*****************************************************************
09/27/02 ****     RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL)       **** VOL 10.248
*****************************************************************
   RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE
*****************************************************************

                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 Taiwan: Anti-nuclear group meets on Saturday 
2 British Energy given two-month reprieve 
3 SA welcomes Cuban nuclear announcement 
4 UK Notebook: frightening parallels with Railtrack 
5 Nuclear fallout over £240m 
6 British Energy Gets Emergency Loan 
7 UK: New lifeline for Energy attacked 
8 AU: Nuclear industry is in meltdown - 
9 Gov't told TEPCO of inspector who blew the whistle 
10 Japan Report: Tougher rules needed at N-plants 
11 Japan: Miyagi nuclear fuel tax faces hike * 
12 US: Cotter: Toxic waste dump not in plans* 
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
13 Japan: More cracks found in Miyagi reactor * 
14 US: NRC Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards To Meet October 10 
15 US: Nuke plant vulnerable to 9/11-style attack California facility 
16 Canada: Energy minister did not know about nuclear power shutdown 
17 US: (US) Draft UN resolution gives Iraq 7 days to comply 
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
18 US: NRC Sends Augmented Inspection Team to Review Circumstances 
19 US: Residents near N-plants get anti-radiation pills 
20 US: Terrorism Insurance Hard to Come by 
21 Activists address Russia's radioactive legacy before disaster's 
22 US: Deal reached on Army plant health records 
23 US: Sick workers' bill seeks combined plan to pay in toxic matter 
24 US: Strickland Introduces Bill to Correct Problems with Energy 
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
25 US: Taxpayers to Owe Billions for Nuclear Waste Storage 
26 UK: Northern Minister branded 'naive' about Sellafield * 
27 US: Leavitt Coy on N-Waste Initiative Stance 
28 US: Court strikes down nuclear waste deal 
29 US: DOE asked to explain estimates at Yucca
30 US: Governor Davis Should Protect Californians From Radioactive Wast
31 'Too much emotion' in debate on Sellafield 
32 US: Envirocare OP: False Fear 
33 US: Canada: Negotiations continue over clean-up bill 
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
34 Bush envoy will re-open links with North Korea 
35 US tries to link terror group with Baghdad 
36 We are sleepwalking into a reckless war of aggression Britain 
37 As a way to peace, war flops : 
38 Daschle: Senate to Debate Iraq 
39 AU: What the White House really wants 
40 US: Subcritical nuclear experiment successful 
41 Agency disavows report on Iraq arms -- 
42 Time will tell value of accord between Japan, North Korea 
43 US: Bush shoots his Weapon of Mass Democracy 
44 US: Iraq: Berman Seeks Quick Action 
45 SNP proposes nuclear-free Scottish Defence Service 
46 Politics Britain and US agree on tough new UN resolution over 
47 Bush Must Realize the Nuclear Option Is No Option at All 
48 US: The Greater Nuclear Danger 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
49 5 sites studied to replace Rocky Flats 
50 INEEL cleanup gathers momentum : 
51 Judge Dismisses Oak Ridge Lawsuits 
52 Test site studied for nuke factory 
53 US Energy Department delegation visits Saratov
54 Test Site is finalist for nuke bomb plant
55 SNS: Just another thrill ride for ions 
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
                         FULL NEWS STORIES
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
 1 Taiwan: Anti-nuclear group meets on Saturday 

The Taipei Times Online: 2002-09-27 

ACTIVIST GATHER: Anti-nuclear groups from around the world will 
meet in Taipei to discuss the problems of nuclear power 

By Chiu Yu-Tzu STAFF REPORTER 

In a bid to stress how the adoption of nuclear energy would be a 
hindrance for any country trying to develop a sustainable future, 
both local and overseas anti-nuclear activists will discuss 
controversial issues pertaining to nuclear power when the 10th No 
Nuke Asia Forum (NNAF, «D®Ö¨È¬w½×¾Â) opens in Taipei on Saturday. 

At a press conference yesterday in Taipei, forum organizers said 
that controversial issues to be discussed include radioactive 
waste, renewable energy policies, concerns over nuclear safety, 
the relation between nuclear power plants and terrorism, and 
others. In addition, the experiences of anti-nuclear locals of 
Kungliao township (°^¼d) and Taipei County, where the Fourth 
Nuclear Power Plant is located, will also be presented. 

According to activists from the Taiwan Environmental Protection 
Union (TEPU), all forum participants are influential anti-nuclear 
figures in foreign countries such as Japan, South Korea, Russia, 
the Philippines, the Netherlands, the US, India and Germany. 

Activists said that their discussion would include not only the 
diverse local experiences of these countries, but also global 
trends that focus on promoting the sustainable development of the 
planet. 

"By talking with other Asian countries at the forum, we hope to 
come up with our action plans being carried out to phase out 
nuclear power," NNAF convener Shih Shin-min (¬I«H¥Á) said. Yang 
Chao-yueh (·¨»F©¨) of TEPU said that all participants at the 
forum demand for transparency of power companies' management, 
which would be crucial for the public to watch over the essential 
business. 

"The recent scandal at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) 
highlights the importance of anti-nuclear movement in Japan. Why 
does Taiwan still want to built its seventh and eighth nuclear 
reactors?" Yang asked. 

There are now two reactors each at three operational nuclear 
power plants in Taiwan. 

Ritsuya Okuno (¶ø³¥«ß¤]) of the No Nuke Asia Forum in Japan said 
the scandal was still expanding in Japan, as there were an 
increasing number of cover-ups pertaining to power companies' 
failing to replacing damaged core shrouds and other parts. 

A shroud is a stainless-steel cylinder made of welded plates that 
surrounds the core and regulates the flow of cooling water. 

According to Okuno, 37 reports of diverse power companies' 
cover-up had been received. So far, 13 out of 52 reactors in 
Japan have been shut down due to the scandal. 

"I'm afraid that similar things will also occur in Taiwan," Okuno 
said. 

Okuno said Japanese companies involved in the scandal include 
Hitachi and Toshiba, which are both subcontractors to build the 
advanced boiling water reactors for the Fourth Nuclear Power 
Plant in Taiwan. 

Tomorrow, former DPP chairman Lin Yi-hsiung (ªL¸q¶¯) will give a 
speech at the opening ceremony at the forum. 

In addition, Minister Without Portfolio Yeh Jiunn-rong (¸­«Tºa) 
will introduce Taiwan's approach to building a nuclear free 
country. He will also dialogue with Germany energy policy expert, 
Christian Matthes, who will introduce Germany's policies to phase 
out nuclear energy. 

On Sunday, activists attending the forum will march to call for a 
referendum on the future of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant. 

This story has been viewed 191 times. 

Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 2 British Energy given two-month reprieve 

Scotsman.com <http://www.scotsman.com/> 

Fri 27 Sep 2002 

Patricia Hewitt, the Trade and Industry Secretary 

/Fraser Nelson Westminster Editor/ 

BRITISH Energy was yesterday given another two months of 
emergency credit by the government, in what ministers fear may be 
its final chance to stay independent. 

The nuclear power firm has now been granted a £650 million loan, 
extended from £410 million, to keep afloat while it draws its own 
survival plan. 

It now has until 29 November to lay out a convincing 
restructuring package - or face following Railtrack as the second 
major casualty of the Conservative?s privatisation programme. 

The company, which runs eight nuclear power plants including 
Torness and Hunterston, gave investors few signs of encouragement 
as it said rescue talks may well end in failure. "If further 
discussions are not successful... the company may have to take 
appropriate insolvency proceedings," it said. 

"At this stage, there can be no certainty about the final shape 
of any restructuring, or whether it will preserve value for 
investors." Patricia Hewitt, the Trade and Industry Secretary, 
said yesterday: "Our over-riding priorities have always been to 
ensure the safety of nuclear power in the UK and maintain the 
security of our electricity supplies." 

The company - which last month angrily rejected claims about its 
financial peril - shocked investors three weeks ago by confirming 
that it needed a government loan to stave off collapse. 

After the reform in the electricity market, British Energy is now 
selling power for less than it costs to generate it. Unlike rival 
London Electricity, It has been unable to bypass the new NETA 
electricity market as it has no retail base to whom it can sell 
direct. 

The government is now senior creditor - a move that pushes 
bondholders and shareholders further down the line for 
compensation if the company does fall into administration. 
Expectations of a loan extension had sent BE?s bombed-out shares 
higher this week, though they dropped back after the announcement 
to touch 18p on Thursday. 

"We would have liked [the loan extension] to be longer, but we 
completely understand that what they are trying to do is keep the 
company operating while they get a handle on how the company 
works, what the issues are and what the solutions are," said a 
bondholder at Gartmore. 

News of the extended credit line drew protest from the 
Conservative Party and opponents of nuclear power. Greenpeace, 
which argues the loan is illegal, said the government should 
"face up to the obvious fact that nuclear power simply does not 
work". Tim Yeo, shadow trade and industry secretary, said the 
solution was to grant British Energy exemption from the Climate 
Change Levy. 

"Applying larger and larger sticking plaster to an open wound 
will not stop the bleeding," he said. "The government?s dithering 
over nuclear policy will cause the revenue bill to mount, but the 
decisions Patricia Hewitt is ducking will still have to be made 
in November." 

*****************************************************************
 3 SA welcomes Cuban nuclear announcement 

[http://www.news24.com] South Africa 

26/09/2002 21:49 - (SA) E-mail story to a friend

SA welcomes Cuban nuclear announcement 

Pretoria - The South African government on Thursday welcomed a 
recent announcement by Cuba that it would accede to the treaty on 
the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. 

"This would further strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation and 
disarmament regime and contribute to the ultimate goal of 
achieving a world entirely free from nuclear weapons," the 
department of foreign affairs said. Cuba made the announcement at 
the United Nations General Assembly in New York. It said that 
Cuba's announcement underscored the importance of a "multilateral 
approach" to dealing with issues of international peace and 
security, "which of late seems to have come under increasing 
pressure". The department also welcomed Cuba's further 
announcement that it would ratify the Treaty for the Prohibition 
of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean - the 
Treaty of Tlatelolco. "South Africa is a firm believer that the 
creation of nuclear-weapon-free zones not only accomplishes an 
absence of nuclear weapons, but also facilitates political 
stability within a region, which in turn promotes economic and 
social development. 

"The South African government trusts that Cuba's decision to 
ratify the Treaty of Tlatelolco will lend impetus to the 
establishment of further nuclear-weapon-free zones in other parts 
of the world, such as the Middle East, and South and Central 
Asia," the department said. 

[editor@news24.com] 
*****************************************************************
 4 UK Notebook: frightening parallels with Railtrack 

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | 

A long, winding and expensive road ahead 

Frightening parallels with Railtrack 

Friday September 27, 2002 The Guardian 
[http://www.guardian.co.uk] 

In the sorry case of British Energy, the government appears to be 
trudging down the same sad road followed last year in the months 
leading up to the Railtrack implosion. 

A publicly quoted, privately owned business is bust and yet is 
too important to the country's economic infrastructure (or 
threatening to the nation's atmosphere) to be allowed to go bust 
in the normal way. So the government throws money at the problem, 
describing the handout as a short-term loan until a longer-term 
solution is found. And when it proves impossible to find a 
longer-term solution, it throws more money at the problem, which 
is described as a short-term loan while a longer-term solution is 
found. The financial markets, meanwhile, cotton on to the fact 
that the stricken company is now subject to an apparent 
government guarantee. So they buy the shares and bonds, secure in 
the knowledge that even if the firm does go into administration 
they will get all their money back. 

The parallels between BE and Railtrack are frightening. Certain 
people at the Department of Trade need to wake up before their 
careers go the same way as Stephen Byers and his bickering 
minions at the Department of Transport. On any narrow, short-term 
view BE should now be in administration, with a new owner being 
sought. But on a broader view it is clear that sending BE to the 
corporate knackers' yard immediately would destroy a good deal of 
value - as well as jeopardising over 20% of the nation's 
electricity supply. For any "ordinary" publicly quoted business 
in this predicament - a short-term cash problem obscuring the 
fact that the business had clear longer-term value - the solution 
would be obvious. Shareholders would be asked to inject new 
capital into the business through a rights issue, maintaining 
their ownership so they could join in the upside if and when it 
arrived.

But British Energy is not an ordinary business. It's a nuclear 
power generator, and as a result it is just about the hottest 
corporate potato anyone in politics could wish to handle. Hence, 
yesterday's move to top-up the emergency funding to £650m and 
push back the deadline for dealing with the problem to the end of 
November. Like both Railtrack and national air traffic services 
before it, the BE issue once again highlights the contradiction 
at the heart of the government's approach to financing key parts 
of the nation's infrastructure: it wants a free market solution 
without all the nasty free market forces - capitalism lite, 
perhaps. 

With BE, the government appears to be stumbling towards a fudge, 
where a few hundred million pounds worth of profits will be 
conjured up by excusing BE from the climate change levy, fixing 
its reprocessing contract with BNFL and a few other synthetic 
measures. But this will not make the business profitable in any 
real sense of the word. And besides, it is all a bit academic 
when the government has still to come up with a long-term energy 
policy, giving hard guidelines on how Britain's electricity is 
going to be generated in future. There is a need to come to terms 
with the fact that the BE problem calls for one of two starkly 
contrasting options: public or private. The business could be 
taken back under the state umbrella, with shareholders and 
bondholders paid off and the firm run as a regular loss-making 
nuclear power business - as happens in France, for example. 

If there is an insistence that BE is left as a market-listed 
entity, then the government has to get use to playing by stock 
market rules. The business would need to be recapitalised through 
a rescue rights issue underwritten by the government. This would, 
inevitably, give the state a shareholding in the company, which 
could be sold down in the future if and when BE proves itself as 
a viable entity. 

Short-term loans and the like are simply storing up problems. The 
only "third way" for BE would be Britain going non-nuclear - but 
that's a bigger debate. Leaving to-do 

Imagine if Terry Leahy, the boss of Tesco spent a month telling 
everyone he met that he was sick to the hind teeth of running a 
supermarket and wanted to leave. Inevitably, Tesco's share price 
would tank. If Mr Leahy subsequently changed his mind and 
suddenly announced he was staying on for another year, the share 
price would probably recover. And every investor who sold on the 
"Leahy to Leave" story would hit the roof. Understandably, there 
would be calls for a full investigation by the financial services 
authority.

Now turn to Capital Radio and consider yesterday's surprise news 
that Chris Tarrant has decided to continue as the voice of the 
station's breakfast show. Mr Tarrant has, of course, been telling 
everyone who listened that he had had enough. Capital's shares 
tanked as a result - and yesterday the stock rallied 22.5p to 
477.5p in relief. 

We cannot believe for one moment that Mr Tarrant would 
purposefully mislead Capital's investors - and there is no 
suggestion that he would manipulate the stock market. But the FSA 
takes this sort of thing seriously nowadays. Its new market abuse 
regime is designed to control the very information which Mr 
Tarrant has been banding about. The man had better keep his head 
down. 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
*****************************************************************
 5 Nuclear fallout over £240m 

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | 

Howls of protest greet more government aid to British Energy 

Terry Macalister Friday September 27, 2002 The Guardian 
[http://www.guardian.co.uk] 

The government raised the stakes over the future of British 
Energy last night by pumping a further £240m of emergency aid 
into the ailing nuclear generator, triggering howls of protest 
from rival power firms, green groups and opposition MPs. 

The short-term loan - bringing the total commitment of public 
money to £650m - is meant to tide the company over until November 
29 but government sources admitted it could take more time to 
find a concrete solution to finally secure the generator's 
future. Shares in BE fluctuated wildly - rising strongly and then 
falling 14% to 19p - after trade and industry secretary Patricia 
Hewitt said she had agreed to roll over an existing aid facility 
- due to run out today - to ensure the safety of nuclear power in 
Britain and maintain security of electricity supply. BE, which 
operates eight nuclear plants, accounts for more than 20% of the 
nation's electricity production. "We have decided to extend the 
loan for a further two months to give sufficient time to clarify 
the company's full financial position and to come to a clear view 
on the options for restructuring the company. No decisions have 
been taken and no commitments given on the company's long term 
future," she said. 

The government headed off previous criticism about the legality 
of the bail out by saying the European Commission had been 
notified. But this did little to assuage the anger of AES Drax 
Power, owner of the largest coal-fired power station in western 
Europe which attacked Ms Hewitt's move as "blatantly 
anti-competitive." 

Gerry Levesley, director of Drax Power and vice president of AES 
said: "The support granted to British Energy singles out that 
company for favourable treatment with significant detriment to 
the rest of the industry. It has a seriously disruptive effect on 
competition and therefore completely contradicts government's 
previous commitments to competition and liberalisation of the 
energy markets." The Socialist Environment and Resources 
Association, which counts 100 Labour MPs among its membership, 
said it was time to pull the plug on BE and called it a "lame 
duck." Greenpeace agreed. "He (prime minister Tony Blair) should 
stop pouring taxpayers' cash into this black hole and start 
backing energy efficiency programmes and renewable technologies," 
said spokeswoman Emma Gibson. Tim Yeo, shadow trade and industry 
secretary, believed the government should take more decisive 
action and exempt BE from the climate change levy while reducing 
its reprocessing costs. 

"Applying larger and larger sticking plaster to an open wound 
will not stop the bleeding. The government's dithering over 
nuclear policy will cause the revenue bill to mount but the 
decisions Patricia Hewitt is ducking will still have to be made 
in November," he added. BE shocked the government earlier this 
month by saying it would become insolvent unless it was given 
immediate state aid. It blamed falling wholesale power prices as 
a result of liberalisation although ministers believe some of its 
wounds were self-inflicted. Most analysts believe the government 
will be forced to offer concessions such as those demanded by the 
company and repeated by Mr Yeo. BE admitted there is no certainty 
as to whether it would "preserve value" for shareholders. 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
*****************************************************************
 6 British Energy Gets Emergency Loan 

Las Vegas SUN: 

September 26, 2002 

ASSOCIATED PRESS 

LONDON- The government agreed Thursday to increase and extend an 
emergency loan to British Energy PLC to help keep the financially 
distressed company afloat until it can restructure. The 
Department of Trade and Industry enlarged its loan to 650 million 
pounds ($1.01 billion) from 410 million pounds and gave British 
Energy until Nov. 29 to repay it. The original loan was approved 
on Sept. 9 and would have come due Friday. 

British Energy, which generates one-fifth of Britain's 
electricity, has suffered a cash squeeze due to plunging 
electricity prices and technical problems at its power stations. 
It said earlier this month that it might have to file for 
bankruptcy if the government didn't help. Privatized in 1996, the 
company has eight nuclear power stations and employs 5,200 people 
in the United Kingdom.

Earlier this year it reported full-year losses of nearly 500 
million pounds ($780 million). Environmental groups had urged the 
government not to bail out the company. "We have decided to 
extend the loan for a further two months in order to give 
sufficient time to clarify the company's full financial position 
and to come to a clear view on the options for restructuring the 
company," Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt said. 

"Our overriding priorities have always been to ensure the safety 
of nuclear power in the U.K., and maintain the security of our 
electricity supplies," she added. 

The loan was cross-guaranteed by businesses within the British 
Energy group and was collateralized by group assets. 

British Energy shares fell 15 percent at 18.28 pence (28.52 
cents). The company's shares traded three years ago at more than 
700 pence.

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. 
*****************************************************************
 7 UK: New lifeline for Energy attacked 

Times Online 

September 27, 2002 

By Christine Buckley, Industrial Editor 

PATRICIA HEWITT, the Trade and Industry Secretary, came under 
fresh fire from politicians, industry and environmentalists 
yesterday, after she handed British Energy a new £650 million 
lifeline. Under the terms of the arrangement, the nuclear power 
generator’s second bailout of the month, the Government will roll 
over an existing £410 million loan and provide an extra £250 
million in working capital. The new lifeline will allow the 
troubled power firm to carry on trading until the end of 
November. 

Greenpeace questioned the legality of the move, noting that the 
loan had not been approved by European regulators, while AES Drax 
Power, owner of the UK’s largest coal-fired power station, 
complained that the arrangement would distort power prices. 

Politicians also lambasted the move. Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove 
Bay, the Liberal Democrat peer, took issue with an earlier 
statement by Mrs Hewitt, in which she declared that an earlier 
loan to British Energy should not be taken as a blank cheque. He 
said that the latest package looked “more like a standing order”. 

Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat trade and industry spokesman, said: 
“This is completely wrong and irresponsible. It is putting 
taxpayers’ money at risk and the Government is laying itself open 
to legal action.” Tim Yeo, the Tory trade and industry spokesman, 
accused ministers of “dithering over nuclear policy” ahead of its 
energy White Paper later this year. He said: “Applying a larger 
and larger sticking plaster to an open wound will not stop the 
bleeding.” Bill Eyres, chairman of Sera, the Labour-affiliated 
environmental group, said: “British Energy is a lame duck which 
should be put out of its misery without further delay. The 
Government should not be propping up a failing business and 
seriously skewing its long-term energy policy.” 

Mike Jeram, national officer for energy at Unison, said that the 
new electricity trading arrangements (Neta) — which have forced 
down wholesale prices — needed an urgent overhaul. He said: 
“Privatisation created the dash for gas which Neta has turned 
into excess capacity.” However, Robin Jeffrey, British Energy 
chairman, said: “This enables us to operate, and to ensure that 
our objective of maintaining safe operations will be met whilst 
restructuring options are developed.” The Government and the 
company are in talks about measures which could keep the business 
afloat over the longer term. British Energy and the Conservatives 
want the company to be exempt from the climate change levy. But 
Martin O’Neill, chairman of the Trade and Industry Select 
Committee, suggested that this is unlikely. Instead, he said, 
Parliament might consider plans for a carbon tax. Such a tax 
would give British Energy an advantage compared with fossil fuel 
generators. He said: “Exempting British Energy from the climate 
change levy would not contribute as much as many people think. It 
would also mean a major unstitching of a policy that was very 
difficult to introduce in the first place.” Mr O’Neill said a 
restructuring of British Energy should be accompanied by a 
boardroom shake-up because there was now “a question of 
confidence” over its financial management.

Shares fell 278p to 18¼p on confirmation of the extension. Is 
nationalisation the best way to bail out British Energy? 

Send your views now to debate@thetimes.co.uk 
[debate@thetimes.co.uk] 

[http://www.thetimes.co.uk
*****************************************************************
 8 AU: Nuclear industry is in meltdown - 

smh.com.au 

September 28 2002 

A series of scandals has even government and supporters thinking 
again, writes Herald Correspondent Shane Green. 

They numbered about 50, huddled together on the shoulder of the 
bitumen road, waiting under darkening clouds. In the distance, 
the flashing red lights of the police escort announced that the 
moment had arrived. 

The convoy rolled past and, on cue, the heavens opened. Through 
the curtain of rain, there was little to distinguish the trucks 
from any others - except for the nuclear symbol at the bottom of 
the tarpaulins. 

"We're against carrying nuclear fuel!" the 50 shouted, but with 
the noise of the trucks and the rain, the message was heard only 
by the protesters themselves, a few reporters and the policeman 
making sure they all stayed behind the white line. 

Another day, another protest outside the world's biggest nuclear 
plant, on Japan's west coast. But these days there is an added 
urgency in the voices of concern. 

In the past few weeks, Japan's nuclear industry has been rocked 
by a scandal from which it may never recover. 

The Tokyo Electric Power Company - one of Japan's biggest 
corporations - has been caught concealing cracks in the core 
structures of its reactors in the late 1980s and the '90s. The 
plant we stand outside today - the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear 
Plant - is one of two involved in the scandal. 

While it is not quite The China Syndrome - the 1979 film dealing 
with a cover-up at a nuclear plant - it has the element of deceit 
in the most dangerous of industries. The cracks in the core 
shrouds, as far as the public have been told, have not led to any 
accidents. 

But if Tepco - as the company is known - did this, what else has 
happened behind closed corporate doors? Since the story broke, 
the whole industry has been under scrutiny, and there have been 
allegations that at least one other company was involved in a 
similar cover-up in 1994. 

But it is the Tepco scandal that has had the biggest impact. The 
cover-up was revealed only after a tip-off from a whistleblower 
at a subcontractor. Remarkably, it was two years before Japan's 
nuclear safety agency made the breaches public. To cap off the 
incompetence, there are reports the agency leaked the name of the 
whistleblower to Tepco. 

"I wasn't surprised when I heard the news," said Yukiko Kondo, 
who heads the Women's Group to Protect Life at Kariwa Village, 
just two kilometres from the plant. "From the beginning, I didn't 
trust Tepco." 

We are sitting in the protest headquarters at Kariwa, a village 
of about 5000. The building is a working place of concrete 
floors, posters and optimism, from where a motivated band of 
Davids plan their strategies against their nuclear Goliath. 

Apart from the banners draped on the house, there is not much to 
tell you that Kariwa is so near the plant. The village is a neat, 
unexceptional place, interspersed with rice paddies now dry after 
the harvest. But look to the surrounding hills: they are 
straddled by the huge power pylons that carry the electricity 
generated. 

What is it like to live in the shadow of the world's biggest 
nuclear plant? "It's threatening," Ms Kondo said. 

Each time there is a problem at the plant, Tepco tells the 
Niigata prefecture government, which then tells the residents, 
and the anti-nuclear activists head to the gates to protest. Last 
year, the protesters made the journey 11 times. 

The plant was first proposed in 1968, and was promoted by the 
local Liberal Democratic Party MP, Kakuei Tanaka, who became 
prime minister in the 1970s. The proposal split the residents 
into opponents and those who saw jobs and state subsidies for the 
area.

Not much has changed. While there is a vocal anti-nuclear group, 
about 350 people are employed at the plant. 

But this latest scandal has even nuclear supporters here thinking 
about safety - particularly Tepco's plan to introduce contentious 
pluthermal technology. This involves recycling plutonium by 
turning it into uranium-plutonium mixed oxide fuel. 

Kariwa villagers had already voted against the technology in May, 
but the scandal has seen one-time supporters switch sides. The 
prefecture of Niigata, home to the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear 
Plant, has revoked its permission for Tepco to use the 
technology. Fukushima, where the other Tepco plant involved in 
the scandal is located, has taken a similar position. 

The Government has also acknowledged the pluthermal technology it 
supports appears to have suffered a critical blow. "We don't 
think we can simply pursue the policy any longer as the very 
precondition - confidence of the public or local residents - has 
been undermined," Seiji Murata, Japan's top economic, trade and 
industry bureaucrat, said. 

Beyond the pluthermal issue, the scandal has raised issues about 
the future of the nuclear industry. Resource-poor Japan went 
nuclear after the oil crises of the 1970s, and embraced the 
technology with a passion. 

But the industry received a serious blow three years ago, after 
an accident at a uranium processing plant at Tokaimura, about 150 
kilometres north of Tokyo. The accident left two dead, and 
hundreds of thousands were evacuated. 

Now, the Tepco scandal has even the Government angry. "It's 
absolutely abominable that this incident caused the people's 
confidence to be largely lost in nuclear energy, which is a 
pillar of the nation's energy policy," the Industry Minister, 
Takeo Hiranuma, said. 

Tepco has responded with public apologies and the resignation of 
top executives. Its own report on the scandal admitted 
"systematic and inappropriate management of nuclear power 
inspections and repair work for a long time". 

The report blamed the cover-ups on a "strong sense of 
responsibility" by employees to get plants back on line as 
scheduled. 

Back at Kariwa, Yukiko Kondo has her own strong sense of 
responsibility, directed towards the hope that one day the 
world's biggest nuclear power plant will be scrapped. In the 
meantime, had she considered leaving Kariwa? 

Never, she said. "Right now, we have 53 nuclear plants in Japan. 
No matter where you go, the same thing is going to happen." 

The Japan syndrome 

· Nuclear power is a key plank in Japan's energy policy. The 
country has 53 reactors 

· Tokyo Electric covered up cracks and other damage at 13 
reactors in the 1980s and 1990s, but maintains there is no safety 
risk 

· Japan Atomic Power was accused of not reporting cracks in 1994 

· The name of the whistleblower who exposed the scandal was 
reportedly leaked by nuclear safety authorities to his company, 
Tokyo Electric 

· The scandal means plans to introduce controversial pluthermal 
technology are on hold. Concerns about the technology, which 
involves recycling plutonium produced by nuclear reactors, remain

Copyright © 2002. The Sydney Morning Herald. 
*****************************************************************
 9 Gov't told TEPCO of inspector who blew the whistle 

Government nuclear inspectors provided Tokyo Electric Power Co. 
(TEPCO) with the name of the engineer who blew the whistle on the 
power company's operations to cover up trouble occurring at its 
nuclear plants and described him as a "security risk," the 
government admitted Friday.

Mainichi Shimbun *METI chief Takeo Hiranuma announces the 
decision to punish six Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency 
officials over the scandal. * The shocking admission was made in 
a draft of an interim report compiled by a Ministry of Economy, 
Trade and Industry (METI) panel that was set up to examine 
investigations conducted by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety 
Agency on the TEPCO Cover-up scandal. "Providing the name of the 
whistle-blower and his private information to TEPCO was extremely 
inappropriate and totally unnecessary to the investigations," the 
draft read. "The agency needs to seriously review its actions." 

The panel also confirmed that the agency, which is under the 
jurisdiction of METI, lied when it claimed it had to spend two 
years probing the case because it had placed a priority on 
keeping the identity of the whistle-blower a secret. On Friday, 
Nuclear and industrial Safety Agency chief Nobuhiko Sasaki 
retracted his previous statement made during the panel's previous 
session that the agency has "never disclosed the identity of the 
whistle-blower to TEPCO." 

After Friday's session, Sasaki admitted that the agency provided 
TEPCO with documents, including ones signed by the 
whistle-blower, and a comment from his boss that he had a 
reputation as a "security risk." The panel also condemned the 
nuclear safety agency and its predecessor, the Natural Resources 
and Energy Agency, in the interim report for lumbering over the 
investigation for two years without making much progress.

"The government inspectors could considerably shorten the period 
of investigations" simply by pressing TEPCO to do more to help 
them, the draft report pointed out. In order to improve the 
quality of similar investigations in the future, the draft urged 
the government to compile an investigation manual that set a 
recommended time limit to deal with problems. 

It also recommended the establishment of an independent watchdog 
to oversee investigations conducted by the Nuclear and Industrial 
Safety Agency. Meanwhile, METI chief Takeo Hiranuma announced 
Friday that its six officials, including Nuclear Safety Agency 
head Sasaki, were reprimanded in response to the panel's 
findings.

(Mainichi Shimbun, Sept. 27, 2002) 

*****************************************************************
 10 Japan Report: Tougher rules needed at N-plants 

[Daily Yomiuri On-Line] 

Yomiuri Shimbun 

The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry's Nuclear and Industrial 
Safety Agency on Thursday submitted to a ministry subcommittee 
the draft of an interim report that includes proposed measures to 
prevent power companies from falsifying reports of inspections of 
their nuclear facilities. According to ministry sources, the 
agency will use these measures as a basis for proposed amendments 
to the Electricity Enterprises Law and the Law for the Regulation 
of Nuclear Source Material, Nuclear Fuel Material and Reactors. 
They will be submitted during the extraordinary Diet session 
expected to be convened next month. 

The agency's report follows recent revelations that Tokyo 
Electric Power Co. on several occasions falsified inspection 
reports on cracks found in the company's nuclear plants. 

TEPCO discovered cracks in parts of nuclear reactors at all three 
of its nuclear power plants but falsified inspection reports 
concerning the damaged reactors. It also continued to run the 
reactors and replaced faulty parts without informing the 
government of the defects. According to sources, the agency 
report identifies various factors that might have contributed to 
the falsifications. Among them is the fact that the only standard 
for nuclear reactors is one that stipulates constantly updating 
the reactor's component parts, while there is none to clarify 
which damages or defects should be reported to the government. 

Therefore, the agency is looking to create a new standard that 
would allow companies to continue running defective reactors if 
the defects are determined not to pose a safety risk. The 
standard would be based on private-sector standards set by the 
Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers and other organizations, 
the sources said.

The agency also is looking to legally regulate in-house power 
plant inspection reports, which have become notorious for 
falsification.

The draft proposes that power companies be required to keep 
inspection records for nuclear facilities and those that fail to 
do so be punished. The agency also hopes to prevent collusion and 
avoid tension between power companies and the government, with 
measures including tougher penal regulations for power companies 
that repeatedly and systematically commit improper acts and 
spot-checks of nuclear facilities, the sources said. 

Copyright 2002 The Yomiuri Shimbun 
*****************************************************************
 11 Japan: Miyagi nuclear fuel tax faces hike * 

Friday, September 27, 2002 ** 

SENDAI

(Kyodo) The Miyagi Prefectural Government plans to raise its tax 
on nuclear fuel to 10 percent, bringing its rate in line with 
Niigata and Fukui prefectures, officials said Thursday. Miyagi 
Gov. Shiro Asano announced the plan at a plenary session of the 
prefectural assembly. The prefecture currently taxes the fuel at 
7 percent. It hopes to implement the hike in June, when the rate 
is subject to its mandated five-yearly review, the officials 
said.

Tohoku Electric Power Co. is the only payer of the nuclear fuel 
tax in the prefecture, as it runs the Onagawa nuclear plant 
there. The prefecture expects some 3.5 billion yen in revenue 
from the nuclear fuel tax for five years beginning in 1998. This 
is about 70 percent of the initial estimate as a result of 
sagging uranium prices. The prefectural government expects the 
tax hike to bring in around 5.6 billion yen in the next five 
years. 

*The Japan Times: Sept. 27, 2002* (C) All rights reserved 

*****************************************************************
 12 Cotter: Toxic waste dump not in plans* 

/*Canon City, Colorado*/ 

Canon City Daily Record - Canon City and the Royal Gorge Region,
Colorado 

*September 27, 2002* 

*In new markets, mill seeks identity* 

/Record photo by Tamara McCumber/ 

General Manager *Pat Mutz* stands near a thickening tank at the 
Cotter Corporation's Cañon City mill. The tanks are among 
specialized equipment used in the uranium-milling process. 

/By Eric Frankowski/ Daily Record News Group 

CAÑON CITY — Prior to 2001, the Cotter Corporation's logo was a 
golden nucleus surrounded by the circular paths of orbiting 
electrons, a reflection of the company's long history of milling 
uranium at a complex just south of Cañon City. 

But sometime last year, management decided nuclear was passé, and 
that a change was in order. 

The new logo is now a forest-green nucleus surrounded by three 
thick arrows forming a triangle. 

The international symbol for recycling. 

Entire contents Copyright Ó 2000 Royal Gorge Publishing
*****************************************************************
 13 Japan: More cracks found in Miyagi reactor * 

Friday, September 27, 2002 ** 

SENDAI (Kyodo) Tohoku Electric Power Co. said Thursday it has 
found six more cracks in a reactor at its nuclear power plant in 
Miyagi Prefecture, bringing the total number of cracks to 73. 

On Monday, Tohoku Electric said that during regular inspections 
it had detected 67 cracks in the lower and middle portions of the 
shroud of a pressure vessel at the No. 1 Onagawa reactor. 

The plant spans the towns of Onagawa and Oshika. 

But the company found six more cracks in the lower portion of the 
shroud during analysis of a videotape made using an underwater 
camera, company officials said. 

The number of cracks in the middle portion of the shroud remained 
at 12. 

The longest of all the 73 cracks was found to be about 10 cm, 4 
cm shorter than the company had announced Monday. 

"We could not find out the details of the cracks because we were 
only watching monitors at the site when we first found the cracks 
during the inspection," a company official said. 

*The Japan Times: Sept. 27, 2002* (C) All rights reserved 
*****************************************************************
 14 NRC Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards To Meet October 10 - 
12 in Rockville, Md. 

NRC: News Release - 2002-112 - 

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs 
Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: 
[opa@nrc.gov] www.nrc.gov 

No. 02-112 September 26, 2002 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commissions Advisory Committee on Reactor 
Safeguards (ACRS) will hold a meeting on October 10 - 12 in 
Rockville, Md., to discuss, among other items, license renewal 
applications for the Catawba and McGuire nuclear power plants. 
The meeting, most of which will be open to the public, will be 
held in Room T-2B3 of the agencys Two White Flint North 
building, at 11545 Rockville Pike. It will begin at 8:30 a.m. 
each day. A complete agenda is attached. 

For additional information contact Dr. Sher Bahadur, at 
301-415-0138, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. 

ACRS MEETING AGENDA 

THURSDAY 

8:30 - 8:35 A.M. Opening Statement by the ACRS Chairman - The 
ACRS Chairman will make remarks regarding the conduct of the 
meeting. 

8:35 - 10:00 A.M.: Confirmatory Research Program on High-Burnup 
Fuel (Open) - The Committee will hear presentations by and hold 
discussions with representatives of the NRC Staff and the 
Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) regarding the 
confirmatory research program on high-burnup fuel and the EPRI 
topical report on reactivity insertion accidents. 

10:15 A.M. - 12:15 P.M.: Overview of European Simplified Boiling 
Water Reactor (ESBWR), SWR 1000 (Boiling Water Reactor), Advanced 
CANDU Reactor (ACR 700) Pre-Application Review (Open) - The 
Committee will hear presentations by and hold discussions with 
representatives of the NRC Staff and industry on the ESBWR 
(General Electric 1380 MWe), SWR 1000 (Framatome ANP-Siemens 1000 
Mwe) and ACR 700 (Advanced CANDU Reactor 700 Mwe) advanced 
reactor designs. 

1:15 - 2:45 P.M.: Catawba and McGuire License Renewal Application 
(Open) - The Committee will hear presentations by and hold 
discussions with representatives of the NRC staff and Duke Energy 
Company regarding the license renewal application and draft 
Safety Evaluation Report for the Catawba Nuclear Station Units 1 
and 2 and McGuire Nuclear Station Units 1 and 2. 

2:45 P.M. - 4:00 P.M.: Policy Issues Related to Advanced Reactor 
Licensing (Open) - The Committee will hear presentations by and 
hold discussions with representatives of the NRC staff regarding 
changes to policy issues related to the licensing of advanced 
reactors resulting from the resolution of ACRS comments and 
recommendations included in its June 17, 2002 report. 

4:15 - 7:00 P.M.: Proposed ACRS Reports (Open) - The Committee 
will discuss proposed ACRS reports on matters considered during 
this meeting. 

FRIDAY 

8:30 - 8:35 A.M.: Opening Remarks by the ACRS Chairman (Open) - 
The ACRS Chairman will make remarks regarding the conduct of the 
meeting. 

8:35 - 10:00 A.M.: Program Plan for Low-Power Shutdown (LPSD) 
Standardized Plant Analysis Risk (SPAR) Model Development and 
Cancellation of Revision 4i of SPAR Models (Open) - The Committee 
will hear presentations by and hold discussions with 
representatives of the NRC staff regarding the program plan for 
LPSD SPAR Model Development, the reasons for canceling plans for 
the development of revision 4i of the SPAR Models, and insights 
from the onsite review of the LPSD SPAR model for Surry Nuclear 
Plant Units 1 and 2. 

10:15 - 11:30 A.M.: Guidance for Performance-Based Regulation 
(Open) - The Committee will hear presentations by and hold 
discussions with representatives of the NRC staff regarding the 
draft NUREG/BR Guidance for Performance-Based Regulation. 

11:30 - 11:45 A.M.: Reconciliation of ACRS Comments and 
Recommendations (Open) - The Committee will discuss the responses 
from the NRC Executive Director for Operations (EDO) to comments 
and recommendations included in recent ACRS reports and letters. 
The EDO responses are expected to be made available to the 
Committee prior to the meeting. 

1:15 - 2:15 P.M.: Future ACRS Activities/Report of the Planning 
and Procedures Subcommittee (Open) - The Committee will discuss 
the recommendations of the Planning and Procedures Subcommittee 
regarding items proposed for consideration by the full Committee 
during future meetings. Also, it will hear a report of the 
Planning and Procedures Subcommittee on matters related to the 
conduct of ACRS business, and organizational and personnel 
matters relating to the ACRS. 

2:15 - 3:15 P.M.: Report Regarding Recent Operating Events (Open) 
- Report by the cognizant ACRS member regarding recent operating 
events of interest. 

3:15 - 7:00 P.M.: Proposed ACRS Reports (Open/Closed) - The 
Committee will discuss proposed ACRS reports. Part of the session 
will be closed to the public. 

SATURDAY 

8:30 A.M. - 1:00 P.M.: Proposed ACRS Reports (Open) - The 
Committee will discuss proposed ACRS reports. 

1:00 - 1:30 P.M.: Miscellaneous (Open) - The Committee will 
discuss matters related to the conduct of Committee activities 
and matters and specific issues that were not completed during 
previous meetings, as time and availability of information 
permit. The Committee will also discuss its plans for preparing a 
"white paper" on the use of PRA in the regulatory decision making 
process. 

ACRS meeting agenda, meeting transcripts, and letter reports are 
available through the NRC Public Document Room at [pdr@nrc.gov] , 
or by calling the PDR at 1-800-397-4209, or from the Publicly 
Available Records System (PARS) component of NRC's document 
system (ADAMS) which is accessible from the NRC Web site at 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html or 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/ (ACRS & ACNW Mtg 
schedules/agendas). 

Privacy Statement | Site Disclaimer 

Last revised Friday, September 27, 2002 
*****************************************************************
 15 Nuke plant vulnerable to 9/11-style attack California facility 
near huge military base under heavily used jetway

WorldNetDaily </> 

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 27 2002 

*HOMELAND INSECURITY* 

By Dave Forman © 2002 WorldNetDaily.com 

/Imagine the unthinkable: a terrorist attack that takes out a 
nuclear plant and the largest American military installation in 
the world all in one fell swoop. A Tom Clancy novel or a very 
disturbing, real possibility?/ 

Every night, jetliner after jetliner fly directly over The San 
Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, or SONGS, in Southern 
California at altitudes that would allow a similar attack to 9-11 
with less than three minutes warning, a fact that greatly 
concerns pilots and security experts who are familiar with the 
area. 

Federal Aviation Administration <http://www.faa.gov> maps show 
the jetway known as "Victor 23" directly over the coastline 
<http://www.avmap.bizland.com/LA/LAsectweb12.jpg>, directly over 
the SONGS nuclear plant at about 17,000 feet. These jets on 
Victor 23, or V23, could descend at well over 5,000 feet per 
minute in a quick but normal descent, much faster if deliberately 
sent into a nosedive as in the case of Egypt Air Flight 990, 
which was crashed off the East Coast by its copilot. The 
airliners outbound from San Diego's Lindbergh Field are routinely 
routed on this course, loaded with passengers and full of fuel. 

V23 is green, V25 yellow. Red is western perimeter of Marine 
base.

Victor 25, another north-south jetway, runs next to V23. V25 is 
only about 15 miles off the coast when passing SONGS. Jets on V25 
flying at 500 miles per hour, therefore, are also only a few 
short minutes from the nuclear plant. While V25 is still 
dangerously close to SONGS, it is not directly overhead, as is 
V23. 

Routing dozens of jetliners fueled to capacity directly over or 
very close to the nuclear plant at relatively low altitudes as 
they climb out of or descend into San Diego is a risk that could 
prove to be a catastrophic disaster, say airline pilots. A Marine 
Corps lieutenant colonel who flies fighters out of Air Station 
Miramar near San Diego, as well as commercial jets for American, 
said he's "scared to death" by the scenario. 

"Consider this," said the pilot, who asked that his name not be 
used. "SONGS is surrounded by Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton on 
three sides and the ocean on the other. It should be the most 
secure nuke plant we have, but it is not." 

The Marine Corps' busiest facility in the world, Camp Pendleton 
covers 200 square miles. Sixty-thousand Marines and civilians 
work at the base. 

Even now, when the nation is in a state of alert, SONGS has only 
one or two private security guards at the front gate. Often the 
steel gate is wide open only yards from the concrete reactor 
housings. When Gov. Gray Davis wanted the Marine Corps to secure 
the plant, he was unable to get help. So he now occasionally has 
one California Highway Patrol unit cruising the area. He also had 
CalTrans post "no stopping" signs along the freeway that passes 
by the plant as an apparent attempt at deterrence. 

Some security experts wonder why, with commercial flights within 
moments of the plant, flight paths haven't been moved much 
further out to sea or inland. As a temporary fix until they are 
moved, the Marine Corps could move anti-aircraft batteries up on 
the hillside directly overlooking SONGS and be in constant 
contact with air traffic control. Both security measures would be 
virtually cost-free to taxpayers. The Marines are already 
stationed there and on the payroll, as are air traffic 
controllers. Yet neither has been done, now over a year after 
9-11. 

An FAA "high alert" order to pilots restricting some air space 
only affected small private planes that pose little threat to 
nuclear plants. The large jets full of passengers and fuel were 
not affected. 

The public information officer at SONGS has conceded that an 
adequate test of whether its reactor could sustain an attack from 
a fully fueled airliner at several hundred miles an hour has 
never been done. 

Even if a jet missed the actual reactor building, it may hit one 
of the open cooling ponds where, according to inside sources, old 
reactor rods full of spent fuel sit in open air pools of "heavy" 
(radioactive) water. Any disruption would cause a release of 
radioactivity into the environment. 

In the event of a non-responsive jetliner from either V23 or V25 
heading for San Onofre, fighter jets scrambled out of Miramar 
could not get off the ground in time to intercept the plane. The 
same is true for attack helicopters based at Camp Pendleton. 

Currently, every northbound jetliner leaving San Diego on V23 is 
in fact headed for San Onofre. There would be no warning if an 
airliner on V23 started a rapid dive over Oceanside, headed for 
the nuke plant. Even an anti-aircraft battery couldn't get 
authorization quickly enough to react. 

Add to this the lax security at airports where chartered jets 
originate. 

At Carlsbad's Palomar Airport a few miles south of SONGS, anyone 
with a bag full of cash can charter a large jet such as a 
Gulfstream, load their luggage on board unscreened and take off. 
Unlike the major airlines, security is minimal or non-existent at 
these facilities. The business jets don't have fortified cockpit 
doors and no flight crews in the cabin watching what's going on. 
Often luggage can be accessed from the passenger area of these 
jets. 

The following scenario was painted by a top military and 
commercial jet pilot: 

"You charter a private jet about the size of an airliner, like a 
Gulfstream or Challenger. You load your luggage with explosives. 
As soon as the jet leaves Palomar full of fuel, the pilots are 
quite busy. Just as the jet is over the coastline, you kick open 
the flimsy cockpit door ? if it is even closed ? kill the pilots, 
turn the jet to the north and you are about three minutes from 
San Onofre. You push the throttles forward, and the jet 
accelerates rapidly to hundreds of miles per hour. You are 
already at a low altitude of a few hundred feet headed for the 
nuclear plant right smack in front of you. Air traffic control is 
frantically calling your call sign: 'Whisky Papa 77 do you copy? 
Over.' By the time they make the third or fourth attempt at 
contacting you, it is over." 

Then the news channels get the word: "This just in. A large jet 
has hit the active nuclear reactor at San Onofre, Calif. A large 
fireball can be seen for miles as the massive black smoke cloud 
moves inland and over the heavily populated civilian areas just 
to the northeast and over Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton that 
immediately surrounds the nuclear plant. It is unknown at this 
time if any of the smoke you are looking at in this live shot is 
radioactive steam from the plant. However, the plant's emergency 
sirens around south Orange County and on the marine base have 
been activated. And we are told the only freeway leading out of 
the area is stopped in both directions as thousands try 
desperately to get out and emergency response teams try to get 
in. It is unknown if the jet came out of San Diego or Carlsbad." 

If this frightening scenario is on the radar screen of pilots, 
both military and civilian, then terrorists likely have 
considered it, too. The fact that the 9-11 hijackers have 
connections to San Diego and a history of attending flight 
schools adds to the alarm. 

Capt. Joe Postri, a Navy fighter pilot, airline pilot and 
commercial aviation flight safety instructor, flies the skies 
above SONGS quite frequently. He agreed that the lack of security 
precautions related to the plant poses a grave risk. Postri 
noted, however, that it will not be easy to change the area's 
flight patterns. 

"It will take an act of Congress to move airplanes from where 
they have been flying for years," he said. Both security experts 
and pilots are wondering just when such action might take place. 

/Dave Forman <mailto:dave@4mnbroadcasting.com> is a television 
producer, author and journalist. He has executive produced and 
hosted TV series for ABC, CBS and Disney. His commentaries have 
been published in Newsday, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Talkers 
and other national publications./ 

© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc. 
*****************************************************************
 16 Canada: Energy minister did not know about nuclear power shutdown 
during hot summer 

CANOE.CA 

September 26, 2002 Energy minister did not know about nuclear 
power shutdown during hot summer TORONTO (CP) -- Ontario's energy 
minister had no idea that a key source of nuclear power was out 
of action during the recent summer of record-breaking heat and 
soaring electricity prices.  Although the province teetered on 
the brink of brownouts and blackouts because of a limited power 
supply, the minister says he only found out about the problem at 
the Bruce nuclear power plant Thursday morning.  "I was informed 
this morning," John Baird said on the day a local newspaper ran a 
story on the shutdown. 

 "Obviously, I'd rather see anything before it's on the front 
page of a newspaper." 

 An accident in June at Unit 6 of the Bruce Power B generating 
station near the Lake Huron community of Kincardine, Ont., 
knocked the reactor out of service for the summer, the hottest in 
the province in some 50 years.  Increased consumer demand led to 
new records for consumer consumption and forced the province to 
purchase imported power.  But Premier Ernie Eves dismissed the 
suggestion Thursday that the shutdown was directly responsible 
for electricity price hikes.  "I think it's important to put this 
in its proper perspective," the premier said. 

 "Sure, it had some effect, but to say that because this unit was 
down for two or three months ... that is why consumers faced 
higher energy prices summer prices this summer, I don't really 
think it's a fair comment."  A news release put out by Bruce 
Power in June about the shutdown said that the "operational 
impact (was) not expected to be significant."  Baird, who took 
over the Energy portfolio in August from Chris Stockwell, said 
the Energy Ministry and the Independent Electricity Market 
Operator, which runs Ontario's electricity grid, knew about the 
problem at the plant.  Asked whether Stockwell was also told the 
generating unit was down, Baird said: "As I was informed, he 
wasn't." 

 Stockwell referred all questions on the matter to Baird. 

 The unit in question had been taken out of operation in March 
for planned maintenance, but the accident on June 11 kept it down 
for the summer.  Asked why the public was not better informed of 
the problem, Baird said the Independent Electricity Market 
Operator decided how to handle the matter, adding the information 
was "commercially sensitive."  "We're talking about one generator 
of four at the Bruce B Station," he said.  "The IMO was informed 
and they're the ones who make the judgment. Obviously, 
electricity is priced on supply and demand and if supply is 
reduced obviously that could have an effect on the price." 

 Over the summer, the province imported up to 4,000 megawatts of 
power at peak periods, when demand hit a record 25,414 megawatts. 
Bruce Unit 6 produces about 800 megawatts. 

 Nuclear power is often touted for producing no air pollution. 
 When nuclear plants go down, the gap is usually made up by power 
from coal-burning plants, the dirtiest kind of power.   
<b>Copyright</b> [http://www.canoe.ca/copyright.html] © 2002, 
CANOE, a division of Netgraphe Inc
*****************************************************************
 17 (US) Draft UN resolution gives Iraq 7 days to comply 

ABC News - 28/09/02 : 

The United States wants to give Iraqi President Saddam Hussein a 
seven-day deadline to accept a list of demands ranging from 
disclosing any weapons of mass destruction programs to opening 
all sites to inspection. 

Iraq would then have 30 days to make a full declaration of 
whatever nuclear, chemical, biological or ballistic arms programs 
it still may have. 

The conditions are contained in an American-drafted resolution to 
be circulated to the 15-member United Nations Security Council. 

However, the proposal has already met resistance from France, 
Russia and China. 

Should Iraq baulk, the resolution will warn that "all necessary 
means", a diplomatic term for military action, could be used to 
ensure compliance. 

US Secretary of State Colin Powell says the resolution includes a 
provision for the use of force. 

"It must find Iraq in violation of previous security council 
demands, it must specify exactly what is necessary now to rectify 
the situation and it should determine what consequences should 
follow from an Iraqi failure to act," he said. 

But this threat is not attached to a specific demand, a point 
France and others have raised in apprehension the United States 
could judge by itself when to strike Iraq. 

The declaration of weapons has to be made by Iraq before the 
return of the UN arms inspectors, who are to be accompanied by a 
"protection force". 

But the diplomats say these are not expected to be troops but 
armed guards. 

The inspectors are to be given new instructions about what they 
can do and where they can go, overriding all previous UN 
resolutions on disarmament. 

French resistance 

President George W Bush's push for a tough single United Nations 
resolution on has suffered a blow, with French President Jacques 
Chirac saying he prefers two resolutions, the first of which 
avoids any reference to military action. 

Mr Chirac told Mr Bush directly this was the view of the majority 
of the international community. 

The conversation took place as US and British diplomats flew into 
Paris to lobby for their position. 

US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Mark Grossman, 
will meet senior French Foreign Ministry officials in an effort 
to convince the French to support a new UN resolution on action 
against Iraq. 

Washington and London have agreed on a draft text for a 
resolution, which sets out conditions for Iraqi President Saddam 
Hussein to comply with UN weapons inspections. 

But the French say they do not want the use of force to be 
automatic and have offered two alternative resolutions: the first 
demanding the re-admission of the weapons inspectors with no 
conditions, and the second authorising the use of force only in 
the event of the weapons inspectors being obstructed. 

The US diplomatic offensive will move onto Moscow tomorrow. 

Support reiterated 

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister, John Howard, has reiterated the 
Government's support for a resolution against Iraq, as proposed 
by the US and Britain. 

Mr Howard says his Government's position is already clear. 

"I've stated my position," Mr Howard said. 

"I don't state my position by reference to commenting on what 
other people say. 

"The Australian Government has a very strong position, and that 
position is to support the efforts of the Americans and the 
British to get a resolution through the Security Council. 

"This issue won't go by people willing it to go away... it has to 
be addressed, it has to be dealt with." 

Regime change 

Meanwhile, Mr Rumsfeld says the United States does not have to 
capture Saddam Hussein to carry out its so-called "regime change" 
campaign. 

Mr Rumsfeld says the Iraqi leader's voluntary departure would be 
the preferred course, because if he is on the run, he is not 
governing Iraq. 

The Defence Secretary's remarks are the latest indication the 
Pentagon is planning a narrowly focused campaign to isolate 
Iraq's leadership from its population and the military. 

The US announced plans earlier in the week to give military 
training to Iraqi opposition groups. 

Mr Rumsfeld says the Iraqi people want to be liberated and the US 
goal is to liberate them. 

However, Saddam Hussein's eldest son Uday Hussein, 37-years-old, 
says any intruders on Iraqi soil would have their heads cut off. 

He is accusing America of coveting of Iraq's oil reserves. 

"If they want to deal with us in a proper way, without their 
usual arrogance and their cowboy style, then we are ready to deal 
with them," Mr Hussein said. 

"If they want to increase the bid we will increase it even 
further.

"If they raise their voices we will increase our action," he 
said.

© 2002 Australian Broadcasting Corporation 
*****************************************************************
 18 NRC Sends Augmented Inspection Team to Review Circumstances 
Related to Radiation Exposures at Texas Firm's Job Site in 
Montana 

NRC: News Release - Region IV - 2002-041 - 

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, 
Region IV 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington TX 76011 
www.nrc.gov 

No. IV-02-041 September 26, 2002 

CONTACT: Breck Henderson 

Phone: 817-860-8128 

Cellular: 817-917-1227 E-mail: opa4@nrc.gov [opa4@nrc.gov] 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commissions Region IV office in 
Arlington, Texas, is looking into circumstances associated with 
an apparent radiation over-exposure of 31 workers at a Texas 
companys temporary well drilling site near Havre, Montana, in 
May of this year. NRC officials said the radiation safety officer 
for Schlumberger Technology Corporation of Sugar Land, Texas, 
notified the agency on May 23 of the temporary loss of control of 
a radioactive well logging source containing 1.2 curies of 
Cesium-137. The company reported that a logging engineer failed 
to properly transfer the radioactive source from the well logging 
tool to its shielded transportation container following well 
logging operations at the Montana site on May 21. The source 
apparently fell from a handling tool onto the drilling rig floor 
where it remained unshielded until recovered by the company, some 
48 hours later, on the evening of May 23. During that time, the 
portable rig was dismantled, moved to another drill site some 
five miles away, and reassembled. 

Radioactive well logging sources are used by drilling companies 
to measure the properties of rock and other materials where a 
well is being dug to help determine the presence of water, gas or 
oil. 

On August 30 the NRC was provided the results of tests which 
indicated that one of the exposed individuals may have received a 
higher exposure than originally estimated. 

The NRC Region IV office conducted a special reactive inspection 
on May 25 and 26 and upgraded it to a special Augmented 
Inspection Team upon receipt of information on August 30 that the 
potential existed for several drill rig crew members to have 
received exposures greater than previously estimated. The AIT is 
reviewing the circumstances associated with the cause of the 
source being unshielded and unsecured. 

Privacy Statement | Site Disclaimer 

Last revised Friday, September 27, 2002 
*****************************************************************
 19 Residents near N-plants get anti-radiation pills 

Buffalo News - 

9/26/2002 

OSWEGO (AP) - Oswego County officials will begin distributing 
anti-radiation potassium iodide pills this weekend to residents 
who live within 10 miles of the county's three nuclear plants. 

The free distribution is part of the federal government's 
response to last year's Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which raised 
concerns about the safety of residents who live near the nation's 
nuclear plants. Oswego County is one of the last municipalities 
nationwide to dole out the pills, which were provided under a 
program developed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

"We wanted to first have a distribution plan in place," Patricia 
Egan, director of the Oswego County Emergency Management, said 
Wednesday. "We also had concerns that people might think this was 
a miracle drug that could totally protect them from radiation. 
It's not. So we wanted to also develop a comprehensive education 
program," Egan said. Officials in Texas decided earlier this 
month against distributing the pills because of concerns they 
would provide residents with a false sense of security. 

[http://www.buffalonews.com/copyright.htm] 
*****************************************************************
 20 Terrorism Insurance Hard to Come by 

[http://www.ptd.net] 

Thursday, 26-Sep-2002 10:20PM Story from AP / CHAD

Dow Jones Newswires 

NEW YORK (AP) -- A year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, 
insurers are still struggling with how to cover commercial 
property against terrorism. 

Most have dropped terrorism coverage where possible, leaving 
building owners scrambling to protect their assets. 

The coverage that is available is limited -- no nuclear, 
biological or chemical events are included -- and policies pay 
for less than $500 million in damage. The value of the twin 
towers of the World Trade Center was more than $7 billion. 

It's also very expensive -- in some cases more expensive than 
insuring the entire property value in the event of a fire. 

Insurers are worried about taking on too much risk without having 
a definite idea how frequently acts of terrorism could occur in 
the United States. 

However, a new kind of catastrophe modeling -- developed by the 
same companies that pioneered hurricane and earthquake models -- 
may help ease some of the industry's fears and make more coverage 
available. 

Hemant Shah, president of Risk Management Solutions, a San 
Francisco catastrophe modeler, says that if insurers can 
understand the range of outcomes and guess their likelihood, they 
are more willing to offer coverage. 

That's been the case as better models have been developed for 
earthquakes, hurricanes and floods around the world, Shah said. 

Several terrorism catastrophe models have been introduced into 
the market in recent weeks. RMS introduced a model based on game 
theory, the mathematical discipline featured in the movie "A 
Beautiful Mind." 

AIR Worldwide unveiled its own model that uses the "Delphi 
method" to assess frequencies and locations of future attacks. 
The Delphi method develops a statistical model based in part on 
interviews with terrorism and military experts about where and 
how future terrorist attacks may develop. 

Despite the new models, acceptance and implementation of those 
models remains a longer process for the industry, observers say. 

A few insurers began offering stand-alone terrorism insurance 
earlier this year on a limited basis or with small coverage 
amounts. However, it still remains difficult for many commercial 
property owners to find coverage, the Insurance Information 
Institute's chief economist, Robert P. Hartwig, said in a recent 
report. 

"Many businesses are unable to obtain terrorism coverage at any 
price, especially higher-profile structures with potential for 
catastrophic property and third-party losses," Hartwig said. 

"Other businesses, when offered coverage, have frequently 
declined, citing cost, the belief that they are unlikely to 
sustain damage from a terrorist attack or their expectation that 
government aid will be available in the event that such an attack 
does occur."

A July 2002 survey by Prudential Securities, a unit of Prudential 
Financial, found less than half of its commercial customers had 
any terrorism coverage. 

A majority of those who obtained coverage faced higher premiums, 
coverage limits, higher deductibles, cancellation clauses of 60 
days or less and exclusions for nuclear, biological or chemical 
attacks. Rate hikes ranged from a low of 20 percent to a high of 
200 percent, the survey found. 

*****************************************************************
 21 Activists address Russia's radioactive legacy before disaster's 
anniversary - 

9/27/2002 - ENN.com 

Friday, September 27, 2002 By Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated 
Press 

MOSCOW — The fallout from a catastrophic nuclear dumpsite 
explosion in Russia's Ural Mountains 45 years ago and decades of 
radioactive pollution have gravely affected the local 
population's health, but authorities have done little to assess 
or limit the damage, environmentalists said Thursday. 

On Sept. 29, 1957, a waste tank at the Mayak nuclear weapons 
plant in the closed city of Chelyabinsk-65 exploded, 
contaminating 23,000 square kilometers (9,200 square miles) and 
prompting authorities to evacuate 10,000 residents from 
neighboring regions. 

The city, which was so secret that it didn't appear on Soviet-era 
maps, has been renamed Ozyorsk but is still closed to outsiders. 
Some details of the disaster were first released to the public in 
1989 as part of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's 
liberalization drive, but its impact on the local population 
remains largely unknown even now. 

"We will never be able to learn all the consequences of this 
terrible catastrophe," said Alexei Yablokov, a former Kremlin 
adviser on environmental security and now head of the 
nongovernmental Center for Environmental Policy. 

"No one has kept track of what happened to the evacuated local 
residents and workers who were sent to clean up the area." 

Nadezhda Kutepova, the head of the Planet of Hope environmental 
group based in Ozyorsk, said that authorities had deliberately 
destroyed some medical archives to downplay the damage. "People 
who worked in the disaster area can't prove that," said Kutepova, 
whose father, a 19-year-old technical college student at the 
time, was among the men rushed to decontaminate the site several 
days after the explosion. "The authorities simply called up all 
students at the college, put them into trucks, and drove them to 
the disaster area," Kutepova said. "They rounded up tens of 
thousands men — soldiers, students, prisoners — all whom they 
could find." 

When Kutepova's father died of lung cancer 28 years after the 
disaster, the family thought the death was related to the 
radiation exposure during the clean-up works. However, they 
couldn't prove anything since they had no documents confirming 
that he worked in the disaster area, Kutepova said. Since then, 
regional officials have run medical checks of clean-up workers 
living in Ozyorsk and the population in adjacent territories. 
Still, such inspections involved only a small fraction of people 
who suffered from the disaster, said Yablokov and other 
environmental activists.

In addition to the radioactive fallout from the 1957 explosion, 
Mayak has contaminated vast surrounding areas by regularly 
dumping nuclear waste into nearby lakes since 1949, when it built 
the Soviet Union's first reactor to produce plutonium for atomic 
bombs.

Last year, the local governor warned the federal government that 
a huge amount of liquid radioactive waste could burst into the 
region's rivers and trigger an environmental catastrophe. 
Officials said that more than 400 million cubic meters (14 
billion cubic feet) of waste are stored in the Techa River 
cascade, a series of artificial ponds, channels, and dams 
intended to hold the waste from Mayak and protect the waterway 
from further pollution. Local officials have proposed solving the 
problem by building a nuclear power plant in the area that would 
help reduce the amount of waste, but the environmentalists said 
it would only add to the region's burdensome nuclear legacy. 

Copyright 2002, Associated Press 

*****************************************************************
 22 Deal reached on Army plant health records 

The Hawk Eye Newspaper 

American Ordnance recently accused of stonewalling study. 

By Dennis J. Carroll The Hawk Eye 

MIDDLETOWN — The Army and its operations contractor at the Iowa 
Army Ammunition Plant have reached a tentative agreement to 
resume the release of medical records of former workers to a team 
of health researchers, officials said Thursday. 

Tony Noll, business development director for American Ordnance, 
said the details still were being negotiated but that the Army 
and the company had worked out the major provisions of an 
agreement. 

Noll would not discuss the unresolved details, but it's thought 
that the general agreement centers on the Army indemnifying 
American Ordnance from responsibility if the records are lost, 
altered or destroyed. In addition, American Ordnance had 
expressed concerns about the possible loss of patient and worker 
confidentiality. "There is an agreement with the Army," said Dr. 
Lar Fuortes, director of the University of Iowa's team of 
researchers. 

Fuortes recently accused the plant of stonewalling requests from 
workers and the researchers. The health surveyors, from the 
College of Public Health, have for the past two years been 
collecting the medical records of former IAAP nuclear weapons 
workers under contracts with the Department of Energy. The 
records and X–rays, along with interviews and medical testing of 
the workers or their survivors, are being used to determine 
whether workers suffered illnesses or deaths from exposure to 
hazardous materials such as radiation, beryllium and silica. The 
health team also has helped former workers apply for compensation 
under a Energy Department program. 

The Atomic Energy Commission assembled, test fired and 
disassembled components of nuclear weapons from the late 1940s to 
the mid–1970s, when its nuclear operations were moved from 
Middletown to its Pantex plant near Amarillo, Texas. 

Declassified records indicate that over the decades IAAP nuclear 
workers may have been exposed to cesium, plutonium, radium and 
other hazardous materials. The Iowa research team, recently 
awarded a $1 million contract from the Army with another $1 
million in the funding pipeline, also has begun collecting 
similar data on former IAAP Army workers who manufactured 
conventional weapons. 

A major source of concern, according to Fuortes, is worker 
exposure to beryllium dust, which had been discovered in several 
areas and buildings on the plant. 

The dust can cause chronic beryllium disease, which can cripple 
the lungs. Over the years, almost 40,000 people from southeast 
Iowa and neighboring states worked at the plant, including an 
estimated 4,000 who worked on Line 1, where nuclear weapons were 
produced. 

In a related matter, the Army has agreed to conduct a low–level 
helicopter flyover of the entire 19,000–acre plant in late 
October to scout for possible radioactive contamination left by 
AEC operations. The flyover also may include portions of 
Middletown just outside plant fences, and about a 4–mile stretch 
of Long and Brush creeks down to Skunk River. The U.S. Army Corps 
of Engineers out of St. Louis also has been interviewing former 
workers and surveying areas that may contain sources of 
radioactive contamination. 

The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington Iowa 52601 319-754-8461 
Front Desk · 319-754-6824 FAX · 1-800-397-1708
*****************************************************************
 23 Sick workers' bill seeks combined plan to pay in toxic matter 
exposure - 

[http://www.paducahsun.com/] The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky 
Friday, September 27, 2002 

Sick workers' bill seeks combined plan to pay in toxic matter 
exposure Whitfield helps introduce the measure, which will avoid 
the 'willing' payer loophole of the present slow program. 

By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650 

Whitfield 

U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield and several House colleagues introduced 
legislation Thursday to have the Department of Labor compensate 
nuclear workers who got sick from exposure to toxic substances. 
Whitfield, R-Hopkinsville, said the bill seeks to correct a flaw 
in 2000 legislation that could prevent half the legitimate claims 
from receiving state workers' compensation because there is no 
"willing" payer. The Department of Energy has no authority to 
make a privately insured former contractor or firm — such as 
Paducah uranium enrichment plant operator USEC Inc. — pay a claim 
even after a worker is deemed eligible for benefits, he said. The 
new bill seeks to: 

+ Retain an independent physicians' panel to determine 
eligibility for benefits, but removes state workers' compensation 
from the equation. 

+ Authorize the Labor Department to determine the level of 
disability and benefits, to be paid from the same permanent 
federal fund set up for workers with specific cancers and other 
diseases related to radiation and beryllium exposure. 

+ Add chronic renal disease to the list of illnesses for which 
workers are eligible for $150,000. Chronic renal disease is 
associated with uranium exposure, and there have been some 
reported cases by enrichment plant workers, Whitfield said. 

+ Add lung cancer to the list of covered beryllium diseases. If 
the cancer arose five years after a worker's first exposure to 
beryllium, the worker would receive $150,000. 

+ Authorize the National Institute for Occupational Safety and 
Health to recommend to Congress additional "radiogenic" cancers 
for the lump-sum-payment list. 

+ Allow people to file claims who were unwittingly employed in 
former weapons-production plants that remained contaminated with 
radiation or beryllium. 

+ Establish an ombudsman to help claimants with the 
administrative process. "This is an effort to fairly compensate 
all men and women who are ill because of working at the Paducah 
plant regardless of the cause of their illness," Whitfield said. 
"They deserve fair compensation without having to go through a 
complicated procedure to receive proper health care. These 
veterans of the Cold War deserve no less." 

He said he worked from the start with the legislation's sponsor, 
Rep. Ted Strickland of Ohio, to draft the new bill. In 2000, 
Whitfield introduced the original legislation that was the basis 
for the overall compensation program. The 2000 law created 
separate programs — one for workers exposed to radiation and 
beryllium, administered by the Labor Department, and a second for 
workers exposed to toxic substances and other hazardous 
materials, partly administered by the Energy Department. 

According to language in the new bill, the second program has 
moved too slowly. The Energy Department, which finalized 
regulations last month after almost two years, has sent only four 
claims to the doctors' panel for review in the 23 months since 
enactment. 

Under existing regulations, DOE tells contractors not to contest 
an anticipated 2,000 to 6,000 workers' compensation claims 
nationwide. But DOE concedes that as many as 50 percent of the 
claims will not have a willing payer, and because funding is 
discretionary, some workers may not get paid if the annually 
appropriated fund has been drained. Leon Owens, president of the 
Paducah nuclear workers' union known as PACE, said Whitfield 
wants to start dialogue before Congress ends this year and bring 
the bill to a vote next year. 

"We're hopeful not only for bipartisan support from Congress, but 
support from the construction trades who rallied with PACE for 
the earlier legislation," he said, adding that both nuclear and 
construction workers have risked toxic exposure at the Paducah 
plant. Owens said having the Labor Department pay toxic-exposure 
claims is better because Labor Secretary Elaine Chao "has done a 
wonderful job" paying claims for radiation-induced cancers. The 
new legislation would allow claims centers across the nation to 
remain open at least for two more years, he said. "Ours was the 
first to open and is among the leading claims centers in the 
country," Owens said. "We definitely want to keep it open to 
assist workers and their families." 

*****************************************************************
 24 Strickland Introduces Bill to Correct Problems with Energy 
Employees Compensation Program 

WASHINGTON - Congressman Ted Strickland today introduced 
legislation to correct problems with the Energy Employees 
Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA). The bill 
requires the Department of Labor (DOL) to pay benefits for 
disability claims under Subtitle D of the program from a 
permanent funding source established in the original Act. In 
addition it provides for the expansion of illnesses covered under 
the program. "We have given the Department of Energy plenty of 
time - two years, in fact - to develop rules that will ensure 
these disabled workers receive the compensation they are entitled 
to for the dangerous work they performed," 

said Strickland. "It's my understanding that to date, DOE has 
only sent four claims to the Physician's Panel. But while DOE 
waits, workers may be dying. We can no longer sit idly by while 
DOE experiments with state agreements that do not assure that 
these sick workers will finally receive just compensation from 
their government." The EEOICPA was signed into law in 2000 after 
the Department of Energy admitted exposing millions of workers to 
radioactive materials during the Cold War. 

Upon passage of this landmark legislation, a compromise emerged 
from the conference committee in October 2000 which created two 
separate programs: one for workers exposed to radiation and 
beryllium which is administered by the Department of Labor, and a 
second for workers exposed to toxic substances and other 
hazardous materials which is administered, in part, by the 
Department of Energy. Under Subtitle D of the existing program, 
DOE is required to recommend through a Physician's Panel whether 
an illness is work related, and relies on state worker 
compensation programs to make payments for wage loss and medical 
care. However, this approach, by DOE's own admission, will not 
work for these toxic substance cases because at least 50% of the 
claimants will not have a "willing payor" who will honor the 
findings of DOE's Physician's Panel. 

DOE has tried to enter into Memorandums of Agreement (MOA's) with 
individual states, but by-and-large those have not been 
consistent with Congressional intent that the Physician's Panel 
determine whether workers qualify for the program. For example, 
the MOA between the State of Ohio and DOE explicitly states that, 
"...[Ohio] shall not be bound by the determination of any 
Physicians Panel appointed in accordance with subtitle D." 

"It's clear there is a problem here," added Strickland. "We 
welcome the opportunity to work with DOE and DOL to ensure all of 
the nation's nuclear workers made sick from their jobs in nuclear 
weapons factories, through no fault of their own, receive just 
compensation." 

Congressman Strickland's legislation eliminates all MOA's with 
individual states and establishes DOL as the "willing payor" for 
disability claims for occupational illnesses arising out of 
employment at DOE facilities, instead of having the Department of 
Energy "assist" claimants with state worker compensation claims. 
DOL would then evaluate disability and adjust payments 
accordingly. 

The payments would match Federal Employees Compensation Act 
(FECA) levels of benefits, and use the same administrative 
processes now used by the DOL for radiation, beryllium and silica 
claims. All payments come from the EEOICPA Fund as direct 
spending. 

The legislation also adds chronic renal disease as a covered 
illness eligible for lump sum payments for workers employed for 
at least 1 year at a covered uranium facility, and adds lung 
cancer to the list of covered beryllium diseases. Further, it 
authorizes the National Institutes for Occupational Safety and 
Health to recommend to Congress additional radiogenic cancers for 
the Special Exposure Cohort list. 

"This legislation takes the next step to ensure that this program 
achieves its intended purpose: compensating workers who 
selflessly worked in hazardous conditions for the benefit of our 
national security," concluded Strickland. "They deserve the 
benefits Congress promised, not more bureaucracy and roadblocks 
from states." 

*****************************************************************
 25 Taxpayers to Owe Billions for Nuclear Waste Storage 
 
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 11:39:34 -0500 (CDT)

 
Published on Thursday, September 26, 2002 in the New York Times

Taxpayers to Owe Billions for Nuclear Waste Storage

by Matthew L. Wald

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court has ruled that billions of dollars in
damages that the Energy Department is likely to owe to nuclear reactor owners
for its failure to store nuclear waste will have to come from taxpayers, not
electricity consumers.

The Energy Department signed contracts with reactor owners in the early 1980's
promising to accept their wastes for burial beginning in January 1998, in
exchange for payments from them based on electricity production. To date,
reactor owners have paid more than $10.5 billion.

But now the department says it cannot take waste until 2010, and the operators
of the reactors are suing because they have been forced to store the waste on
site.

Many experts say the storage cannot start for many years, because of
uncertainties about Yucca Mountain, the site near Las Vegas that the
government has chosen as its waste repository.

Estimates of the damages run from $2 billion to $60 billion, and the decision,
from the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta,
twice used the word "nebulous" to describe them. At the National Association
of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, which is made up of state officials,
Brian J. O'Connell, the director of the Nuclear Waste Program office, said the
number would run "in the billions." Asked if it would reach tens of billions,
Mr. O'Connell, said, "It gets fuzzy."

He said that one utility, Northern States Power of Minnesota, put its costs at
$1 billion because it might be forced to shut three reactors prematurely, for
want of storage space for the radioactive waste.

The only settlement so far is much smaller. The department and the owners of
the three-reactor Peach Bottom plant, in the Pennsylvania town of the same
name, agreed on $80 million, to pay extra costs for storing the wastes on
site, in giant steel and concrete casks. But 13 other reactor owners sued to
block the deal, because the money would have come from the Nuclear Waste Fund,
money from power customers that they said was supposed to be used only to open
a permanent repository.

In a decision dated Sept. 24, the appeals court ruled that money in the fund
can only be used for permanent disposal. The court said that the Nuclear Waste
Policy Act, the law that allowed the contracts, called for a quid pro quo "in
which each utility roughly pays the costs of disposing of its waste and no
more." The plan, the court said was for a system in which the burden of the
government's breach of contract would "fall on the government, not other
utilities."

A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Jay E. Silberg, said that if the Energy
Department could use the money collected from utilities to pay damages to the
utilities, the department would be "robbing Peter to pay Peter."

"The lesson learned from the court's ruling is that we need to move forward
with the Yucca Mountain Project," said Joseph H. Davis, a spokesman for the
Department of Energy.

At the Regulatory Utility Commissioners group, Mr. O'Connell said the decision
was a victory because "ratepayers had some assurance that the nuclear waste
fund would continue to be used for its intended purpose." But he acknowledged
that if the burden shifted to taxpayers, it would be paid by most of the same
people. "There's about an 80 percent convergence," he said.

Copyright The New York Times Company
*****************************************************************
 26 UK: Northern Minister branded 'naive' about Sellafield * 

online.ie home </> 

/online.ie 26 Sep 2002/ 

Stormont Minister Dermot Nesbitt was tonight accused of being 
"naive" about Sellafield nuclear plant after he called for the 
public debate on it to be based on facts, not emotion. 

At a conference in Dublin today on Sellafield, the Ulster 
Unionist Environment Minister said as a parent living on Northern 
Ireland's Co Down coast, he was concerned about the plant. 

However, cautioning Sellafield's opponents against 
scaremongering, the South Down MLA said: "We must base our 
comments on the scientific facts. 

"Too often, emotion displaces factual evidence." 

Mr Nesbitt also revealed to the Making Sense of Sellafield 
conference, which was co-hosted by the Irish Government and 
Northern Ireland Executive, he had visited the plant in Cumbria 
in June. 

"I also took the opportunity to visit the Pacific Sandpiper ship 
at Barrow-in-Furness. This ship is used to transport spent 
nuclear fuel from overseas to Sellafield," he said. 

"I saw and heard much. I am now better informed. My impressions 
of Sellafield were of a site well run and well managed by 
thoroughly professional and dedicated staff. 

"It also gave me direct insight into the approach taken to safety 
and security at the plant. Nevertheless, my department will 
continue to monitor and assess the impact of discharges from 
Sellafield on the Northern Ireland coastline and to provide 
public assurance." 

The conference, which was attended by experts on nuclear power 
from around the world, took place just over a week after 
Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior intercepted two nuclear freighters 
in the Irish Sea as they made their way back to Sellafield. 

That journey provoked widespread anger throughout Ireland, and 
the leaders of all the country's main political parties, 
including Bertie Ahern, visited the ship before it left dock at 
Dublin. 

Mr Nesbitt told delegates: "It might, for example, be argued 
that, confronted by climate change, we need to consider further 
the option of nuclear power. 

"Public perception is most important and every effort should be 
made to promote high quality debate and public participation in 
the decision-making process." 

Mr Nesbitt was accused of being "naive" by Friends of the Earth 
(FoE) nationalist SDLP MP Eddie McGrady and Sinn Fein. 

Dubbing the Stormont Minister "Nuclear Nesbitt", FoE head of 
campaigns in Northern Ireland, John Woods challenged his 
allegations about the Sellafield staff. 

He also noted: "Following the attacks on New York, Mr Nesbitt 
indicates he is satisfied about the security of Sellafield. 

"The fact is, there is no practicable defence against suicide 
attacks by determined terrorists." 

South Down MP Eddie McGrady accused Mr Nesbitt of "showing no 
real empathy or feeling for people on the east coast of Ireland 
who are deeply opposed to the continued reprocessing of the 
world's radioactive waste at the plant". 

The SDLP MP continued: "His statement takes no cognisance of the 
many accidents which have occurred over the years at the plant. 
No reference is made to the concerns and fears of the people on 
this side of the Irish Sea about the transportation of the MOX 
fuel from Japan to Sellafield. 

"He simply takes the word of the Office for Civil Nuclear Safety 
on the transportation of nuclear waste ? he does not take the 
word or reflect upon the research of other eminent scientists. 
Quite clearly, the minister has adopted the viewpoint of the 
British Government." 

Sinn Fein's Environment spokesman in the Stormont Assembly, 
Francie Molloy, accused Mr Nesbitt of putting the "interests of 
Britain above the interests of Ireland and the safety of Irish 
people". 

The Mid Ulster MLA argued: "Sellafield has an atrocious history 
of leaks, accidents and cover-ups. The British government has 
behaved arrogantly and irresponsibly and has blatantly ignored 
the well-founded concerns of Irish citizens." 

Terms <http://www.online.ie
*****************************************************************
 27 Leavitt Coy on N-Waste Initiative Stance 

Friday, September 27, 2002 

BY REBECCA WALSH THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE 

Coyly guarding his position on a ballot initiative to raise taxes 
on radioactive waste dumped in Utah, Gov. Mike Leavitt 
nevertheless left little doubt Thursday about which way he is 
leaning. 

At a monthly news conference at KUED, the governor questioned the 
grass-roots underpinnings of the idea, doubted the ability of 
voters to wade through the complex issue and called a Utah 
Supreme Court ruling that allowed the initiative to go forward 
"well over the top." 

Still, he stopped short of outright opposition, saying he will 
express his point of view later. 

Utah's high court justices in August declared part of the state's 
citizen initiative law unconstitutional and ordered the 
Radioactive Waste Restrictions Act onto the Nov. 5 ballot, 
galling lawmakers who wrote the statute. 

Leavitt shares their chagrin. 

"I struggle with [the court's] reasoning -- or at least the 
extent to which they carried their reasoning," he said. "[The 
ruling] did open, in fact, what might be considered a floodgate 
for what could be less than desirable public policy, based on 
some populist notions." 

The controversial initiative would block certain kinds of 
radioactive waste from entering the state, revise ethical rules 
for government regulators and set higher rates for taxing waste 
that is dumped in Utah. 

Initiative proponent and lobbyist Frank Pignanelli says the 
governor's handwringing is unnecessary. Members of Utahns for 
Radioactive Waste Control, a public issues committee, simply want 
to give residents the chance to decide whether higher levels of 
radioactive waste should be stored in Utah. 

"One thing the governor cannot condemn is the right of Utahns to 
have this discussion," he said. "When did we decide radioactive 
waste was coming into our state? We have never had a debate about 
who was going to take this stuff, what we were going to charge 
for it or how we're going to deal with it." 

If the initiative passes and legislators don't like it, 
Pignanelli says, they can amend the law or repeal it entirely. 

Opponents and proponents of the act have spent $1.5 million 
battling over the ballot issue. Envirocare of Utah officials, who 
claim the initiative will put them out of business, have spent 
nearly $1.1 million to oppose it. 

The governor has his own connections to the issue. His former 
chief of staff, LaVarr Webb, is partners with Hugh Matheson, one 
of the act's leading opponents. Family friend David Jordan, an 
attorney, argued the opponents' case before the Supreme Court. 

Last summer, it seemed the idea was dead when signature gatherers 
could not meet the requirements of Utah's initiative law.

In a gesture for rural residents, legislators added a rule to 
state initiative statutes four years ago requiring that petitions 
be signed by 10 percent of registered voters who voted in the 
past gubernatorial election in at least 20 of 29 counties. By the 
June deadline, nearly 96,000 voters had signed the waste 
initiative. While that was almost 20,000 more than required to 
pass the state's test, initiative backers only collected enough 
signatures in 14 counties. 

The Utah Supreme Court said the 20-county rule that favors rural 
areas violated the "one person, one vote" premise of the Utah and 
U.S. Constitution. In effect, the judges said, the rule gave a 
Daggett County resident's signature "1,000 times" as much value 
as a Salt Lake County voter's. 

Leavitt -- who appointed one of three judges who wrote the 
majority opinion and two in the minority -- says voters will have 
a difficult time understanding the initiative. 

"It's a very confusing proposition," he said. "And it contains, 
the best I can tell, over 100 changes to state law. That's almost 
as many as you'd do in an entire legislative session. And this is 
an extraordinary amount of work for any thoughtful voter to sort 
through." 

Comparing the initiative process to the Electoral College, which 
limits the power of populous states to the benefit of states with 
smaller populations, the governor figures lawmakers will have to 
clean up the mess left by the court. 

"That's why we have a representative democracy," he said. "And in 
keeping with that, the initiative process has to have some 
legitimate representative component to it. 

"[The justices] have essentially invited and required the 
Legislature to rethink the way we create those checks and 
balances." 

Pignanelli says the timing of the governor's protest is 
suspicious. "We had two initiatives last year and nobody was 
screaming and yelling about that initiative back then," he said. 

© Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on
*****************************************************************
 28 Court strikes down nuclear waste deal 

Friday, September 27, 2002 

Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal 

Case was closely watched in Nevada 
By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU 

WASHINGTON -- In a ruling with potential implications for the 
Yucca Mountain Project, a federal court has struck down a nuclear 
waste deal the Energy Department reached with a Pennsylvania 
utility two years ago. 

A legal settlement DOE negotiated with Peco Energy was nullified 
by a three-judge panel in Atlanta on Tuesday because it tapped 
into a special fund set up to finance a permanent nuclear waste 
repository. 

The court ruled that billions of dollars in damages DOE likely 
will owe utilities because it failed to meet a January 1998 
disposal deadline will have to come from taxpayers, and not 
utility customers who have built up the $10 billion fund. 

"If the government could pay for its breach out of a fund paid 
for by the utilities, the government would never be liable," the 
panel said. The burden should "fall on the government, not other 
utilities." 

The case had been watched closely by Nevada officials. They were 
hoping the Peco Energy settlement would be upheld so they could 
press the government to pursue deals with other utilities instead 
of building a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 
miles northwest of Nevada. 

Had the settlement survived court review, "it probably would have 
enhanced one of our arguments," said Bob Loux, director of 
Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects. 

Loux nonetheless applauded the court's ruling, saying it 
underscores Nevada's view that the government is stumbling to 
find a solution to nuclear waste. 

"The total taxpayer liability on this thing is just getting 
larger and larger," Loux said. 

The Energy Department is considering further appeals, spokesman 
Joe Davis said. 

"The lesson learned is that we need to move forward with Yucca 
Mountain," Davis said. "The court has essentially said that it is 
DOE's responsibility to ensure that the money in the Nuclear 
Waste Fund is spent on a repository, not on some other scheme to 
deal with waste." 

The lawsuit grew from a 1990 settlement involving the 
three-reactor Peach Bottom Plant, 65 miles southwest of 
Philadelphia, operated by Peco Energy, which now is a part of 
Exelon Corp. 

The Energy Department allowed Peco Energy to offset its 
contributions to the nuclear waste fund about $80 million over 10 
years. In exchange, Peco would store nuclear waste in giant casks 
at its reactor sites. 

The settlement was challenged by rival utilities that charged it 
was an illegal use of the nuclear waste fund. 

The judicial panel in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals 
agreed with the utilities. 

An executive with the National Association of Utility Regulatory 
Commissioners said the ruling may spark interest among states 
that previously have had only a peripheral interest in the Yucca 
Mountain Project. 

If billions of dollars in legal settlements are to fall on 
taxpayers nationwide, "it seems to be this puts the pressure back 
on the (Yucca) program to get this (repository) so those 
liabilities don't continue to grow," said Brian O'Connell, 
nuclear waste program director with the association, which is 
comprised of state officials. 

Utilities still waiting for the government to take ownership of 
nuclear waste have filed 20 separate lawsuits seeking damages 
amounting to at least $4.4 billion and likely tens of billions of 
dollars more, said Michael Bauser, associate general counsel of 
the Nuclear Energy Institute. 

Joe Egan, Nevada's lead nuclear waste lawyer, said DOE can still 
settle with utilities to keep nuclear waste on site. 

"It can enter into Peco-type deals; it just can't pay for them 
out of the nuclear waste fund," he said. 

Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 
*****************************************************************
 29 DOE asked to explain estimates at Yucca

Friday, September 27, 2002 

Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal 

By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU 

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Shelley Berkley pressed the Energy Department 
on Thursday to explain new estimates that suggest a nuclear waste 
repository at Yucca Mountain may need to be expanded. 

Berkley, D-Nev., wrote to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham asking 
for cost and schedule details, and whether DOE has conducted 
studies to support repository expansion or the siting of a second 
burial ground. 

Berkley said DOE should have made it clear before Congress voted 
for the Yucca Mountain repository this summer that its legal 
capacity would be too small for the volumes of liquid defense 
nuclear waste that will be converted to glass logs for storage. 

A DOE spokesman could not be reached late Thursday. 

Defense waste and other special materials are supposed to take up 
10 percent of the repository's 77,000-ton legal capacity, with 
the remainder composed of spent fuel assemblies from commercial 
power plants. 

DOE estimates there will be room for only about a third of the 
23,475 converted glass logs in the repository's current 
configuration. 

The department would have to seek permission from Congress to 
develop another repository or expand the one planned at Yucca 
Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. 

After testifying before a U.S. Senate committee in May, Abraham 
told reporters that Yucca Mountain could be expanded at some 
point. But DOE figures released last week after repeated media 
inquiries indicate the need may be much sooner than later. 

In her letter, Berkley said the disclosure "demonstrates a 
disturbing lack of responsible foresight or an intentional effort 
to mislead Congress, the citizens of Nevada and the American 
public." 

Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 
*****************************************************************
 30 Governor Davis Should Protect Californians From Radioactive Waste 
"Recycling" and Deregulation* 

Email Signup 

*Keep up with Public Citizen through 

*/Sept. 26, 2002/* 

*/Protective "Radiation Safety Act" Needs Governor?s Signature to 
Prevent Radioactive "Recycling" into Consumer Products/* 

WASHINGTON, D.C. ? California Gov. Gray Davis should take 
advantage of an exceptional opportunity to make his state a 
leader in protecting the public from the dangers of nuclear 
radiation, Public Citizen told the governor today. 

In a letter to Davis, the consumer group urged him to sign 
California Senate Bill 1970, the Radiation Safety Act of 2002, 
which would render illegal a new state policy that allows 
radioactive waste to be disposed of as though it were household 
garbage, without notification to adjacent communities. The bill 
would prohibit any generator or owner of radioactive waste from 
disposing it anywhere except at a specified licensed facility. 
The bill also would prohibit the recycling of radioactive 
material. If passed into law, the act would make California one 
of the most protective states in the nation for the regulation of 
radioactive wastes. 

"Californians don?t want radioactive materials in their 
landfills, and they don?t want nuclear waste being recycled into 
their frying pans, bedsprings and bicycles. But the nuclear 
industry is willing to do anything to stay out of bankruptcy 
court," said Jane Kelly, director of Public Citizen?s California 
office. "Governor Davis must choose between protecting his 
constituents from added radiation exposures and coddling the 
nuclear gang as they attempt to sweep their atomic waste under 
someone else?s carpet." 

The bill passed the state legislature by wide margins and now 
sits on Davis? desk. Davis has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto the 
bill.

The substantive public health and safety provisions in the bill 
represent a major improvement in California?s state radiation and 
waste disposal laws. The Department of Health Services (DHS) last 
year enacted a policy permitting the disposal of radioactive 
waste in community landfills and the recycling of waste into 
consumer goods. Also under this policy, which has been blocked by 
lawsuits, structures (such as a trailer) from a nuclear reactor 
site could be sold or donated to a school. This has already 
occurred once, when a company donated a trailer laden with 
asbestos to a Los Angeles-area school. Under the Radiation Safety 
Act, this would be illegal. 

The nuclear industry is pushing Davis to veto the bill because 
it?s far cheaper to dump radioactive waste in landfills or send 
it to recycling facilities than to send it to licensed disposal 
facilities. Corporations with nuclear activities in California 
have lavished Davis with over $330,000 in contributions since 
1998. The industry often downplays the known health risks of 
radiation. 

"Governor Davis has a prime opportunity to help stem the current 
tide of awful ideas coming from alleged nuclear ?regulators,? 
both state and national," said David Ritter, policy analyst with 
Public Citizen?s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. 
"This legislation is a perfect application of the precautionary 
principle, ensuring that the government does no harm to its own 
citizens. Regulators shouldn?t be attempting to mislead the 
public that it?s okay if something is ?slightly radioactive.? Any 
additional radiation exposure is unacceptable. If Californians 
don?t want their local store shelves and their homes filled with 
radioactive products, they need to call the governor and tell him 
to sign this bill." 

Public Citizen 
*****************************************************************
 31 'Too much emotion' in debate on Sellafield 

news.telegraph.co.uk - 

(Filed: 27/09/2002) 

Debate about the Sellafield nuclear plant should be based on 
facts and not emotion, a Stormont minister said yesterday. 

As a parent living on Northern Ireland's Co Down coast, Dermot 
Nesbitt said he was concerned about the plant. 

However, he said, comments should be based on the scientific 
facts. "Too often, emotion displaces factual evidence," he told a 
conference, Making Sense of Sellafield, organised by the Irish 
Government and Northern Ireland Executive. 

His remarks were later criticised by spokesman for Friends of the 
Earth, the SLDP and Sinn Fein. 

Mr Nesbitt, the Ulster Unionist environment minister, told 
delegates he had visited the Cumbrian site where he "saw and 
heard much". He said: "I am now better informed. My impressions 
of Sellafield were of a site well run and well managed by 
thoroughly professional and dedicated staff." 

The head of campaigns for Friends of the Earth in Northern 
Ireland John Woods said: "Following the attacks on New York, Mr 
Nesbitt indicates he is satisfied about the security of 
Sellafield. The fact is, there is no practicable defence against 
suicide attacks by determined terrorists." 

South Down MP Eddie McGrady said Mr Nesbitt had shown "no real 
empathy or feeling for people on the east coast of Ireland who 
are deeply opposed to the continued reprocessing of the world's 
radioactive waste at the plant". 

Mr McGrady said: "His statement takes no cognisance of the many 
accidents which have occurred over the years at the plant. 

"Quite clearly, the minister has adopted the viewpoint of the 
British Government." Sinn Fein's environment spokesman Francie 
Molloy, accused Mr Nesbitt of putting the "interests of Britain 
above the interests of Ireland and the safety of Irish people". 

"Sellafield has an atrocious history of leaks, accidents and 
cover-ups. The British Government has behaved arrogantly and 
irresponsibly and has blatantly ignored the well-founded concerns 
of Irish citizens." 

18 September 2002: 'Humiliation' as unwanted nuclear fuel returns 
home 

20 June 2002: Cancer risk 'higher for Sellafield children' 

27 April 2002: 1.3m Irish postcards in Sellafield protest 

11 October 2001: Passenger jet hit on Sellafield 'would dwarf 
Chernobyl fall-out' 

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2002. Terms &Conditions of
*****************************************************************
 32 Envirocare OP: False Fear 

The Salt Lake Tribune -- Utah's Statewide Newspaper

Friday, September 27, 2002 


Your Sept. 17 edition states that Envirocare and its holding 
company, SK Hart, view the Radioactive Waste Restrictions Act, 
appearing on November ballots as Initiative 1, as an effort by 
out-of-state competitors to put them out of business. 

Give me a break! What a smoke screen! Envirocare has almost zero 
competition. A quick check of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's 
Web site verifies that. Only three facilities in the country 
dispose of the type of waste being sent to Envirocare's Clive 
facility. The Washington site only accepts waste from 11 states, 
the South Carolina site has severe restrictions on the amount of 
waste they can accept, and both of those states levy much higher 
taxes on the disposal than Utah does. 

Polluters have no choice but to send their waste to Utah. And we 
are letting the out-of-state polluters send their waste here at 
bargain-basement tax rates. Even if Washington and South Carolina 
allowed their facilities to accept more waste, the increased Utah 
tax would still be significantly lower than the tax rates in 
those states. The polluters who send their waste here will still 
be getting a good deal when this initiative passes. 

Envirocare currently processes almost all the Class A radioactive 
waste generated in the U.S. Utahns are too smart to buy into 
Envirocare's alarmist propaganda. They won't go out of business. 
They won't even lose business. The polluters have no other 
options. Envirocare will just pass on the increased Utah tax to 
the out-of-state polluters by charging them a higher rate. 

Remember all the signs a couple of years ago that said, "Utah 
Students Deserve More?" Utah students still deserve more. This 
initiative specifies that the increased revenue from out-of-state 
polluters will go to Utah students and to homeless people. What a 
concept! Let's give Utahns a good deal for a change. 

JESSE DEHAY 

Ogden 

© Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on
*****************************************************************
 33 Canada: Negotiations continue over clean-up bill 

Saskatchewan News Network 

Thursday, September 26, 2002 

SASKATOON - Cameco Corporation has worked with the federal 
government since the early 1980s to decommission some northern 
mines but is not affiliated with two abandoned mines awaiting 
cleanup, a Cameco official said Wednesday. 

An earlier story incorrectly stated the mines belonged to 
Cameco's predecessor company, Eldorado Nuclear. 

The abandoned Gunnar and Lorado mines near Uranium City were 
owned by other, private companies that have gone bankrupt. 

The issue was raised after the Saskatchewan Environment 
Department released a report on abandoned mines in northern 
Saskatchewan. There are 75 mines which require varying degrees of 
clean up. Gunnar and Lorado were identified as two of the most 
dangerous sites. 

The provincial government is currently negotiating with Ottawa 
for help in covering the $25-million cost of clean up at those 
sites where radioactive tailings remain exposed to the elements 
and lakes. 

The federal government agrees a solution must be found to the 
environmental and public safety hazards posed by the abandoned 
mines, but it has not made any decision about helping to pay for 
the clean up, said James Leveque, a spokesperson for the 
Department of Natural Resources. 

The federal government has always taken financial responsibility 
for decommissioning the mines operated by Eldorado Nuclear, which 
was a federal crown corporation before it merged with 
Saskatchewan Mining Development Corp. to form Cameco, which was 
later privatized. 

The continuing decommissioning and reclamation at Eldorado's 
Beaver Lodge mine, cost the government "multiple millions of 
dollars," Jamie McIntyre, the company's director of investor and 
corporate relations, said, though he was did not have an exact 
figure. 

Cameco undertook the job of dismantling the entire mill, 
associated structures and small nearby mines that fed the mill, 
McIntyre said. Materials were buried in the mines and barged out. 

Most of the physical work was done years ago and current work 
focuses mainly on monitoring sites to see if they meet air and 
water quality standards, McIntre said. 

© Copyright 2002 The Leader-Post (Regina) 
Copyright © 2002 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest Global
*****************************************************************
 34 Bush envoy will re-open links with North Korea 

Independent.co.uk <http://www.independent.co.uk> 

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington 

27 September 2002 

The United States will send a senior envoy to North Korea early 
next month for discussions on Pyongyang's missile, nuclear and 
arms export programmes. The move restores contacts abruptly 
broken by the Bush administration when it came to office 20 
months ago. 

The change of heart over a founder member of Mr Bush's "axis of 
evil" follows pleas from South Korea to Washington to relax the 
diplomatic freeze on the North. It is also an unexpectedly early 
response by the administration to a signal from Kim Jong Il 
himself ? passed on by Japan's Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, 
who met the North Korean leader last week ? that he wanted to 
improve ties with the US. 

The envoy is likely to be James Kelly, assistant secretary of 
state for Asian affairs. Plans for him to make a trip earlier 
this year were cancelled after naval clashes in which North 
Korean vessels entered the South's territorial waters in June. 

On the face of it, Mr Bush's approach to North Korea totally 
contradicts his belligerent stance against Iraq ? even though it 
is Pyongyang, not Baghdad, which the CIA reckons to have the 
capability to make one or two nuclear weapons, and which exports 
missile technology to other countries on the US black list. 

But White House officials say the two cases are not identical. 
Saddam Hussein, who has flouted UN resolutions for a decade, is 
beyond redemption. A clear and present danger, they insist. On 
the other hand, Kim Jong Il has shown an increasing desire to end 
his impoverished country's international isolation. 

One recent sign was a freeze on missile testing in the north 
Pacific, which has so alarmed the Japanese. Mr Koizumi's visit, 
when North Korea admitted and apologised for kidnapping 11 
Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s, was a dramatic step 
towards reconciliation between longtime foes. 

Finally, North Korea wants a capitalist free-trade zone in the 
north-west of the country in which Japan, South Korea and China 
would be the prime investors ? part of wider economic reforms for 
which a US blessing is essential. 

<http://www.independent.co.uk

*****************************************************************
 35 US tries to link terror group with Baghdad 

Times Online 

September 27, 2002 

From Roland Watson in Washington 

On maneouvres: an American tank is transported to the desert 
north of Kuwait City, part of a large convoy preparing for 
exercises with Kuwaiti troops 

AMERICA has begun an eleventh-hour attempt to link President 
Saddam Hussein with al-Qaeda as the Bush Administration tries to 
secure international backing for war with Iraq. 

Osama bin Laden’s followers received help in trying to develop 
chemical or biological weapons from Saddam’s regime, Mr Bush’s 
national security team said yesterday. 

Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, also said that Washington 
had “credible evidence” that senior al-Qaeda members had been in 
Baghdad in recent months. There had been “senior-level contacts” 
between Iraq and al-Qaeda over the past decade, and they had 
increased since 1998, Mr Rumsfeld said. The two sides had 
discussed “safe haven opportunities” in Iraq, he said, and held 
“reciprocal non-aggression discussions”. 

His assertions were part of an orchestrated attempt by the Bush 
Administration to draw links between the two as Washington tries 
to force the diplomatic pace between potential backers of 
military action. Mr Rumsfeld said that his information was US 
intelligence material, which he had asked to be declassified so 
that it could be made public. He said that the intelligence on 
any links was evolving, and some was coming from “high-level” 
al-Qaeda detainees.

However, the information remained largely unspecific. Earlier, 
Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush’s National Security Adviser, went 
further than the Bush Administration had gone before in linking 
al-Qaeda with Baghdad, saying that some operatives had found 
refuge in the Iraqi capital. Mr Bush sought to heighten concerns 
about the link between Saddam and al-Qaeda yesterday when he 
urged swift action in the UN and Congress, which is debating the 
wording of a resolution authorising the President to use force 
against Iraq. 

There was not a moment to lose, the President said. “Each passing 
day could be the one in which the Iraqi regime gives anthrax or 
VX nerve gas or some day a nuclear weapon to a terrorist ally.” 
Bush officials have long tried to link Saddam with the September 
11 attacks, or al-Qaeda in general. Mr Rumsfeld in particular 
asserted recently that al-Qaeda operatives were at large in Iraq. 
Previously the only potential link lay in the claims of a meeting 
between Mohamed Atta, the hijackers’ ringleader, and an Iraqi 
intelligence official in Prague in the months before September 
11. Administration hawks assert the meeting as fact, although 
both the CIA and FBI have cast doubt on whether Atta was 
involved. One official who has seen a grainy video of the event 
said that it was impossible to tell who was pictured. Dr Rice 
said yesterday that much of the new intelligence linking Saddam 
with bin Laden’s network was being supplied by al-Qaeda 
operatives captured in Afghanistan or arrested elsewhere since 
September 11, and being held at Guantanamo Bay.

“There clearly are contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq that can be 
documented,” she said. “There clearly is testimony that some of 
the contacts have been important and that there’s a relationship 
here. “We clearly know that there were in the past, and have been 
contacts between senior Iraqi officials and members of al-Qaeda 
going back for actually quite a long time. We know high-ranking 
detainees have said that Iraq provided some training to al-Qaeda 
in che- mical weapons development.” She added that some al-Qaeda 
operatives had found refuge in Baghdad. Previously, the 
Administration has limited itself to saying that there was an 
al-Qaeda presence in northern Iraq, the virtually autonomous 
Kurdish region that is not controlled by Saddam. 

Dr Rice said she was not trying to suggest that Saddam knew of, 
or helped to plot, the September 11 attacks. But she said: “This 
is a story that is unfolding, and it is getting clearer, and 
we’re learning more.” Previous efforts to link Iraq and al-Qaeda 
have not been convincing. Expert witnesses appearing before the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the summer suggested that 
Saddam was unlikely to hand over his weapons to terrorists 
because they represented the potent symbol of his power. 

Copyright 2002 
[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,549,00.html] 
*****************************************************************
 36 We are sleepwalking into a reckless war of aggression Britain 
must loosen what is now a profoundly dangerous alliance 

Guardian Unlimited | Archive Search 

[Guardian Unlimited] 

Comment 

Seumas Milne 

Guardian 

Friday September 27, 2002 

The world is now undergoing a crash course of political education 
in the new realities of global power. In case anyone was still in 
any doubt about what they might mean, the Bush doctrine (set out 
last Friday in the US National Security Strategy) laid bare the 
ground rules of the new imperium. The US will in future brook no 
rival in power or military prowess, will spread still further its 
network of garrison bases in every continent, and will use its 
armed might to promote a "single sustainable model for national 
success" (its own), through unilateral pre-emptive attacks if 
necessary. In the following week, Defence Secretary Donald 
Rumsfeld accused the German chancellor of "poisoning" relations 
by daring to win an election with a declaration of foreign policy 
independence. 

Even the Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy felt moved to 
accuse the US of "imperialism". But it has been Al Gore, winner 
of the largest number of votes in the last US presidential 
election, who blurted out the unvarnished truth: that the 
overweening recklessness of the US government has fostered fear 
across the world, not at what "terrorists are going to do, but at 
what we are going to do". 

Some, however, are having trouble keeping up. In parliament, many 
MPs seem determined to sleepwalk into a war of aggression, hiding 
behind the fiction that all will be resolved if United Nations 
weapons inspectors are allowed to go in and finish the 
disarmament of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Tony Blair was at 
pains to soothe their anxieties on Tuesday, as he will be next 
week at the Labour conference in Blackpool. The aim, he assured 
them, was simply to get rid of weapons of mass destruction under 
the auspices of the UN. If the regime changed as a byproduct, so 
much the better. But yes, Saddam Hussein could save himself by 
compliance. 

It's only necessary to listen briefly to the chorus of 
administration voices in Washington insisting on the exact 
opposite, however, to realise this is a fraud - and that Blair 
knows it. From the president downwards, they have made utterly 
clear that regime change remains their policy, and force their 
favoured method - with or without a UN resolution and whether or 
not Saddam complies with inspections. And they are the ones 
making the decisions. What is actually happening is that Blair, 
as Bush's senior international salesman, is providing political 
cover for a policy which is opposed throughout the world, using 
the time-honoured New Labour methods of spin and "sequencing": 
drawing his government and MPs into a succession of positions 
intended to lock them into acceptance of the final outcome. 

So while Rumsfeld - the man who as President Reagan's envoy came 
to Baghdad in March 1984 to offer US support to Saddam, on the 
same day Iraq launched a chemical weapons attack on Iranian 
troops - rages on about a "decapitation strategy" for his former 
allies, Blair has been busy promoting Britain's dossier of 
assertion, conjecture and intelligence speculation to soften up 
public opinion for war. There is nothing whatever in the dossier, 
as the former Tory foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind said this 
week, to suggest that Iraq is any more of a threat than it was in 
the days when the US and Britain were arming it - in fact the 
opposite, as would be expected after 12 years of sanctions and 
seven years' weapons inspections. 

But more importantly, the Iraqi government's announcement that it 
intends to allow UN inspectors free and unfettered access has 
already stolen the dossier's rather modest thunder. After all, it 
should soon be possible to put its claims seriously to the test. 
That is presumably why Bush immediately threatened to veto the 
inspectors' return without a new, more aggressive UN resolution 
and why Condoleezza Rice has been trying to revive discredited 
claims of links between Iraq and al-Qaida. 

In spite of Russia's insistence yesterday that inspectors can go 
back without a new UN resolution, Blair at least is convinced 
that support can be won for a more hawkish form of words. Given 
the threats and bribes that are routinely used to corral crucial 
votes - and the carve-up of Iraq's oil that the US has been 
dangling in front of Russia and France - that seems entirely 
possible. What is highly unlikely, though, is that any resolution 
will be passed explicitly authorising invasion, occupation and 
regime change - in violation of the UN charter - which is what is 
actually intended. Expect, instead, some implied threat of force, 
which could then be used to create provocations, trigger an 
attack and be claimed as UN authorised. But it would be nothing 
of the sort. Nor would it reflect the genuine will of the 
international community, but only further serve to discredit the 
UN as a cipher for American power, to be used or discarded as and 
when convenient. That process was accelerated this week when the 
only Middle Eastern state with an advanced programme of weapons 
of mass destruction - nuclear-armed Israel - refused to comply 
with a UN security council resolution demanding an immediate end 
to its destruction of Palestinian compounds in Ramallah because 
it said it was "one-sided". No action is expected. But then 
Israel is a serial flouter of UN security council resolutions - 
and some resolutions are treated more seriously than others. 

The planned US invasion of Iraq will increase the threat of war 
throughout the world. By legitimising pre-emptive attacks, it 
will lower the threshold for the use of force and make aggression 
by powerful states more likely. It will encourage nuclear 
proliferation, as states rush to get hold of some protective 
deterrent. It will damage the fabric of international law and 
multilateral treaties. It will encourage terrorism by pouring oil 
on the flames of anti-western rage. 

It also risks creating a humanitarian disaster in Iraq - on top 
of the terrible human toll exacted by sanctions. Nor is it easy 
to believe that a US-orchestrated regime change in Iraq will lead 
to democracy, or that the US would be likely to accept the kind 
of government free elections might produce. The last time Britain 
and the US called the shots in Baghdad, in 1958, there were 
10,000 political prisoners, parties were banned, the press was 
censored and torture was commonplace. 

For the US, this war is not mainly about Iraq at all, but about 
the implementation of its new doctrine and the reconstruction of 
the entire region. For Tony Blair, it is about his "article of 
faith" in the centrality of the American relationship and the 
need to pay a "blood price" to maintain it. For the British 
people, across the political spectrum, it should highlight the 
moral and democratic necessity of starting to loosen what has 
become a profoundly dangerous alliance. 

[s.milne@guardian.co.uk] 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
*****************************************************************
 37 As a way to peace, war flops : 

idaho mountain express : 

Sept 25 - Oct 1, 2002 

[http://www.mtexpress.com] 

Produced & Maintained by Idaho Mountain Express, Box 1013, 
Ketchum, ID 83340-1013 

Commentary by PAT MURPHY 

What could Republican President George W. Bush have in common 
with the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle and the early 1900s 
Democrat President Woodrow Wilson? 

They each believed that wars create peace. 

Last week, when President Bush told congressional leaders, "If 
you want to keep the peace, you've got to have the authorization 
to use force," he was echoing words from antiquity. 

More than 300 years before the birth of Christ, Aristotle said, 
"We make war that we may live in peace." 

Then, more than 2,200 years after Aristotle’s observation and 
four days before declaring war on Germany on April 6, 1917, 
President Wilson justified the end to U.S. neutrality by saying, 
"The world must be made safe for democracy." 

Yet, war hasn’t created peace in any century or made the world 
safer, which is what politicians tend to promise while 
dispatching a nation’s youth into battle and inevitable deaths 
and maiming that create new widows, new orphans and grieving 
parents, and fill Veterans Hospitals for generations. 

If wars haven’t guaranteed peace, they’ve assured the world of 
one thing—deadlier weapons. Arsenals have evolved from 
stone-throwing catapults and bows and arrows to appalling 
biological, chemical and nuclear arms as well as "smart" weapons 
that allow killing to be carried out dispassionately and at a 
distance. 

In pursuit of peace-through-war, the United States alone has 
toted up 1,138,456 deaths in 10 major wars since the 1775 
Revolution, including 648,871 killed in combat and the remainder 
in non-combat roles—more than the combined populations of Alaska 
and Wyoming (1,120,714). This doesn’t include peacekeeping 
casualties, such as 241 Marines and seaman killed by a 1983 
suicide bomber in Beirut, Lebanon. 

In the 20th century alone, the United States has been involved in 
five major military operations (World War I, WWII, Korea, Vietnam 
and the Gulf War). President Bush wants to rush pell-mell into a 
war with Iraq that would involve upwards of 250,000 troops and 
years of occupation. 

Statistically, America’s major wars since 1775 have occurred on 
average every 21.6 years, and presumably will continue to recur 
as future presidents promise peace-through-war. The cycle is just 
enough time to spawn another generation of youth for the next 
war.

The futility of combat has found its voice among disparate 
figures.

In 1935, the Soviet diplomat Maxim Maximovich Litvinov concluded 
somberly, "It has now become clear to the whole world that each 
war is the creation of a preceding war and the generator of new 
present or future wars." 

Even a Bush predecessor and one of the Republican Party’s most 
beloved figures, President Herbert Hoover, said this in a speech 
to the GOP convention on June 27, 1944. "Older men declare war. 
But it is youth that must fight and die. And it is youth who must 
inherit the tribulation, the sorrow and the triumphs that are the 
aftermath of war." 

If the wisdom of a presidential candidate is insufficiently 
credible, then consider the view of the Civil War hero, Union 
Army Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, who said on June 17, 1879, 
"War is at best barbarism. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only 
those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and 
groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, 
more desolation. War is Hell." 

Now, as President Bush invites the United Nations and Congress to 
endorse the threatened U.S. pre-emptive attack on Iraq in the 
name of peace, perhaps America is taking another step toward the 
apocalypse the late President John Kennedy envisioned in his 
Sept. 25, 1961 speech to the United Nations. 

"Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to 
mankind."

The Idaho Mountain Express 
*****************************************************************
 38 Daschle: Senate to Debate Iraq 

Las Vegas SUN: 

September 26, 2002 By JIM ABRAMS ASSOCIATED PRESS 

WASHINGTON- Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said Thursday the 
Senate will begin debate next week on a resolution authorizing 
the president to use force against Iraq. But he said the latest 
White House proposal remained unacceptable. 

A resolution giving the president the authority to go to war 
should be backed by the broadest coalition possible, Daschle said 
after a meeting with Senate Democrats. "We've come some distance. 
We've got a long way to go before that can be achieved." 

Senate Republicans said they strongly backed the proposal offered 
by the White House and felt the president had gone far enough in 
meeting Democratic concerns about its scope. "Any further 
erosion, I think, is going to be a problem," said Senate 
Republican leader Trent Lott. Earlier in the day, President Bush 
expressed confidence that an agreement was near on a resolution 
he said was crucial to "send a clear message to the world" that 
Saddam Hussein must accede to United Nations demands and 
eliminate his weapons of mass destruction. Surrounded by 
lawmakers from both parties who support his request for authority 
to deal with the Iraqi threat, Bush stressed the need to act 
quickly. "Each passing day could be one on which the Iraqi regime 
gives anthrax or VX nerve gas or someday a nuclear weapon to a 
terrorist ally," he said. 

Secretary of State Colin Powell, testifying before the Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee, spoke of efforts he was making to 
get the U.N. Security Council to approve tough new resolutions 
against Iraq and said he strongly believed "our diplomatic 
efforts at the U.N. will be helped enormously by a strong 
congressional resolution." The latest White House proposal takes 
out a phrase in its original draft - one which would have given 
the president authority to use force to ensure peace and security 
in the region. Leading Democrats and some Republicans said that 
was too broad. 

The new resolution would authorize the president to use military 
force he determines to be necessary and appropriate to defend 
U.S. security interests against the Iraqi threat, while stating 
that he will inform Congress - either before or after using force 
- of the necessity of his action and the inadequacy of diplomatic 
means. Sen. John Warner of Virginia, the top Republican on the 
Armed Services Committee, said that with the proposed wording 
there would be "no daylight between what the Congress stands for 
and what the president has as his objectives." 

But Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., a leading opponent of military 
action, said it was still too broad. "We're not haggling over a 
used car. We are making decisions that could send young Americans 
to war." The president also sought to defuse the anger of 
Democrats who contend that Bush and other Republicans are using 
the crisis with Iraq for political advantage, saying, "The 
security of our country is the commitment of both political 
parties and the responsibility of both elected branches of 
government." 

Thursday evening, before Republican donors in Houston, Bush also 
significantly ratcheted back his standard criticism of the Senate 
stalemate on legislation to create a homeland security agency. 
"Don't get me wrong. There's fine senators from both parties who 
care deeply about our country," he said. "But it is essential, 
for the sake of protecting America, that we not allow special 
interests to drive the process." 

Daschle, in a heated speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, had 
demanded that Bush apologize for earlier comments in which he 
said the Democratic-controlled Senate, in failing to pass the 
legislation, was "not interested in the security of the American 
people." Daschle repeated Thursday that efforts to reach a 
compromise on a resolution had "been made much harder" by what he 
said was the politicization of the Iraq issue. 

House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt said a number of House 
Democrats would prefer to delay the Iraq vote until after the 
elections. But he noted Democrats in August had asked the 
president to present an Iraq resolution to Congress. "He's done 
that and I'm glad he did that," Gephardt said. "So we're trying 
to respond to that." Reps. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Ellen 
Tauscher, D-Calif., were circulating a letter urging a 
postponement of the Iraq vote until after the Nov. 5 elections. 

"It is not in the best interests of our nation, nor is it in the 
best interests of either party, for us to challenge each other's 
patriotism or our devotion to duty," during the run-up to the 
elections, they wrote. Bush, however, urged speed: "The danger to 
our country is grave." He said Iraq has biological and chemical 
weapons and is building the facilities necessary to increase 
those stockpiles. 

He also repeated Wednesday statements by Condoleezza Rice, his 
national security adviser, who said the Iraqi regime "has 
long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist organizations, and 
there are al-Qaida terrorists inside Iraq." 

"We know that the Iraqi regime is led by a dangerous and brutal 
man. We know he's actively seeking the destructive technologies 
to match his hatred. And we know he must be stopped," Bush said. 

Daschle said the administration had not told him about an 
Iraq-al-Qaida link. "It is a reversal of the information the 
administration shared with us earlier this year," the South 
Dakota Democrat said. -- 

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. 
*****************************************************************
 39 AU: What the White House really wants 

- smh.com.au 

The unifying element in an often-contradictory US foreign policy 
is the dream of toppling OPEC and controlling the world oil 
market. And Iraq is the key, writes Paul McGeough from Riyadh. 

Contempt rises to the surface. Over glasses of sugared tea, two 
of this desert city's leading businessmen are stung by news from 
Washington that Saudis entering the United States are to be 
subjected to the indignity of being fingerprinted. 

Abdulrahman Al-Zamil, his leg twitching nervously in the folds of 
his white robes, spits out his words: "America should ask the 
British about the history of Iraq." His colleague Khalid Al-Turki 
rejoins: "The justifications for a US attack on Iraq is not only 
to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. They also want to 
control the oilfields, so that no more will they have to rely on 
the Wahhabi-dominated crazies of Saudi Arabia." The exchange, as 
the fading autumn light made filigree of Riyadh's stark, 
modernistic skyline, was more than just a Saddam-inspired rant. 

As George Bush prepares for war against Iraq, he has spoken only 
of disarming Saddam Hussein and of liberating his people. But if 
his battle plans are viewed in the context of some of 
Washington's ambiguous and contradictory adventures in the wake 
of September 11, one of the most coherent strands in today's US 
foreign policy is oil. 

Consider. Washington's war talk is what is pushing oil prices to 
about $US30 ($55) a barrel - an increase of 45 per cent in a 
year, of which analysts say that anywhere between $US5-$10 is a 
"war premium". 

But that didn't stop the US Energy Secretary, Spencer Abraham, 
from getting his dukes up with OPEC oil ministers at a conference 
in Osaka last Saturday: "We aren't going to beg for oil. 
Producers have their way of looking at things and the US has to 
do that as well." And that is what Washington has been doing. 

Abraham had stopped over in Central Asia on his way to Japan. In 
Azerbaijan he officiated at the ground-breaking ceremony for a 
new US-sponsored pipeline from Baku, on the oil-rich Caspian Sea, 
to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. But the project is 
more notable for the fact that the $US2.9 billion pipeline is 
significantly longer, and so more costly, than it might have been 
because the US was determined that is should avoid two countries 
- Russia and Iran. Some critics say that an oil price of less 
than $US20 could make the project economically unviable. 

After years of US silence on the dearth of democracy in the 
Middle East, the US National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, 
has taken to claiming that the American values of freedom and 
democracy do not "stop at the edge of Islam" as she urges "the 
march of freedom in the Muslim world". 

But in April Washington was coldly indifferent to the threat to 
democracy in Venezuela when a short-lived coup briefly bundled 
President Hugo Chavez from office. In the preceding months senior 
US officials had met those plotting against Chavez, prompting a 
Latin American commentator to liken the coup to a "Bay of Pigs 
without weapons". The Bush Administration stubbornly refused to 
welcome Chavez's restoration to office, mainly because of the 
company he keeps - Castro, Saddam and Gaddafi. Worse, Chavez was 
messing with the independence of the Venezuelan oil industry 
which, at 1.5 million barrels a day, was the third-biggest 
foreign supplier to the US. 

In post-Taliban Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, the man whose every 
movement is guarded by US soldiers, was a consultant to the US 
oil giant Unocal before he was handpicked by Washington as the 
country's interim president. Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush's special 
envoy to Kabul, was similarly employed by the same company, which 
for years wanted to run a strategic energy pipeline through 
Afghanistan. Now in office, Karzai is dusting off the old plans. 

In the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, the US has 
thousands of advisers and troops protecting energy assets with 
combined reserves said to be as great as those of Saudi Arabia 
and which already are sucking in $US200 billion in US investment. 

In strife-torn Colombia, America's seventh-biggest oil supplier, 
Bush has stumped up $US100 million to train and equip a local 
army of 2000 to protect California-based Occidental Petroleum's 
772-kilometre Cano Limon pipeline from guerilla attacks. 

And despite a hectic "war on terror" workload, the Secretary of 
State, Colin Powell, found time a couple of weeks ago to fly the 
US flag in the oil-rich African nations of Gabon and Angola. And 
Bush is to go to Nigeria early next year. It's all part of a 
quiet but concerted energy-driven return by the US to a continent 
it pretty well abandoned when the collapse of the Soviet Union 
ended its usefulness as a Cold War battlefield. Africa supplies 
about 14 per cent of US oil imports, a figure that experts say 
could almost double in the coming decade. 

THE Bush Administration launched a new energy blueprint last year 
which came to be known as the Cheney Report, after the 
Vice-President, Dick Cheney, who led the energy policy team. It 
was quickly consumed in domestic ructions over the involvement in 
its drafting by executives from the now-disgraced Enron 
Corporation and over its call for drilling in the wildlife 
sanctuaries of Alaska. Those debates died on September 11. 

But Michael Klare, a professor of peace and world security 
studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, says the 
international implications of the plan had been missed in the 
coverage. In an interview with the Herald he reduced them to four 
key points: 

"The US, which burns a quarter of all oil consumed, is utterly 
dependent on foreign supplies; it will have to import heavily 
from sources like the Caspian states, Russia and Africa on top of 
its traditional big suppliers - Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and 
Canada; market forces alone will not work - the US will have to 
overcome foreign resistance to the outward reach of American 
energy companies; and in time, the US will be increasingly 
dependent on oil from dangerous, unstable and unfriendly 
neighbourhoods." 

The Cheney report canvasses global markets in some detail, but 
oddly it makes no reference to any prospect of sanction-bound 
Iraq's 22 per cent share of world reserves coming into play, 
unless the authors had Baghdad in mind when they wrote: "[By 2020 
the US] will import nearly two of every three barrels of oil [it 
uses] - a condition of increased dependency on foreign powers 
that do not always have America's interests at heart." 

Given the White House's failure to explain why it wants to attack 
Iraq now, after years of grumpily accepting the Iraqi status quo, 
and why now, in the middle of the so-called war on terrorism in 
which no one has seriously linked Saddam to the September 11 
attacks, diplomats and analysts across the Middle East and the 
world are still attempting to assess how significant the oil 
factor is in Bush's war reckoning. 

As the world's biggest economy, the US depends on Saudi Arabia 
not so much as a supplier of oil as it does for the Saudis' 
unique ability to control the price of oil - all international 
producers pump at or close to full capacity, with the exception 
of Saudi Arabia, which has a massive excess capacity. 

If prices go up, it is the only oil producer that can flood the 
market to bring them down; if they drop, it can turn off the 
spigot to bring the price back into a steady band. And all that 
production clout has allowed Riyadh to control the 
often-fractious OPEC cartel in the self-serving knowledge that 
oil-driven market fluctuations are no good for the Saudis' $US800 
billion foreign investment portfolio. 

It all suited the West quite well. Until the September 11 
attacks, the underpinning of the US-Saudi relationship was 
powerfully simple - Washington provided defence and Riyadh 
delivered oil at a manageable price. But since 15 young Saudis 
joined Osama bin Laden's death squads last year, great chunks of 
flesh have been ripped from the bones of the relationship by a 
piranha-like media and lobby campaign across the US. Hence the 
fingerprinting for the long-trusted citizens of a traditional 
ally. 

The Saudi businessman Abdulrahman Al-Zamil could not contain his 
outrage: "Osama bin Laden did not select these young Saudis 
because he was stupid. It was deliberately calculated to wreck 
our relationship with the US." Mocking himself as a "Bedouin 
idiot" who still could see clearly that which was not obvious to 
the smartest in Washington, he said: "The US has given bin Laden 
his victory. Osama has won the war!" 

Despite denials, there is a perception of tit-for-tat in a Saudi 
decision to allow negotiations to bog down on a huge new gas 
development that was expected to be a $US25 billion bonanza for 
US energy companies, and a trillion-dollar class action against 
Saudi Arabia by the US families of the September 11 victims. 
"That lawsuit is an albatross of the Lockerbie variety," said one 
diplomat, who predicted that the legal action would cause 
friction for years to come. 

Traditionally at this time of year, tens of thousands of Saudis 
holiday in the US to escape the fierce summer heat in the Gulf - 
150,000 own homes in America. But this year's US visa crackdown 
forced them to holiday in Europe, Malaysia, Egypt and Lebanon. 

Students who would normally go to the US to study are being 
enrolled in European colleges and a boycott of US goods is being 
blamed for a fall of more than 30 per cent in imports from the 
US. Much of this is heat of the moment stuff, but the long-term 
worry for US observers is that the Saudi elite and management 
class, which is almost entirely educated in the US, is starting 
to look elsewhere in the world for business and pleasure. 

Says Al-Zamil: "We have been hurt more than anyone else by this. 
We are the losers - we have lost US goodwill and our image. But 
the US has lost, too - all that tremendous business and 
interaction between our people is in decline. They have taken 
their air force to Qatar and what we built up over 30 years has 
gone on the wind."

The fear for some analysts in Riyadh is that, in the same way 
that September 11 was an asymmetrical contest - there was no 
connection between the might of the US military complex and a 
bunch of young men with box cutters and credit cards - there will 
be no connection between anti-Saudi public opinion in the US and 
the economic good sense of a long-term relationship between the 
two countries; and so, there will be no incentive to halt the 
deterioration in relations. 

A Western diplomat told the Herald: "It's reasonable to assume 
that the US is working on Iraq as a way to be less reliant on the 
Saudis. If Washington can install a friendly regime in Baghdad, 
it will be reckoning that in time it can get Iraq up to speed as 
an oil producer with a Saudi-like capacity to control the market. 
That would wreck OPEC's power to control prices." 

And Sheik Zaki Yamani, the Saudi oil minister who ran OPEC during 
the convulsions of the 1970s, predicted that, fired up with 
renewed foreign investment, Iraq could be producing 7 billion 
barrels a day and that, he said, "would be the end of everything 
for OPEC". 

There are a lot of ifs in these equations. What looks like a 
"friendly Baghdad regime" to Washington will look like a puppet 
to much of the world; Washington could well end up in an arm 
wrestle with the new regime on its OPEC membership; it will take 
years for Iraq to get into the same production league as Saudi 
Arabia; and the notion of immediate control of Iraq's oil 
resources implies the installation of a new regime without a bout 
of civil war - which is probably less than a 50-50 prospect. 

Washington's loud insistence that it must impose democracy in 
Iraq, in the hope that it will spread through the Muslim world, 
is prompting a mixture of concern and black humour. And diplomats 
in the region are warning that a free vote in Saudi Arabia 
probably would be the equivalent of an express courier delivery 
of the world's greatest oil reserves to Islamic radicals, just as 
democracy in Pakistan would cede them control of Islamabad's 
nuclear arsenal. 

Brad Bourland, chief economist with the Saudi American Bank in 
Riyadh, said: "A lot of Saudis are worried about Iraq as an 
OPEC-buster, but I'm not sure that it's a significant part of the 
US policy deliberation - at best it's a fringe benefit in the 
minds of some." 

But he spelt out the serious, long-term implications for other 
oil producers as Iraqi production comes back on stream: "After a 
war in Iraq we are looking at a shift in the industry's tectonic 
plates - anything that changes Iraqi production will change the 
industry, because someone will have to sacrifice market share. 
The Saudis will have to take oil off the market or get OPEC to 
reduce output". 

"Some day Iraq will have the capacity to play a similar market 
role to the Saudis, to be able to counter the OPEC hawks like 
Libya and Iran. But after 10 years out of the market, it is 
unlikely that Iraq would want to have any idle capacity. So it's 
hard to be optimistic about any sustained increase in demand for 
Saudi oil or sustained high prices." 

All of which suggests that in time the US probably could get its 
policy dream of a weakened OPEC, which now controls only 37 per 
cent of the oil market, compared with 55 per cent at the time of 
the 1973 oil shock. 

But for now? Bourland, describing the Osaka performance of the 
Energy Secretary, Spencer Abraham, as "unrealistic; but almost 
threatening", said that the Bush Administration clearly had 
abandoned a drive by its predecessor towards co-operation with 
OPEC on prices. "It was a 180-degree turn away from the de facto 
co-operation of the Clinton years," he said. And, on top of that, 
Bourland said economic pressures on both sides were driving the 
US and the Saudis out of sync on their notion of what was a fair 
price. The Saudis used to work on a $US18-$20 range, but now had 
fixed on about $US25. 

Pricing is complex. If the producers push it too high they make 
the development of more-costly alternative production sources 
more attractive - hurting themselves in the long term; if they 
set it too low to compete for market share, they hurt themselves 
again. A Russian oil executive was quoted last week as being 
temporarily happy with the existing arrangement: "The fear factor 
has pushed prices up and nothing is coming out of Iraq. But in 18 
months [after a US invasion] prices will have plummeted and we'll 
be in deep trouble." 

And, at the end of the day, the Saudis still need to be handled 
carefully, because they could say to hell with everyone and 
simply flood the market - earning as much revenue on a low-flow 
$US30 a barrel as they would by increasing the flow and cutting 
the price to a reckless $US17. But there is always a check on any 
Saudi market activity that looks like assistance to the US - a 
backlash at home. 

JUST as vexing for Washington, as it sees a glimpse of price 
liberation in a redeveloped Iraqi oil industry, is the extent to 
which Saddam Hussein has already mortgaged the post-sanctions or 
post-regime-change industry to Russia, France and China. 

Earlier this month the Iraqi authorities blocked attempts by the 
Herald to see up close its oil industry, which is operating at 
only a third of its pre-Gulf War capacity. We were allowed only 
distant glimpses of the Majnoon oilfields, near the southern city 
of Basra, for which the French have won development rights. 
However, in Baghdad, we got access to the Doura oil refinery 
which was virtually destroyed in the 1991 conflict. The 
installation is still buckled and bruised from bombing, but it 
was held together with mechanical quick fixes and industrial 
staples and staff claimed that it was close to "full" production. 

There's billions of dollars and barrels worth of work in 
restoring and expanding the Iraqi industry. The French companies 
Elf Aquitaine and Total SA have provisional agreements with 
Baghdad over as much as 27 billion barrels of Iraqi reserves; 
three Russian companies - Lukoil, Zarubezneft and Machinoimport - 
have their paws on up to 15 billion barrels; China's National 
Petroleum Corp is in there, too. 

In a telephone interview from Amherst, Michael Klare observed 
that the wily Saddam had selected companies from the nations that 
were most likely to blunt any US designs on Iraq: "His hope was 
to persuade them not to act against Iraq and this now has become 
a part of the diplomacy at the United Nations. 

"But the problem facing the US is that these deals give the 
Russians, the Chinese and the French potential control of Iraq's 
untapped reserves. Nothing can happen while sanctions are in 
force. But if they are lifted and the regime or one of its 
choosing remains in power, Iraq's vast untapped reserves would 
fall under the control of non-US companies. Some of them would 
sell on the world market, but America would have no assurance 
that they would be available to satisfy their future energy 
requirements. Obviously, the only way to make sure this doesn't 
happen is to engineer 'regime change' and install a government 
that will cancel the agreements." 

Sure enough, in the UN game of bluff and blink, Russian and 
French diplomats who had previously presented themselves as 
concerned global citizens have in the past few days emerged as 
commercial hucksters, seeking to protect their Iraqi market share 
in the face of a growing expectation that the US would play a 
lead role in rebuilding postwar Iraq. 

Post-Soviet Russia has become one of the world's top oil 
producers, refusing to work with OPEC as President Vladimir Putin 
has become something of a diplomatic peacock, attempting to 
position Russia as a friend of all three of Bush's "axis of evil" 
nations - Iraq, Iran and North Korea - while at the same time 
staying on good terms with Bush. 

Yet Moscow may have been the first to blink. Putin has been 
holding out against the US demand for a tough new weapons 
inspection resolution by the UN. But his team in New York 
reportedly has indicated to the US that Moscow would support the 
US in return for trade guarantees worth billions and membership 
of the World Trade Organisation. Russia is owed more than $US7 
billion by Iraq in pre-Gulf War debt and recently it closed a 
$US40 billion, long-term trade deal with Baghdad. 

Just how high the stakes are was underscored by James Woolsey, a 
hawkish former CIA director who is close to the Iraqi opposition 
groups, when he told The Washington Post: "It's pretty 
straightforward. France and Russia have oil companies and 
interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they are of 
assistance in moving Iraq towards decent government, we'll do the 
best we can to ensure the new government and American companies 
work closely with them. If they throw in their lot with Saddam, 
it will be difficult, to the point of impossible, to persuade the 
new Iraqi government to work with them." 

The US-backed Iraqi National Congress opposition group is letting 
it be known that it wants to review all deals done with Saddam. 
The group's chairman, Ahmed Chalabi, has urged the formation of a 
US-led consortium to redevelop Iraq's oil industry. 

And the INC's Washington director, Entifadh Qanbar, seemed to 
take some delight in revealing this week that the Russians had 
raced a diplomat to his office to reassure him that Moscow's 
Iraqi dealings had been based on historic and economic relations 
- nothing to do with Saddam. Intriguingly, noises of co-operation 
are being heard from Paris, too. 

They can do all the deals they like, but there is no certainty 
about what state the industry will be in after a war. 

Calls early this month by Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin 
Ramadan for Arabs to attack US targets in the region have fuelled 
worst-case scenarios that a desperate Saddam might torch the 
Iraqi industry, as he did in Kuwait; or that he might launch 
attacks on the Saudi, Kuwaiti and other Gulf oil industries. In 
which case, Sheik Yamani warned, the oil price could spike on 
either side of the $US100 mark. 

When Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990 oil was selling at $US16 a 
barrel. As the invasion became the hostage drama it shot to 
$US38. Where will it go this time? Who will be manipulating it? 
And to what end? 

For now, the urge to give history a label even as it is happening 
has forced many to embrace Bush's name for this global upheaval - 
the war on terror. History, however, may well record it as the 
first oil war of the 21st century. 

Copyright © 2002. The Sydney Morning Herald. 
*****************************************************************
 40 Subcritical nuclear experiment successful 

[Las Vegas Review-Journal] 

Friday, September 27, 2002 

REVIEW-JOURNAL 

Government scientists successfully exploded a small amount of 
nuclear material underground in a subcritical nuclear experiment 
Thursday at the Nevada Test Site. 

The experiment, dubbed "Rocco," was conducted about 960 feet 
below the desert surface by scientists from Los Alamos National 
Laboratory, officials at the National Nuclear Security 
Administration said. 

The noon test was the nation's 19th such experiment since the 
program started July 2, 1997. 

Subcritical experiments stop short of triggering nuclear chain 
reactions. They are designed to give scientists information about 
the aging nuclear stockpile in the absence of full-scale nuclear 
tests, which were put on hold by the United States in 1992. 

The experiment about 85 miles northwest of Las Vegas allow 
scientists to study how materials, such as plutonium, blow apart 
when detonated. 

Anti-nuclear groups have criticized subcritical nuclear tests as 
counter to the spirit of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty 
on nuclear arms. They do not technically violate the treaty 
because no critical mass is formed and there is no full-scale 
nuclear explosion. 

This story is located at: 
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2002/Sep-27-Fri-2002/news/19725569.html
 
[http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2002/Sep-27-Fri-2002/news/19725569.html]
*****************************************************************
 41 Agency disavows report on Iraq arms -- 

The Washington Times 

September 27, 2002 

By Joseph Curl THE WASHINGTON TIMES 

The International Atomic Energy Agency says that a report cited 
by President Bush as evidence that Iraq in 1998 was "six months 
away" from developing a nuclear weapon does not exist. 

"There's never been a report like that issued from this agency," 
Mark Gwozdecky, the IAEA's chief spokesman, said yesterday in a 
telephone interview from the agency's headquarters in Vienna, 
Austria.      

"We've never put a time frame on how long it might take Iraq to 
construct a nuclear weapon in 1998," said the spokesman of the 
agency charged with assessing Iraq's nuclear capability for the 
United Nations.      In a Sept. 7 news conference with British 
Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mr. Bush said: "I would remind you 
that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied — 
finally denied access [in 1998], a report came out of the Atomic 
— the IAEA that they were six months away from developing a 
weapon.      

"I don't know what more evidence we need," said the president, 
defending his administration's case that Iraqi leader Saddam 
Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction. 

     The White House says Mr. Bush was referring to an earlier 
IAEA report.      "He's referring to 1991 there," said Deputy 
Press Secretary Scott McClellan. "In '91, there was a report 
saying that after the war they found out they were about six 
months away." 

     Mr. Gwozdecky said no such report was ever issued by the 
IAEA in 1991.      Many news agencies — including The Washington 
Times — reported Mr. Bush's Sept. 7 comments as referring to a 
1998 IAEA report. The White House did not ask for a correction 
from The Times.      To clear up the confusion, Mr. McClellan 
cited two news articles from 1991 — a July 16 story in the London 
Times by Michael Evans and a July 18 story in the New York Times 
by Paul Lewis. But neither article cites an IAEA report on Iraq's 
nuclear-weapons program or states that Saddam was only six months 
away from "developing a weapon" — as claimed by Mr. Bush. 

     The article by Mr. Evans says: "Jay Davis, an American 
expert working for the U.N. special commission charged with 
removing Iraq's nuclear capability, said Iraq was only six months 
away from the large-scale production of enriched uranium at two 
plants inspected by UN officials."      The Lewis article said 
Iraq in 1991 had a uranium "enrichment plant using 
electromagnetic technology [that] was about six months from 
becoming operational." 

     In October 1998, just before Saddam kicked U.N. weapons 
inspectors out of Iraq, the IAEA laid out a case opposite of Mr. 
Bush's Sept. 7 declaration.      "There are no indications that 
there remains in Iraq any physical capability for the production 
of weapon-usable nuclear material of any practical significance," 
IAEA Director-General Mohammed Elbaradei wrote in a report to 
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.      Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair on 
Sept. 7 cited an agency "report" declaring that satellite 
photography revealed the Iraqis had undertaken new construction 
at several nuclear-related sites. This week, the IAEA said no 
such report existed. 

     The IAEA also took issue with a Sept. 9 report by the 
International Institute for Strategic Studies — cited by the Bush 
administration — that concludes Saddam "could build a nuclear 
bomb within months if he were able to obtain fissile material." 
     "There is no evidence in our view that can be substantiated 
on Iraq's nuclear-weapons program. If anybody tells you they know 
the nuclear situation in Iraq right now, in the absence of four 
years of inspections, I would say that they're misleading you 
because there isn't solid evidence out there," Mr. Gwozdecky 
said. 

     "I don't know where they have determined that Iraq has 
retained this much weaponization capability because when we left 
in December '98 we had concluded that we had neutralized their 
nuclear-weapons program. We had confiscated their fissile 
material. We had destroyed all their key buildings and 
equipment," he said.      Mr. Gwozdecky said there is no evidence 
about Saddam's nuclear capability right now — either through his 
organization, other agencies or any government. 

All site contents copyright © 2002 News World Communications,
*****************************************************************
 42 Time will tell value of accord between Japan, North Korea 

[Daily Yomiuri On-Line] 

POLITICAL PULSE / 

Takeshi Uemura 

Have prospects for negotiations to normalize diplomatic relations 
between Japan and North Korea really entered a new phase? The 
historic visit to Pyongyang by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi 
and the Japan-North Korea Pyongyang Declaration have been rated 
highly not only by South Korea and the United States, but also by 
China, Russia and other countries. In addition, more than 80 
percent of those polled in the latest nationwide opinion survey 
by The Yomiuri Shimbun spoke favorably of Koizumi's trip to North 
Korea. 

Both factors prove the success of the summit meeting. 

The majority of the international and domestic public, however, 
are not optimistic about the future of negotiations between Tokyo 
and Pyongyang. Many are skeptical about North Korea's willingness 
to take steps in line with the declaration and believe the 
success of planned negotiations is far from predictable. 

The Pyongyang Declaration consists of a preamble and four 
articles. Article 1 stipulates that Japanese-North Korean talks 
for diplomatic normalization shall be resumed "before the end of 
October." In Article 2, Japan expressed "deep remorse and a 
heartfelt apology" to North Koreans for its 1910-45 colonial rule 
of the Korean Peninsula. It also refers to "economic cooperation 
between the two countries" after the normalization and 
"reciprocal abandoning" of various claims regarding the war, 
including those on national and individual assets. 

Article 3 states that neither Japan nor North Korea will take any 
action that would be threatening to the other. 

It also says North Korea will take appropriate action to "prevent 
a recurrence of incidents that would threaten the lives and 
safety of Japanese nationals." Article 4 calls for North Korea to 
abide by "all international agreements related to the nuclear 
issue on the Korean Peninsula to resolve it in a comprehensive 
manner." 

Also incorporated in the article is the North Korean intention to 
continue its moratorium on missile tests beyond 2003. At the end 
of the article, the two countries confirmed a plan to hold 
bilateral "security consultations." The declaration can be a 
foundation for resolving the problem of North Korea's suspected 
nuclear and missile development programs to secure peace and 
stability in the northeastern Asian region and normalizing 
relations between Japan and North Korea by solving bilateral 
problems. When read carefully, however, the declaration contains 
a host of ambiguities. Regarding nuclear issues, North Korea's 
pledge to "abide by all international agreements" cannot be 
construed as a promise to accept U.N. inspections of its nuclear 
facilities.

Although Prime Minister Koizumi says Article 4 indicates North 
Korea's agreement on nuclear inspections, North Korean leader Kim 
Jong Il never committed explicitly to inspections. 

Koizumi interpreted Kim's promise to extend North Korea's 
moratorium on missile tests "beyond 2003" as an indefinite 
suspension, but the word "indefinite" is not included in the 
declaration. The declaration can hardly be viewed as satisfactory 
by the United States, which has taken a serious view of North 
Korea's nuclear development programs, given Washington's effort 
to stem proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. 

Regarding the abductions of Japanese by North Korean agents--the 
bilateral issue regarded as most important by Japan--Koizumi 
quoted Kim as acknowledging during the summit meeting Pyongyang's 
responsibility and apology for the abductions. 

However, the word "abduction" is not included in the declaration. 
The prime minister says the phrase "incidents that would threaten 
the lives and safety of Japanese nationals" covers such problems 
as abductions and the entry of spy ships into Japanese 
territorial waters. The phrase "appropriate action to prevent a 
recurrence of...." leaves room for the interpretation that these 
issues are problems of the past, raising the fear that North 
Korea might fail to take earnest steps to resolve the problems. 

According to reliable sources, Japanese and North Korean 
officials effectively agreed in confidential working-level 
negotiations before the Pyongyang summit that the abduction and 
spy boat issues should be dealt with separately from negotiations 
to be undertaken to normalize relations. They agreed such 
problems should instead be put on the agenda of security 
consultations scheduled to be held parallel to the normalization 
negotiations, according to the sources. Article 4 of the 
declaration includes a reference to the nuclear and missile 
issues and after a space of one line refers to the bilateral 
security talks. Many analysts view this as suggesting that North 
Korea's nuclear and missile development issues should be dealt 
with as part of negotiations for normalization of relations, 
while problems involving abductions and spy boats should be 
handled as part of security talks that will be held separately 
from the normalization negotiations. 

North Korea has long made use of a combination of brinkmanship 
and appeasement measures in its foreign policy. 

Behind the conciliatory stance toward Japan this time are such 
factors as North Korea's hobbled economy and international 
isolation after the United States branded it as part of an "axis 
of evil" along with Iran and Iraq. Undoubtedly, Kim would not 
have acknowledged Pyongyang's responsibility for the abductions 
or apologized for the incidents if Koizumi had not visited North 
Korea. 

North Korea also is desperate for economic assistance from Japan. 
Given that Japan would find it difficult to extend economic aid 
to North Korea before completion of the normalization talks, 
Pyongyang may sound out the Japanese government about the 
feasibility of food and other humanitarian assistance. 

Worthy of note concerning the Pyongyang Declaration is that it 
refers to all major issues the two countries should address, 
including regional security and problems in relations. The 
declaration also outlines the basic approach Japan and North 
Korea have agreed to follow to resolve these issues. Specific 
measures to put the accords into effect, however, all depend on 
negotiations to be held between Japan and North Korea from now. 
It is necessary for this nation to watch how Pyongyang conducts 
itself for some time, before evaluating the Pyongyang 
Declaration. Uemura is editor of The Yomiuri Shimbun's Political 
News Department. 

Copyright 2002 The Yomiuri Shimbun 
*****************************************************************
 43 Bush shoots his Weapon of Mass Democracy 

Asia Times 

Middle East 

By Jim Lobe 

WASHINGTON - The normally cool - if not coldly analytical - 
Anthony Cordesman was uncharacteristically heated as he warmed to 
his subject. "It may be excusable as a fantasy of some Israelis 
reacting to the trauma of the second Intifada. As American 
policy, however, it crosses the line between neo-conservative and 
neo-crazy." 

Cordesman, a Mideast specialist at the conservative Center for 
Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, was 
speaking about the latest rationale offered with increasing 
insistence by forces both within the administration of President 
George W Bush and outside it for invading Iraq: the notion that 
ousting President Saddam Hussein would result in a flourishing of 
democracy, not just in Iraq, but through the entire Middle East.

Hailed by some commentators as the new "Wilsonian" thrust of 
Bush's foreign policy, the idea has been gradually embraced by 
the administration itself. Just last week, Bush's national 
security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, told the Financial Times that 
the US military should be seen as "liberators" when it moves on 
Iraq, and that the administration was devoted to 
"democratization, or the march of freedom in the Muslim world". 
Vice President Dick Cheney has said much the same thing in recent 
weeks. 

The idea is meant above all to appeal to the more idealistic 
instincts of the US public. In that respect, it counter-balances 
the arguably baser reasons that have been more frequently invoked 
by leaders to justify waging war on a foreign country and ousting 
its leader: that Saddam has the means, and the intent, to launch 
a devastating nuclear, biological or chemical attack on the 
United States at any moment, or, in a more sinister vein, that he 
is the secret puppeteer behind Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. 

The Wilsonian rationale, which takes its name from former 
president Woodrow Wilson - ironically a champion of international 
law whose aim in World War I was to "make the world safe for 
democracy" - has been championed almost since last year's 
September 11 terrorist attacks by a small group of 
neo-conservatives with close ties to the right-wing Likud Party 
in Israel. 

The group, which is concentrated at the American Enterprise 
Institute (AEI), a major think tank whose ranks include, among 
others, Cheney's wife Lynne and the chairman of Pentagon chief 
Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle, has long 
argued for extending the war on terrorism far beyond Afghanistan 
and al-Qaeda to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestine 
Authority of Yasser Arafat and even Washington's long-time ally, 
Saudi Arabia. 

"What [the Bush administration] has in mind is a broad vision," 
says Meyrav Wurmser, who directs Mideast policy at the Hudson 
Institute but works closely with Perle, "which really involves 
changing the character of the Middle East." 

If Saddam can be overthrown in an overwhelming show of force, the 
argument goes, then all of the autocracies that have dominated 
the Arab world, resisting democratic reform and peace with 
Israel, will themselves totter and collapse to popular pressures, 
creating a domino effect from Iran in the east, clear across 
North Africa as far as Libya. 

The idea has been strongly embraced by Israel's Likud. In 
testimony before Congress two weeks ago, for example, former 
prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu waxed eloquent for hours before 
a mostly fawning group of lawmakers. "So I think that the choice 
of going after Iraq is like removing a brick that holds a lot of 
other bricks and might cause this structure to crumble," he said, 
focusing particularly on Iran, which he said was ready for a new 
revolution. 

The former prime minister, a frequent guest at AEI, even cited 
the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant to support his view 
that an across-the-board democratization of the region was the 
only way to guarantee peace between Israel and its neighbors. 

Netanyahu's focus on Iran as the next target for the war on 
terror echoed the views of Perle's AEI colleague Michael Ledeen, 
once an anti-terrorism adviser to the administration of former 
president Ronald Reagan, who helped broker the original 
arms-for-weapons deal that underpinned what became the 
Iran-Contra affair. 

Since the Teheran government was rocked by spontaneous protests 
one year ago, Ledeen has repeatedly written that Iran is ripe for 
a pro-US revolution, even suggesting in newspaper articles this 
month that Iran might even precede Iraq as a target, presumably 
for covert action. 

"With a triumph in Iran, the democratic revolution would quickly 
gain allies in Syria and Iraq and transform our war against 
Saddam Hussein from a primarily military operation to a war of 
national liberation against a hated regime. This war cannot be 
limited to national theaters," cautioned Ledeen, who is also a 
founder and board member of another neo-conservative group, the 
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. 

"We face a regional challenge and must respond accordingly. We 
are the one truly revolutionary country on earth, which is both 
the reason for which we were attacked in the first place and the 
reason we will successfully transform the lives of millions of 
people throughout the Middle East." 

What makes this ambition and line of reasoning so interesting is 
not only its origin among outspoken "Likudniks" who have long 
opposed not only the Oslo accords but the whole "land for peace" 
formula that has formed the basis of US Mideast policy since 
1967. It is also the contrast between the hopes expressed on 
behalf of the Arabs and Muslims who are supposed to benefit from 
this policy and the contempt in which the same beneficiaries are 
held by their self-described champions. 

Another AEI scholar, former CIA officer Reuel Marc Gerecht, who 
takes the same line on democratization, has repeatedly argued 
that power and force are the only language understood in the 
Muslim world. Months ago, for example, as Israeli Prime Minister 
Ariel Sharon moved to re-occupy West Bank towns and cities, 
Gerecht exulted, "The tougher Sharon becomes, the stronger our 
image will be in the Middle East." 

Netanyahu echoed that view before Congress: the political culture 
in the region's societies "is not one of respecting force; it is 
worshipping force, and the determination, resolution of the 
United States in applying it". 

This, indeed, may be the other side of the democratization coin, 
according to a number of observers. There is "something 
hypocritical about the belief in democratization when it is 
expounded by people who also hold the belief in the clash of 
civilizations, who were insisting a few months ago that there are 
regions of the world, particularly the Islamic regions, in which 
culture makes freedom impossible", noted the normally 
neo-conservative New Republic recently. 

As for Cordesman and other Mideast experts, both the people who 
now champion democratization as the rationale for war against 
Iraq and the vehemence with which they continue to attack Arab 
and Islamic societies "threaten to turn 'democratization' into a 
four-letter word". 

(Inter Press Service) 

Sep 28, 2002 

Copyright Asia Times Online, 6306 The Center, Queen’s Road, 
*****************************************************************
 44 Iraq: Berman Seeks Quick Action 

September 26, 2002 

By Ethan Wallison [esw@rollcall.com] 

With a firm nod from Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), a 
group of Iraq hawks led by Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) has 
broken away from intraparty discussions over compromise language 
for a war resolution and is working directly with the White House 
to "make the case" for immediate action against Saddam Hussein. 

Participants in a meeting of the Berman group Wednesday said 
tentative plans have been set for Democratic hawks to appear with 
President Bush at the White House today in a statement of 
solidarity on Iraq. The move amounts to a split in what might be 
called the "pro-war" coalition inside the House Democratic Caucus 
- a group that comprises the broad majority of Democrats. 

This group generally believes the president should have authority 
to take military action against Iraq, but a fault line has 
developed along the question of whether Congress should set 
conditions - such as a need for "multi-lateral" support - for 
that authority. 

"People should not put their head in the sand anymore," Berman 
said Wednesday in an interview. "What they want to happen 
[multi-lateral support] will happen a lot easier if we authorize 
the president to take quick action." The push by Berman's group, 
which includes Reps. Robert Andrews (N.J.), Norm Dicks (Wash.), 
Harold Ford Jr. (Tenn.) and Jane Harman (Calif.), reflects 
frustration among some Iraq hawks with the multilayered parsing 
of the war resolution that has occurred since the White House 
sent a draft to Congress last week. 

That process, which has been monitored by the leadership and 
guided by Reps. Ike Skelton (Mo.) and John Spratt (S.C.), has 
revealed a surfeit of wariness about the administration's 
approach to Iraq, but little in the way of a roadmap on how 
Democrats should proceed.

Among other things, Members have been torn over whether Democrats 
should try to refine the White House's language, come up with an 
alternative resolution or issue a statement of principles. Rep. 
Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.), who believes his "go-slow" approach on 
Iraq encompasses the entire spectrum of views in the Caucus, 
filed an alternative war resolution with the House Clerk on 
Monday. "I leave enough latitude in the policy clauses for 
diplomatic efforts to be exhausted," Hastings said. 

It is not clear whether Gephardt played an active role in 
encouraging Berman and other Members to break off from the 
Skelton-Spratt talks, in which Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi 
(D-Calif.) - the party's No. 2 Member in the House - has taken an 
active role. 

But Gephardt aides made clear that the leader supports Berman's 
efforts to move the debate forward. "We obviously encourage 
anyone who agrees with Dick's view [on Iraq] to get together and 
work on ways to get this done," a top Gephardt aide said. Berman, 
speaking of Gephardt's role in his efforts, said cryptically, 
"I'm not doing it because he wants me to do it. But he wants me 
to do it and I'm doing it." 

Superficial unity notwithstanding, deep tensions have emerged 
between Congressional Democrats and the White House in recent 
days, set off by comments that Democrats complained had 
"politicized" the Iraq debate. The most recent outcry came in the 
wake of news reports of a pair of statements from the 
administration. Vice President Cheney, while making a campaign 
appearance in Kansas, suggested that GOP candidate Adam Taff 
would be an "asset" to White House efforts on Iraq. The 
implication, Democrats believed, was that Rep. Dennis Moore (D) 
would be less of one. 

Bush, meanwhile, appeared to question Senate Majority Leader 
Thomas Daschle's (D-S.D.) commitment to battling terror while at 
a fundraiser in New Jersey. Indeed, sources familiar with 
discussions between the White House and its Democratic supporters 
on Capitol Hill indicated that Democrats have set two conditions 
for today's solidarity event with President Bush. They are that 
Bush agree to narrow the scope of the resolution's wording, and 
that the White House pledge not to further "politicize" the 
debate. "I think a non-aggression pact would probably be a good 
idea," said Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), who suggested the 
Iraq matter had become "overly politicized." 

Tauscher, a self-described hawk who nevertheless remains 
undecided on what course she wishes to take, turned down the 
invitation to appear today at the White House. 

"I don't appreciate [Majority Whip] Tom DeLay [R-Texas] making 
this a manhood test," Tauscher said. 

With regard to the new language Democrats were seeking, lawmakers 
were expecting the White House to send a revised draft to the 
Hill on Wednesday afternoon. Members wanted the new draft to give 
the president a free hand but include "narrower" language that 
would focus the authorization on Iraq, rather than the whole 
region, sources familiar with the discussions said. It was not 
clear at press time whether Democrats had vetted the new 
language. 

But one senior Democratic aide said it has been assumed that the 
White House would cooperate for strategic purposes. 

"The White House always knew they would be making changes. Now 
they will be able to say they did it because of input from the 
House Democrats." the aide said. "It's a win-win." 

Even as Iraq hawks in the Caucus appeared to be finding common 
cause with the White House, opposition continued to harden this 
week among a coalition of Members opposed to the administration's 
approach on Iraq. Many of the Members in this group, which is led 
by Reps. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), Lloyd Doggett (Texas) and Jim 
McDermott (Wash.), have suggested they are wary of any military 
action against Iraq and oppose the administration's policy of 
"regime change." 

Rep. Mike Capuano (D-Mass.) said he has been trying to bridge the 
differences among the multitude of Democrats who are trying to 
figure out how to approach the resolution. 

Capuano, who opposes speedy authorization for the president, said 
the question is whether you believe Bush should be authorized to 
take "unilateral" action against Iraq. 

"I wouldn't vote for that now," Capuano said. "But I might vote 
for that next week." 

Copyright 2002 © Roll Call Inc. 
[http://www.rollcall.com/aboutus/] All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 45 SNP proposes nuclear-free Scottish Defence Service 

Scotsman.com 

The Scotsman Fri 27 Sep 2002 

/David Scott/ dscott@scotsman.com AN

INDEPENDENT Scottish government would employ a full-time regular 
defence force of 20,000 - an increase of 5,000 on the present 
military establishment employed in Scotland, the SNP conference 
was told yesterday. Colin Campbell, the party?s defence 
spokesman, gave details of a Scottish Defence Service (SDS) which 
would operate in a nuclear-free Scotland following the removal of 
Trident. 

Mr Campbell said current estimates showed that a defence 
programme would cost £600 million a year with an extra £300 
million for works. The total defence budget of £1.8 billion would 
be about the same figure as the Ministry of Defence currently 
spends in Scotland. He told the delegates: "We are looking at a 
maximum establishment of 20,000 regular personnel in Scotland ... 
that is 5,000 extra people being paid in Scotland and spending 
their money in Scotland. That?s worth about £150 million a year."

He reckoned there would be 7,000 more indirect jobs as a result 
of the SNP?s defence policy. Apart from 20,000 full-time regular 
troops, Scotland would also have 20,000 regular reservists and 
8,000 part-time reservists. A detailed defence policy unanimously 
approved by the conference declared that the prime function of 
the SDS would be to "defend the land, sea and air space of 
Scotland" and to "maintain a high standard of professionalism, 
adaptability and preparedness to enable it to carry out 
international obligations". 

According to the policy, Scotland would work internationally to 
eliminate nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and establish 
a peacekeeping college. The conference agreed an amendment which 
emphasised that decisions on defence taken by the Scottish 
government should be endorsed by the Scottish Parliament. This 
change reflected the concerns of delegates at the UK government?s 
handling of the Iraq situation and the inability of the 
Westminster parliament to make its own decision on whether there 
should be military action against Saddam Hussein. 

Dr Alasdair Allan, the Scottish parliament candidate for Gordon, 
said the SNP could go into the Holyrood election next year with a 
"practical proposition" to rid Scotland of nuclear weapons. That 
could be achieved only by independence he stressed. He argued 
that Trident had no moral, military or peacekeeping function in 
Scotland. Nuclear weapons cost the UK £600 million to maintain, 
they were dangerous and they were insane, Dr Allan said. He 
added: "It?s insane that at a time when we are rightly condemning 
the activities of terrorists around the world and rightly finding 
ways of establishing peace in the trouble spots of the world that 
Britain has, as central to its defence policy, an armaments 
system whose sole function is killing civilians." Kevin Pringle, 
the candidate for Edinburgh Central, said the SNP defence policy 
meant that Scotland would be strong at home and a good neighbour 
in the world. 

An independent Scotland would have the real strength that came 
from integrity in the world and its absolute support for the 
United Nations - "not the sham security of Trident and nuclear 
weapons". 

The SNP?s defence strategy would mean withdrawal from NATO under 
plans already approved by the party?s national council. *

*****************************************************************
 46 Politics Britain and US agree on tough new UN resolution over 
Iraq 

Independent.co.uk 

By David Usborne in New York 27 September 2002 *

Iraqi palaces are stumbling block for inspectors Britain and US 
agree on tough new UN resolution over Iraq Bush offers domestic 
olive branch to save resolution on military action In a 
significant breakthrough on the Iraqi crisis, Britain and the 
United States agreed tough language for a new United Nations 
resolution governing the return of weapons inspectors last night, 
and moved to head off opposition to the draft by dispatching 
senior officials to Paris and Moscow. 

The fate of the new resolution was put in doubt, however, after 
the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, said inspectors could 
return without further action by the UN Security Council. "We 
favour a rapid resolution of the situation by political and 
diplomatic means, on the basis of existing UN Security Council 
regulations and in line with the principles of international 
law," he said. France is also balking at a resolution threatening 
military force. 

The mission to France and Russia will be headed by the US 
undersecretary of state, Marc Grossman. He will be accompanied by 
a senior British official, sources said. A final version, with or 
without French and Russian amendments, is likely to surface in 
the UN Security Council early next week. Agreed after days of 
internal wrangling in Washington ? and between Washington and 
London ? the new text is known to contain uncompromising language 
on Iraq. It accuses it of being in violation of existing UN 
resolutions and warns of dire consequences ? code for an invasion 
? if Iraq does not comply with its disarmament obligations. 

International jitters over the risks of war deepened after a 
warning from a former UN inspections chief that Israel could 
resort to a nuclear response if it was attacked by Iraq. "The 
Prime Minister of Israel has said it will not be restrained, that 
it will respond," Richard Butler said. "My deepest fear in that 
context, if that occurs and the war escalates, is that Israel 
will use its nuclear weapons." 

As Britain and the US continued their stepped-up air raids inside 
the Iraqi "no-fly" zones, Iraq accused US and British planes of 
destroying a radar system at the Basra civilian airport in 
southern Iraq. But the Pentagon said the target was a military 
radar which was destroyed. The effort to sell the new text began 
instantly and will continue at the weekend. The US Secretary of 
State, Colin Powell, rang foreign ministers Igor Ivanov of Russia 
and Tang Jiaxuan of China last night. He spoke to his French 
counterpart, Dominique de Villepin, on Wednesday. Britain and the 
US are expected to submit a tidied-up version to the UN on 
Monday. 

Even if Russia and France agree to include a threat of force, it 
is unlikely that China will and negotiations could drag on for 
days. 

*****************************************************************
 47 Bush Must Realize the Nuclear Option Is No Option at All 

Los Angeles Times - 

September 27, 2002 

COMMENTARY 

By JAMES E. GOODBY, Ambassador (Ret.) James E. Goodby was chief 
negotiator for the cooperative threat reduction program during 
the Clinton administration. 

For decades, U.S. presidents have been spared the agonizing 
decision of whether nuclear weapons should be used in battle. But 
war in Iraq could force the issue to the president's desk. 

For several years, Washington's policy has been to hint that 
nuclear weapons might be used against anyone who unleashed 
biological or chemical weapons against the U.S., its troops or 
its allies. 

It has been called a policy of calculated ambiguity, and it is 
believed to have been part of the reason that Saddam Hussein did 
not use chemical or biological weapons during the Gulf War. 

The policy of calculated ambiguity may work during a 
U.N.-sanctioned invasion of Iraq. There are probably plenty of 
senior Iraqi military officers who would also understand the 
consequences for them personally if they authorized or took part 
in any use of a weapon of mass destruction. 

But a cornered tyrant and his desperate henchmen could believe 
that they have nothing to lose. 

Deterrence could fail. 

Then President Bush would face a fateful decision. Should he set 
an example for the future by using nuclear weapons in retaliation 
for an enemy's use of biological weapons? Should he respond with 
nuclear weapons to bring the Iraqi war to a rapid conclusion, as 
happened in Japan in 1945? Would an eye for an eye be seen as the 
right response, by public opinion, no matter what the strategic 
consequences might be? 

We know little of the administration's thinking on this issue, 
not surprisingly, given a policy of calculated ambiguity. 

We can assume that Bush would share his predecessors' reluctance 
to open a door that has been closed since two American atomic 
bombs leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But if Hussein unleashes 
biological weapons, the landscape of warfare will have 
dramatically changed.

According to the memoirs of former Secretary of State James A. 
Baker III, there were two levels of deterrence working against 
Hussein during the Gulf War: first, a threat to remove the Iraqi 
leader from power, and second, a vague threat to use nuclear 
weapons. 

Today, Hussein's removal would be a war aim rather than a threat.

The impression that the United States would retaliate with 
nuclear weapons could continue to deter--up until the time 
Hussein no longer cared what happened to him or his nation. 

Clearly, the U.S. would want to eliminate Hussein's biological 
and chemical weapons and his nascent nuclear weapons program at 
the very outset of a war. Airstrikes could substantially degrade 
any biological and chemical capabilities that Iraq may possess. 

Whether preemptive strikes could completely destroy them is 
problematic, if Iraqi mobility and concealment of chemical and 
biological facilities are as effective as some defense experts 
claim. 

Given that doubt, one would think that the president would want 
to engage in a maximum effort right now to find and destroy Iraqi 
weapons of mass destruction. This would require the use of U.N. 
inspectors backed up by national intelligence with unfettered 
right of timely access. 

Yet if the goal of "regime change" is given equal priority, as 
the administration seems to wish, Hussein would doubtless 
interpret United Nations disarmament efforts as a first step 
designed to weaken him. If discussion of a regime change were 
deferred, the chances of eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass 
destruction by peaceful means might improve somewhat. 

Strongly supported by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the 
administration portrays Hussein as the master of a serious 
biological and chemical weapons capability. If that is so, then 
enormous harm could come to U.S. and allied troops and to 
thousands of innocent civilians, even with a seriously degraded 
Iraqi biological weapons capability, if deterrence or preemptive 
attacks fail in any respect. 

The first President Bush was inclined against eye-for-an-eye 
retaliation for reasons that still apply today. U.S. dominance in 
other advanced weaponry makes recourse to nuclear weapons 
unnecessary to defeat Hussein, according to all reports. 

And, because it would encourage the spread of nuclear weapons and 
lower the barriers to nuclear conflict, nuclear retaliation by 
the U.S. would be a self-defeating policy. It would open the door 
for nuclear war in regional conflicts elsewhere and could spark a 
global nuclear arms race. 

That would be the deadliest of the many terrible legacies Hussein 
could leave to the world. 

Even if he will not tell us, Bush should decide against the use 
of nuclear weapons. 

Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times 
*****************************************************************
 48 The Greater Nuclear Danger 

The New York Times 

September 27, 2002* 

While the Bush administration has been pushing hard for military 
action to neutralize Iraq before it gets nuclear weapons, 
Washington has been moving much more slowly to eliminate an even 
more troubling nuclear threat ? the vast array of bomb-grade 
materials that lie poorly protected around the world, waiting for 
some terrorist and rogue state to buy or steal them. Indeed, the 
only reason to fear that Saddam Hussein will have a nuclear 
arsenal any time soon is the possibility that he might get his 
hands on some of this loosely guarded material. Left to his own 
devices, he is years away from developing nuclear weapons, 
according to two authoritative assessments issued this month. The 
top priority in the fight against nuclear terrorism must be to 
safeguard all fissile materials that would make such terrorism 
possible. 

When Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain issued his intelligence 
dossier on Iraq this week, one of its most striking conclusions 
was that Iraq will not be able to produce a nuclear weapon as 
long as United Nations sanctions remain effective and would need 
at least five years to build a bomb even if sanctions were 
removed or broke down. However, that period could be shortened to 
one or two years if Iraq were able to obtain fissile material and 
other key components from foreign sources. The International 
Institute for Strategic Studies, based in London, also concluded 
that Iraq is at least several years away from being able to 
produce its own fissile material but judged it could build a bomb 
"within months" if it obtained the material elsewhere. 

These alarmingly short time lines underscore the importance of 
moving all weapons-grade nuclear material to secure, well-guarded 
sites where terrorists and criminals would have little chance of 
getting it. The bulk of these materials are in Russia and other 
states of the former Soviet Union, often at sites that lack 
physical protection and are staffed by poorly paid workers who 
might be tempted by bribes. A worrisome amount is also scattered 
at civilian facilities in other countries. 

To its credit, the American government has made significant 
progress in recent years in helping secure some of the material 
in Russia, although hundreds of tons of weapons-usable uranium 
and plutonium in the former Soviet Union still lack up-to-date 
safeguards against theft. Fortunately, the pace of the global 
effort has picked up in recent months. Most notably, President 
Bush helped establish, at the G-8 meeting in June, a global 
coalition to prevent the spread of weapons and materials of mass 
destruction. The United States will put up $10 billion over 10 
years for this purpose, and the other G-8 nations will put up 
another $10 billion. These are substantial sums that could help 
drastically reduce the danger. But surely 10 years is much too 
lackadaisical given the urgency of the threat. A crash program 
could probably complete the job in three or four years. 

The administration's most recent success in securing nuclear 
material underscores the need to move quickly and how far we have 
to go. In August, some 100 pounds of bomb-grade uranium, enough 
for two or three bombs, was whisked out of a poorly guarded 
research institute in Belgrade and sent to a secure facility in 
Russia. The elaborate maneuver, which was carried out by 
American, Russian and Yugoslav experts, protected by Serbian 
police and Yugoslav troops, was rightly hailed as a triumph in 
the fight against terrorism. But it took more than a year of 
secret negotiations to arrange, and it was partly financed with 
private money. This is a pace we can no longer afford. 

Congress is considering several measures that could spur progress 
a little. It should grant President Bush the permanent authority 
he seeks to waive conditions that have slowed the flow of money 
to Russia for safeguarding dangerous materials. It should also 
authorize the president to extend programs that were originally 
aimed at the former Soviet Union to any other nations where a 
threat exists. 

But the most important missing ingredient is sustained, 
high-level attention to a danger that virtually everyone agrees 
is there. An administration that is putting such intense effort 
into planning for war in Iraq and bolstering homeland security 
can surely pick up the pace on the much easier and cheaper task 
of safeguarding materials that could prove devastating in the 
wrong hands. 

Copyright The New York Times Company 
*****************************************************************
 49 5 sites studied to replace Rocky Flats 

KnoxNews: Sci/tech 

By ANN IMSE September 26, 2002 

The federal government has chosen five possible sites for a 
nuclear bomb plant to replace Rocky Flats - and Rocky Flats is 
not on the list. 

Officials have promised for years that Rocky Flats would not 
reopen. 

Located 18 miles from downtown Denver, Rocky Flats closed in 1989 
for safety and environmental reasons. Its radioactive pollution 
is being cleaned up at a cost of $7 billion, and it is scheduled 
to become a wildlife refuge at the end of 2006. 

Last spring the federal government said it intended to replace 
Rocky Flats, but promised not to build near a major city again. 
Denver just barely escaped major contamination during a fire at 
Rocky Flats at the height of the Cold War. 

One site under consideration for the new factory is the federal 
government's Savannah River nuclear facility in South Carolina - 
even though Gov. Jim Hodges earlier this year threatened to lie 
down in front of trucks to stop plutonium from being shipped to 
his state from Colorado for storage. 

Savannah River once had five reactors producing plutonium for 
Rocky Flats bombs. Some experts say that experience makes it the 
front-runner. It is 20 miles from Augusta, Ga., a city of 42,000.

"Since we're shipping our plutonium to Savannah River, they'd 
have the material to get started," said Hank Stovall, a 
Broomfield City Councilman who serves on a group of city and 
council government officials monitoring Rocky Flats. 

The four other possible locations are the Nevada nuclear bomb 
test site, 70 miles northwest of Las Vegas; the Pantex nuclear 
plant, 17 miles northeast of Amarillo, Texas; and two places in 
New Mexico - the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the atomic 
bomb was produced, and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant 26 miles 
from Carlsbad. That plant is a deep underground storage site for 
nuclear waste, including Rocky Flats plutonium. 

The new plant is expected to cost $2 billion to $4 billion and 
won't be finished until 2020, said Bryan Wilkes, spokesman for 
the National Nuclear Safety Administration. 

Wilkes said one factor in picking the five locations was 
community interest. "There was even some lobbying to have it," he 
said. 

Carlsbad's mayor has said the plant could bring 1,500 jobs. 

The government wants a new plant to manufacture plutonium in 
grapefruit-size "pits" that are the core of a nuclear weapon 
"because we haven't had any new nuclear weapons since 1989," 
Wilkes said. 

"We know that plutonium pits have a limited lifetime," Wilkes 
said. Without replacing the bombs, "we could wake up and find out 
half our stockpile is gone to waste." 

But opponents, such as Don Hancock of the Southwest Research and 
Information Center in Albuquerque, said no proof shows plutonium 
pits decay, and "we have enough pits to obliterate the world 20 
times over," he said. 

(Contact Ann Imse of the Rocky Mountain News at 
Imse(at)RockyMountainNews.com) 

 Copyright © 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All 
*****************************************************************
 50 INEEL cleanup gathers momentum : 

Sept 25 - Oct 1, 

idaho mountain express : 

[http://www.mtexpress.com] 

Produced & Maintained by Idaho Mountain Express, Box 1013, 
Ketchum, ID 83340-1013 208.726.8060 Voice 208.726.2329 Fax 

Citizens Advisory Board gives basic approval 

By GREG MOORE Express Staff Writer 

An accelerated U.S. Department of Energy timetable for cleaning 
up buried nuclear waste at the Idaho National Engineering and 
Environmental Laboratory met with basic approval from the site’s 
Citizens Advisory Board during a meeting in Sun Valley last week.

The plan may finally be putting into motion a decades-old effort 
to remove or stabilize chemical and radioactive 
contaminants--byproducts from the nation’s Cold War weapons 
production programs--stored at the federal research facility east 
of Arco. 

Kathleen Hain, INEEL team leader for environmental restoration, 
told the 15-member board at the Sun Valley Inn on Wednesday that 
excavation on the notorious Pit 9 will begin by the end of 
September 2003. That would be six months ahead of the schedule 
set out in an agreement made in April between the DOE and the 
state of Idaho. 

"They’re moving along very aggressively on this," said advisory 
board member David Kipping, a resident of Hailey. "I think there 
is a great emphasis on doing the project as quickly as possible." 

The initial work will be a demonstration project on a 
20-by-20-foot section of the one-acre pit. Retrieval of 
plutonium-contaminated waste will provide detailed information on 
what’s there and how to best go about cleaning up the entire 
Radioactive Waste Management Complex, a 97-acre spread of 20 pits 
and 58 narrower trenches. 

Hain said Pit 9 was chosen for the demonstration work solely 
because of its ease of access. A previous cleanup effort was 
begun there in 1995, but abandoned three years later after a 
subcontractor of Lockheed Martin, which was managing INEEL at the 
time, became bogged down in technical and financial problems. 

Bechtel BWXT Idaho took over responsibility for the Pit 9 project 
in 1999 when it became the management and operating contractor 
for the INEEL. 

The waste complex contains drums of mostly transuranic 
waste--that is, radioactive materials contaminated with manmade 
elements heavier than uranium--dumped there during the 1950s and 
1960s. Most was generated by nuclear weapons production at the 
Rocky Flats DOE site west of Denver. The wastes are leaking 
hazardous chemicals, and perhaps radioactive material, into the 
Snake River Plain Aquifer. 

During the 1950s and most of the 1960s, DOE placed barrels in 
rows in the pits, and kept records of what was in each. In 1969, 
however, the barrels were dumped randomly, then crushed and 
covered with dirt. 

"Those drums are not quite intact," Hain said. "That’s where we 
started to have problems with retrieval." 

Hain told the board that the operation will be the first time 
buried transuranic waste has been retrieved anywhere. She said 
the results will disclose the accuracy of shipping records and 
whether the techniques used are effective with the type of waste 
and soils at the site. 

"The very first thing that will come out of this demonstration is 
that you can safely retrieve transuranic waste," she said. 

The DOE began construction of the structure used to enclose the 
operation on July 30, four months ahead of schedule. 

Hain said a mockup of the containment structure will be done by 
mid December, at which time workers can begin training to 
excavate the drums and handle the materials inside them. 

The workers will operate a backhoe from outside the structure, 
which will use negative air pressure to contain airborne 
contaminants stirred up during excavation. The waste will be 
placed on carts that will transport it within the containment 
structure to gloveboxes, where workers will separate the 
materials. Excavation is planned to take less than three months, 
and be done by December of next year. 

Once separated, the materials will be repackaged in barrels and 
stored above ground pending treatment by the Advanced Mixed Waste 
Treatment Project, expected to be on line by next March. The 
facility will put the waste into a form suitable for shipment to 
and permanent disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New 
Mexico. 

The demonstration project at Pit 9 will give the DOE information 
to draft a plan on dealing with the remaining buried waste. Under 
its agreement with the state, such a plan must be completed by 
2007. Hain said public comments will be officially sought before 
a plan is finalized. 

In 1995, the DOE and the state of Idaho signed an agreement 
requiring all transuranic waste at INEEL to be placed in 
permanent disposal by 2018. However, a dispute over whether the 
agreement requires all the buried waste to be removed, or whether 
some of it can be treated "in situ" and left in place, is before 
the U.S. District Court in Boise. The DOE estimates that removal 
would cost about 10 times that of "in situ" treatment, which 
involves surrounding the waste with an impermeable material such 
as grout or melted glass. Either way is expensive--the agency 
estimates retrieval costs to run about $1 billion per acre, and 
in-situ treatment to be about $700 million per acre. 

Transuranic waste received at INEEL since 1970 has been placed in 
temporary storage above ground, rather than buried. Some of that 
waste, already in a condition for disposal, is now being shipped 
to WIPP. Under the 1995 agreement, 3,100 cubic meters, out of the 
65,000 cubic meters of waste stored above ground, must be shipped 
out of the state by Dec. 31. The DOE has said it expects to meet 
that deadline. 

The Idaho Mountain Express
*****************************************************************
 51 Judge Dismisses Oak Ridge Lawsuits 

Las Vegas SUN: 

September 26, 2002 By DUNCAN MANSFIELD ASSOCIATED PRESS 

KNOXVILLE, Tenn.- A federal judge has thrown out two lawsuits 
seeking compensation for potentially hundreds of thousands of 
people over toxins released from the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons 
complex. Some plaintiffs allege pollution from the complex has 
given them cancer and other illnesses, but U.S. District Judge 
James Jarvis said their lawsuits came too late to meet 
Tennessee's one-year statute of limitations. Jarvis also said 
there was not enough common interest between the plaintiffs to 
support a class action. Jarvis granted a summary judgment Sept. 
17 in favor of the University of Chicago, Union Carbide Corp. and 
11 other companies or institutions sued for operating the 
Department of Energy's Oak Ridge complex since it opened in 1943 
as part of the atomic bomb-building Manhattan Project. 
Plaintiffs' attorney Ted Kerry said an appeal was likely. He said 
the January 2001 lawsuit would have been filed earlier if the 
government "had not tried to keep what happened at these plants 
secret for so many years." 

Defense attorney Kevin Van Wart said Thursday that the court 
reached the right result. 

"This case was an attempt to revive claims that had no merit and 
were very, very old and long-known to anybody who if they had the 
inclination to sue could have done so years ago," Van Wart said. 
The lawsuits listed more than a dozen cancers and other illnesses 
residents and workers might have contracted through exposure to a 
variety of toxins, from mercury to plutonium. 

"It is sort of what I expected," Fannie Ball, 61, said of the 
ruling. The retired Oak Ridge worker has had thyroid cancer, lung 
cancer and other ailments. 

"So many people are sick and dying. We do not understand," she 
said. "We have been told so many different things." 

On the Net: Oak Ridge weapons plant: 
http://www.y12.doe.gov/bwxt/y12.html 
[http://www.y12.doe.gov/bwxt/y12.html] Department of Energy: 
http://www.energy.gov [http://www.energy.gov]

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. 
*****************************************************************
 52 Test site studied for nuke factory 

Friday, September 27, 2002 

Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal 

Plant would make plutonium 'pits' 

By TONY BATT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU 

WASHINGTON -- The Nevada Test Site is one of five government 
facilities being studied as the possible location of a new plant 
to manufacture plutonium "pits" that form the core of nuclear 
weapons.

A final decision on whether and where the factory will be built 
will be made in April 2004, according to National Nuclear 
Security Administration spokesman Al Stotts. 

The plant is projected to cost $2 billion to $4 billion and would 
be completed by 2011 or 2012, Stotts said. Between 1,000 and 
1,500 permanent jobs would be created. 

The National Nuclear Security Administration's Nevada Operations 
Office, which runs the test site, announced plans last Friday to 
begin an environmental impact statement to determine whether to 
proceed with the project. 

The new plant would replace Rocky Flats, a nuclear pit plant 18 
miles from Denver that was closed in 1989 for safety and 
environmental reasons. 

The Bush administration has proposed building a new plant, saying 
one is needed because the United States is the only nuclear power 
without the capability to manufacture a grapefruit-sized 
plutonium "pit," a critical component of a nuclear weapon that 
functions as its trigger. 

"A new facility would re-establish the capability to manufacture 
all pit types in the nation's current nuclear stockpile and meet 
any future requirements in an environmentally compliant manner," 
the NNSA said. 

A public hearing to discuss the proposal is scheduled from 7 p.m. 
to 9 p.m. Oct. 17 in the Nevada Operations Office auditorium at 
232 Energy Way in North Las Vegas. 

Public hearings in Washington, D.C., and the other four sites 
also have been scheduled next month. 

The other four sites under consideration include: 

• The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. 

• The Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas. 

• The Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. 

• The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M. 

Some Nevada officials expressed vehement opposition to the 
nuclear pit plant, but others took a wait-and-see attitude. 

"As I understand it, we're last on the list and three others want 
it, including the Savannah River Site, Carlsbad and Pantex," said 
Bob Loux, director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects. 

"We're going to hold off on doing anything formally until the 
public hearing so we can get more information," Loux said. 

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said she already knows enough. 

"I will not support this project. Nevada has paid its nuclear 
debt to this country," Berkley said. "I think South Carolina 
would be an appropriate location." 

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., downplayed comparisons between the pit 
facility and the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca 
Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. 

"The principal issue here is our national security and keeping 
our nuclear deterrent strong ... We're not talking about the 
storage of 77,000 tons of nuclear waste," Gibbons said. "If the 
environmental study shows this project would be a threat to 
Nevada, then I will adamantly oppose it." 

A spokeswoman for Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said he would need 
more information before commenting on the nuclear pit plant. Sen. 
Harry Reid, D-Nev., could not be reached for comment. 

Unlike Loux, Don Hancock, administrator of the Southwest Research 
and Information Center in Albuquerque, N.M., said the test site 
will be near the top of the list of five possible sites. 

"I don't think Los Alamos or Pantex are high on the list because 
of security concerns at those facilities and WIPP (in Carlsbad) 
doesn't have the capability," Hancock said. 

"I think Savannah River still has the inside track, but keep in 
mind that this decision will be made in April 2004 so there very 
well might be some political considerations," Hancock said. "I 
think the test site is a serious possibility." 

Don Moniak, an environmental consultant in Aiken, S.C., agreed 
with Hancock, and said he expects functions of the nuclear pit 
plant to be spread across various energy department sites. 

"The Nevada Test Site already has the capability to test new 
nuclear weapons, and the Savannah River Site doesn't," Moniak 
said.

Peggy Maze Johnson, executive director of Citizen Alert, a Nevada 
environmental group, criticized the test site's inclusion on the 
list of possible locations for the nuclear pit plant. 

"I can't believe they're doing this to us again," Johnson said. 
"We already have a huge problem with groundwater contamination at 
the test site." 

Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 
*****************************************************************
 53 US Energy Department delegation visits Saratov

Pravda.RU 

¹ Sep, 21 2002 

A US Energy Department delegation headed by Harry Stabblefield, 
the leader of the Radiological Dispersal Devices (RDD) program, 
visited the city of Saratov (Central Russia), the Saratov region 
industry ministry reported on Saturday. The RDD program is 
designed to protect radiological materials and sources of 
ionizing emission from the threat of international terrorism. A 
joint conference was held, with Russia's Kurchatov Institute 
scientific center representatives taking part. 

The meeting touched upon the issues of protection and operation 
security of the radwaste storage site of the Radon enterprise in 
the village of Doktorovka, Tatishchevsky region, as well as of 
this enterprise's participation in the RDD program. The foreign 
guests were satisfied with the technical state of the storage 
site protection systems. 

The decision on the elaboration of the RDD program was taken at 
the meeting between US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and 
Russian Federation Nuclear Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev, 
which was held shortly before the Russia-US Presidents' summit. 
The program will be financed within the framework of US technical 
and financial aid to Russian nuclear waste storage sites. 

© RIAN 

Copyright ©1999 by "Pravda.RU [http://www.pravda.ru/] ". When
*****************************************************************
 54 Test Site is finalist for nuke bomb plant

Las Vegas SUN: 

Today: September 27, 2002 at 11:20:27 PDT 

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS 

The Nevada Test Site is among five finalists to replace the 
contaminated nuclear bomb plant at Rocky Flats, Colo., 
administration officials said. The Bush administration wants to 
build a plant to produce plutonium "pits" that make up the heart 
of nuclear weapons and is studying the Test Site as the future 
home. 

Nevada's congressional delegation was studying the proposal 
today. "While the Nevada Test Site is one of the most safe and 
secure locations in the nuclear weapons complex, I would need to 
take a serious look at what the Department of Energy has planned 
before I would support construction of this facility at the Test 
Site," Sen. Harry Reid said. A spokeswoman for Sen. John Ensign 
said that he was collecting more information on the proposed 
facility before commenting on it. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., 
said she would be "perfectly fine with this project going to what 
appears to be the DOE's first choice of sites, located in South 
Carolina." 

"Nevada has long since done its nuclear duty to the country," she 
said. "Given the DOE's record on environmental issues, I don't 
support placing this project in Nevada." 

Hearings have been scheduled throughout October in Las Vegas, 
Amarillo, Texas; Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; 
the Waste Isolation Pilot Project in Carlsbad, N.M.; and the 
Savannah River site in South Carolina. A public hearing will also 
be held in Washington, D.C. The Las Vegas hearing has been set 
for 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Oct. 17 at the Nevada Operations Office, 
232 Energy Way, North Las Vegas, said a notice published Monday. 

The Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects is watching the upcoming 
hearings, Executive Director Bob Loux said. 

Savannah River, Carlsbad and Pantex in Texas all want the 
project, Loux said. "We are watching it and gathering more 
information," Loux said. The plant is expected to cost $2 billion 
to $4 billion.

A decision on where to build the facility is expected in April 
2004. Up to 1,500 permanent jobs could be created at the new 
facility. The National Nuclear Security Administration, the Test 
Site's manager, is responsible for considering environmental 
impacts from building the soft ball-sized plutonium cores at the 
center of nuclear weapons. No plutonium pits have been made since 
1989, after the Rocky Flats facility, near Denver was shut down. 
The Bush administration supports a new plant to replace aging 
nuclear weapons stockpiled by the United States. 

Less than 50 pits per year could be produced at Los Alamos in New 
Mexico through 2007, according to the federal documents. However, 
the United States will need bigger and permanent production 
facilities after that time. 

Last spring the federal government said it intended to replace 
Rocky Flats, but promised not to build near a major city again. 
Denver just barely escaped major contamination during a fire at 
Rocky Flats at the height of the Cold War. One site under 
consideration for the new factory is the federal government's 
Savannah River nuclear facility in South Carolina -- even though 
Gov. Jim Hodges earlier this year threatened to lie down in front 
of trucks to stop plutonium from being shipped to his state from 
Colorado for storage. Savannah River once had five reactors 
producing plutonium for Rocky Flats bombs. Some experts say that 
experience makes it the front-runner. It is 20 miles from 
Augusta, Ga., a city of 42,000. "Since we're shipping our 
plutonium to Savannah River, they'd have the material to get 
started," said Hank Stovall, a Broomfield, Colo. City Councilman 
who serves on a group of city and council government officials 
monitoring Rocky Flats. 

The other possible locations are the Pantex nuclear plant, 17 
miles northeast of Amarillo, Texas; and two places in New Mexico 
-- the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the atomic bomb was 
produced, and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant 26 miles from 
Carlsbad. That plant is a deep underground storage site for 
nuclear waste, including Rocky Flats plutonium. The new plant is 
expected to cost $2 billion to $4 billion and won't be finished 
until 2020, said Bryan Wilkes, spokesman for the National Nuclear 
Safety Administration. 

Wilkes said one factor in picking the five locations was 
community interest. "There was even some lobbying to have it," he 
said. Carlsbad's mayor has said the plant could bring 1,500 jobs. 
The government wants a new plant to manufacture plutonium in 
grapefruit-size "pits" that are the core of a nuclear weapon 
"because we haven't had any new nuclear weapons since 1989," 
Wilkes said. "We know that plutonium pits have a limited 
lifetime," Wilkes said. Without replacing the bombs, "we could 
wake up and find out half our stockpile is gone to waste." 

But opponents, such as Don Hancock of the Southwest Research and 
Information Center in Albuquerque, said no proof shows plutonium 
pits decay, and "we have enough pits to obliterate the world 20 
times over," he said.

All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. 
*****************************************************************
 55 SNS: Just another thrill ride for ions 

The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News --

p.m. on Friday, September 27, 2002 

by R. Cathey Daniels Oak Ridger staff 

Think of it as a futuristic thrill-ride for ions. You start at 
one end of a very long underground tunnel, say about three 
football fields in length; and you shoot ion beams down the 
tunnel at very high speeds, say accelerating to 90 percent of the 
speed of light. As the ions rocket down the tunnel and round a 
curve, they enter a huge underground cylinder, say well over two 
football fields in circumference, and their electrons fly off. 
Well, wouldn't yours? 

The Linac tunnel at the SNS was recently sent underground and 
will soon be covered in grass. "It's going to be beautiful," said 
Thom Mason, associate 

laboratory director of the SNS. 

Next you whip the newly formed protons 1,000 times around the 
gigantic cylinder, then shoot them out the other end at a liquid 
mercury target where they are blasted to bits, or, to neutrons. 
Then it's off to a liquid hydrogen bath for cool-down, after 
which the real endurance test begins -- a handoff to scientists 
for experimentation. At least that's one explanation, say the 
laypersons, of the instrumentation that will reside atop Chestnut 
Ridge once the $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source kicks into 
gear in 2006. The project, touted to bring the world's finest 
neutron science to Oak Ridge's door, is on schedule and under 
budget, and still fully funded in the current version of the 
appropriations bill, according to Thom Mason, associate director 
for the SNS. 

And a significant handoff is occurring. 

"We're into a new phase of the project," said Mason in an 
interview at the site Tuesday. "Instead of worrying about design, 
we're worrying about reality." Mason noted that Lawrence Berkeley 
National Laboratory has wound up technical work on the ion source 
and is making deliveries to the site. "Now we've got to 
commission it -- that's the first handoff," said Mason. "We're in 
a troubleshooting mode." Support buildings are rising from the 
80-acre site where over 1.4 million cubic yards of dirt have been 
moved; utility trenches are being dug and power is coming online. 
Between 600 and 700 workers are on site daily. Oak Ridge National 
Laboratory is responsible for integration of the project 
management and design and ultimately for operations. 

Six national laboratories across the nation are working on the 
project. Berkeley is responsible for the ion source; Los Alamos 
and Jefferson labs are responsible for the "Linac" accelerator 
(the tunnel); Brookhaven supports the accelerator ring (the 
cylinder); Oak Ridge is responsible for the target; and Argonne 
and Oak Ridge take care of the instrument systems. The SNS is 
expected to generate a budget of $150 million per year, and has 
helped leverage a DOE decision to site the nanophase facility 
nearby, and enthusiasm about the state-funded Joint Institute of 
Neutron Science to be co-located on the site. About 400 permanent 
staff are expected at the site after completion. 

The SNS is funded through the Department of Energy's Office of 
Science, and will be open to scientists and engineers from 
universities, industries and government labs in the United States 
and abroad. As of June 2002, approximately $220 million has been 
spent in Tennessee for the SNS project. 

R. Cathey Daniels can be contacted at (865) 220-5515 or 
[danielsrcd@oakridger.com] . 

[http://www.oakridger.com] 

All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
    
*****************************************************************

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: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
*****************************************************************