***************************************************************** 10/19/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.269 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 How Do You Solve a Problem Like Korea? 2 Editorial: Keeping an eye on Northeast Asia 3 NPR : Interview: Robert Einhorn Discusses How the Bush 4 U.S. Envoy Vows Pressure on N.Korea 5 Pyongyang must abandon its nuclear program 6 Foreign Experts Differ on NK Nuclear Admission 7 US: Nuclear energy seen as engine of Arab industrial development, ex 8 A New Focus on N. Korea 9 US: U.S. Seeks Help on N. Korea Nukes 10 North Korea: Uranium device not used 11 U.S. asks nations to halt nuclear aid to North Koreans / 12 A nuclear N. Korea: What now? 13 Russia backpedals on North Korea 14 New Rules of Engagement With North Korea 15 Negotiators Seeking a Deal Retreat Behind Closed Doors 16 Kim's motives unclear NUCLEAR REACTORS 17 The Australian: Sydney N-plant 'sitting duck' 18 US: Nancy Salgado Named NRC Senior Resident Inspector at Palo Verde 19 US: Michael Peck Named NRC Senior Resident Inspector at Callaway 20 US: NRC Approves Power Uprate for Grand Gulf Nuclear Station NUCLEAR SAFETY 21 US: Plutonium Files: US Govt's Secret Medical Experiments in the 22 US: Gulf War illness prompts Sanders' vote 23 US: South Carolina's health department has requested 800,000 24 US: State requests radiation pill for residents near nuclear plants 25 Story of atoll's radioactive past about to be closed 26 '$13 million compensation' for sub collision families 27 UK: NW farmland 'poisoned by' nuclear blast NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 28 US: The Apty Named Skull Valley Reservation 29 US: Utah County's Toxic Tradition Is Under Threat 30 US: Abandoned mines a nuclear concern 31 US: Teachers in (N-waste) Initiative Crossfire NUCLEAR WEAPONS 32 US: Hellraiser: Atomic Activist Preston J. Truman 33 UK, US threaten UN over Iraq 34 US: Defense spending bill includes cash for HAMMER complex 35 Aluminum was tip-off to North Korea nuclear plans 36 Evidence of nuclear weapons in N. Korea received in 2000 37 N. Korea Never Complied with Nuke Agreement 38 Number of Nations With Nukes Grows US DEPT. OF ENERGY 39 Uranium town confronts past, looks toward future 40 Excavators clear uranium chips from 300 Area site 41 No tricks the treat on Hanford's Halloween 42 Cleanup contractor's clock ticking OTHER NUCLEAR ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 How Do You Solve a Problem Like Korea? TIME.com: Why the Bush administration won't use its Iraq strategy on nuclear North Korea By TONY KARON [tkaron@timeinc.net] PAUL BARKER/AP Representatives of nine countries and the EU observe a groundbreaking ceremony for a North Korean nuclear power plant in 1997 Friday, Oct. 18, 2002 He'd hardly been on the job two months when President Bush sent a ripple of panic through Northeast Asia by questioning existing agreements with North Korea. "There's not very much transparency," Bush said in March, 2001. "We're not certain as to whether or not they're keeping all terms of all agreements." Two weeks ago, North Korea vindicated Bush in spades, when the country's second most-powerful official told U.S. diplomat James Kelly that Pyongyang has, indeed, been running a secret nuclear weapons program, in violation of a 1994 agreement with the U.S. According to an account of Kelly's Pyongyang talks revealed to CNN, Kang Suk-ju told the U.S. official something to the effect of, "Your president called us a member of the axis of evil ... Your troops are deployed on the Korean Peninsula ... Of course, we have a nuclear program." Such vindication couldn't have come at a more difficult time for the Bush Administration. Its priority right now is Iraq, and the uphill battle to convince the international community that force may be the only way to disarm Saddam Hussein. It's not only that North Korea potentially throws up a major distraction; it's also that the marked differences in the U.S. response to Pyongyang and to Baghdad over weapons of mass destruction is being seized upon by some skeptics to strengthen their case against military action in Iraq. Administration officials have responded in mute tones to the brazen declaration of nuclear ambitions by an "Axis of Evil" state — they're expressing concern and consulting with allies, but constantly stressing the need for a peaceful, diplomatic solution to the crisis. Japanese and South Korean talks with North Korea are to continue as scheduled, and State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Thursday that even as far as U.S. discussions with Pyongyang are concerned, the nuclear revelations are "not a showstopper." It's not hard to see why the North Korea script is so different from the standoff with Iraq: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld confirmed Thursday that the U.S. believes North Korea already has two bombs built from plutonium produced before the 1994 agreement took its reactors offline. It may also have as much as 500 tons of chemical and biological agents. But even without unconventional weapons, North Korea's artillery and medium-range missiles give it the capability to flatten most of Seoul in a matter of minutes. Analysts suggest that an all-out war along the Korean frontier could cost a million lives on both sides. And those in the frontline — the South Koreans and Japanese — have stressed they have no desire for confrontation with Pyongyang. Still, a nuclear-armed North Korea would appear to be intolerable to Bush doctrine of preemption and "counter-proliferation." The Administration is certainly countering Iraq-skeptics by saying that the North Korean equation shows precisely why action is needed to prevent Saddam acquiring nuclear weapons. The key difference between North Korea and Iraq, according to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, is that "effective international pressure may have an effect on North Korea." Pyongyang's posture — as erratic and obtuse as it may be — has been driven primarily by the need to end its international isolation. Economic stasis and mass starvation have made the archaic Stalinist regime centered on the personality cult of its "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il desperate not only for trade and investment, but even for food aid from some of its traditional enemies. North Korea's latest nuclear threat comes at a time when the country is also opening free trade zones, owning up to kidnapping Japanese citizens in the 1970s, promising a moratorium on missile testing and sending its athletes and cheerleaders to win the hearts of fans at the Asian games. The mixed message has many in the region suspecting that the Dear Leader is once again launching a bellicose negotiating gambit. Indeed, it's far from clear what North Korea intended by revealing its nuclear program and what offers might have accompanied the news, and U.S. diplomats are keeping mum. Of even greater concern to the U.S. than North Korea's own arsenals has been its proliferation activities. Always desperate for cash, North Korea had turned its missile industry into a prime foreign exchange earner in the 1990s by exporting medium-range missiles to Iran, Syria and Pakistan. (U.S. intelligence believes, according to the New York Times, that Islamabad paid for its purchases by delivering nuclear-weapons technology to Pyongyang.) Even if North Korea's own strategic posture was essentially defense of the Dear Leader's realm, its export program raised the danger of the viral spread of dangerous weapons. It was the twin dangers of a nuclear-armed North Korea and missile proliferation that prompted the 1994 deal between the Clinton administration, North Korea, South Korea and Japan. Under the terms of that pact, North Korea would abandon its nuclear weapons program, shutting down its Soviet-era nuclear power plants in exchange for extensive food and energy aid and the construction, by Japan, of two light-water nuclear reactors less conducive to manufacturing nuclear weapons. That was that treaty about which Bush was so skeptical early in 2001, and the same treaty has now been openly abrogated by the North Koreans (who complain that the allies failed to keep their promises of aid, too). By declaring the 1994 treaty void and giving Washington an irrefutable case to insist on tough verification procedures in any future agreements, the North Koreans may actually have done the Bush Administration a favor. After all, Pyongyang still desperately needs aid, trade and investment from the U.S. and its allies, and it can't afford to be isolated — hence Condoleezza Rice's confidence in the power of international pressure over North Korea. The Dear Leader needs a new agreement, first and foremost with Washington. And in light of the latest revelations, such an agreement would certainly incorporate some of the tough policing the Bush Administration has demanded all along. Copyright © 2002 Time Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 2 Editorial: Keeping an eye on Northeast Asia The Taipei Times Online: 2002-10-19 The situation in Northeast Asia has changed dramatically in the past month. Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi's visit to North Korea last month renewed hopes that Pyongyang was willing to be more open to other countries. Koizumi's meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il led to the return this week of five Japanese kidnapped by North Korean agents two decades ago for a visit with their families. However, the abductees' return has raised more questions than answers and many Japanese appear in no rush to further normalize relations with Pyongyang. Then, on Wednesday night, the White House revealed that North Korea had admitted it is running secret nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 agreement with the US. On Thursday, Bush administration aides said they believed Pyongyang still had two plutonium-based nuclear bombs, dating from before the 1994 pact. The US announcement has sparked a great deal of pessimism about the future of Washington-Pyongyang interactions. US Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday said that North Korea had to choose between its nuclear arms program and feeding its people but Washington had no plans to take military action against it. Taiwan will have to closely monitor developments. Tensions on the Korean Peninsula will surely continue to escalate if the US and Pyongyang resume their Cold War era hostility. This will certainly dash South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's hope of reconciliation with Pyongyang under his "Sunshine Policy." US President George W. Bush listed North Korea, along with Iraq and Iran, as members of what he called an "axis of evil." North Korea and Iraq are already seen as two major threats to world peace. They could also become targets of US military sanctions in the future. However, as the the world watches and worries about those two nations, another tinderbox in the region is being overlooked -- the Taiwan Strait. More than 400 missiles are deployed along China's coastline, aimed at Taiwan. Yet the threat posed to the people of Taiwan and to regional security is obviously not receiving the attention it deserves. To both Taiwan and the US, there is no greater terrorist country than China. Beijing is deploying so many missiles to threaten a small island on which supposedly "fellow Chinese" live merely because Taiwan is more democratic. Democracy is something China cannot tolerate. If within the next few years, Taiwan is subjected to the kind of military threat it had endured during the 1996 missile crisis, all the democratic countries of the world should boycott the 2008 Olympics Games in Beijing. No terrorist country should host the Olympics. Next week, Chinese President Jiang Zemin (¦¿¿A¥Á) will attend a barbecue at US President George W. Bush's ranch in Texas. The Texas jaunt will be critical to Jiang's leadership and his political influence after Chinese Communist Party's 16th National Congress. The campaigns against terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are expected to be on the agenda of the Bush-Jiang summit. Jiang promised in his "Eight Points" that "Chinese would not strike against Chinese." How can he defend those words when China's missiles threaten Taiwan. Hopefully, Bush will get some straight answers from Jiang. If the US sanctions North Korea for developing nuclear weaponry, then it must take as strong a stance against China's missile threat to Taiwan. The US should not tolerate such double standards -- even if it needs China's help to turn North Korea away from its nuclear weapons program. This story has been viewed 351 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/10/19/story/0000176295] Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 3 NPR : Interview: Robert Einhorn Discusses How the Bush Administration Will Manage A Policy Toward Iraq That Differs From the One It Has For North Korea Interview: Robert Einhorn Discusses How the Bush Administration Will Manage A Policy Toward Iraq That Differs From the One It Has For North Korea JACKI LYDEN, host: The US policy on Iraq is affected by last night's revelation about a nuclear weapons program in North Korea. The White House revealed that Pyongyang has admitted to developing nuclear weapons and to possession of weapons of mass destruction. The 1994 pact negotiated by the Clinton administration is now declared null and void unilaterally by North Korea. To discuss where the Bush administration might go from here, we asked Robert J. Einhorn to join us. He was assistant secretary of State for nonproliferation from 1999 to 2001. Welcome. Mr. ROBERT J. EINHORN (Former Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation): Thank you very much. LYDEN: And that would mean that you worked for both the Clinton and the Bush administrations in this area. Mr. EINHORN: Yes. I carried on with that post until end of August 2001. LYDEN: Now the Bush administration already appears, Mr. Einhorn, to be distinguishing between North Korea and Iraq. Yesterday the president made what many regard as his harshest remarks yet with respect to the situation in Baghdad. Given that the administration has known about North Korea for nearly two weeks, why the focus on Iraq? Mr. EINHORN: The focus on Iraq is because of the current situation and debate in New York. North Korea was the focus because Jim Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State Kelly, went to Pyongyang and accused the North Koreans, justifiably it turns out, of having an active nuclear weapons program, and this was confirmed by the North Korean side. Part of the world has been saying to the Bush administration, `We're not sure if we believe you. Show us the evidence. Show us the smoking gun.' And it's been difficult to show a smoking gun in the case of Iraq. Here is a case now with North Korea that admits that Bush administration concerns were justified. I think this will tend to bolster the credibility of the Bush administration's case on Iraq. LYDEN: Well, by that argument, then, why not invade North Korea? Mr. EINHORN: I think there are number of real differences. Saddam Hussein has denied that it is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. It denies that it has chemical and biological weapons. So it's very difficult to negotiate with it; it's simply in denial. The North Koreans, interestingly, now are saying, `Yes, we have a program.' This is perhaps an opportunity for bargaining with the North Koreans. There's also another difference. The North Koreans are desperate. They're hungry. They need external assistance. They hope that by reaching out to the world they can get the support they need to survive. And so the prospects for persuading North Korea not to pursue this program are much greater. LYDEN: Do you think that the international community will perceive this being somehow a disingenuous approach with diplomacy against one member of the axis of evil and harsh rhetoric and attack against another? Mr. EINHORN: I don't think it will be seen as disingenuous if these different strategies are pursued effectively in each case. I think there's appreciation by the American public and by the world community that these are three serious problems, but they require different solutions. LYDEN: Were the United States to attack North Korea, there would be a fear presumably now of nuclear reprisal. In other words, one has to regard North Korea as possessing or very near to possessing a nuclear weapon. In Iraq, that's not the case. So is there a sense here that the US is moving against Iraq because it can and not against North Korea because it cannot? Mr. EINHORN: I think you've put your finger on something very important. There are risks in striking Iraq. There are risks of using chemical or biological weapons against Iraq's neighbors. But we don't believe Iraq has nuclear weapons. So I think the risks are manageable in the case of Iraq. The risks in the case of North Korea are not manageable. In the first hours of any military conflict with North Korea, North Korea could cause tens of thousands of casualties--not just with nuclear weapons, with conventional weapons in the artillery that they've got along the DMZ. So confronting North Korea militarily is a much riskier proposition than confronting Iraq. That's one of the reasons we've adopted different means for dealing with each of these cases. LYDEN: Thank you very much, Mr. Einhorn. Mr. EINHORN: Thank you. LYDEN: Robert J. Einhorn is now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies here in Washington. Copyright ©2002 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No ***************************************************************** 4 U.S. Envoy Vows Pressure on N.Korea Las Vegas SUN: October 19, 2002 By SANG-HUN CHOE ASSOCIATED PRESS SEOUL, South Korea- The United States plans to bring "maximum international pressure" on North Korea if it does not immediately dismantle its nuclear weapons program, a U.S. envoy said Saturday. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly said Washington was consulting with allies and no deadline or timetable had been set in the campaign to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear program. "We're just beginning this process. No decisions have been made on any next steps," Kelly said at a news conference after meeting South Korean officials. He planned to travel to Japan on Sunday for talks with officials there. "The United States is focused now on consultations with friends and allies and we hope to bring maximum international pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions," Kelly said. On Wednesday, Washington said North Korea admitted having a nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 agreement the two countries signed in Geneva. The admission came at Oct. 3-5 talks in Pyongyang, when Kelly confronted his North Korean counterparts with evidence of a program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Kelly's comments came after a senior South Korean official said Saturday he would tell North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program or face a confrontation with the United States and risk outside efforts to revive its economy. "I will have straight talk about the nuclear issue," Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun said before heading to the North's capital Pyongyang for three days of talks. He arrived with a 48-member delegation about 90 minutes later. The meetings were planned well before the revelation about North Korea's nuclear program. Both Koreas had agreed earlier to use the latest round of Cabinet-level talks to promote reconciliation on the divided Korean peninsula. Now Jeong says his most urgent task will be to try to learn more about the North's nuclear program and see whether it wants dialogue or confrontation. South Korea says dialogue is the best way to deal with concerns about North Korea, including the nuclear issue. News of North Korea's nuclear program threw the South's so-called "sunshine" policy of engagement into disarray, creating the perception that the North has duped the United States and South Korea for years. Kelly flew from Beijing to Seoul on Saturday to coordinate strategies with South Korean Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong and leading national security advisers. South Korea and Japan, the chief U.S. allies in Northeast Asia, are most vulnerable to North Korea's arsenal of missiles, chemical and biological weapons and now, possibly, nuclear bombs. In Japan, a major newspaper reported Saturday the government may ask that a U.S.-led consortium temporarily stop construction on light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea after Pyongyang's admission. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda will discuss the issue with Kelly, according to Japan's largest daily, the Yomiuri, citing unidentified government sources. Under the 1994 agreement, North Korea pledged to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in return for construction of two light-water reactors, financed mostly by South Korea and Japan. As part of the deal, the United States provides North Korea with 500,000 tons of heating oil annually. U.S. officials already have said the administration is talking with allies about shutting down the program. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said he believed the North Koreans already have a "small number" of nuclear weapons. Earlier Saturday, a freighter left for North Korea carrying 5,000 tons of chemical fertilizer, the last batch of 100,000 tons South Korea promised for North Korea. The aid is part of an August inter-Korean agreement to reconnect rail and road lines across the mine-laden demilitarized zone separating the two countries by as early as year's end. The impoverished, isolated North is struggling to revive its economy. It recently announced its intention to open a free trade zone on the border with China. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 5 Pyongyang must abandon its nuclear program Mainichi Interactive - Top News The U.S. government has announced that Pyongyang has admitted to developing nuclear weapons and is building facilities to produce highly enriched uranium. North Korean officials allegedly made the admissions when U.S. envoy James Kelly showed satellite photographs of suspected sites on his recent visit to Pyongyang. The North Koreans also reportedly threatened to scrap a 1994 framework agreement promising a freeze on the development of nuclear weapons unless assistance was forthcoming on light-water reactors. Pyongyang had hitherto consistently claimed that it was faithfully abiding by the framework agreement and criticized the delay in the provision of assistance to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) with the construction of the reactors. It is not clear why Pyongyang has made the admissions now, and the details of its weapons-development program are still sketchy. It may believe that the framework agreement only prohibits graphite reactors and related facilities, from which weapon-grade plutonium can be extracted, and that uranium-enriching facilities are not covered by the agreement. No matter how many excuses Pyongyang cites, however, there is no way that the world community will condone its development of nuclear arsenals. Just last month, Kim Jong Il and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi agreed during their summit to observe all relevant international treaties to achieve a comprehensive resolution to the problems involving nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang has not only betrayed the framework agreement with the United States but is also in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the joint declaration with Seoul to keep the Korean Peninsula nuclear-free. The International Atomic Energy Agency and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency believe that Pyongyang has enough plutonium for one or two bombs. The U.S. administration of George W. Bush had been prepared to improve its ties with Pyongyang and to offer economic and political assistance if the leadership in Pyongyang were willing to accept inspections of suspected nuclear sites and demonstrate sincerity is addressing suspicions surrounding the development and exporting of weapons of mass destruction. The latest revelations, Washington contends, have made these approaches impossible. There is the danger that Bush and the hawks in Congress will now demand the abolishment of the U.S.-North Korean agreement. This will mean fundamentally reformulating the framework of dialogue and consultation that Japan, the United States, and South Korea had built in dealing with the North. The nuclear issue will cast a shadow on the Japanese-North Korean normalization talks, slated to begin on Oct. 29 in Malaysia. The talks will undoubtedly become drawn out. It will be important to renew regional solidarity and cooperation at the summit talks of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum starting on Oct. 26. North Korea will increasingly find itself isolated. It has nothing to gain by insisting on developing nuclear capability. It should abandon its program immediately and accept nuclear inspections. It must realize that unless it softens its stance, it will only exacerbate the world's distrust. (Mainichi Shimbun, Oct. 18, 2002) © 2002 The Mainichi Newspapers Co. Under ***************************************************************** 6 Foreign Experts Differ on NK Nuclear Admission Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea Updated Oct.18,2002 20:26 KST by by Kang In-sun (insun@chosun.com) The Chosun Ilbo held separate telephone interviews with six different US experts in inter-Korean relations with respect to North Korea's admission of its clandestine nuclear weapons program, and solicited their opinions on the effects of this. The following are a summary of their replies: Professor Oberdorfer of the School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University -"Considering Pyongyang's acknowledgment of its nuclear program on the second day of the US-NK meeting unlike its denial on the first day, it is very likely that Kim Jong Il made a direct decision. Pyongyang had expressed its regret on the West Sea Battle and also officially apologized over kidnappings of Japanese citizens. I consider Pyongyang's acknowledgment has been made in the continuing line of its new political tendencies. However, without reaching a resolution regarding the nuclear issue, the United States may halt the construction of two light-water reactors and the offer to provide heavy oil to the North. Furthermore, the United States is considering a new policy encouraging most East Asian countries to force Pyongyang along. The dispatch of John Bolton, assistant secretary for armament reduction at the State Department, to China and Russia stands for a big picture being drawn by the US. We know that China and Russia also would not want Pyongyang retaining nuclear weapons." Larry Niksch, a senior researcher of the Congressional Research Service "The US have been suspicious about Pyongyang's nuclear development using enriched uranium for many years. However now, due to concrete evidence, the Bush Administration is free from fulfilling the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework. Although some people think Pyongyang's acknowledgment is a peaceful gesture for reconciliation with US, I believe that by admitting the nuclear development Pyongyang is forcing the US to move away from it being a second target of US force after Iraq. However, if it fails to reach a resolution regarding nuclear issues, the United States is likely to use a hard-line policy including economic sanctions and military pressure. Pyongyang should know that this issue might be dealt as the number one issue, diverting Washington from Iraq since North Korea has admitted development." Gordon Flake, the head of the Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs "Pyongyang couldn't understand aftermath of the acknowledgment regarding kidnapping Japanese and so I think it has made the same mistake this time by acknowledging its nuclear program. The only possible resolution might be Pyongyang's acceptance of an IAEA inspection. The Bush administration clearly said no negotiations would be made regarding the nuclear issue. Considering the fact that US dealt with this matter very quietly for the last 12 days, we might think that the US has no intention to fight against North Korea. This can be changed to a hard-line policy using international pressure on Pyongyang. It is possible that if North Korea continues its program, a similar crisis as that in 1994 could come back to the Korean peninsula. I am very sure the US will halt construction of light-water reactor and sending heavy oil to the North in the near future. The reason why the US did not halt its economic aid immediately is to avoid being looked at as angry." Professor Victor Cha of Georgetown University "Although Pyongyang's nuclear development program is a violation of the Geneva Agreed Framework, I believe that it will not lead to confrontation between the US and North Korea. The US will prepare for a resolution regarding the issue through serious discussions with Korea, Japan, and China. Although the Bush administration has used a hard-line policy before, it was pragmatic at the same time. Though it already knew about the nuclear program, the US has waited for a while to understand Pyongyang's true motivation. In order to bring out change in North Korea, the US government should approach the issue to make a "big deal" including various other matters including economic and humanitarian aid and security matters. The significance of this issue is that the US and Korea have just met a real security problem and are standing at the starting line." Joel Wit, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies It is very surprising that North Korea admitted its nuclear development. By showing its tough standpoint, Pyongyang seems to want to negotiate with the US. The current situation is very similar to the time when North Korea negotiated with the US by declaring its secession from the Non-proliferation Treaty in 1993. Although the Bush administration has criticized the Clinton government executing policy in accordance with Pyongyang's motivations, it is time for Bush to react to the same. From the information we have so far, we have yet to confirm the size of the development program and how far it has reached. I believe that serious talk between Washington and Pyongyang will begin soon since military confrontation is not a wise tactic." Robert Dujarric, a researcher at the Hudson Institute Pyongyang's admission is good news for the hawks in the Bush administration, who disliked the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework. It seems l very certain that Bush would not concede like Clinton did. However, I do not expect any US military action with respect to the nuclear issue. To be honest, for the US, North Korea is not an easy enemy like Iraq. Actually there is more complex setting other than danger of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction behind the US motivation to attack Iraq. For now, the US does not want military confrontation with North Korea; however if it does not halt its nuclear program, this would lead to an inevitable crisis. ***************************************************************** 7 Nuclear energy seen as engine of Arab industrial development, experts say [http://www.arabicnews.com/] Regional, Economics, 10/19/2002 Nuclear energy may become the engine of industrial development and production in the Arab states, said in marrakesh on Thursday an Egyptian expert taking part in an international conference on the use of nuclear energy in water desalination. Mounir Moujahid told MAP news agency that the development of atomic energy technologies in the Arab states will take time in the absence of a solid industrial infrastructure likely to help Arab states be more efficient the field. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to set up a program aiming at constructing nuclear units, which are instrumental to develop and modernize Arab industry at local levels, he said, adding that the demand related to water desalination by nuclear energy shrunk in 1986, following the decrease of oil prices and the Tchernobyl nuclear reactor's accident. Experts from 35 countries are debating in Marrakesh the use of nuclear energy for desalination purposes. The three-day conference, cosponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Council on Water, is hearing reports on research projects related to the use of environment-friendly nuclear energy in ensuring enough water resources. daily email news bulletin [http://my.arabicnews.com/] . Apply for ***************************************************************** 8 A New Focus on N. Korea The Salt Lake Tribune -- Saturday, October 19, 2002 North Korea's surprising admission that it has secretly pursued development of nuclear weapons raises the threat level in Northeast Asia. But the acknowledgment of what was long suspected also could set the stage for more-honest negotiations with the United States and its allies. The unidentified Bush administration official who Wednesday night disclosed the North Korean confession said the United States wanted "a peaceful resolution" of its differences with Pyongyang that should include removal of any nuclear weapons. That's good reason for Washington to work with the governments of South Korea (where the United States stations 37,000 troops), Japan and China to develop a strategy to gain inspection of North Korean nuclear facilities while offering Pyongyang the possible reward of eventual diplomatic recognition. _________ Los Angeles Times In 1994, North Korea promised to freeze development of atomic weapons -- for which it was using plutonium from its nuclear power plant at Yongbyon -- in exchange for fuel oil and construction of two civilian nuclear power plants that would use fuel less likely to be employed in making nuclear bombs. Two weeks ago, Pyongyang admitted to Assistant U.S. Secretary of State James A. Kelly that it was pursuing a program to build nuclear weapons using enriched uranium. That was its second recent admission. Earlier it disclosed that for years it had kidnapped citizens of Japan and forced them to instruct North Korean agents on the Japanese language and that nation's customs. The Bush administration official speaking Wednesday said the nuclear weapons message was "assertive, aggressive" rather than apologetic. Even so, both disclosures can be read as North Korea's attempts to open its books, admit past actions and resume negotiations with its former enemies. However, because North Korea's army and its weapons dwarf Iraq's, its troops are much closer to U.S. forces than Iraq's and it may already have nuclear weapons on hand, North Korea should move to the top of the Bush administration's diplomatic problems. The administration should have disclosed the North Korean admission before last week's congressional votes authorizing the use of force against Iraq; doing so would have made for a more informed debate. North Korea always has deserved skepticism about its words, actions and motives. President Bush has taken a tougher line than President Clinton, even lumping North Korea into an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran. Pyongyang may in part be expressing anger at Bush. But it should recognize that Russia isn't the ally it once was and China, which fought on its side in the Korean War while the United States joined forces with South Korea, also has distanced itself. North Korean citizens are starving or freezing to death; those who can reach foreign countries refuse to go home. If North Korea wants respect or aid, it has to abandon nuclear weapons programs and allow inspectors to verify that. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 9 U.S. Seeks Help on N. Korea Nukes The Salt Lake Tribune -- Saturday, October 19, 2002 BY JAMES DAO THE NEW YORK TIMES WASHINGTON -- American officials opened a diplomatic drive across Asia and Europe on Friday to build international pressure on North Korea to abandon its recently revealed nuclear weapons program. Bush administration officials said they were looking particularly to China, one of North Korea's oldest allies and largest trading partners, to play a role in urging Pyongyang to dismantle its program to enrich uranium for weapons. North Korean officials acknowledged the program in a meeting with American diplomats two weeks ago. On the first stop of a multination sweep through Asia and Europe, James Kelly, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and John Bolton, under secretary for arms control and international security, met with senior Foreign Ministry officials in Beijing, urging China to join Japan and South Korea in trying to influence Pyongyang. "North Korea needs to feel the pressure across the board, from the people who have supported it in the past and those they want to improve relations with in the future," a senior administration official said. "China is both." From Beijing, Kelly will travel today to Seoul and Tokyo, while Bolton will press the United States' case in Moscow, London and Paris early next week. President Bush will be host to the Chinese president, Jiang Zemin, at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on Friday. Today, he is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan and President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea at an international economic conference in Mexico. High on the agenda will be whether to continue the construction of a light-water nuclear reactor in North Korea that is being financed mainly by Japan and South Korea, American officials said. Bush maintained his public silence on the North Korean weapons program on Friday as he campaigned for Republican Senate candidates in Minnesota and Missouri. Bush has yet to make a public statement on the program since news of it broke Wednesday night, the silence of which administration officials say was meant to underscore a quiet, diplomatic approach to the problem, in contrast to the more belligerent denunciations of Iraq's weapons programs. But other senior government officials used public events on Friday to explain why the administration believes diplomacy can work in containing North Korea, while military action may be required to disarm Iraq. During a town hall meeting at Atlantic State University in Savannah, Ga., Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage noted that there had been 50 years of relative peace on the Korean peninsula, secured in part by the efforts of Japan and South Korea, while Iraq has gone to war twice with its neighbors and used chemical weapons on its own people. "The fact that Saddam Hussein has used these weapons against his neighbors and his own people makes him quite a bit more urgent of a problem," Armitage said in an interview after his appearance. The administration has had evidence of North Korea's uranium-enrichment program for several months, and made some of that intelligence known to a small, bipartisan group of senior lawmakers and their aides three weeks ago. But it told only a small number of Republican lawmakers about North Korea's admission about its nuclear weapons program before it publicly made the disclosure on Wednesday. On Friday, some Democrats complained that if lawmakers had known about North Korea's nuclear program last week, it might have complicated Bush's efforts to win support for a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. The resolution ultimately passed overwhelmingly in both houses. "If Congress had known, I think it would have made a real difference in some people's votes," said Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., who voted against the Iraq resolution. "You're talking about a real threat of nuclear weapons in North Korea versus a perceived threat in Iraq, in the distant future." Administration officials said they wanted to keep North Korea's admission secret until they had consulted with Japan, South Korea, China and other nations. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 10 North Korea: Uranium device not used asahi.com : ENGLISH Asahi Shimbun www.asahi.com [http://www.asahi.com/] JAPANESE The Asahi Shimbun WASHINGTON-A North Korean delegate to the United Nations confirmed Thursday his country is trying to develop nuclear weapons, but Pyongyang insists its uranium-enrichment devices are not yet in operation, sources said. The delegate, who belongs to North Korea's mission to the United Nations, said the U.S. State Department's announcement Wednesday revealing Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions was ``mostly true.'' He acknowledged that North Korea's purchase of uranium-enrichment devices-key components in producing weapons-grade material-has led Washington to believe that North Korea has not frozen its nuclear weapons program. But U.S. government sources Thursday told The Asahi Shimbun that North Korean officials said they have yet to use the enrichment devices. At high-level talks in Pyongyang earlier this month, Kang Sok Ju, North Korea's first vice minister of foreign affairs, admitted to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly that the North had bought uranium-enrichment devices, but emphasized the devices are not in operation, the sources said. When Kelly presented customs clearance documents of the devices and other evidence obtained by the CIA, Kang said the enrichment devices came from ``a third nation,'' the sources said. In Wednesday's statement, the U.S. government did not mention whether the devices were in operation, but Washington argues that simple possession of the equipment violates the 1994 U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework, intended to stop Pyongyang's nuclear program. The North Korean delegate, however, accuses Washington of breaking the agreement first. He said the Bush administration in June last year revised its policies against Pyongyang, and pressed North Korea to immediately accept inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The delegate said North Korea has no obligation to do so under the 1994 Agreed Framework. Despite Pyongyang's assertion, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday repeated his suspicion to reporters that North Korea already possesses a couple of nuclear bombs. The CIA in its latest report said Pyongyang has successfully extracted enough plutonium to manufacture one or two nuclear weapons.(IHT/Asahi: October 19,2002) (10/19) [Copyright Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. No reproduction or ***************************************************************** 11 U.S. asks nations to halt nuclear aid to North Koreans / Pakistan, Russia deny accusation Elizabeth A. Neuffer, Boston Globe [chronfeedback@sfchronicle.com] Saturday, October 19, 2002 --> United Nations -- The Bush administration called on North Korea's trading partners Friday to stop helping it build nuclear weapons, as top U.S. diplomats traveled to the Far East for talks following the communist state's admission that it has a secret uranium-enrichment program. But Pakistan and Russia flatly denied Friday accusations made by U.S. officials that they have supplied material to North Korea that aided it in developing a clandestine nuclear weapons program. U.S. officials also said Friday they believe China may have assisted North Korea. Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, a key American ally in the war against terrorism, denied a report in Friday's New York Times that quotes administration intelligence officials as contending that Pakistan aided North Korea's nuclear ambitions, saying the charge was "utterly baseless." Alexander Yakovenko, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the Bush administration's suspicions about Russia's actions have "absolutely nothing to do with reality." Nuclear specialists also disputed some of Washington's recent statements, noting Friday that suspicions about North Korea's uranium-enrichment activity - - and the belief that Pakistan aided it -- are not new. "Pakistan is being attacked for an old story being presented as a new story, " said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and a former U.N. weapons inspector. "The U.S. has been worried about this for years, and the effort is much broader than just Pakistan." Reports from North Korean defectors have long pointed to a secret uranium- enrichment program, possibly carried out at as many as four sites. They include a uranium-milling plant at Mount Chonmasan, a facility identified by a former North Korean brigadier general who defected, according to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey. Administration officials say they believe the trade in nuclear-related material between North Korea and Pakistan occurred in 1997, two years before Musharraf took power. Nuclear specialists say the plan appears to have been to build a series of gas centrifuges that enrich uranium. "But the plants wouldn't be done for a few years," said Albright. They would then produce one or two bombs per year, he said. The White House disclosed on Wednesday that North Korea acknowledged its nuclear weapons program in a meeting held in Pyongyang on Oct. 4. The communist nation also said it would no longer abide by a 1994 accord in which it agreed to dismantle its nuclear arms program in exchange for two nuclear power generators. North Korea was then known to have only a plutonium-fueled nuclear arms program; the recent admissions are about enriched uranium, typically considered more reliable and easier to hide. Bush administration officials have preferred a diplomatic approach to dealing with the repressive, famine-plagued, and often unpredictable Stalinist state, and have already begun to talk with other key allies. John Bolton and James Kelly, top State Department officials, flew to Beijing Friday for talks with Chinese officials. China, a major trading partner with North Korea, is in a strong position to influence its actions. Bolton will continue to Moscow, London, Paris and Brussels. Kelly, the official to whom the North Koreans made their admission, will travel to Seoul and Tokyo. Meanwhile, lawmakers, nuclear specialists and North Korea watchers remained deeply divided Friday on what steps the Bush administration should take to contain the threat posed by the Asian nation's nuclear ambitions. Some legislators -- including Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz. -- have called on the Bush administration to take firm and swift action against North Korea. In a letter sent to Bush on Thursday, Markey called for new sanctions against the dictatorship, including the halt of all nonhumanitarian aid. Such measures should remain in place, Markey said, "until North Korea accepts the on-demand, anywhere, anytime inspections to verify their programs have been dismantled." Not all North Korea observers agree. Many note that dictator Kim Jong Il has taken a series of steps recently that indicate an openness to the West and that this latest admission may be another attempt to do so. "It was a signal they want to be taken seriously, and they want to negotiate these issues," said Donald Gregg, president of the Korea Society, a New York-based organization, and U.S. ambassador to South Korea from 1989-93. "It's a way of them reaching out." Chronicle wire services contributed to this report. ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.   Page A - 10 ***************************************************************** 12 A nuclear N. Korea: What now? | csmonitor.com Japan rides hard times with tokens of 'love' October 18, 2002 edition KIM JONG IL: North Korea's leader is trying to distance himself from 'axis of evil,' say some. CHIEN-MIN CHUNG/AP/FILE US officials give details of a confrontational meeting earlier this month over N. Korea's weapons program. By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor BEIJING – North Korea failed a US sincerity test. US officials say they went to North Korea earlier this month carrying evidence of a secret nuclear-weapons program run by Pyongyang. Their goal: to probe whether President Kim Jung Il's recent talk of reform and opening up to the world was real, according to senior Bush administration officials. Instead, they were met with belligerence. When confronted with the evidence of an enriched-uranium program – in violation of a 1994 agreement – North Korean officials took a confrontational attitude, and tried to "intimidate us," one official says, speaking off the record. The administration's plan to test the regime, an official says, came after last month's summit between Japan and North Korea, when President Kim stunned the world by apologizing for the kidnapping of 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s. "[Japanese Prime Minister] Koizumi opened the door," the official says, "after Kim apologized to him, and after months of signaling change and reform in Pyongyang, we said, 'If the opening with Koizumi is real, if he wants to reform, we want to give him the chance to acknowledge that he has a weapons program." Kim acknowledged the weapons program but not willingly. "The North was very belligerent. They wanted to scare us. The main thing for us now is not to overreact," says the US official. The sudden acknowledgment by the White House Wednesday that the Stalinist North has been developing weapons of mass destruction marks a kind of turning point in North Asia. But in which direction? Some analysts argue that, even if North Korea was forced by US officials to admit to a secret program, the North now hopes to turn its veracity to an advantage. The North is reportedly anxious to move itself further away from the "axis of evil" status bestowed on it by the Bush administration. Media reports in South Korea suggest that since Oct. 3, when US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly visited Pyongyang, North Korean officials have approached the White House with a comprehensive set of proposals for talks, including pulling back the North's massive conventional forces located along the demilitarized zone with South Korea, abandoning its nuclear weapons program, and engaging in economic reform. When Kim admitted that North Korea had kidnapped Japanese citizens to train its spies in Japanese language and culture, that involved a loss of face by the Korean leader. But it also helped open the door to perhaps as much as $40 million in Japanese aid to the North. "I think there is a high likelihood that North Korea has no money, no energy, and cannot afford to continue its research program into enriched uranium weapons," says Xing Rui, a research fellow at Tsinghua University in Beijing. "What the North wants now is negotiations with the US. That's what this is about." Since 1994, the US and North have operated under an accord known as the "Agreed Framework." The treaty was negotiated under the Clinton administration and it required Pyongyang to stop using a graphite nuclear reactor that produced plutonium refined enough to make weapons. In exchange, the US agreed to help pay for new "light water" reactors – which don't produce material for nuclear weapons. They have been under construction in Korea for several years, at Japanese and US expense. The agreed framework itself came about after tensions on the Korean Peninsula in the early 1990s, when UN inspectors discovered evidence of weapons-grade plutonium in North Korean reactors – evidence that North Korean scientists evidently thought could not be detected. Sources say that US Assistant Secretary Kelly laid out evidence of a uranium weapons program earlier this month and North foreign ministry officials denied it. But a day later, they admitted to a large program. "They told us they had a program, then told us our current agreements meant nothing any more. It was a clear confrontation," says a US official. How the US deals will handle this admission is unclear. Some analysts argue that Kim has nowhere to turn to except the US, and that, preoccupied with Iraq, the best approach for the US to take is diplomatic. "The US may have a proposal from the North that would look attractive under more normal circumstances, but since they admitted to cheating, it will be harder for Bush to talk right now," says Paik Jin-Hyun, senior professor at Seoul University. "With Iraq on ... Kim has not chosen an appropriate time to make his pitch." News of the nuclear program puts a damper on Japan's plans to normalize relations with the North. "Japan is not going to give one dollar until this issue is resolved," says Dr. Paik of Seoul University. It is also an embarrassing slap to South Korea. Political advisors around President Kim Dae Jung had long implied that a program of weapons of mass destruction in the North was something exaggerated by hawks in the South and the US. Yet the admission of a secret enriched uranium program by the North, only weeks after athletes from the two sides walked hand in hand in the Asian Games, has gone over badly, according to polls taken in Seoul on Thursday. And the North's admission has earned a steely silence from China, reportedly angered by news of the weapons program from a neighbor it has worked hard to keep good relations with – and that has a policy of "denuclearization" of the Korean peninsula. The issue will be high on the agenda for China's President Jiang Zemin and President Bush during next week's summit in Texas. The US president is also likely to discuss Pyongyang's nuclear program at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit later this month. "My gut feeling is that the Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans are anxiously waiting for the US to talk again with the North," says a senior US official in South Korea. "Some in Washington will say there can be no talks between the North and the US, given the nuclear program we now know about. But you can also logically make the reverse argument, that now is the time to talk." Copyright © 2002 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 Russia backpedals on North Korea Nuclear assistance said to be long over By David Filipov, Globe Staff, 10/19/2002 [M] OSCOW - The disclosure of North Korea's plans to become a world nuclear power has put Russia in a diplomatic quandary. And once again, Moscow is being forced to defend its friendly relationship with another country President Bush called part of an ''axis of evil.'' Russia yesterday flatly denied allegations that it had helped North Korea develop nuclear weapons after Pyongyang had violated its 1994 pledge to freeze its nuclear weapons program. Although the Soviet Union was one of North Korea's main suppliers of arms when the two were Cold War allies, Russia now says that its nuclear cooperation with the isolationist communist country ended nearly a decade ago. ''Since then, we have had no contacts with North Korea in this field,'' Alexander Yakovenko, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a statement. He was responding to allegations by US intelligence officials that Russia assisted North Korea in developing a program that sought to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Such assistance, were it proven, would cause more friction in a US-Russian relationship that is already tense over Moscow's nuclear assistance to Iran and complicated by the Kremlin's opposition to the Bush administration's efforts to persuade the UN to authorize the use of force against Saddam Hussein. That the allegations were made at all have put the spotlight on President Vladimir V. Putin's strategy of conducting a pro-Western foreign policy while maintaining close ties with Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Putin, who badly wants to erase the stigma that Russia is an irresponsible partner and a dangerous place to do business, needs the support of the West, and especially the United States, to continue integrating Russia into the world's most important economic and political clubs. Putin has also repeatedly cast doubt on the existence of an axis of evil, saying that he has no proof that North Korea, Iraq, and Iran are linked to terrorism or of their efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. But the ties that bind Russia to these countries are mandated mainly by industries that badly need the cash that can be had by dealing with nations other governments avoid. That is the chief reason, Russian officials say, for Moscow's $800 million project to build a 1,000-megawatt reactor in Bushehr, Iran. The Bush administration, as well as many Russian nuclear experts, have asserted that Iran is using the cooperation to develop nuclear weapons. The deals Russia's oil companies have struck in Iraq, as well as the estimated $7 billion in Soviet-era debt Moscow still hopes to collect from the country, require that Moscow maintain close ties with Saddam Hussein - at least until the Kremlin receives a guarantee that its economic interests will be respected by any post-Hussein regime. Moscow's relationship with Baghdad has proved to be a major stumbling block for the United States and Britain in their effort to win UN Security Council approval to use force against Iraq. Moscow has tried to maintain ties with North Korea while developing business and political ties to South Korea since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In March, Russian government officials discussed with a North Korean parliamentary delegation the possibility of Moscow assisting Pyongyang in building civilian nuclear reactors, although Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry denied any deals were struck then. At a time when Moscow is trying to court Western Europe, Putin has sought to portray Russia's close ties to North Korea as an advantage. Diplomats in Moscow say Putin has sought to serve as a mediator between the West, especially the United States, and the regime in Pyongyang. In 2000, Putin announced an agreement to help North Korea launch communications satellites in return for a pledge from the country's leader, Kim Jong Il, to halt a program to develop ballistic missiles that had raised alarm in Washington. Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Thursday that Russia would be seeking clarification from Pyongyang about its nuclear program. He added that the United States had not provided Russia with a full rundown of what it had learned about Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. This story ran on page A12 of the Boston Globe on 10/19/2002. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company. [ ***************************************************************** 14 New Rules of Engagement With North Korea The New York Times *October 19, 2002* *By JOEL S. WIT* WASHINGTON Just as the crisis with Iraq is heating up, the United States is on the verge of a serious confrontation with another member of the "axis of evil," North Korea. The recent visit of James A. Kelley, an assistant secretary of state, to Pyongyang ended with North Korea admitting that it is conducting a secret program to produce nuclear bomb-making material. As a result, the stage could be set for a repeat of the 1994 crisis with North Korea over a previous effort to build such weapons, a crisis that brought us close to a second Korean War. A nuclear-armed North Korea would pose a serious threat to the 37,000 American troops in Korea and to the security of South Korea and Japan. It would undermine the global nonproliferation regime, creating pressure on Seoul and Tokyo to acquire their own nuclear weapons. Finally, it violates the 1994 Agreed Framework between America and North Korea that froze Pyongyang's nuclear program. Unfortunately, the Bush administration's policy toward Pyongyang has left it with very few options to solve this problem. The Clinton administration succeeded in negotiating access to a suspected nuclear production site in 1999 because it had an ongoing dialogue for putting that arrangement in place. Such a dialogue does not exist today. Moreover, this administration has never been enthusiastic about talking with North Korea or carrying out the 1994 Agreed Framework. Discovery of a new secret nuclear program will only reinforce that distaste. The access negotiations also took place in a strong multilateral context. If they had not succeeded, the United States could have worked with South Korea, Japan and even China to craft a tough response. The United States was in a good position since it had demonstrated a willingness to pursue dialogue with Pyongyang. The Bush administration is in a comparatively weak position because it has not demonstrated a serious interest in dialogue. Also, Pyongyang's recent initiatives to improve relations with South Korea and Japan may make both hesitant to confront the North. Even without these disadvantages, seeking tough multilateral measures against North Korea and Iraq at the same time may be more than the diplomatic traffic can bear. If the Bush administration's recently published security strategy is truly a guide to White House thinking, a third option is to launch a pre-emptive attack against North Korea's nuclear program. However, the rhetoric of a pre-emptive strike may have little to do with reality, and the administration has so far been very reluctant to discuss a military option. There are good reasons for hesitation: Seoul, with a population of 10 million, is so close to the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas that it is in range of thousands of North Korean artillery pieces. The possible chain reaction set off by an attack could have catastrophic consequences. Once again, risking military action in Korea as war with Iraq looms over the horizon seems more than even the world's sole superpower could handle. Of course, it is possible that North Korea may do whatever the United States asks it to do. There is a view in Washington that Pyongyang is on the run as a result of the Bush administration's tough approach. However, North Korea has surprised us before. This latest development itself seems to have come as a surprise. "Don't let the United States turn us into another Iraq," have been words to live and die by in the North Korean leadership. Giving in to American demands now could do precisely that, perhaps fatally undermining the stability of a regime that needs the fiction of proud self-reliance to keep any legitimacy with its people. In 1993, North Korea became the first country to announce its intention to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, leading to a terrifying crisis. That happened after the United States refused to talk to Pyongyang until it had acceded to demands for international inspections of its nuclear program. If the Bush administration seeks to isolate North Korea or declares the Agreed Framework to be null, Pyongyang may produce a large nuclear arsenal. It could use existing facilities and plutonium already in its possession but frozen and under international supervision as a result of the 1994 agreement. However, rather than abrogate the Agreed Framework, Washington ? in close consultation with Seoul and Tokyo ? should suspend its implementation for the time being. Pyongyang has admitted violating the spirit if not the precise terms of the agreement and Washington must respond. That will mean halting two critical programs agreed to in 1994: construction of two reactors and monthly shipments of heavy fuel oil. But any suspension must be coupled with a sustained, serious diplomatic dialogue with North Korea. One objective would be to secure international inspections to ensure that all North Korea's nuclear activities end. Such inspections are provided for in the 1994 agreement, though with later deadlines than the Bush administration would like. These deadlines, combined with White House indecision, have been a major stumbling block. The new developments provide the perfect context for pushing forward right away. North Korea may be open to such a suggestion. Leaving Pyongyang's defiant rhetoric aside, the fact that it confessed to a secret nuclear program is a sign that North Korea may be looking for a way out of a potential crisis. In the context of agreement to that approach, the Bush administration should put back on the table a package of economic and political steps to improve relations with Pyongyang. In the end, diplomacy may fail. But it must be seen by our allies and the international community as failing because of North Korean, not American, intransigence. Only then will the United States be on a firm footing to seek international action and, if necessary, to use force. /Joel S. Wit is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies./ Copyright The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 15 Negotiators Seeking a Deal Retreat Behind Closed Doors The New York Times *By JULIA PRESTON* UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 18 ? Seemingly at the brink of a deal, the United States and other permanent Security Council powers have retreated once again to closed rooms and intense telephone calls to negotiate a resolution to force Iraq to disarm. A discussion that American officials thought they could move smartly through the Council turned instead into a five-week round robin of talks and a pitched battle of wills with France, one of the United States' closest allies. The fracas has vexed the patience of diplomats on all sides and has given rise to criticism by many nations that the United States has pressed its case against Iraq too hard, not only straining international law but also causing anxiety about how Washington will play its role as the lone superpower, now faced with the new threat of global terrorism. President Jacques Chirac of France, who is traveling in the Middle East, planned to take the weekend to determine whether to accept what American officials called their final offer of compromise, French and other Council diplomats said. They said the American offer included concessions to France's demand to postpone authorizing war against Iraq until after United Nations weapons inspectors have done their work, and at the United Nations late in the week there was guarded optimism that an agreement could be reached. The United States was not eager to compromise, but both Washington and France recognized that a rift between them could be destructive and acknowledged that there were important advantages to widening support for any American action taken against Iraq. Bush administration officials grumbled that the protracted talks were an example of United Nations vacillation, a habit that they said made them reluctant to press their confrontation with President Saddam Hussein through the world organization in the first place. But time and again this week, in an open debate in the Council, dozens of nations urged the Council to proceed with care, arguing that the issue included far more than Mr. Hussein's serial violation of the Council's disarmament measures. "Even beyond Iraq, we are talking about the future of the international order," said France's United Nations ambassador, Jean-David Levitte, on Thursday, toward the end of the two-day debate. Relations among the major powers, between the rich world and the poor one, and between Arabs and other nations, were all in play, he warned. Like France, other countries on the 15-member Council, and the United Nations as a whole, have come to regard the coming vote on Iraq as a decision on how the United States will wage its unique power in the world. They see it as the first test of the doctrine of unilateral pre-emptive self-defense that the Bush administration brandishes. Behind the struggle over the words in a resolution drafted by the United States and Britain lies an effort by other American allies, led by France and Russia, to assert their influence and to restrain the United States from plunging alone into a war that they say could inflame the Middle East and set a worrisome precedent for isolated American action in the future. The Iraq debate took on such heavy implications because the Bush administration framed it that way, European diplomats said. The negotiations started on Sept. 12 when President Bush woke up the United Nations with an ultimatum to enforce its resolutions on Iraq or stand aside and watch the United States do it with military force. It was "a declaration of purpose, not a declaration of war," the United States ambassador, John D. Negroponte, told the Security Council in the debate on Thursday. But most nations here were not so sure. In Washington, administration officials articulated two policies that sent shudders through the United Nations. They said that nothing short of a change in the Iraqi government would force Iraq to give up its weapons of mass destruction, while also asserting that the United States had become so powerful compared to the rest of the world that it should have the right to strike pre-emptively to stop an amorphous terrorist foe. *Continued* 1 | 2 ***************************************************************** 16 Kim's motives unclear [deseretnews.com] Saturday, October 19, 2002 By Sonni Efron Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON — What was Kim Jong Il thinking? As North Korea-watchers in Washington and Seoul, South Korea, digested the bombshell admission that Pyongyang has a secret nuclear weapons program, speculation centered on what motivated the secretive, Stalinist North Korean leader to fess up — and whether the Bush administration can justify negotiating with North Korea while threatening to invade a similar nuclear aspirant, Iraq. Analysts agreed that only Kim himself could have made the snap decision to admit to visiting U.S. diplomats two weeks ago that the evidence they presented showing North Korea had been working for more than two years on a uranium-based nuclear weapons program was accurate. Some speculated that the regime's unapologetic confirmation that North Korea has "a nuclear weapons program and more" was motivated by the fear that the Bush administration, once it finishes its invasion of Iraq, intends to turn its wrath on another nation that President Bush has identified as a member of an "axis of evil": North Korea. "Don't disregard North Korea's paranoia and its fear of a U.S. attack," cautioned L. Gordon Flake, a North Korea expert and head of the Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs in Washington. "The more the U.S. displays its capacity to and willingness to extend its reach — and what some people see as violate the sovereignty of other countries — the more frightened North Korea becomes." Larry Niksch, an Asia specialist with the Congressional Research Service, said: "The message is, 'We have powerful weapons, more powerful than Iraq, and if you're thinking about coming after us for your next target after Iraq, you better think twice because we can hit back harder than the Iraqis can.' " The question for U.S. policymakers is how to appear to have a consistent policy toward both proliferators, while taking into account the fact that the two nations pose dramatically different security challenges. The fundamental difference is that North Korea once threatened to turn Seoul into "a sea of fire" if attacked, and the U.S. military has long judged that Pyongyang is entirely capable of doing so. North Korea has a standing army of 1.2 million, about 70 percent of which is forward-deployed within 60 miles of the Demilitarized Zone, and about 10,000 artillery pieces are dug into hardened positions in easy range of the South Korean capital. Although North Korea would certainly lose a war with the U.S.-backed South Korea, U.S. military planners have long concluded that the South could suffer millions of casualties before the Northern threat would be neutralized. "Seoul is held hostage," Flake said. North Korea has frequently issued military threats to bolster its diplomacy. Playing the nuclear card is the ultimate message to Washington that however impoverished North Korea may be, its military might is not to be underestimated. "Part of the phenomenon was, 'I am North Korea. Hear me roar! I can make nuclear weapons,' " a senior State Department official said. Others interpreted the confession as a characteristically clumsy North Korean way of coming clean with the United States in hopes of forging a new and better relationship. They note that North Korea's recent charm offensive toward Japan featured Kim's awkward confession that his military abducted Japanese civilians. Many analysts saw the North Korean admission as a prelude to proposing a bargain. During the Clinton administration, Pyongyang repeatedly floated the idea that Washington might compensate North Korea for giving up weapons sales — an idea the Bush administration finds ideologically intolerable. "At a minimum, he's trying to put North Korea back on the U.S. radar screen," said Robert Einhorn, who spent years negotiating with North Korean diplomats as the Clinton administration's point man on missile control. "The Bush administration has not placed North Korea at the center of its universe, and I think North Korea would like to get (its) attention. "It probably signals that the North Koreans are willing to bargain over this program," Einhorn added. "Whether the Bush administration is prepared to bargain is another story." And some observers said that North Korea's decision to pursue a weapons program as a secret insurance policy against superpower America and its South Korean ally, while simultaneously seeking better relations with Japan and South Korea, is not as irrational as it might seem. "If they're like us, they have a foreign ministry that wants to have better relations and they have a defense ministry that wants to have better weapons," said Gary Milhollin of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in Washington. "They're about as rational as we are." Whatever Kim's motivation, the fact that the Bush administration waited 12 days to make the news public — and then made a vague announcement only when the story began to leak out — shows what a difficult dilemma the disclosure poses for American policymakers, foreign policy experts said. The words "nuclear weapons program and more," used by Pyongyang in its admission, are widely interpreted to mean biological and/or chemical weapons, which the United States and Japan have long suspected North Korea of developing. That means North Korea could have virtually the same arsenal of mass death that the United States insists Iraq must be denied. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein denies having any weapons of mass destruction, but U.S. officials say they do not believe him. Despite Iraq's presumed chemical and biological arsenal, its military threat is far less certain, defense experts said, and the West does not believe that Iraq has a nuclear weapon — yet. "Nobody can foresee a low-cost war in North Korea, whereas some people can forsee a low-cost war in Iraq," Milhollin said. Moreover, while the United States views Kim as a repressive dictator who uses terror, runs a vast prison camp system and is believed to have allowed his people to starve while he expanded his weapons program, he does not have Saddam's track record of aggression. "North Korea has never used weapons of mass destruction. Iraq has," said Mitchell Reiss, a former official with the Korean Energy Development Organization. "North Korea in the last 50 years has not invaded a neighboring country. Iraq has. North Korea is not in violation of any U.N. Security Council resolutions. Iraq is," Reiss said. The Bush administration can nevertheless signal a consistent approach by insisting that the North Koreans submit to unfettered inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, just as it demands the Iraqis do. Analysts said the administration was signaling a cautious, multilateralist approach that enlists support from Japan, South Korea, Russia and China in pressuring North Korea to allow such inspections. Next, the Bush administration would likely try to reimpose stiff international sanctions that would wipe out the political and economic gains that North Korea has recently scored. If that should fail, the United States might increase the military pressure on North Korea while stopping short of an attack, said Niksch. Analysts expressed the fervent hope that the Bush administration would find a face-saving way for the North Koreans to capitulate and allow inspections, as the prospects for a favorable outcome to any military confrontation are grim, they said. "There are no good options on the Korean peninsula," Flake said. © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 17 The Australian: Sydney N-plant 'sitting duck' [October 20, 2002] news.com.au network Source: Sunday Herald By Gerard McManus AUSTRALIA'S only nuclear reactor is so vulnerable to a terrorist attack it should be shut down until proper security is in place, a former senior Howard Government adviser warns. Dr Michael Selley said yesterday hundreds of spent fuel rods were stored in a "tin shed" near the perimeter fence of the reactor. "Lucas Heights should be shut down temporarily, decommissioned and the army called in to implement proper permanent security," the former chief-of-staff to Science Minister Peter McGauran said. Dr Selley, a scientist and head of a private bio-tech firm, described the security at Lucas Heights, 30km south of the Sydney CBD, as woefully inadequate and easy pickings for a terrorist group. In December, 46 Greenpeace protesters broke into the Lucas Heights compound and staged a sit-in on the roofs of the reactor building and the shed that stores spent fuel rods. Extra razor wire and cameras were installed after the protest, and security was increased following the Bali bombing. But the facility is still manned by Australian Protective Security officers rather than military personnel. Dr Selley said explosives could be thrown over the fence on to the building holding the spent fuel storage tanks. The resultant contamination of highly radioactive material could be dispersed across large parts of Sydney under certain wind conditions. "The safety of the people of Sydney is at stake," Dr Selley said. "Yet this is one of the most unprotected sites in the world." The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, which runs Lucas Heights, says its reactor is well-protected by concrete and its literature says the reactor is "the size of a washing machine". But thousands of drums of radioactive waste at the site and the spent fuel rods, which are potentially more dangerous than the reactor, do not have similar protection. No one lives in a 1.6km zone around the site, but 65,000 people live within 8km. © The Australian ***************************************************************** 18 Nancy Salgado Named NRC Senior Resident Inspector at Palo Verde NRC: News Release Region IV - 2002 - 43 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region IV 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington TX 76011 www.nrc.gov No. IV-02-043 October 18, 2002 CONTACT: Breck Henderson Phone: 817-860-8128 Cellular: 817-917-1227 E-mail: opa4@nrc.gov [opa4@nrc.gov] Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials in the Region IV office in Arlington, Texas, have selected Nancy Salgado as the Senior Resident Inspector at the Palo Verde nuclear power plant west of Phoenix, Arizona. Ms. Salgado began her career at NRC in 1991 in the Region II (Atlanta, GA) Reactor Engineer Intern Program and completed rotations in the Region II Division of Reactor Projects and Division of Reactor Safety as well as the Division of Reactor Projects in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation in Rockville, Maryland. After graduating from the intern program in 1993, she was permanently assigned to the Division of Reactor Safety, Region II, as a reactor inspector. In 1995, Salgado accepted a position as a resident inspector at the Oconee Nuclear Station in South Carolina, and in 1997 became a resident inspector at Palo Verde. Salgado holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from New Mexico State University. She lives in Goodyear, Arizona, with her husband, and their two children. Every U.S. commercial nuclear power plant has at least two NRC resident inspectors. They serve as the agency's eyes and ears at the facility, conducting regular inspections, monitoring significant work projects and writing periodic reports which are available to the public. The NRC resident inspectors at Palo Verde can be reached at 623-386-3638. Friday, October 18, 2002 ***************************************************************** 19 Michael Peck Named NRC Senior Resident Inspector at Callaway NRC: News Release Region IV - 2002 - 44 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region IV 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington TX 76011 www.nrc.gov No. IV-02-044 October 18, 2002 CONTACT: Breck Henderson Phone: 817-860-8128 Cellular: 817-917-1227 E-mail: opa4@nrc.gov [opa4@nrc.gov] Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials in the Region IV office in Arlington, Texas, have selected Michael Peck as the Senior Resident Inspector at the Callaway nuclear power plant in Steedman, Missouri. Peck joined the NRC's Region III (Lisle, IL) office in 1990. He served as the Resident Inspector at Dresden Station in Morris, Illinois until transferring to the US Department of Energy in 1993. While at DOE, he served as facility representative at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland, Washington. Peck returned to the agency in 2000. Since returning, Peck has served as the Resident Inspector at the Columbia Generating Station and worked as a reactor engineer in the Region's Division of Reactor Projects. Prior to his NRC service, Peck worked as a reactor engineer at the Browns Ferry and Clinton Nuclear Plants and as a shift technical advisor at the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant. He earned a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering and a master of science in nuclear engineering from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Peck and his family live in Columbia, Missouri. Every U.S. commercial nuclear power plant has at least two NRC resident inspectors. They serve as the agency's eyes and ears at the facility, conducting regular inspections, monitoring significant work projects and writing periodic reports which are available to the public. The NRC resident inspectors at Callaway can be reached at 573-676-3181. Friday, October 18, 2002 ***************************************************************** 20 NRC Approves Power Uprate for Grand Gulf Nuclear Station NRC: News Release - 2002-121 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov [opa@nrc.gov] www.nrc.gov No. 02-121 October 18, 2002 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved a request by Entergy Operations to increase the generating capacity of the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station by 1.7 percent. The power uprate at the plant, located near Port Gibson, Mississippi, will increase the generating capacity of Unit 1 from 1210 megawatts electric to 1232. The licensee intends to implement the power uprate immediately. The NRC's safety evaluation of the requested power uprate for the plant focused on several areas, including nuclear steam supply systems, instrumentation and control systems, electrical systems, accident evaluations, radiological consequences, operations, and other technical specification changes. The NRC staff determined that the licensee could safely increase the power output of the reactor primarily through increased feedwater flow measurement accuracy. Friday, October 18, 2002 ***************************************************************** 21 Plutonium Files: US Govt's Secret Medical Experiments in the Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2002 15:41:29 -0500 (CDT) http://reason.com/0006/bk.lc.looking.shtml Looking Back in Anger The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War, by Eileen Welsome, New York: Dial Press, 576 pages, $26.95 In the 1970s, Americans might well have wondered if they were captive to a cadre of lunatic research doctors. Throughout the decade, disclosures of strange experiments conducted on unwitting citizens by their own government popped up with unnerving regularity. The initial revelation came in 1972. A press report disclosed that during the previous 40 years, the U.S. Public Health Service had systematically studied 600 syphilitic black men. Centered in Tuskegee, Alabama, the study involved denying treatment to 400 of them so that Public Health Service doctors could observe the course of their illness. Several died from complications of syphilis, clueless that they had been in an experiment concocted by their amiable health care providers. Public anger about the callousness of the study was intensified by its racist overtones. The project and its sponsors were castigated, and institutions around the country that sponsored human subject experiments began to establish panels to review their safety and ethics. Meanwhile, reports about other disquieting experiments began to surface. Two years after the Tuskegee story, the public learned that during the 1950s Central Intelligence Agency researchers had slipped mind-altering substances into the drinks of unsuspecting victims to watch the effects. The drugs sometimes induced psychotic episodes that in at least one case led to a victim's death. In 1976 came a news story about an odd Army program. From 1949 to 1969, scientists had conducted biological warfare tests by releasing bacteria and chemicals from sprayers, automobiles, and airplanes over American cities and states. During that 20-year period, millions of citizens were unknowingly breathing in the Army's test agents. The purpose was to see whether the microorganisms would spread and survive and whether the country would be vulnerable to an attack with lethal germs. Army spokesmen contended that the test bacteria, which included Serratia marcescens, were harmless. But they evidently ignored reports that had appeared in the medical literature years before the tests indicating that the bacteria were dangerous to people in weakened conditions. Indeed, a 1950 Army test in San Francisco should by itself have been a show-stopper. Three days after the city was blanketed with Serratia bacteria, patients at a local hospital began coming down with Serratia infections. Eleven patients were infected, one of whom died. Yet Army scientists continued to spray citizens with so-called harmless bacteria for the next 19 years. All these revelations appeared notlong after people discovered they may have been at risk from the country's nuclear weapons programs. The United States, the Soviet Union, and several other countries had agreed in 1963 to ban aboveground nuclear testing because radiation poisons could travel far beyond the test sites. Before the ban, more than 500 bombs had been exploded outdoors, mostly by the two superpowers. In the process, millions of people were exposed to radioactivity that increased their risk of cancer. People who lived downwind from the sites were particularly vulnerable. So were thousands of American troops who in the 1950s were made to drill in radiation-filled environments after nuclear explosions. Eileen Welsome's The Plutonium Files deals with radiation-related experiences and experiments. But her uncompromising brief against government, scientific, and medical officials who ran the radiation programs echoes earlier criticisms by others of Tuskegee, the CIA, and the Army germ warfare tests. Her interest in the subject began in the late 1980s. While reporting for the Albuquerque Tribune, she came upon Army documents indicating that at the dawn of the Atomic Age humans had been injected with plutonium to learn how much their bodies retained. She obtained more documents and tracked down survivors, family members, and officials. Her findings led to a series of Tribune articles in November 1993 about the plutonium experiments. Those articles were something of an epiphany for then-Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary, whose department guarded mounds of classified documents about long-ago radiation tests. That inventory included information about experiments under the department's predecessor agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, and before that the Manhattan Project, which produced the first atomic bomb in 1945. A month after Welsome's articles appeared, O'Leary announced that she was "appalled and shocked" about the plutonium injections. President Bill Clinton then ordered federal agencies to open all records on human radiation experiments, and he appointed an Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments to review the matter. The committee learned that hundreds of tests had been conducted. Thousands of documents and interviews later, the committee's 1995 report empathized with the many people who had been victimized by "arrogance and paternalism on the part of government officials and the biomedical community." Welsome is most effective when describing the poor, often uneducated souls who were unwitting guinea pigs. One subject's daughter lamented that telling her father that he was injected with plutonium "would be like telling him he was injected with ice cream." Names and addresses were hard to come by because identities were buried in anonymous aggregates or referred to by code. But her sleuthing identified a subject called "CAL-1" as Albert Stevens, then a 58-year-old house painter who had moved from Ohio to California in the 1920s in search of a better climate for his asthmatic wife. In 1945, diagnosed with cancer, he was injected with plutonium days before portions of his liver and spleen were removed. He had no idea he was part of a radiation experiment even as his urine and stools were collected to measure their plutonium concentrations. The medical insult to Stevens was compounded when analysis of his removed tissues showed no signs of cancer, just inflammation from a gastric ulcer. No less dismaying was what happened to "CAL-3." That was Elmer Allen, who in 1947 was a 36-year-old railroad porter whose leg was scheduled for amputation. Doctors injected plutonium into his presumably cancerous leg. After surgery the leg was packaged off to a laboratory for plutonium measurements. Neither Stevens nor Allen nor the 16 other subjects injected with plutonium between 1945 and 1947 knew the real purpose of the injections. Nor, a few years later, did the 74 boys at the Fernald school for retarded and troubled children in Massachusetts know they were eating radioactive elements in their oatmeal. Nor did 829 pregnant women know that the "nutrition" cocktails they were drinking at a Tennessee prenatal clinic were laced with radioactive iron. The doctors in charge never let on that the purpose was to measure the amount of radioactive materials absorbed by their bodies. Most of the radiation experiments, though not all, seem to have caused no ill effects. Welsome herself acknowledges that the small amounts of radioactive materials used in the majority of experiments "probably caused no harm." When she caught up with Elmer Allen's widow in 1992, she learned that he had died the year before from complications of pneumonia at 80. Still, Mrs. Allen spoke touchingly of how her husband had been exploited. "It just gives me a better view of how people will do you when they feel like you don't know better," she said. But Welsome also reviews a horror project in which subjects knew they would suffer radiation injury. Between 1963 and 1971, 131 men in Oregon and Washing-ton prisons underwent radiation of their testicles in experiments sponsored by the Atomic Energy Commission. The commissioners wanted to learn how much radiation would permanently damage sperm cells. Volunteers received $5 a month while in the program, up to $25 for a testicular biopsy, and $100 for a vasectomy at the end of the program. The tests were halted when some researchers began to wonder whether prisoners, no matter how well instructed about the experiment, could truly be considered volunteers. So who was doing all these tests, anddo the testers deserve Welsome's unforgiving condemnation? "Beyond everything else," she writes, "the experiments violated a fundamental right that belongs to all competent adults: the right to control one's own body." Doubtless, the experiments commonly ignored the ethical requirement that human subjects be informed about the nature of the experiment and that they participate voluntarily. From today's perch, the experiments seem indefensible, and their sponsors obtuse if not malicious. Yet there remains a nagging unease about describing the researchers as aberrational or evil. Welsome's own reporting records the eminence of many of the practitioners and their institutions. Indeed, the idea for the human plutonium experiments came from Manhattan Project physicians, led by the project's medical director, Dr. Stafford Warren, a respected radiologist. Wanting to know more about the risk of plutonium and other radioactive materials, Warren brought the proposal to J. Robert Oppenheimer, the venerated scientific director of the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer endorsed Warren's proposal, suggesting only that the experiments not be conducted at the project's Los Alamos laboratories. This was evidently for practical reasons, since Oppenheimer said that Los Alamos "was not equipped for biological experiments." The injections subsequently were given to patients being "treated" at many of the country's finest institutions, including the University of Rochester, the University of California in San Francisco, and the University of Chicago. Similarly, the Fernald boys were part of an experiment devised by scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The radioactive iron experiment on the pregnant women was at Vanderbilt University. Welsome dismisses observers who allow that these and other Cold War era experiments were understandable by the standards of the time. She appears perplexed to find that many surviving scientists still do not "accept the idea that they or their peers had committed any wrongs." Her arguments are not strange to me. In Clouds of Secrecy: The Army's Germ-Warfare Tests over Populated Areas (1990), I expressed similar misgivings about the Army's biological warfare tests. After all, the well-publicized Nuremberg Code was part of the postwar verdict against Nazi doctors who killed thousands of Jews and others in ghastly experiments. It unambiguously affirmed the ethical requirement of informed consent. Welsome also notes that the Atomic Energy Commission in 1947 and the Defense Department in 1953 had rules "requiring researchers to obtain the consent of sick patients for therapeutic and nontherapeutic experiments." But the fact that so many reputable researchers were ignoring the standards is puzzling. The likely explanation is that the values of the time were still in transition. The social environment did not yet fully match the newly underscored standards. Moreover, it was a time when authority of many kinds--governmental, scientific, medical--was commonly trusted and deferred to. Citizens had faith in a government that had led them to victory over the Germans and Japanese and now was protecting them against new enemies. Scientific authority commanded respect by virtue of spectacular scientific achievements, most obviously splitting the atom. Medical authority derived from a longstanding deference to the healer. Doctors traditionally were demigods who were not obliged to detail their treatments to patients. The arrangement was not simply an arbitrary imposition by the powerful over the powerless but was largely accepted by a deferential citizenry. By the 1970s, deference to authority had yielded to increasing skepticism. Disclosures about the array of unethical experiments only enhanced a distrust of authority seeded by the Vietnam War and Watergate. Appreciating that shift in values would have helped Welsome's presentation. Instead, her division between good actors and bad is too neat and appears self-righteous. She condemns the findings of the president's advisory committee as "disappointing and timid." She condemns the post-World War II atmosphere that encouraged doctors to publish papers and view "patients as little more than white mice." She condemns everyone who ran the Energy Department and its predecessor agencies before O'Leary, calling them an unbroken "line of steely-eyed patriots." Conversely, Welsome glorifies O'Leary, suggesting that her resignation at the end of Clinton's first term was prompted in part by bureaucrats who resented her shining "the bright light of truth" on the radiation experiments. O'Leary's infamous trade missions "may have been overstaffed," concedes Welsome, but she implies that Republicans overreacted with "hostile questions." Welsome surely understates the magnitude of problems that O'Leary brought on herself. She writes nothing about the $4.5 million that O'Leary spent on foreign trips, including one to India with an entourage of 76 in a plane that had previously been leased by Madonna. O'Leary also was found to have spent $43,000 to find out which reporters were writing favorable articles. And as department records later showed, she routinely manipulated statistics to exaggerate the number of Energy Department contracts with businesses owned by women and minorities. None of this minimizes the servicethat O'Leary and the administration performed by opening the radiation records or that Welsome performed with her compelling descriptions of the experiments. But the lack of balance in Welsome's treatment of O'Leary mirrors her insensitivity to the value differences between the postwar decades and the present. Public demands for accountability simply were not the same. The distinction is wonderfully, if inadvertently and grotesquely, demonstrated by a scientist who, at a 1955 Atomic Energy Commission conference, estimated that after all-out atomic war, a few people would survive and "keep the race going." According to this scientist, "They might not populate the earth with just the descendants we would like to see. They might not be highly civilized like we are. They might not know anything about atomic warfare, for example." Cold and ludicrous as such a calculus now seems, there is no indication that it put off any of the scientist's listeners. Unless we believe that he and thousands of other American scientific, medical, and governmental leaders were psychopaths, we must allow that they were acting within the value framework of the time. It would take another generation for values to catch up to the newly codified standards. Welsome's manner of criticism has implications beyond the radiation and experimentation issues. By using a contemporary template to rigidly judge yesterday's behavior, she implicitly invites future generations to do the same to us. Who is to say which values that today are embraced by large segments of the population could not be viewed with unforgiving contempt in the future? Frying humans in electric chairs? Killing a fetus, or, conversely, denying choice to a pregnant woman? Refusing same-sex partners the opportunity to marry? Whatever one's personal views on these issues, fair-minded observers understand that people of good will may be found on all sides. Of course, some behaviors are so egregious as to deserve condemnation in any era: The Nazi medical experiments, for example, in which victims were injected with toxins or placed in high pressure chambers to observe the manner in which they would die. To extend a generosity of understanding to earlier generations is not to excuse or defend past reprehensible behavior, but to acknowledge that future generations will almost certainly judge many of our own actions--even and perhaps especially those done for the "greater good"--as harshly as Welsome judges the radiation researchers. Leonard A. Cole (lcole1@ix.netcom.com) teaches political science at Rutgers University and is the author of The Eleventh Plague: The Politics of Biological and Chemical Warfare (W.H. Freeman Co.). ***************************************************************** 22 Gulf War illness prompts Sanders' vote Brattleboro Reformer Saturday, October 19, 2002 - 12:33:35 AM MST By TOBY HENRY Reformer Staff BRATTLEBORO -- Concerns about U.S. troops being exposed to serious illness played a significant role in Rep Bernie Sanders' decision to vote against a bill allowing the United States to attack Iraq, an aide for the independent Vermont congressman said this week. "Congressman Sanders has been bringing attention to the issue of Gulf War illness since the early 1990s, when it became apparent that many soldiers suffered from the illness," said Jeff Weaver, Sanders' chief of staff. "He voted against the resolution for a number of reasons, and this was one of them." In Washington on Oct. 10, the House passed by a 296-133 vote allowing President Bush to use military force against Iraq. Sanders voted against the authorization in the House, as did Patrick Leahy, D--Vt., and James Jeffords, I--Vt., in the Senate, making Vermont the first state whose representatives unilaterally opposed the authorization. Weaver said Sanders' decision was related in part to the findings of a report released earlier this month. The report, entitled "Delayed Casualties: The Full impact of the 1991 Gulf War on American Troops," indicated that nearly one in four Gulf War veterans have applied for Veterans Administration benefits based on service-connected injuries and illnesses. According to the report, the VA officially recognizes that more than 205,000 of the 697,000 Gulf War veterans have filed claims. Dr. Doug Rokke, a retired Army physician and one of the authors of the study, said that large amounts of radioactive substances on the battlefield might play a role in the high incidence of VA health claims. Many of the veterans' claims are based on their symptoms of Gulf War illness, technically referred to as Gulf War Syndrome, said Rokke. Gulf War Syndrome has a wide range of symptoms, he said, including weak bones, respiratory problems, muscle pain, unexplained bleeding, cataracts, kidney problems and loss of teeth and hair. The culprit in this illness, which the government has been slow to acknowledge, he said, might be depleted uranium. "Gulf war casualty data indicates that we had 294 dead, and that's mostly due to friendly fire," said Rokke, the former head of the Pentagon's depleted uranium cleanup project and a Desert Storm veteran himself. "Since the time we came back in the fall of 1991, we've had 221,000 become ill or disabled and 10,000 have died. That's the largest friendly fire death toll in the history of mankind." Depleted uranium is used as armor on American tanks and in projectiles fired by tanks and anti-tank aircraft, he continued, adding that the high number of rounds fired in the conflict resulted in a large accumulation of depleted uranium in the Kuwait-Iraq area. He said the 30-millimeter round fired by the A-10 Warthog aircraft contained a pencil-thin depleted uranium projectile weighing roughly a quarter-pound. Projectiles for tanks utilized up to as much as 10 pounds of depleted uranium per shell, he said. "With a rate of fire at 4,000 rounds per minute, that's a ton and a half of uranium fired every minute," he said. "During Desert Storm, we fired over 900,000 rounds from A-10 aircraft." Desert Storm was the first major conflict where depleted uranium was used by the United States, he said. "The depleted uranium itself isn't explosive, but it is very, very dense, and it is also pyrophilic, which means it catches fire easily. It causes unbelievable destruction. It kills everything in its path, and when it hits, it fragments into everything from sub-atomic particles to marble-sized fragments." As the head of the clean-up detail in charge of decontaminating tanks and armored vehicles after Desert Storm, Rokke said it is extremely difficult to neutralize depleted uranium. The substance can cause illness or death if inhaled or ingested, and within 72 hours of arrival on the scene, he said, many members of his team got sick. Some died of cancer as early as two years after being involved in the project. Nothing was done to clean up the environment where the war took place after hostilities had subsided, he added, and as a result, the battlefield is one of the most hazardous areas of the planet. "I estimated that there are 350 tons of depleted uranium left over there," he said. "If you took a half-pound of uranium and threw it in someone's backyard, you'd go to jail forever, but nothing was done to clean the environment. It's the most toxic battlefield known to man." Rokke said that he is fully opposed to both a re-entry into the contaminated combat area and the use of depleted uranium on the battlefield. Rokke said that he was aware of Sanders' comments on the issue and added that he has high regard for the work of all of Vermont's national delegates. "I've worked with Bernie for quite a while, and I believe that he speaks for the whole nation," Rokke said. "He's one of the few members of congress that works for the whole world." ©1999-2002 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and NENI Newspapers ***************************************************************** 23 South Carolina's health department has requested 800,000 potassium iodide doses to protect people living near nuclear power plants. (Columbia-AP) Oct. 19, 2002- The Department of Health and Environmental Control says the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will provide the doses to South Carolina for distribution to residents possibly in January. The commission began offering the tablets to 33 states in December and allows states decide how to distribute the pills. Potassium iodide works by stopping the thyroid gland from absorbing cancer-causing radioactive iodine, which is produced during nuclear energy generation. /Posted 1:10pm by Cara Parker / *WIS News 10 Headlines* All content © Copyright 2000 - 2002 WorldNow ***************************************************************** 24 State requests radiation pill for residents near nuclear plants GreenvilleOnline.com - News Posted Saturday, October 19, 2002 - 3:11 am e-mail By Bob Montgomery ENVIRONMENTAL WRITER bmontgom@greenvillenews.com [bmontgom@greenvillenews.com] South Carolina has asked for 800,000 doses of iodide from the federal government to help protect people living near Duke Power nuclear plants who may be exposed to radiation if an accident or terrorist attack occurred, state health officials said Friday. If approved, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would deliver in January the first doses of potassium iodide, known by doctors by the chemical symbol KI, for residents in York County near Duke Power's Catawba Nuclear Reactor, said Thom Berry, spokesman for the state Department of Health and Environmental Control. The plant is about 21 miles south of Charlotte. Doses would later be delivered to Oconee and Pickens counties, where many residents live within 10 miles of Duke Power's Oconee Nuclear Station near Seneca, he said. Distribution dates and locations will be announced later, he said. Greenville, Anderson, Spartanburg and Laurens counties are not within the 10-mile emergency zone. Berry said the decision to ask for the KI doses, which are supposed to protect against thyroid cancer, was based on public demand. Last fall, President Bush said nuclear plants were among targets of terrorists who were responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. "We have no reason to believe, or no information to believe, there is any type of threat to any facility," Berry said. NRC spokesman Ken Clark said Friday the agency is also not aware of any current or recent threats of attacks on nuclear plants. "Our plans are to operate plants safely and securely so the pills can stay on the medicine shelves and never have to be used," Duke spokesman Tom Shiel said. "We still support evacuation and sheltering in dealing with a radioactive release, because evacuation takes care of the entire body." About 75,000 permanent residents and 80,000 part-time residents live within 10 miles of the Oconee Nuclear Station, Berry said. The 800,000 doses should be enough to cover everyone living within the 10-mile zones of the Oconee and Catawba plants, he said. Clark said the federal agency received DHEC's request Friday but had not yet acted as of late Friday afternoon. Excluding South Carolina, 16 states have received KI doses from the NRC, Clark said. The NRC last year offered the KI doses for residents of South Carolina, but DHEC declined, saying the state's plan calls for sheltering or evacuating residents. Cortney Owings, a spokeswoman for Gov. Jim Hodges, said KI is "not the silver bullet" and that it doesn't protect organs from other radioactive isotopes that would be released, including cesium, strontium and plutonium. Berry said DHEC changed its position after North Carolina officials decided to offer the pill, resulting in several phone calls from South Carolina residents who wanted it, too. Berry said DHEC stockpiles about 200,000 doses of KI statewide for emergency responders. The doses to be offered to the public are voluntary, Berry said, and should not be taken by anyone with thyroid problems or allergies to iodine. Those interested are advised to check with their doctor, he said. The pill, which may be stored in a medicine cabinet, is designed to be taken as soon as one becomes aware of a nuclear radiation release, Berry said. The iodine is quickly absorbed in the thyroid gland, which controls the body's metabolism, he said. DHEC Commissioner C. Earl Hunter said the best advice in the event of a nuclear accident is to follow the instructions of public safety officials. Health writer Liv Osby contributed to this report. Latest news: Sheriff: Dead spot may have contributed to deputy shooting (Updated 4:39 pm) Senator sold $69 million in oil to state (Updated 4:04 pm) Copyright 2001 The Greenville News. ***************************************************************** 25 Story of atoll's radioactive past about to be closed [http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com Posted on: Friday, October 18, 2002 By Jan TenBruggencate Advertiser Science Writer More information on the Johnston Atoll landfill is available on the Web at [http://www.dtra.mil/news/nw_index.html] . Defense Department crews have buried radioactive material within an existing excavation on Johnston Island and are awaiting radiation tests before sealing the landfill. They hope the action will mark the final chapter in the military's toxic relationship with one of the world's most isolated atolls, located 717 nautical miles southwest of Honolulu. The Army is closing the Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System now that the nerve gas and blistering agent munitions once stored on the island have been destroyed. It has been four decades since a series of nuclear rocket failures drenched the island in radioactive contaminants. Ironically, Johnston has been a national wildlife refuge since 1926. It is a nesting ground for threatened green sea turtles and more than a dozen species of sea birds and migratory birds, and its waters are home to 300 species of fish. The Navy took over the atoll in 1934, and the Air Force subsequently assumed control in 1948. The site was used for high-altitude nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s before it was maintained as a storage and disposal site for chemical weapons until 2000. On June 20, 1962, Starfish, a Thor missile with a nuclear warhead, was blown up directly over Johnston when it failed one minute after launch. Metal parts and debris fell back onto the island. A month later, on July 25, a launch dubbed Bluegill Prime was destroyed on the launch pad, scattering radioactive material. Neither explosion was a nuclear detonation, but the radioactive material in the warheads was widely distributed. Divers picked up the debris they found on the lagoon floor and the contaminated runway was torn up and piled near the launch site. Some material was hauled down a ramp made of contaminated coral, loaded into landing craft, and taken out to the channel to be dumped in the deep ocean. Special equipment was used to identify and collect particularly "hot" particles and separate them for special treatment. After a series of studies and public hearings in Hawai'i earlier this year, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency concluded that the best alternative was simply to bury the most radioactive material and cover it with coral debris of relatively low radioactivity. That work started this summer and is nearly complete. "The contaminated metal and concrete debris, and coral that did not meet the cleanup standard, were buried in the Radiological Control Area under a cap of clean coral soil that is a minimum of 2 feet thick," said Cindy McGovern, public affairs specialist for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which is overseeing the cleanup. She said the agency is now conducting a radiological survey to be sure the site meets requirements set by the Environmental Protection Agency. An estimated 45,000 cubic meters of now-buried coral has an average radioactivity of 200 picocuries per gram. Under EPA rules, material with that level of contamination must be sealed from exposure to the environment. The 240 tons of radioactive metal and 200 cubic meters of concrete debris has not been tested, but they are assumed to be contaminated. All that material was covered with a 2-foot-thick cap of coral that has a far lower level of radioactivity — an average of 7.7 picocuries per gram. That level does not require special treatment under EPA rules. The EPA set the Johnston Atoll cleanup standard at a radioactivity level of 13.5 picocuries per gram. At that level, the radiation risk for people on the island for one year is slightly less than the radiation dose an airline passenger receives flying coast to coast, federal officials said. Some types of home smoke detectors contain materials with levels of radioactivity several times higher. The anticipated human exposure from the rocket explosion debris on Johnston is considered to be a fraction of the "average annual radiation dose to the U.S. public from all sources (natural and man-made)," according to a fact sheet on the project prepared by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The contaminated landfill will be compacted and its surface shaped to shed rainwater, although tests suggest radioactive materials are not soluble in Johnston's coral soils, and are not leaching into the waters at the atoll. Once the project is complete, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency intends to regularly monitor the landfill site for five years. "If any radiological contamination is found after landfill monitoring is completed, the contamination will be evaluated by the DTRA health physics staff and appropriate action taken," McGovern said. "We are confident that the EPA-recommended cleanup standard will have been met atoll-wide," she said. The Maui-based Earth Foundation said yesterday it continues to be skeptical of the safety of the landfill method, and feels the radioactive material should be removed from the atoll and hauled to an approved nuclear waste storage site like the one at Yucca Mountain, Nev. "The problem is plutonium has a half life of 24,000 years and is life-threatening for that entire time. There are places on the mainland that are better-equipped to contain radioactive nuclear waste than an atoll vulnerable to hurricanes and erosion from the ocean," said a statement from the group. One issue brought up during public hearings in March is the level of threat from erosion due to hurricanes or tsunamis. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency's corrective measures study, published in June, assumes that the seawall surrounding Johnston eventually will fail, and calculated the threat to the environment if the radioactive landfill is washed into the lagoon. It concluded that the amount of radioactivity added to the material already in the ocean would increase the radioactivity threat by only about 1 percent — a level it decided was so low that it does not justify the expense of maintaining the seawall. Biological studies prepared by the military for Johnston suggest the threat from radioactivity to wildlife is very low. The Hawaiian monk seal, which occasionally visits the atoll, would potentially accumulate the most radioacivity, by eating fish that feed around the most radioactive sediments in the lagoon. Even if a seal fed year-round only on bottom-feeding fish from the most contaminated area of the lagoon, it would reach just 10 percent of the radiation exposure limit set by the International Atomic Energy Commission, said the corrective measures study. Reach Jan TenBruggencate at [jant@honoluluadvertiser.com] or (808) 245-3074. © COPYRIGHT 2002 The Honolulu Advertiser, a division of ***************************************************************** 26 '$13 million compensation' for sub collision families Saturday, October 19, 2002 Posted: 9:31 AM EDT (1331 GMT) The U.S.S. Greeneville collision left 9 people dead and 26 injured. *TOKYO, Japan (AP) --* *Most of the families of 35 Japanese killed or injured in the February 2001 collision of a fishing training vessel and a U.S. Navy submarine off Hawaii have agreed to accept a U.S. offer of compensation totaling US$13 million, and a deal is expected to be signed next month, Japanese media reported Saturday.* The deal covers 33 of the 35 families, with negotiations between the U.S. Navy and the two other families continuing separately, public broadcaster NHK said, citing unidentified sources. Capt. Richard Evans, who heads the Navy's legal team, is likely to sign the agreement in mid-November, the Kyodo News agency said. Nine men and teenage boys died when the nuclear-powered USS Greeneville surfaced beneath the trawler Ehime Maru on February 9, 2001, sinking it off the coast of Oahu. Morio Hatakeyama, chief lawyer for the families, refused to disclose the exact size and details of the compensation, Kyodo said. The payment would include apology money and the cost of the survivors' mental health care. Lawyers and officials could not be reached for comment. Under U.S. law, the families have two years from the date of the accident to accept a compensation offer or file a civil lawsuit. Washington had reportedly considered paying about US$1.85 million each to the seven families of the dead crew, matching a U.S. compensation fund for the September 11 terror attacks. Scott Waddle, the submarine's skipper, was given a letter of reprimand for the collision after a Navy court of inquiry. He later retired. Copyright 2002 The Associated Press . ***************************************************************** 27 UK: NW farmland 'poisoned by' nuclear blast Oct 18 2002 By Mark Hookham Daily Post Staff NUCLEAR fallout from the Chernobyl explosion may have contaminated Merseyside farming land, it was claimed last night. Farmer Frank Biddle A farmer in Wirral claims no wild mushrooms grew in pastures for four years after the explosion at the nuclear power plant in the former USSR. Frank Biddle, 76, believes radiation contaminated his 140-acre dairy farm between 1986 and 1990. Before the explosion, Mr Biddle regularly harvested hundreds of horse mushrooms which grew in large circles on his land at Pasture Farm, Moreton. Mr Biddle, who has managed the farm since the 1940s, said: "Mushrooms have grown on this land for hundreds of years. But after Chernobyl there was not one single mushroom until 1990. "We then had bumper mushroom crops until 2000 when they stopped growing again. "Farmers do not need Geiger counters to know when their land has been contaminated. Most of those fields are grazing pastures where I don't use fertilizer." Mr Biddle's claims support shocking new research revealed in the Daily Post last week that showed the number of children born with birth defects jumped by 76pc in Liverpool and 149pc in West Lancashire during the four years following the 1986 blast. Former government statistician John Urqu-hart examined official figures and found the number of babies dying before the age of one in Liverpool rose by 40pc in the year of the blast. The Newcastle-based researcher believes heavy rainfall over the North West in the days after the explosion led to one of the heaviest radiation fallouts in the country. Mr Urquhart said: "Mushrooms are very delicate things and any irregularities in their growth would be interesting to look at. "You do get coincidences in nature but the more of these kinds of observations we record, the more we can find out about the impact of radiation." A spokeswoman for the National Farmers Union said: "It is only now that we are beginning to realise the impact of Chernobyl on humans and on farming. "This farmer is probably quite right to link the effects on his fields to Chernobyl." But scientists at the National Radiological Protection Board believe the level of fallout on the Wirral would not have been high enough to stop the growth of mushrooms. Spokesman Dr Michael Clark said: "I will not rule it out but I think it unlikely that this is connected to Chernobyl." Trinity Mirror Plc 2002 icLiverpool^TM is a trade mark of Trinity ***************************************************************** 28 The Apty Named Skull Valley Reservation Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2002 15:47:42 -0500 (CDT) Multi paged article at URL. http://web.outsideonline.com/magazine/200005/200005skullvalley1.html If you were to pull out a map and draw a rough circle connecting Dugway, the MagCorp plant, the Wendover Bombing Range, the Hazardous Industries Area, and the Army's chemical weapons incinerator, the center would be a point about 15 miles south of the Polynesian warrior. Not a prime piece of real estate, to be sure. But here, in 1912, the federal government set aside 18,000 acres as a reservation for the surviving members of perhaps the most ravaged group of Indians in all of North America, the Skull Valley band of Goshutes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Do the Goshutes have the right to do whatever they want on their land? Do they have any options other than inviting nuclear waste storage given the condition of their surrounding environment? Tell us what you think in our Skull Valley Forum. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is impossible for the 25 Goshutes who still reside on the Skull Valley reservation to avoid the dangers that surround them. (Most of the 91 tribe members who make their homes off the reservation live nearby in Grantsville, Stockton, and Salt Lake City, Utah.) But before you get back in your car and vacate this little patch of hell as fast as you can, take a deep breath and consider the toxic trash and noxious chemicals, the deadly biohazards and mephitic clouds of gas, the military debris and industrial detritus that taint Skull's soil, pollute its air, and fester in the DNA of its plants and animals. Certainly, it's too much for one piece of land to bear. But then also consider that the Goshutes have been wandering in these barrens since the last Ice Age and have faced extinction many times before. And then mull this final thought: For all these reasons, and a few more, the current chairman of the Skull Valley Goshutes, a 44-year-old former security guard named Leon Bear, is eager to start filling up his tribe's front yard with the ultimate 20th-century poison, the last missing element in the valley's litany of contaminants-40,000 metric tons of uranium fuel rods, virtually the entire stock of high-level radioactive waste that has been produced by America's 128 commercial nuclear power plants. ***************************************************************** 29 Utah County's Toxic Tradition Is Under Threat The New York Times *By MICHAEL JANOFSKY* TOOELE, Utah, Oct. 18 ? As other places in the United States have struggled to keep dangerous materials away, Tooele County has welcomed some of the deadliest things ever made: radioactive waste, ammunition, chemical and biological weapons. For nearly 60 years, government and private facilities here in the vast desert west of Salt Lake City have stored and processed hazardous wastes of all stripes, winning the county a reputation as one of America's foremost dumping grounds. But now, even as some lethal substances are being destroyed under terms of federal mandates and international agreements, efforts to bring new toxic materials into the county have set off bruising political fights, leading to an unusual state ballot initiative next month in one case and a plea to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in another. Caught in the breach are Tooele County residents who speak proudly of their toxic traditions and insist that the county and the country have benefited from stockpiling the material here. Since the first federal installations opened in the early days of World War II, Tooele County (pronounced Too-WILL-uh) has tripled in population, reaching almost 41,000 by the last census. "We have taken on a huge share of the defense of America," said Gene D. White, a Tooele County commissioner, referring to nearly a dozen federal and private operations in the county that deal with things few other places want. "Instead of getting credit, all we do is get criticized for it." Tooele County is Utah's second-largest, at 6,930 square miles, about 84 percent of which belongs to the federal and state governments. The gathering of dangerous material here began shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when Washington designated 200 square miles of its Tooele land for weapons testing. Over the next six decades, county residents have lived alongside Air Force bombing ranges, testing and storage sites for chemical and biological weapons, mineral processing plants, toxic landfills and large incinerators now used to destroy stored weapons. Almost half the nation's supply of chemical weapons is kept at the eastern end of the county. All the while, the county's largest towns, Tooele and Grantsville, have become thriving bedroom communities to Salt Lake City, an easy commute 30 miles to the east. The towns have affordable housing, scenic mountains, quiet neighborhoods, safe distances from bombing runs and storage sites and no evidence of uncommon health risks. But now, as the county waits to open its arms again, strong resistance is building to new toxic imports, although it is far from clear whether the opposition will actually stop the flow or merely delay it. The disputes have coalesced around two entities with strong ties to the county ? Envirocare of Utah, the nation's largest private disposal company for low-level radioactive waste, and the Skull Valley Goshutes, a small Indian tribe proposing to build temporary storage for spent nuclear fuels headed to permanent entombment at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. After a dozen years of processing low-level radioactive waste, like dirt and rubble from cleanups at former weapons plants, Envirocare won federal and state permits to take materials with higher levels of radioactivity, like medical waste. But as the Goshutes' proposal began drawing more controversy, Envirocare suspended plans to seek final approval from the Legislature and governor. "Maybe not forever and all time," said Betty Arial, a spokeswoman for Envirocare. "But for now, plans are not being discussed." Gov. Michael O. Leavitt, a third-term Republican, applauded Envirocare's decision to back off, saying he would have denied any permit for higher-grade imports, but opponents to Envirocare were not taking any chances. Led by Doug Foxley, a powerful state lobbyist, they collected enough signatures to get a complex measure before voters, using the promise of desperately needed new tax money for public education as its strongest selling point. If passed, the measure would bar all higher level radioactive materials from the state and raise taxes fourfold on revenues generated by low-grade material. *Continued* 1 | 2 NY Times ***************************************************************** 30 Abandoned mines a nuclear concern By Moriah Robertson /NewsNet Staff Writer/ 18 Oct 2002 The Utah Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program is improving a watershed and closing abandoned uranium mines near Blanding, San Juan County, as part of the Cottonwood Wash Watershed Abandoned Mine Reclamation Project. Some of the hazards associated with the abandoned mines include exposure to radiation and leaching problems concerning nuclear waste storage facilities and tailings ponds. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that radon, a radioactive gas that forms as uranium decays, causes 14,000 deaths a year. Stephen Nelson, BYU association professor of geology, said inhaled radon particles can cause lung cancer if the particles begin to decay inside the lung. "The closing of the mine is a benign process, but the way that the federal agencies access the mine and the impact of closing the mine in the immediate area are the Sierra Club's main concerns," said Wayne Hoskisson, Public Lands Committee Chair for the Utah chapter of the Sierra Club. "The real impact is in the places where there are waste heaps from the mines that are sitting on the sides of canyons and contain a fair amount of radioactivity that gets washed into the canyons." Mark Mesch, program administrator for the Utah Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program said the Cottonwood Wash project is unique because it is a cooperative project between state and federal agencies and is the third project in the nation where multiple agencies have gotten involved. Partnering with Utah's Bureau of Land Management and the USDA Forest Service, the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining has been working on a seven-phase project in Cottonwood Wash in an effort to protect the public and improve the environment. Currently in the fourth and largest phase of the project, work at the West Black Mesa Butte encompasses a watershed measuring approximately 143,000 acres and over 100 abandoned uranium mines. "In reclaiming a mine, the resources at the opening will determine what kind of closure can or cannot be used in that particular opening," geologist Terry Snyder said. "For instance, if bats are present and low radiation is present, then we will use a bat gate. If the amount of radiation is high and we can't put people inside the mine to perform a bat survey, we exclude and backfill." Under the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, the federal government gained jurisdiction over environmental problems related to surface coal mining, and in 1983, a reclamation program for Utah was approved by Congress. "The BLM addresses physical safety hazards of all sites and addresses environmental problems that have water quality issues," Snyder said. "We work together with the state to maximize reclamation efforts at a site to minimize each agency's costs so more money is available to do additional sites." Snyder said the Cottonwood Wash Watershed Abandoned Mine Reclamation Project is expected to be finished by the end of Sept. 2003. The reclamation of uranium mines comes on the heels of a continuing controversy on storing nuclear waste in Utah. The debate has stirred up response from environmentalists who claim waste storage is a threat to health. "Personally it is wrong that we are storing nuclear waste from other states in our states," said Sarah Farnsworth, 21, a senior from Orem majoring in visual arts and co-president of Eco-Response, an educational and environmentally active campus club. "It does pose a threat to people's health and the environment. The people who create the waste should be responsible for storing it in their area or find alternate solutions for storing the waste." *Copyright ©2002 BYU NewsNet* ***************************************************************** 31 Teachers in (N-waste) Initiative Crossfire The Salt Lake Tribune -- Saturday, October 19, 2002 BY JUDY FAHYS Utah teachers are getting a crash course in guerrilla politics, thanks to the fight over Initiative 1. The battle heated up last week after teachers received two communications from opponents of Initiative 1, which the Utah Education Association, the 18,000-member teachers union, has endorsed as a funding source for schools. First the teachers got a letter from five legislators on Oct. 10 that said they were being used as pawns in a corporate battle over the initiative and that school relations with the business community and the legislature would suffer. Next, on Thursday, teachers received an e-mail saying their union should avoid "social issues such as guns and nuclear waste" and hinted their involvement puts education funding at risk. The letter and the e-mail have triggered a firestorm among teachers, who say they will stand behind the union leaders. Many have objected to what they consider threats from political outsiders who infiltrated internal teacher channels. "We have done our homework," said UEA President Pat Rusk. "We know our members want us to pursue this." Rusk and UEA executive director Susan Kuziak said the union took up the challenge a few years ago to look for ways to boost education funding. Lawmakers had failed to cut sales-tax exemptions to increase funding or to develop revenue sources of their own. Meanwhile, education budgets had to be cut this year because of revenue shortfalls. The radioactive-waste tax was one idea that seemed logical, given that South Carolina, which has one of only two other commercial radioactive waste disposal sites in the nation, reaped $53 million last year from a similar tax. A poll of union members showed 76 percent approved of the idea of pushing for a radioactive-waste tax and using member dues to help finance the effort. Earlier this year UEA was asked to join the coalition behind The Radioactive Waste Restrictions Act, also known as Initiative 1. The measure would outlaw waste more radioactive than what is already permitted in the state and raise taxes on the out-of-state waste that is already allowed to be disposed in Utah. It also would channel any revenues from the tax to anti-poverty programs and schools, where money would be directed to specific programs, such as computers, classroom supplies, scholarships and hiring more teachers. Exactly how much revenue would be produced is unknown but it is estimated to be between $100 million and $200 million. The UEA leadership also considered whether legislators, who largely oppose the initiative, might retaliate by cutting school funding and whether the teachers' stand might upset the public. Union leaders also weighed the possible impacts on Envirocare of Utah, the Tooele County company that would be required to collect radioactive waste taxes from its customers and that says it will go out of business if Initiative 1 passes. "We have seen the research," said a letter Rusk sent to members in response to the legislators' letter. "And we know that this initiative is the smart choice for Utah's children." According to campaign reports filed Sept. 16, UEA contributed $50,000 to the coalition supporting Initiative 1, the Citizens for Radioactive Waste Control. The 2.7- million-member National Education Association pitched in $200,000 from a special assessment on union dues that NEA members approved a few years ago for a special ballot-initiative fund. "Let's face it," said NEA spokeswoman Denise Cardinal. "Resources affect their working conditions, and this is what this initiative is about. They [the teachers] are about helping the students achieve." Suggesting exactly the opposite was the unsigned e-mail from a group calling itself "Focus on Education Project." "We believe that the UEA should refocus its agenda to excellence in education and stay out of efforts that do not have a direct impact on bettering the education of our children," the mass e-mail said. The e-mail urged members to sign an electronic petition "if you agree that the UEA leadership is out of line on these issues," but there is no contact information that would allow readers to identify who is behind the petition drive. The letter to teachers was signed by four state representatives: Sheryl Allen, R-Bountiful; Jim Gowans, D-Tooele; Richard Siddoway, R-Bountiful, and Marda Dilree, R-Farmington. The four have received campaign contributions totaling $1,700 from Envirocare. Their letter, also signed by departing Sen. Alicia Suazo, D-Salt Lake City, was paid for by Utahns Against Unfair Taxes, which has spent more than $1 million on an anti-Initiative 1 campaign. "We suggest that public education should not be participating in this initiative process," said the letter. "It puts education at odds with the entire political and business communities and the vast majority of legislators." Jeff Wyatt, president of the Tooele Education Association, has openly opposed the UEA's involvement. He said his members urged him to be the voice behind an anti-Initiative 1 telemarketing call that began flooding Utah last week. He insisted that UEA leaders are not allowing the other side of the story to be told. "The future for us [in Tooele County] is very scary," he said. "If we lose them [Envirocare] we don't know what will happen." Rusk and Kuziak said they had no bad feelings about Wyatt's position. "They are doing the best job they can for their members," said Kuziak. But the UEA leadership has to go forward, too, with the fight it says its membership still supports. Fahys@sltrib.com © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on Utah OnLine is ***************************************************************** 32 Hellraiser: Atomic Activist Preston J. Truman Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2002 15:43:24 -0500 (CDT) http://motherjones.com/magazine/MJ01/truman.html Hellraiser: Atomic Activist Preston J. Truman by William M. Adler May/June 2001 In the predawn darkness of a spring morning in 1955, a toddler and his father ascended a bluff outside their small farming community in southwestern Utah to witness the awesome spectacle of an atom-bomb test. From the vantage point of his father's knee, Preston J Truman peered at the fireball in the enormous Western sky. It is Truman's first memory, one that has seared and scarred and defined his entire life, given him a calling. "The atomic tests have always been a major part of my life," says Truman, who was born downwind of the government's Nevada Test Site in 1951, the year the United States started bombing its own people. During the next dozen years, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) set off 100 atom bombs over the desert northwest of Las Vegas. The detonations occurred only when the prevailing winds were northeasterly, so the radioactive cloud and its deadly fallout would spare Las Vegas and the West Coast, and drift instead over hamlets like Truman's hometown of Enterprise, population 700. Truman grew up with the bomb. When he was five, a playmate died of leukemia. "God's plan," his Mormon elders explained. In grade school, an AEC speaker gave him a uranium ore-encased key chain and a small booklet that recognized the youngsters for accepting the "inconvenience" of the tests. Their "cooperation," the booklet added, "helped achieve an unusual record of safety." Unusual, indeed. In downwind farming towns throughout Utah, Nevada, and Arizona, residents noticed their sheep dying off, then soaring numbers of human leukemias and cancers. With the aid of a cowed press, the AEC denied any causal link between the atomic assault and downwinders' maladies. One 1955 headline: FALLOUT? 'NOT ENOUGH TO WORRY ABOUT,' SAYS AEC. By the time he turned 17, in 1968, Truman knew better. That year he too became a casualty, diagnosed with lymphoma. He had already become an activist, telling "anyone who would listen" that a federal study of 3,000 area school-children (including him) was the government's way of "checking the guinea pigs' cages to see how many they had killed." (Among the dead would be 9 of his 30 schoolmates -- the class held a portion of its 10th reunion at the town cemetery.) Truman, whose cancer is in remission, is still spreading the word. Last January, on the 50th anniversary of the first A-bomb test at the Nevada Test Site, Truman organized a "Day of Remembrance" at the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City. In the rotunda was a mangled army of Cold War victims: former Test Site workers, veterans of the atomic blasts, uranium millers and miners, and members of Downwinders, a grassroots organization that Truman founded in 1978 and directs. The group has fought to ban nuclear tests and to block radioactive waste dumps. At the commemoration, Truman called for justice for all whom the government knowingly harmed, and excoriated the feeble federal program that compensates victims of radiation. Last year, following a decade of relentless lobbying by Downwinders and other groups, Congress amended the program to cover more claimants. But lawmakers neglected to provide adequate funds, leaving most victims with nothing but IOUs from the government. This latest twist surprises Truman not a bit. "Hey, these are the people who have lied, who have covered up, have denied the truth for 50 years," he says. "Besides, we can't win by thinking the whole world revolves around that 20-mile circle around the Washington Monument. We've got to go out there and reach the people, educate them, make some noise." ***************************************************************** 33 [southnews] UK,US threaten UN over Iraq Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2002 15:52:30 -0500 (CDT) Sell a Home with Ease! http://us.click.yahoo.com/SrPZMC/kTmEAA/jd3IAA/7gSolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ---------- Straw gives UN Iraq warning BBC NEWS Friday, 18 October, 2002, 12:50 GMT 13:50 UK The UK and America are prepared to take military action alone against Iraq if there is no new United Nations resolution on weapons inspections, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said. Mr Straw's warning comes as the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the UK, US, China, France and Russia - prepare to try to end weeks of wrangling on Friday. Nine Labour anti-war rebel MPs on Friday launched a new demand for a Commons vote over Iraq as soon as possible. The foreign secretary stressed the UK was "completely committed" to using the UN if that was successful. But America and the US reserved the right to go it alone if military action was blocked and if Iraq was in "flagrant breach" of UN resolutions, he said. Ending the wrangling The US says it will soon table a draft resolution to the Security Council aimed at strengthening the weapons inspections regime. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the resolution would make it clear Iraq had been "in violation" of UN resolutions for a long time. And it would make clear there would have to be "consequences for continued violation", said Mr Powell. Russia's Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, said he believed there were "favourable conditions" for the council to agree a resolution that quickly restarted weapons inspections. France is seen as isolated among the key five council members as it continues to insist military action should only come after a second resolution is passed. Options open Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Straw increased the pressure on the other council members to accept America's proposals. "We reserve the right to act within international law in respect of the use of force which may or may not be covered by a new resolution," he said. "It is entirely appropriate for America, as for us, to reserve their position if the United Nations does not meet its responsibilities. "We are completely committed to the United Nations route if that is successful. "If, for example, we end up being vetoed on statements which are as plain as daylight that Iraq is in flagrant breach of United Nations resolutions, then of course we are in a different situation." Weapons focus Those comments are likely to increase criticism from those who say America is planning to attack Iraq regardless of what the UN decides. UK ministers have stressed their prime objective is dealing with Iraq's alleged build-up of weapons of mass destruction. They say they would be delighted to see Saddam Hussein's government toppled in Baghdad but, unlike some US figures, argue it should not be the aim of their policy. Iraq's latest offer to readmit weapons inspectors has not proved enough to satisfy the US and UK governments. Opposition continues Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy warned later that the UK and US would find it difficult to justify pre-emptive action against Iraq without UN authority because of the CIA's view on the threat posed. "Before you can invoke the right to self-defence, the danger has to be immediate and acute," he said. On Friday, nine Labour MPs began a parliamentary petition calling for a vote on the government's Iraq policy "at the earliest opportunity". MPs were denied a vote on a substantive motion during last month's emergency debate on the crisis. But more than 50 Labour rebels did register their opposition to possible military action in a procedural vote. Former ministers Glenda Jackson and Tony Banks are among those who have so far signed the new vote demand. The petition was tabled by Labour's Helen Clark, who said the public had a right to expect their MP to be able to take a public stance on such a vital issue. Ministers have said there will be a vote if there is military action against Iraq, but have refused to be drawn on the timing for that vote. ---------- USS Constellation Will Go To Persian Gulf Early Aircraft Carrier Being Sent Several Months Early October 16, 2002 TheSanDiegoChannel.com SAN DIEGO -- The San Diego-based aircraft carrier USS Constellation and its support ships will depart for the Persian Gulf earlier than originally expected amid continuing preparations for a possible war with Iraq, it was reported Wednesday. The Constellation, originally scheduled to depart in early 2003, will now leave port in November, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Joined by other U.S. Navy ships, the Constellation will start a final training exercise Thursday, according to the newspaper. The ship will spend about two weeks off of Southern California practicing bombing missions, Tomahawk cruise-missile strikes and maritime interceptions, the newspaper reported. When the exercise is completed on Oct. 30, the Constellation will return to San Diego for several days before departing for the Persian Gulf, military officials told the Union-Tribune. The Constellation returned from its last Persian Gulf deployment in September of 2001. Normally, aircraft carriers are deployed for six months and then have about 18 months to conduct maintenance and training before their next deployment. The USS Constellation is home to about 5,000 sailors and Marines and carries about 70 aircraft. Joining the Constellation will be the San Diego-based Naval cruisers the USS Valley Forge and the USS Bunker Hill as well as the destroyers the USS Milius and the USS Higgins and the frigate USS Thach, according to the Union-Tribune. Along with the Florida-based USS John F. Kennedy and the Japan-based USS Kitty Hawk, the Constellation is one of only three of the nation's carriers that are not nuclear-powered. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: southnews-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 34 Defense spending bill includes cash for HAMMER complex This story was published Thu, Oct 17, 2002 By Annette Cary and John Stang Herald staff writers The U.S. Senate approved a massive fiscal 2003 defense spending bill Wednesday that includes $1 million for Hanford's HAMMER complex and additional money for a new naval defense program that will depend on HAMMER. A few days ago, the U.S. House passed the same $355 billion defense spending bill, which now goes to the White House for President Bush's signature. The bill includes money for a new Asymmetric Warfare Initiative, according to the staff of Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee. The new initiative will rely on Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland to develop a training program for emergency crews on Navy bases and nearby communities to help them plan for new types of threats, including bioterrorism. Of the $2.1 million approved for the initiative, $500,000 will be granted to PNNL. The initiative's center will be based at Point Mugu north of Los Angeles, but training will be done by PNNL at HAMMER. PNNL also expects to make use of its Marine Sciences Laboratory at Sequim to test technologies and do some research, which could include developing monitoring technologies geared toward water or port use. HAMMER is a Hanford and regional training complex for emergency and rescue workers, plus other agencies that can use the facility. Its annual budget is about $6 million. Traditionally, most of HAMMER's budget comes from the energy and water appropriations bill, which also includes money for Hanford's cleanup work. But a small part of HAMMER's budget also comes annually from Congress' defense appropriation. It is unknown how much money in the energy and water appropriations will go to HAMMER in fiscal 2003. That legislation has been stalled behind defense spending and other congressional matters and has not yet cleared either the House or Senate. Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights ***************************************************************** 35 Aluminum was tip-off to North Korea nuclear plans The Seattle Times: Nation &World: October 18, 2002 - 12:08 a.m. Pacific By Joby Warrick The Washington Post Analysis: Motivation is tough to fathom for Kim's weapons admission North Korea's surprise admission of a secret nuclear program was prompted by a U.S. intelligence discovery that the isolated state was trying to acquire large amounts of high-strength aluminum, a metal used in gas-centrifuge plants for enriching uranium for a bomb, weapons experts and officials familiar with the finding said yesterday. The attempted acquisition of the metal helped U.S. analysts conclude that North Korea was constructing a secret uranium-enrichment facility, which North Korean officials are reported to have then confirmed in talks with a U.S. diplomat earlier this month. It's not known what progress North Korea has made toward enriching uranium, or which other countries or companies have assisted in the pursuit of uranium-enrichment technology. Bush administration officials said they would use diplomacy to deal with North Korea, even though the White House is weighing military force to stem the similar danger in Iraq. Though both rogue states are pursuing nuclear weapons, the administration insists North Korea and Iraq represent vastly different levels of threat and therefore require different responses. Administration spokesmen say that while the danger posed by the Stalinist Pyongyang regime might still be contained through diplomatic pressure, the diplomatic option had long since failed in the case of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. In addition, they said, Saddam's willingness to use his presumed nuclear, chemical and biological weapons is far greater than Pyongyang's. Stressing the diplomatic approach, national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice said, "I think we're going to see that no one wants to have a nuclear-armed North Korea and that effective international pressure may have an effect on North Korea." Rice suggested it would be a mistake to equate the situation in North Korea with that of Iraq, a country the United States is contemplating using force to disarm. "We've tried everything with Saddam Hussein. Nothing has worked," she said. Bush's spokesman, Scott McClellan, said the president regards North Korea's nuclear program as "troubling and sobering news" but added "this is something that is best addressed through diplomatic channels at this point." Last January, Bush lumped together Iraq and North Korea, along with Iran, as members of an "axis of evil" — states the president said posed particularly urgent dangers in a world trying to rout sources of terrorism. Rumors about a secret uranium-enrichment facility have circulated for years, but the discovery of the attempted aluminum procurement was described as the first hard evidence that a program was actually under way. Officials wouldn't say where the metals originated or how much North Korea acquired. Such attempts to procure a specific metal or technology are regarded by nonproliferation specialists as important tip-offs that countries are trying to build weapons for which they lack the materials and know-how. Similar purchases have been cited as evidence that Iran and Iraq are also pursuing weapons of mass destruction and ballistic-missile technology. In addition to tracking the aluminum, U.S. intelligence officials had received reports of significant construction activity that appeared related to a uranium-enrichment facility, knowledgeable sources said. Earlier, suspicions about a North Korean nuclear program centered on a plutonium-based weapon, which makes smaller, lighter bombs but is much more difficult to produce and work with than enriched uranium. But further production of plutonium was banned under a 1994 agreement in which Pyongyang agreed to give up the pursuit of nuclear weapons in exchange for foreign assistance in building civilian nuclear reactors. The apparent decision to pursue uranium-based weapons suggests North Korea believed it could preserve and even expand its nuclear options, while revealing nothing of its intentions to the outside world, weapons experts said. "Centrifuge facilities are not all that large, and conceivably you can build them above ground without being detected," said Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's nonproliferation project. North Korea lacks the ability to build a gas-centrifuge facility on its own, weapons experts agreed. Many analysts pointed to Pakistan as a possible source of supplies and expertise. "Pakistan would be a possibility because it used gas centrifuges, and its own nuclear weapons initially used enriched uranium," said Robert Einhorn, former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation and now a senior adviser at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Also, North Korea and Pakistan have been known to engage in sensitive trade, including Pakistan's purchase of Nodong missiles from North Korea," Einhorn said. "U.S. officials were concerned at the time about what the quid pro quo might be." Material from Knight-Ridder News Service and The Associated Press is included in this report. The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 36 Evidence of nuclear weapons in N. Korea received in 2000 Tribnet.com - News/Nation &World [Tribnet.com] Doug Struck and Glenn Kessler; The Washington Post SEOUL, South Korea - The United States received evidence of uranium enrichment efforts in North Korea as early as two years ago, but only recently decided to confront the government there about it, sources in the United States and Asia said Friday. The evidence at first was faint and circumstantial. But it accumulated to the point that by August of this year administration officials felt the case was compelling and grounds for cutting off talks aimed at improving relations with the isolated state. A U.S. envoy who took the evidence to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, two weeks ago expected a denial, which the United States would then cite to allies as a reason to suspend the talks, the officials said. Instead, North Korea admitted it was developing enriched uranium for use in a nuclear bomb, thrusting the issue into the open. The United States told the governments of South Korea and Japan about the nuclear programs much earlier than previously disclosed, according to government sources here and officials in Washington. When Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi went to Pyongyang Sept. 17, he knew of the uranium enrichment suspicions in detail, but failed to press the issue firmly. The acknowledgment of long awareness of the problem contrasts with the official expressions of surprise from Asian capitals after the Bush administration disclosed the North Korean program this week. According to sources in U.S. and Asian governments, the only surprise was the North Korean confession. A senior South Korean official said Washington knew of the North Korean program well before this summer, and that in several governments in East Asia "the intelligence community followed it very closely." "Our countries were closely consulted by the United States," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. A second high-ranking South Korean Foreign Ministry official said the United States had at least "rudimentary intelligence" about North Korea's uranium enrichment program more than a year ago. Washington told South Korea of the program by at least August 2001, the official said. Washington sources said the first signs came in 2000. But the "dots weren't connected" by intelligence analysts until the summer of that year, one administration official said. And the information was not reaching the highest levels of government. U.S. officials say Pakistan has been a principal provider of nuclear-related equipment to North Korea, and other countries, including Russia, were involved, a senior Bush administration official said Friday. In return for North Korean missiles and other equipment, countries provided material that included precursor chemicals and metal suitable for building centrifuges, the official said. Shortly after Secretary of State Colin Powell met briefly with his North Korean counterpart at an international conference in the Southeast Asian country of Brunei in July of this year, senior officials became aware of a consensus among intelligence analysts that North Korea had a secret weapons program. A new debate within the administration on how to react ensued, but it was interrupted by the surprise announcement from Koizumi that he would make the first visit to North Korea by a Japanese prime minister. The Americans decided to brief Koizumi personally. Before going, he met with President Bush at the United Nations Sept. 12, and was "shocked at the harshness" of Bush's comments about the North Korean program, according to Toshimitsu Shigemura, an analyst at Takushoku University in Tokyo with close government sources. Five days later, Koizumi traveled to Pyongyang to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. There, Koizumi signed an agreement for continuing talks aimed at diplomatic recognition and financial aid, and Kim acknowledged that North Korea had abducted Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s. According to accounts of the meeting, his message on the nuclear issue focused on a call that North Korea should abide by a 1994 accord. Under that agreement, North Korea agreed to abandon a nuclear weapons program in exchange for the construction of nuclear power plants by a consortium led by the United States. Koizumi's visit forced the issue in Washington. The administration decided to send assistant secretary of state James Kelly to Pyongyang to stress the nuclear issue more forcefully. A working assumption in Seoul and Tokyo is that North Korea will respond to growing pressure to abandon its nuclear weapons program. There was speculation this week that the North may be seeking to bargain away a project it couldn't afford anyway, in exchange for concessions from the United States. North Korea has yet to comment publicly on the disclosure by the United States. The Los Angeles Times contributed to this report. (Published 12:30AM, October 19th, 2002) Tacoma News, Inc. 1950 South State Street, Tacoma, Washington 98405 253-597-8742 Fax Machines: Newsroom, 253-597-8274 Advertising, 253-597-8764 Send comments to the [webmaster@tribnet.com] at [webmaster@tribnet.com] . - - - - - - ***************************************************************** 37 N. Korea Never Complied with Nuke Agreement [NewsMax.com] October 20, 2002 Documents: N. Korea Never Complied with Nuke Agreement Stewart Stogel Thursday, Oct. 17, 2002 New York -- Documents in the possession of the State Department and the Pentagon indicate that North Korea never complied with the terms of a 1994 "Agreed Framework" signed with the Clinton administration. In September 1994, Amb. Robert Gallucci (Asst. Sec. of State for North Korean Affairs) signed an accord with North Korean deputy foreign minister Kang Sok Ju in New York. The accord, called the "Agreed Framework," "froze" the accelerating North Korean nuclear weapons program. In return for the freeze and the dismantling of one active nuclear reactor and the dismantling of a second nearing completion, the U.S. promised Pyongyang two new state-of-the-art light-water reactors to be built in the northern seaport city of Simpo. The light water reactors produce far less bomb-grade atomic material than the fast-breeder reactors the North Koreans were operating. The reactors at Simpo are being built and mostly financed by South Korea (who is constructing them) and Japan. The U.S. is providing fuel oil until the reactors are completed. Under terms of the agreement with the U.S., the International Atomic Energy Agency was to make a field inspection of the atomic research site (in the hamlet of Yongbyon about 60 mi north of the North Korean capital Pyongyang) in October 1994. Details of that inspection were released in an IAEA report of November 1994. In that report, the IAEA raised serious questions about what was found (or not found) at the nuclear site. "Key parts of the new nuclear reactor were missing," claimed Demetrius Perricos, the lead IAEA inspector. Perricos went on to claim that not only were key pieces missing, but based on previous official North Korean accounts, "most of the reactor" was missing. Perricos, along with former IAEA Director-General Dr. Hans Blix, now head the U.N. effort to disarm Iraq from weapons similar to the ones North Korea has admitted hiding. This marks the second time the IAEA got fooled; in 1990 by Iraq and now from 1994-2002 by North Korea. To Hans Blix's credit, he suspected something was up but never got any real support from the Clinton administration. The reactor sited in the IAEA report could produce enough plutonium (the heart of a nuclear weapon) to make "3-4 bombs a year," so said the CIA in an earlier report to Congress. The IAEA surmised that either previous claims by the DPRK were "inaccurate" or the new reactor had been mostly "disassembled" before the U.S. and North Korea reached their agreement. The IAEA report was filed at the same time ambassador Gallucci sought congressional approval for the Clinton administration's agreement. Gallucci claims he never received the IAEA report. The IAEA says the report was sent to Joel Wit, a State Dept. official on the Korean desk (now retired). When questioned, Wit "could not remember" why Gallucci never received the IAEA report. Further research showed that secretary of defense William Perry received the report, who then not only elected to keep the report from the administration's official point man on North Korea, but from several key congressional committees as well. Repeated claims by Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y., a recent chairman of the House International Relations Committee, that North Korea "had been constantly cheating" on the U.S. accord, were denied by both Perry and Madeleine Albright. Neither Perry nor Albright was available to respond to questions on North Korea's surprise admission that they indeed do have a secret atomic weapons program. That revelation came from the White House on Wednesday night. The Bush administration claims that the North Korean admission came during a visit by a State Department delegation to North Korea on October 4. All Rights Reserved © NewsMax.com ***************************************************************** 38 Number of Nations With Nukes Grows | Web Book By RON KAMPEAS Associated Press Writer October 19, 2002, 1:13 PM EDT WASHINGTON -- North Korea's knock on the door of the burgeoning nuclear club has thrown into question the decades-old idea of a nuclear elite pledged to keeping other countries out. Now grave concerns are being raised not only over that country's potential ascension into the ranks of nuclear powers but also about whether North Korea will spread the technology. North Korea admitted this month that it has flouted a 1994 agreement to freeze nuclear weapons development. The revelation adds to growing worries over nuclear tensions between India and Pakistan and efforts by countries such as Iraq to develop the ultimate weapon. An abundance of nuclear technology in North Korea, long known for its ballistic missile sales, anticipates a nightmare domino effect, experts say. That argument is underscored by the likelihood that recent club member Pakistan, despite its denials, helped the reclusive east Asian dictatorship to the door. "The concern is North Korea becoming a nuclear Kmart, complete with blue-light specials," said Jon Wolfsthal, a nuclear proliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The nonproliferation treaty of 1968 was aimed at confining nuclear weapons to the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China and coming up with formulas for those nations to eliminate their weapons systems. The treaty suffered its first major blow in 1998. Stirred by clashes in the disputed Kashmir province, India and Pakistan openly tested weapons they had previously refused to acknowledge having. The United States reined in passions with the quick threat of punishment, but experts say the Indian subcontinent is the likeliest site of the first belligerent use of nuclear weapons since 1945. By contrast, experts believe North Korea's short-term priority is simply to deter South Korea and its allies from seeking the downfall of Kim Jong Il's government. The longer-term danger is reflected in North Korea's propensity for selling long-range ballistic missile technology to all takers, with intelligence agencies tracking deals with Iran, Syria and Iraq. Such missiles now in those hands already pose threats to Western interests in the Middle East. Armed with nuclear warheads, they could change the world balance of power forever. "North Korea says it sells ballistic missile technology because it's in dire straits; it needs cash," said Steve LaMontagne of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. "What if it takes the same attitude with nuclear technology, selling it to other countries or even terrorists?" That depends on how far along the weapons program is. The United States long has believed that North Korea had one or two bombs manufactured from 1980s-vintage plutonium. Another cache of fuel rods sealed by the United States after the 1994 agreement might have produced another five weapons. Even at that level, there would have been few implications beyond the balance of power on the Korean peninsula, where 37,000 U.S. soldiers help secure the armistice that stopped the 1950-53 war with South Korea and its Western allies. "Two, four, even eight warheads -- that would make them feel secure and deter the United States," Wolfsthal said, and not much more. "The huge problem would be a surplus of nuclear materials." That danger emerged this summer when the United States uncovered evidence of purchase orders for materials aimed at building centrifuges to separate weapons-grade uranium from lower-grade uranium. Enriched uranium is easier to hide and more reliable than plutonium. "If you have a supplier and a buyer out there, it's a matter of time until they hook up," said Stephen Blank, a Koreas expert at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. U.S. diplomats presented the North Koreans with the evidence this month, prompting the belligerent acknowledgment of a nuclear weapons program and an abrupt end to the talks. David Albright, a former U.N. nuclear inspector, believes North Korea is two years or three years away from manufacturing three weapons a year. That would put North Korea in the position of providing others with weapons within a decade. "It's serious enough that they have to be stopped," Albright said. The full story of how the North Koreans have come this far is not yet clear, but no one doubts that Pakistan played a role, trading its nuclear technology for North Korea's missile-making expertise. Karl Inderfurth, a South Asia expert who served in the Clinton administration, said President Clinton on three occasions objected directly to Pakistani leaders reports that Islamabad was sending nuclear materials to North Korea. * __ On the Net: Center for Defense Information graphic estimating number of nuclear weapons by country: http://cdi.org/nuclear/database/nukestab.html Federation of American Scientists' nuclear page: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/index.html Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press ***************************************************************** 39 Uranium town confronts past, looks toward future By KIMBERLY HEFLING Associated Press Writer October 19, 2002 PADUCAH, Ky.- The sick workers come in the government's resource center pulling oxygen tanks and wearing hearing aides. Some are skeptical. Others are angry. Many, sick and scared with tumors and incurable cancers, just want someone to listen to them. This is the legacy of the Atomic Age. Unbeknownst to some at the time, workers were exposed to dangerous radioactive elements at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, the government would later admit. Yet, the plant also has been an important economic engine, providing tens of thousands of workers with jobs through the years. Some of the same sick people seeking help obtaining compensation from the government at Paducah's "sick workers office" say they would do it all again, said Stewart Tolar, site manager at the Energy Employees Compensation Resource Center. The city will unveil murals painted on the Ohio River floodwall paying tribute to the plant's early workers as part of a 50th anniversary celebration of the plant. The anniversary, Oct. 24, comes at a time when Paducah, population 27,000, is coming to terms with the plant's past as well as trying to ensure its future. Opening the plant "was a major event in the history of the city," said Don Pepper, 78, a Paducah resident who moved to Paducah in 1951 to work as a reporter for the Paducah Sun. "It set the character of this city for a long time." After U.S. Enrichment Corp., the plant's operator, last year almost completely suspended operations at a sister uranium plant in Ohio, the Paducah plant became the only place in the nation where uranium is enriched for the commercial nuclear industry. It employs more than 1,400 people, and is western Kentucky's top private employer. It is also one of the top employers in the state. In 1950, the announcement that the plant would be built in western Kentucky was welcome news in the region, and native son Alben Barkley, vice president under Harry Truman, was praised for helping to secure it. "When my grandfather put the place in, it was all new and no one knew what was going on," Barkley granddaughter Dottie Barkley said of the radioactive dangers the workers faced. The then-equivalent of the chamber of commerce encouraged residents to take in workers to fill a housing shortage. There was an economic boom with new schools, churches and businesses constructed. Communities sprung up with names like "Cimota" _ "Atomic" spelled backward. With the increase in demand for engineers and scientist at the plant, the middle and upper classes expanded in what had primarily been a railroad and river town. "Everybody thought we were doing a necessary job to help our country," retired plant worker B.J. Bond, 75, said of the Cold War era when workers helped enrich uranium for weapons. "I think it's one of the best things that's happened in the area. It's been the foundation of the financial community in the area for years." The government long denied there was a link between cancer and the plant. If you filed a medical claim, it was a "David and Goliath" fight, said Jim Owens, a Paducah attorney involved with litigation against the government and private companies contracted to run the plant. The government's policy on claims was "fight them all," Owens said. People like Joe Harding, a former plant worker, were denied significant compensation _ even though before he died of cancer in 1980, his bones contained 34,000 times the expected concentration of uranium. In 1999 the government conceded that many uranium enrichment workers did get sick because of on-the-job exposure. Then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson issued an apology in Paducah in 1999 to workers who may have been exposed to dangerous radiation. An entitlement law later provided lifetime medical care and a tax-free lump sum of $150,000 to sick workers exposed to cancer-causing radiation and silica or beryllium, which can cause lung diseases. Since the program began last year, about $62.8 million has been distributed to former and current workers and their survivors through the resource office in Paducah _ a majority of whom worked at the plant in Paducah, Tolar said. "People come in here very sick ... They feel like they've lost their dignity," Tolar said. After working with the center on the paperwork, "We've seen people who are able to buy cars, get out of debt, buy homes in better neighborhoods." In addition to the health concerns of the workers, a 2000 report by the General Accounting office said the Energy Department estimated it would take 10 years and $1.3 billion more than the $400 million already spent to clean up environmental contamination around the plant. Susan Zimmerman Guess, a former plant employee who is an organizer of the plant's 50th anniversary celebration, said the murals and other activities are meant to honor the workers at the plant and nearby facilities associated with the Paducah plant: TVA's Shawnee Steam Plant, Electric Energy Inc.'s Joppa Steam Plant and Honeywell's Metropolis (Ill.) UF6 Conversion Works. The celebration's purpose also is to draw attention to the community support as USEC weighs where to build a new plant using a technology known as centrifuge that is more efficient than the outdated gaseous diffusion process now used at Paducah, Guess said. The former plant site in Piketon, Ohio, also is vying for the new plant. "This community and this region has been supportive of the plant over the last 50 years," Guess said of Paducah. "The next technology should be located here in Paducah, McCracken County. That is a goal of ours for economic development purposes and long term viability of the community." Barkley said she also hopes that will happen. "If you can put together something that's safe, this would be a great solution," Barkley said. On the Net: USEC Inc.: http://www.usec.com/ U.S. Department of Energy: http://www.energy.gov/ Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce: http://www.paducahchamber.org/ ***************************************************************** 40 Excavators clear uranium chips from 300 Area site This story was published Tue, Oct 15, 2002 By John Stang Herald staff writer All of the barrels of uranium chips have been removed from a site just north of Hanford's 300 Area. And Bechtel Hanford has begun removing soil and debris from a neighboring burial site -- so far finding no barrels of uranium. The final tally of barrels removed from Site 618-5 is 786, said Bechtel spokesman Todd Nelson. That's significantly fewer than the original estimate of 1,500 barrels. The final barrels were removed Sept. 5. Site 618-4 originally was an obscure burial site until workers began digging in 1998 to remove contaminated soil. They unexpectedly unearthed a few hundred barrels of uranium chips and powders. The origin of these barrels still is unknown. Most of the barrels held chips packed in oil to prevent the uranium from spontaneously catching fire. In 2000, Hanford's massive range fire came within a few hundred feet of the exposed barrels of radioactive materials. The 618-4 site is three miles north of Richland and a few hundred feet from the Columbia River. Last January, Bechtel awarded a $3.9 million contract to a team of two Richland-based contractors -- Federal Engineers & Constructors and Thompson Mechanical Inc. -- to remove the barrels and contaminated debris from both sites. The barrels now are being stored above ground at a central Hanford landfill or in some west-central Hanford metal buildings until their final disposal is determined. The only 618-4 work remaining is testing some debris and soil to see if it can be sent directly to the central Hanford landfill or if it must be somehow treated before disposal. Excavation work began on the 618-5 burial site Oct. 1. Bechtel's research showed the site was used in the '50s and '60s as a garbage dump and burn pit. So far, excavators have found debris such as metals, asbestos, lead slag, old root beer bottles and lots of ash, Nelson said. And they found one barrel of soil and sludge. It was accidentally punctured and a clear liquid, possibly water, leaked out. Radiological tests were done on the liquid, and no radiation above standard background levels was measured. This is the only barrel found so far in the 618-5 site. "But we didn't expect to find any in 618-4 either," Nelson said. Work on the second site is expected to be done Sept. 30, 2003. Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 41 No tricks the treat on Hanford's Halloween This story was published Fri, Oct 18, 2002 By the Herald staff Think back to the first Star Wars movie. Remember when Luke and Han sneaked into Princess Leia's prison posing as storm troopers, complete with head-concealing helmets. That's a time-honored movie cliché for penetrating fortresses of doom. But it ain't gonna happen at Hanford -- at least not this Halloween. The current war on terrorism prompted the Department of Energy's Richland office to issue a memo to all Hanford employees about wearing Halloween costumes to work. As usual, security badges must be visible and above the waist on all costumes, said the memo. It also says employees should not wear masks, face paints or "other facial alterations" that would prevent security officers from comparing employee faces with their security badge photos. Also, real and imitation weapons are forbidden on-site. That includes plastic swords and knives, although the memo does not directly address light sabers. The bottom line: If your costume is the masked, knife-bearing Jason from the Friday the 13th flicks, stay home on Halloween. Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 42 Cleanup contractor's clock ticking The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News -- Friday, October 18, 2002 by R. Cathey Daniels Oak Ridger staff Officials are pressing pedal to the metal on cleanup of one of the most contaminated areas on the Oak Ridge Reservation. And for good reason. "We're really gearing up, there's a high level of activity in the field even as we speak," David Adler said of cleanup at the Melton Valley waste burial grounds at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Adler is the Department of Energy's local team leader for ORNL projects. Expectations are that gearing up now is critical both in terms of meeting a new accelerated schedule and for hanging onto contracts for future work. Bechtel Jacobs runs the environmental management program for DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office. That office currently covers cleanup locally as well as at the Portsmouth and Paducah sites. But it is widely thought that by fiscal year's end (Sept. 30, 2003) those two sites will be split from ORO under a reorganization plan and that the Bechtel Jacobs contract could face a re-bid. The Bechtel Jacobs contract runs for 12 more months, and how the company uses its time to handle the accelerated schedule -- the newest of DOE's cleanup initiatives -- likely would play a large role in any re-bid of the work. There is conflicting thought on whether an extension for the company could be managed without competition if the contract changes from the current management and integration arrangement to a so-called "closure" contract. The DOE headquarters has not responded to requests for information. Bechtel Jacobs and ORO's environmental management program have recently restructured their organizations to try to meet the Energy Department's accelerated schedule, which targets federal dollars to high priority cleanup projects. The ORO's environmental management restructuring was announced this week, and basically consolidates the organizational chart to focus on the three tenants of accelerated cleanup: Closure of the K-25 site, completion of work at the ORNL burial grounds, and so-called balance of program initiatives. As to the burial grounds: "We're preparing large scale contracts to consolidate all closure activities Š under one large contract to allow all the work to essentially happen almost concurrently," said Adler. "That's really the change, a significant compression of the schedule through a lot of consolidation contractually should help reduce the cost significantly." Asked how that process would affect the workforce, Adler responded that it would mean "more people working earlier on, but it will shorten the total duration of activity." The burial grounds contain areas with high inventories of radioactive wastes that DOE says pose a risk to human health and the environment. For over 50 years Melton Valley was used by ORNL for disposal of solid and liquid radioactive wastes. It has been the site for development of research reactors. DOE expects its Melton Valley cleanup plan to result in improvements to water quality in the Clinch River, the restoration of seven acres of wetlands and the removal of 204 casks of transuranic waste, which is considered some of the most dangerous wastes in Oak Ridge. The cleanup is expected to cost about $275 million, a savings, according to DOE officials, of about $85 million. If the schedule is met, the project should also save about 10 years off the lifetime of the original time table. The accelerated cleanup program has come under some unfriendly fire from various oversight and citizen groups for a variety of reasons, including: Pushing the schedule beyond the technology available to deal with complex environmental problems; riding in opposition to another DOE initiative, reindustrialization, which utilizes sites rather than takes them down; increasing pressure on local communities for long term stewardship of legacy waste left off the accelerated schedule; and setting what some think to be unrealistic time tables and cost estimates. R. Cathey Daniels can be contacted at (865) 220-5515 or danielsrcd@oakridger.com. 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