***************************************************************** 11/24/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.305 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 UK: Robinson gets BE crisis call 2 Nuclear bail-out faces judicial review 3 British Energy praying Brown will bail it out 4 UK: NUCLEAR BATTLE IS SET TO PLAY OUT IN COURT 5 Editorial: Israel should join NATO 6 Claims on Iraq’s nuclear capability ‘ridiculous’ 7 Analysis: Can Nato honour its commitments? 8 US: Environmental shift 9 US finds evidence of Pakistan-North Korea nuclear pact : 10 Official feels chill from N. Korea 11 Jihad Unspun - A Clear View On The US War On "Terrorism" 12 UK: Time to call a halt to nuclear power, says minister 13 Walker's World: NATO's agonizing choice* 14 Commentary: Mending NATO's Mess* 15 In North Korea and Pakistan, Deep Roots of Nuclear Barter 16 N. Korea Seeks Help on Nonaggression Treaty 17 Pentagon Papers' Ellsberg sees deja vu in Iraq NUCLEAR REACTORS 18 US: Duane Arnold Nuke plant operator says survey is valid* 19 US: Entergy seeks nuke plant approval NUCLEAR SAFETY 20 Use nuclear power to destroy training camps in Pak: VHP 21 Afghan Diseases Attributed To American Uranium Bombs 22 'Dirty bomb' fears over nuclear trains 23 US: Sick workers program focuses on detection - 24 US: Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride Videos 25 Safety fears over Japan spent nuclear fuel plant NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 26 *Russian ministry proposes monitoring nuclear waste imports* 27 US: EPA Unhappy With Idaho Waste Plan 28 US: BARBERI/WILSON: With the Election Behind Us, We See What $3M Can 29 US: Envirocare Chicanery Claimed 30 US: Idaho: EPA wants better plan for waste removal 31 US: State-federal dispute over radioactive site stymies Clearfield NUCLEAR WEAPONS 32 US: Any war in Iraq to cost billions 33 US: Outside View: Looking for War with Iraq* 34 Family Life in Baghdad 35 Parole board discusses early release for Mordechai Vanunu 36 Parole board to discuss Vanunu again US DEPT. OF ENERGY 37 Delay in draining FFTF self-serving decision 38 New steps considered in effort to get more monetary support from 39 Energy Dept. Contractors Due for More Scrutiny OTHER NUCLEAR ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 UK: Robinson gets BE crisis call Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Minister who devised disastrous pricing plan for electricity brought back to sort out mess Oliver Morgan, industrial editor Sunday November 24, 2002 The Observer [http://www.observer.co.uk] Controversial former Treasury Minister Geoffrey Robinson has been drawn into the crisis facing British Energy (BE) as the Government and the company struggle to find a solution which avoids putting the nuclear generator into administration. Multi-millionaire Robinson, a key Treasury Minister during Labour's first term before he resigned after the revelation of his homeloan to Peter Mandelson, was a driving force behind the Government's 1998 energy White Paper. He advised on the New Electricity Trading Arrangements (Neta) which have seen prices plummet, causing havoc among generators. Robinson has been approached to advise on whether a credible rescue package can be devised to keep BE, currently supported by £650m 'rescue aid' from the Government, afloat in the pri vate sector and on how to stabilise Neta. A source close to the crisis said: 'He is thinking about how you unscramble the mess the market has become, and preserve diversity and security of supply in the long run, while hitting environmental targets.' Robinson supports nuclear power. He told the Commons on 22 October that its current contribution to generation should continue in future. His involvement has caused anxiety at the Department of Trade and Industry, where officials and Ministers are working this weekend to decide whether to extend the rescue aid beyond this week. A Whitehall source said the Government is likely to extend the aid, which the European Commission is preparing to approve, although a restructuring will not be finalised this week. But they added the situation was 'still fluid'. Officials and Ministers are concerned that if BE goes into administration it will be unable to realise full value for its Canadian assets - a key part of its restructuring plan. The firm hopes for a big profit on its 82 per cent stake in the Bruce nuclear power station there. But if BE went into administration, the price would slump - either because an administrator would carry out a 'fire sale', or because the station's licence would revert to the Canadian authorities without compensation. The Government is wary of a confrontation with shareholders similar to that faced by former Trade and Industry Secretary Stephen Byers, who was criticised for putting Railtrack into administration and hurting investors. It has also emerged that this weekend BE's largest creditor, British Nuclear Fuels, has renewed an offer to cut what it charges BE for reprocessing spent reactor fuel from £300m a year to £180m. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 2 Nuclear bail-out faces judicial review Independent.co.uk By Michael Harrison, Business Editor 23 November 2002 Environmental campaigners yesterday won the right to mount a legal challenge over the Government's £650m bail-out of the stricken nuclear electricity generator British Energy. The move came as the prospects increased of the Government agreeing to extend and increase the loan when it expires next week in order to give more time for a restructuring of the ailing generator. The High Court ruled that Greenpeace and the renewable energy company Ecotricty could seek a judicial review into the legality of the Government's bail-out decision. Sources close to the talks between the Government and the company say that although ministers maintain that administration is an option, sufficient progress has been made to buy British Energy more time. The restructuring would involve selling British Energy's Amergen and Bruce operations in North America, agreeing a debt-for-equity swap with its bankers and new contractual arrangements with British Nuclear Fuels for reprocessing the generator's spent fuel. The European Commission is preparing to give the loan the all-clear even though the Government was technically in breach of EU rules by not informing Brussels in advance of the granting of the state aid. However, Greenpeace and Ecotricity said they would still challenge the legality of the aid irrespective of whether it was cleared by Brussels. The groups claim the loan has distorted the energy market and damaged the prospects of renewable energy companies. The judicial review is scheduled to be heard in late January. Paul Lasok QC, counsel for Greenpeace and Ecotricity, told Mr Justice Maurice Kay that in normal circumstances a company in British Energy's position would have gone to the wall. This did not happen because it was granted state aid. "This cast on to other companies the serious consequences of over-capacity in the market," he said. "This choice appears to have been made for financial reasons because it was cheaper to engage in unlawful conduct." Sources close to the talks said the loan might have to be increased but not by a large amount. The modest rise in electricity prices has meant that provided British Energy can negotiate a standstill agreement with creditors, its financial position should not deteriorate further in the next year. Apart from the banks, the biggest creditor is BNFL, which receives £300m a year for reprocessing British Energy's spent fuel at Sellafield. EU approval will be conditional on the loan money being paid out at intervals and only when the Government is satisfied that it is necessary to meet British Energy's salaries and operating costs. Most of the current loan is being used to enable British Energy to meet its liquidity requirements in the electricity trading market, although about £5m a week is being put towards working capital. ** ***************************************************************** 3 British Energy praying Brown will bail it out Independent.co.uk By Jason Nissé 24 November 2002 Chancellor to borrow for public services British Energy praying Brown will bail it out British Energy will throw itself on the mercy of Chancellor Gordon Brown this week by saying it plans to negotiate a debt-for-equity swap to sort out its financial problems but will have no deal to put to its creditors. The Government has lent the troubled nuclear generator £650m to stop it going into administration, but the loan is due to be repaid on Friday. Senior sources have indicated that Mr Brown will not extend the help to British Energy unless the group is able to put forward plans to sort out its financial mess. British Energy's announcement will try his patience. He is under pressure from Patricia Hewitt, the Trade and Industry Secretary, not to force British Energy into administration but has expressed concerns about sup- porting the troubled business. The Government is worried that if the company went into administration, it would pose as big a problem as Railtrack. After it collapsed last year, the City successfully lobbied the Government for compensation for shareholders. Even if British Energy is able to propose a debt-for-equity swap, this will not end its worries. Holders of £125m of bonds due to be repaid in March are thought ready to reject any deal in the hope of being paid out when they mature. A number of US arbitrage funds are understood to have bought the bonds and are prepared for a fight. However, a leading credit analyst warned that this could be a risky strategy. "The £13bn nuclear liabilities are the problem," he said. "If British Energy goes into administration, the administrator could recognise these as current liabilities and none of the creditors will get a penny." British Energy has yet to agree a deal with BNFL, the state-owned fuels group, on cutting reprocessing charges. BNFL has offered a deal to cut charges from £300m a year to £180m, but British Energy does not think that is enough. British Energy also wants to sell its North American assets. The US business Amergen is being auctioned while British Energy is in talks with Cameco, minority shareholder in its Canadian business Bruce Power, about selling the business. But financial guarantee problems for Bruce and attempts to put price limits on Canadian electricity are likely to hit this business's value. /By Imad Khadduri/ As the war storm against Iraq swirls and gathers momentum, seeded by the efforts of the American and British governments, serious doubts arise as to the credibility of their intelligence sources, particularly the issue of Iraq’s nuclear capability. It has been often noted that reliable intelligence on this matter is not immediately forthcoming. Moreover, such intelligence as has been presented is spurious and often contradictory. Perhaps it is not too late to rectify this misinformation campaign. I worked with the Iraqi nuclear program from 1968 until my departure from Iraq in late 1998. Having been closely involved in most of the major nuclear activities of that program, from the Russian research reactor in the late sixties, to the French research reactors in the late seventies, the Russian nuclear power program in the early eighties, the nuclear weapons program during the eighties and finally the confrontations with UN inspection teams in the nineties, it behooves me to admit that I find present allegations about Iraq’s nuclear capability, as continuously advanced by the Americans and the British, to be ridiculous. Let us go back to 1991. A week before the cessation of a two-month saturation of bombings on the target-rich Iraq, the Americans realized that a certain complex of buildings in Tarmiah, that had just been carpet bombed for lack of any other remaining prominent targets, exhibited unusual swarming activity by rescuers the next morning. When they compared the photographs of that complex with other standing structures in Iraq, they were surprised to find an exact replica of that complex in the north of Iraq, near Sharqat, which was nearing completion. They directed their bombers to demolish the northern complex a few days before the end of hostilities. My family, along with the families of most prominent Iraqi nuclear scientists and the top management of the northern complex, were residing in the housing complex. The Tarmiah and Sharqat complexes were designed for housing the Calutron separators, similar to those used by the American Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bombs that were dropped by the Americans on Japan. At the end of 1991, after that infamous UN inspector, David Kay, got hold of many of the nuclear weapons program’s reports (reports whose maintenance and security I had been in charge of), the Americans realized that their saturated bombing had missed a most important complex of buildings: that complex at Al-Atheer, which was the center for the design and assembly of the nuclear bomb. A lone, single bomb, thermally guided, had hit the electric substation outside the perimeter of the complex, causing little damage. The glaring and revealing detail about these two events is the utter lack of any intelligence about these building complexes — information that should have caused the repository of American and British intelligence to overflow. That is to say, American and British intelligence had no idea of the programs that those buildings harbored — programs that had been ongoing at full steam for the previous ten years! What really happened to Iraq’s nuclear weapon program after the 1991 war? Immediately after the cessation of hostilities, the entire organization that was responsible for the nuclear weapons project turned its attention to the reconstruction of the heavily damaged oil refineries, electric power stations, and telephone exchange buildings. The combined expertise of the several thousand scientific, engineering, and technical cadres manifested itself in the restoration of the oil, electric and communication infrastructure in a matter of months — an impressive accomplishment, by any measure. Then the UN inspectors were ushered in. The senior scientists and engineers among the nuclear cadre were instructed many times on how to cooperate with the inspectors. We were also asked to hand in to our own officials any reports or incriminating evidence, with heavy penalties (up to the death penalty, in some cases) for failing to do so. In the first few months, the “clean sheets” were hung up for all to see. As the scientific questioning mounted, our scientists began to redirect the questioners to the actual technical documents themselves that had been amassed during the ten years of activity. These documents had been traveling up and down and throughout Iraq in a welded train car. Then the order was issued to return the project’s documents to their original location. At that point, David Kay pounced on them in the early morning hours of September 1991. Among the documents were those of Al-Atheer and the bomb specifics. In the following few years, the nuclear weapons project organization was slowly disbanded. By 1994, its various departments were either elevated to independent civilian industrial enterprises, or absorbed within the Military Industrial Authority under Hussain Kamil, who later escaped to Jordan in 1996 and then returned to Baghdad where he was murdered. Meanwhile, the brinkmanship with the UN inspectors continued. At one heated encounter, an American inspector remarked that the nuclear scientists and engineers were still around, and hinted accusingly that those scientists and engineers may be readily used for a rejuvenated nuclear program. The retort was, “What do you want us to do to satisfy you? Ask them to commit suicide?” In 1994, a report surfaced claiming that Iraq was still manufacturing a nuclear bomb and had been working on it since 1991. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors brought the report to Baghdad, demanding a full explanation. The inspectors requested my opinion on the authenticity of the report, inasmuch as I was the responsible agent for the proper issuance and archiving of all scientific and engineering documents for the nuclear weapons project during the eighties. It was my opinion that the report was well done, and most probably had been written by someone who had detailed knowledge of the established documentation procedures. However, as we pointed out to the IAEA inspectors, certain words used in the report would not normally be used by us, but, rather by Iranians, and we supplied an Arabic-Iranian dictionary to verify our findings. The IAEA inspectors never referred back to that report. During these years, crushing economic inflation was growing. It would spell the end for most of the Iraqi nuclear scientists’ and engineers’ careers in the following years. In 1996, Hussain Kamil, who was in charge of the entire range of chemical, biological and nuclear programs, announced from his self-imposed exile in Amman that there were hidden caches of important documentation on his farm in Iraq. (Apparently, he had had his security entourage stealthily salvage what they thought were the most important pieces of information and documentation in these programs.) The UN inspectors pounced on this, and a renewed string of confrontations occurred, until the inspectors were asked to leave Iraq in 1998. In the last few years of the nineties, we did our utmost to produce a satisfying report to the IAEA inspectors concerning the entire gamut of Iraq’s nuclear activities. The IAEA finally issued its report in October 1997, mapping these activities in great detail. The inspectors raised vague, “politically correct” queries which seemed obligatory in their intent. In the meantime, and this is the gist of my discourse, the economic standing of the Iraqi nuclear scientists and engineers (along with the rest of the civil servants and the professional middle class) has been pathetically reduced to poverty level. Even with occasional salary inducements and some insubstantial benefits, many of those highly educated persons have been forced to sell their possessions just to keep their families alive. Needless to say, their spirits are very low and their cynicism is high. Relatively few have managed to leave Iraq. The majority are too gripped by poverty, family needs, and fear of the brutal retaliation of the security apparatus to even consider a plan of escape. Their former determination and drive, profoundly evident in the eighties, has been crushed by harsh economic realities; their knowledge and experience grow rusty with the passage of time; their skills atrophy from lack of activity in their fields. Since my departure from Iraq in late 1998, one cannot help but notice the mien of those former nuclear scientists and engineers as being but a wispy phantom of a once elite cadre representing the zenith of scientific and technical thought in Iraq. Pathetic shadows of their former selves, the overwhelming fear that haunts them is the fear of retirement, with a whopping pension that equates to about $2 a month. Yet, the American and British intelligence community, obviously influenced by the war agenda, vainly attempts to continue to provide disinformation. For example, a consignment of aluminum pipes (the intelligence experts opine) might conceivably be used in the construction of highly advanced, “kilometers long” centrifugal spinners. The consideration that there are no remaining Iraqi personnel qualified to implement and maintain these supposed spinners seems to have eluded the intelligence agencies’ reports. Last month, a group of journalists was taken on a guided tour of a “possible” uranium extraction plant in Akashat in western Iraq. The Iraqi guide pointed to the obviously demolished buildings and asked tongue-in-cheek, “Who would make any use of these ruins? Maybe your experts would tell us how.” It is true that the Iraqi nuclear scientists and engineers did not commit suicide. But for all the remaining capability they possess to rebuild a nuclear weapons program, they may as well have. Bush and Blair are leading their public by the nose, attempting to cloak shoddy and erroneous intelligence data with hollow patriotic urgings and cajolery. But the two parading emperors have no clothes. (YellowTimes.org) Imad Khadduri has a MSc in physics from the University of Michigan, US, and a PhD in nuclear reactor technology from the University of Birmingham, UK. Khadduri worked with the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission from 1968 till 1998. He now teaches and works as a network administrator in Toronto, Canada. Comments: imad.khadduri@rogers.com Arab News /Features/ 25 November 2002 ***************************************************************** 7 Analysis: Can Nato honour its commitments? BBC NEWS | Europe | Friday, 22 November, 2002, [US Nato peacekeeping soldiers in Bosnia] The summit approved a raft of military proposals By Jonathan Marcus BBC defence correspondent Pre-scripted and pre-planned, the Nato Summit in Prague has achieved what it set out to do. [Iraqi man stands in front of portrait of Saddam Hussein ] Nato could play a role in stabilising a post-Saddam Iraq Invitations have been issued to the next batch of seven prospective members. And alliance heads of state and government have endorsed a sweeping raft of proposals to establish a new rapid response force, streamline Nato's military headquarters and focus spending on the key military capabilities needed to confront the new challenges of the 21st Century. The summit communique identifies terrorism as posing a grave and growing threat to alliance populations, forces and territory. Accordingly, Nato is to improve its defences against nuclear, chemical and biological attack. Still relevant? But the test for the new alliance will be to honour the commitments made here in Prague. Some analysts already wonder if the threat from global terrorism is sufficient to encourage countries to re-orientate their spending and to give this re-styled Nato renewed life. Critics say that Nato - new or old - is increasingly irrelevant. What, they ask, can the alliance contribute to a war against Iraq? Clearly, Nato as an organisation is not going to join in any military campaign. But the common standards and training of Nato forces will enable allies to work together on the ground. Re-launching ties Nato's political support for US action could also be important. [Russian President Vladimir Putin hands flowers to US First Lady Laura Bush as US President George W Bush looks on] Bush (centre) is currently meeting for talks with Putin (left) And in the aftermath of any conflict, Nato could potentially play a role in helping to stabilise a post-Saddam Iraq. Nato's relationship with a wider circle of countries was also under the spotlight here in Prague. Some six months on from the Nato-Russia summit - which re-launched ties between the alliance and Moscow - this new partnership seems to be going surprisingly well. Nato Secretary General George Robertson said that it was more than living up to expectations. Russian pragmatism When questioned after the meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov politely side-stepped the issue of Nato enlargement. [Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma looking pensive at Nato summit] Kuchma: Ostracised at Nato summit Russia's position on all of this was well known, he said, but he preferred to emphasise the need for progress in military co-operation between Russia and Nato and the common threat that they faced from terrorism. A few months ago it would have been unthinkable to have a high-ranking Russian presence here at a summit which saw invitations extended to the three Baltic Republics - former Soviet territories - to join Nato. The real diplomatic business will be done by US President George W Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg. But, in foreign policy terms, Mr Ivanov's presence here was a signal of the new Russian pragmatism in action. Ukrainian awkwardness Nato has not allowed their uninvited guest - the Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma - to spoil the proceedings. He has still not satisfactorily addressed alliance concerns that he may have sold sophisticated radar systems to Iraq. Mr Kuchma has been ignored by most Nato leaders here though he was seen chatting cordially with the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Around the table the countries are usually arranged in alphabetical order. This would have meant Mr Kuchma sitting near the US President and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The alliance deftly avoided any potential embarrassment by switching the seating plan to the other Alliance language - French - taking Ukraine well away from les Etats Unis (the United States) and the Royaume Uni, the United Kingdom. © MMII | News Sources | Privacy ***************************************************************** 8 Environmental shift The Daily Camera: Insight As Republicans take control of the Senate, expect a renewed push for energy exploration — and a skeptical review of key environmental laws By Eric Pianin and Helen Dewar, Washington Post November 24, 2002 WASHINGTON — Suddenly, President Bush's proposals to drill for oil in an Alaskan wilderness, boost energy exploration in the Rockies and consider changes to some major environmental laws are back in play, following the Republicans' resounding success in the November congressional elections. Nothing illustrates the shift in environmental politics more vividly than the leadership changes about to occur on two key Senate committees. The environment committee's chairmanship is switching from James Jeffords, I-Vt., a hero to many environmentalists, to James Inhofe, R-Okla., one of their least-liked lawmakers. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee, meanwhile, will be headed by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who supports drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The question of whether to drill in ANWR holds almost iconic status for conservatives and conservationists alike, and Democrats no longer have the Senate or White House control that helped them hold off the proposal for years. Domenici says he plans to vigorously promote energy exploration on federal lands — including ANWR — after he replaces Democrat Jeff Bingaman, N.M., as committee chairman. "Absolutely," Domenici said in a recent interview, "ANWR's got to be looked at." A senior Domenici aide went further, saying, "Any new energy bill would include ANWR." Diemer True, chairman of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, which represents 8,000 producers, said: "Clearly a Republican majority in the Senate will be more focused on domestic energy production, and we think that bodes well for domestic oil and gas producers." Energy exploration isn't the only issue the new Republican-controlled Congress will revisit. GOP leaders say they will challenge or review a handful of key environmental laws that govern power-plant emissions, water quality, endangered species, mining and other subjects. Those laws sometimes pose unnecessary impediments to production, Bush administration officials have said. The administration has tried to win many of these changes in the past 18 months through regulatory reform, executive orders and legislation. But it encountered stiff resistance from the Democratic-controlled Senate and from environmentalists who went to court to block drilling, mining and logging on government land. With many moderate Republicans sympathetic to green causes, few expect a repeat of the assault on bedrock environmental laws waged by then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and House Republicans in 1995, which triggered a voter backlash and contributed to Gingrich's political demise. Instead, Democrats and environmentalists say, the changes are likely to be achieved in more subtle ways, through riders to spending bills and tweaking of budgets for enforcing environmental regulations. "The real question for the Republicans and the White House is will they overplay their hand again?" said Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust. Administration officials say a renewed effort to adopt the president's energy and environmental proposals is necessary to meet energy needs and to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil — arguments that could become a rallying cry if the United States goes to war with Iraq. The House last year approved a version of the president's plan that included $33.5 billion in tax breaks and other incentives aimed at increasing oil and gas exploration, developing new coal-burning technologies and promoting nuclear energy and alternative energy sources. "The president remains committed to working with Congress to pass a comprehensive energy plan that expands conservation, increases energy efficiency and encourages more domestic exploration and production, in an environmentally responsible way," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. But environmentalists and Democrats fear that with the Senate no longer an automatic brake on administration initiatives, officials will press for revisions to the National Environmental Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act and other landmark laws. "I think the big picture is that we'll have a huge fight on our hands to protect everything we've achieved in the past 30 years," said Gregory Wetstone of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., warned Republicans that "anyone who wants to appeal to the public is going to have to stick to the mainstream on the environment." One of the most dramatic signs of the new order is Inhofe's replacement of Jeffords as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Jeffords, whose defection from the GOP enabled Democrats to claim control of the Senate 17 months ago, has been a staunch ally of environmentalists and sharp critic of Bush's policies. Inhofe is a conservative and vigorous critic of the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws. Inhofe, 67, a former real estate developer, has frequently accused the Environmental Protection Agency of exceeding its powers in regulating industry. Last week he said he will press government agencies to apply cost-benefit standards and "sound science" to proposed environmental rule making, an approach strongly favored by the White House budget office and libertarian groups that favor reducing government regulations. He also pledged to provide "strong oversight" and review of the enforcement of clean air laws and other environmental measures. Some environmentalists see that as code for seeking to weaken or gut the laws. Inhofe said: "I want to work in a bipartisan fashion to create fiscally responsible policies that are based on sound science and cost-benefit analyses." Meanwhile, Domenici intends to increase spending on nuclear energy facilities, according to aides. New Mexico is home to the Department of Energy's Los Alamos and Sandia National laboratories. Domenici is a champion of nuclear energy research and production. Domenici, 70, also would like to restrict environmentalists' ability to go to court to block mining, drilling, logging and grazing on federal lands, saying those decisions should be left to Congress and federal agencies. He said in an interview he will launch a comprehensive review of government management practices of "the entire public domain," with an eye to seeking management changes. "I'm concerned about how those who don't like the laws of our land find loopholes and other ways to get the land into court because they want their way," Domenici said. With so much on next year's congressional agenda — from transportation, power-plant emissions, global warming and forest fire management to Superfund toxic site cleanups — significant environmental policy changes appear inevitable. The Nov. 5 elections netted at least two new Senate votes for oil and gas drilling in Alaska. The House, but not the Senate, voted this year to allow drilling in ANWR. Republicans concede they are still short of the 60-vote majority needed to break a Democratic-led filibuster against the drilling proposal. Several senators, including Democratic leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., have indicated a filibuster is likely to block what they say would be irreparable harm to a unique wilderness area. webmaster@thedailycamera.com ***************************************************************** 9 US finds evidence of Pakistan-North Korea nuclear pact : World News : IndiaExpress.Com 16.59 IST 24th Nov 2002 By IndiaExpress Bureau The cat is out of the bag now. American intelligence agencies have tracked a Pakistani cargo plane, which landed at a North Korean airfield and took on ballistic missile parts. This conclusively proves the existence of a secret nuclear pact between Pakistan and North Korea. Images of the US-built C 130 plane making the sortie in July were recorded by US spy satellites, according to 'New York Times'. Since then, US intelligence agencies have been silent spectators to the barter deal between Pakistan and North Korea. While North Korea gave Pakistan missile parts Islamabad needs to build a nuclear arsenal, which can hit strategic sites in India, Pakistan provided North Korea with many of the designs for gas centrifuges and much of the machinery for making highly enriched uranium for Pyong Yang’s latest nuclear weapons project, the daily said. Over the past few months, it has become clear that Pakistan and North Korea share a relationship that is deeper and more dangerous than the US and allies first suspected. For instance, even though Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf supported US fight against terrorism, the A Q Khan Nuclear Research Laboratories continued its ties with the North Korean military. ***************************************************************** 10 Official feels chill from N. Korea Daily Yomiuri On-Line Yomiuri Shimbun Hitoshi Tanaka, a foreign ministry official who played a key role in organizing the historic summit between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, is troubled over being given the cold shoulder by North Korean officials. Since normalization talks last month ended without significant agreements, the head of the ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau has been left out of the loop by the North Korean government's foreign affairs arm--on which he relied to sustain his diplomatic clout in North Korea policy. Given the North Koreans' uncompromising attitude during the latest talks, and their admission that they have been secretly developing nuclear weapons in defiance of international accords, prospects for the Japan-North Korea normalization talks now appear dim. Tanaka realized he had lost the North Koreans' confidence during a futile phone conversation earlier this month with a high-ranking North Korean official who is influential in the military and reportedly is one of Kim Jong Il's closest aides. The North Korean said, "I can't convey your claim on this issue to my superiors." For more than a year, Tanaka had worked hard to gain the North Koreans' trust. It all paid off when the two governments officially agreed to hold the Koizumi-Kim summit on Sept. 17. Then, under government pressure that Tanaka had helped build, Kim Jong Il officially acknowledged and apologized for Pyongyang's abductions of Japanese. Due to the diplomatic breakthrough, five abductees were allowed to return home on a temporary basis. But, Tokyo-Pyongyang relations have chilled again since the government decided not to return the five abductees to Pyongyang on Oct. 24. For Tanaka, the relationship deteriorated to levels much worse than before the summit. The practically fruitless Oct. 29-30 normalization talks decisively damaged ties between the nations, especially Tanaka's links with North Korean officials. Tanaka found that while North Korean officials will still take his calls, they will not answer his questions or respond to his requests. Tanaka has never been a nobody in the ministry or the nation's diplomatic circles. Indeed, he won the nickname "Mr. National Interests" due to his success in paving the way to the 1996 agreement with the United States on the return of the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station in Okinawa Prefecture. He reportedly has made it his motto to solve issues through dialogue based on a foundation of mutual trust. During presummit working-level negotiations with North Korean foreign-affairs officials to draft the Japan-North Korea Pyongyang Declaration, which was signed by the two leaders at the end of the summit, Tanaka reportedly insisted on the inclusion of a phrase calling for each side to have good faith in the other. But maintaining good faith with North Korea became extremely difficult when the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush warned the government just before the Sept. 17 summit that North Korea was secretly developing nuclear weapons. The government since has become the subject of U.S. skepticism over its North Korea policy. On Sept. 16, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi visited Washington to meet with high-ranking U.S. officials. The officials are said to have been dumbfounded on sensing that Kawaguchi lacked a sense of crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear development program. During the talks, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reportedly asked Kawaguchi to step into another room for a private conversation and briefed her on North Korea's nuclear development program. According to sources, the U.S. officials believed that if Tanaka learned of any top secrets about North Korea he would not report them to the top echelon of the Japanese government. The officials reportedly told the Japanese side as much during the meeting. On Friday afternoon, the ministry called an emergency senior-level meeting to discuss a review of the government's North Korea policy. Tanaka, who attended the meeting, seemed sulky when talking to reporters later. Tanaka was quoted as telling the reporters that he had committed himself to negotiating with North Korea in line with government policy and his efforts had proved fruitless. "But it apparently can't be helped, now that my connections with the North Koreans have been cut off," he reportedly said. Because an official at the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur who attended the talks in that city may be transferred soon, there is a view in the government that North Korea has lost interest in continuing normalization talks. Tanaka is expected to be promoted to deputy vice foreign minister in mid-December or soon after. The members of North Korea's Japan team also are expected to be reshuffled. Tanaka apparently has resigned himself to the ministry's personnel policy. "I've devoted my career to diplomacy," he was quoted as saying. "If the ministry has determined that I've been acting for my personal motives, I don't mind if I'm transferred." Soon after James Kelly, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, visited Japan and North and South Korea early last month, Tanaka spoke frankly with those close to him. "Working on negotiations with North Korea over the normalization of bilateral ties is a job that any diplomat would dream of," he was quoted as saying. "But under the current circumstances, the United States may resort to any action, possibly even war (against North Korea) in the worst-case scenario." He added he has doubts whether the ministry's North Korea team, which he heads, did the right thing by proceeding with normalization negotiations "I may be traumatized by this for the rest of my life," he said. Copyright 2002 The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 11 Jihad Unspun - A Clear View On The US War On "Terrorism" Afghan Diseases Attributed To American Uranium Bombs Nov 24, 2002 Source: Islam News, Translated By Jihad Unspun As a result of large number of chemical weapons used by the Americans in their campaign in Afghanistan, hundreds of Afghans near the Safayed Koh (White Mountain) area in southern Nangahar and villages around Tora Bora have been severely hit with diseases of the skin, respiratory system and lungs as well as stomach diseases and coughs. According to news from the area, last year during November and December, the Americans bombarded the renowned Jihad centre of Tora Bora with a huge number of bombs, cruise missiles and chemical weapons which have casued the diseases the residents of the area are now experiencing. In Jalalabad, a doctor working for World Health Organization said after examining some of these patients that in the coming two to three months, deaths are expected to rise as a result of chemicals and uranium used in bombs which hit the area. While protesting against these diseases, locals have started to think about migrating away from the area however patients in the Shami area, Paktia province have been found to have the same diseases. America used hundreds of bombs in Shah-i-Kot and Paktia last year that contained uranium that contained four hundred times more Uranium than the bombs used in Iraq during the Gulf war. Medical experts predict that these affects would be felt for a long time. ***************************************************************** 12 UK: Time to call a halt to nuclear power, says minister Ananova - Cabinet minister Peter Hain says nuclear power should be consigned to the past. The former Energy Minister said a huge expansion in green energy sources could replace the nuclear plants. Speaking to The Western Mail newspaper, he said it would, however, require a planning shake-up to overcome local objections to green projects. He stated: "We've got to end the curse of nimbyism which is really like a plague... Or we will end up with, whether we like it or not, more nuclear power stations." An energy supply review has been completed by current Energy Minister Brian Wilson, who is viewed as a supporter of nuclear power. Its findings will shape Government policy over the coming decades, to be set out shortly in a White Paper. Mr Hain told the paper: "The nuclear option is still a matter to be discussed. "But my own view is that I don't see a queue of companies wanting to build nuclear power stations. "And there's an enormous legacy of liabilities in terms of storing and disposing the waste. He added: "I think that we need to ask if we want to be dealing with that legacy forever." Story filed: 21:29 Sunday 24th November 2002 Copyright © 2002 Ananova Ltd ***************************************************************** 13 Walker's World: NATO's agonizing choice* United Press International By Martin Walker UPI Chief International Correspondent Published 11/24/2002 5:14 AM PRAGUE, Czech Republic, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Amid the fizzing champagne and celebrations of their invitation to join the alliance at this week's NATO summit, the seven new members from Central and Eastern Europe are haunted by the nagging fear that they might be becoming children adopted into an almost broken home. The first sound they heard of the parents crashing the crockery came earlier this year with the row between Europe and the United States over the International Criminal Court. All the members of the European Union signed up for this dramatic spread of the power of international law and retribution. The United States refused, fearing politically motivated charges of war crimes against its own troops and officials. In self-protection, the United States began collecting protective bilateral agreements with individual countries, and Romania, determined to become one of this week's new NATO members, hastened to sign. (Partly in reward, President George W. Bush chose Romania as one of the main stops on his post-summit Eastern Europe tour.) But Romania is equally determined to join the EU, and the EU made it clear that signing up for the ICC was the equivalent of a loyalty oath. That row was patched over. Another is brewing. NATO this week agreed to take "effective action" to force Iraq to comply with the United Nations resolutions, but after French resistance stopped short of pledging military action. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder repeated his refusal to take part in a war at the NATO summit this week. The Vilnius Group of Eastern European countries, by contrast, issued their own statement saying they were "unconditionally" ready to back a U.S.-led military action if the weapons inspections fail. This was an action the Americans had confidently expected, long convinced that the new NATO members with experience of life under Communist oppression would be far more pro-American and far less squeamish about the use of force to defend freedom than the comfortable Western Europeans. "The new democracies of Europe should redeem the balance of the old in restoring the relationship with the United States," said Timothy Garton-Ash, a British historian of the fall of Communism and occasional adviser to prime minister Tony Blair. "One Eastern European president told me that if he ever had to make a choice between the EU and the United States, he would pick the Americans." For most of the past decade, it was blithely assumed that joining both the EU and NATO was a double winner for the new democracies, their path to a combined nirvana of EU prosperity and NATO security. But as the tensions over trade and Iraq and global warming and the ICC sharpen the relationship between the U.S. and Europe, there is growing fear that the Eastern Europeans could be facing the strategic equivalent of Sophie's choice. "It is unfair to us to put us in a position where we have to choose between Europe and America," complains Slovakia's foreign minister Eduard Kukan. "We should refuse that choice," adds Michael Zantovsky, chairman of the Czech Senate's foreign affairs committee, and a former Ambassador to the U.S. "We must refuse it. We are European to the core, but we know from history that Europe left to its own devices usually leads to arguments between the larger European powers -- and to violence that tends to get visited on us. We need the Americans in Europe, so I hope the choice between thrust upon us will not become intolerable." One major European country lives constantly with the diplomatic schizophrenia that the EU-U.S. choice imposes. Britain, described during this week's NATO summit as "our closest friend" by President Bush, was initially kept out of Europe in the 1960s by the veto of French President Charles De Gaulle. The recent publication of France's diplomatic documents for the period cites De Gaulle telling the then British prime minister Harold Macmillan "the idea of choosing between Europe and America is not yet ripe in your mind." (See "Why the General said No", International Affairs, October 2002.) Britain only joined Europe after De Gaulle lost power and has been a member of the EU since 1973. But it has never been fully accepted by France or Germany as a committed European because of London's insistence on maintaining the "special relationship" with Washington. But Britain, as the EU's second largest economy and most powerful military power, has the weight to survive this tension. The small powers of Central and Eastern Europe command far fewer resources -- at least individually. That is why the statement of the Vilnius Group of 10 of them to back America over Iraq is so important. It suggests that the new NATO members are prepared to band together as a diplomatic unit to refuse the dreadful choice they see looming ahead. In reality, that means banding together to support America within Europe, a stand that could sharpen Washington's tensions with France and Germany even further. Copyright © 2002 United Press International ***************************************************************** 14 Commentary: Mending NATO's Mess* United Press International By Ira Straus Published 11/24/2002 1:20 AM WASHINGTON, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- The expansion of NATO at this month's Prague Summit gives pressing urgency to the need to streamline and carefully reexamine the Alliance's top-level decision-making procedures. Until recently, the debate on NATO had a surrealistic quality. No one was asking what strategic benefits or forces the new Eastern European members could bring to the alliance; instead it was simply asked whether their minuscule militaries could fit into NATO technical standards. No one was asking how to secure the good behavior of new members after they joined, only how to tighten up the standards to be met prior to accession. No one was worried that the new members might try to obstruct strategic cooperation with Russia; only after the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington of Sept. 11, 2001 did it really start to dawn on U.S. and Atlantic Alliance policymakers that Russia's strategic help was really needed. Previously, terrorism and nuclear proliferation were treated as hypothetical dangers. And no one was then paying attention to the damage the increase in membership might do to NATO's capabilities for making decisions that are timely, relevant, and robust. NATO simply "ruled" that its 1999 expansion had not done any harm to decision-making, and so ruled out any serious discussion. Sept. 11, 2001 changed all that. NATO's Secretary-General, Lord George Robertson of Britain, faced with a terrorism crisis, came into his own as a world leader. He shifted emphasis from expanding the membership to transforming the structure of the Alliance, building more flexible capabilities, and building cooperation with Russia, the only ex-communist country that could help in the new war. Robertson called for developing greater flexibility in the political and military structures of NATO, so that NATO would be able to focus on the tasks of the new era and adapt to the fast-changing challenges of a fast-moving enemy. He called for "modernizing" the decision-making processes of NATO, so they would be flexible enough that NATO could go on making decisions expeditiously no matter how many new members it might take. He changed the watchword of the Prague summit from the Enlargement Summit to the Transformation Summit. The Pentagon chipped in with the idea of a NATO rapid reaction force. NATO adopted the plan in Prague. Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, raised the question of expulsion of members who behave badly. The behavior of the three new Eastern European members was in some respects opposite to what it was supposed to have been. Yet NATO membership was a one-way street with no way back. Levin was not impressed by warnings that Russia might get a power of de facto veto if the West talked more with it: all that was at issue was taking Russia's views "into consideration", and this was not, he said, "tantamount to giving Russia a veto." However, Levin asked whether it was safe for NATO's own members to have a right of veto. If a new member went bad and became a dictatorship, he warned, it could veto everything NATO does. There is a confusion behind the talk of a veto in NATO. It is usually said by NATO that all decisions are made by consensus, implying that each member has a right of veto. In reality there is no legal requirement of consensus, nor right of veto. Nevertheless the official view is partially true: the common NATO practice does try to reach a consensus at least for public consumption and so gives each member a de facto veto. The use of the veto is strongly discouraged, but it does retain a phantom existence as long as NATO retains the rhetoric of pure consensus. The ambiguous status of the veto makes the prospect of too many countries around the table a very real danger, but also a danger that can be overcome fairly quickly since no new treaty would be needed. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has pointedly brought up the danger of too many members for the present forms of decision-making. She has called on NATO to reconsider its reliance on consensus, warning that it would water itself down to a debating club if it too many new members into an unreformed Council structure. During the 1997 first round of NATO expansion, when Albright had been in office, she had supported expansion without linking it to reform, thus handing a de facto veto power to three Eastern European countries. They have proceeded since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to use their role in NATO to obstruct the Alliance from its strategic goal of building close cooperation with Russia. Today Albright proposes doing without consensus. A working group sponsored by the Stanley Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson International Center has also recommended moving beyond consensus. Weighted voting, once treated as belonging to a different world, is now entertained as a preferable method. This accords with the suggestions made some time ago by David Abshire, former US ambassador to NATO. In NATO as in the 15-nation European Union, widening requires deepening. NATO is a dozen years behind the EU in facing this problem, but it has one advantage: it can change its procedures without having to make treaty amendments. The NATO Council controls its own procedures. Ambassador Theodore Achilles, the main U.S. author of the NATO Treaty, used to explain that Article 9 of the Treaty, which sets up the Council without specifying its procedures, was no oversight: it was a deliberate step to make sure that NATO would not be hamstrung, like most international organizations, with a right of veto. There are a number of options for decision methods beyond consensus. The first of them is simply a more flexible interpretation of consensus itself, by taking the onus off NATO to wait for a consensus, and putting the onus instead on individual countries to compromise and fall in quickly with the main tendency of discussion. This has already been partly implemented. However, it can succeed in the long run only if NATO has an option of moving on to other methods in the event that a country persists in obstructing consensus. Such other methods include: consensus minus one or two; voting by country; and weighted voting, in which every country is given a weight based on its population. This last method, if held in reserve for use only when consensus proves unworkable, would be the most realistic. It would mimic the power weight that every country de facto already has in NATO; it would simply make the weights explicit, and would not allow a small minority weight to obstruct the workings of a large majority. There is still time for NATO to adopt such procedures, or to write them into the protocols of accession of the new members. The discussion has begun late, but it remains to be seen whether it is too late. The question is whether the necessary corrections will be made in the coming months, before the protocols are sealed and the new members take their seat at the table. On this question hinges the future of the Alliance. (Ira Straus is U.S. coordinator of the Committee on Eastern Europe and Russia in NATO) Copyright © 2002 United Press International ***************************************************************** 15 In North Korea and Pakistan, Deep Roots of Nuclear Barter The New York Times November 24, 2002* *ALLIANCES* *By DAVID E. SANGER* SEOUL, South Korea, Nov. 21 ? Last July, American intelligence agencies tracked a Pakistani cargo aircraft as it landed at a North Korean airfield and took on a secret payload: ballistic missile parts, the chief export of North Korea's military. The shipment was brazen enough, in full view of American spy satellites. But intelligence officials who described the incident say even the mode of transport seemed a subtle slap at Washington: the Pakistani plane was an American-built C-130. It was part of the military force that President Pervez Musharraf had told President Bush last year would be devoted to hunting down the terrorists of Al Qaeda, one reason the administration was hailing its new cooperation with a country that only a year before it had labeled a rogue state. But several times since that new alliance was cemented, American intelligence agencies watched silently as Pakistan's air fleet conducted a deadly barter with North Korea. In transactions intelligence agencies are still unraveling, the North provided General Musharraf with missile parts he needs to build a nuclear arsenal capable of reaching every strategic site in India. In a perfect marriage of interests, Pakistan provided the North with many of the designs for gas centrifuges and much of the machinery it needs to make highly enriched uranium for the country's latest nuclear weapons project, one intended to put at risk South Korea, Japan and 100,000 American troops in Northeast Asia. The Central Intelligence Agency told members of Congress this week that North Korea's uranium enrichment program, which it discovered only this summer, will produce enough material to produce weapons in two to three years. Previously it has estimated that North Korea probably extracted enough plutonium from a nuclear reactor to build one or two weapons, until that program was halted in 1994 in a confrontation with the United States. Yet the C.I.A. report ? at least the unclassified version ? made no mention of how one of the world's poorest and most isolated nations put together its new, complex uranium project. In interviews over the past three weeks, officials and experts in Washington, Pakistan and here in the capital of South Korea described a relationship between North Korea and Pakistan that now appears much deeper and more dangerous than the United States and its Asian allies first suspected. The accounts raise disturbing questions about the nature of the uneasy American alliance with General Musharraf's government. The officials and experts described how, even after Mr. Musharraf sided with the United States in ousting the Taliban and hunting down Qaeda leaders, Pakistan's secretive A. Q. Khan Nuclear Research Laboratories continued its murky relationship with the North Korean military. It was a partnership linking an insecure Islamic nation and a failing Communist one, each in need of the other's expertise. Pakistan was desperate to counter India's superior military force, but encountered years of American-imposed sanctions, so it turned to North Korea. For its part, North Korea, increasingly cut off from Russia and China, tried to replicate Pakistan's success in developing nuclear weapons based on uranium, one of the few commodities that North Korea has in plentiful supply. Yet while the United States has put tremendous diplomatic pressure on North Korea in the past two months to abandon the project, and has cut off oil supplies to the country, it has never publicly discussed the role of Pakistan or other nations in supplying that effort. American and South Korean officials, when speaking anonymously, say the reason is obvious: the Bush administration has determined that Pakistan's cooperation in the search for Al Qaeda is so critical ? especially with new evidence suggesting that Osama bin Laden is still alive, perhaps on Pakistani soil. So far, the White House has ignored federal statutes that require President Bush to impose stiff economic penalties on any country involved in nuclear proliferation or, alternatively, to issue a public waiver of those penalties in the interest of national security. Mr. Bush last year removed penalties that were imposed on Pakistan after it set off a series of nuclear tests in 1998. *Continued* 1 | 2 ***************************************************************** 16 N. Korea Seeks Help on Nonaggression Treaty The Salt Lake Tribune -- Sunday, November 24, 2002 By HOWARD W. FRENCH THE NEW YORK TIMES TOKYO -- North Korea on Saturday asked its estranged neighbor, South Korea, to join it in pressing the United States to sign a nonaggression treaty, in an unusual appeal apparently aimed at reducing its isolation. The call by North Korea to the South comes as the United States, Japan and South Korea have initiated penalties against North Korea for its violation of nuclear arms control agreements. The North and South are linked by language, history and ethnicity, though they have been divided since the 1950-53 war. A peace treaty has never been signed. U.S. intelligence reports have indicated that North Korea violated the 1994 nuclear nonproliferation accord known as the Agreed Framework by secretly conducting a nuclear weapons production program based on uranium enrichment. North Korean officials reportedly confirmed the existence of a uranium program during a meeting with visiting U.S. diplomats in early October, saying it was justified by threats from the United States. The decision earlier this month to suspend deliveries of fuel oil to North Korea under the 1994 agreement was meant to force it to abandon its illegal weapons program. North Korea's response has been two-pronged. On the one hand it has angrily accused the United States of destroying the framework. At the same time, North Korea has stepped up longstanding calls to the United States for recognition and guarantees of the country's security, hinting that it would abandon its nuclear programs in exchange. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 17 Pentagon Papers' Ellsberg sees deja vu in Iraq Reuters AlertNet - 24 Nov 2002 17:18 By Jane Sutton MIAMI, Nov 24 (Reuters) - When Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg wrote a new memoir chronicling his decision to leak secret U.S. military documents exposing official lies about the Vietnam War, he had no inkling the United States could soon be at war with Iraq. A week after the October release of his book, "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers," Congress authorized President George W. Bush to wage war if necessary to disarm Baghdad. Ellsberg is busy doing what he wishes he had done earlier during the Vietnam War -- sounding the alarm. "I would give anything that is mine to give to avert this war, anything truthful and nonviolent to avert this war, which I think will be a catastrophe, and it will usher in an age of catastrophes," Ellsberg told Reuters during a weekend visit to the Miami Book Fair. "The future is bleak but not hopeless. I am trying to do what I can to at least warn people. The risks are too great." Ellsberg's view of the probable future is bleak indeed. If Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network launches a "spectacular" terrorist attack on the United States as the FBI has warned, it will trigger a U.S. invasion of Iraq even if Baghdad is not involved, he predicts. If there is no attack soon, the United States will provoke Iraq into shooting down one of its aircraft in the "no-fly" zones in southern and northern Iraq, he said. "If Saddam doesn't manage to shoot down one of our planes, our planes will fly lower and lower," Ellsberg said. "We're going to be at war with Iraq well before Christmas." Saddam would then use poison gas against U.S. troops, triggering a retaliatory U.S. attack on his bunkers with earth-penetrating nuclear weapons that would inadvertently cause mass civilian deaths and "create hundreds of thousands of new recruits for suicide training," he said. "I believe they (the U.S. government) are very smart. They would have to be very stupid to believe that this would reduce the chances of terrorism. It will increase it sharply." Saddam would make his weapons of mass destruction available to al Qaeda, allowing them to stage attacks that will wipe out Israel and many of its neighbors and prompt armies sympathetic to Islamist causes to take over Pakistan and Indonesia and set off a grab for Pakistan's nuclear weapons. A NEW AGE OF BARBARISM? "It will make it impossible for these countries whose cooperation in hunting for al Qaeda cells is absolutely essential," Ellsberg said. "We will no longer be able to reduce al Qaeda's strength. ... Osama will be a hero for the Muslim world for the next thousand years." End result: A new age of barbarism, he said. "The world is going to look eventually like Afghanistan outside of Kabul." Others have posed such doomsday scenarios, but in the case of Iraq, the United States' military superiority has grown so overwhelming since the 1991 Gulf war that even NATO has been left behind. Iraq's military is much smaller than it was. U.S. officials have said they have no intention of using nuclear weapons against Saddam, but have warned that if he unleashes biological or chemical agents, all bets are off. In making his predictions, Ellsberg does have unique credentials, albeit from a different age and a different conflict. The former Marine and ex-Pentagon official was part of a defense think tank that wrote a secret study of U.S. policy in Vietnam. The 7,000-page study, which became known as the Pentagon Papers, revealed that four presidents had steadily lied to the public and Congress about the U.S. war in Southeast Asia. Disillusioned, Ellsberg leaked it to newspapers in 1971, setting off a furor that helped pave the way for the U.S. pull-out from Vietnam. Ellsberg was imprisoned on espionage charges that were thrown out in 1973 and says he regrets only that he did not blow the whistle sooner. "The worst thing I ever did was help get the bombing started" in Vietnam, he said. He wrote his book, he said, because it holds timeless lessons on "the folly of self-delusion." It opens with Ellsberg's discovery that the supposed North Vietnamese attack on a U.S. Navy ship in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 probably never happened and that President Lyndon Johnson knew it when he used the purported attack to persuade Congress to authorize U.S. military force in the region. Ellsberg calls the Iraq war authorization "Tonkin Gulf II," adding: "I've studied this government's decision-making for 44 years. I don't know these specific individuals but I know some of their advisors. I understand that thinking. "This war will look very, very bad within months after it starts," he said. "This war is an abomination that must not happen." ***************************************************************** 18 Duane Arnold Nuke plant operator says survey is valid* GAZETTE ONLINE *The Gazette Saturday, November 23, 2002, 9:48:51 AM* *PALO* -- If you have received a telephone call requesting information about how many people live in your home and how many times a year you take a vacation, don't be alarmed. The Nuclear Management Co., operator of the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Palo, is conducting a survey required every 10 years following completion of the U.S. Census. Paul Sullivan, NMC manager of emergency planning, said the information is necessary to assure an orderly evacuation in the event of an emergency at the nuclear power plant. "We are surveying residents within a 10-mile radius of the plant," Ross said. "We use the information to determine how many people we would need to evacuate and whether there has been a significant change in road or traffic patterns since the last survey." Ross Marketing of Hiawatha is conducting the survey for an NMC contractor, according to Sullivan. He said telemarketers will clarify why they are seeking the information. All local content copyright © 2002 by Gazette Communications - Cedar Rapids, IA ***************************************************************** 19 Entergy seeks nuke plant approval [http://www.clarionledger.com/e] [The Clarion-Ledger: Mississippi's News Source] November 24, 2002 + Government to aid utility in Grand Gulf site-approval costs By James V. Walker jvwalker@clarionledger.com By taking the first steps toward a new reactor in Grand Gulf, Jackson-based Entergy Nuclear is leading the way in a federal government push to develop more nuclear plants by 2010. It's far from a done deal. In fact, Entergy's nuclear communications manager, Carl Crawford, said the decision to build may not come for years, if at all. The new "early site review process" — which Entergy is pioneering — allows the company to apply for site approval, then "bank" that approval for up to 40 years until conditions are right, Crawford said. As long as natural gas prices stay low, building a new nuclear reactor may cost too much to be justified. But the company is taking full advantage of new nuclear-friendly government incentives, including a U.S. Department of Energy program that will pay for half the estimated $9 million cost of applying for site approval. People in Claiborne County are taking talk of a new reactor seriously. Ollie Wells grew up in Grand Gulf and can see the nuclear power plant's massive cooling tower from her front yard. "If something happened over there, before we knew anything, we wouldn't have any chance to get out of here," Wells said. "I hope they don't build another one, but I know they're trying to." Supervisor Martha Lott, who attended a recent informational meeting about the proposal, said she isn't yet sold on the idea. "I was concerned (about a potential nuclear accident) when Grand Gulf first came here," Lott said. "Now, when you start talking about terrorism, I think a nuclear plant could be a major target." Lott points to the county's fire department, which she says is under-equipped and staffed mainly by volunteers, and the closest hospital, more than 30 minutes away in Vicksburg. Claiborne County is also still smarting from a law that took effect in 1990, which forced the county to split Grand Gulf Nuclear Station's tax revenues with local governments around the state. About $8 million of the $20 million in tax revenues from the nuclear plant go to Port Gibson and Claiborne County. The rest — as a result of a 1986 referendum vote — goes to Mississippi counties in Entergy's service area. Joseph Davis Sr., head of the Claiborne County NAACP, said he hopes taxes on any new reactor stay closer to home, to beef up police, fire and medical services. "Our issue is safety," Davis said. "Other counties are getting the money, and we've got the bomb right here in our laps." Environmentalists are also expressing concerns. Landon Huey, coordinator of the activist group Greens of Jackson, said it's unwise to consider a plan that would increase the state's output of nuclear waste. "Do we really want twice as much radioactive waste in Mississippi?" Huey said. But Bill Lauderdale, a supervisor in neighboring Warren County, said a new reactor could be a boon for his constituents. "There are good-paying jobs down there," Lauderdale said. "We have certainly benefited from the construction of the first (reactor)." Crawford and other industry spokesmen argue the nuclear waste issue will be solved by government plans to ship all the waste to a special repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. But experts disagree about how long the underground facility will take to fill up. Crawford said the company plans to have its early site review application in by June 2003. Then, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission could take a year or more to review the application, said Roger Hannah, spokesman for the commission. "This would be the first one the agency has undertaken," Hannah said. During the review, the nuclear commission will host community meetings to get local input, he said. If the site is approved, Entergy must still get approval for a specific reactor design and a construction permit before beginning to build. During the early site review process, three main issues are studied: site safety, environmental impact and emergency preparedness. Approving a site in advance of a decision to build is a way of shortening the time between "conception and construction," a gap that historically could stretch over a decade or more, Hannah said. It's just one of the ways that the Bush administration is hoping to encourage new nuclear plants. The president's proposed 2003 budget contains $38 million for the "Nuclear Power 2010" program. Part of that money would be used to demonstrate early site review by paying half the cost of the environmental assessments and other documents required of Entergy and other companies. Other elements of the Nuclear 2010 program include proposals for taxpayers to share in the costs of reactor design and even plant construction. "The federal government is encouraging all nuclear utilities to just go for it," Crawford said. "The bottom line is that nuclear is the only large-scale source of energy that doesn't emit any air pollution and doesn't depend on foreign fuel." But David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the new, streamlined process makes it tougher for people to get involved. Specifically, Lochbaum said site approval shouldn't be separated from discussion of what type of reactor would be going on the site. He added that local residents aren't likely to get involved over a hypothetical project that may never happen. "By the time it becomes serious, the public comment period has passed, and the legal options are nonexistent," Lochbaum said. But Thelma Wiggins, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, said the new process encourages public input by starting it earlier in the process. "I think it provides public participation at the stages where it's more fundamental," Wiggins said. "It happens at the onset, before everything is settled." Crawford said Entergy is proud to be taking the lead in testing the new permit process, but the company is not rushing to meet the government's 2010 deadline. "It's all going to boil down to a question of economics," he said. "It depends on what fuel source is going to be the lowest cost and most reliable for our customers." Entergy has a huge investment in nuclear power. Entergy Nuclear is the fastest growing nuclear operator in the country, and the second largest, with a total of 10 reactors. It recently purchased the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant for $180 million. But will Entergy be the first company in more than a decade to build a new nuclear reactor? "Who knows?" Crawford said. Copyright © 2002, The Clarion-Ledger. ***************************************************************** 20 Use nuclear power to destroy training camps in Pak: VHP PHAGWARA, NOV 24 (PTI) VHP today said India should destroy terrorist training camps in Pakistan by undertaking an operation in the same way as Israel had done in some of its neighbouring countries. "If required, India should use nuclear power for eliminating these trans-border camps", VHP national secretary Mohan Joshi told reporters here while brushing aside a suggestion that it would lead to a nuclear war. The Islamic terrorist network of Talibans, al-Qaida and Bin Laden was not confined to Jammu and Kashmir only, its infrastructure had spread across the country, he said. Joshi demanded that Hindu pilgrims should be allowed to visit Katas Raj in Pakistan in the same way as their Sikh bretheren were allowed to visit Nankana Sahib. RELATED STORIES _26-Nov-2002_ ©Hathway Investments Private Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 21 Afghan Diseases Attributed To American Uranium Bombs Nov 24, 2002 Source: Islam News, Translated By Jihad Unspun As a result of large number of chemical weapons used by the Americans in their campaign in Afghanistan, hundreds of Afghans near the Safayed Koh (White Mountain) area in southern Nangahar and villages around Tora Bora have been severely hit with diseases of the skin, respiratory system and lungs as well as stomach diseases and coughs. According to news from the area, last year during November and December, the Americans bombarded the renowned Jihad centre of Tora Bora with a huge number of bombs, cruise missiles and chemical weapons which have casued the diseases the residents of the area are now experiencing. In Jalalabad, a doctor working for World Health Organization said after examining some of these patients that in the coming two to three months, deaths are expected to rise as a result of chemicals and uranium used in bombs which hit the area. While protesting against these diseases, locals have started to think about migrating away from the area however patients in the Shami area, Paktia province have been found to have the same diseases. America used hundreds of bombs in Shah-i-Kot and Paktia last year that contained uranium that contained four hundred times more Uranium than the bombs used in Iraq during the Gulf war. Medical experts predict that these affects would be felt for a long time. ***************************************************************** 22 'Dirty bomb' fears over nuclear trains Sunday Herald By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor DETAILED timetables of nuclear waste trains that could be made into dirty bombs capable of contaminating central Scotland are freely available to terrorists, the Sunday Herald can reveal. It is astonishingly easy to obtain the precise times and days on which freight trains carry radioactive spent fuel from nuclear power stations at Torness in East Lothian and Hunterston in Ayrshire. Every week, the fuel is taken through Edinburgh and Ayrshire to Carlisle en route to the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant on the Cumbrian coast. Spent fuel is a mass of toxic and highly radioactive isotopes, including plutonium, left over from the burning of uranium in a nuclear reactor. If released into the air it could cause an environmental catastrophe similar to the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear station in Ukraine in 1986. A week ago Prime Minister Tony Blair warned that terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda were looking for 'ever more dramatic and devastating outrages to inflict'. Trains could be targeted, as well as boats and planes, he suggested. But in a matter of hours last week the Sunday Herald was able to unearth a comprehensive timetable of nuclear train movements as well as a map of the routes and photographs of the cargo. The times and days on which empty flasks arrive and full flasks depart from Torness and Hunterston are contained in a publication available for £12 from bookshops. Observations by train spotters, faithfully recorded in laborious detail on websites, confirm that the waste trains run as scheduled. In August, for example, amid sightings of numerous trains carrying passengers, cement, steel and cars were three carrying nuclear flasks from Torness and two moving them from Hunterston. Pictures showed the trains standing in stations in urban areas. Shipments from Torness travel through Morningside and Slateford in Edinburgh, while the trains from Hunterston go through heavily populated parts of Ayrshire and Dumfries and Galloway. The revelations have shocked environ mentalists, who are demanding the nuclear cargoes be halted. 'Our worst fear is that these trains could be targeted by terrorists who could create the effect of a dirty bomb by blowing up the flasks with explosives sending radioactive material into the atmosphere,' said Green MSP Robin Harper. 'There could be a radioactive plutonium and uranium cloud over central Scotland. A similar effect to the cloud that came from Chernobyl, exposing thousands to radioactive fall-out.' The Green Party have compiled a dossier of information on the times, routes and pictures of nuclear trains which it plans to hand to the Scottish Executive and the British Transport Police for them to investigate. 'I have personally seen timetables for nuclear trains, maps of the routes taken and pictures of the trains. Any terrorist could get this information very easily and then they would know when, where and what to attack,' said Harper. 'It's unbelievable that after September 11, and given recent, very specific warnings of a terrorist attack, trains carrying plutonium appear to be following timetables and routes like clockwork making them easy targets for terrorists. 'I am passing our infor mation to the authorities and will be raising the matter in the Scottish parliament. The government must order the immediate suspension of these nuclear transports and there must be an urgent review of security.' Harper's call was backed by Kevin Dunion, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, who argued that the nuclear shipments were in any case unnecessary. Spent fuel was only being taken to Sellafield for reprocessing, which had become an uneconomic and pointless business, he said. 'The risk of an accident with one of these flasks is worrying enough,' Dunion stated. 'But a terrorist group simply threatening to target one could cause widespread disruption.' The trains are operated by Direct Rail Services (DRS), a transport arm of state-owned British Nuclear Fuels, which runs Sellafield. 'DRS operates within an extremely stringent safety and security regime which minimises the risk,' a spokesman said. 'The Office for Civil Nuclear Security audits and approves the security procedures undertaken by DRS and is in constant communication regarding threat levels and DRS employees have been briefed, explaining the need for increased vigilance during these periods.' BNFL also pointed out that the nuclear flasks were heavily shielded, 50-tonne containers constructed from forged steel more than 30cm thick. 'For security reasons it is not sensible to comment on opportunities for terrorists to attack flasks,' the spokesman said. 'However, the design and operational arrangements, agreed with the appropriate government departments, take into account perceived terrorist threats.' ©2002 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088. all rights ***************************************************************** 23 Sick workers program focuses on detection - chillicothegazette.com Sunday, November 24, 2002 Options outlined at Saturday meeting By KIRRAN SYED Gazette Staff Writer How to get help + For a free medical screening or information about the Worker Health Protection Program, call 1-888-241-1199. + For help on how to file a medical claim contact the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program at 1-866-363-6993. PIKETON -- Sick nuclear industry workers would gladly accept good health over any amount of money, said Mark Lewis, the coordinator for the PACE Worker Health Protection Program. But, because they cannot, realistic programs to help them cope with their illnesses and gain monetary compensation have been developed. "Anyone who's received money would just as soon be healthy," Lewis said. He acknowledged this truth at the start of a Saturday morning presentation of what options are available to workers who have become sick because of their former work conditions. He said the program he oversees is designed to help former nuclear industry workers identify illnesses in the early stages so intervention, medical expense coverage and a lump sum monetary compensation of $150,000 are possible. "Our mission is to protect and promote the health of former and current workers," Lewis said. "(The program) is not perfect yet, we know it's not, but it's more than we had before." Today, only one free medical screening is available per person. As a result, Lewis said, people often delay the screening until they are more certain something is wrong. Unfortunately, he said, by the time the screening is done, their medical problem has progressed. Lewis said program officials are trying to increase the number of free medical screenings available per person. In addition, he said, they are constantly gathering information and evidence so other medical problems former nuclear industry workers are experiencing can be connected to the industry. Many Department of Energy gaseous diffusion plant workers, Lewis said, constantly fear something is wrong with their health because of the conditions in which they previously worked. He said the free screening can put to rest any worries by giving medical evidence that nothing is wrong. Or, if something is wrong, it will be found and measures can be taken. However, Lewis said, because of the development period for many medical conditions, a problem can develop after the free screening. As a result, an individual may be required to pay for additional medical screenings. Gerald Chapman, who was at the meeting, said he is scheduled for a free medical screening in December. He said he is not concerned about his health and is only going because his doctor is concerned the almost 20 years he worked at the Piketon uranium enrichment plant may have contributed to his heart problems. "I'm just sick because I'm old," he said. He is going to the screening because "it's nice to know who will help you when you need help. It's like being able to call 911 and have the emergency squad appear promptly." (Syed can be reached at 772-9364 or via e-mail at ksyed@nncogannett.com) [ksyed@nncogannett.com] Originally published Sunday, November 24, 2002 Home [http://www.chillicothegazette.com/index.html] | News ***************************************************************** 24 Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride Videos DUF6 Videos [Depleted UF6 Logo (Go to Home Page)] [DUF6 Guide] DUF6 Guide [ ] Overview Presentation [ ] Uranium and Its Compounds [ ] Depleted Uranium [ ] Uranium Hexafluoride [ ] Production and Handling [ ] DUF6 Health Risks [ ] DUF6 Environmental Risks [ ] DUF6 Videos [ ] DUF6 Image Library [ ] Uranium Quick Facts Home » DUF6 Guide » DUF6 Videos NOTE: Due to recent security-related issues, you may experience problems playing these videos over the Internet. We are working to resolve theses issues. Until these issues are resolved, you may download the videos for playback from your computer's hard drive through the Help page. If you have problems viewing the videos, see the Help page. --> The Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride Story 17 minutes An overview of Uranium, its isotopes, the need and history of diffusive separation, the handling of the Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride, and discussion of potential consequences. Part of the "Hole" Story 8 minutes Holes in the depleted Uranium Hexafluoride storage cylinders are investigated. It is shown that corrosion products cause the openings to be self-healing. The Inside Story 8 minutes Probes are used to look at the inside of a Uranium Hexafluoride cylinder. The distribution and structure of the contents are discussed. Metamorphosis 12 minutes The Uranium Hexafluoride phase diagram is investigated. An experimental setup is shown to look at the gas, liquid, and solid phases at various temperatures and pressures. This information is used to understand what happens inside a DUF6 storage cylinder. All videos were produced under the direction of Bob Dyer for the U.S. Department of Energy. The videos were converted for web viewing with RealProducer and served with the Basic RealServer The links above lead to web pages with a link to the video which requires at least the free version of RealPlayer [http://www.real.com/products/player/] and a web connection with a 56K modem. The page also contains snapshots of important parts of the video, along with a caption and timestamp. If the connection speed is less than 56K, it may be difficult to view the videos, however, the snapshots from each video can still be viewed. DUF6 Guide | DUF6 Management and Uses | DUF6 Conversion EIS | Documents OEM Uranium Program [http://www.em.doe.gov/uranium/index.html] ***************************************************************** 25 Safety fears over Japan spent nuclear fuel plant Planet Ark : JAPAN: November 25, 2002 TOKYO - A Japanese nuclear fuel reprocessing plant due to open in 2005 will pump out massive amounts of radioactive gas, threatening health and the environment, and should be scrapped, activists said. The plant at Rokkasho on the windswept northern tip of Japan's main island, Honshu, would be Japan's first commercial plant for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. Its opening has already been delayed twice. Environmental campaign group Greenpeace said the plant would release into the atmosphere massive amounts of radioactive Krypton-85 gas, which has the potential to cause cancer. "For the sake of the environment, human health and non-proliferation, this facility has to be scrapped before one gram of nuclear material is introduced," Kazue Suzuki, nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace Japan, said in a statement. Japan's nuclear industry is under harsh scrutiny following a scandal at Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc (TEPCO) , the country's biggest power utility, which admitted it had falsified nuclear safety records. The Rokkasho plant is a key link in resource-poor Japan's ambitions to create a domestic nuclear fuel chain in which uranium recycled from spent fuel would be used repeatedly at nuclear power plants, the source of roughly a third of the domestic power supply. When completed, the plant will be capable of reprocessing 800 tonnes of the roughly 900 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel that pour out of Japan's nuclear power plants every year. Greenpeace said that that the United States and Germany had both changed plans to build similar plants because of the potential emission of radioactive Krypton-85. "High levels of krypton will be detected not only around the plant, but also throughout Japan, in many cases hundreds and thousands of times stronger than regular background levels," Shaun Burnie of Greenpeace International told Reuters. "It makes no economic sense, no environmental sense, and no health sense." An official at the division in Japan's Trade Ministry concerned with nuclear safety said that the government had investigated and was sure that all precautions would be taken. "We cannot say that the amount of radioactive gas to be released will be exactly zero, but it will not be in any amounts that are detrimental to health," the official said. Intermittent problems in Japan's nuclear industry have fanned safety concerns, most recently in September, when TEPCO said it had failed to accurately report cracks in the structure of nuclear reactors found during safety checks in the late 1980s and 1990s. Japan's worst nuclear accident took place at a uranium processing plant in Tokaimura, 140 km (90 miles) northeast of Tokyo, in September 1999, exposing hundreds of nearby residents, plant workers and emergency personnel to radiation. Two of the plant workers later died. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 26 *Russian ministry proposes monitoring nuclear waste imports* NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Russia. Nov 23 (Interfax) - Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry has proposed setting up parliamentary groups to supervise projects to import into Russia and store spent nuclear fuel, and to monitor the use of funds the country will be paid for such imports. Such teams might include members of public environmental organizations in addition to members of both houses of parliament, Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev told a news conference on Saturday. The existence of such groups would change the negative public attitude to the import of spent nuclear fuel, Rumyantsev said. "We want to find a point of contact with serious environmentalists." [RU EUROPE EEU EMRG ENR POWR ELG TRD ENV] as rm < > © 1991-2002 *Interfax, All rights reserved* News and other data on this ***************************************************************** 27 EPA Unhappy With Idaho Waste Plan The Salt Lake Tribune -- Sunday, November 24, 2002 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS POCATELLO, Idaho -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says a plan to process and remove high-level nuclear waste from the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory is too vague. The agency addressed its concern in a Nov. 18 letter to the Department of Energy, saying the department was expected to use Environmental Impact Statements as a basis for a decision, instead of simply identifying several alternatives as possibilities for removing and processing the waste. "The point of it is to select an alternative," said Robbie Heeden, a permit writer for the Environmental Protection Agency. The energy department issued a final impact statement on Oct. 3 on plans to remove radioactive waste at the nuclear site. In the statement, the department said it would select appropriate technologies and build the necessary facilities to prepare sodium-bearing waste for shipment out of state. The energy department also said it would prepare the high-level waste for disposal and provide safe storage until it is shipped to a repository, and treat and dispose of some radioactive waste itself. Environmental Protection Agency officials called the plan too general. "As published in September 2002, the (Final Environmental Impact Statement) does not present a clear path for meeting the required schedule and goals for this very critical project," the letter stated. The department must deal with 1 million gallons of sodium-bearing waste in underground storage tanks and 4,400 cubic meters of high-level waste calcine from processing spent nuclear fuel. The letter also addresses the department's plan to send waste to the Hanford site in Washington. "That facility doesn't have room to give," agency spokesman Chris Gebhardt said. "That option will not be available." The Department of Energy would not comment on the specifics of the letter. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 28 BARBERI/WILSON: With the Election Behind Us, We See What $3M Can Buy The Salt Lake Tribune -- Sunday, November 24, 2002 I always laugh when I hear people say, "I hate to say I told you so." In reality people love to be able to say I told you so. It validates their thinking on whatever it is they were arguing about and it adds a verbal exclamation point to their original thought. Now that Nov. 5 is history and Initiative 1 has been dumped like another spent nuclear fuel rod, we see what $3 million can buy: access and favor with just about every political hack and Enron-mentality CEO in the state and boldness to glow where no one has glowed before. Envirocare's victory party has hardly faded and the company is pushing ahead with its plan to bring even higher levels of hot garbage into Utah. The Utah Radiation Control Board just ruled that the company's application to store the hotter stuff, like Class B and C waste, is on track for approval by the Legislature, with only the governor's signature left as a hurdle. Envirocare's honchos have wasted no time cranking up their public relations apparatus, trying to convince Utahns the water is only comfortably warm and not to worry. They actually have said that they won't pursue B and C (Bad &Crazy) wastes until Utahns are comfortable with the idea. To that end, they didn't even wait until the corpse was cold before they launched a "push" poll of residents to see if they could be nudged into opening up their arms to trainloads of pulsing stuff. Which brings me to the state budget that we just discovered is a deeper shade of red than was thought before the election. Convenient how these numbers were not available until after Nov. 5. Senate President Al Mansell said of the special budget session looming: "More torture, that's what it is, torture for us. We'd do anything we could to avoid this." Anything? Hardly. Where were Al and his pals when Initiative 1 was offering increased tax revenues for nuclear waste coming into the state? If Al, the guv and the rest of these phony hand wringers would listen to Rep. Pat Jones' proposal to eliminate the dependent deduction, they could be $73 million ahead without breaking a sweat. Let's talk about the state of Utah liquor business. If the state got out of the business and turned it over to private enterprise, collected taxes and only took care of licensing, regulating and policing, there would be increased revenue to the state without looking at taxes or cuts. Before you get a case of the vapors at the thought of a private liquor store, Laurie, remember there would not be one more outlet than there is now and the state would regulate everything. If the Legislature can dictate what day of the week one can sell a car, you can be sure they would hold an iron fist over this industry. Think of the huge overhead that would be eliminated. That being said, I won't even bring up the "L" word. Lastly, considering that an easement is a property right, the Legislature can ask Rocky Anderson if he would consider selling the Main Street Plaza easement for $500 million. That would be a fair price for the 1st Amendment rights now owned by the people. He could split it with the Legislature and the revenue shortfall is resolved. Ciao. _________ Tom Barberi is a talk show host on KALL-910 AM from 6 to 10 a.m. Tom, your insensitivity to Sen. Mansell's anguish is troubling. In fact, reading between the lines, we might even think you are deriving some kind of perverted pleasure from his plight. So am I. It truly would be a mistake for the Legislature to believe that Initiative 1 was defeated because Utahns support storage of nuclear waste, and particularly support storing waste with higher levels of hazard. But it would be typical of past legislatures to make that assumption based on the vote. I would like to give this new Legislature the benefit of the doubt. It would be reasonable for lawmakers to recognize that the rigor of the public debate over the initiative demonstrates it is an issue about which the public has serious questions and reservations. The fact that the initiative was popular enough to warrant a $3 million expenditure to defeat it indicates the public has real concerns about nuclear waste storage, and about the funding of education. I will be the Pollyanna and say I have confidence in the Legislature to air this issue fully and publicly and to act as its constituents direct. That said, I must admit that a couple of inside sources tell me the victory of Democrats Patrice Arent and Jim Matheson in light of all the Legislature did to redistrict them out of office has put many legislators on notice. The prediction of those sources is that we now have about half of the legislators listening more attentively to constituents because they recognize they may be in jeopardy of losing their jobs if they don't. This issue and the budget will be the tests. If the Legislature listens to the people and seriously addresses their concerns regarding nuclear waste storage and education funding, they will pass the test. If they continue to support big business at all costs and fail to address the state of educational funding, then they will fail, again. Tom, the difference is that this time, hopefully, they will be looking for other jobs if they fail. Hopefully, constituents are paying close attention. Hope springs eternal. _________ Laurie J. Wilson is a professor of communications at Brigham Young University. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 29 Envirocare Chicanery Claimed The Salt Lake Tribune -- Sunday, November 24, 2002 BY JUDY FAHYS The former president of Envirocare of Utah charges that his performance bonus shrank because the company's owner used profits for payments to a federal environmental regulator with whom he had "a personal agreement." Former Envirocare President Charles Judd also alleges in a 3rd District Court lawsuit that Khosrow Semnani, owner of the Tooele County radioactive waste landfill, manipulated the books in other ways to deny Judd his fair share of Envirocare profits, which Judd puts at more than $100 million last year. Then, says Judd, after abruptly firing him last January, Semnani stymied his former lieutenant's efforts to start ventures worth $45 million and refused to pay Judd more than $8 million in deferred compensation. The accusations -- all of them denied by Semnani lawyer Max D. Wheeler -- are part of legal documents sealed last month at Judd's request. They were unsealed Friday at the insistence of The Salt Lake Tribune. Wheeler said Judd's latest allegations are disputed in Semnani's response and in a countersuit filed by Semnani, who built and operates a 640-acre landfill for radioactive and hazardous waste about 60 miles west of Salt Lake City. Wheeler specifically disputed the suggestion that payments went to John Frisco, a Superfund cleanup manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "That's false," said Wheeler, insisting the two met only once, during a site visit Frisco made to Envirocare about a decade ago. "Mr. Semnani doesn't even know Mr. Frisco. There are no agreements between them." Frisco also disavowed any "personal agreement" with Semnani or payments that Judd describes in his lawsuit as "Semnani's personal favor to Frisco." Frisco's office oversees abandoned industrial sites in New York and New Jersey that for years have sent trainloads of radioactive waste to Envirocare. "I have no idea what that ['personal agreement' claim] is about," Frisco told The Tribune Saturday from Florida where he is vacationing. "I am not going to rationalize statements that have no basis in fact." In Utah, Judd's latest claims have a familiar ring from six years ago. That is when Semnani became snared in a corruption scandal over his relationship with Larry Anderson, the former director of Utah's radiation control program. Anderson is now serving time in federal prison in Nevada on tax-fraud charges related to the $600,000 in cash, gold coins and real estate he took from Semnani while regulating his company. Anderson filed a lawsuit over what he said was a failed business venture with Semnani in October 1996. The suit eventually led to his federal extortion indictment and Semnani's guilty plea to tax charges. Judd relates in his lawsuit a similar story of feeling snookered after a long, close and prosperous business relationship with Semnani. Judd had started working for Semnani as a site engineer in 1988, when Envirocare was little more than a promising idea. Semnani tapped Judd to be president in May 1997 after the Anderson scandal erupted and the U.S. Energy Department forced Envirocare's owner to relinquish all control of his lucrative radioactive waste business. Judd insists he performed well for Envirocare. He generated $100 million in profits for the company last year, a 50 percent boost over the year before, he says. According to the new court papers, Judd stayed on the job at Semnani's insistence although Judd pressed to spend time with a sister dying of cancer. And, when Judd proposed leaving Envirocare in hopes of saving his unraveling marriage, Semnani persuaded Judd to stay on by pledging more compensation and a bigger cut of the increasingly prosperous business. "Semnani [said that] he was 'never going to let Judd go' and that he was at Envirocare 'to stay,' " says Judd's latest complaint against Semnani. "The promises were false," says Judd in his lawsuit, revised from a case originally filed in May. Semnani fired Judd in January, denying him the deferred compensation and the profit sharing, among other perks. Judd says Semnani said it was because he was putting in 50 hours a week rather than 70, because of his divorce and because Envirocare could find someone else to do the job for less compensation. Wheeler insists Judd was taken care of for life, by most standards. "There were very substantial sums paid to Mr. Judd under the employment contracts." In the latest filing, Judd omits allegations of racketeering that were in his original lawsuit. And he drops claims related to the aborted sale of Envirocare last year to Leucadia National Corp. Meanwhile Judd steps up his assertions that Semnani recruited people on his payroll in efforts to destroy Judd's reputation personally and in the Utah business community. The former company president says private investigators and attorneys hired by Envirocare tried to make it appear as though he had stolen from the company and had misused company funds on women who were not his wife. Wheeler acknowledged that Envirocare has investigated the former company president. "There have been some investigations done since Mr. Judd left because of some irregularities involving company funds, alleged irregularities," he said. Salt Lake City lawyers David Watkiss and Pat Shea argued the unsealing of the documents on behalf of The Tribune. Semnani's legal team did not oppose the effort. Judd said Semnani and Envirocare associates have also accused him of masterminding Initiative 1, the Radioactive Waste Restrictions Act. The measure, defeated by Utah voters this month, would have limited Envirocare's expansion into accepting hotter radioactive waste and would have increased the company's taxes. fahys@sltrib.com _________ Tribune reporter Linda Fantin contributed to this story. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 30 Idaho: EPA wants better plan for waste removal Idaho State Journal Officials say DOE’s proposal too vague 11/23/02 By Emily Jones — Journal Writer Respond to this story [ejones@journalnet.com] POCATELLO — U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials say a plan to process and remove high-level nuclear waste from Idaho’s nuclear site is too vague. The concern, along with other issues, was addressed in a Nov. 18 letter to the Department of Energy. EPA officials said the DOE identified several alternatives as possibilities for removing and processing the waste. EPA permit writer Robbie Hedeen said Environmental Impact Statements were supposed to help agencies decide on a plan of action. “The point of it is to select an alternative,” Hedeen said. On Oct. 3, The Department of Energy issued a final Environmental Impact Statement outlining their plans for removing liquid and solid radioactive waste at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. The waste includes one million gallons of sodium-bearing waste in underground storage tanks and 4,400 cubic meters of high-level waste calcine from processing spent nuclear fuel. According to the Environmental Impact Statement, the DOE plans to select appropriate technologies and construct facilities necessary to prepare sodium-bearing waste for shipment out of state. They also plan to prepare the high level waste for disposal in a repository, treat and dispose of radioactive waste and provide safe interim storage for high-level waste before shipping it to a repository. EPA officials called the plan too general. “As published in September 2002, the (Final Environmental Impact Statement) does not present a clear path for meeting the required schedule and goals for this very critical project,” the letter stated. Officials also addressed alternatives DOE outlined in their Environmental Impact Statement. One alternative involves the site’s Calciner. A consent order signed by the DOE, the state of Idaho and the EPA required the plant to be closed by June 1, EPA 2000, unless upgrades were made. The Department of Energy recently requested that some portions of the closure be postponed until December 2004. EPA spokesman Jeff Hunt said it was important to make a decision regarding the Calciner soon. “They need to meet closure requirements now,” Hunt said. The Environmental Impact Statement also identifies reclassifying high-level waste as part of its waste processing alternative. The Department of Energy has the right to reclassify waste under a DOE order. The reclassification of high-level waste is the focus of a federal lawsuit challenging its legality under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Because the outcome of the lawsuit is uncertain, EPA officials objected to the emphasis the DOE gave to reclassifying waste. The letter also addresses DOE’s plan to send waste to the Hanford site in Washington. “That facility doesn’t have room to give,” EPA spokesman Chris Gebhardt said. “That option will not be available.” The Department of Energy would not comment on the specifics of the letter. “We appreciate EPA’s comments and will take them into consideration before deciding on high-level waste alternatives,” DOE spokesman Tim Jackson said. “Our consideration of EPA’s comments will be included in the High-Level Waste Environmental Impact Statement Record of Decision.” A Record of Decision outlining the Department of Energy’s final plan will be completed early next year. Emily Jones covers Bingham County, Fort Hall and the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory for the Journal. She can be reached at 239-3175 or by e-mail at ejones@journalnet.com. ***************************************************************** 31 State-federal dispute over radioactive site stymies Clearfield flooring business Sunday, November 24, 2002 By Tom Gibb, Post-Gazette Staff Writer His plant briefly closed last week, only to reopen in what amounts to an ongoing near-death experience. Most of his 80 employees remain out of work. And A.E. Witt can only wait while state and federal government representatives wrangle over who will pick up the $40 million tab to clear the contamination from his company's quarters. The company is PermaGrain Inc., operating on the wild, northeast edge of Clearfield County. And it is running out of money, trapped in leased quarters tainted with heavy -- albeit contained -- radioactivity. Three years ago, rescuers in state and federal government seemed eager to be the company's salvation and promised a thorough radiation cleanup. Rather than becoming PermaGrain's deliverance, though, the state is awaiting federal action, and the feds have been delayed because they're trying to see whether previous tenants can be billed for part of the cleanup. PermaGrain's plan to move to fresh digs eight miles away and let crews remove radioactivity and haul away the building in which PermaGrain operates now also is in limbo. The company can't move until it gets the new quarters, and the cleanup can't happen until they're out. "I'm trying to get additional financing," said Witt, president of the suburban Philadelphia-based company. "But everyone looks at what's happening and runs." "If any of this is Witt's fault, it's a very small percentage," said Ray Savel, president of Quehanna Industrial Development Corp., covering the region both where PermaGrain is housed now and where it wants to relocate. For almost a quarter-century, PermaGrain has manufactured commercial wood flooring in a state-owned building once used by Cold War-era defense contractors. It's one of the few buildings in an untamed swath of state land called the Quehanna Wild Area. And inside the structure -- sealed, isolated and under watch -- is a room thick with radiation left by a previous tenant. "Lenders want to know what if their collateral becomes radioactive," Witt said. Between a soft economy and lenders loath to offer money to a manufacturer in those straits, PermaGrain Inc. was in jeopardy, Witt warned in August. Two weeks ago, short of cash, PermaGrain closed. Last week, it reopened with a work force of 10 to fill leftover orders. But all that Witt would forecast was that financial salvation could come in the next phone call, could take weeks or might not come at all. The short-term problem, he said, is getting a promise of indemnity from the state, shielding PermaGrain and any investors from liability for the radiation problems the company inherited as a tenant on state property. "We're looking into whether that would be issued ... but we feel the letter he has now would be sufficient," said Ronald Ruman, spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. Indeed, the state gave PermaGrain a promise of indemnity with its lease, Witt said. "Our lease says we're not responsible," he said, "but buyers want something a little more meaty." In a letter last week to the state Department of Community and Economic Development, state Rep. Camille George, D-Clearfield County, said PermaGrain also was struggling with reluctant insurers who balk at property and workers' compensation coverage. Longer term, PermaGrain faces the limbo brought on by a battle between branches of state and federal governments, a fight that Rep. John Peterson, R-Venango, is trying to arrange a meeting to referee. The nuclear contamination at the heart of the dispute is a legacy of the days when Cold War military contractors envisioned Quehanna as a nuclear research area -- before the idea was abandoned and the land deeded to the commonwealth. PermaGrain uses a nuclear reactor pool, left over from one of the building's previous incarnations, where relatively benign cobalt-60 is used to bond acrylic to wood. But a tenant from the 1960s -- federal contractor Martin-Marietta, DEP says -- sullied one sealed-off room with strontium 90, so virulent that planners will use robots, not humans, to remove it before demolishing the building. PermaGrain's building can't be cleaned of its radiation until the company is safely out of the way. But the company can't leave until an $8 million replacement building is constructed -- at federal expense, DEP says, as part of the deal forcing PermaGrain out. None of that is happening because of the state-federal impasse. And in a hobbling economy where he says he needed financing, the bottom fell out two weeks ago, and PermaGrain shut down temporarily, Witt said. "If the new building were up, this wouldn't have happened," he said. On one side is DEP, charging that the federal government reneged on a vow to bankroll much of a $40 million cleanup. On the other is the U.S. Justice Department, trying to figure out if it can stick any previous tenants of the PermaGrain building with at least part of the cleanup tab. "For the last six months, much of the problem has been typical bureaucratic snafus, where people make commitments but aren't high enough up the food chain to make them stick," Richard Wiles, Peterson's economic development coordinator, said. It's a turn of events that has observers such as Savel seething. "The government can help companies that are going to manufacture overseas," he said. "They can't help a company that wants to employ people here." Tom Gibb can be reached at tgibb@post-gazette.com [tgibb@post-gazette.com] or 412-263-1601. Copyright ©1997-2002 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights ***************************************************************** 32 Any war in Iraq to cost billions Including occupation, price may top $1 trillion, one expert estimates; Impact on energy market feared By Mark Matthews Sun National Staff Originally published November 24, 2002 WASHINGTON - The cost of ousting Saddam Hussein could stretch into hundreds of billions of dollars and possibly trigger a worldwide economic downturn, analysts and economists say. Tens of billions of dollars, or more, could be required to support the military occupation of a fractious nation of 23 million and rebuild an already degraded infrastructure that might be damaged further during a U.S. invasion, dwarfing America's current total foreign-aid budget. Also, front-line states - Turkey, Jordan and Israel - are expected to seek compensation for the added risks from a war to their security and slumping economies. Some analysts fear disruption in energy markets that could shoot oil prices upward and possibly plunge the United States into a new recession and the world into a downward economic spiral. In one of the gloomiest projections, Yale economist William D. Nordhaus writes that if the war dragged on and ensuing occupation was prolonged and hazardous, the total cost could climb as high as $1.9 trillion. Nordhaus said governments' projections have often underestimated the cost of wars. "The historical record is littered with failed forecasts about the economic, political, and military outcomes of wars," Nordhaus wrote in a 50-page study. Estimates of the cost of fighting a war to topple Hussein have barely caused a ripple in Washington. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, in a September report, said it would cost up to $13 billion to send forces to the region, $9 billion a month to prosecute the war and $7 billion to bring the troops home. The figures are based on using about 370,000 troops and up to 1,500 aircraft. The Democratic staff of the House Budget Committee, using what it says are optimistic projections based on the 1991 Persian Gulf war, says a 30- to-60-day war, using up to 250,000 troops, would cost between $48 billion and $93 billion. The Bush administration has provided little information about the projected costs of war and its aftermath, with spokesmen saying that war is a last resort and that the president hopes Iraq can be stripped peacefully of its chemical and biological weapons and nuclear programs. White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey sounded a hopeful note in a September interview with The Wall Street Journal. While saying the war could cost between $100 billion and $200 billion, he doubted that it would have an appreciable effect on interest rates or the federal debt. As for the postwar costs of rebuilding Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld suggested in a recent interview with Fortune magazine that Iraq's immense oil reserves would cover much of it. "If you [worry about just] the cost, the money, Iraq is a very different situation from Afghanistan. Iraq has oil. They have financial resources," he said. Almost no one doubts that the United States would win a war in Iraq and eliminate Hussein's regime, given the decline in Iraqi military capabilities since its decisive 1991 defeat in the Persian Gulf war and 12 years of sanctions imposed by the United Nations. In any scenario, numerous wild cards come into play, including what kind of resistance U.S. forces would face on the ground that could prolong the war; regional instability and its impact on oil markets; and how long, and at what cost in American lives and funds, it would take to stabilize Iraq after the war. As a result, only "guesstimates" of the cost of a war are possible, says Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. *Economic consequences * Uncertainty about war can have "powerful psychological effects on the economy," according to a group of economists who presented a paper on the economic consequences of a war in Iraq to a recent CSIS conference. It can lower consumer confidence, discourage investors from taking risks, depress stock prices and raise the cost of borrowing, the economists said. The combination of prolonged uncertainty, then the reality of war and a possible spike in oil prices "might give us a double-dip recession," said Brookings Institution economist Alice Rivlin. Add worldwide terrorism threats, and the result could be "a downward spiral in the world's economy." Optimists predict a quick Iraqi military collapse and a warm welcome to American liberators for having overthrown a brutal dictator. But Congressional Research Service Mideast specialist Kenneth Katzman counters: "In my view, they're likely to fight much more fiercely than anticipated," particularly if Iraqis feel that Hussein tried to avoid war by cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors. Cordesman sees a 30 percent to 40 percent chance of a scenario that includes heavier than expected resistance in Iraq, with serious urban warfare; Iraqi attacks on oil facilities; limited use of weapons of mass destruction; an attack on Israel that brings the Jewish state into the war; and rising political unrest in the region. The economic result of this, according to the economists who spoke at CSIS, would be tighter oil supplies and lower economic growth. Cordesman's worst case, with a 10 percent chance, would require major American reinforcements to meet protracted Iraqi resistance, sustained chemical or biological attacks on American forces and an Iraqi attack on Israel with weapons of mass destruction, prompting at least an Israeli threat to respond in kind. Such a sequence of events would trigger major oil-supply disruptions, sharp drops on the world's stock exchanges and in prices of homes, a decline in economic activity generally and a noticeable rise in unemployment, economists told CSIS. The response of the oil markets to the war is key. "Sharp oil-price increases have been associated with most of the recessions of the last three decades," says Yale's Nordhaus. Saudi Arabia has the world's best capacity to increase production in a crisis and is expected to do its best to keep world prices stable. But experts warn that the kingdom's actions could be affected by heavy political pressure or even sabotage. The shape of postwar Iraq is another wild card that would have an impact on the whole cost. Katzman says U.S. occupation forces won't be welcome - at least not for a while: "The Iraqi people are not going to like this." Recent American experience shows that peacekeeping and nation-building are long-term processes fraught with risk. Afghanistan remains politically fragile a year after the United States and Northern Alliance fighters drove out the Taliban. U.S. and European troops remain in the Balkans three years after the Kosovo war. Besides fashioning a new government, the United States would have to try to prevent fighting among Iraq's Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, and possible meddling by outside powers, notably the neighboring states of Iran and Turkey. Drawing on recent U.S. experience, Nordaus writes that the best case would be an occupation costing about $75 billion, with reconstruction, development of a new government and humanitarian aid costing another $31 billion. In the worst case - an occupation lasting years or even decades - the cost could soar to more than $600 billion, according to Nordhaus. *Iraq's debts * Iraq is unlikely to be able to foot the whole bill, or even most of it. While it has the world's second-largest oil reserves, its oil industry is in poor condition. The country owes about $100 billion in foreign debts and reparations claims from its invasion of Kuwait. After the 1991 war with Iraq, America's Persian Gulf allies, along with Germany and Japan, joined in paying most of the cost to the United States, which totaled about $80 billion in today's dollars. The gulf states felt a direct threat from Iraqi aggression then that they apparently don't feel now, and the world was largely behind the war effort. The United States has begun soliciting other countries to suggest ways they could contribute to a war effort if Hussein again defies U.N. weapons inspectors and war becomes inevitable. After last week's summit of NATO leaders in Prague, a growing number of countries, including even a skeptical France, appear likely to join in a war in some fashion, provided the invasion gets at least tacit support from the U.N. Security Council. However, none has publicly offered to defray the cost. Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun ***************************************************************** 33 Outside View: Looking for War with Iraq* United Press International By Sheldon Richman An UPI Outside View commentary Published 11/24/2002 12:12 AM FAIRFAX, Va., Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Yeah, right. Even though Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has now agreed to unconditional weapons inspection, the world is going to support a U.S. war against Iraq because he hasn't released his political prisoners or returned Kuwaiti property. Those acts of omission aren't exactly the stuff of a global threat. It is turning out that Saddam is a better chess player than President George W. Bush. I don't mean that Saddam will avoid war. Make no mistake, Bush will have his little war. He just won't have it with the support of anyone but British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Israeli government. That is something of a victory for Saddam and blow to Bush. Can you imagine going to war over political prisoners and unreturned property? I'm not making light of those transgressions, but how many U.S. allies are guilty of holding political prisoners? Allies including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, the central Asian former Soviet republics, just to name a few, hardly have clean hands in the human-rights department. The Bush administration's line plumbs new depths of cynicism. It seems to think the world, and especially the United States, is peopled with idiots. Let's face it. Bush doesn't give a hoot about anything but "regime change" in Iraq, because his administration needs a leader there who adopts the U.S. oil-and-Israel agenda in the Middle East as his own. Saddam, who was always brutal and manipulative, was a close ally as long as he did the U.S. government's bidding. The moment he went independent he had to go. The U.S. agenda, which existed long before the mega-terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, cannot be pursued with a non-cooperative president in a country as big and influential as Iraq in the Arab world. U.S. policymakers have always been far more concerned about Arab and Iranian nationalism than any other "threat" in that region, including the now-defunct Soviet threat. After Iraq has a new and pliant regime, the Bush administration can move on to the next item on the agenda: Iran, which has also shown interest in gaining nuclear weapons. Why anyone would think that the major powers of the Middle East shouldn't be interested in such weapons is mysterious -- until one understands the U.S. program. Israel has had many nuclear weapons for at least 30 years. It is not a signer of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and does not permit international inspection. Iraq is and does. For a long time Israel refused to even acknowledge it has nuclear weapons, even though one of its specialists, Mordechai Vanunu, wrote a book about them some years ago, was kidnapped by Israeli agents in London and was imprisoned for life. In other words, Israel is the nuclear monopolist in the region, and its unconditional patron is the most powerful government on earth, the only government to have actually dropped atomic bombs -- on innocent people. Israel has occupied Palestinian territory relentlessly since the 1967, in a war it launched preemptively. It bombed the Osirak nuclear facility in Iraq in 1981, a facility the International Energy Agency had said was being used only for peaceful purposes. It invaded Lebanon in 1982, killing more than 17,000 Lebanese and Palestinians. Is it so puzzling that Iraq and Iran might want a deterrent to Israeli action? I am no fan those governments, but one cannot infer aggressive intent from their desire to have powerful weapons. As Israel's defenders like to say, it's a tough neighborhood, and as much as we try to ignore this fact, Israel is one of the toughs. Journalist Eric Margolis reminds us that among the UN resolutions passed in 1990 was one calling for a regional approach to nuclear disarmament. That resolution the United States is happy to ignore because it would require Israel to dismantle its arsenal. That's why the Bush administration has to trump up charges against Saddam. I hope I am wrong, but I fear war is inevitable. Anyone who wishes to see what kind of deadly game the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Perle Axis is playing need only ask himself this: Short of suicide, what could Saddam Hussein have offered that the Bush administration would not have dismissed as "a tactical step by Iraq in hopes of avoiding strong UN Security Council action"? {Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Va., author of Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State, and editor of Ideas on Liberty magazine.) (Outside View commentaries are written for UPI by outside writers who specialize in issues of public interest.) Copyright © 2002 United Press International ***************************************************************** 34 Family Life in Baghdad CTV.ca Updated Sun. Nov. 24 2002 8:13 AM ET By Ellen Pinchuk, CTV News Staff BAGHDAD ? Tariq Muhammed's back is killing him. He shows me the x-rays of his compressed disks as we sit in his tiny, cool apartment in central Baghdad. He is in his mid-40s, with a graying beard, and welcoming eyes. He sells bicycles, but can't work every day because of the pain. He has four children. His two eldest sons, Mushtaq and Ziad, have had to quit school to work at the local bazaar. Ziad is already at work and we don't get to meet him. Mushtaq is friendly and curious about the camera, but he, too, has to leave for work. Their combined family income? Sixty thousand Iraqi dinars a month, about $45 Cdn. It's barely enough to get by. The third boy, Beshar, suffers from a horrendous skin disease from birth, which leaves his skin scaly and his face completely disfigured. Sometimes he hemorrhages from his eyes. In Arabic, the name for his ailment is "fish disease" but no one can translate it for me into English. His father describes how he always asks why he is this way, and there is no answer, and no apparent treatment, at least not in Iraq. Tariq dreams of sending him abroad for help, and believes that his son's illness is connected with depleted uranium used in American artillery shells during the Gulf War. Curiously, though, when I ask when his son was born, he tells me 1990, before any shells had been fired. I later learn elsewhere that the Iraqis experimented with certain agents that caused bleeding eyes, but any connection is just speculation. As Tariq washes his face in the small basin near the front door, his wife Amira Jawat (the women don't take their husband's family name), lays out a small rug for her husband to pray on, and he turns East toward Mecca and turns his palms up to the sky, softly reciting his prayers. Meanwhile, Amira is busy preparing the Ramadan meal, as daughter Hent, who covers her head with a scarf, like her mother, brings cups of rice and flour from the shed upstairs to help her mother. She mischievously makes faces for the camera and runs in and out of frame, to the great frustration of my Iraqi cameraman, Khalid. During this holy month, Muslims all over the world fast from sunup to sundown, then break the fast with a large meal called iftar. "The most important thing for me is to find food for my family," Amira says, pulling out a tiny bag of ground meat, a potato, and a couple of tomatoes from the refrigerator. It's not so easy these days. The government gives her rations of sugar, flour, and powdered milk in big white sacks, which are stored in the shed. But she says she must plan carefully to make them last. She says the last time they had a full meal, with enough meat to go around, was a month ago. She says the roof leaks, they have no heat in winter, no air conditioner in summer, where temperatures can soar above 40 degrees Celsius. Her sick son suffers especially in the summer. And what of hope? Amira has little. She teaches her children to be good Muslims, but says, "Sometimes they ask me for something new. I tell them we are poor and we can't afford it, and they understand. Now they've pretty much stopped asking." She says the UN inspectors are coming back, but in 7½ years in Iraq, they were unable to complete their work, and unable to life the sanctions that cripple the lowest ranks of society. Neither she nor her husband seem to be aware of what was found here by inspectors during the '90's, or why there might be any doubt at all whether Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction. Both Tariq and Amira are convinced that war with the U.S. is inevitable, that inspections are just a pretext for attack. Tariq is circumspect. He has other priorities. "I'm thinking about war, too, but first comes my life, my kids, my family, and then the American aggression against Iraq." Amira is more to the point. "In America, they want their families to be safe. We have the same rights here for Iraqi families," she says. Back Home Last update - 16:44 24/11/2002 By Baruch Kra , Ha'aretz Correspondent Convicted nuclear spy Mordechai Vananu, seen here in a court appearance in 1998. (Photo: Archive) The parole board of the Prison Services will reconvene at the end of the month to continue discussions held Sunday on Mordechai Vanunu's request for early release. In 1986 Vanunu began serving an 18-year prison sentence in Ashkelon, after being found guilty of revealing state secrets, treason and spying. Sunday's discussion was held behind closed doors in the Eshel Prison in Be'er Sheva, following a Be'er Sheva Magistrate's Court order for the parole board to discuss the matter. Vanunu's lawyer, Avigdor Feldman was expected to claim, among other things, that former foreign minister Shimon Peres transferred more information to the public on Israel's nuclear capabilities than did his client. According to Feldman, Peres was interviewed on Channel Two last year on the matter, and disclosed much more information than Vanunu is aware of. Therefore, Feldman says, there is no logic behind the claim that his client endangers state security. His early release was first discussed in 1998, but his request for release after completing two-thirds of his sentence was denied. In April 2000, the parole board held another deliberation on the matter, and the request for early release was rejected again. Vanunu's requests for deliberations on his early release were denied in September of last year and in May of this year. This past June, Feldman appealed to the Be'er Sheva Magistrate's Court demanding that the parole board be obligated to discuss Vanunu's early request, and the court complied with his request. © Copyright 2002 Ha`aretz. All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 36 Parole board to discuss Vanunu again The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition Nov. 24, 2002 By THE JERUSALEM POST INTERNET STAFF The Prisons Service parole board is set to meet again next week to discuss the case of Mordechai Vanunu, Israel Radio reported. His request for early release has been previously denied. The meeting will be held behind closed doors at the visitor's complex at Eshel Prison in Beersheba. Vanunu, convicted of treason for revealing details of Israel's nuclear capacity, has been serving an 18-year sentence at Shikma Prison in Ashkelon since 1986. © 1995-2002, The Jerusalem Post - All rights reserved, . ***************************************************************** 37 Delay in draining FFTF self-serving decision Published Nov. 24, 2002 How awfully convenient the federal government has decided to postpone decommissioning efforts at the Fast Flux Test Facility until mid-March. For the careful observer of the Department of Energy, the decision appears to be little more than a bow to reality. Sure, the terms reached between Benton County and federal attorneys give supporters more time to make the case for letting private operators restart the experimental reactor. But while that's a clear victory, it would be a mistake to equate the agreement to a change of heart by the Energy Department. It may not even be a concession to the possibility a federal judge would issue an extended injunction against dismantling the plant. More likely, the Energy Department simply doesn't have the money to begin decommissioning work, making it easy to acquiesce temporarily to the Citizens for Medical Isotopes and other proponents of restart. Motives always are hard to read, but we know Congress left town for winter break without producing a federal budget. That means no additional money to fund new projects at Hanford until at least mid-January. And we know the department backed away from its big push to start draining the sodium this fall from the reactor's secondary cooling loops only after it became clear there'd be no 2003 budget anytime soon. That said, the extra time can still work to the advantage of the reactor's friends. It gives the Citizens for Medical Isotopes and other proponents a chance to build on what's turning into a national coalition of cancer survivors and others interested in the reactor's potential to help fight disease. But it will take more than four months of inactivity for FFTF to fulfill its potential for producing cancer-fighting materials to save lives. It will require a comprehensive plan that shows how the federal reactor will be transferred to private hands, a plan that clearly addresses issues of liability and licensing. The lawsuit that triggered the latest delay only challenges the Department of Energy's environmental assessment of the decommissioning effort. Even if the reactor's proponents prevail, it will only force DOE to revise its paperwork. Achieving the ultimate goal of restarting the plant will depend on CMI and others continuing to strengthen the case for restart. After years of fighting, their battle remains unfinished. What's your opinon? Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 38 New steps considered in effort to get more monetary support from DOE By Bob Fowler, Anderson County editor November 24, 2002 CLINTON - Cash-strapped local governments are stepping up efforts to wrest more financial support from the U.S. Department of Energy, and the county attorney says he's looking at a plan to tax federal contractors on DOE's Oak Ridge Reservation. Anderson County commissioners during their latest meeting vented gripes about what one commissioner described as current lackluster DOE support. Commissioner David O. Bolling said DOE is currently not offsetting the negative impacts of the department's activities on its Oak Ridge Reservation. DOE operates the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the former K-25 Site, an abandoned uranium enrichment plant, on its 34,000-acre reservation. "If we can't get through to them (DOE) that they've been shortchanging us for years, then we need to take whatever steps necessary,'' Bolling said during the Nov. 18 meeting. Bolling's comments were in response to reports that Oak Ridge and Anderson and Roane counties have agreed to ask DOE for an increase in its annual payment in lieu of taxes. At present, that payment is based on land within DOE's Oak Ridge Reservation being valued at $5,327 an acre. The three governments want that land value increased to $7,000 an acre, said Anderson County Executive Rex Lynch. "That's the best we can do at this time,'' said Lynch, who added that an agreement by DOE to that increase is "not guaranteed.'' Lynch said a letter seeking the request has been sent by the three governments, and a response is expected within a month to 40 days. He said the requested increase in in-lieu-of-taxes would generate an additional $150,000 a year for Anderson County. "This proposal is a whole lot better than what we had,'' Bolling said, "but it's peanuts compared to what they're not doing for Anderson County.'' Bolling said other communities that have DOE facilities receive far more financial support than is received locally. County Attorney David Clark described the current DOE payments as "make-believe'' and based on values of undeveloped land. "The land isn't undeveloped, and it isn't available for development,'' Clark said Tuesday. Local governments have been "essentially begging'' DOE for money under the current payment-in-lieu-of-tax program, Clark said. He said he is drafting a proposal that would enable local governments to tax federal contractors "that benefit from these federal facilities.'' The establishment of such a tax would require state lawmakers to pass enabling legislation, Clark said. Bob Fowler may be reached at 865-481-3625 or bfowler@infi.net. [http://www.icopyright.com/3.5413?icx_id=KNS_1560827] The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 39 Energy Dept. Contractors Due for More Scrutiny The New York Times *November 24, 2002* *By JOEL BRINKLEY* WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 ? When the Bush administration announced this month that it intended to turn about half of the federal government's civilian jobs over to contractors, some officials at the Department of Energy reacted with rueful shakes of the head. Since it was founded 35 years ago, the department has relied on contractors for almost everything it does. More than 90 percent of its budget is paid to 100,000 outside workers. Next month, the Energy Department will field the first employees whose job is to supervise the contractors' work because, its leaders acknowledge, it has a dismal record of contract management. The department's experience serves as a sobering counterpoint to the White House proposal. In particular, an internal Energy Department report this year concluded that the agency's largest program, which pays contractors to clean up the waste left by the nation's nuclear weapons programs, has been fundamentally mismanaged since its founding 13 years ago, and much of the $60 billion it has spent over that time was wasted. The internal report's denunciation of agency practices and its prescriptions for changes echoed findings by outside auditors dating to 1990 ? conclusions that are repeated in reports by auditors published in September, October and this month. What astonished agency employees, officials said, was that the department had finally acknowledged its problems. The office in question is the department's Environmental Management Program, formed in 1989 to clean up the radioactive waste left from cold war nuclear development programs at 114 sites nationwide. For years it has been criticized for cost overruns and delays projected to last decades. In one of the Energy Department's most infamous examples, which is far from unique, it began a program in 1985 to clean radioactive waste from 34 million gallons of liquids in storage in South Carolina. The project was to take three years and cost $32 million. Fourteen years later the department abandoned the project, saying it was unworkable because of mismanagement. By then, $500 million had been spent. Jessie Roberson, assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, said: "I have been embarrassed by our lack of progress. We owe the taxpayers more." Ms. Roberson and the department's other leaders say they are now addressing the problems. The agency says it is scrutinizing contracts more closely and training 200 people to be project supervisors. Today, no one at the department actively supervises multibillion-dollar cleanup projects that are let out to contractors. This month, department leaders also made public a plan to shorten the time by which contractors will have cleaned up all the radioactive sites nationwide ? to 2030 from 2070. Ms. Roberson, who has been with the agency or one of its contractors for 21 years, acknowledges that most administrations come in with "plans for some new initiative or program to fix the problems." The environmental management program engenders extraordinary criticism from within the government. The White House, in a current budget document, says the program "is less focused on cleaning up sites and has instead turned into a local jobs program." A senior Office of Management and Budget official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said in an interview, "They have spent a lot of money, but producing results seems to be an alien concept over there." Since 1990, the General Accounting Office has classified the Energy Department's contract management as "high risk." It is one of just six agencies whose procurement practices were judged dysfunctional. In the Clinton and Bush administrations, the Office of Management and Budget has described the department as among the dozen or so most troubled in government. A General Accounting Office audit published in September found that, even as agency officials spoke of change and reform, problems were actually worsening. Auditors examined a sample of 16 projects costing $200 million or more and said, "We found no indication of improved performance." The number of projects for which cost estimates had at least doubled in five years and completion deadlines had slipped by at least five years had increased to 38 percent. *Continued* 1 | 2 ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************