***************************************************************** 09/29/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.250 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Nuclear bail-out faces Brussels probe 2 Activist chastises nuclear industry 3 Inspectors to Lay Down Iraq Demands 4 US: Contradictions of a Superpower 5 After bailing out British Energy, the Government signs up to a NUCLEAR REACTORS 6 Japan: TEPCO debacle a vital lesson in how bad news can't be spun 7 Top Nuclear Expert: Bulgaria and EU Cause Chaos NUCLEAR SAFETY 8 Turkey Seizes Weapons-Grade Uranium 9 Nuke Bombshell: Turk Police Seize Bomb Fuel Near Iraq 10 US: Prompt payments to sick nuclear workers sought 11 Nuke Bombshell: Turk Police Seize Bomb Fuel Near Iraq* NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 12 US: Utah Op: Work together on N-plan* 13 US: EDITORIAL: Another setback in the state's Yucca fight 14 US: Utah: Drafts Show Seamy Side of N-Waste Deal 15 US: (Goshute) A tribe divided over waste NUCLEAR WEAPONS 16 Huge Anti-War Marches in London and Washington 17 Michael Moore's Petition to Stop War in Iraq 18 Hans C. von Sponeck on US aggression vs. Iraq 19 (Nuclear) Sabotage and scandal* 20 Bush?s case against Iraq not fully conclusive* 21 Iraq - we're following UN route, says Blair* 22 Draft of the region's non-nuclear status accord discussed in 23 USA: Problems with Saddam's Nukes 24 US: GetOut (visit a nike misslie site) 25 Aiming to Disrupt Diplomacy, Iraq Risks War by Rejecting Plan 26 350,000 claim in anti-war rally US DEPT. OF ENERGY 27 Blast at Nevada Test Site helps scientists learn about explosions OTHER NUCLEAR ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Nuclear bail-out faces Brussels probe [Guardian Unlimited] Monti 'minded' to examine Hewitt's £650m package as rivals complain of illegal state subsidy Richard Wachman and Oliver Morgan Sunday September 29, 2002 The Observer [http://www.observer.co.uk] The Government's bail-out of British Energy could be blocked by Brussels as illegal state aid, it emerged last night. The office of Competition Commissioner Mario Monti will decide in days whether to launch a full-scale inquiry into the decision by Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt to prop up BE with an aid package worth £650 million. Brussels sources say that Monti is minded to conduct a full investigation after receiving complaints from BE's competitors, including America's AES, which runs Drax, Britain's largest coal-fired power station in Yorkshire, Powergen, NRG and Eastern Electricity. An official at the Commission said: 'British Energy becomes a competition issue if it can be proved that aid provided to the company could have an effect on its competitors.' AES claims that a financial lifeline thrown to BE is inherently anti-competitive as it would help the firm weather the collapse of wholesale electricity prices following the introduction of new trading arrangements last year. 'These arrangements affect everyone, why should BE be treated differently?' said an AES official. Another US company, American Electric Power, which owns Fiddler's Ferry power station in Cheshire, is concerned that assistance for the nuclear generator would prevent a much-needed reduction in UK power station capacity. Separately, it has emerged that the UK's independent National Audit Office (NAO) is planning an investigation that will look at the Government's role in introducing the new electricity trading ar rangements (Neta), that have undermined BE's profitability. In 1998 the NAO warned that because BE's liabilities were so large it might run into difficulties in meeting costs, and urged the Department of Trade and Industry to keep the risks under review. The NAO will look into the part played by the introduction of Neta. One Whitehall source said: 'The question is: Did they think through the impact it would have on British Energy? The [DTI] had responsibility for doing this.' In the City, investors are calling for a clean out of the company's management. One senior fund manager holding BE bonds said: 'This company is going to rely on the debt markets to refinance itself. We want a complete change in the management, from Robin Jeffrey [executive chairman] down.' [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 2 Activist chastises nuclear industry The Taipei Times Online: 2002-09-29 PHOTO: LIAO RAY-SHANG, TAIPEI TIMESN Anti-nuclear activists from the 10th No Nuke Asia Forum march in front of the Presidential Office yesterday to push for a referendum on scrapping the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant. DEADLY PROFITS: At a forum held in Taipei, former DPP chairman Lin Yi-hsiung said that building a nuclear power plant was like building an unexploded bomb, and again called for a referendum on the issue By Chiu Yu-tzu STAFF REPORTER Transfers of nuclear technologies from advanced countries to Asian countries should be terminated in order to promote world peace, former DPP chairman Lin Yi-hsiung (ªL¸q¶¯) said yesterday as the 10th No Nuke Asia Forum opened in Taipei. When making his opening remarks at the forum, Lin said that governments in favor of nuclear power together with the nuclear industry are pursuing great profits by risking people's lives. In doing so, they were taking advantage of Asian people's ignorance about the dangers of running nuclear power plants, Lin said. After the1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, developed countries froze new projects for building nuclear power plants. The nuclear industry, facing financial difficulties, thus turned to Asia to look for new markets, Lin said. But building a nuclear power plant in one's own country was actually like building an unexploded nuclear bomb, Lin charged. "If the US keeps exporting its nuclear technologies without concern for local peoples' lives, it has no right to condemn those terrorist attacks against it," Lin said. Similarly, Japan's memorials to the atomic bomb victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki look ironic as it continues exporting its nuclear technologies, Lin said. Since Sept. 21, Lin and local anti-nuclear activists have been carrying out a planned year-long protest to call for a referendum on nuclear power. By the year 2004, they want a plebiscite in which the people of Taiwan can decide the future of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant. Local anti-nuclear activists, who persistently resist the establishment of the plant, have argued for years that Taiwan, like many other countries, is the victim of the multinational corporations' search for new markets. The nuclear reactors and power generators of the controversial plant are designed by the US-based General Electric, but are actually built by Japanese firms Hitachi and Toshiba. According to Japanese activists attending the forum, the two Japanese companies have been implicated in a recent scandal pertaining to coverups carried out by various power utilities, including the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). "We do hope that Taiwanese people can also learn lessons from the scandal," Hideyuki Ban (¦ñ­^©¯), secretary-general of the Japan-based Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, told the Taipei Times. Since the Japanese scandal was exposed late last months, the close links between state-run Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) and TEPCO has worried Taiwanese anti-nuclear activists. "The excuse pertaining to Japan's excellence at operating nuclear power plants, which was used by Taipower to persuade the public into accepting nuclear power, does not exist," said Lai Wei-chieh (¿à°¶³Ç) of the Green Citizen Action Alliance. DPP Legislator Lai Chin-lin (¿à«lÅï) told the Taipei Times that he would soon be working with other lawmakers to demand a full explanation from Taipower. He wants to know not only about Taipower's relationship with TEPCO, but also what impact the scandal has made on the quality of the new nuclear reactors which are now being installed in Taiwan. If necessary, Lai said, lawmakers would try to discuss with the Cabinet the possibility of halting construction of the plan until it gets full answers from Taipower. "Ensuring nuclear safety is more important than meeting the deadline," Lai said. The controversial nuclear plant, located in Kungliao township (°^¼d) of Taipei County, is scheduled to open on July 1, 2006. Minister Without Portfolio Yeh Jiunn-rong (¸­«Tºa) told the Taipei Times that the impact being made on Taiwan by the Japanese scandal deserved further investigation. This story has been viewed 138 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/09/29/story/0000170013] Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 3 Inspectors to Lay Down Iraq Demands Las Vegas SUN September 29, 2002 By DAFNA LINZER ASSOCIATED PRESS UNITED NATIONS- U.N. weapons inspectors, who on Monday will lay down demands to Iraq about getting back into the country, may not get the unfettered access demanded by the United States unless the Security Council alters a deal made in 1998. The inspectors are dusting off old equipment, ordering helicopters and testing new technology as the United States negotiates a new proposal for their return. The Bush administration dismissed Iraq's offer earlier this month to accept the inspectors' unconditional return under previous U.N. resolutions. Instead, it wants a tough new resolution completely redesigning the inspections regime and the powers inspectors would have to enter Saddam Hussein's palaces, block his movements and break in on closed facilities during their hunt for weapons. "This resolution that we're working on has to give the inspectors all the access they need and there cannot be any conditions on presidential sites or sensitive sites, that just can't happen," one U.S. official said. Hans Blix, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, and Jacques Baute, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency's nuclear team, on Monday begin two days of talks with Iraqi experts in Vienna, Austria, to arrange for the inspectors' return. The Iraqis are supposed to bring a backlog of reports listing items they possess which could have military purposes. The lists must disclose the locations and current uses for those items. "We're certainly aware of what happened last time," said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the Vienna-based IAEA. "But we uncovered Iraq's secret nuclear program and we dismantled it. If we get unfettered access, we will be successful again." Although they have not been inside Iraq since December 1998, international inspectors are certain Iraq has a biological weapons program. Some experts also believe that, despite 12 years of sanctions in place since Iraq invaded Kuwait and lobbed Scud missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia, Saddam is ready to build a nuclear bomb if he gets enough weapons-grade uranium or plutonium. Britain said last week that Iraq has a growing arsenal of chemical and biological weapons capable of being launched within 45 minutes. Washington also has claimed Iraq has ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network. But unless they are on the ground, inspectors say there is no way to know just how quickly Iraq is resuscitating its programs. When U.N. inspectors first arrived in Baghdad in the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, they were a powerful, almost untouchable force. Operating like commandos outfitted with a fleet of helicopters and all-terrain vehicles, they launched surprise inspections across the Iraqi desert, uncovering ballistic missiles and VX nerve gas. Helped by hundreds of cameras and air sniffers installed at over 750 sites, they got Iraq to admit to a biological weapons program and were able to tightly monitor materials that could be used for military purposes. While over 120 people worked in the field, hundreds of experts and analysts in New York and Vienna pored over their findings and swapped intelligence with select governments - chiefly the United States. But the operation began to unravel by 1996 as Iraq and the inspections teams faced off over access and transparency. Inspectors accused Iraq of violating resolutions and refusing to cooperate with some inspections. The Iraqis accused inspectors of the same, pointing to wording in resolutions calling on monitors to respect the country's sovereignty. The inspectors also complained they were spied on while Iraq claimed the entire operation was a front for U.S. intelligence. In an effort to keep the operation afloat and avoid another war in Iraq, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan cut a deal with Baghdad in early 1998 restricting inspectors' access to eight so-called presidential sites encompassing a total of 12 square miles. The United States and the rest of the Security Council endorsed the plan but, within weeks, the inspectors said they were finding very little other than frustration. After months of cat-and-mouse games, Saddam sent the entire team packing in November 1998. Then, after a brief return to Baghdad, the inspectors reported Iraqi noncompliance and left the country in December 1998 ahead of punishing U.S. and British airstrikes. Since then, many former inspectors have maintained that the only way to disarm Iraq would be to reinstate some of the inspectors' earlier freedoms. U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say their proposal does just that by nullifying the restrictions on presidential sites. Saddam would have seven days to agree to the terms of the resolution or face military action. He would then have another 23 days to report his entire arsenal, under the proposal. The draft resolution would then authorize inspectors to designate "no-fly" and "no-drive" zones around areas scheduled for inspection. The resolution also would end the Iraqi practice of assigning government guides to accompany inspectors. Former inspectors have long argued that the presence of so-called government minders undermined efforts to successfully interrogate Iraqi scientists and others with intimate knowledge of weapons programs. Much of the U.S. draft resolution is based on a position paper written in August by the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The 64-page position paper advocates "coercive inspections" carried out under the immediate threat of military action aimed at Saddam's removal if he fails to cooperate. A critical element of the endowment's paper calls for the Bush administration to forswear unilateral military action as long as Iraq appears to be complying with inspections. The draft resolution, written in Washington with British support, has not yet been made public but details were disclosed Friday while the administration lobbied for support from France, Russia and China - the other permanent members of the Security Council who oppose threatening force before inspectors return. EDITOR'S NOTE: Associated Press Writer William J. Kole contributed to this report from Vienna, Austria. On the Net: U.N. inspections team - http://www.unmovic.org [http://www.unmovic.org] International Atomic Energy Agency - http://www.iaea.org [http://www.iaea.org] Iraqi government - http://www.uruklink.net/iraq [http://www.uruklink.net/iraq] All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 4 Contradictions of a Superpower The New York Times Opinion *September 29, 2002* *By ROBERT WRIGHT* Presumably President Bush is disappointed by the coverage given his landmark national security manifesto. Reporters, after wading through 13,000 words on his strategic vision, focused mainly on two controversial doctrines: preserving overwhelming American military superiority indefinitely; and pre-emptively attacking nations deemed threatening rather than relying on traditional deterrence. Less was said about the more high-minded stuff, like fostering peace, prosperity and democracy around the world. But the narrow focus of the press may have done the president a favor. The more broadly you view the new national security strategy, the clearer its contradictions become. Mr. Bush is right to champion free trade and global prosperity, since an economically integrated world will be a more stable one. And he is right to hope that China in particular stays on the free-market path. But if China, with its 1.2 billion people, does keep up its brisk economic growth, won't the day come when it can match America's defense budget without breaking a sweat? How can America then afford to keep its military so potent as to "dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States"? Apparently the administration is counting on China to undergo a kind of spiritual transformation. "In pursuing advanced military capabilities that can threaten its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific region, China is following an outdated path that, in the end, will hamper its own pursuit of national greatness. In time, China will find that social and political freedom is the only source of that greatness." Meanwhile, the United States will somehow escape this particular epiphany, and will follow the outdated path of pursuing advanced military capabilities that can threaten its neighbors and, for that matter, all polities in the known universe. The Bush report doesn't explain why China won't find this trend alarming and rush to counter it. Unfortunately for any strategy premised on enduring American hegemony, the decline of great economic and military powers is a perennial of history. So is one major reason for it: the secrets of a superpower's success seep beyond its borders, empowering others. Just ask the Romans who were beset by barbarians using Roman military techniques. Or ask the Chinese who were subdued by Mongols using Chinese weapons technology. Similarly, as America's free-market philosophy spreads prosperity abroad, and the microelectronic revolution that America started goes global, the American advantage in, for example, precision-guided weaponry will likely fade. The Bush report cheerily observes that free trade "fosters the diffusion of technologies and ideas that increase productivity and opportunity." Indeed. America has one advantage over the ancient Romans and the 13th-century Chinese. The world is now much closer to being a community of interdependent, law-abiding states, a place where military pre-eminence is not a prerequisite for national security. There are those who think that a superpower facing eventual decline but for now possessing unprecedented influence would be wise to sustain this trend, encouraging respect for international law and the evolution of international policing structures. President Bush isn't one of these people. In dramatically lowering the threshold for pre-emptive attack, he undermines the civilized world's consensus against unprovoked transborder aggression, a principle central to international law (and to his father's rationale for the Persian Gulf war). And as for international policing structures: the Bush manifesto says nothing about, say, adding an enforcement mechanism, complete with tough inspections, to the toothless Biological Weapons Convention. Nor does it mention the Chemical Weapons Convention or the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the world's other two major attempts to police weapons of mass destruction. This omission is striking, given that the Bush vision purports to be organized around the threat of such weapons getting into the hands of rogue states or terrorists. "The gravest danger our Nation faces lies at the crossroads of radicalism and technology," President Bush writes in the introduction to the report. But the report's biggest failing may lie in ignoring radicalism's intersection with another kind of technology. It is information technology ? satellite TV, Web sites, e-mail, cell phones ? that with growing efficiency will convert amorphous hatred of the United States into the organized radicalism that can employ weapons of mass destruction. Thus the global diffusion of technology means American policies that generate hatred "on the street" abroad will be more and more likely to lead to terrorism. For that matter, the willingness of foreign governments to join in the fight against such terrorism will itself depend more on public attitudes toward America, thanks to the wave of technologically abetted democratization that the Bush report rightly celebrates and encourages. This rapidly strengthening link between popular sentiment abroad and America's national security is of epic importance, and the national security report's failure to mention it does not inspire confidence. One thing that creates hatred of America is resentment of its wealth, so the Bush strategy's emphasis on spreading prosperity is welcome. But another big source of hatred is resentment of American power. So the president's insistence that America remain unchallenged global hegemon, and his willingness to attack nations unilaterally even in the absence of clear provocation, is a stance peculiarly ill-suited to the global technological environment that is taking shape. Defenders of this stance may credit it with a kind of nobility. Mr. Bush seems sincere in wanting to use American power on behalf not just of America but of peace and freedom everywhere. Notwithstanding boilerplate references to coalitions and multilateral institutions, the president's national security strategy puts the burden of saving the world squarely on American shoulders. Nobility is a nice feature in a president, but not as nice as wisdom. Declaring yourself global sheriff would in any age be generous, since you're bearing a burden that should be shared by all who benefit from global civilization. But in an age when hatred abroad morphs easily into mass murder on your own soil, the line between generosity and martyrdom begins to blur. And if you do insist on being chief law enforcer in such an age, you should at least try to make sure that the world believes the laws are fair and fairly enforced. Yet the Bush administration, with its limited regard for both international law and world opinion, is making America not just sheriff, but judge, jury and executioner. This strategy could lead to a number of outcomes, but national security isn't among the more likely. /Robert Wright, author of ``Nonzero'' and ``The Moral Animal,'' is a columnist for Slate./ ***************************************************************** 5 After bailing out British Energy, the Government signs up to a US-led project to develop new reactors Independent.co.uk © 2002 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd By Severin Carrell 29 September 2002 The Department of Trade and Industry is studying plans to fund research into building a new range of advanced nuclear power stations, despite British Energy's financial crisis. The proposed funding is being considered by a team of DTI officials now drafting the energy White Paper, which is expected to be unveiled by Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt and energy minister Brian Wilson in February or March next year. The move comes amid signals that ministers are preparing to reverse the Govern- ment's long-standing refusal to fund research into new reactor designs, in the face of deep scepticism from investors and opposition from environmentalists. Ten days ago, at a little-noticed event in Tokyo, the Government signed up to an international programme to develop six advanced new reactor designs, which is being led by the US Department of Energy. The new designs, so-called Generation IV reactors, are being touted by the nuclear industry as a crucial opportunity to find a range of highly efficient, cheaper and cleaner reactors to replace existing types of station in 25 to 30 years' time. According to British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) which, with the National Nuclear Corporation is at the head of the UK's Generation IV delegation, Britain is likely to play a leading role in the development of two or three of the new designs. The announcement in Tokyo came during the nuclear industry's worst financial crisis of recent years, after ministers last week ended the pretence that the industry could exist without taxpayers' support by giving British Energy a further £240m loan and extending its repayment deadline. The White Paper is likely to be dominated by attempts to solve the root causes of British Energy's difficulties, but BNFL argues that the crisis, combined with its own serious financial problems, has shown the need to find more economically viable nuclear stations. "Nuclear fission hasn't yet reached its potential," said Dr Sue Ion, BNFL's technical director. "Without some push to move to the next generation system, we will miss out on a terrific opportunity for fission to do better than it has done in the past." BNFL is already developing two so-called third generation reactors with Eskom in South Africa and its US subsidiary Westinghouse. Britain's involvement in the Generation IV programme is likely to focus on the two gas-cooled and one sodium-cooled design being considered. BNFL claims that, as pressure to tackle global warming leads to coal and gas being phased out, nuclear power will play an even more significant role in meeting Britain's energy needs in 20 to 30 years' time. The company is also jealous of the government funding given to an experimental fusion reactor project, and its support for renewable energy research. "We need some form of macro strategy which joins up the interests of government, industry and academia. The Government has to put together something more coherent," Dr Ion said. A DTI spokeswoman said ministers believed the Generation IV programme also offered British industry the chance to exploit commercial opportunities worldwide. Politics: 28 September 2002, Saturday. Bulgaria's demand for EC inspection in Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant is much more a "political gaffe" than a "mistake", Andre Maisseu, president of WONUC (World Council of Nuclear Workers) said for NET radio. In his opinion this move is embarrassing for the experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who already inspected the N-Plant safety. It raises doubts about their ability to assess nuclear energy sites. Bulgaria and the EU cause chaos in this field on a global scale, the expert said. According to him, if the assessment of the EU experts contradicts the conclusions of IAEA, which is a UN structure, this would discredit any safety checks and the authority of the UN itself. "We wouldn't know to whom to refer for effective control," Maisseu reasoned. He admitted he blames the EU rather than Bulgaria. All rights reserved © novinite.com, 2001-2002 - Copyright & ***************************************************************** 8 Turkey Seizes Weapons-Grade Uranium Las Vegas SUN Today: September 29, 2002 at 7:40:10 PDT ASSOCIATED PRESS ANKARA, Turkey- Paramilitary police have seized about 35 pounds of uranium and arrested two Turks who they said planned to sell the weapons-grade substance, the Anatolia news agency reported Saturday. Police, acting on a tip, stopped a taxi on a highway near the southeastern city of Sanliurfa, Anatolia said. They found the uranium in a secret compartment under one of the car seats. Police in Sanliurfa confirmed the arrests but refused to give further information. Anatolia said the uranium was enriched for use in weapons. Police believe it was smuggled from an eastern European country. The agency did not say when the arrests were made. Sanliurfa, some 480 miles from Ankara, is close to the Syrian border. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 9 Nuke Bombshell: Turk Police Seize Bomb Fuel Near Iraq [NewsMax.com] With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff Saturday, Sept. 28, 2002 2:56 p.m. EDT In a development that could put an end to the worldwide debate over whether the U.S. should strike Iraq preemptively, police in Turkey have confiscated 33 pounds of weapons-grade uranium hidden in a taxicab they intercepted just 155 miles from the Iraqi border. Had the enriched uranium reached Baghdad, it could have given Saddam Hussein the capacity to produce nuclear weapons within months, according to those familiar with Iraq's nuclear program. The nuke fuel is believed to have been smuggled from an Eastern European country and has an estimated worth of $5 million, Reuters reported Saturday morning, sourcing Turkey's state-run news agency Anatolian. Acting on a tip, police reportedly stopped the vehicle in the south-eastern Turkish city of Sanliurfa, discovering the weapons-grade uranium in a lead container hidden in a compartment beneath a seat. Two men have been detained in connection with the uranium seizure. Britain's International Institute of Strategic Studies' released a report earlier this month that argued Saddam could have the bomb within months if he could get his hands on enriched uranium. "We certainly believe he has the ability to put together a nuclear weapon very quickly, in a matter of months," the IISS's John Chipman, the report's author, told the BBC. The British weapons expert said that in order for Saddam to perfect the bomb that soon, he would have to "obtain fissile material from abroad, steal it or buy it in some way" - something the Turkish seizure suggests Hussein was trying to do. Dr. Khidir Hamza, who ran Saddam's nuclear program before he defected to the U.S. in 1994, said earlier this year that the Iraqi dictator was working on a Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapon and that he had all the components necessary except for enriched uranium. All Rights Reserved © NewsMax.com ***************************************************************** 10 Prompt payments to sick nuclear workers sought courier-journal.com Sunday, September 29, 2002 By James R. Carroll [jcarroll@courier-journal.com] The Courier-Journal U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield of Kentucky favors transferring the processing of nuclear workers' claims to the Labor Department. WASHINGTON -- Rod Cook remembers coughing up blood and then enduring a battery of medical tests before the March surgery that took part of the left lung of the Paducah uranium plant worker. But Cook, a 53-year-old shift superintendent who lives in Murray, Ky., said he has no idea when -- if ever -- he'll see compensation for damage caused by inhaling asbestos. His claim, he said, is in ''the netherworld.'' A bill before Congress could change that. It would guarantee federal payments and speedy handling of claims made by workers at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, where uranium is enriched for nuclear power plants, and workers at similar Energy Department facilities who were sickened by exposure to toxic chemicals. The measure would take most of the compensation program from the Energy Department, where some 19,000 claims have been filed since Congress adopted the program two years ago, and give it to the Labor Department. The Labor Department already handles a similar program to compensate energy workers for illnesses from radiation, beryllium and silica -- and is getting high marks from workers and their families. The Energy Department has been criticized for not paying any claims yet. If the bill passed, money for all claims would come from an existing compensation fund that covers the Labor Department program. Congress has put $1.7 billion into the fund so far. U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, the 1st District Republican who represents Paducah, estimates an additional $400 million would cover the Energy Department claims. Beverly Cook, assistant secretary of energy for environment, safety and health, defended the existing program and declined to comment on the proposal to overhaul it. ''We have been moving forward to implement the legislation as it is right now,'' she said. ''If Congress decides to go in a different direction, that's up to them to decide.'' Labor officials are reviewing the legislation, said Sue Hensley, spokeswoman for Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. The overhaul is in legislation proposed by Whitfield and a bipartisan group of fellow lawmakers. Whitfield conceded last week the proposal has ''about 50-50'' chance of passage this year, given the crowded bill schedule as Congress tries to wrap up business by mid-October. He said it's possible the plan could be added to another bill as an amendment. Under the revamped program, the Energy Department and its advisory panel of physicians would still determine whether a worker was made sick from toxic exposure. But the Labor Department would take over processing of claims, determining the level of disability and compensating workers. The legislation also would expand the number of illnesses from toxic substance exposure that are covered and would require the Energy Department to handle its part of claims within 120 days of filing. Whitfield said the current program could leave valid claims unpaid because the Energy Department cannot require its former contractors that often operated department facilities to pay claims through their insurance policies. Some former contractors have gone out of business anyway, he said. Efforts to encourage state worker compensation programs to handle claims also have proved unsatisfactory. ''I think this will address all of the remaining problems,'' Whitfield said. Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio, said agreements recently announced by the Energy Department with 11 state compensation agencies to aid workers were ''experiments'' that assured no justice. ''But while DOE waits, workers may be dying,'' said Strickland, whose district is home to the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Rod Cook, who began working at the Paducah plant in 1976, filed a claim for lung problems with the Energy Department earlier this year. He said his job involved using asbestostreated cloth to protect himself from being scalded while working near hot pipes. His insurance company covered his $80,000 medical bill. But he believes he should be paid for what he has endured. ''When I hired in for 40 hours' work and 40 hours' pay, that didn't include part of my lung,'' he said. Richard Miller, policy analyst for the Washington-based Government Accountability Project, a watchdog group, said only four of the 19,000 Energy Department claims have reached a physician panel for evaluation, while the Labor Department has been paying claims under its radiation illness program since the middle of last year. Under the Labor Department program, nuclear workers can get health care and up to $150,000 for each illness. Of 2,758 claims filed in Paducah as of Thursday, 465 have been approved, with payments totaling $58.9 million; 301 claims have been denied, according to the department. Nationwide for the same period, 34,496 claims were filed, with 5,308 approved and 3,072 denied, and claim payments of $353 million. At the Energy Department, about 800 of the 19,000 claims filed have been dismissed for ineligibility or an uncovered illness, said Beverly Cook, the assistant energy secretary. Given that the Energy Department had two years to set up its claims program, ''this is a case of serious underperformance,'' said Miller, who helped write the 2000 compensation law. Cook of the Energy Department questioned Miller's contention that only four claims have reached a physician panel but said she didn't have a count. She defended the pace of her agency's work, saying it was conducted as the law directed. The Energy Department didn't previously handle worker compensation claims and had to start its toxic chemical exposure program from scratch. The Labor Department has extensive experience handling worker compensation issues. The federal rules governing how claims would be handled took effect only a few weeks ago, she said, adding there were ''many steps'' before claims reached the physician panel. As a 27-year veteran of Energy Department facilities, where she was an engineer, Beverly Cook said the new compensation program ''is something very important to me. . . . These are my friends. These are my co-workers. I'm very interested in making sure this works as best as it can.'' Copyright 2002 The Courier-Journal. ***************************************************************** 11 Nuke Bombshell: Turk Police Seize Bomb Fuel Near Iraq* NewsMax.com *Saturday, Sept. 28, 2002 2:56 p.m. EDT* In a development that could put an end to the worldwide debate over whether the U.S. should strike Iraq preemptively, police in Turkey have confiscated 33 pounds of weapons-grade uranium hidden in a taxicab they intercepted just 155 miles from the Iraqi border. Had the enriched uranium reached Baghdad, it could have given Saddam Hussein the capacity to produce nuclear weapons within months, according to those familiar with Iraq's nuclear program. The nuke fuel is believed to have been smuggled from an Eastern European country and has an estimated worth of $5 million, Reuters reported Saturday morning, sourcing Turkey's state-run news agency Anatolian. Acting on a tip, police reportedly stopped the vehicle in the south-eastern Turkish city of Sanliurfa, discovering the weapons-grade uranium in a lead container hidden in a compartment beneath a seat. Two men have been detained in connection with the uranium seizure. Britain's International Institute of Strategic Studies' released a report earlier this month that argued Saddam could have the bomb within months if he could get his hands on enriched uranium. "We certainly believe he has the ability to put together a nuclear weapon very quickly, in a matter of months," the IISS's John Chipman, the report's author, told the BBC. The British weapons expert said that in order for Saddam to perfect the bomb that soon, he would have to "obtain fissile material from abroad, steal it or buy it in some way" - something the Turkish seizure suggests Hussein was trying to do. Dr. Khidir Hamza, who ran Saddam's nuclear program before he defected to the U.S. in 1994, said earlier this year that the Iraqi dictator was working on a Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapon and that he had all the components necessary except for enriched uranium. All Rights Reserved © NewsMax.com ***************************************************************** 12 Utah Op: Work together on N-plan* deseretnews.com Opinion Sunday, September 29, 2002 The state of Utah does not want to have a high-level nuclear repository close to the Wasatch Front. Many of the Goshute Indians do not want to have this waste on their lands. Utah Republican Party Chairman Joe Cannon is proposing that if Utah must accept this waste, it should be stored away from the population center of Utah, on school trust lands. This would have the added benefit of bringing money into the state education system. Many of the Goshutes are upset that the state wants to compete with them after they have spent so much effort in trying to attract this income source. I propose a win-win situation. The state of Utah would work with the Goshutes on a joint proposal: The Goshutes would agree to withdraw their proposal to put the waste on their land, and the state of Utah would agree to share profits from the waste storage with the GoshuUtah Op: Work together on N-plan* deseretnews.com Opinion Sunday, September 29, 2002 The state of Utah does not want to have a high-level nuclear repository close to the Wasatch Front. Many of the Goshute Indians do not want to have this waste on their lands. Utah Republican Party Chairman Joe Cannon is proposing that if Utah must accept this waste, it should be stored away from the population center of Utah, on school trust lands. This would have the added benefit of bringing money into the state education system. Many of the Goshutes are upset that the state wants to compete with them after they have spent so much effort in trying to attract this income source. I propose a win-win situation. The state of Utah would work with the Goshutes on a joint proposal: The Goshutes would agree to withdraw their proposal to put the waste on their land, and the state of Utah would agree to share profits from the waste storage with the Goshutes. This would spare the Goshute reservation and the Wasatch Front from the risks involved and benefit all. *Curtis Blanco* Bountiful © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 13 EDITORIAL: Another setback in the state's Yucca fight Sunday, September 29, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Federal appeals court ruling will likely be touted by pro-dump crowd Nevada officials did their best to spin a recent court decision on nuclear waste as a victory for the anti-Yucca Mountain cause. Don't believe it. In fact, Thursday's decision throwing out a deal the Department of Energy reached with a Pennsylvania utility regarding the storage of nuclear waste will almost certainly increase pressure to get the repository up and running. The case involved the Peach Bottom nuclear plant operated by Peco Energy, which sued the DOE for failing to dispose of the facility's spent fuel, as the government is contractually obligated to do. As part of a settlement, the government agreed to take the waste but to store it on-site at the Peach Bottom plant. In return, Peco was allowed to offset its contributions to the nuclear waste fund -- set up to finance a nuclear waste repository -- by $80 million over 10 years. Nevada officials touted the agreement as a evidence that Yucca Mountain was unnecessary. They argued the agreement proved the DOE could still meet its mandate to take title of spent fuel around the country while simply storing the waste at the plants themselves. But a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the deal was illegal because it tapped into the nuclear waste fund, which must be used to build Yucca Mountain. "If the government could pay for its breach out of a fund paid for by utilities, the government would never be liable," the judges noted. Instead, the court held, damages the DOE will eventually owe the utilities if it fails to dispose of the waste must come from the federal government itself -- i.e. the taxpayers. Bob Loux, the state's anti-dump point man, tried to put a happy face on all this, saying the decision highlights the government's bumbling and the ever-increasing taxpayer liability. But that's precisely why the ruling hurts Nevada. Dump backers will now point to the ruling and argue that every day Yucca Mountain isn't open increases the financial risk to beleaguered taxpayers; that the DOE's only option is to prepare the repository as quickly as possible. Sure enough, Brian O'Connell, nuclear waste program director with the National Association of Utility Regulatory Commissioners, noted: "It seems to me this puts the pressure back on the (Yucca) program ... so those (taxpayer) liabilities don't continue to grow." Joe Egan, one of the attorneys Nevada has hired to fight the dump, pointed out that the decision doesn't prevent the government from entering into similar deals if it taps taxpayer contributions rather than the nuclear waste fund. Maybe not, but even the spendthrifts in the beltway are unlikely to support pouring billions into Yucca Mountain to build a national repository while at the same time undermining the perceived necessity for the project by paying millions to utilities for the privilege of storing the waste where it is now. Any way you spin it, the 11th Circuit's decision makes Nevada's battle to avoid becoming the nation's nuclear dumping ground a little bit more difficult. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 14 Utah: Drafts Show Seamy Side of N-Waste Deal The Salt Lake Tribune -- Sunday, September 29, 2002 BY JUDY FAHYS It was a blow to nuclear companies in 1996 when their deal to warehouse power-plant waste on a New Mexico Indian Reservation fell apart. They were still smarting months later when the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes proffered a patch of their desert reservation. Leaders of the tiny Utah tribe had brushed up on spent nuclear fuel storage while participating in a federal incentive program, and they imagined such an enterprise might benefit their community. So, when the Mescalero Apache tribe scrapped the New Mexico venture, Goshute leaders stepped up. They were offered less than $40 million, plus a share of possible profits, according to previously undisclosed contract drafts obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune. The Mescaleros had turned down $250 million from the companies, an eight-utility consortium known now as Private Fuel Storage (PFS). And Tooele County, promising only to support the $3 billion project, came to the table seeking $280 million. Instead of walking away insulted, the Goshutes kept talking. They became business partners with PFS six months later. The public has seen only redacted copies of the final contract with financial information blackened out. To this day, the details remain secret. Still, the drafts offer important insight into the negotiating process, and they show PFS tried to get the Goshutes' land for a bargain rate. While supporters say the deal benefited both sides, providing the companies with badly needed waste-storage and the tribe with badly needed jobs and economic opportunity, critics say it illustrates something seamier. "By eastern standards, $40 million is not enough to surrender your heritage," says project opponent Chip Ward of Grantsville. "But, then again, $40 million is a lot if you are poor." Critics say the Goshute deal is just another unfortunate example of how disadvantaged communities are targeted for offensive environmental projects such as sewage plants, landfills and nuclear waste storage. Environmental racism is what Ward calls it. "I've always felt it was a racist deal. They purposely went out looking for a tribe of impoverished Indians so they could avoid the usual legal and political constraints and so they could cut a favorable deal for themselves." Even regulators are concerned about environmental exploitation. The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board has made environmental justice part of its legal and technical review of the Skull Valley project. The panel's findings are expected by Dec. 5. With the PFS-Goshute deal, the imbalance is obvious. The project is a 100-acre, open-air warehouse for all the lethally radioactive power-plant waste the nation has ever produced, commercial waste now stored at more than 100 locations. On one side is the Skull Valley Band, whose 121 members have a combined average annual income of about $859,000. On the other is PFS, whose eight member companies represent 32 million ratepayers and generate $119 billion in annual revenues. Tribal Chairman Leon Bear did not respond to a request for comment on the bargaining with PFS. Consortium managers also declined an interview. Draft agreements passed between the tribe and the consortium describe deliberations for a venture double the size of the one planned with the Mescaleros. One version was dispatched to consortium leaders Nov. 27, 1996. It calls for paying the Goshutes about $280,000 a year in administrative and "exclusivity" fees after the lease is signed and continuing through the years-long licensing process. Once casks arrived, the payments would increase. But they totaled less than $1 million a year, according to the draft contract. An annual rental fee would be $336,000, adjustable every 10 years. Another $626,000 per year would go to "tribal benefits," such as health insurance. In addition to payments totaling $30,000 annually for rights-of-way and water usage, the tribe was to get 15 percent of profits, as determined by the consortium. An amendment won by tribal negotiators lets the Goshutes check the books. PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said the Mescalero and the Goshute contracts were structured differently. The Utah tribe's contract was "negotiated," she said, adding, "it was not forced on them." Tension sometimes riddled the tribe's bargaining sessions with PFS. The friction prompted negotiators to bar then-Goshute tribal attorney Danny Quintana from the talks. That left the bargaining to three tribal Executive Committee members, Chairman Bear, Vice Chairwoman Mary Allen and Secretary Rex Allen -- without the benefit of a tribal attorney. Today, the former vice chairwoman shakes her head at the $40 million offer. She understands how someone looking at the draft might conclude the tribe "is getting screwed." David L. Allison, a now-retired Bureau of Indian Affairs superintendent who participated in many of the contract sessions, confirmed what others in the talks say now: Goshutes negotiators ultimately did not accept the terms of the drafts. "What we wound up with," Allison says, "was way better than what we started with." What's clear, though, is PFS had billions at stake in the negotiations with the Goshutes. Former nuclear waste negotiator and Idaho U.S. Rep. Richard Stallings recalls that one tribe demanded $1 billion up front and $50 million a year from a storage project it was negotiating with the federal government. "I gulped," Stallings says. But later, "I talked about the terms with someone at Energy [DOE] and the industry, and no one blinked. That gave me a little perspective." Used reactor rods remain lethally radioactive for at least 10,000 years, but they are packed in steel-and-concrete containers strong enough to prevent a radiation release for perhaps 200 years even in the event of earthquakes, fire and other imaginable disasters. But hearing the casks are safe does nothing to sway Americans who live near the 100-plus reactor sites where the waste is piling up. They want it moved. Yesterday. The federal government pledged to provide disposal elsewhere by 1998, but their permanent repository is years and maybe decades away. The Skull Valley storage would give the nuclear industry a temporary solution. Without it, one PFS member utility in Minnesota would be forced to close three reactors as soon as 2007 at a cost of $1 billion. Another PFS member would continue to pay $4.5 million annually to tend spent fuel from a reactor that was shut down 15 years ago. Another priceless virtue of a deal with an tribe was that it would be outside the reach of state or federal politicians. Leaders in Tooele County grasped how badly their support was needed from the outset, although they had no legal hold on the Goshute's land. The month after the Goshutes signed their deal with PFS, the county was bargaining with PFS. "Your negotiations won't go anywhere," says former county commissioner Gary Griffith, "unless it's recognized by both parties that you both have something to bring to the table." Griffith, who crafted the deal with PFS, began with an opening price of about $281 million, according to county records of the negotiations. He sought from PFS a combination of one-time fees, recurring "mitigation" payments, in-lieu-of taxes and per-cask charges. By design, profit-sharing was not built into the agreement. "I would be worried about what 'profit' is," Griffith says. The results: Tooele County can expect between $90 million and $300 million for providing community services to PFS once the waste begins arriving and publicly supporting the project until that time. "It was fun," Griffith says of the negotiations. "It was exciting. You had a chance to do something for your people." Duncan Steadman, an attorney for Goshutes opposed to the project, has attacked the County's contract. "The white man always benefits from the Indians," he told a local newspaper. "Why should today be any different from the last 150 years?" Former Idaho Attorney General David H. Leroy disagrees with people who say it is unjust to invite disadvantaged communities to store waste. He held the contentious post of U.S. Nuclear Waste Negotiator for three years and specifically invited 574 states, local governments, Indian tribes and foreign leaders to entertain the idea of storing spent fuel. The Goshutes were among 16 curious tribes, and Utah's San Juan County was one of four communities that accepted $100,000 in federal grants to explore waste as an economic opportunity. San Juan County dropped out of the bidding for $200,000 grants for the program's second phase because of Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt's objections. But Goshute leaders, because they represented a sovereign nation, were free to ignore Leavitt. They toured cask-storage sites and nuclear plants throughout the U.S. and Europe. They even had their tours videotaped for tribal members back home to review. Leroy said his program empowered tribes to make informed decisions about waste. "To fail to include them in reviewing these possibilities," he says of the tribes, "would have been environmental racism." But South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle, whose state has a large Native American population, condemned the program as being "tantamount to bribery and the worst type of policy for the United States to be involved in." Congress eventually killed the waste negotiation program. A new light was cast on the Goshute deal last week, when details emerged about political leaders considering a plant to hijack the waste-storage project from the Goshutes. Among those plotting this "Plan B" were State Republican Party Chairman Joe Cannon and his brother, U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah. Proponents had talked to the governor, the PFS-Goshute project's most vocal opponent, about the virtues of storing high-level nuclear waste on state lands, where the state could oversee the project while reaping the financial rewards. Leavitt dismissed the notion. Still, the Goshutes and their supporters are bitter about the high-level support for Plan B. For decades, they have been looking for a way to make something useful sprout from the barren desert reservation. Utah political forces will not allow a casino. Even bingo is out of the question. "What else has anybody given them?" wonders Allison, the former BIA superintendent. "They have asked and they have been promised and given nothing." In one sense, Plan B is a validation of the Goshutes' resourcefulness. In another, it's just one more instance that the tribe could be denied an opportunity to set its own course. "It goes beyond comprehension and morality," Allison says, "that somebody in this state would try to yank that deal out from under them." Tribune reporter Dan Harrie contributed to this story. fahys@sltrib.com © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune ***************************************************************** 15 (Goshute) A tribe divided over waste JS Online: [http://www.jsonline.com/] : Plan to store nuclear materials on reservation sows rift By DAN EGAN degan@journalsentinel.com [degan@journalsentinel.com] Last Updated: Sept. 28, 2002 Salt Lake City - The chaos that erupted just over a year ago in the Goshute Indians' tribal headquarters normally wouldn't even make the police briefs of the local newspaper. A plan to open the Skull Valley Reservation's land to nuclear waste storage has caused bitter divisions among tribal members in Utah. A hazardous waste incinerator lies west of Skull Valley Reservation. The area's isolation has made it a popular choice for the federal government to locate waste dumps. Leon Bear, chairman of the Skull Valley group of Goshute Indians, shows a map depicting hazardous waste facilities near the reservation. East of the reservation lies a stockpile that once held almost half the nation's chemical weapons and an incinerating facility built to destroy them. To the south is a site where the federal government tested chemical warfare agents. Quotable Exploit me. If your business had a chance to make money . . . wouldn't you take it? That is what this United States is all about. Opportunity. - Leon Bear, tribal chairman PFS went looking for an Indian tribe because impoverished people who are desperate will cut deals that other people won't. . . . This is an egregious case of environmental racism on the part of PFS. - Chip Ward, a neighbor of the tribe who has authored a book about the toxic history of the region A woman punched another woman in the eye. A man shoved a woman into a table. A guy slammed another guy's fingers in a door. Police arrived at the smoky little office squeezed between a barbershop and bowling alley, and the hapless brawlers squabbling over changed locks on the front door were sent on their way. All wanted to press charges, but the city attorney declined. Not really news, except for the fact that this fight was among a group of people who, in a very real sense, hold the keys to America's nuclear waste policy. In a controversial push to open the nation's biggest commercial nuclear waste storage facility on the reservation of one of America's tiniest Indian tribes, a Wisconsin-based consortium of eight utility companies has persuaded the two dozen residents on the Goshutes' Skull Valley Reservation to do what nobody else will - play caretaker to the highly radioactive waste stacking up at nuclear power plants across the country. The consortium, La Crosse-headquartered Private Fuel Storage, known as PFS, has offered the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes a secret slice of a potential $3 billion budget to store up to 40,000 tons of spent uranium fuel rods in aboveground, radiation-proof casks at their reservation, about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The contract calls for the deadly waste to be removed within 40 years, after the federal government opens its planned permanent nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in neighboring Nevada. That facility has yet to be approved and won't open until 2010 at the earliest. The problem, according to the utilities, is that storing waste at the power plants where it is generated is economically inefficient and needlessly risky, especially in the heightened security environment since last year's terrorist attacks. What this nation needs until Yucca opens, say PFS officials who represent about a third of the nation's nuclear plants, is a temporary Fort Knox for the spent uranium fuel rods that remain toxic for thousands of years. They hope the Goshutes will come to the rescue. "Once we get the waste into one place, we can contain the cost and the risks," says PFS chairman John Parkyn, who works for Dairyland Power Cooperative in La Crosse. A split tribe Critics, and there are plenty of them, simply see another sad chapter shaping up for the Goshutes, some of the poorest people in America. The plan has so bitterly split the 120-member tribe that leaders resorted to blows last year, and so scared the rest of Utah that Gov. Mike Leavitt once pledged that high-level nuclear waste would roll into his state "over my dead body." The governor, however, can do little about what happens on American Indian sovereign land, and critics say that is why the utilities targeted the Goshutes. "PFS went looking for an Indian tribe because impoverished people who are desperate will cut deals that other people won't. And by more or less buying Indian sovereignty, they have avoided the usual legal and political constraints and dialogues that would normally apply," says Chip Ward, a neighbor of the tribe who has written a book about the toxic history of the region. "This is an egregious case of environmental racism on the part of PFS." Nonsense, Parkyn says, nobody forced anything upon the Goshutes. "The tribe came to us. We didn't go to them," he says. "What (PFS critics) are saying is that Native Americans don't have the ability to make the right choices, and we should be protecting them from themselves. The tribe is a sovereign nation, and that was their choice." Tribal chairman Leon Bear puts it more bluntly. "Exploit me," says Bear. "If your business had a chance to make money . . . wouldn't you take it? That is what this United States is all about. Opportunity." Wasteland Opportunity has always been hard to come by in Skull Valley. When Mark Twain happened upon the Goshutes in the 1800s, he was shocked to see a "scrawny" people scratching a living from a land that offered little more than pine nuts, crickets and rodents. "These Goshoots are . . . a people whose only shelter is a rag cast on a bush to keep off a portion of the snow, and yet who inhabit one of the most rocky, wintry, repulsive wastes that our country or any other can exhibit," Twain wrote in his book "Roughing It." Things have only gotten worse in Skull Valley during the last century. The 18,000 acres the federal government ceded to the Goshutes at the beginning of the 20th century was just a sliver of the millions of acres they historically roamed, but at least it was a place they could call all their own. For a while. Dry, dusty and desolate, Skull Valley has one thing going for it - isolation. That became a hot commodity in the last century for a federal government looking for an out-of-the-way place to conduct some of its more unsavory business. The handful of Goshutes left living in dilapidated trailers and cabins in Skull Valley find themselves, literally, in the middle of a mess in an area Utahns refer to as the West Desert. Just to the east of the reservation stews a stockpile that once held almost half the nation's chemical weapons and an incinerating facility built to destroy them. To the west are millions of acres of federal bombing range. To the south sits Dugway Proving Ground, where the federal government spent decades testing chemical and biological warfare agents. North of Skull Valley is a plant that sucks magnesium from the Great Salt Lake, a chlorine-spewing operation that was labeled in the 1990s by the Environmental Protection Agency as one of the nation's worst air polluters. There also are several nearby hazardous waste dumps, including one that accepts low-level nuclear waste. "Nasty stuff. Nasty," says Bear, who still lives in Skull Valley and is riled that the tribe was never consulted about the government's decision to turn their neighborhood into "the dump of the U.S." It is no surprise that most of the members have fled the reservation for places such as California and North Dakota. The ones who have stayed have not been immune to the nastiness around them. Reservation resident Margene Bullcreek remembers a time back in 1968 when her father lost his entire sheep herd after a military jet accidentally - and infamously - released a cloud of nerve gas over rangeland in the area. "He didn't know what happened to the sheep," says Bullcreek. "They were having seizures, rolling around in the dirt." West Desert economy Given the history of the neighborhood, few were surprised when the Goshutes began to look at joining the toxic waste club in the early 1990s. Nobody, as a local saying goes, would be inclined to buy a tomato harvested on Goshute land. Today the only business open on the reservation is a one-clerk, two-pump gas station with more horses than cars parked in its dusty parking lot. Their economy is tied largely to beef jerky and soda sales. Even those bitterly opposed to storing the nuclear waste don't blame the Goshutes for turning to spent uranium fuel to warm their homes and put food on their tables. "They said to themselves, 'This is how you make money on the West Desert - you bury or burn things out there that no one else wants to deal with,' " says author Ward. The Goshutes started studying the issue more than a decade ago. After they received about $300,000 in federal grants, tribal leaders traveled the world researching storage practices and policies from Sweden to Japan. They came back convinced that nuclear waste was their future. They noted that the waste bound for the reservation has been stored safely at nuclear power plants around the country, and they point to a group of scientists including Nobel laureates who have said the PFS plan can be enacted without harm to the environment or human health. PFS will be responsible for protecting the area from theft or terrorist attacks. "We found, actually, that storing spent fuel is safer than some of the waste already out here," says Bear. Payback time? That's ridiculous, contends Gov. Leavitt and most Utahns, who fear the political hot potato of spent fuel will land on Utah's plate for eternity if the plan goes through. The risk of an accident might be low, but its cost could take an ungodly toll on lives and the environment. Particularly worrisome for opponents is the prospect of radioactive trains from virtually all regions of the nation chugging regularly to Utah in the coming decades. A mobile Chernobyl, they call it. Equally troublesome to Utahns is the fact that at this point nobody can say for sure when - or even if - the federal Yucca facility will open. "If temporary storage is so safe, then high-level nuclear waste can stay where it is," Leavitt says. Leavitt and other top state leaders have been ferociously fighting the plan ever since the Goshutes signed a lease with PFS in 1997, but state efforts to block the waste shipments have died in the courts. The governor's public relations campaign rolls on. But Bear may have bigger problems than a hostile governor. Other Goshutes say there is nothing close to unity on the issue and point to last summer's scuffle between chairman Bear and then-Tribal Secretary Rex Allen as evidence of the tribe's split over the plan. Bear and PFS say more than two-thirds of the tribe's 70 adult members support the plan, a figure hotly contested by tribal member Sammy Blackbear, who is Bear's cousin. Blackbear says Bear has been recalled, and there is nothing close to a mandate for the waste. "We don't want the waste. We want to save who we are. We want to save what's left," says PFS opponent Bullcreek. "We have an obligation not to be messed up by greed." Despite the dissenters, Bear still holds the title of tribal chairman and remains the federal government's point person for negotiations on the issue. The terms of the contract that Bear signed with PFS in 1997 have remained a secret, with the utilities arguing it is a private arrangement and Bear saying tribal dealings are nobody's business. Bear's administration has already received some money for the project, though few people - not even most tribal members - know how much. Copies of the contract have been distributed within the tribe, but the dollar amounts are blacked out. That has led to charges that Bear is pocketing the profits or distributing them only to tribal members who support the plan. Those allegations are contained in a pending federal lawsuit, though Bear dismisses them, contending that the people who don't know the dollar amount missed a tribal meeting on the matter. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to decide whether to give a license to the facility sometime next year, and shipments could start rolling in from all across the country as early as 2004 - nearly a century and a half after Twain introduced America to a remarkable people who had figured out how to make a living off the "repulsive wastes" that made up their homeland. While this latest chapter in their history has torn at Goshute unity, Blackbear says in some ways it has been good for a people that this country corralled onto a landscape it later peppered with bombing ranges, hazardous waste dumps and chemical and biological weapons facilities. The Goshutes have grown accustomed to being powerless people. They have gotten used to being dumped upon. Now, perhaps, comes the payback. Now, Blackbear says, some of the nation's most toxic waste is giving this little tribe more power than anybody ever expected. And, regardless of whether the project gets federal approval, nobody is ignoring the tribe anymore. "We do believe life is a circle, and sooner or later that circle comes around," Blackbear says. "Right now, Utah is afraid." Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Sept. 29, 2002. , Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 16 Huge Anti-War Marches in London and Washington Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2002 12:35:39 -0500 (CDT) _______ ____ ______ / |/ / /___/ / /_ // M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S / /|_/ / /_/_ / /\\ Making Sense of the Middle East /_/ /_/ /___/ /_/ \\ www.MiddleEast.Org News, Information, & Analysis That Governments, Interest Groups, and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know! HUGH ANTI-WAR MARCHES IN LONDON AND WASHINGTON MID-EAST REALITIES - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 9/28/2002: Though the number of marchers in Washington Saturday was considerably less (maybe 25,000 though the official police estimate was much below that), at least 150,000+ marched through central London yesterday in increasingly vocal opposition to what we have begun calling the US/Israel/UK War Plot. The Washington event was powerful and passionate, tied in to the long-scheduled Anti-World Bank/IMF protest; and continues today. Many thousands of police and para-military forces from throughout the East Coast were deployed in ways clearly designed to intimidate all who dare protest; and many hundreds of nearly totally peaceful protestors were arrested with little reason for the same purpose. In some cases the police had the appearance of Darth Vader Star Wars troops apparently ready to confront a well-armed invading Army, rather than simply watch as they did the overwhelmingly peaceful and well-organized protestors who are in fact their own children and relatives. Central Washington in the area of the World Bank and IMF was totally sealed with fences and barricades; and in other cases heavily fortified police lines prevented people from easily coming and going to the protest. London - Sky News: 28 September 2002: Around 150,000 protesters have marched through London in what is thought to have been the biggest ever peace rally in Britain. The demonstrators marched from Embankment to the Houses of Parliament, up Whitehall and along Piccadilly to protest against possible strikes on Iraq. Organisers said around 400,000 protesters made the journey to the capital, but police put the official figure at 150,000. They said the campaign to order Iraq to relinquish weapons of mass destruction was an excuse to fight a war for a better deal on oil prices. Organised by the Stop the War coalition, the marchers included pacifists, socialists and pro-Palestinian groups. The marchers chanted: "No blood for oil" and "Sharon is a killer", referring to the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. They were opposing proposed military action against Iraq by US President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair. The demonstrators were addressed by speakers including veteran left-winger Tony Benn and London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who warned that the Government could not go on ignoring the protests. "It's one of the most powerful demonstrations there's ever been for peace," he said. "One day people are going to have to have a peaceful revolution to make sure Parliament answers to them and not just the government of the day." The organisers said they would be calling a Don't Attack Iraq Day of Action on Thursday October 31 involving college occupations and teach-ins, workplace meetings and protests and peaceful "direct action". -------------------------- MiD-EasT RealitieS - http://www.MiddleEast.Org Phone: (202) 362-5266 Fax: (815) 366-0800 Email: MER@MiddleEast.Org To subscribe free to MER email to MERList@MiddleEast.Org with subject SUBSCRIBE To unsubscribe email to MERList@MiddleEast.Org with subject UNSUBSCRIBE ***************************************************************** 17 Michael Moore's Petition to Stop War in Iraq Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2002 12:33:11 -0500 (CDT) I just signed Michael Moore's petition which I received from a member of the Solari Action Network..... ======================================================== Michael Moore: YOU ARE EITHER WITH US OR YOU ARE FIRED! http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=205687 PETITION --You are Either With Us, Or You are Fired!!! michaelmoore.com 9/27/02 "I pledge to never vote again for any Democratic candidate for public office who has voted in favor of George Bush's war in Iraq." ---Sign the petition at www.michaelmoore.com: http://www.michaelmoore.com/petitions/peacepledge/index.php YOU ARE EITHER WITH US OR YOU ARE FIRED! Take the pledge and let the Democrats in Congress hear you. "I pledge to never vote again for any Democratic candidate for public office who has voted in favor of George Bush's war in Iraq." We call on the Democrats in Congress to oppose a war on Iraq, to vote "No" to Bush's war cries. We pledge to never again vote for any Democratic member of Congress who supports George W. Bush's war against Iraq. To the Democrats in Congress, we give you fair warning: You are either with us, or you are fired. Spread the word to friends, websites, listservs... EVERYWHERE! ------------------ Also see Bush's "Manifesto for world dictatorship" to be given to Congress (published by the New York Times) at http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/22/1032055033082.html titled "THE NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY OF THE UNITED STATES" ***************************************************************** 18 Hans C. von Sponeck on US aggression vs. Iraq Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2002 16:21:25 -0500 (CDT) IRAQ: Four Questions, Four Answers by Hans C. von Sponeck UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq (1998-2000) at the European Colloquium Brussels, 25 September 2002 http://www.irak.be/ned/bivv/iraq4questions4answers.htm Question No.1: Is there an Imminence of Threat posed by Iraq? The United States maintains that Iraq poses a threat to its security. This threat, it is argued, is so serious that a pre-emptive military strike is required to protect the US and the wider global community. The UK shares this perception. The rest of the world, particularly Iraq's neighbours, do not agree with this assessment. In any case articles 39, 42 and 51 of the UN Charter are not applicable. None of the 'evidence' the US and the UK have produced is accepted by the international community as hard core and unquestionable evidence that Iraq is in possession of or trying to produce ABC weapons materials. Attempts to link acts of terrorism involving the 1993 and 2001 WTC, the US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar-Es-salaam, the USS Cole in Aden, the Anthrax cases in the US and collaboration with Al Qaeda to the Government of Iraq have failed. A study by the UK International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), published on 9 September 2002 constitutes a good compendium of speculation concluding (see p.74) that Iraq "could probably assemble nuclear weapons", "probably resumed biological growth media", "probably retained chemical agent such as mustard gas and precursors", "probably retained a small force of ballistic missiles with ranges up to 650 km, such as the al Hussein missiles." In its introduction the IISS study re-assures that its purpose is to describe these (WMD) issues "accurately and fairly". Its conclusions (see p.73) unfortunately constitute a political statement which amounts to war-mongering. The document states inter alia: "A war, if it installs a new government in Baghdad willing to comply with Iraq's international commitments, would eliminate Iraq's WMD threat, but at the risk of limited CBW use (and civilian casualties) during the conflict of overthrow the present regime." During a July 2002 visit to Iraq, the Government of Iraq gave me the permission to visit two sites of my choice, Al Dora at the outskirts of Baghdad and Al Fallujah III, which western intelligence agencies and main stream US and UK media had identified as sites for which evidence existed that they had been producing biological agents since the departure of UN arms inspectors in December 1998. The IISS report points out that at Al Dora "work appears to have started. The facility has about 25% of its capacity" (see p.30). For Al Fallujah III it points out that the "plant for processing castor beans has been destroyed. Its current status is unknown" (see p.30). In a document entitled "A decade of Deception and Defiance" handed out by the US Government on 12 September at the time when US President Bush was delivering his speech at the UN/GA, it is pointed out that Al Dora "has an extensive air handling and filtering system" (see p.8) and for Al Fallujah it states (see p.9) that "(the Government of Iraq) is making an effort to hide activities at (the) Fallujah plant." The British Government released its long announced 'dossier' on 24 September 2002. More a review of past WMD programmes than an empirical analysis of the current situation in Iraq, the dossier is a document of allegations not of evidence of the seriousness of the current WMD reality in Iraq. For Al Fallujah, the dossier maintains that "the castor oil production facility has been rebuild." Al Dora is cited as a "facility of concern." My visit to these two sites (accompanied by the ARD German TV) showed conclusively that Al Dora and Al Fallujah III facilities had been destroyed (it should be noted that the IISS report acknowledges this for Al Fallujah III). What is destroyed can not be a threat. Conclusions: The evidence offered by the US and UK administration as well as the IISS assessment of Iraq's WMD status does not support in any way the contention that an imminent threat emanates from Iraq justifying a military offensive. The US government promoted mass hysteria and the psycho war are internationally unacceptable. In the interest of preventing such a war, the Iraqi Foreign Minister's statement to the UN/GA that the country is free of WMD and the agreement by the Iraqi authorities to re-admit unconditionally UN arms inspectors at this stage should be taken at face value and UNMOVIC's installation in Baghdad be pursued without delay. Question No.2: What explains the present US Government Iraq policy? There is no simple explanation. The importance of Iraq's sources of energy, the composition of the Bush II administration and changes in the political landscape of the Middle East, however, are three major factors which are part of such an explanation: Iraq's sources of energy: During the 31 july/1 august hearings on Iraq in the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the ranking representative of the Republican Party, Senator Richard Lugar (R-In) stated: " ...we are going to run the oil business. We are going to run it well, we are going to make money; and it's going to help pay for the rehabilitation of Iraq because there is money there!" The Bush II administration: Key policy makers in the administration of the present US Government had been involved in the Bush I 1991 Gulf War. This may explain why the US Government is taking the Iraq Liberation Act of the US Congress of October 1998 much more literal than the Clinton administration did. The Act calls for 'regime change' in Iraq. The policy of 'containment within' under President Clinton has become a policy of 'occupation from outside' under President Bush. This policy change combined with a missionary fanaticism to spread their version of 'democracy' and a fatal mix-up of the justified fight against terrorism and a regime change strategy for governments considered as too aggressively anti-American are the main ingredients of the US administration's approach on Iraq. The political landscape in the Middle East: The severe deterioration of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the course of the past twelve months has intensified the cohesion among Arab governments. Testimony of significant policy changes within the Arab League became apparent in the final communiqui of the March 2002 Beirut Summit. It concluded with a rejection of a war against the 'brotherly country Iraq'. Since then all Arab governments including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have repeated their opposition to a military confrontation with Iraq. There is strong public resentment, particularly in Saudi Arabia, to what is perceived as double standards in dealing with the two major conflicts in the Middle East, the Palestinian issue and Iraq. It can also no longer be hidden that the US is on notice that agreements to their military presence in the Middle East are no longer to be taken for granted. This in turn has added an element of extreme urgency in introducing changes in the US Iraq policy. Conclusions: The Iraq policy of the US administration has little to do with the return of UN arms inspectors or with a concern for the suffering of the Iraqi people. It has all to do with a determination to introduce a regime change in Baghdad. With this objective, the US enjoys no international support. President Chirac confirmed this when he stated publicly: "It is not a question of Bush/Blair on one side and Chirac/Schroeder on the other side, it is Bush/Blair on one side and all the others on the other side." Question No.3: What are the implications for the Iraqi population? First of all it must be pointed out that the suffering and the trauma resulting from the intensified confrontation between Iraq and the US/UK and the prospects of war have been sidelined by politicians and the media in Europe. The massive evidence of the toll these developments and twelve years of economic sanctions have taken among the Iraqi population is well documented by reputable IGOs and INGOs. The impact of this reality will be felt long after economic sanctions have been lifted and the Iraq conflict has ended. The humanitarian exemption, the oil for food programme has at all times been underfunded, particularly, in the initial three phases when the UN/SC had been decided that the oil for export revenue could not exceed $2.6 billion per phase. Despite this small amount, the UN/SC insisted that the UNCC had to receive 30% of the oil revenue, funding which was desperately needed by an undernourished population deprived from even basic medicines to protect their health. The total value of what has been received in Iraq between 16 December 1996, the beginning of the oil for food programme and 10 may 2002 amounts to $172 per person/year. One indicator of the state of impoverishment of the Iraqi population is that 55% of the population lives below the poverty line. Were the monthly food basket valued at $25 not given to the population free of charge under the oil for food programme, some 90% of the population would be forced to live under the poverty line. Another dramatic indicator of the ill being of the population relates to child mortality. UNICEF in its annual State of the Children's report identified Iraq as the country which showed an increase of 160% in the mortality rate of children under five for the period 1990 to 1999. This constitutes the highest recorded increase of all the 188 countries surveyed. According to the same organisation, female literacy has slipped to 45% in 1995 while in 1987 Iraq had received from UNESCO international recognition that it had achieved a literacy level of 80%. There are other alarming figures published by WHO showing that the number of youth with mental disorders has more than doubled between 1990 and 1998. While the US Government accuses Iraq of having violated 16 UN resolutions, no mention is made that the main responsibility for the violation of just about all international treaties and conventions from the UN Charter to the International Covenant of economic, social and cultural rights, the Geneva and Hague Conventions and the genocide convention points to the US and British governments (see in this connection a document of UN/ECOSOC dated 21 June 2000 (GE.00-14092) in which Prof. Marc Bossuyt, presently judge in the Belgian Supreme Court and formerly chairman of the UN Human Rights Commission gives evidence to this effect; see also selected papers on "The Impact on International Law of a Decade of Measures Against Iraq" published by Oxford University Press in February 2002). It must also be stated that the establishment of the two no-fly-zones is based on no UN mandate and constitutes a serious breach of international law and UN resolutions which make specific mention of Iraq's territorial integrity and sovereignty. As the UN designated Official for Security of UN staff in Iraq, I introduced air strike reports which reflected collected and verified information on damage to life and property of civilians as a result of US/UK air incursions and attacks in Iraq. In 1999 my office in Baghdad recorded 132 air strikes with 144 civilian death and over 300 wounded and civilian property destroyed. These air strike reports were, when possible, handed to US and UK officials in New York during various briefing visits. I was told by representatives of those two governments that I was violating my mandate in producing such documents and that in any case all I was doing was to put a UN stamp on Iraqi propaganda. It is a serious matter that the UN Security Council having a mandated oversight responsibility has not been able to stop this serious violation, particularly since US and UK pilots have operated in Iraqi airspace after Operation Desert Fox in December 1998 under 'enlarged rules of engagement'. These allow them to use their firing power with fewer restrictions and consequently with more damage to civilian life and property. Should a US war against Iraq take place, particularly the high-tech war currently contemplated in Washington, there would be significant civilian casualties and destruction. To prevent this must be a major challenge for European democracies. Conclusions: The political battle continues to be played on the backs of the Iraqi people. Objectionable treatment of people within Iraq can not provide the justification for a crippling punishment extended by the UN Security Council to the Iraqi people in the form of economic sanctions, blocking of humanitarian supplies, regular air attacks and, possibly military confrontation. Governments who are in possession of the many accounts from reputable international organisations on the state of human condition can no longer remain silent regarding the fact that today the main perpetrators responsible for the suffering of the Iraqi people are the governments of the US and the UK. This does not mean that one should negate the concern over the internal human rights situation. The UN Human Rights Rapporteur must be allowed to continue his dialogue with the Iraqi authorities in this respect. Question No.4: What could be the demands of the international public conscience against a war on Iraq and for the lifting of economic sanctions? The European Colloquium (EC) should convey to the European Parliament (EP) that the February 2001 hearings on Iraq have failed to contribute to a credible EU Iraq policy. In the absence of an objective position on Iraq, The EU had been largely excluded as a contributor to the international Iraq debate. The EC should point out that this could be redressed. Neither the report of the UK International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) dated 9 September 2002 nor the document handed out by the US Government dated 12 September provides any evidence whatsoever of the imminence of an international threat posed by the Iraqi Government that would justify evoking articles 39, 42 or 51 of the UN Charter. A unilateral military strike by the US against Iraq would in any case be a grave violation of international law. The EP should be reminded of this serious fact. The EC should advise the EP that in case of such a unilateral attack on Iraq by the US, permission by EU member countries for US forces to use airfields, harbours and other facilities might be consistent with NATO statutes but would constitute a breach of international law. The EP should be requested to convey this to member governments. The Brussels meeting of the EC should be concluded by expressing full support for the UN/Security Council-led arms inspection process. The EC should emphasize in this context that the Iraq Government should not be hindered in any way to demonstrate its preparedness to unconditionally cooperate with UNMOVIC. The EC should furthermore convey to the UN Secretary General that it considers the protection of the integrity of the team of UN inspectors as a paramount responsibility of the chairman of UNMOVIC. Misuse of UNMOVIC for intelligence operations, as had been the case with UNSCOM, harbours the grave danger of a confrontation between Iraq and the US. It would undoubtedly be used by US authorities as an immediate pretext to respond with a military attack. The EC should convey to the EP that it has a profound responsibility to pass these concerns to member governments and to the UN. Comprehensive economic sanctions against the people of Iraq are entering their 13th year. The human condition identified already in 1991 after the Gulf War as 'apocalyptic' have significantly worsened since then in both mental and physical terms. The amount of evidence collected by reputable international organisations about child mortality, malnutrition, re-emerging diseases, impoverishment, educational neglect and psychological disorders continues to accumulate (please see in particular recent reports by UNICEF, CARITAS, Save The Children/UK). What the international community has seen since May 2002 when UN/SC resolution 1409 introduced so-called 'smart sanctions' represents, as predicted by individual members of the current UN Security Council, anything but an improvement. In addition, over $5 billion worth of humanitarian supplies remain on hold-blocked by US/UK authorities. The oil pricing confrontation created by the US/UK governments to end the 'illegal' surcharge issue has resulted in a major shortfall of funding for the present phase XII of the oil for food programme and seriously endangers the already fragile humanitarian exemption programme. The EC should make a strong case in its Brussels' communiqui for the lifting of economic sanctions once the UN arms inspectors programme is underway with the full cooperation of the Government of Iraq. The EC should request the EP to strongly support such an approach in the interest of ending the suffering of a people who have done nothing wrong. National anti-sanction groups in Europe and elsewhere are unrelenting in their efforts to bring about justice and conditions of human dignity for the Iraqi people. The public conscience is alert and at national levels has helped in shaping political decision making. In these critical days of international relations, efforts to make it possible that at times national initiatives can function in an integrated manner would seem of importance. The ideal would be to create a European response mechanism that can be used to periodically react to morally, ethically and legally unacceptable policies and positions on Iraq maintained by individual members of the United Nations. Such a mechanism would be particularly significant at this moment to protest against economic sanctions and to solicit support against a military attack on Iraq. Protesting would create awareness that such an attack would lead to another human catastrophe and endanger the international solidarity in the fight against terrorism. It would be of immense value in this respect if the EC could agree on an 'action alert focal point'. Such a focal point would function as a basis for the strategic issuance of joint statements and the preparation of integrated actions and lobby work. As a step in this direction, national associations, whether represented at the Brussels' meeting or not should be encouraged to forward the final communiqui and a copy of the open letter to the EP to all the representative foreign media and other influential bodies on the ground. The EC should forward these two documents to the President of the UN Security Council, the UN Secretary General, the Secretary General of the Arab League, the Holy Sea and the International Court of Justice. An important first step towards improved cooperation among different national groups working towards the lifting of economic sanctions and averting an unjustified war against Iraq would be the preparation of a master-list of cooperating entities and their coordinates. ##### ***************************************************************** 19 (Nuclear) Sabotage and scandal* > *Sunday, September 29, 2002* WASHINGTON: In making the case for war, the Bush administration has delivered a bill of particulars against Saddam Hussein that includes al-Qaeda terrorist links yet to be demonstrated and weapons he may or may not have within reach. Publicly, President George W. Bush?s officials are touting reports that al-Qaeda operatives have found refuge in Baghdad and that Iraq once helped them develop chemical weapons. Privately, government intelligence sources are hedging on that subject, suggesting there might be less than meets the eye. Did Iraq really kick out UN weapons inspectors in 1998, as Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said? No. ?We made the decision to evacuate,?? says Charles Duelfer, who was deputy chairman of the UN inspection agency at the time. And might Iraq really have nuclear weapons ?fairly soon,?? as Vice President Dick Cheney alleges? That depends on the definition of soon, Cheney acknowledges, and no one outside Iraq really knows how close Baghdad is to that point. ?I haven?t heard any real howlers,?? Duelfer said of the Bush administration?s assertions about Iraq. But some appear to have been made with more passion than proof. Bush?s case for war probably would be a slam-dunk with Americans and an easier sell to the world if a firm relationship were established between the terrorist group that mounted the Sept 11 attacks and the Iraqi leader he wants ousted. It would be helped, too, by showing that Iraq?s biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programmes are sufficiently advanced to pose a direct threat to the United States if placed in the hands of al-Qaeda or any agents out to harm America. But Rumsfeld says all the United States can do is present the risks as best they can be determined, not nail them down beyond a reasonable doubt. ?Our goal is not to go into a court of law and try to prove something to somebody,?? he said. Condoleezza Rice, Bush?s national security adviser, took the case on Iraqi-al-Qaeda links several strides forward this week by alleging that al-Qaeda operatives have had a direct relationship with the Iraqi government. ?There clearly are contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq that can be documented,?? she said. She did not document them. A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, indicated the evidence for linkage is tenuous, based on sources of varying reliability. The subject of Iraqi weapons is also murkier than has been presented. The UN chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, said last month he had no proof that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction. Any such accounting necessarily depends on what inspectors found before they left four years ago and spotty intelligence since. Bush warned the United Nations that Saddam could have nuclear weapons within a year of acquiring fissionable material. Cheney said: ?On the nuclear question, many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire such weapons fairly soon.?? The CIA?s own forecasts have not conveyed that much alarm. ?We believe that Iraq has probably continued at least low-level theoretical R&D (research and development) associated with its nuclear programme,?? it said in its latest report to Congress, in January. Duelfer doesn?t make much of the mischaracterisation of his inspection team?s pullout in Dec 1998, noting that while Iraq did not eject the inspectors, it had stopped dealing with them and then would not let them back in. And the Bush administration appears to be ?sort of in the ballpark?? with its estimates on when Iraq might possess nuclear weapons, he said. The administration characterises Saddam as a supporter of terrorism generally. ?Iraq?s ties to terrorist networks are long-standing,?? Rumsfeld told Congress. Those ties are complex. One group the US government brands as a terrorist outfit has been favoured not only by Iraq but by many members of Congress. hat group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, advocates the violent overthrow of the religious government of Iran. ? AP Online :* Copyright © 1995-2002 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd ***************************************************************** 21 Iraq - we're following UN route, says Blair* Ananova Tony Blair insists he is determined secure a fresh United Nations resolution on stripping Iraqi of its weapons of mass destruction. As Labour Party delegates gathered in Blackpool for the party's annual conference, the Prime Minister sought to reassure critics of the Government's policy that Britain was going down the "UN route". But at the same time he insisted that negotiations in the UN about the return weapons inspectors must not be a way of avoiding the issue of removing Saddam Hussein of his chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities. "The key this is that the United Nations has got to be the way of dealing with this, Mr Blair said. "I totally understand the concerns that people have, the worries that they have about precipitate military action," he told the BBC. "But the United Nations has taken a very clear position on this. It said Iraq must disarm itself of these weapons, the existence of these weapons in the hands of this regime is a threat to the world. "We are going down the UN route but the UN route has to be the way of dealing with it, not avoiding it." Story filed: 10:04 Sunday 29th September 2002 Copyright © 2002 Ananova Ltd Terms and conditions of use ***************************************************************** 22 Draft of the region's non-nuclear status accord discussed in Samarkand Pravda.RU ¹ Sep, 28 2002 During a meeting in Samarkand on Friday, the experts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan discussed the draft of the accord on establishing a non-nuclear zone in the region. According to a RIA Novosti correspondent, who quotes the sources in the UN Mission in Uzbekistan, the participants agreed that the signing of the accord "must take place as soon as possible." The sources reveal that the draft of the accord is a result of "five years of intensive work with the UN assistance." © RIAN Articles on the same subject on News.Google.Com: [http://news.google.com] Copyright ©1999 by " [http://www.pravda.ru/] ". When reproducing ***************************************************************** 23 USA: Problems with Saddam's Nukes Pravda.RU ¹ Sep, 28 2002 In 1998 Iraq was allegedly six months away from developing a nuclear weapon The Washington Times news report brought to our attention recently says: 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. Henry Marconi Pravda.Ru Sydney Copyright ©1999 by "Pravda.RU [http://www.pravda.ru/] ". When ***************************************************************** 24 GetOut (visit a nike misslie site) [swhiting@sfchronicle.com] Sunday, September 29, 2002 --> With a hot war hovering, there is a certain comfort in visiting the relics of a cold one. The Nike Missile Site, which protected the Marin Headlands and the Golden Gate against the Soviet threat from 1953 to 1974, is the only Nike launch site in the country that has been restored for public viewing. It's also the only place where you can put your hand against the cold white missile that propelled a nuclear warhead. In fact, you have to touch it while riding the elevator 16 feet down to the underground magazine where the missiles were stored. The descent is offered at the Historic Nike Missile Museum open house held on the first Sunday of each month, with living history provided by old soldiers and restoration volunteers. The ride is free, and both more real and surreal than at any amusement park or museum. Looking downhill from the entrance on Field Road in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, you can see the white missiles lined up like freshly folded paper airplanes. The test building and radar control are among five sites on the tour. But the action is out with the missiles on the launchpad. People crowd onto the platform elevator for the ride down to the pit. When the elevator comes back up to daylight, the 41-foot Nike-Hercules ratchets up vertically until the tip is pointing up and out toward the Pacific. This position is as far as it ever got. As a Cold War deterrent, the Nike did its job. This site, called SF-88, was one of 280 in the country and 12 in the Bay Area. None of them ever fired a missile. The Nike Missile Site is open 12:30Ð3:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday. Open house is the first Sunday of the month, 12:30Ð3:30 p.m. Call (415) 331- 1453 or visit nikemissile.net. ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.   Page 6 ***************************************************************** 25 Aiming to Disrupt Diplomacy, Iraq Risks War by Rejecting Plan The New York Times *September 29, 2002* *By PATRICK E. TYLER* WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 ? Iraq's rejection of any new United Nations resolution that toughens the terms of disarmament appeared calculated to widen the gap dividing the United States and Britain from the other big powers at the United Nations as they were struggling to find a common approach to confront Saddam Hussein. But if it stands as Iraq's last word, this refusal could also mark the beginning of the transition from diplomacy to war in the Persian Gulf, as President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair were already wheeling their military forces to higher states of readiness. The verbal blast from two of Mr. Hussein's top aides, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan and Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, made it apparent that Mr. Hussein was seeking to disrupt the Bush administration's diplomacy as American and British diplomats were engaging in urgent consultations with France, Russia and China. But the tactic could backfire. The fiery statements from Baghdad may actually please the Bush administration because Iraqi intransigence will make it easier to argue the case for military action. At the same time, the Iraqi defiance may make it more difficult for critics here and abroad to question the Bush administration's unrelenting campaign to bring the Iraq situation to a head. It seemed possible that Iraq's intervention could further alarm Europeans who are already opposed to or jittery about war and who have argued that no immediate threat to security has been established. That would strengthen the position of those Security Council members who would like the United States and Great Britain to tone down their insistence on tight deadlines and maximalist demands that to some appeared too provocative and, therefore, unlikely to test the possibility for a negotiated outcome. Baghdad's determination to pre-empt a return of United Nations inspectors without any conditions to hamper their work, on the other hand, shows that Mr. Hussein understands the gravity and potential consequences of the Bush administration's approach, which calls for sending an armed security force with the United Nations inspectors. A team of diplomats from the Security Council's five permanent members would also accompany the inspectors and supervise their work. And Mr. Aziz's sober warning that "the assault against Iraq will not be a cakewalk" but rather "a fierce war during which the United States will suffer losses they have never sustained for decades," was timed to exploit the concerns expressed by American political and military figures that the task of removing Mr. Hussein's government could devolve into punishing urban warfare and thousands of American casualties. The Americans and British have been lobbying hard, but with little success, for a dramatically stronger weapons inspection program for Iraq. Washington and London planned to submit a new resolution to the Security Council this coming week with the new terms. Their draft resolution began to circulate Friday and its text was still being closely held, but diplomats said it declared that Iraq was in "material breach" of past resolutions and carried a threat of force if it did not return to compliance. It also called on Baghdad to fully disclose information about its hidden weapons programs under a seven-day deadline and then to allow intrusive inspections to verify those disclosures under a further 23-day deadline. The draft resolution was regarded as provocative by a number of European governments, Western diplomats said, and the hope of opposition within the Security Council may have prompted Baghdad's effort to pre-empt the diplomacy before Washington could win over the other permanent members of the Security Council. "That can never fly," a German diplomat said after he learned from the French the basic outline of the draft. Germany joins the Security Council as a non-veto member in January and has strongly opposed war with Iraq. "Even the British have informed the Europeans that they were clearly insisting on a real option for Saddam Hussein," the German diplomat said. "Either there are to be inspections and the destruction of weapons of mass destruction, if they are found, or the destruction of the regime. "But any text," the diplomat said, "must clearly give the impression that there is a real option, not a zero option or something so narrow, in order to take as quickly as possible a decision on military action." The Iraqis could not have missed the testimony of three retired four-star American generals who issued a series of cautions in testimony to Congress this week. Among them was Gen. John P. Hoar, who noted that Mr. Hussein appeared to be preparing for a defense of Baghdad. General Hoar said he feared a "nightmare scenario" of six Iraqi Republican Guard divisions and six additional tank divisions ringed by several thousand antiaircraft guns. "The result would be high casualties on both sides, as well as in the civilian community," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "U.S. forces will certainly prevail, but at what cost? And at what cost as the rest of the world watches while we win and have military rounds exploding in densely populated Iraqi neighborhoods?" he asked. Separately today, Mr. Hussein dispatched his foreign minister, Naji Sabri, to the capital of his old enemy, Iran, seeking an 11th-hour alliance against the United States. "Arab and Muslim governments have rejected the option of an attack against Iraq, and the peoples of the region will stand together against an eventual attack," Mr. Sabri said in Tehran. Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi of Iran met Mr. Sabri at the airport and told reporters, "It is absolutely imperative we make serious efforts to prevent a new war in the region, because the region cannot support a new war" that would touch off "insecurity and instability." In Arab countries, reports about the American-British draft resolution were touching off other concerns, and Mr. Hussein seemed bent on exploiting them. Saudi officials have signaled the Bush administration that they would join an American-led campaign to topple Mr. Hussein as long as it is conducted under the mandate of the United Nations. But one adviser to the Saudi leadership asked after hearing a description of the resolution, "Are they just trying to intimidate him to say no?" Another Saudi diplomat said he was distraught about the prospects for war. "You know all of the Arab nations would like to wake up tomorrow and hear that this guy has died in his bed. I say that with all heart because the Iraqi people do not deserve this, to be controlled by a crazy guy, but they also do not deserve a war that will be a disaster for the area." Saudi interests could be affected, as one oil analyst pointed out. "In Afghanistan, you were bombing opium fields, but in the Middle East you will be bombing oil fields," the Saudi official said, adding that in the latter case, the United States could be hit by soaring oil prices and economic disruption. Copyright The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 26 350,000 claim in anti-war rally [http://www.itv.com] [350,000 claim in anti-war rally] The marchers chanted: "No blood for oil" and "Sharon is a killer", referring to the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon 23.52PM BST, 28 Sep 2002 Thousands of people people have marched in London to protest against any possible war on Iraq. Organisers said that at least 350,000 people had joined the march which began at Embankment Tube Station, in central London shortly after 1pm. However, police said they believed the figure was closer to 150,000. The demonstrators marched from Embankment to the Houses of Parliament up Whitehall and along Piccadilly blocking traffic and spilling onto the footpaths. The march was due to finish in Hyde Park. Organised by the campaign for Nuclear Disarmament the marchers were more a broad coalition of pacifists, socialists and the pro-Palestinian lobby. Dan Rivers reports for ITV News. Video: 'Biggest ever' claim ***************************************************************** 27 Blast at Nevada Test Site helps scientists learn about explosions Las Vegas SUN September 28, 2002 ASSOCIATED PRESS LAS VEGAS (AP) - A high-explosive detonation was conducted Saturday at the Nevada Test Site to give government scientists a chance to test new equipment for detecting explosions. The explosion had the blast power equivalent to 37,000 pounds of TNT, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration, which operates the Test Site. Scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico conducted the experiment. Raffi Papazian, Los Alamos director for Test Site activities, said Saturday that the blast allowed scientists to make sure old and new technology to detect explosions was working properly. "We're measuring the vibrations in the ground as you measure something like an earthquake and measuring low frequency sound waves that go through the air," Papazian said. The experiment allows scientists to better understand and detect explosions such as the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and determine how much explosives are used. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 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. 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