***************************************************************** 10/20/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.270 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Canada: Plans for power link under Lake Erie stall 2 Media Calls for Tough Stance on NK's Nuclear Program 3 Official Refutes NYT Report on N Accord 4 Money Source Questioned for Nuclear Program 5 Report: US ends N.Korea arms control pact -- 6 Koreas Open High-Level Nuke Talks 7 US: The Week of Living Dangerously 8 Canada: Plans for power link under Lake Erie stall 9 US: U.S. to Withdraw From Arms Accord With North Korea 10 U.S. Seeks Support to Press North Korea 11 Nuclear admission no surprise 12 US: U.S. had known of N. Korea's nuke program* 13 U.S., Japan Discuss N. Korean Nukes 14 Report: US ends N.Korea arms control pact* 15 Pakistan Blasts International Media's Blackmailing on N.Korea Issue 16 _Islamabad-Pyongyang ?nuclear deal?_ 17 UK: The future of electricity 18 Fight terrorism, not Iraq 19 N. Korea ANALYSIS / Nuclear issue to dominate talks 20 US: It Is Critical to Ruduce Our Dependence on Middle East Oil 21 US: Hawk Gets Cozy With the Pentagon 22 US: U.S. Has Long, Complicated History With Saddam 23 UK: Nuclear power rescue hit by legislation row 24 US: Influencing the debate on Iraq / When defense expert speaks out 25 ROK, US to Jointly Mobilize Maximum Int¡¯l Pressure on NK to 26 [Editorial] Crucial Korea-U.S. coalition 27 U.S. pinpoints 3 suspected sites in North Korean nuclear program 28 France, Russia Moving Toward UN Resolution 29 N. Korea Silent on Nuclear Program NUCLEAR REACTORS 30 US: Davis-Besse hole is full of questions 31 US: Ad Against Indian Pt. Is Said to Have Been Pulled Under Pressure 32 US: Guards at Nuclear Plants Say They Feel Swamped by a Deluge of Ov 33 Nuclear reactor monitoring system developed in Uzbekistan NUCLEAR SAFETY 34 PRESS RELEASE: TAKASHI MORIZUMI EVENTS IN BAY AREA Oct. 24-28 35 US: Update on missing radioactive device 36 US: School districts debate stockpiling 'nuke pills' /* 37 US: Anti-radiation pills go fast 38 US: Nuclear Terrorism: How Great is the Threat? NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 39 US: Hazardous shipments from (North Anna) ahead 40 US: Dominion Generation is gearing up to ship tons of spent nuclear 41 US: Utah Waste: Control Board Responds 42 US: Utah: Talking Up and Down About the Nuclear-Waste Initiative 43 Paducah plant's future uncertain as it turns 50 44 US: Liability concerns loom over Johnston dump 45 Russians probe for nuclear waste in Sea of Japan NUCLEAR WEAPONS 46 'Nuclear admission no surprise' - 47 Koreas spar over nuclear issue 48 US: Nuclear subs face new tasks 49 US: '62 Missile Crisis Offers a Lesson in Compromise 50 US: On Going to War / Why I voted to authorize force against Iraq US DEPT. OF ENERGY 51 ORNL through the decades OTHER NUCLEAR 52 Lahoud blasts Israel at Francophone summit ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Canada: Plans for power link under Lake Erie stall Thestar.com/ WEST SPRINGFIELD, Pa. (AP) - A planned underwater power line that would link electrical power grids in the United States and Canada is on hold because the companies developing the line haven't found a large supplier to send electricity along the line.

The so-called Lake Erie Link calls for up to three 325-megawatt lines from Nanticoke, Ont., to the U.S. shore of Lake Erie. Two of the lines would run to an electric substation in West Springfield, about 25 kilometres southwest of Erie; the other would run to Ashtabula, Ohio. Erie is 113 kilometres from Nanticoke; Ashtabula is 145 kilometres away.

The lines would let Canadian power plants pump excess electricity to the United States when U.S. demand is high in the summer. During the winter months, when Canadians want more power, the link would let U.S. plants send surplus power the other way.

But the companies that own the proposed line - TransEnergie U.S. and Hydro-Quebec Power Co. - said they haven't found a company to buy the transmission rights to the line.

"The project is not dead but is delayed," said Michel Ernst, a spokesman for Lake Erie Link LLC, which is a subsidiary of TransEnergie, which is a subsidiary of Hydro-Quebec.

The company wants to assess the project's cost - which could be up to $100 million US - and the market value of the electricity to be transmitted. Lake Erie Link plans to own the cable system but would sell the right to transmit electricity on the line and would not act as a broker for that electricity, Ernst said.

"We will not proceed with construction until we have a large company agreeing to purchase the transmission rights," Ernst said.

"The Lake Erie Link project will eventually provide a reliable and economical new source of power to both sides of Lake Erie; it is only a matter of time."

Ernst said it could take until the end of 2003 to re-evaluate the economics of the project. In the meantime, the project's developers have asked U.S. and Canadian regulators to halt approval reviews of the project.

Some environmental groups, including Great Lakes United, have said the project could stir up polluted sediments on the lake bottom. They also contend the project could fuel air pollution because Canada has a large coal-fired power plant in Nanticoke, which produces more air emissions than any other Canadian facility.

Ernst said those concerns are misplaced, because the line would not rely on any particular power plant.

"Much of the power that would be imported from Canada would not be (fuelled by) coal," Ernst said.

"About half of Canada's power is nuclear and about a quarter is hydro. We would obtain power from wherever it was available at the least cost and the next available plant." ***************************************************************** 2 Media Calls for Tough Stance on NK's Nuclear Program Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea Updated Oct.20,2002 15:41 KST In light of North Korea's stunning disclosure of its secret nuclear weapons program, US media outlets are reporting South Korea, Japan and other nations surrounding the Stalinist state must take a firmer approach when it comes to dealing with the North. Following Pyongyang's admission that it has carried on the program, major US newspapers are calling on the Bush administration to take a Draconian approach in resolving the matter. An editorial in Friday's edition of the New York Times said South Korea, Japan and other nations in Northeast Asia should deal with the nuclear issue by pressuring the regime through collective diplomatic efforts. The Times article goes on to say, Seoul and Tokyo can contribute to resolving the matter by deciding to freeze future support for Pyongyang if it does not completely halt its nuclear and conventional weapons programs. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal accused North Korea of bartering its suspected nuclear program in exchange for the construction of power producing nuclear reactors, saying Pyongyang was trying to pull the same trick twice. The Journal also said the Clinton administration's reconciliatory approach toward North Korea was wrong and the first step in responding to Pyongyang's disclosure would be to step up economic sanctions. Meanwhile, in Washington, reports indicate Pakistan supplied a majority of the equipment for North Korea's nuclear program. US intelligence officials say the North is believed to have supplied Pakistan with missiles in exchange for equipment used to create weapons-grade enriched uranium. (Arirang TV) ***************************************************************** 3 Official Refutes NYT Report on N Accord Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea Updated Oct.20,2002 16:24 KST by Kim In-ku (ginko@chosun.com) Speaking on reports the US is about to scrap the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea, a government official said, Sunday, these may not true as they contradicted statements made by Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs James Kelly in Seoul on Saturday. The official said Washington and Seoul wanted the North's nuclear weapons program halted and to do this the maximum diplomatic efforts should be made by related countries. He continued there were no detailed discussions on how to do this, but Kelly never mentioned scrapping the Geneva agreement, and the two governments would wait for a response from North Korea, which could come through ongoing inter ministerial talks in Pyongyang. The official said scrapping of the agreed framework could only come about after consultations with Korea and Japan. The New York Times reported Sunday that senior officials in President George W. Bush administration had stated that then US was prepared to stop providing energy aid to North Korea because of the nuclear weapons development admission. The Times said "North Korea admitted two weeks ago that it was pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program, and accused the United States of taking steps that forced Pyongyang to nullify the accord." And "The White House has since debated whether to end the accord, with some aides warning such a step could lead North Korea to even greater nuclear violations." ***************************************************************** 4 Money Source Questioned for Nuclear Program Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea Updated Oct.20,2002 18:01 KST by Hong Seok-joon (udo@chosun.com) Defense experts said Sunday that North Korea must have imported gas centrifuges from Pakistan to produce its nuclear weapons material, but raised questions as to how a country with a devastated economy could afford to do this. The centrifuges cost between US$160,000 to US$240,000 each and to get 20kg of weapons grade enriched uranium 1,200 are needed. They added that one facility to do this work would therefore cost between US$200 to US$300 million. The experts say the centrifuges are 50cm to 317cm in length and 27cm in diameter and are difficult to spot by satellite. The addition of safety devises and auxiliary equipment pushes the total plant cost to US$1 billion, and to produce 10 bombs a year costs more than US$10 million. If North Korea began construction in 1998 and began production in July to August, then it started at the beginning of the current government. Grand National Party leader Suh Chan-won raised the question how the North with an annual budget of US$16 billion could afford the US$1.2 billion in yearly uranium costs. Suh said people were suspicious that money from the Mount Kumgang tours, or the South Korean government assistance had been diverted for this purpose. Suh called for a tracing of the money trail. However, military experts point out that Pyongyang has other means of getting foreign currency such as selling missile technology. ***************************************************************** 5 Report: US ends N.Korea arms control pact -- The Washington Times October 20, 2002 Report: US ends N.Korea arms control pact      SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Now that North Korea as admitted it violated its 1994 arms control pact with the United States, continuing to develop nuclear weapons capability, the Bush administration will terminate its end of the bargain as well, including shipments of fuel oil, The New York Times reported Sunday.      The U.S. abandonment of the agreement will signal an American effort to show North Korea that nuclear weapons will mean a near-total economic isolation.      The United States has so far not been specific about what consequences North Korea could face, suggesting the weapons program does not yet pose as much of a threat as Iraq's suspected chemical and biological arms. Under the agreement North Korea gets 500,000 tons of fuel oil annually from the United States, shipments that will now stop, the Times said.      In addition, an end to the accord means the United States will urge Japan and South Korea to at least suspend the multibillion dollar project to build modern nuclear power plants in North Korea.      U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, in Japan Sunday to brief officials there about his talks early this month with North Korean officials, ran into significant resistance from South Korea to the concept of isolating North Korea, the Times said.      Kelly, in Seoul Saturday, told reporters that lines of communication with the North remain open but that the United States will continue to pressure that country to end its development project.      Any attempt to economically isolate North Korea would require the cooperation of China, Russia, Japan and Europe, where Kelly and other U.S. officials are visiting in the days ahead.      "We will continue to work together with South Korea as well as Japan and other concerned states to press for the prompt and visible dismantling of the North Korean nuclear weapons program," Kelly told reporters in South Korea's capital Seoul Saturday.      The U.S. envoy vowed nonetheless to mount international pressure on North Korea to "immediately and visibly end" such efforts.      Kelly's comments had come the same day as a team of senior South Korean diplomats met with North Korean officials in Pyongyang for four days of talks.      "The situation is not good. We need dialogue at such a time," said South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun, head of the team.      The talks had been planned long before the news of North Korea's admission became public last week and even before the Oct. 4 date on which U.S. officials say the North Koreans conceded they had indeed been trying to enrich uranium.      "Given that (North Korea's) nuclear program is the root of our nation's worries and anxiety, we will clearly address the issue and other related issues to the northern side," said Jeong.      The U.S. envoy told reporters that "the best way to start negotiations is to end their covert nuclear weapons program from the past," Kelly said. He said there remain "channels of communication should North Korea wish to give us information."      It was to Kelly that North Korea admitted they were violating a 1994 agreement with the United States, an admission that apparently went far beyond what U.S. officials were expecting. On his Oct. 3-5 trip to Pyongyang Kelly had outlined U.S. evidence that North Korea had continued its nuclear program despite agreeing to shut it down.      At the time of the admission the North Koreans "did not make any demands as they were characterized but they did suggest after this harsh and, personally to me, surprising admission, suggest that there were measures that might be taken," said Kelly.      The demands made by North Korea in exchange for ending its weapons program, as widely reported, were that the United States must pledge not to make a first strike to destroy its nuclear program, that it must reach a peace treaty with North Korea and that the United States must formally acknowledge North Korea's government regime.      Reaching any such understandings with North Korea before the covert program is ended, Kelly said, "is really, in my view, got it upside down." ***************************************************************** 6 Koreas Open High-Level Nuke Talks Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | From the Associated Press [UP] Sunday October 20, 2002 1:20 PM SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea presented its demand Sunday that the North abandon its nuclear weapons program, but was met with silence, South Korean officials said. The North's nuclear issue was a main topic at Cabinet-level talks that opened in the North's capital, Pyongyang. It was the first official venue for South Korea to raise the issue since Washington said North Korea admitted having a nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 agreement the two countries signed in Geneva. ``We demanded that North Korea faithfully honor all international agreements it has signed,'' Rhee Bong-jo, a South Korean spokesman, said after the first-day talks ended after just 50 minutes. ``We also asked them to open dialogue with concerned countries and the international community and take convincing actions,'' Rhee said in pool reports distributed in Seoul. No foreign reporters were allowed to cover the talks. Rhee said North Korean officials ``just listened'' to the South Korean demands and did not respond. Rhee said the two sides had no plan to meet again on Sunday but instead planned to discuss the issue in informal talks. The talks in Pyongyang, the eighth in a series since a historic inter-Korean summit in 2000, were scheduled to continue until Tuesday. Instead of holding a further formal meeting Sunday, officials of the two Koreas met in informal talks to discuss the nuclear issue, pool reports said. A formal North Korean reponse to the South Korean demand was expected in another round of main talks on Monday, South Korean officials said. ``Overall, the atmosphere of the talks was heavy but sincere,'' Rhee said. He also said other issues taken up at the talks included a proposal to account for thousands of people missing during and after the 1950-53 Korean War. Before starting full talks, the two chief delegates exchanged testy remarks over the North's nuclear issue in the presence of reporters. ``Checking the weather in Pyongyang this morning, I found the skies have come down. It looks like rain. I feel heavy-hearted just like the weather,'' said chief South Korean delegate Jeong Se-hyun, alluding to his concerns over the North's nuclear weapons program. The chief North Korean negotiator, Kim Ryong Song, replied: ``No matter what the weather outside looks like, concerns would disappear if the North and South join hands and try to resolve problems,'' according to the pool reports. Jeong retorted that ``warm'' inter-Korean relations and ``frosty'' international concerns would create problems, the pool reports said. ``If there is a big difference in temperature, you can catch cold,'' Jeong said. ``It's no good if it's too warm inside while it's too cold outside. The temperature should be made similar.'' The talks in Pyongyang had been planned to discuss inter-Korean reconciliation, long before the North's nuclear issue arose. South Korea decided make the North's nuclear issue a priority. During talks with visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly in Pyongyang on Oct. 3-5, North Korean officials acknowledged that they had a uranium-enriching program to make weapons. The program violates a 1994 agreement for energy-starved North Korea to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program in exchange for two modern, light-water reactors and 500,000 tons of fuel oil a year until the reactors are completed. During the talks with Kelly, North Korean officials said they considered the 1994 agreement invalid because the reactors were not expected to be finished by 2003 as promised. The project has been delayed by funding problems and tension on the Korean Peninsula. On Saturday in Seoul, Kelly said Washington would try to muster ``maximum international pressure'' on North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. He said the United States would not take the same diplomatic course that led to the 1994 accord. Kelly headed to Japan Sunday for talks with Japanese leaders about North Korea's nuclear program. He was expected to discuss temporarily freezing construction on two the two light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea. A U.S. State Department official told The Associated Press Saturday night that no decision has been reached yet on the 1994 accord. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States wants to consult with its allies before making a decision on the pact. The North's admission seriously challenged South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's ``sunshine'' policy of engaging Pyongyang. The South Korean government says dialogue is the best way to deal with concerns about North Korea, and the United States has also said it will seek ``a peaceful resolution'' to the issue of nuclear weapons. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 7 The Week of Living Dangerously The New York Times October 20, 2002* Americans have been told often enough that post-9/11, they have to learn to live with insecurity. But last week it seemed that everyone was conspiring to terrify them out of their wits. While the president was heading toward a war with one reclusive dictator with a thirst for nuclear weapons, another one popped up in North Korea bragging that he was secretly acquiring all that and much worse. While the area around the nation's capital was being terrorized by a murderous sniper, police were forced to admit that all their best clues ? the description of the van, the shooter, the gun ? were worthless. Then the director of central intelligence told a Congressional committee that in effect, all the national effort to combat Al Qaeda over the last year had left the country in as much danger of internal attack as before the destruction of the World Trade Center. George Tenet, the C.I.A. director, made a long-awaited appearance before a Congressional committee that is investigating, among other things, his agency's performance in the period leading up to Sept. 11. Mr. Tenet was vigorously defensive. But while his testimony may have heartened the agency's much-criticized work force, it was less than comforting for the rest of us. Basically, Mr. Tenet's message was that the nation's intelligence forces did all they could before the attack, which happened anyway. Now they have greatly expanded their counterterrorism efforts, but that has not led to any reduction in the level of danger. In fact, all the efforts at home and abroad to strike down Al Qaeda have created a splintered group that is just as lethal as the original. "The threat environment we find ourselves in today is as bad as it was last summer, the summer before Sept. 11," Mr. Tenet said in testimony that stunned many in Washington. "It is serious, they've reconstituted, they are coming after us, they want to execute attacks." This is not the first time that the public has had to digest this sort of information from federal officials and wondered what in the world to do with it. Should everyone move to Montana? Throw out the incumbent in November, whoever he or she is? Is Mr. Tenet doing us a service by being frank, or is he trying to protect an agency that failed to warn us about the previous attack by issuing an all-purpose warning now? One of the jobs of the C.I.A. director is to be a sort of town crier on national security. Although American intelligence agencies and the F.B.I. failed to connect the dots before the terrorist attack, Mr. Tenet himself had made some fairly direct public statements warning about the danger. He failed, however, to get the attention of his bosses in the Bush administration, and he must have blamed himself for not being louder. Last week, there was no danger that anybody missed the message. But he is far from the only high-ranking official who feels that these days the safest route is to issue as spine-chilling a forecast as possible. Nobody in Washington, or anywhere else, knows what might happen next. So nobody wants to be in a position of criticizing anyone who appears, on the surface, to be hyperventilating in public. We know all too well that the worst might easily happen. These are the other things we know. Congress has left town without approving the homeland security bill. Although this particular failure has many parents, the Bush administration's insistence on tying the plan to an ideological attack on job security for the new department's unionized employees is the biggest stumbling block. We know that the Immigration and Naturalization Service is still a mess. We know that while the president has every right to be concerned about the threat of Iraq, the administration's suggestion earlier this year that it had Al Qaeda on the run was, to say the least, premature. Before we begin any risky foreign initiative, the country needs a good deal of reassurance that our priorities are in order, and that Mr. Bush is not being seduced into focusing on the one enemy who is not only evil but easy to target. ***************************************************************** 8 Canada: Plans for power link under Lake Erie stall Thestar.com Sun Oct 20, 2002 - Updated at 10:08 AM High-wattage lines would let province export power to U.S. Midwest WEST SPRINGFIELD, Pa. (AP) - A planned underwater power line that would link electrical power grids in the United States and Canada is on hold because the companies developing the line haven't found a large supplier to send electricity along the line. The so-called Lake Erie Link calls for up to three 325-megawatt lines from Nanticoke, Ont., to the U.S. shore of Lake Erie. Two of the lines would run to an electric substation in West Springfield, about 25 kilometres southwest of Erie; the other would run to Ashtabula, Ohio. Erie is 113 kilometres from Nanticoke; Ashtabula is 145 kilometres away. The lines would let Canadian power plants pump excess electricity to the United States when U.S. demand is high in the summer. During the winter months, when Canadians want more power, the link would let U.S. plants send surplus power the other way. But the companies that own the proposed line - TransEnergie U.S. and Hydro-Quebec Power Co. - said they haven't found a company to buy the transmission rights to the line. "The project is not dead but is delayed," said Michel Ernst, a spokesman for Lake Erie Link LLC, which is a subsidiary of TransEnergie, which is a subsidiary of Hydro-Quebec. The company wants to assess the project's cost - which could be up to $100 million US - and the market value of the electricity to be transmitted. Lake Erie Link plans to own the cable system but would sell the right to transmit electricity on the line and would not act as a broker for that electricity, Ernst said. "We will not proceed with construction until we have a large company agreeing to purchase the transmission rights," Ernst said. "The Lake Erie Link project will eventually provide a reliable and economical new source of power to both sides of Lake Erie; it is only a matter of time." Ernst said it could take until the end of 2003 to re-evaluate the economics of the project. In the meantime, the project's developers have asked U.S. and Canadian regulators to halt approval reviews of the project. Some environmental groups, including Great Lakes United, have said the project could stir up polluted sediments on the lake bottom. They also contend the project could fuel air pollution because Canada has a large coal-fired power plant in Nanticoke, which produces more air emissions than any other Canadian facility. Ernst said those concerns are misplaced, because the line would not rely on any particular power plant. "Much of the power that would be imported from Canada would not be (fuelled by) coal," Ernst said. "About half of Canada's power is nuclear and about a quarter is hydro. We would obtain power from wherever it was available at the least cost and the next available plant." ***************************************************************** 9 U.S. to Withdraw From Arms Accord With North Korea The New York Times *October 20, 2002* *By DAVID E. SANGER* WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 ? The Bush administration has decided to scrap the 1994 arms control accord with North Korea that has provided Western energy aid in return for the North's promise to freeze the development of nuclear weapons, senior administration officials said on Saturday. North Korea admitted two weeks ago that it was pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program, and accused the United States of taking steps that forced Pyongyang to nullify the accord. The White House has since debated whether to end the accord, with some aides warning such a step could lead North Korea to even greater nuclear violations. For that reason, the administration plans to caution North Korea of serious consequences if it tries to remove nuclear material now stored under international supervision at Yongbyon, the reactor site that was the centerpiece of a previous nuclear standoff with North Korea in the early 1990's. American diplomats visiting Beijing apparently asked China this week to convey that warning, though it is not clear whether the message has yet been delivered to the North Koreans. Appearing this morning on Fox News, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, while saying the administration was still consulting with its allies, left little doubt that the 1994 agreement was no longer in effect. ``They said this nullifies the agreed framework that they had entered into with us in 1994,'' he said, noting that the North Koreans said it was nullified because President Bush had included them in his description of an "axis of evil'' that includes Iraq and Iran. ``An agreement between two parties, one of whom says it's nullified, makes it sort of a nullified agreement.'' The immediate practical effect of the decision to scrap the agreement is the halting of the annual shipments of 500,000 tons of fuel oil from the United States to North Korea. Even if the clandestine North Korean program effectively suspended the accord, the administration's decision to formally abandon it sends a clear message: it signifies an American effort to pose a stark choice for North Korea, between abandoning all of its nuclear weapons programs and facing near-total economic isolation. "We think the framework as we knew it is dead," one senior administration official said when questioned about the administration's strategy. "The North Koreans already told us they viewed it as `nullified,' " the official added. More immediately, abandoning the accord also means that the United States will urge its allies, Japan and South Korea, to suspend, if not end, a multibillion dollar project to provide modern nuclear power plants to the North. Ground has already been broken for proliferation-resistant reactors, designed to help North Korea provide basic electricity service to cities and towns that go dark every night, and to World War II-era factories that now barely operate. The reactors have not yet been delivered. Other officials described a lengthy debate within the White House over the risks of abandoning the agreement altogether. "There are some who fear that it could tempt the North Koreans into a rapid breakout, to produce weapons as fast as they can," one official involved in the debate said. But Mr. Bush, who came to office deeply suspicious of the usefulness of the accord, has concluded that the North Korean admission, made in defiant tones after the United States presented evidence of the breach, proves that the accord was fatally flawed all along, his aides say. In 1994, President Clinton had contingency plans in place for a military strike at the Yongbyon plant if North Korea tried to make use of the reactor fuel for bombs, according to several of his former national security aides. The accord reached at the last minute that year, as American forces were being reinforced on the Korean Peninsula, defused that crisis. Since disclosing Wednesday night that North Korea has admitted to pursuing a new nuclear project, Mr. Bush's aides have played down any talk of a military response. North Korea acknowledged the program in defiant tones after the United States presented evidence that it had breached the accord. Officials did not specify what consequences North Korea might face if it ignored American warnings, a sharp contrast to the approach being taken with Iraq. They argued again that the North, even if nuclear armed and unpredictable, does not pose as great a threat to the United States and its allies as does Saddam Hussein, who does not appear to have any nuclear weapons so far but is suspected of having chemical and biological arms. Copyright The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 10 U.S. Seeks Support to Press North Korea The New York Times October 19, 2002* *By JAMES DAO* WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 ? American officials opened a diplomatic drive across Asia and Europe today 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 A. Kelly, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and John R. 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 it in the future," said a senior administration official. "China is both." From Beijing, Mr. Kelly will travel on Saturday to Seoul and Tokyo, while Mr. 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, Tex., on Friday. On Saturday, 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. [South Korean officials were set to fly to Pyongyang on Saturday for four days of talks, and they planned to urge North Korea to scrap any nuclear weapons program it might have, Reuters reported. The talks were scheduled before news of the nuclear program emerged.] Mr. Bush maintained his public silence on the North Korean weapons program today as he campaigned for Republican Senate candidates in Minnesota and Missouri. Mr. Bush has yet to make a statement on the program since news of it broke Wednesday, which administration officials say is meant to underscore a quiet, diplomatic approach, in contrast to the more belligerent denunciations of Iraq's programs. But other senior officials used public events today to explain why the administration believed diplomacy could work in containing North Korea while military action might be required to disarm Iraq. At a town hall meeting at Atlantic State University in Savannah, Ga., Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage argued that there had been 50 years of relative peace on the Korean Peninsula while Iraq had 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 make him quite a bit more urgent of a problem," Mr. Armitage said in an interview. The administration has had strong evidence of North Korean'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 of its nuclear weapons program before it publicly made the disclosure on Wednesday. Today, some Democrats complained that if lawmakers had known about the program last week, it might have complicated Mr. Bush's efforts to win support for a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. The resolution passed overwhelmingly in both houses. "If Congress had known, I think it would have made a real difference in some people's votes," said Representative Chaka Fattah, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, 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. And the beauty of the White House misleading people is that it's difficult to change our policy now that he has the vote in hand." Administration officials said they wanted to keep North Korea's admission secret until they had consulted with Japan, South Korea, China and other nations. Some Democrats agreed with that stand. "The administration appears to be dealing with this in a responsible way, first going to our allies, South Korea and Japan, and even engaging China," said Representative Ellen O. Tauscher, a Democrat from California, who voted to support the president on Iraq. "This is the model we should have applied to Iraq." Copyright The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 11 Nuclear admission no surprise timesunion.com U.S. had warned in 1996 North Korea could be developing weapons By *ERIC ROSENBERG*, Washington bureau First published: Sunday, October 20, 2002 WASHINGTON -- North Korea's reported acknowledgment that it is developing nuclear weapons came as no shock to U.S. intelligence officials, who have long suspected that the secretive nation was furtively working on atomic weapons. In late 1997, the Defense Intelligence Agency warned in a classified assessment that North Korea might be building an underground nuclear weapons complex, known as Hagap, some 70 miles north of Pyongyang. "There is one site, of an unconfirmed function, that possibly could be a nuclear weapons-related facility by 2003," the DIA concluded. "The function of this site has not been determined, but it could be intended as a nuclear production and/or storage site." Around the same time U.S. intelligence officials detected that the North Koreans were constructing another large underground facility at Kumchangni, north of the capital of Pyongyang. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week that North Korea's reported acknowledgment of a nuclear weapons program was in line with U.S. intelligence assessments over the last several years. Under a 1994 agreement with the United States, North Korea agreed to freeze nuclear weapons production and allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to monitor compliance. It also agreed to shut down operations of a five-megawatt plutonium production reactor and halt construction on two other nuclear reactors capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. In return, North Korea was allowed to retain key nuclear technology and expertise and any weapons-grade plutonium that already has been manufactured. According to a CIA assessment last March, officials believe North Korea may have enough plutonium for up to two atomic bombs. For its side of the accord, the United States agreed to provide North Korea with fuel oil and two light-water nuclear reactors, less easily used to make weapons. Construction began last summer on the first of the reactors. According to State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, the North Koreans admitted to developing nuclear weapons after being confronted with evidence of a fuel enrichment program from a U.S. delegation headed by Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly in Pyongyang earlier this month. Boucher declined to describe the evidence. Boucher said Kelly told the North Koreans that Washington was prepared to improve relations with economic and political incentives for the destitute country. "In his discussions with the North Koreans, he said 'I was going to come here to tell you about a bold approach to improving our relationship and resolving some of these issues, but that's not possible if you're conducting this (nuclear weapons) program,' " Boucher said of the meetings. The North Koreans, although they reportedly confirmed to Kelly that they were trying to enrich uranium for atomic bombs, were unapologetic and accused Kelly of diplomatic bullying, according to the North Korean official news agency. "He made very arrogant and threatening remarks that if North Korea did not take any action first to solve the concerns about security, there would be neither dialogue nor improved relations," the news agency said. The Bush administration didn't reveal the results of the Oct. 3-5 meetings between Kelly and North Korean officials until Oct. 16, nearly a week after the House and Senate had voted to authorize President Bush to use force to compel Saddam Hussein to relinquish Iraq's reported weapons of mass destruction. The time lag led some Democrats to question whether the delay was designed to avoid any interference with the administration's request to Congress for authority to take military action against Iraq. Bush has called Iraq, North Korea and Iran an "axis of evil" for their efforts to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, along with their alleged ties to terrorist groups. All three countries are believed to be developing missiles equipped to deliver the deadly payloads. ***************************************************************** 12 U.S. had known of N. Korea's nuke program* United Press International Published 10/19/2002 5:23 PM WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- The United States had firm evidence of North Korea's nuclear program for months and indeed shared the information with Asian allies Japan and South Korea, The Washington Post reported Saturday. Imagery, signals analysis and other intelligence efforts began turning up clues that North Korea was continuing its efforts to build nuclear weapons before President George Bush came into office. Definitive indicators, however, began to fall into place late this past summer -- after Secretary of State Colin Powell exchanged comments briefly with his North Korean counterpart while attending a conference in Brunei. The meeting, spontaneous and widely marked, suggested the United States was willing to revisit the freeze that had shut down already chilly relations when Bush included the Stalinist country in his "axis of evil" in a speech in January. One of those definitive indicators was North Korea's efforts to obtain large amounts of an aluminum-based metal. Because of its substantial strength, the aluminum metal is commonly used to construct equipment necessary to process crude uranium into its refined, or weapons-grade, form. The surprise for the Americans was not that North Korea was trying to enrich uranium but that they admitted it. The U.S. government had been banking on North Korean officials to make their usual and vehement denials -- a record it could then take to allies to justify shutting down further negotiation efforts, according to the Post. It would not have been the first time that at least some of the allies had been briefed about the dossier of evidence. Contrary to initial reports, South Korea's government was much less than "stunned" when the admission came out Thursday Korean time. The administration of President Kim Dae-jung had learned of the dossier's contents well before their northern neighbor's admission, said the Post, citing government sources in both Washington and Seoul. The unexpected announcement that Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was going on an unprecedented visit to Pyongyang on Sept. 17 reportedly prompted another such briefing. In fact, it was Koizumi's visit that drove the decision in Washington to conduct its own. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly flew to the North Korean capital to meet with North Korean officials on Oct. 3-5. He laid out verbally the evidence of the North's nuclear program and first received the denials Washington expected. The next day -- after the North Koreans stayed up all night to discuss options, some accounts have said -- they reversed. Kelly, who has returned to the region to assess and coordinate international efforts to pressure the North Koreans into compliance, told reporters in Seoul Saturday that "This is not a replay of 1993-1994." He was referring to the 1994 agreement under which North Korea would end its weapons program in exchange for the United States pledging not to make a first strike to destroy its nuclear program and reaching a peace treaty with North Korea that included a formal acknowledgment of North Korea's government regime. "When I went to North Korea I wanted them to understand just how important we believe this violation of past agreements is," Kelly said. While he vowed to marshal international pressure, he also emphasized there remained "channels of communication should North Korea wish to give us information." Copyright © 2002 United Press International ***************************************************************** 13 U.S., Japan Discuss N. Korean Nukes Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | From the Associated Press [UP] Sunday October 20, 2002 1:50 PM TOKYO (AP) - A senior U.S. envoy met Sunday with Japan's top government spokesman Sunday as part of a diplomatic campaign to deal with North Korea's nuclear weapons program. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly held talks with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda. They were expected to discuss whether to freeze construction on two light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea as a penalty for its violation of a 1994 arms control agreement. Public TV broadcaster NHK reported that Kelly is urging Japan to proceed with negotiations to normalize diplomatic ties with North Korea to help persuade Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program. The report did not cite a source for the information. Kelly declined to answer questions from reporters as he entered the meeting and no one from the Japanese government was immediately available for comment. The U.S. envoy is expected to meet Monday with Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba Monday before he returns to Washington. Kelly has been shuttling between Asian nations since Friday to discuss North Korea's admission that it has a clandestine nuclear weapons development program in violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States. Under the 1994 deal, North Korea agreed to halt efforts to develop nuclear weapons in exchange for light-water reactors, which produce power but use non-weapons grade radioactive materials. A U.S.-led consortium broke ground on the reactors in August. In South Korea, officials opened three days of talks Sunday with representatives of the north in hopes of persuading the isolated, communist regime of scrapping its nuclear weapons program. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 14 Report: US ends N.Korea arms control pact* United Press International Published 10/20/2002 7:09 AM SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Now that North Korea as admitted it violated its 1994 arms control pact with the United States, continuing to develop nuclear weapons capability, the Bush administration will terminate its end of the bargain as well, including shipments of fuel oil, The New York Times reported Sunday. The U.S. abandonment of the agreement will signal an American effort to show North Korea that nuclear weapons will mean a near-total economic isolation. The United States has so far not been specific about what consequences North Korea could face, suggesting the weapons program does not yet pose as much of a threat as Iraq's suspected chemical and biological arms. Under the agreement North Korea gets 500,000 tons of fuel oil annually from the United States, shipments that will now stop, the Times said. In addition, an end to the accord means the United States will urge Japan and South Korea to at least suspend the multibillion dollar project to build modern nuclear power plants in North Korea. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, in Japan Sunday to brief officials there about his talks early this month with North Korean officials, ran into significant resistance from South Korea to the concept of isolating North Korea, the Times said. Kelly, in Seoul Saturday, told reporters that lines of communication with the North remain open but that the United States will continue to pressure that country to end its development project. Any attempt to economically isolate North Korea would require the cooperation of China, Russia, Japan and Europe, where Kelly and other U.S. officials are visiting in the days ahead. "We will continue to work together with South Korea as well as Japan and other concerned states to press for the prompt and visible dismantling of the North Korean nuclear weapons program," Kelly told reporters in South Korea's capital Seoul Saturday. The U.S. envoy vowed nonetheless to mount international pressure on North Korea to "immediately and visibly end" such efforts. Kelly's comments had come the same day as a team of senior South Korean diplomats met with North Korean officials in Pyongyang for four days of talks. "The situation is not good. We need dialogue at such a time," said South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun, head of the team. The talks had been planned long before the news of North Korea's admission became public last week and even before the Oct. 4 date on which U.S. officials say the North Koreans conceded they had indeed been trying to enrich uranium. "Given that (North Korea's) nuclear program is the root of our nation's worries and anxiety, we will clearly address the issue and other related issues to the northern side," said Jeong. The U.S. envoy told reporters that "the best way to start negotiations is to end their covert nuclear weapons program from the past," Kelly said. He said there remain "channels of communication should North Korea wish to give us information." It was to Kelly that North Korea admitted they were violating a 1994 agreement with the United States, an admission that apparently went far beyond what U.S. officials were expecting. On his Oct. 3-5 trip to Pyongyang Kelly had outlined U.S. evidence that North Korea had continued its nuclear program despite agreeing to shut it down. At the time of the admission the North Koreans "did not make any demands as they were characterized but they did suggest after this harsh and, personally to me, surprising admission, suggest that there were measures that might be taken," said Kelly. The demands made by North Korea in exchange for ending its weapons program, as widely reported, were that the United States must pledge not to make a first strike to destroy its nuclear program, that it must reach a peace treaty with North Korea and that the United States must formally acknowledge North Korea's government regime. Reaching any such understandings with North Korea before the covert program is ended, Kelly said, "is really, in my view, got it upside down." Copyright © 2002 United Press International ***************************************************************** 15 Pakistan Blasts International Media's Blackmailing on N.Korea Issue / Updated on 2002-10-20 16:46:12/ *ISLAMABAD, Oct 20 (PNS)- President Pervez Musharraf reiterated here Friday that Pakistan has categorically stated time and again that it does not believe in proliferation of nuclear technology. ?We firmly stand by this commitment,? he said, adding, ?We are not cooperating with any country, leave aside Korea.? In one of vicious Anti-Pakistan campaign, CNN is running a poll asking for sanctions of Pakistan on this issue. * The President was asked to respond to a foreign newspaper report claiming that Pakistan had cooperated with North Korea in the nuclear field. The joint press conference was held at the end of the formal talks between Pakistan and Malaysia. Gen. Musharraf said there was no nuclear cooperation between Pakistan and North Korea. ?There is no such thing, at all, and hence, the report is absolutely baseless,? the President stated. Addressing the joint press conference after holding formal talks, President General Pervez Musharraf and the visiting Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir bin Muhammad said that there was identity of views on all issues between them concerning bilateral relations and regional and international affairs. The President said Pakistan and Malaysia have communality of views on international and regional issues and issues concerning the Muslim Ummah. He said they had extensive exchange of views concerning every issue. On the bilateral matter, the President said, they discussed trade between the two countries and ways and means to rectify the trade imbalance that is now in favour of Malaysia. He said they exchanged views about the areas in which Malaysian investment can be attracted and also covered areas of collaboration between the two countries specially in information technology, construction, bio-technology and telecommunication. The two sides, he said have identity of views on further cementing political understanding, economic and commercial ties. He said the future of relationship between Pakistan and Malaysia augurs very well. He expressed his satisfaction over the exchange of views and confidence that Pak-Malaysia relations will continue to grow to the mutual benefit of the two countries . Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir said, his country and Pakistan are very close friends and hold similar views on most of the issues and the two countries can cooperate together to achieve mutually beneficial development. Dr. Mahathir said the trade imbalance in favour of Malaysia would be rectified by identifying what his country can procure more from Pakistan. He said we should not deprive the whole world of oil but should be selective some time in the sale of oil by Muslim states. To another question he said his country supports the solution of Kashmir problem in line with the UN resolutions. About the notion of clash of civilizations, he said the Muslim civilization is facing challenges and because of terrorism the whole Muslim Ummah is being condemned. He referred to acts of terrorism being committed by people of other religions for over half a century and said nobody is talking about them. ?The impression against the Muslims must be rectified.? To a question about providing help to Pakistan to refurbish its economy, the Malaysian Prime Minister said, his country would be happy if it can help Pakistan to achieve further development by copying or improving its programmes. Source: APP ***************************************************************** 16 _Islamabad-Pyongyang ?nuclear deal?_ Daily Times *No ?conclusive evidence? against Pakistan* /By Wajahat Ali/ LAHORE: A recent story in the New York Times, accusing Pakistan of supplying critical equipment for North Korea?s newly revealed clandestine nuclear weapons program, has predictably attracted the attention of foreign press. A US newspaper, Chicago Tribune, claimed Saturday that a former senior Clinton administration official ?confirmed that Pakistan had provided North Korea the technology to enrich uranium for use in nuclear weapons?. This, said the official, not only gave North Korea the ability to make fuel for nuclear weapons but also supplied Pakistan ?missiles with which to target its nuclear rival, India?. Without naming its source, the Tribune quoted him as saying: ?For a number of years, there?s been concern in the government about the North Korean-Pakistani relationship. We knew Pakistan was importing Nodong missiles from North Korea. We asked ourselves whether this was a quid pro quo.? The US paper also recalled that an Indian daily, The Hindu, had hinted at such a deal in 1999. The Indian paper had reported that Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan was negotiating a deal with North Korea concerning the importation of missile technology. It had also added that Pakistan was also working on a missile programme of its own, ?but [its] results were not promising?. The Tribune quoted the Indian newspaper as saying: ?Analysts in Delhi say that Dr Khan may be under considerable pressure to show results for his labs and could be trading his nuclear assets for favours on the missile front from North Korea.? The US paper concluded: ?[This] may be the most troubling example of the dangerous technology trade that has become prevalent in Asia and the Middle East, but it is hardly the only one.? Joseph Cirincione, a nonproliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, told another American newspaper, The Los Angeles Times, that a transaction between North Korea and Pakistan could not be ruled out. He told the LA Times that ?the first evidence of enrichment equipment in North Korea also paralleled the appearance of North Korean missiles in Pakistan?. But a research director at the Korea Institute for Defence Analyses, Shin Sung Taek, told the newspaper that no one possessed ?conclusive evidence? against Pakistan. Talking to the LA Times, he recoginised that Pakistan had a uranium-enriched bomb ? as opposed to India?s plutonium-based program ? yet ?the methodology needed to build enriched-uranium bombs has been around a long time?. ?Many of its underlying techniques were pioneered in the 1940s during the days of the Manhattan Project, which eventually produced the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,? Taek told the newspaper. He added: ?Technology and know-how flow like water. A lot of it?s out there, even on the Internet.? A professor of the Japan?s National Institute for Defense Studies, Hideshi Takesada, pointed it out to the LA Times that ?North Korea has not tested a nuclear device? ? a relatively easy event to monitor ? but ?Pakistan may have agreed to test devices and share the results with North Korea?. Takesada also mentioned that the former prime minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, twice visited Pyongyang ?amid speculation the two nations were cooperating militarily?. Meanwhile, Press Trust of India has claimed that US Democrat Congressman Frank Pallone has written a letter to President George W Bush, calling for a full probe into the matter and a ban on all military sales to Pakistan. ?What I find appalling, is that this nuclear program that the United States worked tirelessly to halt, was in fact sustained through the assistance of Pakistan,? Pallone has allegedly written. ?Not only did the transfer of critical equipment from to North Korea take place around 1997, but in addition, this relationship has continued even after President Musharraf seized power in 1999,? he has reportedly added. According to The Washington Post, however, the US received evidence of uranium enrichment efforts in North Korea two years ago, but it decided to confront North Korea only recently. Daily Times - All Rights Reserved Site developed and hosted by WorldCALL Internet Solutions ***************************************************************** 17 UK: The future of electricity Independent.co.uk By Jason Nissé and Lavish Wadhwani 20 October 2002 Scotland v Germany in power struggle for TXU The future of electricity When Labour decided to reform the electricity market, they had a number of objectives ? cheaper power for consumers, securing investment in renewable energy and supporting the coal and nuclear industries were among them. Well, the New Electricity Trading Arrangements (Neta) have achieved none of these. The wholesale electricity price has collapsed, but hardly any of this price drop has been passed to consumers, while the pure generators are facing financial ruin. With the financial problems of Texan group TXU, which is one of the biggest retailers and generators, the power market is in virtual disarray. The total generating capacity in the UK is just over 67,000 megawatts (MW). A large number of the power stations in the country are not running at capacity, so the daily generation is substantially below this, though the National Grid estimates the average peak demand for electricity in cold weather is just over 55,000MW. British Energy is on the brink of collapse, being saved from the administrators only by aloan from the Government. It is the second largest generator with just under 8,000MW. TXU is also facing collapse. It owns power stations with a total potential output of just over 6,000MW. TXU's problems are also hitting AES Drax, the owner of the UK's largest power station, which has nearly 4,000MW of capacity. TXU was late with a £20m payment for power due under a long-running supply contract that TXU wants to renegotiate. AES says it cannot afford too big a cut in the price TXU pays for its electricity and the uncertainty has hit UK Coal, which is worried about its exposure to AES. The net effect of this is that some 18,000MW, or nearly a third of all the electricity generation in the UK, is threatened by insolvency. What's more, earlier this month Powergen, the German-owned group that is number three in the electricity market, mothballed nearly a fifth of its capacity, taking 1,800MW out of the market. Other companies, including TXU, have also mothballed plants, taking some 4,000MW in all out of the market. Finally, 2800MW of energy is generated by the old Magnox nuclear reactors owned by BNFL. These are horrendously inefficient and lose about £150m a year. If all the troubled companies shut up shop tomorrow, the UK could end up some 10,000MW short of what it needs during winter peaks. A Californian-style brown-out is not out of the question. Meanwhile, the troubles at TXU are also casting a pall over the retail market. The troubled Texan titan is the third largest supplier of electricity to homes and offices, with just over 15 per cent of the market, according to Ofgem figures; more than five million customers are supplied by the group. The retail business is close to being sold, though there are fears that if a deal is not done in the next few days, it will be forced into administration. This is not how deregulation was supposed to look. ***************************************************************** 18 Fight terrorism, not Iraq Independent.co.uk 20 October 2002 Within hours of last weekend's attack in Bali, President Bush and Tony Blair declared that it was possible to fight a war on two fronts, against terrorism and possibly against Iraq as well. A few days later it emerged that another "rogue state", North Korea, was already in possession of nuclear weapons. How should the US and Britain respond? Is there not a case for a pre-emptive strike against North Korea as well? That would mean a war on three fronts and before long it might mean war on four or five fronts, as North Korea is by no means alone in its appetite for nuclear weapons. As George Bush contemplates potential dangers around the world, the terrorists are wreaking havoc now. Tony Blair has been the most eloquent advocate of the pre-emptive strike, arguing persuasively that there would have been few takers for an attack on Afghanistan before 11 September last year, and virtually universal support afterwards. But the terrorist atrocity in Bali highlights the imprecision of that argument as well. In the so-called war against terrorism, the pre-emptive strike, in most cases, is meaningless. How would this strategy have prevented the devastation in Bali? Which state would have been the target for a pre-emptive strike? Terrorists are scattered in different countries, relatively small in number, but capable of causing carnage and wrecking economies. While international leaders have been busy trying to link the war against terrorism to their obsession with Iraq, the terrorists have been regrouping. Last month Clare Short warned that already, only a year after 11 September, the attention of the US and to some extent Britain had wandered from Afghanistan in spite of commitments from President Bush and Mr Blair. According to Ms Short, the warlords are functioning again outside Kabul. With good cause she fears that Afghanistan could become a breeding ground for terrorists once more. The old-fashioned notion of deterrence has worked in the case of Iraq. Saddam has not used weapons of mass destruction outside his country partly because he knows he would provoke a deadly response from the US. The tyrant shows every sign of preferring power to committing suicide. Yet the US and Britain seek a possible war that threatens to destabilise regions that are already terrorist breeding grounds. Consider the impact in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indonesia, let alone the Middle East, of the US military occupation of Iraq that would follow the defeat of Saddam. War against Iraq is a perverse priority when it is already the terrorists who present much the bigger threat to international security. ***************************************************************** 19 N. Korea ANALYSIS / Nuclear issue to dominate talks Daily Yomiuri On-Line Yomiuri Shimbun The U.S. plan announced Saturday to increase the pressure on North Korea over its nuclear and missile development has increased the focus on security issues in the upcoming diplomatic normalization talks between Tokyo and Pyongyang, according to sources. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly said Washington would intensify the pressure on Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons program in cooperation with the international community. The Japanese delegation for the Oct. 29 normalization talks also will urge North Korea to "scrap the development of nuclear weapons immediately and in a visible way," the sources said. Progress in the talks, including over the abduction issue, will depend on North Korea's actions over the nuclear weapons issue, analysts said. "For Japan, the problems of (North Korea's) nuclear and missile development are not the concern of someone else," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Saturday while campaigning in Fukuoka Prefecture. "Concerning security issues, Japan will proceed with the negotiations (with Pyongyang) in close cooperation with the United States and South Korea," the prime minister said. The prime minister also suggested that the government would consider temporarily suspending the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization's project to construct light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea, in coordination with the United States and South Korea. In view of such developments, members of the government and ruling parties have called for a tough line to be taken with Pyongyang over its nuclear program during the normalization talks. A former foreign minister said, "First, the prime minister must point out that North Korea has already violated the Japan-North Korea Pyongyang Declaration." The declaration that Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il signed last month committed both Japan and North Korea to fully comply with all international agreements to address the nuclear issue in the Korean Peninsula. But Pyongyang's recent admission to the United States that it had continued to develop nuclear weapons despite its earlier pledges reveals that North Korea lied to Japan concerning its program at the time of the summit meeting, and it also had violated international agreements including the 1994 Agreed Framework with Washington and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The focus of attention is whether North Korea will demonstrate "visible and concrete actions" concerning its weapons program at the first meeting of the normalization talks, said Hitoshi Tanaka, chief of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau. The talks will be the touchstone to test the legitimacy of the Pyongyang Declaration, analysts said. Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe warned Saturday, "North Korea has deployed 100 Rodong missiles that can strike Japan." Speaking in Okayama, Abe said: "If North Korea has Rodong missiles armed with nuclear weapons, it's a great threat for Japan. We have to pressure North Korea to honor its promises over the deployment of Rodong missiles and nuclear weapons." Abe indicated that the government would ask North Korea to suspend deployments of Rodong missiles during the normalization talks. Copyright 2002 The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 20 It Is Critical to Ruduce Our Dependence on Middle East Oil The Salt Lake Tribune -- Sunday, October 20, 2002 BY GARY M. SANDQUIST The risk of war with Iraq has inspired rethinking in Congress on issues ranging from intelligence gathering to military preparedness. But one issue that has not received adequate attention is our nation's continued dependence on Middle East oil. Though leaders of both parties in Congress want greater energy security, little has been accomplished. House Republicans have focused on energy development while Senate Democrats have focused on transportation fuel efficiencies. We need both developments. Oil is a finite and dwindling commodity found principally in countries that don't necessarily favor our well-being. We cannot continue to import foreign oil indefinitely at present levels. The U.S. obtains a fourth of its imported petroleum from the Persian Gulf at a cost of $20 billion annually to Saudi Arabia alone. We receive 100,000 barrels a day at $1 billion per year while Iraq develops weapons of mass destruction. Congress should take immediate action to curb this dependence on Middle East oil. A strong, balanced program of developing domestic energy sources and improving energy efficiency is essential. Improving the efficiency of motor vehicles is obvious. There must be a major effort to produce cars and SUVs with greater fuel efficiency, and to develop electric and fuel cell vehicles. Replacing Middle East oil with supplies from oil-producing countries in Latin America, Africa, and the Caspian Sea region should be promoted. We can increase domestic oil production without despoiling the environment using advanced drilling techniques in Arctic and deep-water reserves. We must act quickly and decisively to expand use of natural gas, clean-coal technology and nuclear power that is free of greenhouse gases. These and renewable energy sources can provide the electricity and power needed to reduce our consumption of oil. The U.S. has more than 240 billion tons of recoverable coal, about one-fourth of the world's total. We have a greater share of the world's energy as coal than Saudi Arabia has oil-equivalent energy. Coal is being burned more cleanly than in the past using advanced, clean-coal technologies such as fluidized-bed combustion and coal-to-gas systems. Although coal-generated electricity has nearly tripled since 1970, the EPA reports that coal-fired plants emit a third less pollution. Nuclear power, safe and reliable, provides a fifth of U.S. electricity. The nuclear industry has improved the efficiency of existing plants that now produce the lowest-cost electricity in much of the U.S. The reduced down time during refueling and maintenance over the past decade has resulted in additional generating capacity equivalent to 23 large nuclear plants. Because nuclear plants emit none of the greenhouse gases linked to global warming, Japan, Great Britain, Sweden, and other European countries are considering building new plants. Renewable energy sources should occupy a place in the nation's energy strategy where they are cost-effective. An alternative to oil is thought by some to be ethanol, which is made from corn and used in reformulated gasoline. The Senate energy bill would establish a "renewable fuels standard," which mandates tripling the amount of ethanol used in this country from 1.7 billion gallons this year to 5 billion gallons by 2012. But ethanol has its down side. While it benefits ethanol producers and corn farmers, taxpayers will bear considerable cost. Since 1996, federal crop subsidies to the ethanol industry are about $30 billion. Unfortunately, ethanol is a marginal renewable fuel requiring nearly as much energy to produce as is contained in the fuel. Reducing our dependence on imported oil is a critical need. But the solution will be found with policies that promote a broad, diverse mix of energy sources, improvements in energy efficiency and advances in transportation technology. _________ Gary M. Sandquist is a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Utah. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 21 Hawk Gets Cozy With the Pentagon The Salt Lake Tribune -- Sunday, October 20, 2002 BY GREG BARRETT GANNETT NEWS SERVICE WASHINGTON -- He has no security clearance. No government job. No military rank. Other than dashing good looks, a grand TV presence and strident GOP views on terrorism, war and Iraq, Dexter Ingram of the Heritage Foundation has nothing that would seem to grant him access to secured Department of Defense information. Yet as a threat assessment specialist for a conservative think tank, Ingram, a budding media darling for network heavyweights such as CNN and MSNBC, is given rare civilian entry into the Pentagon's computer system and is maintaining the rhythm on the drumbeat to war. Beating the Drum: This month, when President Bush told the nation that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction and is a global menace, Ingram was ready with the frightening possibilities. And when Bush said Saddam could launch missiles on Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Israel, Ingram detailed the chilling conse- quences. Bush: "We know that the [Iraqi] regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents . . . [and] possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles." Ingram: A 450-kilogram missile of VX nerve gas launched from Iraq to Tel Aviv 250 miles away would kill 43,000 people and injure 38,000. So it's for good reason Ingram feels a sense of victory that Congress is backing President Bush in his threat to wage war on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. "But you can't sit there and say my job is over," says Ingram, a former Navy pilot and J.Crew fashion model. "As Robert Frost says, 'There are miles to go before we sleep.' " His corroboration of White House fears would seem objective, but the route his information follows -- from the Pentagon to Ingram, from Ingram to the general public -- could just as easily be seen as the laundering of government data. Ingram's bosses at the Heritage Foundation say it's nonsense to think they are complicit in Bush's campaign against Iraq. 'Not a Mouthpiece': "If you are saying we are [the mouthpiece] for the White House, you are barking up a tree with no leaves," says Mark Tapscott, director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Media and Public Policy. But Ingram is the only civilian, and Heritage is the only advocacy group, with access to highly sophisticated Defense Department software best known by their acronyms. CATS, for the Consequences Assessment Tools Set, focuses primarily on domestic terrorism. HPAC, for Hazard Prediction and Assessment Capability, focuses on global chemical, biological or nuclear wars. "We were the first to ask for it," says Ingram, who first became aware of the software during his six years in the Navy. Other think tanks, including the liberal Brookings Institution, never applied for it. Good Buddies: So cozy is the relationship between the Heritage Foundation and the Pentagon that before Ingram briefs members of Congress or goes on MSNBC or even before Gannett News Service interviews him, he phones the Pentagon to give officials "a heads-up." He considers it a courtesy call. For every news interview, print or broadcast, Ingram has supported a war on Iraq. He calls himself a conservative Democrat and insists his analyses are objective. "I can tell you that more times than not I have no idea what the White House is going to say when we put together a report or brief," he says. "It just normally matches up." The Pentagon software uses government intelligence and hundreds of maps and databases to predict fallout from calamitous events. The programs can predict the lethal consequences of a suitcase nuke exploding on a specific day and specific hour in a specific neighborhood any- where in the United States, or the effects of a missile of sarin nerve gas fired on downtown Baghdad, or any of thousands of other doomsday scenarios. It should come as no surprise, then, that Ingram supports Bush when he says, "The threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place." With fears of terrorism and war worldwide, Ingram is the source of the hour for major media. In a single day this year, when nuclear powers India and Pakistan faced off, CNN, Time magazine, U.S. News &World Report, Fox News and ABC News all phoned him. ABC's "George Stephanopoulos called my line four times," Ingram recalls proudly. "I was like, I'm kinda slammed right now." In addition to offering detailed street grids, weather patterns and census data, HPAC can locate nuclear reactors and chemical plants and analyze the different concentrations and consequences of chemical and biological weaponry, right down to the method of delivery. For example, in the event that Saddam opts to use chemical weapons on U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq, HPAC can distinguish between 500 kilograms of sarin nerve gas hitting Baghdad by missile (131,990 people injured) and 2 kilograms exploding from a land mine (1,965 injured). The information is unclassified but protected. Ingram uses a password to delve beyond the public data such as census and mapping information and enter the Pentagon's inner sanctum. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an arm of the Pentagon created in 1998 to respond to the global threat of weapons of mass destruction, does not require security checks for using the software. Ingram, however, said that even with the high security clearance he once had in the Navy, he had to lobby Pentagon officials for three months before they gave him access last year. As he says with obvious glee, "This isn't something they give out to everybody." The Heritage Foundation keeps the software in a locked office in a safe. Next up for Ingram is Department of Defense software that provides 3-D grids of cities, including the height and width of homes and offices. The Pentagon already has trained him on it. "I was able to take the Earth and move the Earth around and zoom in on [actor] Michael Keaton's house," Ingram says. "It was like I was Superman." © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on Utah OnLine is ***************************************************************** 22 U.S. Has Long, Complicated History With Saddam The Salt Lake Tribune -- Sunday, October 20, 2002 BY JOHN YAUKEY GANNETT NEWS SERVICE WASHINGTON -- Saddam Hussein's rise from a regional thug to international menace seemed nothing short of meteoric. Last winter, the war on terrorism had its bogeyman in the gaunt, finger-waving Osama bin Laden and its battlefront along Afghanistan's craggy scrub land. Despite vague rumors about al-Qaida operatives meeting with Iraqi agents in Prague, Saddam loomed as merely one of many black hats in the Muslim-Arab world blowing anti-American smoke. Since 1998, he thumbed his nose at the United Nations' weapons inspections resolutions that ended the Persian Gulf War. Policing his regular no-fly zone violations had become a fly-swatting operation. The focus after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was on radical Islam, and it was well known that Saddam and his secular regime loathed religious fanatics, having fought Iran's radical mullahs to a standoff in the 1980s. But as the war on terrorism entered its second phase, to finding and stamping out future bin Ladens, Saddam suddenly found himself in the crosshairs of a hawkish Bush administration beating a drum for what it calls "regime change." Over several months of ramped-up war rhetoric from the White House, Saddam emerged from a gallery of rogues -- some deemed even worse by the CIA -- to become the embodiment of all that threatens Americans. "No living dictator has shown the murderous combination of intent and capability as Saddam has," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently said. He ought to know. Rumsfeld flew to Baghdad in 1983 and 1984 as a special envoy to enlist Saddam's help in ensuring the free flow of Middle Eastern oil through a gantlet of rising Islamic fundamentalism. The fact is Saddam and the United States go way back. The regime that President Bush is so eager to oust so quickly is one that two previous presidents -- Republican Ronald Reagan and Democrat Jimmy Carter -- have courted, funded and even protected. As early as 1979, Saddam's first year as dictator, the Carter administration ignored Iraq's status as a terrorist state and urged it to attack Iran. According to congressional records, the United States was selling Saddam the ingredients to make anthrax, botulism, E. coli and other bioweapons throughout the 1980s, even after the revelation that he had been gassing tribal Kurds and Iranians. Until virtually the eve of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1991, he remained in the eyes of many U.S. policy-makers an effective, if repugnant, regional enforcer and bulwark against religious radicals. "A common criticism of U.S. policy in the Middle East is that we are satisfied with the existence of dictatorships throughout most of the Arab world because they are easier to deal with than genuinely pluralistic governments," said Iraqi attorney Feisal Amin Istrabadi, who testified recently before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Initially, Saddam welcomed the U.S. overtures. He was a young dictator on the rise, and the United States was happy to have a secular surrogate in a region witnessing a wave of anti-American Muslim fundamentalism. Rise of a Thug: Unlike the scions of sheiks who graciously inherited most of the Middle Eastern autocracies, Saddam came from the rural poverty north of Baghdad. He took his power more like the banana republic dictators of the Kennedy era: with guns. His early hatred of the West, which he never let impede weapons procurement, grew out of the colonial occupation of the Arab world. Long before he became Iraq's president, Saddam saw himself as the champion of all Arabs. He considered most Arab leaders impotent anachronisms and dreamed of a modern pan-Arabian state armed with nuclear weapons. As Saddam rose through Iraq's secular Baath socialist party in the 1960s and '70s, he shunned the flowing robes of Arab royalty, preferring tailored suits or olive drab accessorized by a handgun at the hip. His proficiency in torture and assassination made him invaluable to the increasingly brutish Baath leadership. If nothing else, Saddam was a pragmatist, realizing he could do well by playing the Cold War superpowers off each other. After declaring himself president in 1979, he nationalized Iraq's oil industry and immediately invited Western companies to drill for it. The new dictator needed money to build a world-class military, and this was the way to do it. "He developed a Soviet-style economy, basically geared toward war," said Khidhir Hamza, an Iraqi physicist who defected to the United States in 1995. Not surprising for a man who devoured Stalin's writings and ideology. My Enemy's Enemy: By the time Saddam took power, no one in the United States was under any illusions about his ambitions and methods. But Saddam lived by the enduring Middle Eastern maxim "My enemy's enemy is my friend." And for more than a decade, he was the enemy of the United States' enemies. When Iran overthrew its U.S.-friendly Shah in 1979 and occupied the American Embassy, Saddam proved a willing U.S. surrogate launching a bloody war against the "Persians," whom he detested almost as much as the Jews. He was rewarded in 1982 when the United States removed Iraq from its list of terrorist nations and then again four years later with a handsome bump in U.S. military aid. In 1983, the United States started providing Saddam with satellite photos of Iranian troop placements. The Reagan administration went so far as to run cover for Saddam, initially blaming Iran for the 1988 gassing of Iraqi Kurds. "No question -- Saddam was not just one more dictator," said Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal think tank. "Our relationship with him was a very strategic one." Then as now, stability in the Middle East was paramount. Then as now, no small chorus fretted that removing Saddam would make room for someone even worse and send the region reeling. Saddam's threats to "burn Israel to the ground" started to alarm U.S. intelligence, but he continued to be a useful player. By 1989, U.S. war planners were starting to create scenarios with Saddam as the leading threat in the Middle East. But as late as January 1990, a National War College report concluded, "Baghdad should not be expected to deliberately provoke military confrontations with anyone. Its best interests now and in the immediate future are served by peace." The following summer, a cash-strapped Saddam accused Kuwait of "angle" drilling into its oil fields. The United States could overlook Saddam's war crimes, but threatening the flow of oil was unacceptable. After routing Saddam in Kuwait, the United States began a sporadic campaign to overthrow him from within, encouraging a series of coups and uprisings that ultimately were botched. Bush appears resolute to end this cat-and-mouse game with a sweeping campaign to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. There is no shortage of opinion that this can only be done through regime change. Not Since Vietnam: As he began openly stalking Saddam, Bush faced considerable opposition to his policy of regime change in the United Nations and on Capitol Hill. But he went about disarming those skeptics the way he has dealt with a balky Congress to win tax cuts, trade authority and withdrawal from the anti-ballistic missile treaty -- by confronting them head-on and relentlessly. In a Sept. 12 speech to the U.N. General Assembly, he bluntly challenged members of the Security Council to enforce tough weapons inspections against Iraq and other Security Council resolutions that have long been ignored by Saddam. In the Democrat-led Senate, leading voices called Bush's request to attack Iraq unilaterally, if necessary, a dangerous blank check. Many didn't buy his attempt to link Saddam with bin Laden, if only by general intent. "He's got to do something better than the shoddy piecing together of evidence," Russell Feingold, D-Wis., charged from the Senate floor. Feingold, one of 23 senators to vote against use of force in Iraq, would prove a voice in the wilderness. After a marathon debate and vote in Congress, Bush emerged with a resolution of support from both houses that contained most of the essential leeway to go after Saddam unilaterally. Watered-down proposals that authorized military action only with the sanction of the Security Council failed overwhelmingly in both the House and Senate. Saddam now faces a U.S. president with more unfettered authority to wage war than any since Lyndon Johnson won approval of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964, paving the way into Vietnam. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 23 UK: Nuclear power rescue hit by legislation row [money.telegraph.co.uk] Washington -- A huge video screen hung from the ceiling, behind the ornate mahogany desks and oil portraits of elders that give the House International Relations Committee room an air of history. Peering down from the screen, three times the size of anyone else in the room, was the committee's next witness, live from the U.S. Embassy in London. Chairman Henry J. Hyde, R-Ill., no small figure himself, looked up at the screen and observed, "Richard Perle is hovering over us." When he was assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, adversaries called Perle the Prince of Darkness for his fierce resistance to arms-control treaties with the Soviets. Now he is often described as the administration's leading hawk on Iraq. As chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a panel of leading Republican foreign-policy thinkers who advise the secretary of defense, his sway inside government circles is considerable. He speaks to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld regularly. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz is a friend. But it is his role outside the government -- from his perch at the American Enterprise Institute -- that affords Perle the luxury of moral outrage. While liberals look for accommodation with European allies before taking action against Iraq, Perle offers that it would be nice if antiwar German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder would resign. When some military experts urge time for weapon inspections to work, Perle charges appeasement, invoking the specter of Britain's Neville Chamberlain underestimating the menace of Adolf Hitler. Few of Perle's ideological allies go so far in their outspokenness. But Perle's pronouncements on Iraq have made him a hot media draw -- the Arabic news network Al Jazeera calls regularly, as do newspapers from Tokyo to Toronto and every alphabet news channel on the satellite spectrum. Like a test marketer for the most doctrinaire ideas, Perle keeps lobbing his verbal arrows into media cyberspace. Some in the administration think his outbursts are a distraction. But many of his pronouncements have echoed in subsequent Bush administration positions. For weeks, Perle has been arguing that eliminating Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction is "indistinguishable" from ending Saddam Hussein's rule. He has been warning Iraqi generals that they could face war-crimes trials if they carry out Hussein's orders to use biological or chemical weapons. President Bush made use of both points in his nationwide address last week. Perle's influence is indirect. He does not talk to White House speech writers. The last time he briefed Bush one-on-one was during the campaign, when he lobbied for NATO enlargement. For critics of administration policy, however, Perle's influence is unnerving. "Rumsfeld, (Vice President Dick) Cheney, Wolfowitz -- these are new conservatives, hawks, rational hard-liners," said one Arab diplomat who asked not to be quoted by name. "Then you have Perle, who is blindly obsessive. It's almost neo-imperialistic." Beyond the policy debate, Perle is an original -- a conservative agitator with a passion for the good life, a member of the Washington establishment who defies the town's workaholic habits, a weapons strategist who at the height of the Cold War fantasized about opening a souffle restaurant. There is no question that Perle, 61, now enjoys his role as the enfant terrible of the neoconservatives, defined by their hawkish views on foreign policy and their free-market ideas on economic issues. In response to Hyde's comment that he is hovering over the debate on Iraq, Perle says later, "I should have thrown thunderbolts, too." But he is careful not to overstate his role. "I've been in Washington for many years, and you end up knowing pretty much everyone," he said. "So if you have an idea, you can get it out much more quickly. That's what it means to have influence in Washington. In the end, it's the quality of the idea that matters, not that it came from me." Perle's view of foreign policy is contained in an ideological odyssey from a culture of liberalism in Southern California to one of conservatism in Washington, D.C. His course was steered by two mentors -- one an erudite academic, the other a Democratic senator -- who drew a generation of conservatives to the belief that great powers survive only if they exercise military might. While in high school in Los Angeles, Perle befriended a classmate named Joan Wohlstetter, who invited him to her home in the Hollywood Hills. There, he was smitten -- with her father's intellect. Albert Wohlstetter is an icon to many conservative thinkers. An elegant, worldly man, he researched at the Rand Corp. and taught at the University of Chicago, molding neoconservative thought. A logician by training, he applied the rigors of math to military planning, turning U.S. nuclear strategy on its head. In "The Delicate Balance of Terror, " Wohlstetter challenged the prevailing assumption that neither superpower would dare use nuclear weapons. Technology made nuclear war winnable, he argued, and deterrence questionable. "He started talking about those issues," Perle recalled. "It was fascinating." At the University of Southern California, Perle took a class on international relations from Ross Berkes, who cited Hans Morgenthau, a political scientist who argued that militarily strong nations survive, while weak ones do not. Until then Perle had been a humanities major, his dream to teach English at some Midwest college. Instead, he began to study the world. It was not far from there to the London School of Economics, where Edward N. Luttwak, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, recalls Perle defending President John F. Kennedy's bold embargo of Soviet missiles in Cuba in a university debate, almost single-handedly turning anti-American audience opinion. Or from there to Princeton University, where Perle received a master's degree in international studies. Or from there to Washington, where Wohlstetter called him to come muster the case for a ballistic-missile defense. George Will, the conservative commentator, knew Perle at Princeton and in Washington, when Perle worked for Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, D-Wash., and Will was press secretary to Sen. Gordon Allott, R-Colo. He remembers Perle in those years: "He is not a fierce combatant," Will said. "He just has convictions and information and a world view." Perle's world view gained muscle under the tutelage of Jackson and his chief foreign-policy aide -- Dorothy Fosdick, daughter of the famous pacifist the Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick and one of the first women in American diplomacy. Jackson had gathered a brain trust that included Perle, Wolfowitz, Frank Gaffney, currently head of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, and Charles Horner, now at the Hudson Institute. "There was a rich intellectual and philosophical tradition there," Horner recalled. Mostly, Jackson indulged his staff's brainstorming sessions, matching their quest for ideas with his own. Jackson would hold congressional hearings with then-unknown speakers such as Middle East expert Bernard Lewis, defense analyst James Schlesinger and Kremlinologist Leopold Labedz to talk about the world as they saw it. "Scoop thought ideas mattered, even if there was no immediate legislative issue," Perle said. In Jackson's view, the only antidote to political dictatorship was military might. And the only way to win liberal votes for hawkish foreign-policy positions, he believed, was to link their issues to yours. When the Soviet Union slammed the door on emigration, Jackson's answer was simple: no freedom, no commerce. Liberals, who worried that cutting off trade would only hurt the Soviet people, were in no position to oppose free immigration of dissidents. It was a ploy Perle adopted later, when, at the height of arms-control fever, he proposed the famous "zero option." Faced with European protests over U.S. plans to put medium-range missiles in Germany, Perle in one stroke quieted the protesters and the Soviets by suggesting that both superpowers lower their arsenals to zero. Many suspected that Perle was merely trying to kill off arms-control pacts altogether, but they were loath to oppose the idea of eliminating a whole class of weapons. The result, as Perle and the Reagan administration knew, was to shift public opinion in Europe to the American argument that as long as the Soviets had medium-range weapons pointed at Europe, the allies had to have some pointing back. "Zero option came right out of Scoop Jackson's playbook," said Bob Kaufman, a professor of international relations at the University of Vermont and author of Jackson's biography. "Richard Perle had Scoop in his bones." Perle has been on the warpath against Hussein since 1987, when he criticized the U.S. government for tilting toward Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War, arguing that Hussein was more of a threat than the ayatollahs. Four years ago, he began questioning the U.S. edict against assassinating foreign leaders. Now he advocates elimination of Hussein, and offers no zone for compromise. Disarming Iraq without regime change is impossible in his view. "You simply cannot leave him in control of that territory and expect that you will get real disarmament," he said Oct. 6 on NBC's "Meet the Press." Many Arab diplomats are still smarting that Perle invited an anti-Saudi speaker to brief the Defense Policy Board. They think Perle personally turned Bush's mind to war with Iraq, and they suspect him of being an Israeli agent. Perle dismisses the charge, noting that he has argued with Israelis for years about the risks of taking out Hussein. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who admits he was outmaneuvered by Perle on a few occasions, calls Perle "one of the few creative people around." During a recent hearing at the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Jim Saxton, R-N.J., apologized: "I keep wanting to call you Dr. Perle," he told the witness. Perle hesitated, perhaps remembering the uncompleted doctoral thesis he left at Princeton on international negotiating styles. He had opted instead to put his theories to practice in Washington. He had chosen the life of influence. "I never finished my dissertation," he told the congressman, smiling. ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.   Page A - 4 ***************************************************************** 25 ROK, US to Jointly Mobilize Maximum Int¡¯l Pressure on NK to Abandon Nuke Program KoreaTimes : By Shim Jae-yun Staff Reporter South Korea and the United States have agreed to work together closely to mobilize maximum international pressure on North Korea to give up its admitted nuclear weapons program and resolve the issue through peaceful methods. ``Both sides agreed to strengthen cooperation with the international community to help settle the issue peacefully,¡¯¡¯ Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Tai-sik said. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly also said the U.S. would lead a global campaign to that end while urging the reclusive North to ``immediately and visibly¡¯¡¯ dismantle its clandestine nuclear development program. ``We are committed to seeking a peaceful Korean peninsula that is free of nuclear weapons and will continue to work together with South Korea, as well as Japan and other concerned states, to press the North to halt the covert nuclear program,¡¯¡¯ he said during a press conference on Saturday. The two nations and Japan plan to discuss the issue during the upcoming trilateral summit meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation session in Mexico starting Oct. 26. Kelly was speaking to reporters after meetings with South Korean and Chinese officials following the North¡¯s surprise revelation that it has been running a secret program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons over the past few years during his visit to Pyongyang Oct. 3-5. U.S. Under Secretary of State John Bolton and Kelly visited Beijing to consult with the Chinese government regarding the recent nuclear issue. Bolton is now traveling Moscow, London, Paris and the European Union, while Kelly met with Japanese officials yesterday. Kelly said the U.S. administration would not follow the diplomatic course that resulted in the controversial 1994 Agreed Framework under which the North promised to discontinue its nuclear development program in return for construction of two light-water reactors. ``This is not a replay of 1993 and 1994,¡¯¡¯ Kelly said, hinting Washington is not ready to make a similar deal even if the North asked for it. Kelly and Seoul officials also discussed steps to cope with the North¡¯s startling disclosure, including whether to quit the construction of two light-water nuclear reactors initiated by the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization. South Korea expressed the stand that the project should be continued despite the current fiasco, while citing the need to keep a close eye on the North¡¯s move toward nuclear development. ÀԷ½ð£ 2002/10/20 17:33 ***************************************************************** 26 [Editorial] Crucial Korea-U.S. coalition Korea Herald!!_Oped http://www.koreaherald.com The toddling Korean peace process has entered yet another critical phase in the wake of Pyongyang's surprise recognition of its clandestine nuclear arms program last week. And so has the overall security environment in the greater Northeast Asian region. With the North's genuine intention behind the astounding disclosure reportedly remaining murky, Seoul should find a close coordination with other regional powers to be even more crucial in its endeavor to search for a peaceful breakthrough to the resurgent crisis. Whatever its purpose, North Korea's admission of breaching its avowed international obligations for nonproliferation came at an awkward time. It confirmed overnight the diehard skepticism about North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and his Stalinist regime among hawks in Washington, Seoul and the broader international community. Certainly, one consolation is that U.S. President George W. Bush's preoccupation with Iraq and the gathering clouds of war in the Middle East may have to be put on hold while Washington carves out an answer to Pyongyang. A sobering irony is that the brittle process of inter-Korean reconciliation could be jeopardized even more by the domestic political situation. The North's confession has driven the Kim Dae-jung administration's already troubled "sunshine policy" of engagement into an even deeper dilemma. With the presidential election only two months away, Kim and his advisors find very little room to reconsider their North Korea policy. This is a cruel turn of events for them now that inter-Korean dialogue and exchanges have been resurrected from a long stalemate. There is no denying that the Kim administration's engagement policy has contributed to the current perception that a solution to the renewed nuclear conundrum on the peninsula should be sought through a peaceful approach. But such a diplomatic initiative has been secured for a price. The Kim administration has suffered from continuous discord with the U.S. government of President Bush in regard to their North Korea policies. What looks obvious is that this is no time for repeating such an uncomfortable interaction. In this regard, it is heartening that Washington is conducting brisk conversation with not only Seoul but also other concerned governments including China and Japan as well as the European Union. As the visiting Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly said Saturday in Seoul, the U.S. government is making efforts to bring "maximum international pressure" on North Korea to immediately dismantle its nuclear weapons program. North Korea is urged to respond in a cooperative manner by complying with the demand from the international community. Washington is also advised to be fairer in sharing its intelligence about the North's nuclear activity with the South Korean government, among other concerned parties. The issue is directly related to security on the peninsula and the welfare of its residents on both sides of the border. This is also the reason the incumbent administration in Seoul, during its final months, should exert greater efforts to maintain close policy coordination with Washington. The issue cannot be resolved in a short time and will be handed over to the next administration, whoever is elected President in December. 2002.10.21 ***************************************************************** 27 U.S. pinpoints 3 suspected sites in North Korean nuclear program Korea Herald!!_National http://www.koreaherald.com The United States has indicated the Academy of Sciences near Pyongyang as being one of three sites where it suspects North Korea carried out uranium-enrichment tests in connection with its admitted secret nuclear program, a diplomatic source said yesterday. The other two sites the United States mentioned are the Hagap region located in Hwicheon, Jagang Province, and Yeongjeo-dong in Yanggang Province, about 20km from the Chinese border, according to the source. Washington informed Seoul of the three testing-grounds several days after a U.S. high-level delegation led by Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly entered the North early this month, the source said. The United States announced last week that the North admitted to having a nuclear development program aimed at enriching enough uranium to make nuclear weapons during a meeting with Kelly, the first official high-level talks between the two countries under the Bush administration. Analysts suggested the North chose to enrich uranium, rather than Pyongyang's initial choice, plutonium, to facilitate a nuclear weapons technology that is easier to hide and more reliable, although harder to assemble. While spelling out the North's nuclear program, the United States recently told South Korea that the laboratory in the Academy of Sciences is the most likely venue for the communist regime to have tested the uranium enrichment. According to South Korea's intelligence report, the North's Academy of Sciences is a complex of science and technology research institutes located in Eunjeong District, an outskirt of Pyongyang. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is said to have made several visits to the research town to encourage scientists and technicians since 1987. South Korean officials refused to comment on the allegation that the U.S. delivered intelligence regarding the suspected nuclear sites to the Seoul government, citing issues of confidentiality. (shinyb@koreaherald.co.kr) By Shin Yong-bae Staff reporter 2002.10.21 (C) Copyright 2000 Digital Korea Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 28 France, Russia Moving Toward UN Resolution [http://service.themoscowtimes.com Monday, Oct. 21, 2002. Page 15 The Associated Press MOSCOW/UNITED NATIONS -- Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Friday that the United Nations Security Council could consider adopting a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq if weapons inspectors were unable to fulfill their mandate. "If the inspectors began to work in Iraq and in the course of this work, problems arise, the inspectors should report what problems have arisen. Then the UN Security Council should again consider this issue and decide whether harsher measures, right up to the use of force, are required," Ivanov said at a news conference. It was the first time a senior Russian official said Moscow might at some point agree to military action under UN auspices. Russia opposes unilateral moves to use force against Iraq and strongly objected to an initial U.S. proposal that would immediately have unleashed military force if Baghdad did not comply with the inspections. However, after encountering strong opposition from France, Russia and China, the United States has advanced a new proposal that calls for inspectors to "report immediately to the council any failure by Iraq to comply with its disarmament," according to excerpts obtained by The Associated Press. If a failure is reported, the Security Council would convene immediately "to consider the situation and the need for full compliance with all the relevant council resolutions in order to restore international peace and security." However, a White House official said the second resolution would not be necessary to allow the use of force. France and the United States reported progress on a new Iraq resolution, but diplomats still need to iron out differences over wording -- with Paris insisting there must be no trigger for an attack on Iraq. French President Jacques Chirac said Friday that negotiations were moving "in the right direction," and a senior U.S. official in Washington said there was progress in talks with French officials in New York. The comments by Chirac and the U.S. official were seen by diplomats as a sign that Britain, the United States, France, Russia and China -- the five permanent members of the council -- were moving toward agreement on how to proceed on Iraq after five weeks of negotiations. In the new U.S. draft, the Bush administration would give Iraq a last chance -- and agree to wait for a report from UN inspectors on Baghdad's cooperation with their work to eliminate any nuclear, chemical and biological weapons that Saddam Hussein possesses. n Rejecting unilateral U.S. military action against Iraq, leaders of 55 French-speaking nations on Sunday backed France's argument that any attempt to disarm Iraq must respect international law and the United Nations, French diplomats said. At the closing of a three-day summit, leaders decided at the last minute to address Iraq in their final declaration, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity. © Copyright 2002, The Moscow Times. All Rights Reserved. Visit ***************************************************************** 29 N. Korea Silent on Nuclear Program Las Vegas SUN: Today: October 20, 2002 at 10:50:15 PDT By PAUL SHIN ASSOCIATED PRESS SEOUL, South Korea- South Korea appealed to North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons program, but got no response Sunday on the first of three days of talks. The talks in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang originally were to focus on reconciliation between the two nations on the divided peninsula. But South Korea devoted most of its keynote speech to persuading the North that its nuclear weapons program violates a 1994 agreement with the United States and should be halted. "We demanded that North Korea faithfully honor all international agreements it has signed," Rhee Bong-jo, a South Korean spokesman, said after the first round of talks. North Korea did not respond, but officials cautioned their counterparts from the south "not to be too pessimistic" about prospects for agreements between the two nations. The North's chief delegate, Kim Ryong Song, even predicted "good results" from the talks, according to pool reports distributed in Seoul, the South's capital. South Korean officials said they hoped to hear a North Korean response during another round of talks Monday. The talks, the eighth in a series since a historic inter-Korean summit in 2000, were scheduled to continue until Tuesday. "Overall, the atmosphere of the talks was heavy, but sincere," Rhee said. He also said other issues taken up included a proposal to account for thousands of people missing during and after the 1950-53 Korean War. During talks with visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly in Pyongyang on Oct. 3-5, North Korean officials acknowledged they had a uranium-enriching program to make weapons. The program violates a 1994 agreement for energy-starved North Korea to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program in exchange for two modern, light-water nuclear reactors and 500,000 tons of fuel oil a year until the reactors are completed. During the talks with Kelly, North Korean officials said they considered the 1994 agreement invalid because the reactors were not expected to be finished by 2003 as promised. The project has been delayed by funding problems and tension on the Korean Peninsula. Kelly was in Japan on Sunday for talks with Japanese leaders about North Korea's nuclear program. He was expected to discuss temporarily freezing construction on the reactors in North Korea. A U.S. State Department official told The Associated Press Saturday night that no decision has been reached yet on the 1994 accord. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States wants to consult with its allies before making a decision on the pact. In an editorial Sunday, a North Korean newspaper accused the United States of plotting to conquer its adversaries in the name of its war on terrorism. "By escalating the war, the U.S. seeks to threaten and militarily contain those countries which stand opposed to it," the state-run Rodong Sinmun said. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 30 Davis-Besse hole is full of questions » The Plain Dealer 10/20/02 John Mangels and John Funk Plain Dealer Reporters Ever since a remote-controlled repair machine stumbled upon a gaping acid hole in the lid of FirstEnergy Corp.'s dormant nuclear reactor last March, a haunting question has lingered: Could Davis-Besse have become the next Three Mile Island? "How close were we to disaster?" wondered veteran engineer and Nuclear Regulatory Commission adviser Thomas Kress at an agency meeting in June, voicing what the plant's neighbors, regulators, industry experts and company officials have wrestled with for seven months. The short answer, according to numerous people knowledgeable about the unprecedented corrosion damage, is that Davis-Besse was the most serious American nuclear plant near miss in the last two decades. If operators had fired up the reactor after its refueling shutdown without finding the pineapple-sized hole, a major accident was only a matter of time. Assuming that the jagged cavity had continued to rapidly widen, FirstEnergy's own analysis indicates the thin stainless steel liner beneath it was about two years away from rupturing under normal conditions. Already the liner - never meant to be a pressure barrier - was bulging from the one ton-per-inch strain of holding the reactor's vital coolant. Had there been a major accident, the company insists it could have safely shut down the reactor. The sturdy containment building would have kept radiation inside the plant, FirstEnergy's analysis shows, so residents wouldn't have been harmed. But "clearly, the probability of this event creating a loss-of-coolant accident was . . . high in relative terms," said NRC deputy engineering director William Dean, referring to the scenario operators fear because it threatens to unleash the hellish core. Defining how near the miss was, though, and gauging the outcome of an accident, is proving especially difficult. Pursuing the answers has taken analysts down a rabbit warren of what-ifs, some that have not been explored before. Along with FirstEnergy, the NRC concludes that a lid rupture wouldn't have jeopardized the public, relying in part on the company's analysis and the belief that Davis-Besse's reactor operators and equipment would perform as they should. "It's a unique place to get a hole," Dean said. "But the plant's designed to encompass that sort of accident. Does that mean core damage would have occurred? Probably not, unless you have failures of safety equipment, operator errors." Dean is on the NRC team assessing the plant's condition. Some independent experts are less certain than FirstEnergy of the plant's ability to safely shut down had the weakened lid section unexpectedly burst and sent jets of steam and shrapnel into the reactor's control rods above. "If you have a major blowout of hot, radioactive water in the vicinity of the control equipment, it's not a given that all is going to work properly," said Hal Ornstein, a 28-year NRC veteran who now is a forensic engineer for a private firm. "It hasn't been proven that the [reactor] operators, even if they got all the signals, would know what to do." FirstEnergy acknowledges the consequence of a loss-of-coolant accident would be "a more significant cleanup" than the $220 million-plus work the company has incurred just from the corrosion repairs and lid replacement, said nuclear division engineering director James Powers. Left unsaid by the utility, though, is that the accident likely would have been financially catastrophic for its Toledo-area plant and a public-relations disaster for the nuclear industry. Even if the violent geyser of coolant from the reactor was handled properly and nothing else went wrong, it would rank as the second-worst event in U.S. nuclear history, behind the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979. "Even something less than TMI would be a permanent shutdown" for Davis-Besse, said nuclear engineer and safety consultant William Corcoran. If the lid had ruptured and spilled a large amount of coolant, "that plant would not be useful anymore." While two years from a blowout may sound like a long time, the Davis-Besse acid hole already had been festering unnoticed since at least 1998. Plant officials missed it then and again in 2000 while supposedly doing thorough lid inspections during refueling shutdowns. So did NRC personnel who reviewed the inspection reports and photos in 2001. When workers found the hole by what FirstEnergy executive Steven Loehlein acknowledged was "happenstance," the plant was gearing up for a two-year-long operating run, during which the lid normally isn't inspected. Additionally, FirstEnergy's confidence is based on the lid's liner being in perfect condition. It was not. New tests last month have shown it was cracked, and thinner than expected. Those findings are forcing the company and its consultants to consider revising their doomsday calculus. The NRC is struggling with its own problems - how to decide the severity of a condition not seen before; one that could have, but didn't, lead to catastrophe. Core damage ahead? The steel pot that holds the reactor's fuel core, lid atop it, and the piping that supplies it are supposed to remain sealed, so coolant can't escape. If the fuel rods were left uncovered long enough, they could partially or completely melt. In the most extreme case, if emergency systems failed, the molten fuel could cause an explosion that jeopardized the containment building. Or it could bore through the steel and concrete floor below the reactor, hitting groundwater and causing disastrous blasts of radioactive steam. Such a full-blown, uncontained meltdown, which has never happened, would contaminate the environment around the plant and cause injuries or deaths downwind if airborne radiation levels were high. A 1982 study for the NRC of the consequences of a worst-case meltdown at individual nuclear plants showed that around Davis-Besse there would be 1,400 radiation deaths in the first year; 73,000 radiation-related injuries; 10,000 long-term cancer deaths; and an economic cost of $154 billion in today's dollars. No one has suggested that Davis-Besse was anywhere near a meltdown. There are emergency systems to keep the core supplied with water, and reactor operators practice responding to accidents. When the hole was found, Davis-Besse was shut down for refueling, so on that day, there was zero accident risk. But the plant had been running at full power before the discovery, and was supposed to again in a matter of weeks. That meant the chance of a loss-of-coolant accident, or LOCA - the possible precursor to a meltdown - had existed, and probably would have again. What kept that from happening was a layer of stainless steel about as thick as a yellow legal pad. This cladding covers the inside of the reactor pot and lid, like the plastic liner in a pickup truck bed. It keeps coolant away from the carbon steel vessel. The water, laced with the chemical boron to sustain the nuclear reaction, is mildly acidic. But if it evaporates and the boric-acid crystals left behind get wet again, the concentrated sludge can devour carbon steel. At Davis-Besse some of the coolant had leaked onto the outside of the hot reactor lid, where there is no protective liner. It got there by seeping through stress cracks that had formed in some of the 69 metal sleeves that penetrate the lid. The sleeves are pathways for the long control rods that dip in and out of the reactor core to regulate the nuclear reaction. The rods slide through the lid nozzles like a straw in the plastic top of a soft-drink cup. The leaking coolant pooled on the lid, obscured by insulation and scaffolding. A thick, molten layer of acid built up, eventually dissolving a 35-pound hunk of steel. The exposed patch of liner at the bottom of the hole was about the size of a CD case. The lid is built to withstand the high pressure in the core. It is 6.6 inches of steel, thicker than the Cleveland White and Yellow Pages plus Webster's New World Dictionary. The liner is less than a quarter-inch. At first it flexed without losing shape. Eventually it permanently deformed, bulging upward into the acid hole about an eighth of an inch - a sign of significant stress, engineers say. FirstEnergy's contractors made a 3-D computer model of the liner to test its durability in various conditions. No computer can perfectly mimic such a complex situation, so the engineers had to simplify some aspects. The model showed that, with a hole the size found in March, the liner could have withstood up to 5,600 pounds per square inch - far more pressure than Davis-Besse's reactor has ever experienced. Relief valves would have tripped, and the lid would have warped enough to vent around its edges, before the liner would have given way, the company's engineers determined. But the hole was widening when it was found, the corrosion still at work. FirstEnergy estimates the loss at two inches per year. The NRC says the uncertainties make growth-rate prediction unreliable. So while the company estimates the hole would have been big enough in two years for the liner to fail, the NRC won't make such a call. FirstEnergy's modeling was done before last month's finding that the liner was cracked and slightly thinner than expected. While the model took into account dimensions even thinner than what was found, the cracking is a different story. Metallurgists must learn if and how it might have affected the liner's strength, Powers said, before knowing whether the model's predictions will change. A reactor's lid is massive, as heavy as an empty Boeing 767 and big enough to cover a one-car garage. The prospect of this next-to-last barrier between the highly radioactive reactor core and the outside world giving way was considered so unlikely it had never been examined in depth. FirstEnergy and its contractors had to base their assessment of what would have happened on what's known about the physical properties of the materials involved, on calculations of pressure and force, and on the known outcome when steam pipes have broken in other locations. They didn't know whether the breach in the lid's liner would be pinhole-sized or an immediate, wide-open split. At worst, they assumed the control rod nozzle next to the acid hole might tear loose, opening an even bigger rent in the lid. The sudden pressure drop as the coolant spilled out would automatically trigger emergency pumps that draw borated water from a half-million-gallon storage tank. Eventually, the amount of coolant pumped into the core would overtake the amount flowing out, allowing the big pot to begin to refill. But in less than an hour, depending on the size of the lid hole, the huge tank would empty, tripping two smaller tanks to dump water into the core. When the stored water was exhausted, the reactor operators would have to manually turn on emergency sump pumps to suck spilled coolant from the bottom of the containment building and shoot it back into the vessel to keep the fuel rods from overheating. The uncertainties in that nightmarish scenario are: Would the control rods, which are supposed to automatically drop into the core to stop the nuclear reaction, be damaged by the explosive liner rupture? Would the emergency sump become clogged with debris? Would the reactor's operators take the right actions? FirstEnergy's analysis judged that the nozzle next to the hole, and the control rod that passes through it, might be ejected when the liner burst, shooting straight up. By the time it crash-landed, though, the grips holding the other control rods would automatically have opened, and in seconds gravity would have pulled them safely through the lid nozzles and into the core to halt the nuclear reaction, the analysis determined. Even if as many as six of the control rods got stuck, the remaining ones would absorb enough energy to stop the nuclear reaction, the company's analysis concluded. The only way none of the rods would have worked is if the huge lid shifted or the steel gantry surrounding the rods' drive mechanisms tipped. "I can't come up with a logical scenario" where all the rods jammed, said the NRC's Jack Grobe, who is overseeing repairs at the crippled plant. Debris worries It's the debris from the lid rupture that worries some experts, and the NRC, too. Inches above the lid is a layer of shiny metal insulation, meant to help contain the reactor's intense heat. The explosive jet of steam when the liner burst would pack more than 20 times the punch of water spewing from a fire hose. It would shatter the metal insulation, as well as blast off paint chips and concrete shards in its path. That flotsam, along with anything else loose in the containment building, could end up in the soup of spilled coolant sloshing around the floor. Some of the junk would flow to the grate over the emergency sump. If more than half the screen was blocked, the pumps couldn't return enough water to the core to prevent overheating. In that case, with the plant's internal storage tanks emptied, the reactor operators would have to draw in outside water to cool the fuel rods. With a clogged sump, rising water in the containment building would begin to submerge motors and electrical equipment "that don't work too good underwater," said David Lochbaum, a 17-year nuclear plant veteran who is now a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists. Also, if enough control rods are jammed, the non-borated municipal water might enable the nuclear process to start up again, Lochbaum said, undermining the reactor's shutdown. Reactor operators would have to decide whether to shut off the water and risk overheating the core, or leave it flowing and risk restarting the nuclear reaction, Lochbaum said. "It's a question of which eye you want to be poked in." The NRC says clogging is a "credible concern," but hasn't decided what action to take. An NRC study last year rated sump blockage at Davis-Besse unlikely in a medium loss-of-coolant accident like the liner rupture, but very likely if the break was larger. Powers, FirstEnergy's engineering director, said the structure surrounding the top of the reactor would likely contain the pieces of insulation, keeping them from falling to the floor and being swept to the emergency sump. Still, Davis-Besse workers are making the plant's sump five times larger, so it will take much more debris to render it useless. And embarrassed managers this summer ordered that nails, screws, duct tape, wire ties and other trash that had accumulated on the floor be cleaned up. Nuclear plants are highly automated, with computers controlling the numerous emergency backup systems. But in any accident, it is up to the reactor's human operators to oversee the situation and keep it under control. The operators, at least six per shift at Davis-Besse, undergo extensive training to earn their licenses, and drill every few weeks in the plant's control room simulator, including reviewing various accident scenarios. Although they don't practice responding to a lid rupture, Powers said, "the consequences would be very similar to the small steam line breaks that the operators are trained on." For all their training, though, it is operators who caused or made worse the most serious nuclear accidents. Some experts say the unexpectedness of a lid breach would make it tough to quickly diagnose. "It would have presented a challenge for a while to know how to deal with it," said Harold Denton, the former head of the NRC's reactor regulation branch and the man President Carter dispatched to manage the Three Mile Island crisis. "(Davis-Besse) was very nearly a substantial loss-of-coolant accident. These are extremely rare events. There's no way of knowing how it would turn out." "A head rupture isn't in their [reactor operators'] vocabulary," said Ornstein, the former NRC accident-potential analyst. A sudden lid rupture "would probably give the operators fits in terms of what's happening and trying to recover from it." To their credit, Davis-Besse's controllers performed well when a tornado in 1997 knocked out the plant's power and some of its backup equipment didn't work properly, Lochbaum said. But a lid rupture would have been far more complex. "Months later, we are still trying to figure out what we had" at Davis-Besse, said Lochbaum. "If you compress that down to real time, to guys making decisions with all that is happening . . . it is a difficult environment to work under." As they debate the scenarios of what might have happened, NRC analysts are still struggling with how to assess the overall "safety significance" of the hole in the lid, especially the fact that the liner held, even though it was not designed to withstand pressure. If they give the liner credit for holding, their own formula may show that the Davis-Besse situation was of very low significance. To many in the NRC, this flies in the face of good sense, which tells them Davis-Besse was a serious violation of safety standards. Dean argues that, since the NRC has taken effective control of the reactor, the determination is largely moot. "We've telegraphed that this is something of the highest significance," he said. For complete coverage of Davis-Besse, go to www.cleveland.com/davisbesse/ To reach these Plain Dealer reporters: jmangels@plaind.com, 216-999-4842 jfunk@plaind.com, 216-999-4138 © 2002 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission. © 2002 cleveland.com. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 31 Ad Against Indian Pt. Is Said to Have Been Pulled Under Pressure The New York Times *October 20, 2002* From Pataki *By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA* A coalition of groups that advocate closing the Indian Point nuclear plant say that Gov. George E. Pataki's office recently held talks with its members concerning the plant and an ongoing review of its safety, prompting one group to withdraw a television ad pressuring the governor. But the advocates, including officials of the environmental group, Riverkeeper, said that the talks with high-level aides to the governor broke down last week and that in response, Riverkeeper will resume the ad, beginning tomorrow. Mr. Pataki's chief spokesman, Michael McKeon, who recently left the governor's office to join his re-election campaign, said there had been no talks and no contemplation of a position change on Indian Point. "There's nothing going on with regard to Indian Point," he said. "Nothing has changed." That was disputed by several members of the coalition, which includes environmental and community groups, and elected officials. "We did take the ads off the air for a time," said Kym Spell, a spokeswoman for Riverkeeper. "We had to go back in the studio to make modifications, and we also wanted to make a show of good faith to the governor's office, to allow us to negotiate with them." She said the talks dealt, in part, with a review of Indian Point's safety, being conducted by James Lee Witt, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "We were negotiating about improving upon and expanding the Witt review, and about our overall concern about having a nuclear plant 30 minutes from Midtown," Ms. Spell said, declining to elaborate further. A prominent Riverkeeper ally who is close to the group's leaders said: "The governor's office leaned very hard on them to stop the ads. I mean, it's the last thing Pataki wants a few weeks before the election." That person and other coalition members who made similar statements insisted that their names not be used, saying that they feared alienating both the Pataki administration and Riverkeeper. They noted that Riverkeeper prizes its good relationship with the governor and its access to his office and that the group relied for some of its projects on state funding. Riverkeeper began its ad campaign early this month. The television ad showed Indian Point, in Buchanan in northern Westchester County, at the center of a giant bull's-eye whose outer ring included New York City, and asked people to contact the governor. Similar ads were posted in Metro-North train stations and appeared in newspapers. Riverkeeper pulled its TV ad within days of its first broadcast; the ads in train stations have remained. Mr. McKeon said he was not aware of anyone asking the group to remove the ads, or why they were pulled off the air. Opponents have long complained that emergency evacuation plans are unrealistic for Indian Point, which is in a far more heavily populated area than any other nuclear plant in the United States. Environmentalists also object to the plant's drawing billions of gallons of water each day from the Hudson River for cooling, a process that kills many fish. The Sept. 11 attack gave the movement to close Indian Point mass appeal, as critics argued that terrorists could have crashed a jetliner into the plant, rather than the World Trade Center. They seized on President Bush's statement early this year that American nuclear plants were potential terrorist targets. The governor has no direct power to close the plant, which only federal regulators can do, but critics say Mr. Pataki could play an important role in pressing the Bush administration on the issue. The Pataki administration could also make Indian Point's operation more difficult ? perhaps even impossible ? by changing its environmental permits to limit its water use. H. Carl McCall, the Democrat running against Mr. Pataki, has said the plant should close and has criticized the governor for not taking action against it. Mr. Pataki has tried to defuse the issue without taking sides, commissioning Mr. Witt's review of Indian Point's safety. Mr. Witt's first report is due in December. The governor has said he will abide by Mr. Witt's recommendations. Copyright The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 32 Guards at Nuclear Plants Say They Feel Swamped by a Deluge of Overtime The New York Times *October 20, 2002* *By MATTHEW L. WALD* COVERT, Mich., Oct. 16 ? To increase security after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Palisades nuclear plant here, like plants around the country, sharply increased the number of guards on duty. To do so, it put the guards on 12-hour shifts instead of 8, often six days a week instead of five. The guards are still on that schedule, and they say it has made them tired, error-prone and cranky. But if they complain, they say, they are threatened with the loss of their jobs or sent for psychiatric evaluation. Industry regulators and observers say increasing security may have put more guards on duty, but they are less effective. "If something happened, these would be basket cases," said Peter Stockton, a security expert who was a special assistant to the secretary of energy in the Clinton administration and now works with the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group in Washington that recently wrote a report on problems in power plant security. Top officials at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have voiced similar concerns and credit the group for bringing the problem to their attention. Some in the industry, though, blame the commission for not issuing a final rule on higher security standards. In an interview, one guard at the plant here acknowledged that she "just lost it" at work one day this summer, when confronted near the end of a long shift with ringing telephones, workers knocking on the glass of her booth because their ID cards would not function in the reader and various warning lights flashing. When another guard approached her with a low-priority problem, she cursed at him, shouted and burst into tears, she said. The guard, who said she feared for her job and did not want her name used, was sent to a local psychologist who reported that "she is stressed by working too much." The guard complained to the resident inspectors of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the plant here, on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Two days later, a psychologist who had not examined her sent a report to the Wackenhut Corporation, which employs the guards here, that said in addition to "routine work stress," her personal life "may have contributed to this employee having experienced loss of emotional control" and said that unless she improved, "the employee's access should be immediately withdrawn." The guard is armed, and has a pass that allows "unescorted access" to vital areas. An executive at Wackenhut said the company had never taken retaliatory action but said he could not comment on personnel matters. Guards here and elsewhere say the stress of long hours has made them more prone to errors like forgetting to lock a door, or leaving keys or weapons unsecured. At another reactor a few hundred miles away, a guard who asked that he and his plant not be identified said that a few weeks ago, he left out a step in inspecting some material. The guard, who has been working more than 72 hours a week, said he completed the inspection successfully but forgot to notify the central command post when he finished. Ordered to write a statement explaining his error, he cited "fatigue." The next day, he said, he was sent to a psychologist. Richard A. Michau, president of the nuclear services division of Wackenhut, the largest security contractor at nuclear plants, said the company had had an increase in errors only because so many guards were new. If a worker declared himself unfit for duty, the company would not make him work, he said. At Indian Point 2, in Buchanan, N.Y., Bart Wallace, a guard for the last eight years, said: "I work from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. I'm in bed by 7, I'm up at 1 and three hours later I'm walking out the door to go back to work." "I'm going to work tired, I'm coming home tired, I'm never fully rested and they don't care," said Mr. Wallace, a retired New York City police officer. Overtime was common on the police force, he said, but never for months at a time. Edward McGaffigan Jr., one of the five members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said overtime was an issue in places that had to make changes to meet rules imposed by the commission after Sept. 11. "They weren't necessarily staffed to do it," he said. Now, 13 months later, they are still not staffed, he said. Overtime has always been common at nuclear plants during refueling shut-downs, but those typically last weeks, not months. Mr. McGaffigan said some companies might have deferred hiring because they thought the new security rules would be temporary, but this summer, he said, "we basically told them the levels we are required to staff to isn't going to go down, even if the crisis goes away. They should be hiring in order to meet that new baseline." Roy P. Zimmerman, the director of the commission's Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, said that his agency expected more overtime immediately after Sept. 11 but that he was concerned about "excessive" overtime over a long period. Normally, guards should be working 40-hour weeks, he said. His staff is drafting a new rule, to submit to the commissioners, to make that expectation clearer and give guards the stronger protection that plant operators already have, he said. But Mr. Michau of Wackenhut said the problem was that the commission has not finalized its requirements. "I wish the N.R.C. comes out with a final order, so we can hire the right amount of people," he said. "Is this temporary, or is this going to be permanent?" Mark P. Findlay, the director of security at the Nuclear Management Company, which operates Palisades and five other reactors, said: "The N.R.C. really hasn't done their job and given us any permanency. We're not getting an awful lot of guidance." The guard companies have had trouble hiring. At some plants, guards have quit to work at airports, for the new Transportation Security Administration. Many new hires have been rejected after failing drug or alcohol tests, or because of felony convictions. Some, guards say, quit when they realized how much overtime they were facing. Copyright The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 33 Nuclear reactor monitoring system developed in Uzbekistan UzReport.com Uzbekistan *UzReport.com, BBC Monitoring Posted 21.10.2002 00:10* A function to mark the completion of the latest stage of a Uzbek-US joint project to modernize the Uzbek reactor was held at the Nuclear Physics Institute of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences, Uzbek TV reported on 18 October. The function marked the start of the next stage of joint work. The work has already resulted in developing a modern system of monitoring the maintenance of the nuclear reactor. The development of the system, the latest technology, was described today as a significant event in the world as well as in Central Asia. The main idea voiced at the function today was the need to unite the efforts of countries against the threat of international terrorism and, especially, against nuclear terrorism. Copyright © 2001 UzReport.com ***************************************************************** 34 PRESS RELEASE: TAKASHI MORIZUMI EVENTS IN BAY AREA Oct. 24-28 Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2002 01:52:27 -0700 (PDT) MIHO KIM (510)823-9514 DONA SPRING (510)649-0330 LEUREN MORET (510) 845-3139 BAY AREA JAPANESE-AMERICAN COMMUNITY BERKELEY COUNCILMEMBER DONA SPRING * * * MEDIA ADVISORY * * * WHAT: “A Different Nuclear War - Children of the Gulf War” Photo Exhibition U.S. Tour by Japanese Photojournalist Mr. Takashi MORIZUMI WHEN: Events and Appearances Bay Area October 24-28, 2002 WHERE: Thursday October 24: Welcome Reception for Mr. MORIZUMI 6:30-8:30 PM With Shahi Sadat award-winning poet from Afghanistan. Refreshments provided. JapanTown: Union Bank of California, Miyako Mall, 1675 Post Street, San Francisco Contact: Miho Kim (510) 823-9514 Friday October 25: Presentation and slideshow by Mr. MORIZUMI 7 PM Unitarian Fellowship of Berkeley, corner Cedar St. and Bonita St., Berkeley Contact: Leuren Moret (510) 845-3139 Saturday October 26: “Stop The War Against Iraq” Event, San Francisco Member of Japanese Parliament Nobuto HOSAKA appearance with Takashi MORIZUMI and Yumi KIKUCHI 11 AM Rally and March, Justin Herman Plaza at Market St. and Embarcadero 1 PM Rally, Civic Center at Grove St. and Larkin St. Contact: A.N.S.W.E.R. (415) 821-6545 Sunday October 27 : Keynote speaker and slideshow Event (in Japanese) 7 PM Keynote Speaker: Member of Japanese Parliament Nobuto HOSAKA Presentation and slideshow by Takashi MORIZUMI Asian Resource Center, 310 8th St., Oakland Contact: Miho Kim (510) 823-9514 Monday October 28: Slideshow, discussion and Q&A by Mr. MORIZUMI 7 PM University of San Francisco, 2130 Fulton St., meet in University Center - Room 417 Contact: Professor Yoko Arisaka (415) 422-6424, Department of Philosophy Printable map: http://www.usfca.edu/online/gen_info/USF_CampusMap.pdf WHO: * Takashi MORIZUMI – International Award Winning Japanese Photojournalist His latest photo exhibit “A Different Nuclear War - Children of the Gulf War” will be introduced during his Bay Area visit October 24-28. The works of this fine photographer graphically reveal the horrors and ravages of war, depleted uranium and economic sanctions on the children of Iraq. He has just returned from Iraq with new photos which he will show during speaking events in the Bay Area. His photos of radiation survivors around the world have been exhibited and published internationally. “Children of the Gulf War” will be on exhibit during the month of November at the Berkeley Public Library located at Shattuck and Kittrich, three blocks south of the Berkeley BART station. * Nobuto HOSAKA – Member of the Japanese Parliament (Social Democratic Party) One of the most progressive members of the Diet, he is a journalist and lawyer turned lawmaker. He has worked on free speech and privacy issues and opposed wiretapping and internet surveillance laws recently passed in Japan. He is strongly opposed to the death penalty and has worked with international groups opposed to capital punishment in Japan and the U.S. He is one of twenty-five members of the Japanese Parliament who have signed petitions calling for a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal believing that his case is an important index of whether or not true freedom and democracy exist in the U.S. He has co-authored a book on bullying in Japanese schools and initiated funding for studies to correct this serious social issue. Mr. Hosaka has spoken out about growing drug use in Japan and supported funding for drug treatment centers instead of criminal remedies. * Dona Spring - City of Berkeley Councilmember Proposed the resolution calling for an end to the bombing of Afghanistan which was passed by five City Council members on October 16, 2001. Since November 2001, seven delegations from Japan, including four members of the Japanese Parliament, have visited to thank City Council members for opposing the bombing. On October 8, the City Council unanimously passed a resolution in support of Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s Congressional Anti-War Resolution which urged the use of ‘peaceful means’ and working through the United Nations to seek to resolve the conflict over Iraq. * Leuren Moret – City of Berkeley Environmental Commissioner Visited Japan twice, as a Plenary Session speaker for the 2000 World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, and as the Keynote Speaker for the February 17, 2002, Linking Peace and Life Conference during Bush’s visit to Japan. A scientist who has worked extensively on the issue of depleted uranium, she has written a science report on depleted uranium for the United Nations. She works extensively with Japanese peace activists and the Japanese media to expose the dangers of radiation exposure [http://www.radiation.org] from atmospheric testing, nuclear power plants and depleted uranium. She wrote the Forword to Akira TASHIRO’s new book “Discounted Casualties – The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium” [http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/index_e.html]. In the Japanese Parliament she exposed the shipping of radioactive trees to Japanese and Korean paper mills contaminated by activities at the National Tritium Labeling Facility at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab. WHY: Events have been planned for outreach throughout the Bay Area during Japanese photojournalist Mr. Takashi Morizumi's visit to the US (October 24-28). He will make presentations show his photos, and report on his visits to communities in Iraq impacted by the Gulf War and contaminated by depleted uranium. Depleted uranium is a new radiological weapon used by the U.S. in Iraq and Kuwait during the Gulf War; Bosnia and Kosovo during the Yugoslavian conflict; and recently in Afghanistan. His efforts are intended to educate the public about the serious and permanent dangers of exposure to depleted uranium. He is working with other groups for a permanent international ban on the use of depleted uranium weaponry which, if not banned, will contribute to the further victimization of innocent people around the world. By permanently damaging the genetic future of entire populations and contaminating their environments with radiation, the use of depleted uranium guarantees their annihilation. Oil rich countries and countries neighboring oil pipelines have been the target for the use of depleted uranium munitions by the United States military, particularly the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Army. The Pentagon exists for the oil companies. Takashi MORIZUMI website http://www.savewarchildren.org __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ Attachment Converted: "c:\lib\news\attach\PRESS RELEASEMorizumi.doc" ***************************************************************** 35 Update on missing radioactive device October 17, 2002 Portland-- For the second time in less than a month, a radioactive device turned up missing in the Portland area on Wednesday. Now state regulators have banned workers from taking the devices home. KATU News learned the currently missing radioactive device may not have been as closely watched as required. Under state regulations, when the radioactive device is not in use, it's supposed to be under lock and key. The latest one to turn up missing may not have been. The nuclear density gauge, used for testing in building roads and concrete foundations, was inside an SUV parked at a worker's home when the vehicle was stolen. The vehicle is a red 1987 Toyota 4-runner with Oregon license plate no. YXV 425. Anyone who spots the vehicle is urged to call police, and anyone who finds the device should avoid touching it, and call 911, say authorities. The device is a bright yellow Troxler 3440 nuclear density gauge. Experts say handling the exposed radioactive material can leave radiation burns. ***************************************************************** 36 School districts debate stockpiling 'nuke pills' /* Web Edition Monday, Oct. 21, 2002 *By ROGER TALBOT* Sunday News Staff Despite the hype over terrorists targeting nuclear power plants, very few of about 120,000 New Hampshire residents who live in emergency planning zones have asked for a radiation-blocking pill available at no charge from the state. The state announced its mail-order plan to distribute potassium iodide at the end of August. It sends the pill ? one per person ? only to residents in the 22 communities near the Seabrook Station and Vermont Yankee nuclear power plants. It responds only to a signed form, where the applicant assumes ?full liability? for using the non-prescription drug. The Department of Health and Human Services? Bureau of Radiological Health processed requests from 607 individuals in September, shipping out 3,345 tablets to the 17 communities around Seabrook and 195 to the five towns along the Vermont border. That works out to less than 1 percent of the 355,000 potassium iodide pills provided free by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Potassium iodide, commonly known by its chemical symbol, KI, works by saturating the thyroid gland with iodine. Most people can tolerate the drug without side effects, but those allergic to shellfish or iodine should not take it. When the thyroid is filled with KI, it cannot absorb the cancer-causing radioactive iodine that is a waste product of nuclear fission and may be one of the radioactive substances released to the atmosphere in a nuclear reactor accident. KI is not a panacea: It protects only the thyroid from only one type of radiation, but it has been widely recognized as beneficial ? especially for children ? if administered within a few hours before or after exposure to radioactive iodine. The pill is viewed as an adjunct to evacuation, since getting away from the source of radiation is the only way to minimize the harm it can cause. The state is offering individually foil-wrapped Iosat brand 130-milligram tablets, a daily adult dosage. It recommends the tiny white pill be cut in half for children in the 3-to-18 age group. The yellow sheet that accompanies the KI tablet gives meticulous instructions on how to split or pulverize the pill to give a smaller dose to a child or an infant, but it says nothing about what the drug is, how it works, or who might be allergic to it. The instruction sheet does note, ?In an emergency situation where it is not possible to cut a tablet . . . administer the complete 130-mg tablet. The benefits of doing so far outweigh the risks of overdosing!? As of Thursday, not a single public school in the emergency planning zones had asked the Bureau of Radiological Health for a supply of potassium iodide, but district officials said on Friday that they are considering stockpiling the drug and at least two school boards have voted to do so. Four boards have rejected the pill. *Pills at school?* Fred Engelbach, the assistant superintendent for School Administrative Unit 21, said the Winnacunnet, Hampton, Hampton Falls and Seabrook school boards decided not to get the free pills. ?There were lots of questions that had to do with uncertainty ? with the shelf life of the tablets (five years), with whether this dosage (130 milligrams) was correct for children, whether it would be practical to administer the drug under an emergency situation and whether the direction to do that (from public health authorities) would come in time for it to be beneficial. They just didn?t have comfort that the whole program was implementable,? Engelbach said. One school board in SAU 21, South Hampton, ?has chosen to stockpile KI and develop a program for its use,? Engelbach said, adding that North Hampton was in the process of ?surveying parents? on the issue. In Newton on Wednesday night, the Sanborn School Board voted unanimously to acquire enough KI from the state to distribute to its 1,800 students, if a threat were posed by a release of radioactive iodine from the Seabrook Station. ?It?s what a prudent person would do: Get this drug in place to be able to use it,? Superintendent James H. Weiss said of the Sanborn board?s decision. Said Arthur L. Hanson, superintendent of SAU 16 in Exeter, ?I?m currently working on a protocol and policy that will address how we get permission from parents and how the pills would be dispersed in an emergency. I expect that policy will go to the full SAU joint board at their December meeting and we probably will request enough of the pills to be housed in each of the schools.? Portsmouth Superintendent Lyonel B. Tracy said he expects the KI question will come before his board ?in the next month or so.? He emphasized the importance of providing parents accurate information about the drug?s potential benefits and limitations. ?Every parent will have an opportunity to declare whether or not they want their children to have these in an emergency,? Tracy said. He said he ?feels pretty good? about the relationship with Seabrook plant officials who have involved school authorities in simulated drills and taken them on tours of the power station. ?Our first priority in an emergency is to have a real clear and safe plan for evacuation. That is the best plan of all,? he said. *The state?s position* Peter S. Paiton, the emergency response supervisor at the Bureau of Radiological Health, said the largest KI order to cross his desk so far was for 600 tablets, from a Seacoast area company that wanted to be able to offer the drug to its employees if an emergency were declared at the power plant during the work day. Paiton said about $5,000 has been spent in setting up the giveaway program. About 20,000 applications and a two-page explanation of potassium iodide?s benefits and limitations were distributed to city and town offices in the 22 communities. (The explainer is also on the state?s Web site.) ?As a public health agency, our position is, ?If you want it, you can have it.? But we?re not promoting it,? he said. He said he mailed information on the program to public school officials as well as about 130 private schools and day care centers situated in the emergency planning zones near the two power plants. ?We?ve gotten responses from four private schools that requested 315 tablets. . . . We got requests from eight child care centers for a total of 379 tablets,? Paiton said. He won?t take orders over the telephone. *Liability concerns* Connecticut officials have mailed four KI tablets to each residence within the 10-mile radius of its Millstone plants and Massachusetts enlisted pharmacies and grocery stores in its evacuation zones to distribute the free pills. But to get a KI pill in New Hampshire, you have to download an application form from the state Web site or pick up one at your town hall, sign it and mail it in. ?We?re somewhat concerned with liability,? Paiton said, explaining that all the signed applications are kept on file. He can?t send pills to addresses outside the 17 communities near Seabrook Station ? Brentwood, East Kingston, Exeter, Greenland, Hampton, Hampton Falls, Kensington, Kingston, Newcastle, Newfields, Newton, North Hampton, Portsmouth, Rye, Seabrook, South Hampton, Stratham ? and the five New Hampshire towns near the Vermont Yankee plant ? Chesterfield, Hinsdale, Richmond, Swanzey and Winchester. ?If I get a letter from someone who does not live within the 10-mile zones, I write back telling them that we?re unable to provide KI to them, but suggesting they can buy it (from manufacturers) on the Internet and at some pharmacies,? Paiton said. Before the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission decided to provide potassium iodide free to states, New Hampshire officials had encouraged pharmacies and stores to sell the pills, but few retailers showed interest. *Nuke forum scheduled* KI has been available for about a year at Hampton Natural Foods, 321 Lafayette Road in Hampton, where Fran Foster sells Rad-Block for $24.95 a bottle. The bottle contains 200, 65-milligram tablets. ?It?s sold steadily,? Foster said, explaining that KI is a product she finds customers specifically ask for. ?Our close proximity to the nuclear power plant makes people want to be prepared for the worst, especially if they have children.? Foster will be handing out literature about KI and giving out free samples of the drug on Tuesday at a forum titled, ?Living With Our Nuclear Neighbor at Seabrook in the Age of Terrorism.? The forum, sponsored by the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League, is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Unitarian-Universalist Church, 292 State St. in Portsmouth. The forum?s panel, a mix of government officials and anti-nuclear activists, will discuss the evacuation procedures for Seabrook Station, the potassium iodide distribution program and ?the flaws in these plans,? said Jennifer Hicks, the league?s field director. ?Even if evacuation is the first choice, the reality is that many people are going to be sitting in the emergency zone during the most critical hours,? Hicks said. ?Potassium iodide has to be considered a valuable and critical part of the evacuation procedure, not just a distraction. How can you be distracted by taking a pill?? HOME Copyright © 2002 Union Leader Corp. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 37 Anti-radiation pills go fast Charlotte Observer | 10/20/2002 | Nearly 24,000 doses distributed on the first day PAM KELLEY Staff Writer Thousands of area residents took time Saturday to pick up something they hope they'll never need. Residents of Mecklenburg, Catawba, Gaston, Iredell and Lincoln counties who live near nuclear power plants collected potassium iodide tablets for 23,835 people. It was the first local distribution of the anti-radiation pills. A second will be held Tuesday. More than 250,000 N.C. residents who live within the 10-mile radius of Duke Power's McGuire and Catawba plants are eligible for the free pills, which are provided by the federal government. The tablets distributed Saturday cover more than 9 percent of that population. S.C. officials announced Friday they'll also distribute potassium iodide, but haven't yet worked out details. Known by its chemical symbol KI, potassium iodide blocks the radiation that causes thyroid cancer, the No. 1 illness that followed the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in the former Soviet Union. Medical experts say the pills are the best protection after a radioactive release -- short of a quick evacuation, which could be difficult in urban areas. On Saturday, officials distributed the pills at 13 locations in the five counties. Residents filled out a brief form, listing their address and the number of people in their household, though they weren't required to verify the information. In Mecklenburg, volunteers then handed them a Glad sandwich bag packed with pills and instructions. Residents got two pills per person, a two-day supply, intended to be an extra defense while they're evacuating. The pills are good for five years. At the Davidson United Methodist Church site, Davidson resident Connie Wessner noted that picking up pills to protect your family during a nuclear disaster made for a strange Saturday morning errand. When she learned of the distribution, Wessner said, her first reaction was not to get the pills. "Who wants to have sort of a doomsday kit in their house?" she said. But once she got past that emotional response, she said, she knew it made sense to get them, just in case. While Health Department officials distributed the pills in the church fellowship hall Saturday morning, costumed church members in the nearby sanctuary rehearsed a play about children coming to visit Jesus. Some parents waiting while their children rehearsed used the time to pick up pills for the family. At several sites, supervisors said one of the most frequent questions was: What about pills for my pets? Pets weren't eligible for the free pills. But officials advised pet owners to check with their veterinarians. At Denver United Methodist Church in Lincoln County, some residents also asked about getting extra pills for family or friends who visited frequently. "You have lots of friends when you live on the lake," said Susan Spake, the county's emergency management director. Health officials suggested that families with frequent guests buy extra pills from drugstores. Many people picking up the pills Saturday said since the process was convenient and the pills were free, there was no reason not to get them. "It'd just be something good to have in case it happens -- just a fail-safe in case we couldn't get evacuated," said Brian Quinn, a sophomore at North Mecklenburg High School, one of the distribution sites. Brian and two classmates were helping pack the pills to receive credit toward their International Baccalaureate program's community service requirement. Charlotte residents Mike and Melinda Manning also got their pills at North Mecklenburg High, then debated whether to keep them in their home, their car, or Melinda's purse. If you're away from home when disaster strikes, they reasoned, it might be difficult to return home to retrieve them. Pam Kelley: (704) 358-5271; pkelley@charlotteobserver.com [pkelley@charlotteobserver.com] . ***************************************************************** 38 Nuclear Terrorism: How Great is the Threat? Summary Terrorist groups are seeking nuclear weapons, according to intelligence agencies. If they acquire them, the world will face a threat unlike any other in its history. How are these rogues pursuing their nuclear ambitions? What can be done to stop them? This report airs on National Geographic EXPLORER this weekend. Earthpulse -----> + [http://www.nationalgeographic.com/] Brian Handwerk for National Geographic News October 11, 2002 Former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn and serving Senator Richard Lugar are the architects of the "Nunn-Lugar" programs, which provide the former Soviet nations with financial and technical assistance to prevent nuclear proliferation. Their work is featured in a National Geographic EXPLORER documentary that airs in the United States on MSNBC on October 13. Nunn explained to National Geographic Television why the issue of nuclear nonproliferation is one of paramount importance. "We have an arms race going on right now," he said, "it's not between the U.S. and Russia, it's between the world and terrorist groups who are trying to get weapons of mass destruction." Who is winning this crucial contest? It's a difficult question to answer, but some clues may be found in the former al Qaeda strongholds scattered throughout Afghanistan. Al Qaeda's Quest for Nuclear Weapons Journalist Peter Bergen was one of the first Western television journalists to interview Osama bin Laden—at a time when few Americans knew of the terrorist leader. Since then he's been investigating the nuclear ambitions of the al Qaeda network in Afghanistan. "One of the best outcomes of the war in Afghanistan was severely interrupting this nuclear research program that al Qaeda had," Bergen told National Geographic News this week. "Left alone for five years, who knows what they might have done." The fall of the Taliban allowed U.S. officials, and journalists like Bergen, access to former al Qaeda safe houses. The documents they found there left no doubt that Osama bin Laden was actively seeking information about nuclear weapons. Al Qaeda was wealthy and determined, but Bin Laden recognized the need to acquire scientific expertise in the area of nuclear weapons, according to the evidence that was found. Bin laden apparently met at least once with Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood—a Pakistani nuclear expert who was a key player in the development of that Islamic nation's nuclear bomb. What occurred at those meetings remains unknown, but the fact that they occurred indicates Bin Laden's determination to become a nuclear player. But just how far did he get? "I think that they were nowhere," Dr. Gary Samore of the International Institute for Strategic Studies told National Geographic News. Samore is a former special assistant to President Clinton and senior director for Nonproliferation and Export Controls at the National Security Council. "I think they were totally unsuccessful," he continued, "and their capability to produce or design nuclear weapons is amateurish at best." Former UN nuclear inspector David Albright, in a discussion with Peter Bergen aired on EXPLORER, summarized his own investigation of al Qaeda. "I think they were just beginning to pull a program together," Albright said. "By trying to get help, I would say they were trying to create a quasi-state nuclear weapons program. They were learning how to make a nuclear explosive itself. They do need the highly enriched uranium and that would have to come from someplace else." Nuclear Materials—Are They Secure? Highly enriched uranium, the type necessary to make a nuclear bomb, is very difficult to acquire. The most likely source of such material would be Russia or the independent states of the former Soviet Union. The demise of the U.S.S.R. left the security of such materials in doubt, but as yet there is no evidence that any has fallen into the wrong hands. "In the decade since the collapse of the Soviet Union," Samore told National Geographic News, "there is no documented case that we know of where a substantial quantity of weapons-grade material was offered for sale on the black market. As far as we know, no one has been able to acquire a substantial quantity of the material—much less create a weapon itself. Of course, one has to allow for the possibility that it's happened and we don't know about it, but so far it seems to be a horrible scenario that hasn't yet taken place." Because the stakes are so high, securing nuclear materials is a global priority of the highest order, and the process has been underway for years. Nunn estimates that Russia, working with help and financial assistance from the United States, has secured about 40 percent of the former U.S.S.R.'s nuclear materials in the last decade. The other 60 percent are not yet secured to American standards, but work continues. "It's a very good use of taxpayer money to help Russia secure this stuff," said Bergen. "The situation has dramatically improved since the end of the Cold War, but there is a lot of work to do." Samore agrees that the situation, while still a matter for concern, has improved. "Risk assessment is very, very difficult, but my personal view is that the risk of materials leaking out of Russia is lower now than it was in the early 1990s when there was a real collapse of their facilities, security, and economy. I attribute that to the Russian government taking stronger efforts to secure materials, and the second phase of Nunn-Lugar which is focused on securing nuclear materials—it's made a substantial impact." Because weapons-grade nuclear materials are difficult to acquire, a more pressing nuclear concern is the possibility of a terrorist group creating a radiological device that could be used as a "dirty bomb." These devices require only low-grade materials, like nuclear waste, which could be obtained from power plants or medical facilities. "Dirty bombs" would use conventional explosives to disperse radioactive material, but their effect is more psychological than physical. While they would not cause mass casualties, they could be effective in spreading terror and panic. Numerous thefts of this type of nuclear material have been documented, and the spoils have been offered for sale on the world's black markets. Bergen suggests some of that material found it's way into al Qaeda's hands. "Osama bin Laden almost certainly acquired some [low-grade] materials, nuclear waste," he suggested, "the kind a dirty bomb would use. I don't for a second doubt that they have those materials. Bin Laden's statements have been a pretty reliable guide to his actions." While Bin Laden may or may not have acquired these materials, Samore cautions that other terrorists are likely to do so. "I don't think you can stop terrorists from getting radioactive materials for a dirty bomb," he said. "There is just too much of it out there. The good news is that their use would not have nearly the consequences [of a nuclear bomb]. Atomic weapons are a different story, but acquiring that material still remains quite a task." Defending B.U.S. Orders from Nuclear Attack If terrorists do manage to obtain a nuclear device, U.S. authorities could be hard-pressed to uncover it in time. "Once you lose the material, I think you've lost 90 percent of the battle," said Samore. "You could run the risk of having a country or even a terrorist group having a nuclear weapon for which I don't think there is any defense." The amount of material needed to make a nuclear bomb is roughly the size of a softball—not difficult to hide. Some six million containers arrive in U.S. ports by sea each year. Custom agents use a series of criteria to identify and inspect containers that raise "red flags"; still, only about 2 percent of all containers are inspected. The U.S. Department of Energy, in conjunction with the FBI, has established the Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST). This crack squad is trained to respond to a nuclear emergency at a moment's notice anywhere in the United States. If a nuclear device does enter the country, it's their job to employ high-tech equipment and track it down. The group is armed with helicopters sporting detection devices, vehicles, and even individuals on foot with radiation detectors. Still it's a bit like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, and even if a device is discovered—it may be too late. That's why the best defense is a global effort to make sure that nuclear material does not fall into the wrong hands. "Every single depository of nuclear material has to be treated as if it were a bomb," Nunn told National Geographic. "Even if it's not weapon-grade, that's the psychology. …Every country, every nuclear power plant, every nuclear medicine facility and hospital, all of them have to say to themselves, 'this material under my stewardship could be used as a weapon to destroy people and to terrorize the world.'" National Geographic EXPLORER airs in the United States Sunday nights on MSNBC. Check local listings for details. [http://www.nationalgeographic.com/] © 2002 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 39 Hazardous shipments from (North Anna) ahead fredericksburg.com Radioactive waste from North Anna Power Station is expected to pass through the Fredericksburg area when shipments to Nevada begin about 2010. By RUSTY DENNEN The Free Lance-Star HEN SHIPMENTS of spent nuclear fuel begin moving along Virginia's railroads and highways, some will go by homes, businesses, schools and hospitals in the Fredericksburg area. In its feasibility study of the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository, the U.S. Department of Energy looked at possible rail, truck and barge routes to the Nevada site 90 miles from Las Vegas. The Energy Department won't sign off on final routes for at least three more years, but several major highways and rail routes in the region were included in the study. Virginia figures prominently in the plans because it is home to four of the nation's 103 commercial nuclear reactors, which have been stockpiling highly radioactive spent fuel for permanent disposal. Dominion Generation's North Anna Power Station in Louisa County and its Surry power plant on the James River each have two reactors. The Energy Department estimates that most of the shipments from Virginia, and 39 other states with commercial power plants, would go to Yucca Mountain by rail. The rest would travel by truck on interstate highways, or in a few cases, part of the way by barge. The Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit environmental study organization in Washington, has done its own analysis of DOE documents and made some projections about shipment routes and who might be affected by the transports. The state-by-state maps are on its Web site: www.ewg.org. The shipments could start as early as 2010, though the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not yet decided the actual shipping schedule. "I do know that as they move along with this, the state of Virginia, the governor, the legislature could have a lot of suggestions about metropolitan areas to avoid," said Jon Corsiglia, spokesman for the environmental group. The Energy Department and U.S. Department of Transportation don't have to accept any of those recommendations, he said. Rail shipments from North Anna could travel along the CSX line which runs north from Louisa County through Fredericksburg, to Washington, where it would then head west. Interstate 64 would be the most likely truck route. Yucca Mountain is approximately 2,400 miles from North Anna. Waste from the Surry plant would be barged to trucks that probably would travel on I-64, or by rail through Southwest Virginia and southern West Virginia on its journey west. The environmental group's Web site says that about 573,000 Virginians live within a mile of the routes studied by the Energy Department. Also within a mile are 150 schools and six hospitals. After a 20-year battle pitting Nevada officials and environmentalists against the Energy Department, Congress and President Bush over the summer approved Yucca Mountain as the nation's permanent repository for high-level nuclear waste. The site still must be licensed by the NRC. Approximately 77,000 metric tons of used reactor fuel and other radioactive wastes would be entombed in volcanic rock at the remote desert outpost about 90 miles from Las Vegas. Jerry Rosenthal, president of Concerned Citizens of Louisa County, said the spent fuel presents dangers whether it stored or shipped from North Anna. "First, [shipment of spent fuel] isn't going to happen for a long time, and even if it does, I'm more concerned that they will continue to build up the stored wastes in Louisa," he said. By 2010, 36 of the 115-ton containers of spent nuclear fuel will be stored at the plant. And there's the potential for accidents when the actual shipments begin, said Rosenthal, who lives off I-64. "The more times you move things, the more times you have to deal with it, you increase the risk and exposure to workers who transport this stuff and there's some increase in radiation to people who live around the route." /Date published: *Sun, 10/20/2002*/ ***************************************************************** 40 Dominion Generation is gearing up to ship tons of spent nuclear fuel to a disposal site in Nevada. fredericksburg.com Spent nuclear fuel to cross nation Dominion Generation is gearing up to ship tons of spent nuclear fuel to a disposal site in Nevada. By RUSTY DENNEN The Free Lance-Star OR YEARS, highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel has been piling up in cocoonlike steel casks in a secure area at North Anna power station. But as early as 2010--if plans go according to schedule--the wastes will be repacked in larger, stronger containers and loaded on rail cars bound for a permanent, national disposal site under Yucca Mountain, Nev. Because the actual shipments are still years away, Dominion Generation, owner of the North Anna plant in Louisa County, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are still working out the details. Actual routes the shipments will follow, for example, won't be in place for at least three years. But already, parts of the process--which will play out in a similar fashion at 103 commercial power plants across the nation--are beginning to fall into place. "Much of what we would do is similar to what we do now to put [spent] fuel in dry storage," said Brian Wakeman, lead engineer at North Anna's spent fuel installation. Every 18 months, North Anna's two reactors must be shut down and refueled. Sixty-four spent fuel assemblies are typically removed from each reactor core. The assemblies--rectangular modules packed with uranium-pellet-filled tubes--are lifted from the reactor and submerged in what looks like an industrial-size indoor swimming pool. Twenty-seven feet of water, infused with neutron-absorbing boron, helps protect workers in the room from radiation. The assemblies cool for seven years before they can be placed in helium-filled casks which are decontaminated and moved to the storage area outside. Helium is an inert gas that helps transfer heat to the outside of the casks. It's also easy to detect if there's a container leak. Ten of the 115-ton storage containers sit on concrete pads in a fenced, secure enclosure at North Anna. By 2010, there will be 36. When Dominion gets the word to begin shipments to the Nevada disposal site, workers here will return the casks to the spent fuel pool and transfer the contents to new containers approved for shipping. Those would be loaded on a special skid and put on rail cars. Readying each cask would take about five days. By 2007, Wakeman said, a new generation of concrete-encased storage casks will be available that can also be used for shipping. That way the spent fuel won't have to be handled twice. Since North Anna has a rail junction, most of the shipments would go by train. Surry's spent fuel would be loaded on trucks or barged to Newport News, where it would make the rest of the journey by rail. "We're responsible for loading the container that DOE provides for us, and for putting it on the rail car," Wakeman said. "That's where our actions end." As soon as the shipment leaves the plant, it becomes the responsibility of the Transportation Department and NRC. State officials must be notified prior to each transfer. Richard Zuercher, a spokesman for Dominion's nuclear operations, said the possibility of radiation exposure would be extremely small for anyone living next to a railroad track. "You'd have to stand next to a cask for half an hour to get a dose equal to a dental X-ray," Zuercher said. "Farther away, the radiation drops dramatically." Zuercher said spent fuel has been stored safely for years at North Anna and its Surry sister plant on the James River, and that there's no reason to expect problems when shipments begin. "Anything that's been done at North Anna and Surry at this transition time will be done in a very safe manner and will be well-thought-out," Zuercher said. According to the Energy Department, in 30 years, 2,700 shipments of nuclear material have traveled 1.6 million miles, resulting in no harmful release of radiation. The agency estimates that once Yucca Mountain opens, there will be about 175 shipments of spent fuel annually, nationwide. Critics contend that, despite the safety record, accidents are inevitable. "Part of our concern is the numbers involved," said Ariana Silverman of the Sierra Club, which has opposed the Yucca Mountain repository. Over the expected 24 years of shipments to Yucca, nearly 8,000 truck and rail shipments would pass through Virginia. "They haven't thought thoroughly about safety and security implications. In Virginia, this is very real and local folks are affected everywhere along transportation routes," she said. Ordinary people around the country should be aware of what's happening, says Jon Corsiglia of the Environmental Working Group, a research organization in Washington. As the Yucca Mountain plan winds its way through the final steps of the regulatory process, Corsiglia said: "It's important for watchdog groups to take an interest in this and pressure government to make sure there's nothing to worry about." He noted that plans for Yucca Mountain were prepared prior to the September 2001 terrorist attacks. "The document has a very preliminary look. We're talking about a lot of shipments of nuclear waste past a lot of homes and businesses in Virginia," Corsiglia said. /Date published: *Sun, 10/20/2002*/ ***************************************************************** 41 Utah Waste: Control Board Responds The Salt Lake Tribune -- Sunday, October 20, 2002 I wish to provide a personal response to the story (Tribune, Oct. 6) on the Utah Radiation Control Board's consideration of Initiative 1, the Radioactive Waste Restriction's Act. Let me clear up some factual errors. The board is formally considering the issue, and may very well disfavor the initiative. But as of yet, no "official position" has been formulated as reported in the story. Second, the initiative does not ban "high-level waste" from Utah. Rather, it would disallow certain types of low-level waste. However undesirable one may view both materials, they are like night and day in the hazard they pose. I would expect that the Tribune would appreciate the difference. However, the story got its facts straight when it reported that I and other board members were "offended" upon the receipt of a nasty, unsigned letter from Utahns for Radioactive Waste Control, declining an invitation to brief the board on the initiative. The letter characterized the offer as "simply legitimizing a scam." The letter further stated that board members have been "irresponsible in the relationship they have had with those entities and individuals they regulate" and that regulated companies have given "loans, gifts, and appointment opportunities" to members of the board. These are serious, if vague, allegations. Does Frank Pignanelli or his organization maintain that current board members have engaged in illegal or unethical behavior? If so, please come forward and be heard. If not, I call upon the author of the letter from Utahns for Radioactive Waste Control to desist from hyperbole, as well as vague, unsubstantiated allegations. STEPHEN T. NELSON Chair, Utah Radiation Control Board Dept. of Geology S-389 ESC Brigham Young University Provo © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on Utah OnLine is ***************************************************************** 42 Utah: Talking Up and Down About the Nuclear-Waste Initiative The Salt Lake Tribune -- Sunday, October 20, 2002 BY JAN CRISPIN-LITT This November, Utahns will vote on Initiative 1. Proponents claim Utah is not "getting its fair share" for the Class A low-level radioactive waste it accepts. Opponents argue that in 2001 the Legislature imposed new taxes and fees on the waste industry. Adding more taxes and fees, they contend, would destroy this industry in Utah. The complexity of Initiative 1 makes it difficult to sort out the competing claims. Recently I completed a study of how this initiative could change Utah's position in the waste disposal market. I compared Utah's tax and fee regime with that of other states that accept similar wastes. I interviewed several of the industry's top waste producers to evaluate how the proposed tax and fee increases might affect their waste disposal decisions. The market for disposing Class A waste is complex. Binding agreements require that some waste go to Washington state's Richland facility; other waste, because of its radioactive content, must go to South Carolina's Barnwell facility. However, the vast majority of waste producers have several disposal options. If disposal is too expensive, producers may be able to store the waste on-site, send it to processors or sort to reduce volume. Each of these options has costs and benefits. Sorting and processing increase the risk of exposure; on-site storage has its own environmental risks, and only postpones the inevitable disposal. My conversations with waste producers like the federal Department of Energy, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and private producers indicate they are very price-sensitive. As a public agency, DOE, the largest producer of low-level radioactive waste, or LLRW, cannot spend more money than Congress allocates. Because waste disposal is not DOE's only priority, if the cost of disposing waste in Utah increases, DOE will use its own facilities. The Army Corps of Engineers is in a similar position. Although Envirocare is the only private LLRW disposal facility in the country, the Corps can dispose of its waste at six other sites. If Initiative 1 raises the price of disposing this waste at Envirocare, the Corps has other options. Given the competitive environment for waste disposal, the structure of taxes and fees in competing states is important. If Utah imposes taxes or fees that create price disparities, tax revenue could fall accordingly. Of the six states I examined that accept Class A waste, only Utah and Washington state impose any taxes at all. Depending on the specific type of waste, Utah collects between 5 percent and 12 percent of gross receipts in taxes. Washington collects a 3.3 percent business and occupation tax. On the fee side, the picture is more complicated. South Carolina, Idaho, Texas, Colorado, Washington state and Utah all impose fees, but in different ways. Some impose a fixed fee for a specific waste type, regardless of volume, while others collect fees based on volumes of waste accepted. Most states combine these types. For example, South Carolina collects about $2.8 million in annual fees, plus $4 per cubic foot in surcharges. Texas collects approximately $250,000 annually in license fees, regardless of volume. Utah collects fees of $400,000 annually, plus 10 cents per cubic foot, plus $1 per curie of radioactivity. In addition, Tooele County collects a 5 percent gross revenue fee. Utah already has an aggressive tax and fee structure. It collects both taxes and fees, and it is the only state that collects these based on a company's gross revenue. In addition, the market for disposal of most LLRW is competitive. Even small price increases could significantly alter the volume of waste sent to a given state. While proponents of Initiative 1 claim the taxes and fees they hope to impose will collect millions of tax dollars, my research indicates that the volume of waste shipped to Utah could drop significantly, thereby cutting into Utah's existing tax base. _________ Jan Crispin-Little is a senior analyst with the Bureau of Economic and Business Research. Her study of the market for disposing low-level radioactive waste was done for Envirocare of Utah. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 43 Paducah plant's future uncertain as it turns 50 Daily news from Louisville, Kentucky and Southern Indiana from courier-journal.com Local/Regional [http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/] » News Item Sunday, October 20, 2002 By Nancy Zuckerbrod and Kimberly Hefling Associated Press WASHINGTON -- As past and present workers of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant celebrate the Western Kentucky installation's 50th anniversary on Thursday, many wonder if the site will continue to provide the jobs they and their communities have come to depend on. U.S. Enrichment Corp. operates the Energy Department plant in Paducah and is the only U.S. company that enriches uranium for the commercial nuclear industry. USEC has signed an agreement with the government to build a new, more efficient plant within a decade in either Paducah or Piketon, Ohio, home to a now-closed uranium plant. MORE THAN 1,400 people work at the Paducah plant, making it the largest private employer in that part of Kentucky. Leon Owens, president of a union local that represents plant employees, said the community would have a hard time economically if it does not get the replacement operation. ''The economic impact would be devastating,'' Owens said. ''It would have a ripple effect throughout this entire area.'' USEC plans to decide by the end of the year whether Paducah or Piketon will become home to a demonstration project aimed at showcasing the technology it plans to use, which is known as centrifuge. The economic stakes for the Paducah area are high, as they were when the plant opened 50 years ago. OPENING THE PLANT ''was a major event in the history of the city,'' said Don Pepper, 78, 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.'' In 1950, the announcement that the plant would be built in Western Kentucky was welcome news, and native son Alben Barkley, vice president under Harry Truman, earned praise for helping to secure it. The equivalent of the chamber of commerce encouraged residents to take in workers because of a housing shortage. There was an economic boom with new schools, churches and businesses constructed. Communities sprang up with names like ''Cimota'' -- ''Atomic'' spelled backward. With the increase in demand for engineers and scientists 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.'' But the plant also brought problems. The government long denied there was a link between cancer and the plant. But in 1999, the government conceded that many uranium-enrichment workers got sick because of onthe-job exposure. 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. AND 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. ------------------------ The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant has ''been the foundation of the financial community in the area for years.'' -- B.J. Bond, 75, a retired plant worker ------------------------- As part of the 50th-anniversary celebration, Paducah will unveil murals painted on the Ohio River floodwall paying tribute to the plant's early workers. Susan Zimmerman Guess, a former plant employee who is an organizer of the celebration, said the anniversary events also aim to draw attention to the community support as USEC weighs where to build the demonstration project and its new centrifuge plant. USEC HOPES that by building a successful demonstration project, it will be better able to lure financial partners to help fund construction of the commercial plant. Analysts predict that will cost at least $1 billion. Whichever community is chosen for the pilot project will have an edge, but not a guarantee, in the competition to win the commercial facility, according to USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle. Kentucky and Ohio officials are putting together financial incentive packages to win both the demonstration and commercial projects. The proposals are due to USEC by the end of the month. J.R. Wilhite, commissioner of Kentucky's Department of Community Development, would not provide details about the state's proposal but said it would be competitive. Stuckle said, ''We're going to be looking at which state provides the greatest economic incentives as well as other noneconomical factors.'' OTHER FACTORS that could affect the choice of a plant site include geology, existing infrastructure and electricity costs. Paducah is near the New Madrid fault, which means additional money would be needed to make the plant secure in the event of an earthquake. The existing gaseous diffusion technology heats uranium into a gas and then filters it to separate the desired lighter isotopes from the heavier ones. Experts say that technology is thought to be less vulnerable to earthquake damage than centrifuge, which takes place in tall, spinning cylinders that use gravity to separate uranium molecules. Aanother factor that could work against Paducah is that the Ohio facility is home to existing buildings designed by the government in the 1980s for centrifuge technology but then abandoned. USEC could use those buildings if it selects the Ohio site, lowering its capital costs. STUCKLE SAID low electricity rates at Paducah helped the company decide to keep that plant open and close the Piketon facility two years ago. While centrifuge uses less energy than gaseous diffusion, lower energy costs in coal-rich Kentucky could benefit Paducah's efforts to get the plant. Wilhite said Paducah's current operations also help its bid. ''Paducah continues to be the sole uranium-enrichment operation for USEC,'' he said. ''They have a work force that they value and know the capability of, and those are tremendous strengths.'' In the end, the competition may not be just between Paducah and Piketon. A consortium of U.S. and European companies has announced plans to build a uranium-enrichment plant in Tennessee by 2007. Should the group succeed, it remains to be seen whether there is room in the U.S. market for two such operations. Home [http://www.courier-journal.com] · News ***************************************************************** 44 Liability concerns loom over Johnston dump Honolulu Star-Bulletin Hawaii News [http://starbulletin.com] Saturday, October 19, 2002 By Diana Leone [dleone@starbulletin.com?subject=http://starbulletin.com/2002/10/19/] Some 800 miles southwest of Honolulu on Johnston Island, a contractor hopes to complete a 25-acre landfill of radioactive rubble by next month. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an arm of the U.S. Department of Defense, has pledged that radiation exposure on top of the landfill will meet Environmental Protection Agency standards set for the whole island. But there's a hitch. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is scheduled to become the sole caretaker of the island after the military leaves in 2004, doesn't want the liability of the radioactive dump. The Fish and Wildlife Service maintains that "land-filling of plutonium contaminated material on Johnston Island is not appropriate, and that it should be shipped off-island to a radioactive waste facility," Regional Director Anne Badgley wrote in a July 25 letter to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Fish and Wildlife officials are still waiting to hear from the defense agency about how to resolve the impasse, said Don Palawski, who oversees Pacific Island refuges, including Johnston, for Fish and Wildlife. The landfill contains 45,000 cubic meters of radioactive material, the last remnants of fallout from two failed 1962 test explosions of nuclear warheads that contaminated Johnston Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. The material is buried under 2 feet of coral. Johnston Island is the largest of four islands and the site of military activity that has coexisted with the refuge. Because nuclear fission never occurred, EPA engineer Ray Saracino likens the plutonium contamination to what people today call a "dirty bomb." It will take 24,000 years before half of the plutonium decomposes to a harmless state, he said. A Maui-based watchdog group, Earth Foundation, has sent out e-mails questioning whether contaminated fish from Johnston could pose a health risk to people in Hawaii. That possibility is "extremely remote," for a number of reasons, including the distance and the fact that plutonium isn't readily absorbed by fish, Saracino said. However, the EPA is advising the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to do a complete assessment of the effect of radioactive pollution already in the Johnston Atoll environment and to explain how it will handle long-term stewardship of the radioactive landfill. To address the first EPA concern, Defense Threat Reduction Agency has commissioned an Ecological Risk Assessment Report, which will be completed by June 2003, said spokesman Marcus Wilson. The material buried in the new landfill accounts for only about 10 percent of the 16 kilograms of plutonium released in 1962, Saracino said. The rest has been buried deep at sea or is dispersed in the lagoon. That's why assessing how wildlife have been doing under those conditions for the last 40 years is key to deciding future safeguards for the area, Saracino said. An oasis for reef and bird life, Johnston Atoll is home to 32 species of coral, 300 species of fish, the threatened and endangered green sea turtle and Hawaiian monk seal, and 20 species of migratory birds. As long as the radioactive material stays "buried it's not a human health issue," Fish and Wildlife's Palawski said. "But there's a longer-term issue with the possibility of sea wall failure and material being exposed to the surface or released to the marine environment." "DTRA will monitor the (landfill) site for construction defects as long as there is commercial air service to Johnston Atoll or for five years, whichever is shorter," Wilson said. [feedback@starbulletin.com] © 2002 Honolulu Star-Bulletin -- [http://starbulletin.com] ***************************************************************** 45 Russians probe for nuclear waste in Sea of Japan [http://www.spacedaily.com/] MOSCOW (AFP) Oct 17, 2002 A Russian scientific inspection team has finished probing for nuclear waste in the Sea of Japan, where Russia's navy has been accused of dumping radioactive material, it was announced on Thursday. The official team, which carried out its work from a scientific research ship, inspected two particular areas at a depth of 2900 metres (9,500 feet) and 3500 metres with remote-controlled radioactive monitoring equipment. In addition to measuring the radioactivity levels in the zone, the scientists took samples of water and marine plants which are being tested in laboratories, emergencies ministry official Ilya Kozlov told the Interfax-AVN news agency. "The research will be concluded as quickly as possible and the results of our work in the Sea of Japan will be available already in November," he added. The official did not say how long the probe had lasted. A investigative Russian journalist, Grigory Pasko, who exposed nuclear waste dumping by the navy, is currently serving a four-year sentence for treason in a penal colony in Russia's Far East. A former naval officer, in 1993 he exposed illegal dumping of chemical and liquid radioactive waste by the fleet in the Sea of Japan, and handed over his expose to Japanese media. Pasko was working in Vladivostok as a correspondent for the Pacific Fleet's newspaper, Boyevaya Vakhta. Russia's human rights ombudsman Oleg Mironov has criticized the case against Pasko, saying that it was aimed at putting pressure on environmentalists was damaging Russia's image and descrediting its legal system. ***************************************************************** 46 'Nuclear admission no surprise' - timesunion.com U.S. had warned in 1996 North Korea could be developing weapons By ERIC ROSENBERG, Washington bureau October 20, 2002 WASHINGTON -- North Korea's reported acknowledgment that it is developing nuclear weapons came as no shock to U.S. intelligence officials, who have long suspected that the secretive nation was furtively working on atomic weapons. In late 1997, the Defense Intelligence Agency warned in a classified assessment that North Korea might be building an underground nuclear weapons complex, known as Hagap, some 70 miles north of Pyongyang. "There is one site, of an unconfirmed function, that possibly could be a nuclear weapons-related facility by 2003," the DIA concluded. "The function of this site has not been determined, but it could be intended as a nuclear production and/or storage site." Around the same time U.S. intelligence officials detected that the North Koreans were constructing another large underground facility at Kumchangni, north of the capital of Pyongyang. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week that North Korea's reported acknowledgment of a nuclear weapons program was in line with U.S. intelligence assessments over the last several years. Under a 1994 agreement with the United States, North Korea agreed to freeze nuclear weapons production and allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to monitor compliance. It also agreed to shut down operations of a five-megawatt plutonium production reactor and halt construction on two other nuclear reactors capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. In return, North Korea was allowed to retain key nuclear technology and expertise and any weapons-grade plutonium that already has been manufactured. According to a CIA assessment last March, officials believe North Korea may have enough plutonium for up to two atomic bombs. For its side of the accord, the United States agreed to provide North Korea with fuel oil and two light-water nuclear reactors, less easily used to make weapons. Construction began last summer on the first of the reactors. According to State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, the North Koreans admitted to developing nuclear weapons after being confronted with evidence of a fuel enrichment program from a U.S. delegation headed by Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly in Pyongyang earlier this month. Boucher declined to describe the evidence. Boucher said Kelly told the North Koreans that Washington was prepared to improve relations with economic and political incentives for the destitute country. "In his discussions with the North Koreans, he said 'I was going to come here to tell you about a bold approach to improving our relationship and resolving some of these issues, but that's not possible if you're conducting this (nuclear weapons) program,' " Boucher said of the meetings. The North Koreans, although they reportedly confirmed to Kelly that they were trying to enrich uranium for atomic bombs, were unapologetic and accused Kelly of diplomatic bullying, according to the North Korean official news agency. "He made very arrogant and threatening remarks that if North Korea did not take any action first to solve the concerns about security, there would be neither dialogue nor improved relations," the news agency said. The Bush administration didn't reveal the results of the Oct. 3-5 meetings between Kelly and North Korean officials until Oct. 16, nearly a week after the House and Senate had voted to authorize President Bush to use force to compel Saddam Hussein to relinquish Iraq's reported weapons of mass destruction. The time lag led some Democrats to question whether the delay was designed to avoid any interference with the administration's request to Congress for authority to take military action against Iraq. Bush has called Iraq, North Korea and Iran an "axis of evil" for their efforts to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, along with their alleged ties to terrorist groups. All three countries are believed to be developing missiles equipped to deliver the deadly payloads. ***************************************************************** 47 Koreas spar over nuclear issue BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Sunday, 20 October, 2002 [Jeong Se-Hyun (L) with Kim Ryong-Song] Smiles could not disguise the tension South Korea says it has urged North Korea to scrap its alleged nuclear weapons programme immediately and open a dialogue with the United States on the issue. The first meeting in three days of scheduled talks between the two sides broke up after about 55 minutes with the leader of the South's delegation expressing his "deep concern" at the nuclear issue right at the outset. We believe your concerns will evaporate should we hold our hands tighter and move on Kim Ryong-Song head of Northern delegation "My heart is as gloomy as a cloudy sky," Unification Minister Jeong Se-Hyun said in Pyongyang. Washington is reportedly preparing to scrap a 1994 agreement with the North to supply fuel oil and build two light-water reactors after Pyongyang allegedly said it had "nullified" its commitment to abandon its nuclear weapons programme. The report on the New York Times website follows an announcement by the US on Saturday that it is working with South Korea and other regional powers towards the "immediate and visible dismantling" of the North Korean programme. Our Washington correspondent Jon Leyne reports that a US withdrawal would be a risky strategy, threatening to isolate North Korea even further. Northern assurances The Korean talks had originally been scheduled to cover co-operation between the two states. The head of the North's delegation, Kim Ryong-Song, tried to assure the South that the issue would "evaporate" if the Koreas strengthened their ties. "We believe your concerns will evaporate should we hold our hands tighter and move on," he said. In an apparent reference to the US, he remarked that North Korea went its "own way regardless whether there is a wind from the West". The talks at Pyongyang's People's Cultural Centre are the eighth round since a historic inter-Korean summit in 2000. US diplomatic drive American envoy James Kelly confronted North Korea with evidence of a uranium-enriching programme to make nuclear weapons when he visited the North for talks at the beginning of the month. He later announced that the North had confirmed the programme existed although Pyongyang has not itself commented on the matter since the visit. [US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly] Kelly wants to build up a united front On a visit to South Korea on Saturday, Mr Kelly said the US would work with South Korea, Japan and others to dismantle the programme. The assistant secretary of state held talks with South Korean officials about co-ordinating their response. Mr Kelly, who is now in Japan, said the United States was consulting its allies but said there was no deadline for the issue: "This is a difficult and complex problem... we'll just have to see how it unfolds." © MMII | News Sources | Privacy ***************************************************************** 48 Nuclear subs face new tasks By MICHAEL GILBERT October 19, 2002 It used to be America's ballistic missile submariners knew that if they ever received the order to fire, it likely meant the loved ones they'd left on shore wouldn't be there when they returned. The Trident fleet's mission was to deter nuclear holocaust - to make sure the Cold War stayed cold. These days, the Trident fleet is in a period of transition. Four of the 18 vessels are being pulled from nuclear missile duty in a $3.3 billion program to refit them to carry conventional cruise missiles and Special Operations troops. They'd stealthily put Navy SEALs ashore in hostile territory or launch precision strikes hundreds of miles inland. Two of the remaining 14 are swapping their East Coast home port at King's Bay, Ga., for the Bangor Naval Submarine Base in Washington state. The four that are being reconfigured are all from Bangor, so the Navy needs to balance its Atlantic and Pacific fleets, officials said. The USS Pennsylvania, the first to make the move, arrived on Hood Canal on Thursday after more than two months at sea. The Pennsylvania and the other Trident subs will see their role change gradually during the next several years while the White House and Pentagon reshape the nation's nuclear strategy, said Rear Adm. Bruce Engelhardt, commander of submarines in the Pacific. The Bush administration early this year began crafting new plans that call for dismantling of the land-based Peacekeeper missiles and a reduced reliance on B-1 bombers to carry nukes. Overall, the administration expects to trim the nuclear arsenal from about 6,000 warheads to between 1,700 and 2,000, according to the Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review. Scrapped is the old "triad" of air, land and sea-launched high-yield missiles. In its place is what Pentagon planners call the "new triad": precise nuclear and conventional weapons; the National Missile Defense program and other defenses; and new technological breakthroughs to meet 21st century threats. Disarmament groups are alarmed at the new strategy. With its call for development of new nuclear weapons - such as low-yield "mini-nukes" and bunker-busting bombs - they say it could lead to a new nuclear arms race. Renewed nuclear testing by the United States could lead other countries to resume testing as well. As for the Trident boats, disarmament advocates say they've lost much of their value now that no other nuclear countries are either inclined to, or capable of, launching a nuclear strike on the United States. Should that change, a reduced number of Trident boats - say, six - would be more than adequate to deter an attack, said Chris Turner, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Union of Concerned Scientists. But Engelhardt and the sailors aboard the Pennsylvania said the Tridents still are deterring would-be foes. The submarine arrived at Bangor after more than $26 million in upgrades to its navigational, sonar and fire control systems. Its two 166-man crews were recently recognized as the best among the Navy's submarine fleet. Still, the prospect of one of these boats ever having to fire its missiles is chilling, even for the sailors who live onboard and sleep in their berths wedged amid the 24 missile tubes. (Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com.) The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 49 '62 Missile Crisis Offers a Lesson in Compromise The Salt Lake Tribune -- Sunday, October 20, 2002 BY MICHAEL NAKORYAKOV Talk about timely anniversaries. If, amid all the Iraq excitement, it appears to some that the words "pre-emptive strike," "evil tyrant" and "weapons of mass destruction" were invented recently, that certainly is not the case. The words -- and the fears behind them -- were just as widely present 40 years ago, in October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the United States and the Soviet Union, in the words of former Secretary of State Dean Rusk, were brought "eyeball to eyeball." There are voices trying to apply the lessons of Cuba to Iraq, with President Bush's supporters pointing at President Kennedy's preparedness to attack Cuba over the suspected nuclear weapons there, while peace advocates allude to the wisdom of the leaders who managed to compromise in 1962. In any case, it may not be a bad idea to check with the people who actually remember what happened then. Last weekend, Havana's Palacio de Convenciones saw people just like that gathering for a three-day retreat. There were, among others, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, President Kennedy's speechwriter Theodore Sorensen and Kennedy's aide and Pulitzer-winning historian Arthur Schlesinger. On the Russian side was ex-Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, also known as a key player in the Communist military coup attempt of 1991 in Moscow, former deputy foreign minister Georgy Kornienko and missile-deployment planner Gen. Anatoly Gribkov. And, of course, no missile crisis anniversary would have been complete without Cuban President Fidel Castro -- much grayer but still as active and as much in power as four decades ago. That was not the first time most of those people got together, so they greeted each other as good friends. They socialized. They went to visit the last surviving structure from the Soviet deployment that started the whole affair in 1962, a nuclear warhead bunker at the San Cristobal missile site west of Havana. But the meeting was not just about back-slapping and discussing the grandkids. The conference, titled "The October Crisis: Political Vision 40 Years Later," highlighted thousands of newly declassified documents -- from the Cuban government, the CIA, the Pentagon and the White House, from the Soviet Foreign Ministry and the Communist Party Politburo, and from other countries. Countless revelations keep popping up even though it seems everything must have been researched by now -- like the fact the 40,000 Soviet forces in Cuba (not just a few thousand as the CIA reported then) had been equipped with nuclear weapons intended for battlefield use. Or the fact that the prevalent feeling at the White House was that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev would limit his possible nuclear attack to the U.S. Jupiter missiles in Turkey -- if the Americans were to bomb Cuba. Or that the Soviets still were deeply suspicious of Cuba at the time -- their support for Castro was only newly emerging after years of having seen Cuba as a U.S. "lackey." Those were scary days, no doubt, with events ranging from a U-2 spy plane being shot down over Cuba to the Joint Chiefs' recommendation to the president for the airstrike and invasion plan starting no later than Monday, Oct. 29 and a briefing showing photos of "the missiles already on the launchers" in Cuba. But no matter what new discoveries are made, most historians still would agree that it was Kennedy's good judgment, and the prudence Khrushchev displayed once the crisis intensified, that helped avert catastrophe. There may be parallels between the Cuban crisis and the standoff over Iraq, but there also is a huge difference: The Cold War is no more, and there is no Soviet Union behind Saddam Hussein. But before saying, "Great, let's go kick his butt," it might be worth considering the downside of the equation -- the absence of the second superpower means an absence of the need to look for a compromise. Remember "Spider-Man?" The wise old uncle saying "With great power comes a great responsibility?" Unlike 1962, it is now up to the United States alone to weigh all the pros and cons and do what's right. After the Cuban crisis, nobody was happy. Castro was angry at the way the Soviets had retreated. The apparent capitulation of the Soviet Union in the standoff was instrumental in Khrushchev's ouster in October 1964, because his action during the crisis was perceived as weak and indecisive. The United States realized that the Soviet nuclear threat was much closer to home than it used to think. Yet there was a bright side, too. A hot-line system was established between Washington and Moscow to enable faster and more direct exchange of messages in times of crisis. The next year, 1963, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed between the two countries. Coming so close to a nuclear war pushed the Soviet Union and the United States to pay a lot more attention to peace. And now, the aging U.S., Cuban and Russian veterans of the nuclear near-miss are sitting together in overstuffed armchairs in Havana, sipping the awful Cuban rum and remembering those exciting old days. Somehow, the chance to see Bush and Saddam chatting like that -- even long after the current Iraq crisis is resolved one way or another -- appears slim at best. _________ Michael Nakoryakov is editor of The Tribune's World Desk. For many years, he was a journalist in Moscow. Send Nakoryakov an e-mail at michaelvn@sltrib.com. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 50 On Going to War / Why I voted to authorize force against Iraq Dianne Feinstein [chronfeedback@sfchronicle.com] Sunday, October 20, 2002 --> On Oct. 11, I cast one of my most difficult votes as a U.S. senator when, in an effort to compel Iraq's disarmament of weapons of mass destruction, I voted to authorize the president to use force against Iraq. I did not come to this decision easily: I strongly oppose a pre-emptive, unilateral strike against another sovereign state. But as a member of the Intelligence Committee, I have, over the past several months, read, heard and questioned the analyses of many experts; reviewed intelligence materials; studied histories of Iraq and Saddam Hussein; and talked to experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna in an effort to define the level of threat Iraq presents to the United States and to American interests abroad. Ultimately, I could not escape the fact that Hussein possesses and manufactures biological and chemical weapons, has used those chemical weapons, and, unless stopped, will most certainly use them again. Furthermore, although I believe Hussein does not possess nuclear capability today, he is on his way, and could achieve it in as little as one year. That will dramatically increase his power, with potentially catastrophic consequences. I do not support a pre-emptive unilateral strike. That is why I voted for the Levin amendment, which confined use of force to U.N. action. This resolution, however, was defeated 75 to 24 in the Senate. After this vote, the only way to express my support for disarmament backed by force was the modified Bush administration proposal, known as the Lieberman- Warner resolution. This resolution is more restrictive than the original one sent to Congress by President Bush. The original resolution would have authorized a sweeping use of force whenever or wherever the president deemed necessary -- literally any place on Earth. Fortunately, the Bush administration has moved away from a pre-emptive use of force. Beginning with his address to the United Nations on Sept. 12, the president has urged a more conciliatory approach, working with our allies and through the United Nations. This new approach -- a willingness to work multilaterally -- was a key and critical shift in the Bush administration's policy. And since that time, Secretary of State Colin Powell has been working in earnest to produce a more robust U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at compelling Iraqi compliance. And -- repeatedly now -- the president has stated that "we will lead a coalition." The final Lieberman-Warner resolution does not grant a sweeping use of force. Rather, it confines use of force to Iraq, calls for the Bush administration to exhaust multilateral and diplomatic efforts before resorting to force and gives Iraq the option of complying with the 16 U.N. Security Council resolutions it has defied since 1991, or face the consequences. But remember, seven years of arms inspections in the 1990s failed because of Hussein's manipulation and prevarication. Without credible force backing arms inspection, I believe a new round of inspections would fail again. In my view, the resolution, which the Senate approved by an overwhelming and bipartisan vote of 77 to 23, is more likely to prompt action by the United Nations to compel Iraqi disarmament. The reason? Because if the United Nations does not or cannot compel Iraq's disarmament, then the United Nations says to the world it is unable to enforce its mandates and it becomes a "paper tiger." Given these facts -- and knowing how easy it is to transfer a fatal biological agent like anthrax or smallpox, or to move a fatal chemical compound such as sarin or mustard gas to kill thousands in the United States or elsewhere -- I voted yes. I did so with the hope that the United Nations will rise to the challenge and launch a search-and-destroy mission, using force only if necessary, to rid Hussein of weapons of mass destruction. And I did so with the trust that the Bush administration will keep its word and forge the coalition it has pledged. Dianne Feinstein has represented California in the U.S. Senate since 1993. She serves on the Judiciary, Appropriations and Select Intelligence committees, among others. E-mail her at senator@feinstein.senate.gov [senator@feinstein.senate.gov] . ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.   Page D - 5 ***************************************************************** 51 ORNL through the decades By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer October 18, 2002 A look at key developments at Oak Ridge National Laboratory from the 1940s to 2000. THE FORTIES In 1942, Oak Ridge was selected as the site for the World War II Manhattan Project. 1942 - Oak Ridge selected as site for World War II Manhattan Project. 1943 - Graphite Reactor and other pilot operations built in eight months at a cost of $12 million 1945 - First neutron-scattering studies at a nuclear reactor by Ernie Wollan and Cliff Shull, who won a Nobel Prize almost 50 years later for the pioneering work. 1946 - ORNL makes first radioisotope shipment (carbon-14) to a cancer hospital in St. Louis. * Pressurized water reactor conceived and later applied to submarines. 1947 - Biologists begin using mice to study genetic effects of radiation. 1948 - Union Carbide becomes the government's contractor in Oak Ridge. 1949 - Lab scientists begin work on the PUREX process, which later became the worldwide method of recovering uranium and plutonium from spent nuclear fuels. THE FIFTIES In 1959, Sen. John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, visit laboratory. 1950 - Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology (ORSORT) established, and two new test reactors begin operation. 1952 - Based on studies of irradiated mouse embryos, Oak Ridge scientists recommend against pelvic X-rays of childbearing women during periods when pregnancy is possible. 1953 - Engineers design transportable reactor for the Army to use in remote sites such as Antarctica and the Panama Canal Zone. * ORACLE, world's most powerful computer, starts up. 1955 - Alvin Weinberg named laboratory director, a position he would hold for 18 years. 1957 - ORNL launches first fusion experiment. 1958 - Oak Ridge Research Reactor starts up, expanding the laboratory's nuclear research base. 1959 - Sen. John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, visit laboratory. THE SIXTIES In 1966 , the Graphite Reactor was named a National Historic Landmark. 1960 - Scientists develop personal radiation monitors, including the "pocket screamer" that chirps and flashes when gamma radiation levels go too high. 1961 - Work begins on radioisotope heat sources to power satellites in space. 1962 - Lab becomes a center for civil defense research to help protect U.S. population in the event of a nuclear war. 1964 - Concept of nuclear desalination is featured at UN conference. 1965 - High Flux Isotope Reactor and Molten Salt Reactor begin operations. * Researchers begin effort to measure genetic effects of pesticides, tobacco and other chemicals. 1966 - Graphite Reactor, the world's first continuously operated nuclear reactor, named a National Historic Landmark. 1968 - UT-ORNL Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences founded. 1969 - Engineers design moon scoop for Apollo 11. THE SEVENTIES In 1978, President Jimmy Carter visits ORNL. 1970 - Researchers test a new doughnut-shaped fusion machine, the ORMAK. It was used to evaluate concepts for fusion reactors. 1971 - ORNL helps prepare early environmental impact statements for nuclear power plants, gathering data on the impacts on fish of heated cooling water from these facilities. 1972 - The first successful freezing and thawing of mouse embryos. * Hijackers threaten to crash airplane into High Flux Isotope Reactor. 1973 - Lab scientists study moon rocks. 1974 - Herman Postma becomes laboratory director, a position he would hold for 14 hears. 1975 - Because of disruptions in the supply of Mideastern oil to the U.S., the government orders research on producing liquid and gaseous fuels from coal. 1978 - President Jimmy Carter visit ORNL. 1979 - Using neutral-beam injections, Oak Ridge engineers achieve record temperature for fusion plasma. * Researchers help determine cause of the accident at Three Mile Island nuclear plant and assess core damage. THE EIGHTIES In 1982, Union Carbide announces plans to leave Oak Ridge after more than 30 years as government's chief contractor. In 1983, Martin Marietta succeeds Union Carbide as laboratory manager. 1980 - The Holifield Heavy Ion Research Facility begins operation on nuclear physics studies. 1981 - Researchers develop whisker-toughened ceramics that resist fractures. 1982 - Union Carbide announces plans to leave Oak Ridge after more than 30 years as government's chief contractor. 1983 - Martin Marietta succeeds Union Carbide as laboratory manager, defeating Westinghouse and Rockwell International in the contract competition. 1984 - Lab researcher Eli Greenbaum conducts experiments that use photosynthesis to produce energy from spinach. 1985 - ORNL researchers develop gelcasting, and advanced process for forming ceramic material into complex shapes -- such as automotive turbines, accelerator magnets, and artificial bone. 1986 - Workers complete construction of the High Temperature Materials Laboratory. 1987 - High Temperature Materials Laboratory opens. * Human genome studies begin. 1988 - The Advanced Toroidal Facility begins operation, enabling researchers to learn more about the physics of fusion energy. 1989 - Al Trivelpiece becomes laboratory director. THE NINETIES In 1999, Vice President Al Gore announces plans for the $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source project. 1990 - Lab provides computer data-assembly programs to organize U.S. transportation needs for the Gulf War. 1991 - ORNL uses neutron activation analysis on President Zachary Taylor's hair and nails to help disprove a theory that he died of arsenic poisoning. 1992 - Researchers identify and clone the mouse "agouti" gene, which is associated with coat color, obesity, diabetes and skin cancer in mice. * Center for Computational Sciences created. * President Bush visits laboratory. 1993 - Nuclear medicine researchers develop the rhenium-188 generator, which provides hospitals with a ready source of isotopes to treat bone pain in cancer patients. 1994 - Researchers develop "lab on a chip" that's used to help diagnose diseases and provide quick and cheap method for DNA sequencing. 1995 - Researchers develop the rolling-assisted biaxial textured substrates technique for fabricating nickel-based, high-temperature superconducting wire. 1996 - Project shows a more efficient refrigerator-freezer can cut energy use in half. 1997 - Nuclear astrophysics studies begin at redesigned and newly named Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility. 1999 - Groundbreaking for the $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source. * The University of Tennessee joins with Battelle to win contract competition to manage ORNL. Copyright 2002, Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 52 Lahoud blasts Israel at Francophone summit The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition Oct. 20, 2002 By ANGELA DOLAND BEIRUT (AP) Lebanese President Emile Lahoud used his opening speech to a summit of leaders of French-speaking countries to launch a scathing attack against Israel. Leaders and delegates from the 55 governments are attending the meeting which opened Friday in Beirut, with Hizbullah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah taking a front-row seat. While civilized nations are trying to eradicate terrorism, Lahoud said, "the Israeli occupation immortalizes and glorifies it under its most perverse way, one that is state-sponsored." La Francophonie, the loose confederation of former French colonies, states and regions where French is spoken, were holding their first such summit to take place on Arab soil. Topics of discussion were to include culture, terrorism, the Middle East conflict and the threat of war against Iraq. French President Jacques Chirac, in the opening round of speeches, pressed a position he has taken for weeks: that the use of military force in Iraq or elsewhere must be "a last resort." "It can only be allowed in case of legitimate defense or after a decision by the competent international bodies," Chirac said. Lahoud said in his speech that Lebanon opposes any attack against Iraq. "Excuses to justify military action, namely the disregard by Iraq of certain UN resolutions and its production of weapons of mass destruction, will remain unconvincing as long as Israel, which has nuclear arms, continues to ignore with impunity a large number of resolutions voted by the UN since 1948," he said. The summit's theme "dialogue between cultures" has a special relevance for Lebanon, which was devastated by the 1975-90 civil war between Muslims and Christians. The capital has planted palm trees and strung up flags from member states as diverse as Haiti and Vietnam to brighten up a city which still bears the scars of war. Security measures are extensive. Lebanon has deployed some 8,200 officers in Beirut, from plainclothes security agents to black-clad anti-terrorism troops. Armed police and soldiers man checkpoints, ride in armored vehicles and fly over the city in helicopters. © 1995-2002, The Jerusalem Post ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************