Pentagon Missile Defense Agency:
http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/ [http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/] Arms
Control Association: http://www.armscontrol.org
[http://www.armscontrol.org]
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
43 Moscow Opens Spy Trial in Absentia
Las Vegas SUN
June 13, 2002
MOSCOW- A Moscow court on Thursday opened the trial in absentia
of Oleg Kalugin, an ex-KGB general now living in the United
States, court officials said.
Kalugin, who ran KGB foreign counterintelligence from 1973 to
1980, has refused to return to Russia for the trial, describing
it as a farce and an act of revenge by his former colleagues. He
is being tried under soon-to-be outdated legislation; next month
a new criminal code goes into force disallowing trials in
absentia.
The city court on Thursday dismissed complaints by Kalugin's
lawyer, Yevgeny Baru, and adjourned the case until Monday, the
ITAR-Tass and Interfax news agencies reported.
Baru, who was appointed by the court to defend Kalugin, told
Russia's TVS television that he asked the court to allow him to
contact Kalugin. "If he needs a lawyer, I hope that he will say
that," Baru said. "If no, I'll be unable to defend him."
The trial is closed to the public. Court officials said all
information concerning the case is classified, and they refused
to discuss any details.
However, Kalugin reportedly faces charges of high treason for
testifying against George Trofimoff, a retired U.S. Army Reserve
colonel who was one of the Soviet Union's top spies during the
1970s. Trofimoff was convicted last year of spying.
The ITAR-Tass news agency has reported the charges against
Kalugin also dealt with a book he wrote that allegedly helped
U.S. security officials track down Trofimoff's sources.
Kalugin, who has lived in the United States since the mid-1990s,
has openly criticized his former KGB colleagues, while making
money out of his notoriety as a former spy chief.
He has worked as a consultant for U.S. companies, created a
high-tech, interactive spy game with the late former CIA director
William Colby, and even given espionage tours of Washington.
Russian authorities have also launched a trial of another
high-profile ex-KGB officer, Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko,
who lives in Britain, is charged with abuse of authority and
stealing explosives. He has also refused to return to Russia to
face prosecution.
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
44 UK anti-terror force plans unveiled
BBC News | UK POLITICS |
Wednesday, 12 June, 2002,
[Territorial Army] There is a change of heart over reservists
A 6,000-strong reaction force is planned in case of 11
September-style attacks on the UK, the Ministry of Defence (MoD)
has announced.
The proposed force would be drawn from volunteers among the
existing 50,000 or so armed forces reservists.
New reaction force
6,000 troops involved Largely from 50,000 reservists Will aid
emergency services in the event of terror attack Chemical,
nuclear or biological attacks not ruled out Mobilisation within
hours of attack
They would be on stand-by to help emergency services in the
aftermath of all kinds of terrorist strikes - including chemical,
biological or even nuclear attacks.
But Conservative defence spokesman Bernard Jenkin cast doubt on
whether the plans went far enough.
"We are not dealing with the IRA who are a terrorist organisation
who do not like to kill themselves...
"We are talking about terrorists who are prepared to go to any
lengths."
'Rebalancing'
Under the proposals volunteers for the force would remain with
their normal units and be earmarked for availability in the event
of a terrorist strike.
[TA soldiers]
The TA has 40,000 members
Receiving five or six days' extra training a year, they will be
available to help police within a few hours of an attack. They
will carry out operational tasks such as searching for survivors,
securing water supplies and communications, dealing with mass
casualties and organising transport.
Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon told the BBC that the UK had set out
to learn lessons from the 11 September atrocity.
"The first job of government is to ensure the safety and security
of its people and this is part of the lessons that we are
learning, specifically in relation to the role of the reserves
and what they can do," he said.
Earlier this year the MoD said Territorial Army volunteers should
play an expanded role to reduce the pressure on the regular
forces.
It said that as increasing numbers of British soldiers were being
deployed abroad on the "war on terror", new ideas were needed for
homeland defence.
The volunteer reserves could play an important role in meeting
the challenges posed following the terrorist attacks in the
United States
Geoff Hoon
The consultation paper foresees a greater role for the armed
forces in civil contingency planning.
The predominantly Territorial Army 2 Signal Brigade would be
equipped with compatible radio systems to those used by the
police and civil emergency services.
But a new force would only be deployed in the event of "wholly
exceptional" circumstances of a major terrorist attack.
Such attacks were acknowledged in the consultation paper as
likely to be "infrequent" although their unpredictability and the
chances of multiple attacks to maximise impact were not ruled
out.
"Chemical, biological, radiological or even nuclear devices
cannot be ruled out," the paper warned.
"Although the international response to the September 11 attack
may help to reduce the likelihood that these might be used, some
terrorist groups will certainly be interested in causing an
equivalent, mass casualty effect."
Change of thinking?
While reservists are clearly seen to have an important future
role, defence sources stressed they would form just one part of
the UK's military response.
The full resources of the regular forces would still be
available.
The announcement shows a change of heart since the 1998 strategic
defence review when the government thinking involved scaling back
reserves by nearly a third - a point seized on by Mr Jenkin.
He also said that no new money appeared to be forthcoming for the
force although he refused to say what funds a Conservative
government might make available.
"The present commitments of the armed forces already outstrip
resources - will this simply add to overstretch?" he asked.
*****************************************************************
45 Russia scraps Typhoons
Cold war demolition machines — five Typhoon class submarines —
will be scrapped. New generation subs are entering the scene.
Igor Kudrik, 2002-06-12 19:03
Severodvinsk shipyard Sevmash has started defueling a Typhoon
class submarine. The submarine will be scrapped shortly after
that. The whole process is funded by the US Cooperative Threat
Reduction program, or Nunn-Lugar program.
The Soviet Union has built six Typhoons — world's biggest
submarines included into the Guinness Book of World Records and
promoted in Hollywood's Hunt for the Red October. This 172 meters
long submarine is capable of carrying 20 ballistic missiles each
armed with 10 nuclear warheads.
The design work of Typhoons started in 1973 and was an answer to
American Trident submarines which could carry 24 new solid fuel
intercontinental missiles. The USSR engineered solid fuel
missiles, but they grew in size what influenced the design of
Typhoon class. The submarine was to integrate two independent
hulls — a kind of catamaran. The oblate form of the submarine was
prompted by the shallow waters in the area of Severodvinsk
shipyards. Such solution led to increased displacement of the
submarine — Typhoon class has 49,800 tonnes displacement
submerged and was nicknamed a "water-carrier" — but it also led
to increased safety and better possibilities to perform repairs
and upgrade due to a high degree of modulation of various parts
of machinery. Typhoons were also designed to launch missiles from
the Arctic being capable of surfacing from underneath 2 to 2.5
meters thick ice to shoot out its arsenal.
Each Typhoon had two PWR reactors with 100,000 h.p., located in
the starboard and portside hulls. The nuclear installation was
equipped with the system of battery-free cooling, and the reactor
control rods would go down automatically in case of emergency
even if the submarine flips.
The first submarine entered service in 1981. The last Typhoon was
commissioned in 1989. All of them were stationed in Nerpichya
base, Zapadnaya Litsa fjord at the Kola Peninsula. The Soviet
Union had ambitious plans of building Typhoons in great numbers
and assign them both to the Northern Fleet and the Pacific Fleet.
But by the end of 1980s a decision was made to halt the program
due to the cost of the endeavour and political considerations —
the cold war was nearing its end. The seventh Typhoon was
dismantled in the building berth in Severodvinsk in 1990.
Another reason to quit Typhoons was the complicated
infrastructure they required to operate properly. Redesigning of
Nerpichya base which earlier hosted first generation submarines
of Echo-II and Hotel classes started in 1977. Most of the other
existing bases could not accept Typhoons due to their football
field size. The reconstruction of Nerpichya was completed in
1981. New pier plants were designed and built to supply Typhoons
with electricity and heat when in base. Typhoon's missiles were
also difficult to handle due to their size. They could be
transported only by railway and lifted by a 125-tonne crane.
Neither the railway nor the quay crane were commissioned. No
initial design features were functioning in the pier plants
either. They were used just like any other quay facilities except
for being larger in size. The loading of missiles was carried out
by a transport ship Aleksandr Brykin which was built specifically
for Typhoons and had 125-tonne crane onboard. The Pacific Fleet
was also to build base facilities for Typhoons but had failed to
do anything in that direction until 1990s when the Typhoon
program was finally wrapped up.
In 1996, TK-12 and TK-202 and in 1997 TK-13 were taken out of
regular service and placed on reserve.
Two last built submarines — TK-17 and TK-20 — allegedly remain in
service but de facto they have not been fulfilling any missions
the past two or three years.
The first submarine within Typhoon class — TK-208 — commissioned
in 1981 has been under repairs in Severodvinsk since 1990. In
2000, Severodvinsk received additional funding for repairs and
said that the submarine might join the Northern Fleet in 2001.
The submarine is, however, still in Severodvinsk.
Demolition machine under decommissioning
TK-202 arrived to Severodvinsk first week of July 1999 for
decommissioning. The work on this submarine and four others — in
total five except for TK-208 — is to be funded by the US
Cooperative Threat Reduction program. Although being in
Severodvinsk since 1999, no major work has started on TK-202 —
except for cut out missile tubes — until June this year. The
question to decommission the first Typhoon was a complicated
political decision. These giant submarines are still one of the
prides inherited from the Soviet Union and scrapping the pride
was hard to accept for many politicians. From the practical point
of view Typhoons have become useless after the end of the cold
war and too expensive for the scarce budget of the Russian navy.
The first week of June, Sevmash shipyard started to defuel two
reactors of TK-202. CTR is paying for all the jobs necessary to
do. This includes funding of infrastructure, such as a storage
pad for TK-18 containers which will hold spent fuel from this
Typhoon and other strategic submarines decommissioned at
Zvezdochka shipyard, located at the opposite side of Sevmash on
Yagry island.
Four Typhoons to go, fifth generation subs to enter
The remaining four Typhoons — TK-12, TK-13, TK-17 and TK-20 —
which are not currently in Severodvinsk are still at Nerpichya
base. One of the Typhoons was observed, however, at Gadzhievo.
Should TK-208, which has been under repairs in Severodvinsk, ever
enter service again, it is unlikely the submarine will go back to
Nerpichya. Unofficial sources suggest that all the base points
located in Zapadnaya Litsa fjord — Malaya Lopatka, Bolshaya
Lopatka and Nerpichya — are in the process of closing down. The
submarines, which remain there — Oscar and Victor classes — will
be transferred to other bases such as Gadzhievo and Vidyaevo. The
base point Andreeva Guba used as a dumping ground for spent
nuclear fuel and radioactive waste will be cleaned up, given
funding, including international, is in place.
The only operational strategic submarines left in the Russian
Navy are Delta-III and Delta-IV classes. Sevmash which is along
with decommissioning also still builds new submarines has
reportedly four boats in its construction docks, including one
Borey class strategic submarine and one Severodvinsk class,
likely multipurpose, submarine. Borey class has been recently
reclassified by the Russian navy to be the fifth generation,
whereas Severodvinsk class is referred to the forth generation.
The two other submarines under construction are unknown. The
newest Russian submarines — Akula class attack submarines —
belong to the third generation.
K-no.
(fabric no.) Ship yard
-Laid down
-Launched Active service
-Start date
-End date Accidents/Incidents
Present condition
TK-208 Sevmash
30/06 1976
23/09 1979 12/12 1981
1986: Reactor cleaning unit leakage
1987: Reactor cleaning unit leakage
The submarine has been under upgrade and repairs at Sevmash
shipyard since 1990. Repairs intensified in 2000, but the
submarine is still at the shipyard.
TK-202 Sevmash
01/10 1980
26/04 1982 28/12 1983
1996 No data Under decommissioning with CTR funds at
Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk since 1999. Defueling started
in June 2002.
TK-12 Sevmash
27/04 1982
17/12 1983 27/12 1984
1996 No data Laid-up in Nerpichya Bay, Zapadnaya Litsa.
TK-13 Sevmash
05/01 1984
30/04 1985 30/12 1985
1997 No data Laid-up in Nerpichya Bay, Zapadnaya Litsa.
TK-17 Sevmash
24/02 1985
Aug 1986 06/11 1987
in service No data
Based in Nerpichya Bay, Zapadnaya Litsa.
TK-20 Sevmash
06/01 1986
Jul 1988 Sep 1989
In service No data Based in Nerpichya Bay, Zapadnaya
Litsa.
Publisher: [bellona@bellona.no] , President:
[frederic@bellona.no]
Information: [info@bellona.no] , Technical contact:
[webmaster@bellona.no]
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
46 Pasko in the Supreme Court
Gregory Pasko, an investigative journalist who worked for the
Pacific Fleet's newspaper, was arrested on 20 November 1997 by
the FSB and charged with high treason for his writing about the
nuclear safety issues in the Russian Pacific Fleet. Jump to
section [The Arctic Nuclear Challenge]
Jon Gauslaa, 2002-06-13 08:43
When the Russian Supreme Court will handle the appeal case of
Grigory Pasko on June 25th, 10 AM, it will be exactly six months
since Pasko on Christmas day 2001 was handcuffed in the Pacific
Fleet Court and thrown into a solitary cell in the Vladivostok
detention centre.
Pasko will not be present at the Supreme Court hearing, in which
General-Lieutenant of Justice Yury Parhomchuk will be the
presiding judge. In February 2002, the General-Lieutenant, who is
known as a man of compromises, rejected a defence request on
changing the measure of restraint for Pasko. Thus, Pasko had to
stay behind bars.
A remote dream
While the defence seeks a full acquittal, the prosecution
demands a more severe sentence than the four years Pasko was
convicted to, pointing at the fact that this is eight years below
the Russian Penal Code's minimum sentence for treason through
espionage.
As to the outcome of the appeal case, several possibilities
exist. If the Supreme Court agrees with the defence that the
verdict lacks both a factual and a legal foundation, and that it
also is fabricated on the basis of illegally collected
'evidence', it may declare that there were no content of crime in
Pasko's actions, terminate the case and order his release.
It could, however, be more likely that it cancels the verdict of
the Pacific Fleet Court and sends the case back for a third trial
without releasing him. Such an outcome may sound like a farce,
but it is well within the limits of the prevailing Russian law.
If the Court, on the other hand, should rule that the verdict of
the Pacific Fleet Court is in accordance with the law, Pasko will
be transferred to a labour camp in the Russian Far East, where he
most likely will serve the rest of his sentence chopping wood. If
the sentence is not changed, he will be released on April 25th,
2004.
To complete the picture it should also be mentioned that while
the prosecution has the right to appeal any decision that goes in
Pasko's favour to the Presidium of the Supreme Court, Pasko has
not the similar right to appeal a decision that goes in his
disfavour. So, even if more than four years have passed since
Russia ratified the European Convention on Human Rights, the
principle of equality of arms still appears like a remote dream.
Once acquitted, twice convicted
Grigory Pasko worked as an investigative journalist for the
newspaper of the Russian Pacific Fleet, "Boyevaya Vakhta". His
articles were focusing mainly on nuclear safety issues within the
Pacific Fleet. He was arrested by the Russian Security Police
(the FSB) on November 20th, 1997, and accused with committing
treason through espionage when working with Japanese journalists.
On July 20th, 1999, the Court of the Pacific Fleet acquitted
Pasko of the treason charges. Yet, he was sentenced to three
years for 'abuse of his official position' (a crime he was never
charged with) and released under a general amnesty. The Military
Collegium of the Russian Supreme Court cancelled the verdict in
November 2000 and sent the case back to the Pacific Fleet Court
for a re-trial.
The re-trial started on July 11th and ended on December 25th,
2001 with Pasko being convicted to four years for treason through
espionage.
The spirit of stalinism
The conviction has created an outrage both inside Russia and
internationally. The International Helsinki Federation has
engaged itself in the case and Amnesty International who has
adopted Pasko as a prisoner of conscience, has characterised the
conviction as "motivated by political reprisal for exposing the
practice of dumping nuclear waste".
In February 2002, the European Parliament adopted a resolution
where it expresses its concern over the conviction. In late April
2002, the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly appointed Mr
Rudolf Bindig as its rapporteur on the case. At this session
Sergei Holovaty, a Ukrainian Parliamentarian who has followed the
Pasko-case closely, said that the case shows that the spirit of
stalinism still is strong within the Russian legal system.
Also several Russian organisations and individuals, including the
speaker of the Upper House of the Russian Parliament, Mr Sergei
Mironov, has protested against the verdict.
Russian President, the former FSB-chief, Vladimir Putin, has on
the other hand said that not even Pasko's own lawyers disputed
"the fact" that Pasko had transferred secret information to
Japanese journalists. The truth is, however, that Pasko was not
convicted for transferring any single item of secret information
to anybody.
He was acquitted on 97% of the charges brought against him, but
convicted for being in the possession of allegedly secret
information and for having the "intention" to hand this over to
the Japanese media at some later stage. Pasko's legal team,
consisting of lawyers Ivan Pavlov, Genrii Reznik and Anatoly
Pishkin and public defender Aleksandr Tkachenko, fiercely
disputes these assumptions.
Publisher: Bellona Foundation [bellona@bellona.no] , President:
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*****************************************************************
47 IEER | Past and Future of Nuclear War
IEER [http://www.ieer.org/index.html] | Publications
Transcript of a talk given at American University, April 29,
2002, with edits.
Professor Kuznick: Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President of the
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park,
Maryland, has authored and co-authored many articles, reports and
books on nuclear weapons and nuclear-weapons related issues,
including Target Japan, on the decision to bomb
Hiroshima-Nagasaki. Is the principal editor of Nuclear
Wastelands, published in 1995, which was nominated for a Pulitzer
Prize. He has testified repeatedly before the Congress, written
for a variety of publications including the Washington Post, the
New York Times, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. He has appeared on
national television and radio programs, including ABC World News
Tonight, William Buckley's Firing Line, and 60 Minutes. He holds
a Ph.D. from the electrical engineering department of the
University of California where he specialized in plasma physics
as applied to thermonuclear fusion and is one of the one leading
experts on all aspects of nuclear weapons and nuclear war
planning.
Arjun Makhijani: I want to honor, first of all, Mrs. Murakami and
Mr. Moriguchi [Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing survivors] for
bringing this message of love. It is a difficult message that you
are living and setting an example for all of us. Mahatma Gandhi
said that an eye for an eye, revenge, will turn the whole world
blind. And Martin Luther King reminded us that hatred cannot cure
hatred, only love can. So thank you for bringing that message to
us. I also want to honor Louise Franklin-Ramirez and John
Steinbach for more than 20 years, every year commemorating, rain
or shine, whether there are few people or many, commemorating the
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the city where the decision
was made for those terrible and tragic dates. And the American
University for sponsoring this and organizing this. Thank you
very much for holding this.
The terrorizing of the world with weapons of mass destruction -
and that's what it was - the idea that terror would be an
instrument of peace was born in the 1920s in the brain of an
Italian, Brigadier Douhet . He thought that if you terrorized
civilian populations, if you destroyed cities from the air, and
waged wars of terror, then the leaders of countries being bombed
would quickly submit and wars would be shorter and more merciful.
And therefore the war of terror - even though it would kill many
civilians - would be a merciful war.
The practice runs of the first full-scale merciful war were
carried out in Spain by Hitler during the bombing of Spanish
cities, commemorated by Picasso's famous painting, Guernica. But
the first real full-scale terror war of peace, was World War II.
Many cities were bombed and firebombed and it has been said that
perhaps Hiroshima and Nagasaki were only extensions of this
aerial warfare. And in some ways they were. But there was also
something very special about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After those
bombing one lone plane could terrorize an entire city forever in
the future. Now we know that one lone cargo container on a ship
with many cargo containers can also terrorize a city, for we do
not know which one of them might contain a bomb. Leaders all over
the world are worrying about it.
How did we go from an idea that terrorism would be an instrument
of peace and merciful war to the global war on terror that is in
itself leading the world down a terrible precipice toward
catastrophe. I believe that we are headed toward destruction in
multiple different ways. As Professor Kuznick said, I'll describe
the Nuclear Posture Review, but for five minutes I want to make a
radically new proposal to you the nature of the Manhattan
Project, which started it all.
A few days from now we will have the anniversary of one of the
most important, but also one of the most unnoted dates in the
20th century. May 5, 1943, which is hardly remembered, unlike
August 6 and August 9, 1945. But August 6 and August 9, 1945 -
the dates of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - were born
on May 5, 1943, when the whole idea of Manhattan Project as
something that was done out of fear of Hitler began change. That
was the day when the first targeting discussion was held in the
Manhattan Project and it was decided not to target Germany, out
of fear of German nuclear retaliation, fear of German nuclear
capabilities.
It was decided to target Japanese forces, first on the island of
Truk. Eventually the target became Japan itself, and the cities
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. Today, when society
confronts great problems, especially of a technical nature but
also of other kinds, environmental problems, for instance, people
in this country often say, let's us have a Manhattan Project to
solve it. I've always thought it odd that a project that resulted
in the incineration of cities and an arms race should be spoken
of in this way, as something exemplary that should be repeated.
We are in a situation where today, in this city especially, where
we could be evaporated with non-zero probability in any 15-minute
interval because there are 2000 warheads on hair-trigger alert in
Russia and somewhat the same number, maybe a few more, in the
United States or United States forces. That is one enduring
result of the Manhattan Project.
Today, Russia has already lost 18 out of 21 of the satellites
that helped it keep track of the alarms in the sky and prevent
false alarms and nuclear alerts. I would like to suggest to you
that, although the Manhattan Project was a technical success by
the criterion that the bombs went off on July 16 and on August 6
and August 9, that the Manhattan Project is one of the most
monumental failures in military, in moral, political, social, and
economic terms that human history has known. And the seeds of
that were on May 5, 1943.
After May 5, 1943, the targeting was progressive toward Japan and
Germany of never again specifically targeted, only mentioned
occasionally. The bombers were prepared for Japan in the fall of
1944. The scientists were never informed, although Groves, who
headed the Manhattan Project, said the target was always intended
to be Japan. Always! He said, always. When I interviewed several
of the scientists who led that project in 1995, none of them were
aware of this fact at the time that I interviewed them -- 50
years after the bombings.
In a way the Manhattan Project began living a lie on May 5, 1943.
The decisive moment in the creation of that lie was in early
December 1944, when the Allied troops were in Germany and it was
known that Germany did not have an atom bomb project worth the
name. The Alsos spy mission to check on German came back to the
United States with that news. The great scientist Joseph Rotblat,
who was part of the Manhattan Project, decided to resign. But he
was the only one. The purpose of the project was over for him.
Hitler did not have the bomb and would not have it. But for those
leaders of the Project who had made the decisions to invest the
money, for those who wanted to see this terror weapon come to
fruition as a weapon of American power, not only during the war,
but after the war, those leaders wanted to see the bomb used. And
most scientists appeared not to care. Some did and they did not
want it used, but most did not care.
Why do I say that the Manhattan Project was a failure? One reason
is that war, after all, was not ended with an unconditional
surrender. It was ended on the same terms that most Japanese
generals were ready in July and the Americans knew it. Even after
two atom bombs there were heartless Japanese generals who did not
want to surrender. They were ready to lead their country to
suicide as the Germans were. Yet the Japanese surrendered only on
condition that the emperor stay. And after the atom bomb the
Americans agreed, but before that they would not agree. And I put
it to you [that] the intervening decision to use the atomic bombs
and the days on which they were used -- as soon as the bombs were
ready -- had not so much to do with the immediate ending of the
war or preventing an invasion -- because an invasion was not due
until November of 1945.
The establishment of American power on August 6, 1945, inevitably
set off a nuclear arms race that you have heard about, that we
all know could incinerate the world in seconds. These days we
have heard a lot about suicide bombers who kill themselves and
others, innocent people. These suicide bombings cannot be
justified. Gandhi has said, and the message of his life was, that
the end result is shaped by the process at which we arrive at it.
If suicide bombing cannot be justified, what would the bombing
that would destroy the entire earth be like? How can we describe
it in relation to a cafe blown up, if in any 15 minute period
there are at least two fingers on two buttons that can evaporate
the earth and not only kill human beings instantly in the
hundreds of millions, but also destroy much other life as well.
If I might be permitted a moment of levity. Mark Twain in a
moment of dark humor, when many many innocent people were being
murdered and brutalized in imperialist adventures a hundred years
ago, was so shocked by the behavior of American troops at the
time that he said something like, "Human beings are not at the
top of the evolutionary ladder, they must be at the bottom of the
devolutionary ladder."
That nuclear weapons were about power and were not only about
confrontation with the Soviet Union is to be seen by how many
times nuclear weapons threats have been used against non-nuclear
countries. The Nuclear Posture Review is not new. First use has
been in the policy since 1945. The first post-World War II
nuclear threat was made in 1946 to the Soviet Union to get out of
Iran. It was not the Soviet Union's oil, but it wasn't American
oil, either. It was Iranian oil.
Pearl Harbor was about oil, it was about Indonesian oil. The
Americans had an embargo on the Japanese to not go after
Indonesian oil. The Americans wanted to dominate the Pacific. The
Japanese imperialists wanted to dominate the Pacific. But the oil
was neither the Japanese nor the Americans', and the Indonesians,
whose oil it was, were at the time, slaves.
September 11th also arose out of a contest for oil, with American
troops in Saudi Arabia and two-thirds of the world's recoverable
oil reserves in the Persian Gulf. I think the details of this are
very clear by now. The negotiations for a natural gas pipeline
with Afghanistan were restarted even before the Afghanistan war
was over. Oil-related nuclear threats and nuclear alerts have
occurred numerous times: 1956, 1958, 1973, 1979, 1991. And now we
have the Nuclear Posture Review.
But before we go to the Nuclear Posture Review, I want to mention
other nuclear weapons states. We have had a terrorist attack on
September 11 in this country. People from 80 countries died that
day, but that has been forgotten largely in the discourse. But
its connection to Hiroshima is very important to remember. Osama
bin Laden has made reference to Hiroshima many times. He has
said, "If the United States could use bombs on Hiroshima, I can
do the same."
The United States has declared a war on a terrorist group and on
countries that might hide the terrorists - although terrorism has
never really been defined. And let us remember that the first
definition of terrorism wars was in connection with wars by
states. Certainly there are many other kinds of terrorism and we
have seen one horrible and immoral face of that on September 11,
but it is only one face. But there is also terrorism from the air
that has been routinely conducted by states. I know Daniel
Ellsberg could not come. Let me remind people of what he has
said. When you stick a gun to somebody's head it is a use of the
gun, even if you do not shoot it.
The United States has used nuclear weapons threats more times
than any other country. The Soviet Union has used it. Now North
Korea has used it. India, the land of Buddha and Gandhi, has done
it; and Pakistan has done it. And other countries have also done
it. The single fact of all of these countries is that in the name
of national security, as a professor has described, "they've all
harmed their own people first of all."
I'll dwell a minute on the Nuclear Posture Review and then I'll
close by giving you a couple of vignettes of that damage in their
own countries. The United States made many commitments to the
world and especially to non-nuclear states in order to get them
to agree to renounce nuclear weapons. The Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty was first of all an American idea. The
treaty was born at a time when the United States felt a terrible
threat from other countries acquiring nuclear weapons, even
though it was the United States that had set in motion nuclear
proliferation by using the bomb on Hiroshima. Many had warned
about an arms race prior to that use. And they were right. It did
come about.
The chain of nuclear threats produced a chain of nuclear
proliferation, and that was largely stopped, although not
completely by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. There are 182
non-nuclear weapons states, five parties to the treaty that are
nuclear -weapons states (the United States, Russia, Britain,
France, and China), and three other nuclear weapons states:
Israel, Pakistan, and India. In recent years, with pressure on
the nuclear weapons states parties, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty has become a disarmament treaty. The non-nuclear parties
are demanding that there be some consideration given to the
solemn promise that the nuclear weapons states would eventually
get rid of their nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons states have
been forced in these diplomatic discussions to agree that they
are obliged to achieve nuclear disarmament in all its aspects. At
the same time, the United States and slowly also the other
nuclear weapons states, interestingly increasingly joined by
France, of course by Russia, and Britain, one doesn't know about
China yet, are eliminating most of these commitments in practice
and in their real policies, even as they make nicer and nicer
speeches in the United Nations.
In the last ten years, the Non-Proliferation Treaty has become a
disarmament treaty, the World Court has said, disarmament in all
its aspects is a commitment under the treaty. After the end of
the cold war, after every rationale that anyone ever had, if it
were reasonable, has been taken away for nuclear weapons. The
United States in the face of that, still has 2000 plus nuclear
weapons on hair-trigger alert, has invited Russia to keep its own
weapons on hair trigger alert, so the United States can deploy
ballistic missile defenses with Russian agreement. By agreeing to
Russian nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert and keeping its own
on similar alert, the United States is thereby subjecting its own
people to a permanent threat of accidental incineration in a
nuclear war. It also says that nuclear weapons must endure as a
principle of American security forever. Even the potential target
countries have been named in the Nuclear Posture Review. The
naming of these non-nuclear countries as targets is a clear
violation of the commitments that have been repeatedly given. We
also we have had a high official, the very one who is responsible
for security treaties in the State Department, say that treaties
are a political matter not a legal matter. He has suggested that
United States will adhere to them them only when the American
interest dictates. No other interest is apparently relevant.
Well, other people are listening. We have that gentleman Saddam
Hussein who we know is a ruthless man, who has killed his own
people. He is faced with threats from the United States everyday.
I do not imagine he will sit idly by. We know that Pakistan has
nuclear weapons and nuclear materials, we do not know what is
happening to the control of those nuclear materials since October
7th, 2001 when the war on terrorism began. Osama bin Laden was a
big, big reason for launching that war, but he has not been
captured. It is not known whether he is alive or dead - one day
he's alive, one day he's dead, probably this or probably that.
But he has disappeared as a high priority.
We have many nuclear materials around the world. Good accounting
is practically unknown for many of them. It does not seem to be a
high priority. We have spent fuel in nuclear power plants where
security is not assured and which pose major threats should they
become terrorist targets, but securing of spent fuel by shutting
down spent fuel pools is not at all a priority.
Let me give you a vignette of the nuclear weapons establishment
by telling you about Sharon Akers. I met her in 1998 in Idaho.
The United States government had just published its study showing
hot spots where much of the milk during the 1950s had been
contaminated and children, especially who had been raised on
farms, were getting high doses to their thyroids. I went to the
most affected counties - four of the five were in Idaho -- and I
spoke there. I revisited there this year and I want to let you
know that to this day, even though the children in those areas
received very high doses of radiation to their thyroids, I'm the
only outside scientist who has visited the area to inform the
public what happened there. Sharon Akers gave birth to a boy who
already had cancer when he was born. She carried him while he had
cancer. He died when he was six.
Sharon and her family lived in the country - cowboys and cowgirls
on a ranch - thinking they were living the clean life in the open
air. They did not know what the nature of the dust that was
falling on their laundry. The government told them it was safe.
Yet, the government knew that milk was being contaminated with
fallout, but it did nothing to protect the milk supply, to
protect American children in the 1950s. At the same time, the
government supplied secret fallout data to the entire
photographic film industry in the 1950s, Kodak and all the
others, so they could protect their film supply. The photographic
film industry had threatened to sue the American government if
they didn't give them this data.
People have lived in nuclear terror for more than half a century.
The fingers on those bombs - well, let me just say that there are
no safe hands for nuclear weapons. We live in a situation where
the world can be incinerated very fast. No finger is safe,
because even if it belonged to a good and moral person, no finger
is safe from error. We know we are all prone to error. And none
of is perfect. We were not born to be perfect. Nuclear weapons
are not safe weapons in any hands. It is not so that there are
some wrong hands and some right hands. All hands are the wrong
hands for nuclear weapons. The fingers on the nuclear trigger are
the ultimate fingers of terrorism, because nuclear weapons are
designed to be weapons of terror. You read the documents. This is
not not my assessment alone. It is the the assessment of those
who invented these weapons.
Where shall we go from here? Let me suggest two things to you.
This country gave the world the idea of the rule of law and it is
in the process of disavowing its most important security
commitments to the people of the world, including its own people.
And I put it to you, because it is very dangerous for everyone
including the people of this country, [that] it lives under an
illusion that the unilateral exercise of military power can bring
security. This is a false illusion in an age when there are eight
nuclear weapon-states, 36 other nuclear-capable states and
nuclear materials scattered in more than 100 countries. This is
an illusion. We must have whole-hearted cooperation from the
world and it is declining despite the number of flags that might
fly in the White House when there are political events. It is
crucial for the United States to meet its security treaty
commitments and to fulfill those commitments even when it seems
difficult to do it.
The other suggestion I have is for the allies of the United
States, including Japan and U.S. allies in NATO. They live under
the so-called U.S. nuclear umbrella. I would say that the people
of these countries should insist that ten years after the Cold
War it is time to close up the nuclear umbrella and to close up
the nuclear shop and end the illusion of nuclear deterrence. It
is time to give up the idea that this will provide permanent
safety. It is a wrong idea and it must be dispensed with, because
the policy of deterrence is also the engine of proliferation.
I was recently in Texas and I spoke to some cowboys and farmers
about guns and nuclear weapons. And I will close by recounting a
couple of things from that, which to me are real symbols of hope.
You don't imagine that I could talk to cowboys and farmers about
nuclear weapons but you know, they live in the shadow of the
Pantex plant, where nuclear weapons are assembled. They know me
well. They know that I will struggle for the environment, for
peace, and also for justice. So they came to humor me. I said to
them that, out there where they live generally by themselves, far
from their neighbors, it might be conceivable that a gun might be
an instrument of self-defense if an intruder attacked their
families. This is possible. I can conceive of this.
But I said to them also that slinging a nuke, that incinerating
cities, that trading off the lives of children for the lives of
grownups is wrong. What kind of morality is it that we can say
that the lives of soldiers were saved by killing children. We
must abandon this morality. Killing children is the ultimate
disrespect of life. Adults normally must sacrifice for the
future, which is represented by children. We have inverted this
morality. So some of the cowboys actually wound up thinking they
might agree with me and we got into deeper conversations.
One of the farmwomen told me that in her church a few days ago
there had been a discussion, it had nothing to do with my talk,
this is a church in a very conservative area of the United
States. A young man had been reflecting in the study group and he
said, "You know, I really am very troubled by this phrase 'God
bless America,' that I hear all the time. I think if it is
separating us from the rest of the world. I feel it says that we
are different and more precious (I am paraphrasing) whereas
everybody else is feeling the same fears and sorrows as us. Maybe
we ought to be saying 'God Bless the Earth.'"
We talked about how people from 80 countries have died in the
World Trade Center collapse. And I said, "Yes, maybe we ought to
be sewing the flags of all of those countries into a composite
flag that we might all fly.
The message of hope you bring - that Mrs. Murakami and Mr.
Moriguchi bring -- is being heard is most unlikely quarters. I
want to close by assuring you of that and that there are many of
us who are here and many colleagues who are not here who agree
with your message of love -- like the people you [Professor
Kazashi] have talked about in New York, who refuse to have their
loved ones [names] used for war, who refuse to have their grief
turned into blood, more blood. Your message is spreading. It is
also true that there is a contrary message that is hurtling the
world toward a kind of pain and sorrow and death that we cannot
seem to oppose successfully with our modest efforts. Therefore, I
think we must redouble those efforts of love and I want to thank
you very much for coming here with that message.
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research
[http://www.ieer.org/index.html] Comments to Outreach Director:
ieer@ieer.org [ieer@ieer.org] Takoma Park, Maryland, USA Posted
June 12, 2002
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48 Trudeau cabinet wrestled with eliminating Canada's nuclear
weapons in 1971
June 12, 2002 Trudeau cabinet wrestled with eliminating Canada's
nuclear weapons in 1971 OTTAWA (CP) -- Pierre Trudeau's
government considered eliminating Canada's nuclear weapons in
1971, but decided to keep some as a defence against a potential
Soviet bomber strike, newly released documents show.
Cabinet ministers had to make a chilling tradeoff between
northern and southern Canadians, deciding the air force needed
the nukes to destroy hostile bombers over the sparsely populated
North.
Cabinet papers from 1971 also reveal that Liberal ministers
discussed sending a light army battalion to Europe in the event
of war, even though it likely would be nothing but cannon fodder.
Many of the problems discussed 31 years ago as the government
prepared a so-called white paper on defence policy would be
familiar to defence planners of today. Issues included the size
of the budget, the politics of overseas deployments and
quality-of-life issues for troops.
But the nuclear weapon question was unique to the time. In
1971, the military had several types of American-built nuclear
weapons slated for Canadian use in time of war:
-- Nuclear-tipped Bomarc-B surface-to-air missiles.
-- CF-104 Starfighter attack jets armed with atomic bombs.
-- CF-101 Voodoo interceptors carrying Genie air-to-air
missiles.
The cabinet decided to scrap the Bomarcs and phase out the
Starfighter attack role. But the Genies were another matter.
"As long as the government still considered that there was a
residual bomber threat . . . there was justification for arming
these interceptors with nuclear weapons," say the minutes of a
July 8 cabinet meeting.
The idea was that if swarms of Soviet bombers roared over the
North Pole, the only effective way to down them would be to use
the shock wave of nuclear blasts to swat them out of the sky in
the arctic.
The cabinet's concern was that if the Voodoos lost their nukes,
the Americans would do the shooting from their own bases, meaning
the explosions would go off above Canadian population centres
closer to the U.S. border.
The ministers ordered the white paper redrafted to reflect that
it was better for Canadian planes to set off nuclear explosions
over the sparsely populated North than the densely populated
south.
This "remains, an important factor in the rationale for
continuing to arm Canada's interceptor force with defensive
nuclear weapons," the documents say.
Trudeau's government eventually phased out the last nuclear
weapons in the mid-1970s, ending Canada's military nuclear
capacity.
The 1971 cabinet documents also show that ministers discussed
the navy's anti-submarine capability, with Trudeau saying it
wasn't needed and should be wound down.
Sub-hunting was -- and still is -- a main role for the navy,
although Trudeau questioned the need to hunt missile-armed
submarines, which he saw as a second-strike weapon, not a first
threat.
"The prime minister wondered whether there was now some way to
put a time limit on the (anti-submarine) role," say the minutes
of July 22.
His proposal must have fizzled because Canadian still has a
sub-hunting navy.
In regard to the army, cabinet wanted to make the Canadian NATO
force a mobile reconnaissance outfit, even though it was clear
that "the survivability of the force was in question by the very
nature of reconnaissance work."
The ministers also proposed to send a light battalion to Europe
in the event of war, despite acknowledging "that the capability
and survivability of the very light Canadian elements assigned to
this role would be limited in the face of a strong U.S.S.R.
offence."
In the end, the light role would be rejected in the years ahead,
with the Canadian NATO force re-armed with heavy Leopard tanks
until it was withdrawn by the Mulroney government in the late
1980s.
The cabinet also discussed further reducing Canada's commitment
to NATO. The Liberals had already reduced it to 5,000 from 10,000
and hoped to reduce that further, to 4,400. But politics
intervened, since Canada had told allies that it would stay at
5,000.
Pulling the equivalent of a full battalion of 600 men would
raise hackles, the ministers agreed.
"This would be a noticeable reduction subject to criticism by
our NATO allies," the cabinet documents quote an unidentified
minister as saying.
Today's cabinet has faced similar decisions, deciding this month
to cut Canada's peacekeeping contingent in Bosnia to 1,200 troops
from 1,700. Earlier, it was decided not to replace the 750 troops
fighting with the Americans in Afghanistan.
The 1971 defence budget was $1.8 billion, compared with about
$12 billion today. It covered 82,000 soldiers, sailors and air
personnel, compared with about 55,000 effective troops today.
Even so, the army was stretched to maintain the European
commitment, plus 625 peacekeepers abroad and the ministers agreed
to raise the authorized manpower to 84,000.
Today, the military has about 4,200 people committed overseas.
[http://www.canoe.ca/copyright.html] © 2002, Canoe
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49 IEER | Multilateral Treaties Are Fundamental Tools for Protecting
Global Security, Fact sheet
United States Faces Choice of Bolstering These Regimes or
Allowing Their Erosion
June 2002
A Fact sheet based on the report Rule of Power or Rule of
Law?
An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding
Security-Related Treaties
Important global security treaties, including treaties on
nonproliferation and disarmament of weapons of mass destruction,
have been compromised or undermined by U.S. policies and actions
in recent years.
Multilateral treaties cannot in themselves ensure security, but
they offer a framework to meet today's extremely serious
challenges ranging from risks of accidental nuclear war and
terrorist use of a nuclear device to global warming and massacres
of civilians. Multilateral treaties and the regimes they
establish contribute to national and global security by
articulating norms, creating monitoring and enforcement
mechanisms, and providing benchmarks for progress. Opponents of
the international treaty system caution against binding
agreements where other states may not obey, but legal systems
must not be abandoned because some actors do not comply. Instead,
violations must be addressed with enforcement mechanisms
including verification procedures that work to detect and deter
violations and a range of sanctions.
As the world faces increased risk of terrorist attacks using
weapons of mass destruction, treaties are even more important in
terms of monitoring materials and preventing proliferation. In
addition to the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, and the Biological Weapons Convention
(which needs a strengthened verification regime to be successful
in controlling the spread and use of bioweapons), treaties could
be used to address accounting and safeguarding of nuclear weapons
usable materials, and to control radioactive materials that could
be used to make dirty bombs. International cooperation will also
be needed to avoid serious climatic problems and their
potentially devastating security implications.
U.S. refusal to abide by common rules risks the safety of the
U.S. public along with the rest of the world. The United States,
a leading advocate of the rule of law, should not set itself
above the law on the international plane. It should work toward
upholding international legal agreements, and when necessary to
work within them for modification instead of abandoning them.
There is value in the system where each country gives up
something to get something in return. For the treaties described
below, the added value is international security. U.S. policies
should be reconsidered for each of these treaties individually.
The benefit to national and global security derives as well from
the overall framework of interlocking and mutually reinforcing
treaties, and U.S. policy toward that framework should be
reassessed, including in Congressional hearings.
This briefing paper is based upon a report issued by the
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and the Lawyers'
Committee on Nuclear Policy, Nicole Deller, Arjun Makhijani, and
John Burroughs, eds., Rule of Power or Rule of Law? An Assessment
of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding Security-Related Treaties
(May 2002). [It is also available at www.lcnp.org
[http://www.lcnp.org] .] Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) -
The United States rejected a draft protocol to the BWC negotiated
by BWC states parties to create transparency and verification
mechanisms. Instead, the United States seeks only voluntary
measures that will not provide sufficient information on
facilities and agents that could be diverted for use in
bioweapons. Meanwhile, the United States has conducted biodefense
programs that may violate the BWC prohibition against developing
biological weapons, though absent transparency mechanisms there
is no way for third parties to determine that. Although these
activities were undertaken in the name of defense, the United
States would not rely on another country's assurances that its
bioweapons were created for defensive purposes.
Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) - The United States limited its
compliance with the declaration and inspection regime of the CWC.
It narrowed the facilities open to inspection, prohibited removal
of samples, and conferred on the president the right to refuse
inspections for national security reasons. The CWC does not
permit these limitations, and already contains thorough
safeguards for the protection of confidential information. The
limitations may prevent accurate results, and other states are
applying them to inspections of their facilities. The United
States recently led changes in management of the body charged
with implementing the CWC, expressing a desire to strengthen CWC
operations.
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) - Article VI of the NPT
obligates the United States and the other declared nuclear
weapons states to achieve complete nuclear disarmament through
good-faith negotiations. However, the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review
(NPR) plans for the maintenance of large and modernized nuclear
forces for the indefinite future and for expansion of options for
use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear armed countries.
Consistent with the NPR, the U.S.-Russian treaty signed in May
2002 permits deployment of arsenals of about 2000 warheads a
decade from now. Most reduced U.S. warheads will be retained in a
"responsive force" capable of redeployment in weeks or months.
The U.S. policy reflected in the NPR and the new treaty, and the
similar Russian policy, put both countries in violation of the
NPT disarmament obligation.
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) - The CTBT bans all nuclear
explosions, for any purpose, warlike or peaceful. In order to
enter into force, the CTBT must be signed and ratified by 44
listed countries that have some form of nuclear technological
capability, including the United States. The United States signed
the CTBT in 1996, but in 1999 the Senate voted to reject
ratification, and the Bush administration does not support
ratification. As a signatory, the United States is obliged under
treaty law to refrain from acts that would defeat the CTBT's
object and purpose. However, the United States, along with
France, which has ratified the CTBT, is preparing to violate the
prohibition of nuclear explosions by building large laser fusion
facilities with the intent of carrying out laboratory
thermonuclear explosions of up to ten pounds of TNT equivalent.
Mine Ban Treaty - The Mine Ban Treaty prohibiting antipersonnel
landmines has been ratified by 122 countries, not including the
United States. Although President Clinton committed the United
States to cease using antipersonnel mines by 2006 if alternatives
are identified and fielded, this policy is currently under review
by the Bush administration. Meanwhile, the U.S. search for
alternatives does not require alternatives to comply with the
treaty, so even if they are identified, the United States may not
be able to join the treaty.
UN Framework Convention on Climate Control (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto
Protocol - Climate change could have vast implications for global
security by disrupting food production and causing large
increases in refugees. As a party to the 1992 UNFCCC, the United
States is obligated to take "precautionary measures to
anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change."
Out of this framework arose the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which set
binding greenhouse gas emissions targets for developed countries.
The United States signed the protocol (a treaty), but refuses to
ratify it. Other countries bound by the protocol have agreed to
move forward with a set of limitations on emissions without the
United States. Regardless of whether the United States joins the
Kyoto Protocol, the obligations under the UNFCCC to take action
to reduce climate change still exist and are not being met. While
the Bush administration now acknowledges that climate change is
largely due to greenhouse gases, it recently promoted an approach
of adapting to rather than curbing further damage. The
administration previously announced plans to reduce greenhouse
gas "intensity" of the U.S. economy. This goal would reduce
emissions per unit of economic output, but the target for the
reduction in intensity is so low that total emissions would still
continue to grow, in violation of U.S commitments under the
UNFCCC.
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) - The ICC
is the world's first permanent criminal court to try individuals
for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression
(when that crime is defined) committed in the territories of
states parties or by the nationals of states parties, or when
directed by the UN Security Council. It will bolster global
security by deterring the commission of large-scale atrocities,
providing a resource for prosecution of mass terrorism, and
reinforcing the existing taboo against use of weapons of mass
destruction. The ICC does not preempt national criminal systems;
rather it will initiate action only when states are unwilling or
unable to prosecute alleged perpetrators of crimes. The Rome
Statute will enter into force on July 1, 2002, and the court is
expected to be operational in 2003. The Bush administration
recently formally notified the United Nations that the United
States has no intention of ratifying the Statute. President
Clinton had signed the Statute at the very end of his term while
at the same time stating that that the United States should work
to change ICC procedures under which U.S. personnel could be
prosecuted.
Recommendations
+ Congress should hold hearings on the erosion of the U.S.
commitment to global security treaties
The United States should
+ commit to the earliest possible completion of a BWC protocol
establishing a regime including declarations, on-site visits and
challenge inspections, and terminate all programs to construct
bioweapons + strengthen the CWC by allowing full inspections of
the subject chemicals and facilities according to the terms of
the CWC + comply with the NPT by working with Russia to
drastically reduce strategic nuclear arms and destroy or
dismantle reduced delivery systems and warheads; rejecting
expansion of nuclear weapons use options set forth in the Nuclear
Posture Review; and with other nuclear-armed states making the
total elimination of nuclear arsenals the centerpiece of national
planning and policy with respect to nuclear weapons + stop all
preparations for carrying out laboratory thermonuclear
explosions, unconditionally ratify the CTBT, and maintain the
nuclear test moratorium now in effect until such time as the CTBT
enters into force + join the Mine Ban Treaty, or at the least set
a definitive deadline for doing so; make the declared permanent
ban on the export of antipersonnel mines a law; and ensure that
alternatives comply with the treaty + comply with the UNFCCC by
creating policies and targets for reducing greenhouse gas
intensity at a rate faster than the anticipated rate of economic
growth, and by reengaging with the world community to find ways
to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally over the
next three to four decades + ratify the Rome Statute and fully
participate in the ICC's establishment, and pending ratification,
repeal legislation prohibiting future support for the ICC and
refrain from enacting legislation that conditions military or
financial support on a state's non-participation in the ICC
Ratification of Selected Security Treaties by the Permanent
Members of the UN Security Council
Country CWC BWC NPT CTBT Mine Ban FCCC Kyoto ICC
China 4/25/97 (r) 11/15/84 (a) 3/09/92 (a) SI 9/24/96*
1/5/93 (r) SI 5/29/98
France 3/2/95 (r) 09/27/84 (a) 8/03/92 (a) 4/6/98 (r)* 7/23/98
(r) 3/25/94 (r) 5/31/02 (ap) 6/9/00 (r)
Russia 11/5/97 (r) 3/26/75 (r) 3/05/70 (r) 6/30/00 (r)*
12/28/94(r) SI 3/11/99 SI 9/13/00
UK 5/13/96 (r) 3/26/75 (r) 11/27/68 (r) 4/6/98 (r)* 7/31/98 (r)
12/8/93 (r) 5/31/02 (r) 10/4/01(r)
USA 4/25/97 (r) 3/26/75 (r) 3/05/70 (r) SI 9/24/96*
10/15/92(r) SI 11/12/98 SI 12/31/00
SI - date of signature if not ratified; (r) - ratification; (a) -
accession; (ap) - approval; * - ratification required for entry
into force
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research 6935 Laurel
Avenue Takoma Park, MD 20912 301 270 5500; www.ieer.org Lawyers'
Committee on Nuclear Policy 211 E. 43d St., Suite 1204 New York,
NY 10017 212 818 1861; www.lcnp.org
This fact sheet is based on the report, Rule of Power or Rule
of Law? An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding
Security-Related Treaties
[http://www.ieer.org/reports/treaties/index.html]
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50 Japan: Koizumi under nuclear smokescreen
japantoday
Axel Berkofsky
"Fukuda has to go," demanded Japan's political opposition after
the Liberal Democratic Party's chief cabinet secretary Yasuo
Fukuda questioned the so-called three non-nuclear principles that
ban the country from producing, possessing and introducing
nuclear weapons into Japan.
"Depending upon the world situation, circumstances and public
opinion could require Japan to possess nuclear weapons," said the
influential LDP politician in an off-the-record conversation with
Japanese reporters last week, causing an uproar in Japan and
indeed all over Asia.
Initially, it was reported that it was a "high-ranking official
LDP official" who made the controversial remarks on Japan's
nuclear policy, although the choice of LDP politicians with the
nerve to question the fundamentals of Japanese defense policy was
very quickly narrowed down to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
himself and a few defense hawks around him.
Koizumi, though, was on his way to South Korea to watch the
opening of the soccer World Cup, and two days later Fukuda
admitted that he was the official in question, who, on condition
of anonymity, had spoken to Japanese journalists, reportedly
"trying to get young reporters to begin thinking differently
about their country's future."
The journalists thanked Fukuda for the lesson on Japanese
constitutional rights, yet another verbal gaffe from Japan's
policy-making elite and a spectacular headline for the next
morning's newspapers had been made.
During the administration of former lame duck and scandal-ridden
prime minister Yoshiro Mori, the articulate and ambitious Yasuo
Fukuda was named the "exculpatory chief cabinet secretary" for
his impressive skills in explaining Mori's frequent gaffes and
incompetence to the public.
Now, it seems, Fukuda has to sort out his own verbal blunders,
and talking himself out of trouble will certainly be as
challenging as it can get when Japan's sacred three non-nuclear
principles, established in 1967, are the issue.
Koizumi stood up for his embattled colleague, and reportedly had
no problem whatsoever with Fukuda's gaffe, saying it was "nothing
serious," and he casually dismissed the opposition's call for
Fukuda's head. "The opposition is always requesting someone to
resign, but I wonder how effective such tactics are," Koizumi
said in his usual nonchalant manner.
Fukuda, for his part, set about rephrasing his remarks, claiming
that they in no way represented a shift in Japan's nuclear
policy. This proved to be a very challenging task, even for the
eloquent Fukuda, who found himself explaining to a special
committee of the Diet's House of Representatives why his remarks
and the announcement that "the revision of Japan's non-nuclear
principles is likely now that the revision of the constitution is
under way" still conformed to the government's non-nuclear
principles.
Koizumi jumped in quickly to stress that no review of the
principles was planned, hoping to lay the issue to rest.
The same special committee is currently discussing Japan's
so-called national emergency laws that would enable the armed
forces to defend Japanese territory effectively, and Koizumi
fears that interrogating Fukuda could further delay the
implementation of the bills beyond the current Diet session that
is scheduled to end on June 19.
Koizumi received support from Japan's biggest daily newspaper,
the Yomiuri Shimbun, which right after Fukuda's "this is not what
I was really trying to say" line published a couple of editorials
pointing out that the government, at least for now, did not
recommend a change in nuclear policy.
"Given an ordinary interpretation, this (Fukuda's) statement is
simply an observation that any basic policy of a country can be
reviewed depending on changing times and circumstances," the
paper said, hinting, nevertheless, that the nuclear policy could
be changed.
The timing to question Japan's sacred non-nuclear principles
couldn't have been worse, with Koizumi attending the opening
ceremonies of the World Cup in South Korea, and Japan's foreign
minister calling on India and Pakistan to pledge not to use
nuclear weapons against each other.
"At a time when Japan should be urging caution over rising
tensions between India and Pakistan, it is criminal to utter such
a comment," said an official of the Hiroshima Council against
Atomic Bombs in a recent interview with the New York Times,
joining Japan's second-biggest daily newspaper, the Asahi
Shimbun, which wrote that "Japan cannot complain if Asian nations
suspect Japanese ambitions to become a military power."
The three non-nuclear principles were established during the
administration of Eisaku Sato and are considered to be
untouchable tenets of Japanese defense policy. Only in theory,
however, as revelations of recent years seem to suggest.
About two years ago, Japan's Communist Party presented the
Japanese public with the so-called "U.S.-Japan Secret Agreements"
documenting that visiting US warships calling at Japanese ports
during the Cold War had regularly been equipped with missiles
carrying nuclear weapons.
These once-classified documents seem to confirm earlier
suspicions that consecutive Japanese governments were never
really overly interested in finding out whether U.S. warships
were violating one of the sacred principles.
According to the documents and secret conversations between then
U.S. ambassador to Japan Edwin Reischauer and the Japanese
government in the 1960s, the U.S. government claimed that ships
with nuclear warheads on board calling Japanese ports could not
be classified the "introduction" of nuclear weapons into Japan,
and therefore there would by no violation of the non-nuclear
principles.
The Japanese government reportedly gave in to this U.S.
linguistic interpretation, and so with the revelations of
nuclear-armed U.S. warships refueling at Japanese harbors critics
have some cause to say that in fact the three non-nuclear
principles were a long time ago reduced to two ? indicating a
"half-compliance" with the principle of not introducing nuclear
weapons into Japan.
The Japanese government is vehemently denying all of this,
calling the revelations "leftist propaganda" and calling the
documents fake, although Fukuda's comments were certainly not at
all helpful in assuring the Japanese public that Japanese
governments are as allergic to nuclear weapons as they have made
out over the decades.
Fukuda, however, is by far not the only influential Japanese
politician to question nuclear policy, sending shock waves
throughout Japan and Asia in recent years. The country's
policy-makers, it seems, have brought the once-taboo nuclear
issue on to the agenda on a regular basis, and "Japanese
politicians have indeed remarkable skills in putting Japan's
pacifist and non-nuclear principles in jeopardy whenever they
open their mouths off the record", as one Japanese political
commentator suspects.
In May, deputy chief cabinet secretary Shinzo Abe said that
Japan's pacifist constitution and the war-renouncing Article 9
would not stand in the way of Japan possessing nuclear weapons as
long as they were "small," adding that "in legal theory Japan
could have intercontinental ballistic missiles and atomic bombs".
A few months earlier, Ichiro Ozawa, an influential opposition
leader and one of Japan's most outspoken advocates of expanded
the country's regional and global military role, went even beyond
the theoretical and announced that Japan could easily go nuclear
if China continued to threaten Japanese territory.
"If China gets too inflated, the Japanese people will become
hysterical in response. We have plenty of plutonium in our
nuclear power plants, so it's possible for us to produce
3,000-4,000 nuclear warheads," he declared, indicating that Japan
would have no trouble whatsoever in turning its nuclear power
plants into production sites for nuclear warheads.
In October 1999, Shingo Nishimura, then the newly appointed vice
minister of defense in the cabinet of Keizo Obuchi, suggested in
an interview with the Japanese Playboy that Japan should consider
arming itself with nuclear weapons to avoid being "raped by
China," as he put it.
Unlike Fukuda, Nishimura did not even bother to explain his
remarks, did not fall on his knees to apologize in the typical
Japanese-style career-saving move, and was forced to resign still
insisting that equipping Japan with nuclear weapons would become
necessary sooner rather than later.
Nishimura was already notorious for his political gaffes and
adversity toward China even before he took office, and why he was
appointed in the first place and chose a magazine that
specializes in men's sexual fantasies to end his short three-week
career as vice minister remain a mystery.
No discussion on Japan's defense is possible without comments
from Tokyo's nationalist and outspoken mayor, Shintaro Ishihara,
who thanked Fukuda personally for his "courageous" remarks about
nuclear weapons, as the Tokyo Shimbun reported last week.
The controversial governor and self-declared defender of Japanese
national interests is also known for his antagonism toward China
and his desire to see the U.S. troops stationed in Japan booted
out so that the country can take care of its own defense.
More sound bites from Ishihara might be in the offing since he is
widely considered a possible candidate to succeed the prime
minister should sinking public approval rates and opposition from
within his own party force Koizumi out of office.
And in this regard, Koizumi is counting on his influential chief
cabinet secretary Fukuda to help him hang on to his job, and he
cannot afford to lose his close ally within the LDP. So, given
Koizumi's own appetite for high-sounding rhetoric and enthusiasm
for defense matters, Fukuda is very unlikely to face any
consequences beyond advice to take a break from generating
negative headlines.
Fukuda's political ambitions beyond his current post and the
number of verbal gaffes coming from Japanese policy-makers in
recent years, however, might very easily turn this into a case of
wishful thinking.
(Asia Times Online)
June 13, 2002
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51 IEER Release | Radiological Warfare Suspicions Point Up Need for
Materials Accounting and Reporting to Enhance Security
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For further information contact: [
ieer@ieer.org] : (301) 270-5500
Radiological Warfare Suspicions Point Up Need for Materials
Accounting and Reporting to Enhance Security
Takoma Park, Maryland, 10 June 2002: The arrest of a suspect who
allegedly sought to acquire radiological materials in order to
make radiation weapons (commonly called "dirty bombs") points up
the need for a more stringent and comprehensive reporting and
accounting for all radiological materials, according to the
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. These materials
include:
+ Nuclear weapons usable materials -- notably plutonium-239
(and associated isotopes) and highly enriched uranium.
+ Radioactive materials that could be used to make dirty bombs
or other dispersal devices. This larger category of materials
includes cesium-137, cobalt-60, plutonium-238, americium-241, and
strontium-90. (Plutonium-239 and associated isotopes could also
be used to make "dirty bombs.")
"The most important measure to reduce the risk of a radiological
attack and to mitigate its consequences, should one occur, does
not seem to be a high priority at present," said Dr. Arjun
Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and
Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Maryland. "All
institutions, whether commercial academic, governmental, or
non-governmental, that possess radiological materials should be
required to report their inventories periodically -- once every
three to six months -- to local, state, and federal bodies, as
well as to the International Atomic Energy Agency. That would not
only ensure that the licensees authorized to hold these materials
are verifying that they actually possess them, but it would
provide authorities with early response information that would
enable faster detection should any materials be missing. It is
urgent that such a system should be put into place as a very high
priority."
The risk of materials being stolen would be greatly reduced if
regular reporting were required, according to the Institute for
Energy and Environmental Research, because the possessors would
know they would be held accountable for missing materials.
Moreover, the authorities would be able to more easily detect the
location from which materials were missing. That is currently
impossible because the needed registries of radiological and
nuclear materials do not exist at all levels. Emergency
responders would also be better equipped and informed, reducing
risks to them.
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Comments to
[ieer@ieer.org] Takoma Park, Maryland, USA Posted June 12, 2002
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52 How Pakistan’s nuclear strategy went for a six
Thursday, June 13, 2002
Rethinking the unthinkable
Jasjit Singh
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